Writing as organic

Like most writers I know, I often berated myself for not writing MORE. I tried to figure out why I so often put off doing the thing I find most satisfying. The answer was that writing had become another CHORE, another thing to tick off the list before I could relax. I still haven't found the foolproof solution to this. All I know is, when I was a child I could hardly be separated from my pen and my book: I wrote in every possible scenario. Then came school and university twelve years of writing for an audience. And it didn't matter how many good marks I got. I stopped writing for pleasure for about five years.

Over the years I have turned to many creative writing hints and tips to maintain the joy of creativity. What I have discovered again and again is that rules don't work with me. I know friends who write with rules write the entire morning, or write three pages first thing but the only one I've stuck to is doing morning pages (see Julia Cameron The Artist's Way), which is more my way of getting rid of my mental anxiety, than any writing' process. Every single attempt to stick to a regime of 2000 words a day' or one hour a day' lasts little longer than a couple of weeks, before I am rebelling against it. Gradually it dawned on me: perhaps writing is meant to be organic. Maybe you can't attempt to grow the same crop in the same way, every day. Perhaps you have to be prepared for some uneven-looking fruit that tastes just as delicious. This is the rub about writing: you cannot control it. It's a wild, organic process.

My best, most satisfying writing and ideas have come about in snatched, spontaneous moments. Sitting on the computer at work, frustrated and bored out of my mind, gave birth to one of my most popular poems, while at other times I have neglected my morning regime of writing, only to find myself staying up late in bed writing joyously with a fountain pen on expensive purple paper.

Instead of trying to pull up the crop before it is ready, if you leave it for a while, sooner or later you'll find a fresh stream of inspiration bubbling from under you. This is part of the inevitable rise and fall of life. My recent study of Celtic seasonal festivals, as research for my novel, has helped me to understand this a lot better. Winter is not considered to be the time to do magic. It's a time to rest and go into hibernation. Since I think of writing as a kind of magic (bear with me here), it makes sense to me to treat certain

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