Drawing from the well of experience

The writing habit can be difficult to maintain when you are experiencing a lot of stress. Creativity happens best in states of relaxation, says Roseanne Bane in Around the Writer's Block (a resource I heartily recommend).

As you might guess from my absence in December, I've been grappling with some hard life stuff, particularly being "the sandwich generation" having to deal with overwhelming demands from elderly parents and school-aged kids at the same time. I feel like I'm emotionally tapped out most of the time. I know that writing can be a good outlet for stress release, but getting back into a groove after the holidays were in the stress-mix is challenging. So I turned to another well-thumbed resource for encouragement, Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. One of her best block-busting tips is to write about your childhood.

How we react to stressors in adulthood is to a large degree shaped by childhood experiences. But as Harry Potter learned when trying to conjure a patronus, good memories have tremendous power to protect us from the forces of despair. Recently, I've tried to focus on bright spots in my past when a worry begins to spiral from anxiety into panic. I have to say, it has improved my sleep tremendously.

Here are some prompts to help you go back into your own timeline and find moments of joy, peace, excitement and insight:

• My imaginary friend
• My secret hideout
• My three favorite toys when I was eight years old
• My favorite subject in kindergarten
• My cozy spot
• After school, I liked to...
• A cool surprise from my mom or dad
• The wonder of milkweed or dandelions gone to seed
• My childhood neighbors
• How I was comforted in a dark moment
• My favorite after school snacks
• A special moment with a sibling or cousin
• A bedtime or campfire story my family invented
• Games my family played on car trips
• How my sibling reconciled with me after a squabble
• My most impressive creation with blocks or Legos
• The best snow day
• A sick day when I felt well cared for
• A surprising discovery about a grandparent
• My favorite scenario to pretend
• Given a stack of paper and box of crayons, I would create...
• The nearby woods
• The neighborhood park
• How it felt to go barefoot in summer
• Learning to swim or skate
• The book I read again and again
• My best friend in elementary school
• My lucky shirt
• Treasures I kept in a secret spot
• My favorite stuffed animals
• The best dream I had as a kid
• The coolest guest to visit my family
• Holiday traditions I grew up with
• My parents' best games or stories
• Songs I liked to sing in the shower
• Games I played in the bathtub
• A time my team won a great victory
• A special food my parents would make just for me
• Fun times in choir or the class play
• The best prank I ever pulled
• My favorite teacher
• My playground buddies
• A school project that turned out especially well
• My lunchbox or lunch bag
• My first pet
• The feeling of mud and puddles

As Anne Lamott says, "Everything we need in order to tell our stories in a reasonable and exciting way already exists in each of us. Everything you need is in your head and in your memories, in all that your senses provide, in all that you've seen and thought and absorbed" (Bird by Bird 181). Visit those memories and sensations, and the words will come.

In times of stress, what helps you relax enough to write?

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The "writing for yourself" quandry

I have to admit, I've been deeply skeptical of the advice to "write for yourself." Perhaps it's a byproduct of my upbringing, of being told again and again that the root of all kinds of evil is selfishness--greed, lust, hatred, coveting, the whole litany of deadly sins. Perhaps it's from interacting with beginning writers who are excessively prickly and hostile to any suggestion that their rough draft "baby" isn't a perfect masterpiece. I hear the phrase and think self-indulgent and even narcissistic.

What about readers? I'd wonder. Do you care about whether they can make any sense of your story? Do you want to pour months of time into something that will no one will want to read? 

The ironic thing is, spending too much time worrying about the questions above is more likely to hobble you than help.

And so will convincing yourself that you have unselfish motives. Because once you start worrying about motives, you're likely to get lost in a hall of mirrors, frantic to find a pure reflection. Could there be a more self-centered pursuit?

But reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic (or more accurately, about half of it so far) has got me rethinking my assumptions about what "write for yourself" really means.

Gilbert says that creativity is "your birthright as a human being, so do it with a cheerful heart.... Let inspiration lead you where it wants to lead you. Keep in mind that for most of history people just made things, and they didn't make such a big freaking deal out of it. We make things because we like making things."

How's that for a pep talk with a good dose of kick-in-the-pants? :-)

Essentially, then, "writing for yourself" means engaging deeply with your ideas: follow them, invest labor and energy into them, shape them, feed them. Delight in the ideas and let their song move you to sing along and dance with abandon.

It means you can (and should) stop trying to be helpful--it's a masquerade for the deeply selfish need to be important, and the crippling need for permission and validation from others.

"Writing for yourself" is light and free and doesn't take itself so utterly seriously. If the idea leads down a blind alley, oh well. Part of the adventure! Look around, discover something unexpected. Backtrack if you must, or step through a side door. But when you "write for yourself," these glitches are not devastating disruptions of some Very Important Thing that will make you matter.

