I’m slowly feeling my way round my new book. I feel like a new home owner who is deciding where to put the furniture and feeling a little overwhelmed by all the unpacking that needs doing. In the early stages I do a lot of doodling and note making on large sheets of paper. I work out all the dates of birth for my main character, my main character’s siblings and parents. A family tree, I guess. It helps to put them into an historical time frame so that I can get my cultural references right, such as the music and TV programmes that were around then. Next I start plotting the key events, or the key events at the beginning anyway as, with me, everything is subject to change once I start writing. I doodle a lot. The doodles aren’t necessarily related to the story but doodling helps me think.
the thinking and planning stage
It was fascinating looking at the art students’ notebooks and sketchbooks at the Edinburgh Art College exhibition recently and seeing the overlap between an illustrator’s draft work and a writer’s. My son Joe’s sketchbooks were so similar to mine (or mine to his). Not in content so much as in appearance. Notes, doodles, bits of paper torn from magazines.
Joe's sketch book ©Joseph Pielichaty
Joe's preparation for a new cover for Alice in Wonderland
my messy little world!
Oh, I do like a properly messy desk! Feeling reassured now. An interesting reflection on the crossover between art & language.
Messy? That’s pretty tidy for me, Penny. I did think the overlap between wrters’ and artists’ notebooks was interesting. There was much more text in Joe’s and the other students’ work than I had expected. I wonder how much doodling other writers do? I know you draw, Penny, and I took A level art (and got a rubbish grade D). Hmmm…. I can feel another blog coming on!