Continued from an earlier post: Doodling Inspiration (Part One)

Once I get past the idea of seeking quality in my art, I often find that doodling is a kind of meditative randomness that drives me creatively.

Doodling is different than drawing, of course. Drawing and sketching in my mind implies an external subject, and turning what one sees into lines and colour on the page. Sketching is the act of replacing a camera with a bit of ink or pencil lead. 

Doodling, on the other hand, is the freedom of the pen on paper to explore shapes and express notions that are mere thoughts in our own heads. It is generative. It is creation from ideation into shape and form upon a blank canvas. It is something from the intangible and ineffable. It is an outlet for our deepest minds to express themselves. 

I have been re-reading The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes^[1], a controversial book of pop psychological theory that speculates that consciousness arose from the conversation that happens inside our own minds between the two lobes our our brain. 

Whether you buy it or not, its central premise of Jaynes’ book relies on the notion of two plus two equalling five: or that is to say, that the union of two things is often more than the sum of its parts. 

In as much as my doodles combine with my fiction writing to make more than the sum of their parts, a mental creative union of something perhaps just as curious and interesting as consciousness itself, no?

It was not my first.

It would not be my last.

But yet here I sit not having finished writing it. 

Sure, I made a plan. I sketched out the plot. And I got it about ninety percent of the way to completion, but then…?

Then I hit a wall.

Every morning, literally every morning, I wake up and feel guilty that I didn’t write another chapter in that novel the day before. Every morning, literally every morning, I wake up and part of me ponders if today will be the day that fact changes.

So far, no.

At the start of 2026 I resolved that just pining about standing in front of a metaphorical brick wall, a wall that I didn’t know how to climb over, or around or through was not the right approach either.

Instead, I started a new novel.

No. I haven’t quit the other one, rather I just need some more time to stare at that original brick wall and figure it out. But just staring at it wasn’t helping anything either. 

Each day I get another day further from my last effort on that story, but it is not forgotten.

And one day I’ll wake up, ponder if today, that day, will be the day… and I will be right.

“I don’t ever know when to start a story.” She said. “Like, do you write from the beginning or jump into the action, or—”

Look, I’m no expert but I can tell you that such things are a combination a lot of other things: two of the big ones being personal style and confidence in the reader.

I write my stories in a way that I usually think of as drive by storytelling.

The reader doesn’t go to the story, listen to the whole tale, then drive away when it’s finished.

Rather, they drive by: the story is happening and they hear a piece of it as they “drive by” and then keep going while the story keeps happening in the rearview mirror. 

To clarify, I do focus on writing the important nuggets of the tale being told and not random, meaningless chunks.

But by working in this model I tend to write in a way that focuses my personal style on having confidence that the reader will understand enough of what happened before they got there and enough of what will continue to go on after they pass by.

Branched · Part One Continued in Doodling Inspiration (Part Two)

A huge part of my creative process as I work on a new novel has been sketching.

I assume lots of authors, the kind who are also meticulous planners, make notes. I make notes, too, but I have also been using a form of visual note taking. 

It works like this.

I open up the next blank spread in my sketchbook, I write the chapter name somewhere central on the page, and then I start sketching out something that is a cross between a vision board and an idea chart on that page. I include sketches of characters introduced in that chapter. I sketch out objects that make appearances in the scene. I sketch the facade of the building or the stuff hanging on the walls or the grove of trees that I think I might want to mention somewhere in the story. 

The result is that as I then go to write the chapter itself, I have not just my plan and the words that describe what I plan to write about, but I also have this rough collection of doodles and drawings that spark more connections and drive my writing forward.

I can’t tell you how well it will ultimately work for me because it is a new thing I am trying, but so far it seems to be inking out strong inspiration every day.