"Writing for yourself" comes from a healthy place of a right-sized self that can accept its own simultaneous greatness and smallness. It says "you are enough." Not the be-all-and-end-all, but not trash. Just enough.

Gilbert's book has been an interesting complement to Around the Writer's Block by Roseanne Bane, which I've blogged about HERE and HERE. Bane approaches creativity through brain science, and her main finding is that anxiety derails creativity; to be creatively productive, you need to relax and have fun.

In other words, stop looking over your shoulder, wondering how others will react, or seeking their go-ahead for your creative endeavors, or signs of their gratitude for your "help."

When your authentic self shows up and explores the ideas entrusted to you (Gilbert has some fascinating theories about how ideas find us), you become radically liberated from the impulses of selfishness--specifically self-preservation. The work done "for yourself" then flows and grows.

What do you think about "writing for yourself"?

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In a creative slump? Six tips for recovery

Creative slumps can happen to anyone who strives to bring creative works into the world, be they written works, visual art, music, or handicrafts. Slumps can come on slowly or all at once. Often you aren't entirely aware you're in a slump until you've spent some time there, stuck and unmotivated.

Slump thinking sounds like this:

"I'm so stressed out, I can't focus."
"My brain is so full of noise, I can't hear my characters."
"These ideas are just a big mess."
"This project feels rangy and shapeless."
"I can't remember why I ever thought this was a good story idea."
"Why can't I make any progress?"
"I want to write, but feel adrift every time I sit down."
"I used to have things to say. I'm not sure what I believe or care about right now."
"I should be farther along than this. I'm such a hack/poseur/failure."

Slumps tend to happen after you've expended a lot of energy in one direction (say finishing and releasing a new book) and in the midst of crises in your personal life.

Very possibly it's a temperament thing, that some bounce back quickly from burnout and/or crises, and others of us slip into slumps.

If you're one of those bouncy types, I beg you not to douse your slumped friends with buckets of positive thinking mantras. They make us feel worse--inadequate and deeply flawed, rather than simply different from you. Instead, remind us that you care. Listen without dispensing advice. Invite us to join you in some activity we can enjoy together that's not too demanding--taking a hike or walking tour, poking around cute shops, playing cards or board games, visiting an art opening, crafts festival, outdoor concert, or mellow jazz club. Something fun that gets us out of the house--and out of our own heads for a few hours.

Make no mistake, slumps can morph pretty quickly into full blown depression. If you're prone to it, seek professional help. If your slump feels more like creativity blues--you're functioning okay in other areas of your life, but aren't creating at all--some self-care may be your road out of the Slough of Despond.

Here are some ways you can help yourself:

Go someplace new

Get off the couch or out of the desk chair and leave the house--explore someplace new, even if it's a ten minute stroll down a side street in your neighborhood you've never been on before.  Take a slightly different route to work, try a new restaurant, shop at a different market. When "something different" feels beyond your grasp, little forays out of your routine can be a powerful way to prove that mental message wrong--different is ten feet from boring, old, usual, not ten thousand miles. And you can get there in a few steps.

Care for your body

Times of stress can make it difficult to maintain an exercise program or sleep schedule. Stress eating can leave you even more lethargic. Look for small ways to begin giving your body the care it needs, starting with good sleep hygiene, then good food choices, simple exercise (like walking), and a little pampering like a haircut or new outfit. Some change can work from the outside in.

Seek some small accomplishments

Emerging from a slump is a gradual process. Look around for a few small things you've been avoiding and accomplish those things--whether it's making some overdue doctor appointments, weeding that ugly patch in the corner of your yard, or reorganizing a dresser drawer. That sense of pride can energize increasingly larger projects.

Reconnect with old loves

Slumps can feel like a source of joy has taken off, abandoned you. Think about long-lost hobbies or enthusiasms you haven't tried in a while, whether it's going back to earliest memories of finger painting or biking with your elementary pals, playing an instrument you gave up after high school, or a craft you've forgotten about like knitting, sewing, or leather craft, decoupage or beading. Creativity begets creativity.

Draw on sources of strength

Connect with people who love you, like an long-term friend, a sibling, or a grandparent. Chances are after a brief phone call you'll realize how deeply you are valued and valuable to others. Pick up an inspiring book like Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, or Rising Strong by Brene Brown. Resume or take up new spiritual practices, like prayer, meditation, or scripture reading. Talk to a counselor or mentor.

Take baby steps with your dreaded project

In the peak of a slump, you're going to view everything about your unfinished writing project with a jaundiced eye. But once you've begun the process of emerging from it. look for ways to reconnect with it. Glance over your notes, and perhaps organize them. Research some aspect of the story, whether it's details about your hero's job, the psychology of the family dynamic in  your story, floor plans of the buildings in your setting, or cultural influences on your characters. Create an idea board on Pinterest. Brainstorm concepts for the cover design. Interview your characters or write journal entries in their voices. Bit by bit, these fictional people and their world will come alive for you again.

