intuitive writing & pantsing

"Writers don't decide what symbols mean. Symbols arise from the text."

— Alice Hoffman

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, magic/mystery of creating/art, writing, Alice Hoffman

"My books are always a process of discovery.  I almost never have any idea what I'm doing until I'm actually doing it.  In fact, I think every time I've had a plan or an idea, it has been entirely sidelined by whatever I uncover while writing."

— Augusten Burroughs

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, pantsing vs. plotting, novel writing, creating in the moment, Augusten Burroughs

"The art of storytelling involves a willingness to surrender our idea of the way the story should be told, for the way it actually wants to be told."

— Alan Watt

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, writing, storytelling, Alan Watt

"I think that ideas exist outside of ourselves. I think somewhere, we're all connected off in some very abstract land. But somewhere between there and here ideas exist. And I think the mind isn't conscious enough to go all the way to where we're connected, but it's conscious of a certain amount of that territory. And when these ideas fly into the conscious part, then you can capture them. But if they're outside of the conscious part, you don't even know about them. So you just hope that you can make the conscious part of your mind bigger or that these ideas will fly into your airspace, so you can shoot them down and grab them and take them home. So that's all you try to do. Sometimes an idea will strike you when you're sitting in a quiet chair. But sometimes an idea will strike you when you're standing. Sometimes music will also help you. If I thought I could just sit still in a quiet place and get ideas, I would do that all the time, but sometimes nothing happens. There's no rhyme or reason to it. But you've got to write them down right away. I forget so many things. Then if I forget it and try to remember it, my whole day is ruined because I can't remember and I feel horrible. And I imagine that it was one of the all time great ideas. And it probably isn't."

— David Lynch

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, music, ideas, David Lynch

"Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.  Plot is observed after the fact rather than before.  It cannot precede action.  It is the chart that remains when an action is through.  That is all Plot ever should be.  It is human desire let run, running, and reach a goal.  It cannot be mechanical.  It can only be dynamic."

— Ray Bradbury

for Creatives  |  characters, intuitive writing & pantsing, pantsing vs. plotting, writing, creating in the moment, Ray Bradbury

"Sometimes, in our creative frenzy, we were not even conscious of what we were writing."

— Alan Watt

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, writing, creating in the moment, Alan Watt

"We never want to force our story into our idea of how it should be structured. Our original impulse was valid. We can trust it and return to it over and over again, even as the story continues to be reshaped."

— Alan Watt

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, pantsing vs. plotting, writing, creating in the moment, Alan Watt

"It's like the Japanese with the garden.  Nature is doing all this stuff, and all they do is maybe take a branch and trim it, impose their will on it, and make it grow a certain way.  And they prune, and they keep certain things out.  But the plants are doing most of the work.  It's a two-way street–nature and man working together.  And in painting, the paint has got a texture and it sort of wants to be a certain way.  And a brush is so artificial, and it makes tiny little lines.  After you make a whole bunch of brush strokes, it's something else.  It's not the paint talking, it's too much of the person.  So you've gotta let accidents and strange things happen—let it work, so it's got an organic sort of quality."

— David Lynch

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, nature, Japanese, artist in the art, creating in the moment, painting, David Lynch

"Stand aside, forget targets, let the characters, your fingers, body, blood, and heart do."

— Ray Bradbury

for Creatives  |  characters, intuitive writing & pantsing, create for YOURSELF, writing, creating in the moment, Ray Bradbury, creative freedom

"I often start something and have no idea how it'll end.  The sense of surprise there, to me, is like magic every time." 

— Aimee Nezhukumatathil

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, writing, poetry, creating in the moment, story endings, Aimee Nezhukumatathil

"I don't like formulas.  I don't like novels where I know the ending halfway through."

— Scott Turow

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, create for YOURSELF, pantsing vs. plotting, novel writing, writing, story endings, Scott Turow

"They are in the zone, and that means they are not thinking at all. [Athletes] call it muscle memory. But for you [the artist], it's not muscle memory; it's dream space, it's sense memory."

— Robert Olen Butler

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, artists, Robert Olen Butler, writing, creating in the moment, sport

"There are poems you write that are so on the edge they could go either way, especially when you take a very big risk."

— Denise Duhamel

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, poetry, creating in the moment, TAKE RISKS, Denise Duhamel

"Real storytelling happens when writers forget the 'rule book' and write to the characters. They get inside the people in the story and experience the sights, the sounds, the smells, the emotions, and they let the reactions of the characters drive the incidents of the story."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  characters, intuitive writing & pantsing, writing, creating in the moment, storytelling, David Gerrold, break the rules

"Although technology saves us time, it takes away mental space. Back when we had to do more tasks by hand, these tasks took longer to do, and while we did them, we had more time to think, daydream, or not-think."

