I’ve been tied up with life real life of late, very little novel composition going on. But that makes this time excellent for tending my compost heap. No, not that pile of dead grass and leaves in the backyard; this heap consists of imagination clippings and thoughts raked up from daily life.
Writer’s Compost Heap
One of the bits of advice from my first creative writing class was to carry a notebook and jot down story ideas as they occur. I’ve since seen this tip in basically every “how-to write” book and author interview I’ve read. The concept of “compost heap” builds on that notebook and is straight out of Neil Gaiman’s Masterclass.
What To Compost
Anything and everything—words, ideas, personalities, gestures, patterns. It’s the big list of shiny bits that attracted the magpie writer’s mind. The compost heap has no expressed purpose for a particular story. While I might think I’m capturing a concept for later, the heap is also about discovering one’s self and honing one’s craft. Collecting for the compost heap reveals the subconscious mind’s workings. It illuminates the writer’s true interests as opposed to the interests they think they should have.
Ideas that pop up about specific stories can go in dedicated heaps for those stories. Those thoughts tend to be more detailed and problem-solving.
How To Build The Compost Heap
My compost heap is a page in my commonplace book, which I’m terrible about carrying around. It is always on the wrong level of the house and is too big to actually take with me when I got out. (And I lose things, which would be a disaster.) So, I have a collection system—my smart phone. I send myself text messages of random words and thoughts and take photos of interesting things. Sometimes I remember what I meant by these images, sometimes I don’t. But they get transferred to the compost heap. Before smart phones, a tiny notebook lived in my purse for this purpose. I’d love to develop my drawing skills, so I could make a quick sketch.
Using The Compost
The compost fertilizes the imagination. Stuck for an idea or in need of inspiration, the writer can review the heap. But the real magice is the alchemy of seemingly random—but not really—thoughts coming together and transmuting each other. Whole new stories can rise from the heap, summoned entirely from the writer’s subconscious mind.
If you enjoyed this journal entry, you might like to read about Backstory.
I started this blog thread on the gritty details of the writing process over on my Facebook Author page, @kbkathylbrown, but think I might be better served putting it over here. If you’re interest in following my writing process in an informal way, you’ll find a few posts on Facebook that might interest you. You can subscribe to the blog from the website landing page (scroll down).