Have you ever suffered a creative slump? What helped you emerge from it?

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Beware the myth of Easy Street

The other day, a well-meaning writer on Twitter tweeted, "I've found that if the story isn't easy to write, it's because you're telling the wrong one."

Once in a while, that might be true--some stories do practically write themselves in a blaze of white-hot inspiration. But most writers I know don't have that experience every time, only once a career, or sadly, on and off as they get in the grips of a bipolar mania.

Image source: www.metrolic.com

I think the myth that easy = right is a creatively crippling one that will lead you to make bad decisions about what stories to write.

When I was younger and as naive as they come, writing came very easily. And those easy-to-write stories were pretty terrible, cliche filled, amateurish homages to other books and films. More than anything, my easy stories didn't require me to stretch or grow. I wrote what I knew, and at 12 and 13, I didn't know much.

Having the expectations that the only good ideas are the easy ideas goes against everything we know about creativity and invention. The good ideas are ones like the light bulb, that went through over a hundred prototypes until Edison got one that actually worked well. If every inventor who ever hit a hitch immediately dropped the idea because hard = wrong, we wouldn't have cars or computers or yes, even light bulbs.

There are a number of reasons a story might not be easy to tell that don't make it "the wrong one." The best ideas take more than a momentary zap of inspiration. They take time and energy, prototypes that fail, revision, more prototypes, outside input, encouragement, yet more prototypes, testing, more revision, until the brilliant final product emerges.

Expecting ease means bypassing craft, because craft always involves a learning curve. Learning curves are not easy. They kind of suck. They make you feel like everything you do is wrong, until one day you're over the curve. And then you realize that the hardness and the suckiness were just what you needed. The slog made you stronger and wiser. Your ideas got better because you didn't settle for easy.

Here are some signs you might indeed be telling the wrong story:
~You heard this genre was hot, even though you never read it.
~You're following the usual tropes of a genre for lack of better ideas.
~You're trying to write a genre because you think it will make you look smart, cool, or sexy.
~You love reading a sci fi/fantasy/historical but don't enjoy world building.
~Your characters seem to rebel against every plot decision.
~You've had absolutely no moments of fun and enthusiasm while writing.


Here are some reasons that the right story might be hard to write
~You have to dig deep emotionally, and it's scary.
~You'll have to take a side on a divisive issue, and fear you'll offend people or lose friends.
~You fear being judged for your genre choice.
~This story is unlike anything you've ever written and you fear you'll lose fans.
~The amount of research needed will take years or involve expensive.
~You'll need to talk to experts to get accurate information, and you're super shy.
~Your research will require talking to victims and you worry about the emotional toll on them and on you.
~Writing multiple points of view is something you've never done before.
~You're scared people will think this story is too weird.
~You worry that your take on a hot-button issue will thrust you into the limelight, and that kind of attention is way too scary.

And finally, here are some signs that your "wrong" story is salvageable, and possible remedies

I was having fun for a while, but can't seem to fix plot holes
~Set aside the manuscript for a few weeks or months
~Get beta readers to help you
~Research more aspects of the plot or setting to get better ideas

A secondary character keeps stealing the spotlight
~Reassign the role of protagonist
~Shift the narration style ala The Great Gatsby, so your former protagonist is a narrator
~Write in alternating points of view so both character 1 and 2 can speak

My story feels too much like an homage to my favorite author
~Try a change of milieu, setting it in a radically different time or place. (For more, see THIS post).
~Try reassigning roles in your cast, so the kinds of people who are your mentor author's villains are your heroes.
~Experiment with point of view. If your mentor author writes first person for example, try third
~Experiment with timeline narration. If your mentor author writes linear stories, try multiple time streams, unfolding the story from the past to the future and from the future to the past, meeting at a crisis moment.
~Mix elements of other genres into your story, such as literary, mystery, romance, or comedy

I'm bored with this story
~Research aspects of plot or setting to get more exciting ideas
~Assess who in the cast is dragging down the story's movement and give them a makeover, or the boot
~Ask beta readers to pinpoint where in the story their interest lags, and cut or revamp those scenes
~Revise for pacing, removing as much stage business as possible and tightening up the dialogue. (See Janice Hardy's pacing posts for more ideas)
~Look for opportunities to raise the stakes or add complications

What do you think friends? Do you believe the mythos of easy = right, hard = wrong? Why or why not?

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Limber up! Warm ups to get you writing

Photo credit: kakisky from morguefile.com

No ballerina simply straps on her toe shoes and dances Swan Lake. Nor does an Olympic sprinter roll out of bed and walk directly to the blocks. These pros know you can't perform your best unless you first warm up and stretch.

Writer friends, we can learn from this. If you find yourself endlessly procrastinating when you know you should be writing, consider adding a period of low-pressure warm ups and stretches to your routine. You may find that like that sprinter, it enables you to go faster when you do "hit the track" (aka work on your manuscript) and like the ballerina, it enables you to move with greater ease and grace.