— Martin Boroson

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, gadgets, Martin Boroson, creativity, creating in the moment, the creative life, creative freedom

"When I wrote it, it was all just there for me. You just take it. Everything just fits together like it existed before."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, writing, creating in the moment, Stephen King

"No one could say that [Stephen King's] work is short of storytelling, but he plots very little."

— Marcel Theroux

for Creatives  |  structured writing & plotting/outlining, intuitive writing & pantsing, pantsing vs. plotting, writing, storytelling, Stephen King, Kelly Marcel

"The Interview Fallacy [is] the fraudulent claim that the artist always knew what he was doing and how he was doing it and can explain the whole business judiciously later when the fires of the work have cooled." (artist)

— Charles Baxter (artwork by Andrew Ferez)

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, art, artists, creating in the moment, value the art, Andrew Ferez, Charles Baxter

"It wasn't fantasy, but there was just something... like, I'd paint a still life but the colors wouldn't be quite like you'd expect them to be.  That's the magic of it, and I love it—the world building that occurs on the canvas as it does on the page."

— Aimee Nezhukumatathil

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, fantasy, writing, creating in the moment, painting, Aimee Nezhukumatathil

"This is why virtually all inexperienced writers end up in their heads instead of the unconscious: because the unconscious is scary as hell. It is hell for many of us."

— Robert Olen Butler

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creating isn't easy, pantsing vs. plotting, creative fear, Robert Olen Butler, writing, writer's block

"The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment–to put things down without deliberation–without worrying about their style–without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote—wrote, wrote ... By writing at the instant, the very heartbeat of life is caught." (artist)

— Walt Whitman (artwork by Jacek Yerka)

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, artists, writing, creating in the moment, libraries, Jacek Yerka, Walt Whitman

"A mysterious force has been guiding us, and when we trust this, we connect to the aliveness of our story."

— Alan Watt

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, writing, creating in the moment, Alan Watt

"A good portion of the writing process is subconscious and your subconscious mind is arranging things before you see them on the page, so you feel like a character is taking over at certain points.  I think that is more a function of your mind anticipating things.  You've created a constellation of words that have a living quality and they end up feeling like they have a life of their own."

— Brian Evenson

for Creatives  |  characters, intuitive writing & pantsing, magic/mystery of creating/art, language, writing, Brian Evenson

"There are broadly two ways to approach any piece of writing, in my opinion. One is where you have an idea of where the whole thing is heading ... The other is where you have a phrase, an image, maybe a single line that fascinates you and provokes you into elaborating it."

— Marcel Theroux

for Creatives  |  structured writing & plotting/outlining, intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, create for YOURSELF, pantsing vs. plotting, writing, ideas, Marcel Theroux

"DON'T THINK.  Which results in more relaxation and more unthinkingness and greater creativity."

— Ray Bradbury

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creativity, writing, creating in the moment, Ray Bradbury, the creative life

"So after you build it, you have to move into it.  You have to look around, listen, taste, touch, smell, and feel what you have created—then report back, so the reader can feel it too."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, reaching your audience, David Gerrold

"The act of writing, once I actually sit down, is always spontaneous and creative ... what Freud would call a primary process—an unconscious mind type of thing, where you're in a hypnoidal state, an altered state of consciousness.  You'll sit down and after three hours it seems like it's been 20 minutes.  Although I find myself as tired as if I've been working for eight hours." (artist)

— Jonathan Kellerman (artwork by Melissa Ng)

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, Jonathan Kellerman

I was further learning that my characters would do my work for me, if I let them alone, if I gave them their heads, which is to say, their fantasies, their frights.

— Ray Bradbury

for Creatives  |  characters, intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, Ray Bradbury

"In hesitation is thought.  In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping."

— Ray Bradbury

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, pantsing vs. plotting, artist integrity, writing, artist's voice, Ray Bradbury

"[Flannery O'Connor] just had a sense of an opening and then pursued it—like Theseus following the thread out of the labyrinth. ... I think this seems scary, but it can lead to an outcome that feels very natural, unforced and satisfying. ... I really encourage people to follow this advice, and largely follow it myself. "

— Marcel Theroux

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, story beginnings, Flannery O'Connor, Marcel Theroux

"In reaching for the unknown—in that middle realm, somewhere between what I understand and what I have never before imagined—I feel the spark of inspiration begin to glow."

