If you can imagine it, you can achieve it.

William Arthur Ward

I don’t have the time to sit down and plan my days in advance through lists and notes simply because I’m a very busy versatile stay-at-home-mom; thus, to be able to achieve my writing goals, I had to practice planning in advance in my head what I needed to write, their titles, and as well as the picture that would have accompanied that specific piece of writing.

Of course, in the beginning it was very difficult to plan it all in my chaotic head filled with all of these cacophonous thoughts that rendered me very sensitive to thinking; but through diligent practice, it became a little bit more easier to flex my imagination at will, and gradually, that chaos in my mind became the cosmos from where all of my writing ideas are born.

I’ve also learned the hard way that mind-planning can be dangerous when one is climbing the stairs, using sharp objects in the kitchen, or when doing any other chores that demand concentration, focus, or caution, so as to prevent getting hurt, forget important things, or make gaffes.   

Imagination decides everything.

Blaise Pascal

The moment I sit down to type I need to have already figured out what to write about; I need to have already imagine a scene from where I can begin a story, which was then inspired by words taken from the dictionary, or even inspired by themes that I’m interested in; already thought of these first lines that will compose the poem that I was inspired to write through one-word prompts or enthusiasm; or think about these sentences that will be the backbone of my nonfiction posts, where most of the time I get these ideas from quotes or phrases, same as I was inspired by the quote of the writer William Arthur Ward, and went on writing about how I use my imagination to plan in advance about what I need to write. Afterwards I slowly write my way through the piece until its finality, until its conception.

That’s how I proceeded with most of the poetic pieces I wrote for ‘Lovenotes’ and ‘Soft lands’ — while I was ironing the clothes, washing the dishes, cooking, or even sweeping the floor, I tried my best to think about these poetic lines that would help concretise my feelings and thoughts.

I always try my best to imagine or think right from the start the perfect scene or sentences that will be the main pillar that support the structure of my work, so that I don’t have to do heavy editing; like that, when I sit down to write poems, stories, or blogposts, right away I can craft the right paragraph or stanza from where, word after word, other paragraphs and stanzas will be born to complete that piece of writing.

Though I would have loved to sit down and write storylines and main points, and even take notes or write rough drafts from where I could begin stories, poems, and blogposts, like any other professional writers do, the limits of my time at waking hours forced me to come up with non-conformists ways of planning what to write in advance in my head, so as to avoid staring at a blank screen for a long time, or to have to delete and rewrite my work many times. 

Recently I wrote main points about ‘why write’ in my note app, but still, all of these points have been planned in advance in my mind with sole aim of visualising the sequence in which these sums of a greater part should be ordered. Now that I’ve decided to post nonfiction once per week, guess that I’ll need to often jot down these needed main points for writing essays, but where as usual, their seeds will begin to grow, germinate, and bloom in my mind before being transplanted on screen.