Move 

For some, the warm ups should be physical. If you suffer from maladies of the hand or wrist joints--carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, or arthritis, gently warming up using doctor/PT-approved exercises will delay or even prevent typing from becoming painful.

Taking a fifteen minute walk to clear your head can be the perfect precursor to sitting down to write. In this post, I mention research that found creative benefits coming immediately after a walk.

Some basic stretches can improve blood flow and energy levels, always helpful for transitioning to any new activity.

Wordlessly create

To access your creativity, it can be helpful to do things that put you in a relaxed state. Here are a few worldless warm ups to try

• Color. There are loads of cool coloring books for adults on the market now.
• Doodle. See this post for story-related doodling warm ups.
• Sculpt with Play-doh or clay
• Play an instrument or sing

Freewrite

Freewriting is the most obvious transitional tool to get you into a writing groove. Choose one of the following prompts, set a timer for 10 minutes, and scribble, on paper with a pen or pencil, whatever comes to mind. No wordsmithing, just let the ideas flow fast and sloppy.

Freewrite about your own life and feelings

• What I remember about holidays, siblings, gifts, favorite plaything, best teacher, worst teacher, favorite class, best accomplishment, scary moment, weird neighbor, unapproachable cool kid, first crush, awesome friend, grandparents, family trips, collecting things, birthday parties
• What I wish for: accomplishments, relationships, dream trips, belongings, people I'd love to meet, superpowers and how I'd use them, future inventions
• How I feel: what makes me angry, sad, impatient, frustrated, lonely, excited, content

Freewrite about elements of your story

• How you characters feel about story events from the most recent scenes
• What your character what is worried about
• Your characters' hopes or plans
• What your characters wish others knew about them
• Unspoken "rules" of your character's family, school, other institutions
• Scenes that are almost ready, and how you might polish them
• Problem scenes and how you might repair or replace them 
• Your hopes about this manuscript
• Your concerns about this manuscript
• What I want to work on today

Do you typically warm up before you write? Which of these ideas do you want to try?

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Dear Diary: Using a journal to brainstorm your fiction

Journaling is a kind of focused freewriting that can be useful for exploring, in a loose and free manner, either a character’s thoughts or your own.

Image: Teo Studio, www.etsy.com/shop/TeoStudio

Like the childhood diary that could be padlocked, think of journaling exercises as a “for my eyes only” prewriting. As with jots, the goal is to get ideas out as quickly as you can without judgment or revision.

Journaling is especially helpful for voice-driven writers who first need to get inside the protagonist’s head before planning any story events. It can also be a way for you to mentally process key parts of your plot. When preparing for revision, it can be a helpful way to think through what is and isn’t working in a manuscript. It’s also a great warm-up for beginning any writing session, especially if you’ve been away from the manuscript for a period.

Journaling exercises

• Journal your key characters’ important memories that shaped them most
• Journal about your key characters’ deepest fears
• Journal about your key characters’ ambitions and dreams
• Journal about your protagonist’s bucket list
• Journal your protagonist’s opinions of other characters
• Journal your antagonist’s view of the protagonist
• Journal about your protagonist from the viewpoint of another key character
• Journal a fiasco moment in your character’s voice
• Journal about a moment your character would feel empowered
• Journal about potential plot events as a character might experience them
• Journal about conflicts among characters
• Journal your protagonist’s impressions of key settings in your story
• Journal a basic arc of your story in your protagonist’s voice
• Journal your impressions of each character in your story
• Journal about scenes that are almost ready, and how you might polish them
• Journal about problem scenes and how you might repair or replace them
• Journal your hopes about this manuscript
• Journal your concerns about this manuscript

How might journaling help you keep moving forward with a project?

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Things not seen: workshop prompts

I volunteered to run a workshop on writing at a women's retreat for my church. Our congregation has more than its fair share of highly educated people, situated as we are near several major universities and medical institutions. With that in mind, I've been busy assembling some writing exercises to appeal to brainy spiritual people who want to take a break from the grind and do something different.

The retreat speaker's theme is "Things Not Seen," which provided a good jumping off point for the kinds of exercises I plan to offer. I don't know exactly who will turn up and where they are in their particular writing journey, so I've had to think broadly about topics that could be thought-provoking and nourishing to both veterans and newbies.

Things Not Seen: Writing Explorations

We cannot see the wind, but its force is powerful.

Photo: morethanordinary / morguefile.com

Hidden blocks: why I don't write

Distractions
"Losing our voices is a natural outcome of trying to ignore what bothers us." --Georgia Heard, Writing Toward Home 34.

What rumblings in daily life are too painful to face? Make you feel resigned and helpless? Write about what is rumbling for you, what bothers you. What prevents you from seeing or changing the situation? It's not an ideal environment that you most need, but rather honesty and awareness. Brainstorm what your personal blocks are and how you might move toward clarity.