— Abby Geni

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, inspiration/the muse

"One of the ways of understanding your unconscious is by realizing that in order to get into it you have to actually stop that garbagey analytical reflex voice in your head and induce a kind of trance state."

— Robert Olen Butler

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, Robert Olen Butler, writing

"The dream of a story? This is a mood and a continent of thought below your conscious mind—a place that you get closer to with each foray into the words and worlds of your novel."

— Walter Mosley

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, novel writing, writing, storytelling, Walter Mosley

"I did this book Different Seasons, they were stories that I had written like I write all of them, I get this idea, and I want to write this."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  books, intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, create for YOURSELF, short stories, thriller, suspense, horror, ideas, Stephen King

Follow Your Curiosity

"Once you are engaged in writing a piece of fiction from your unconscious, it is crucial that you write every day, because the nature of this place where you go is such that it's very difficult to find your way in. It's pure torture. But even though it's terrible getting in, once you’re in, if you keep going back every day, though it's still always daunting and difficult and scary, it's not nearly so much so."

— Robert Olen Butler

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, creating isn't easy, Robert Olen Butler, writing, KEEP CREATING

"The way you'll know that you're writing from your head [rather than from your intuition] is that you'll look at your story and find it full of abstraction and generalization and summary and analysis and interpretation."

— Robert Olen Butler

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, pantsing vs. plotting, Robert Olen Butler, writing

"The most important thing I've found about writing is that it is primarily an unconscious activity. What do I mean by this? I mean that a novel is larger than your head (or conscious mind)."

— Walter Mosley

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, magic/mystery of creating/art, novel writing, writing, Walter Mosley

"Plungers organize by drafting."

— Don Fry

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, Don Fry

"I don't know quite how the story will unfold.  I never write to a plan—but somehow, I know that I've 'seen' the entire book flash across my mind's eye like a speeded-up movie.  My process is to slow it all down, to start at Chapter 1 and write down what I see, scene by scene."

— Freya North

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, writing, creating in the moment, Freya North

"That's what I want for you! To surprise yourself, not know what you're going to do next, what you're going to write next."

— Ray Bradbury

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, create for YOURSELF, writing, creating in the moment, Ray Bradbury

"Most writers will create an outline and start pounding out a draft.  But Klinkenborg does neither.  Outlines, he says, are not only a waste of time, but they also harm our writing.  How, he wonders, can we presume to know what we're going to write before we write it?"

— Jack Hamann

for Creatives  |  structured writing & plotting/outlining, intuitive writing & pantsing, pantsing vs. plotting, writing, Verlyn Klinkenborg, creative freedom, Jack Hamann

"In the actual act of writing, you have to leave enough openness, enough mental openness, for things to go in often bizarre ways, to allow these oblique-angle things to emerge."

— Peter Godwin

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, creative freedom, Peter Godwin

"Listen to the story being told.  Come up with the idea, but let it play out naturally.  Try not to shape it word for word or be so married to an outline that you deny what could become something amazing."

for Creatives  |  structured writing & plotting/outlining, intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, pantsing vs. plotting, writing, creating in the moment, ideas

"To allow yourself that space is, I think, the nub of creativity.  It's also scary and risky, because you're building a house with no real blueprint, driving without a map, never quite sure where the hell you're going."

— Peter Godwin

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, creative fear, creativity, writing, creating in the moment, Peter Godwin, TAKE RISKS

"Frost said, 'No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.'  If you're not discovering, your words will die on the page."

— Julia Alvarez

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, writing, creating in the moment, writer-reader relationship, Robert Frost, Julia Alvarez

"Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

— E.L. Doctorow

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, creating in the moment, E.L. Doctorow

"It is the imagination that must be a strong and supple instrument, ready to lead the reader through moment-by-moment sensual experience."

— Robert Olen Butler

for Creatives  |  reading, intuitive writing & pantsing, Robert Olen Butler, writing, writer-reader relationship

"Once a writer has sent her work out into the world, it takes on a life of its own.  The writer should let go."

— Doreen Baingana

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, reaching your audience, Doreen Baingana

"The discipline of the writer is to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him."

— Rachel Carson

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, creating in the moment, Rachel Carson

"Every artist in the world fights this battle every day. To go to a scary place that makes some other part of you say: What are you doing? No. Just no. No. No.  The only way to create a work of literary art is to stop that voice. Your total attention needs to be on the sensual flow of experience from the unconscious."

