Writing is Hard: See It Outside Your Own Head

Posting's still going to be light this week while my real computer is out.

Today we have a link to Warren Ellis' describing his creative process. I'm a process junkie, so this is cool to me. As a writer though, the best part is when he says:

I’ll have an idea, stare into space for an hour assembling its bits and testing it for legs enough to get to the end, and then open Notepad and put things down very roughly, just to get it out of my head and down on the screen so I can see it. Sometimes it’s all dialogue with a quick stage note, sometimes it’s all descriptive work. The point is getting it all down, even if it’s crap or incomprehensible to anyone but you, so you can see it outside your own head.

That's something I've got to work on. I keep way too much in my head for much longer than it should be and by the time I get ready to write it down, pieces of it are missing.