Inner Critics
"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing." --Elbert Hubbard

To write, you have to face the inner sources of criticism, those harsh voices in your head that fill you with doubt and a sense of defeat. Identify them. What do they look like? Where do they work? How did they enter your life? How did they gain power over you? Personify these voices in as much detail as you can.

Write a letter to your critics and let your anger flow. How have they harmed you? It might help to express the specific fears you have about writing that they have exacerbated. Express how you will protect yourself from their negativity.

Now imagine your muse/guardian angel/Holy Spirit who knows and loves you and wants you to flourish and help others flourish through the beautiful truths you share. Write what you hope and dream for your writing. Write how you would like this protective spirit to keep you safe inside, what messages you most need to hear, and what resources you need in order to write.

Lack of vision
"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18a

Perhaps your desire to write has been a vague rumbling you've been unable to articulate. Without a sense of the why, you indefinitely put off starting any project. What you most need is to draw to the surface an inner passion that has been pushed to the back burner.

Take some time to brainstorm and think more deeply about why your desire to write exists. Complete this sentence: I want to write because _____. Be specific. Is there a particular truth you want to share? An audience you want to engage with? Have stories shaped you in a significant way that you want to engage with more deeply at this stage of life? Is there a set of skills you want to develop? A favorite author you wish to emulate?

Hidden Emotions

Emotions are the raw material for all creative writing (and quite a lot of nonfiction as well). Use one of the following prompts to delve into a strong emotion, and let your exploration lead you toward the beginnings of a work of memoir, fiction or poetry.

Don't be afraid to begin with brainstormed jots and lists, or snippets of conversation, or messy stream-of-consciousness musings. Think of your first step as "making clay" that can then be shaped.

Anger
Repressed anger can be a major block to creativity, as it tends to fester and cause deep soul damage. Release anger by writing about it, as a journal entry, a poem, or channeled through a fictional character. Be brutally honest, holding nothing back.

Grief
Unresolved sadness in your life can be another major creativity blocker. Write about a significant place of loss you have been reticent to address. Circle around the edges, gradually going deeper into details and the emotions they stir up in you. Turn these musings into a memoir of loss, a poem, or story about a character grieving a loss--or struggling to do so.

Shame
Your deepest secrets are your deepest, truest sources of story material. To access that material, you have to bravely allow those secrets to come to the surface, at least in your own consciousness. Write a list that completes this sentence: "I could never tell...." Feel free to throw in some pseudo secrets and to scribble out anything you are completely mortified to admit. The goal is to think about and acknowledge these deeper stories. The act of acknowledging them to yourself will allow you to tap into the power this material has.  You might find, in giving your secrets to a fictional caretaker to grapple with, the old shame releases its hold on you.

Fear
Being scared is one of the key drivers of all human behavior. It often tinges even places where we should feel most confident or at ease. Write about the things that consistently leave you uneasy or even terrify you. What worst-case scenarios often invade your imagination? Write about them in detail. Put a fictional character through your worst fears. How will he or she cope?

Love
Desire and longing--inner passion--are powerful drivers that can combat fear. Think of a time when you fell in love, whether with a person, a place, or a discovered passion for something. Write about that experience, either as memoir, poem, or channeled through a fictional character's slightly different details. What did this person, place, thing, experience call forth from you (or him/her)? What fullness did it offer you (him/her)?

Comfort
A desire for peace and harmony is a deep longing of the human heart. Write about a time/place when you experienced being fully welcomed and loved. Include as much detail as possible. Alternately, think of what kinds of moments, relationships, or environments would enable you to experience comfort and peace. Describe it for yourself or a fictional character.

Pivotal Moments
This is a mix-and-match exercise for exploring emotion in all its complexity. Choose a word or phrase from each list to select a mattering moment. Consider why it is significant to you, or a fictional character you create. How did/does it shift your/her self concept, approach to tasks, relationships? Write a memoir piece, poem, or short story.

List A
first, last, best, worst

List B
memory, accident, surprise, school day, class, performance, game, event, outing, vacation, holiday, pet, project, date, kiss, relationship, job, car, home

Final discussion

At the end of our time, we'll wrap up with sharing a little of what each person has written or a reflection on the exercise chosen and what was gleaned from the experience.

Which of these prompts appeal to you most? What is  your experience with retreat workshops?

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Are you letting your imagination starve?

I know loads of writers who pore over every writing craft book they can get their hands on, but who nonetheless can't seem to get a story off the ground. Why is that?

They neglect an essential element of craft rarely gets talked about: developing your knowledge base so that you have raw material from which to build interesting stories. This is also called "research."

Research has become something of a dirty word among a certain breed of fiction writer. These folks consistently argue that they write what they know and therefore never need to do such a nerdy thing as check facts. God forbid facts get in the way of their imaginations.

