✍️ Writing by Feel

or, Spending Afternoons Chasing Ideas Down Alleyways

Mar 31, 2026

Woman with laptop walking through alleyways representing the concept of writing by feel.

I wonder if other artists have it as hard as writers when it comes to “creating art”?

For example, I’ve heard of musicians struggling to get music out. Apparently, Sarah McLachlan had to lock herself away to write the songs for her album, “Fumbling Toward Ecstasy”. On the other hand, I’ve heard of musicians writing songs purely by jamming.

Writers though – we seem hell bent on concentrating hard to find the right words. Whatever that means. I don’t know how many times I’ve underlined this concept of having fun with words, and still I’ll get a little tense from time to time when I sit down to write “real” work on my novel.

I’m getting better. Constant reminders help. Like this video about Nirvana’s monster hit, Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Cobain wrote that song without any formal music background. He didn’t purposefully set out to create some of the most iconic riffs in rock history. It was all done by feel, as Warren Huart explains in a video in his “Produce Like a Pro” YouTube series.

“Let’s be honest. Nobody in Nirvana was thinking those chords whatsoever. It’s just purely all done by feel, emotion, and ear. They just loved hearing (those notes).”

- Warren Huart

Is it possible to write by feel, too?

I think it is – and I’ve been trying to do that for many years now, in practice if not in name. I like coming up with a few simple words and riffing on them like they’re notes on a guitar.

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Here’s an example. I dug up an old note I emailed myself for a novel once called Novel 4. That note was this:

“For Roddy, blue was the colour of freedom.”

I vaguely remember when this popped into my head. It had nothing to do with anything at that point in the book. I needed another character, someone who lived on the rougher side of life. I ran with it, not really knowing where it would take me. Why was blue the colour of freedom? Roddy was an inmate, cooped up in prison 23 hours per day. His one hour outside allowed him time to “escape” in his mind, staring up at the infinity of blue sky rather than the beige walls three feet away in any direction.

I riffed out a whole scene that started with those eight words – those eight notes. I wrote by feel. I wasn’t sure if they would work or if the character would work or if I was writing the novel or just a character sketch. A vignette. I just wrote.

As it turned out, the whole book was abandoned. For reasons.

But that’s the fun of writing, right? The adventure of following alleyways, not quite sure what’s around the corner. And if alleyways turn into dead ends, as they sometimes do… well, we had a lovely afternoon exploring then, didn’t we?

On the other hand, it’s the only way I find new, surprising worlds…

I think sometimes we are too precious with our words. We aren’t working with diamonds here. Sentences are collections of words are collections of letters that we can move around at will, that we can zap in and out of existence.

So why not arrange them hither and thither, and see what fits? Why not riff and find the dissonant chords that somehow work? Creativity doesn’t come from planning. It comes from not planning. Creativity is the act of chasing ideas down alleyways and bringing them to life.

Deciding whether or not they work comes later.