Write What You See: Writing Advice by Alyson Richman
“It’s so fine, yet so terrible, to stare in front of a blank canvas.” — Paul Cezanne Every morning, an empty white page appears on my computer screen, waiting to be filled in with sentences that will eventually become a novel. This blankness can be both intimidating and exciting, a paradox I wrestle with each time I sit down to write. I always enjoy speaking with other writers about their own processes of creation. It differs so widely amongst novelists. Some writers work on an outline first, and then write out scene by scene, scratching off each chapter that they’ve already loosely plotted in their head. Others speak of writing from a stream of consciousness, where they work until they’ve reached the end of their story and then circle back to edit and revise the rough draft into something that will become their finished manuscript. My mother, an artist, taught me to see the world as though it were a painting, and I draw upon the same techniques she used to create her fin...