Well, I fear that such thinking is naive at best, and at worst, lazy. It tends to produce copycat, formulaic writing full of plot holes and cliches. Why? 

Photo credit: Alvimann from morguefile.com

When writers assume knowledge of their fictional world they don't actually have, they will struggle to develop material. Instead, as Robert McKee describes in Story, such writers will "reheat literary leftovers and serve up plates of boredom because, regardless of their talents, they lack an in-depth understanding of their story's setting and all it contains. Knowledge of and insight into the world of your story is fundamental to the achievement of originality and excellence" (68). I would add that understanding human nature, from how personality develops to what motivates people is essential to developing multi-dimensional characters to inhabit your story world.

McKee rightly warns against using research as a form of procrastination, a way of endlessly delaying doing any writing. Rather, research in broad topic areas ought to be something you do for personal enrichment/brain food and as the need arises. Research is often more portable than creative work. You can read print books, ebooks, and articles while sitting in a hospital waiting room, or while the kids are at soccer practice, or while standing in line at the grocery store.

Below are some areas to learn about about in order to feed your brain with ideas. As McKee notes, "you can't kill your talent, but you can starve it into a coma through ignorance.... Talent must be stimulated with facts and ideas. Feed your talent" (73-74). Research should be the third leg of the material-generation stool, along with imagination and memory (See McKee's excellent book Story for more on this). 

The lists below are meant to stimulate your curiosity, not form a guilt-inducing Mensa übermind curriculum. Simply pick any topic that sounds interesting and read one book or explore a few reputable websites about it (by reputable, I mean backed by research,  not some hothead spouting off). What new curiosities does it raise about your story world or characters? Read on that topic next.

Imagine how much more pumped you'll be to write when you're abuzz with ideas. As McKee notes, when you have something to say, you can't stop yourself from writing.

Characterization and dialogue

• Personality types
• Body language
• Communication styles
• Gender differences
• Belief formation
• Identity formation
• Intimacy and social bonding
• Friendships and cliques
• Marriage dynamics
• Birth order and personality
• Sibling dynamics
• Parenting styles
• Intergenerational influence and conflict
• Rights and responsibilities of various family roles in history
• Neuroses
• Phobias
• Neuro-sensory differences
• Addiction
• Trauma 
• Personality disorders
• Mental illnesses

Milieu, Setting and Plot

• Climate 
• Weather Phenomena
• Environment
• Architecture and interior design
• Anthropology
• Effects of poverty and wealth
• Government models in history
• Education models
• Macroeconomics
• Technology
• Policies and procedures of institutions in  your story world
• Laws and ordinances
• Criminology
• Forensics
• Pathology
• Scientific breakthroughs
• Historic events

Tell me: which of these research topics might move your story forward most? Which topics sound fascinating in their own right, and worth reading to stimulate new story ideas?

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Have a perplexing story problem? Four tips for accessing solutions

Some ideas need to be coaxed out of your brain.

Every once in a while when I'm drafting a brand new scene, whether it's in the rough drafting process or in revision, to replace material or fill in an obvious hole, I hit a spot where I know roughly what needs to happen, but I don't yet know HOW to present it.

I typically leave a note to myself that's something like this:

[She overhears David and Sarah discussing their relationship]

Side note: Square brackets are useful for these notes-to-self, because they're characters you don't typically use in fiction (unlike parentheses), so the "find" command will help you ferret them out during revision to ensure you address all of your holes.

In my example, I know there will need to be a conversation, and that something will need to be revealed to my eavesdropper that causes CHANGE, because without change, I won't have a scene worthy of being dramatized.

But what? What will be revealed? What kind of change do I need?

It's easy to get very stuck at points like this. So how do you coax your brain to give you the answers? I've found that pounding at the doorway of my mind, demanding my brain to "Tell me!!" tends to have my brain call security to make the annoying writer go away.

Answers to perplexing "how do I present this scene?" problems require a very odd thing: to get out of an anxious fight-or-flight mindset and into one of relaxation. Because the relaxed brain is where good ideas hang out. It's comfy and chill there. No one screams "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!" there.

Here are some ways to tap into your relaxed mind and then seek the answers to your writing dilemma du jour:

Pursue wordless creativity

Engaging in other creative pursuits that are not related to your language center (the speaking, reading, writing part of  your brain) can, surprisingly, help your words flow better when you return to writing. Some things to try:

• Visual art: color, doodle, draw, paint, make collages with magazine cut-outs, scrapbook, shoot photos, retouch photos, record videos 
• Tactile/visual craft: knit, crochet, sew, bead, embroider, whittle, carve stone or ice, do woodworking, throw pottery, sculpt with clay, play with PlayDoh
• Auditory: play an instrument, whistle, hum, sing, drum on household objects ala Stomp.
• Tactile/scent/taste: cook, bake, decorate baked goods, make candy, can preserves or produce

Get moving

As I mentioned in my post Two Habits That Will Cultivate Creativity, the act of walking has been shown to improve creativity, while one is on the move and for a period shortly afterward. It's the physical act of putting one foot in front of the other that matters, far more than the environment, so when it's frigid and icy outside, hop on a treadmill or roam an indoor shopping center to get the same benefit.