— Robert Olen Butler

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creating isn't easy, creative fear, art, Robert Olen Butler, writing, creating in the moment

"When it comes to the voice, if I'm consciously doing anything, I'm probably doing something wrong. ...There does need to come a time when you just have to let it fly."

— Aaron Sorkin

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, writing, creating in the moment, artist's voice, Aaron Sorkin

"I try to write the first draft very quickly.  I don't write the end.  I don't write the last quarter.  So I write my draft.  And then ... my next draft is usually cleaning it up and seeing what's there: 'What do we have here?'"

— Heidi Pitlor

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, creating in the moment, story endings, Heidi Pitlor

"There is sort of some type of structure even though you're flying by the seat of your pants with duct tape and spit.  I always have an idea of where I'd like the story to go, where I think I might end up, though that could change.  It depends on you exercising your full imagination.  Daydreaming a lot.  Sensing what possibilities are out there.  Not being afraid to change your mind on something." (artist)

— David Baldacci (art by Peter H. Reynolds)

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, art, artists, writing, creating in the moment, David Baldacci, Peter H. Reynolds

"I like to keep parts of the writing process a secret even from myself.  Otherwise, I get bored."

— Signe Bergstrom

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, Signe Bergstrom

"I don't plot anything out.  I don't have an outline, for better or for worse.  I've tried, but I feel that kind of hems me in."

— Heidi Pitlor

for Creatives  |  structured writing & plotting/outlining, intuitive writing & pantsing, pantsing vs. plotting, writing, creative freedom, Heidi Pitlor

"I start with almost nothing: A question I want asked, or a feeling, a sort of weird conflicted feeling that I have and I want to explore.  So I think all my books start that way.  And then, as it always does, the book takes on a life of its own."

— Heidi Pitlor

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, novel writing, writing, ideas, Heidi Pitlor

"We often have to write three hundred pages before our soul discloses to us what it is that was waiting to be discovered."

— Tom Spangauer

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, writing, word count, Tom Spangauer

"How could I outline the guy?  I had no idea who he was.  I had to get on the page and kind of feel around and talk to him and see what he could do." (on outlining vs. not and writing his main character)

— David Baldacci

for Creatives  |  characters, structured writing & plotting/outlining, intuitive writing & pantsing, writing, David Baldacci

"You have to tell your mind to back the hell off. It's another place in yourself entirely where you must look to create a work of art."

— Robert Olen Butler

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, art, Robert Olen Butler, writing

"As a writer, it's like you're a fighter in the ring.  You have to bob and weave and juke and move and change direction and tactics all the time based on what your instincts are telling you about what's happening on the page."

— David Baldacci

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, David Baldacci

"If something happens in those spontaneous moments of writing that's different than my outline, I go with the spontaneity, and change the outline to suit it.  Because the spontaneity, that's the art.  My intentions are the craft, right?  That's what I'm trying to do.  But what is being done is where the magic is."

— Garth Stein

for Creatives  |  structured writing & plotting/outlining, intuitive writing & pantsing, magic/mystery of creating/art, art, writing, Garth Stein

"I never really know what something will become when I begin. But once I am inside it, I am completely there."

— Linda Hogan

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, Linda Hogan

"Please get out of the habit of saying that you’ve got an idea for a short story. Art does not come from ideas. Art does not come from the mind. Art comes from the place where you dream. Art comes from your unconscious; it comes from the white-hot center of you."

— Robert Olen Butler

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, art, Robert Olen Butler, short stories, writing, ideas

"Surprising yourself is one of the true pleasures of storytelling."

— Tom Perrotta

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, storytelling, Tom Perrotta

"I know nothing at all.  Nothing.  The first line comes and I start.  I always thought that I began with something talking to me, but I realized it's not true.  I begin by seeing something and then it's translated into a voice talking to me and then I follow it and see where it will go."

— T.C. Boyle

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, writing, inspiration/the muse, T.C. Boyle

"You're much closer to the dreaming side of your mind when you write.  Dream, dream, dream it through.  Write more with your body and less with your head.  Don't think a story through, don't think it out.  The danger of thinking it through is that most of us are not smart enough to do it that way.  We have to go one moment at a time."

— Andre Dubus III

for Creatives  |  structured writing & plotting/outlining, intuitive writing & pantsing, Andre Dubus III, pantsing vs. plotting, writing

"When you place your characters onstage and let them improvise, magic can happen."

— Paula Munier

for Creatives  |  characters, Paula Munier, improvisation, intuitive writing & pantsing, magic/mystery of creating/art, writing

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