Do something boring and mentally roam

There's a reason all your best ideas come while you're weeding the garden or washing dishes or folding laundry: your full concentration isn't needed. Thus your brain is free to roam around. And because our minds love stories, well, that's the kind of jaunt your mind will want to take. Somewhere more interesting than this weedy plot, bubble-filled sink, or heaping basket.

Draw out and converse with your characters

Once you've gotten to a relaxed state doing one or more of the activities above, invite the characters from the problem scene to hang out with you. If they get chatting among themselves, listen in.

If they're a bit reticent to open up, ask them leading questions, like "how are you feeling in this moment? What are you upset or worried about? What are you desiring or hoping for?" Listen and record. Journal for your character. Pretend you're instant messaging or texting with him or her. Write a letter from your character to the person you need them to interact with (for more "epistle brainstorming" ideas, see THIS post). Be open to hearing the characters' attitudes and emotions especially. Don't press the scene into a particular shape, but simply gather ideas and freewrite, quick and messy.

Do you regularly take time to let your mind relax? Which activities sound like they'd help you most when you need to coax a solution from your subconscious?

Photo credit: pippalou from morguefile.com

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A surprising key to productivity (you probably haven't let yourself try)

I've read far more books and blog posts about how to be productive than I can accurately count. So much of the advice sounds exactly the same: have a routine, commit to it, don't stop until you meet your goal, treat it like a job. These little tidbits sound great for just about anything other than creative work. Some people can approach writing like it's laundry or at worst, doing your taxes. It might be a bit tough at times, but any momentary qualms can be powered through.

Well, that's not how I'm wired. I set aside time to write, commit to it and...freeze at the keyboard. Or think of twenty other things I'd rather be doing. Or simply beat myself up for not being Shakespeare yesterday. And trying to dedicate more time? Well, it often only makes me more anxious.

Steven Pressfield came along and gave my affliction a label. He called it "resistance," and made it seem pretty normal. Anything you care about, he argues, will bring with it a certain level of fear. His book The War of Art goes into great detail about what resistance feels like and what causes it. His solutions to it, however, haven't borne much fruit for me. Yes, routine can help; silly rituals can help; taking yourself seriously as an artist can help.

But none of these things remove the anxiety factor for me. So when I stumbled across Around the Writer's Block: Using Brain Science to Solve Writer's Resistance, I had to take a look. The author Rosanne Bane goes into a lot of detail about the brain science behind how anxiety derails creative control. To summarize, what writers need most is to develop habits that create a state of mental relaxation so that the fight-or-flight instinct doesn't make you want to leave your desk before you even type one word. And because of neuroplasticity (the brain's inherent capacity for change), new habits can actually cause lasting brain changes.

Photo credit: Maena from morguefile.com

The most powerfully different habit she advocates to be a productive writer?

Play.

You're probably thinking, "Whoa, what? If I want to be more productive, I need to play more? What is this, Opposite Day?"

Bane says writers need to build in a habit of doing something fun and nonproductive 3-5 days a week for any period you can easily commit to. Ten, fifteen or twenty minutes is fine. The point of this play commitment (what she calls "process time") is to retrain your brain toward a relaxed state. The neural pathways you are building will become stronger than the ones that link creative work with fear.

Frankly, I'm tired enough of tangling with my inner resistance to give it a try. Bane recommended coming up with a list for yourself of things you find relaxing and writing down what you are committing to.

My brain balked at this at first. It was surprisingly hard to actually remember what activities I once did for fun, years ago before I started focusing on novel-length writing. Digging through some boxes in storage refreshed my memory about the many hobbies and enthusiasms I once regularly enjoyed.

Here's my list:
play with my cats
play tin whistle
improvise on the piano
sing
do calligraphy
sketch
bake
scrapbook
do scherenschnitte, quilling, and other paper crafts
garden
take photos
make collages
play with magnetic poetry
play Wii

I've committed to fifteen minutes three times a week. Today I unearthed my Irish tin whistle and played a handful of tunes by ear, then worked in the garden. I can attest that my mood improved.

As I think back to the days when I wrote most prolifically (middle and high school), I also made space in my life for hobbies. Maybe hobbies are what enabled me to be on honor roll, work part time and be in band, choir, art club, and school newspaper while writing lots.

It's a theory worth experimenting with. Hey, at least I'll be having fun regularly.

Do you include play in your routine? What favorite activities might you give 45 minutes a week?

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The gift of hardship: honing your storytelling in times of trial

Photo credit: RoganJosh from morguefile.com 

How often are you going happily along in your routines when—BAM!—some misfortune or difficulty derails you? One's natural instinct is to get through, get out, get away from the hardship as soon as possible, looking neither to the left or the right.

But there’s another way to think about life’s rough patches—as opportunity.  This perspective is something I’ve been raised with, but didn’t always appreciate. A mishap with the plumbing in our hundred-year-old urban rowhouse was a poignant refresher course.

In early August 2009, I had a harrowing night when our third floor toilet’s water line broke. The problem went unnoticed for about 20 minutes, until the water started raining into the second floor through a light fixture and continued downward into the first floor and basement. The next few hours were eaten up with bailing, mopping, tamping down towels, laundering towels, running fans. The next morning, as I stumbled around, fatigued and worried a ceiling might still collapse, I couldn’t help but remember what my mother always says about these sorts of disasters: “it will make a good story later.”

If my life is a story, then it’s the messes, mishaps, and failures that actually make it interesting. Not that I seek these things out, but when disaster does occur, it carries with it the promise of bringing something ultimately transformative, maybe even redemptive. “It will make a good story later” makes me notice things I otherwise wouldn’t, from the shape of stains on the ceiling to the way my husband’s shoulders slump as he contemplates them.

Watching Mom over the years ferret away details in the midst of turmoil then transform them into captivating comic stories has been quite an education. Not only have I learned to see the humor potential in all things (and to never take myself too seriously), I’ve also gained a habit of attentiveness when life goes awry—a valuable skill in any writer’s toolbox.

As you come to grips with the possibilities of  “it will make a good story later,” you can begin to develop both a habit of attentiveness and a new perspective on what makes you truly the writer you are, with stories only you can tell.

Life’s interruptions to routine can be a creative gift to you. They put you in new places with access to new relationships and experiences. They force you to understand suffering, fear, frustration, anger, sorrow, and all other shades of negative emotion necessary to create deeply real characters that readers connect with.

Don’t panic when life interrupts your writing routine. Pay attention. It will make a good story later.

What hardships have made you the writer you are? What storytelling mentor has shaped your approach and how?

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Those elusive aha moments

Have you ever been struck at an odd time with a solution to a plot or character problem that's been niggling at you for weeks? I was actually awakened in the early morning by one of these kinds of "aha!" moments.

image: Camdiluv, wikimedia commons

I'd turned in some chapters to my crit group last week, hoping they could tell me what wasn't working in chapter 15. I was tired of staring at it, thinking something is not working, yet not being able to pinpoint it. This morning I woke with a jolt, realizing I'd been afraid to let some characters come into contact because the meeting could be potentially explosive. But writing away from the confrontation made the built up tension deflate. With that realization came several more about what was falling flat in the chapter and what followed. These wonderful insights were soon followed with the sinking feeling, why didn't I wait just one more week before sending those chapters out?

Had I held onto the problem chapters, would the solutions have come to me? Probably not. I needed my mind to unclench--something that came only after releasing the problem pages to others.

Reflecting on this phenomenon, I now realize that the more we try to force insight or solutions, the more they tend to elude us. Intuition does not behave as well under pressure as it does in states of relaxation.

This puts me in a bit of a quandary, however. Because I know this could become an excuse to let something simmer rather than keep working when plot knots or character glitches crop up.

Are there ways of letting go of a problem section to let the the subconscious mull it and yet maintain a writing routine? 

What do you do? Research? Sketch out possible permutations of other scenes? Pick up a side project for a while? I'd love to hear what has worked for you.

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Now what? Four key strategies for getting unstuck

image credit: wikihow.com

Maybe you're coming down off the high of "winning" NaNo, or you tried and gave up, or you're just doing the usual ___ words-per-day, and suddenly find you simply cannot write. You're stuck. Panic begins to creep in. You think, I'll never finish! I'm a boring, talentless hack. Or worse, you become mired in apathy. Who cares about this dumb story? Why bother?

Here are a few things you should NOT do when this happens:

• Stick your head in an oven like Sylvia Plath.
• Delete the entire manuscript.
• Sell all your possessions and buy a one-way ticket to an exotic locale.
• Get started on a shiny new idea. Or three.  Or twelve.

Being blocked isn't worth dying for, and if you give up every time you hit obstacles, you'll never finish anything. A change of venue won't solve the real problem--you and your ideas. And many a writer has gotten waylaid in the Forest of Infinite Possibilities (aka Shiny New Idea Syndrome), never to emerge with a single finished manuscript.

Instead, try a more proactive approach to getting back on track.

Determine the cause of the stuckness

Getting stuck in a project is usually a symptom of two common writing maladies:  Writer's Block Wall and Writer's Block Desert. Take a look at the posts I linked for descriptions of the symptoms of each type of stuckness.

Generally, walls pop up when you stubbornly insist on continuing in the wrong direction. Deserts appear when you are burned out, or you need creative "food and drink" -- more raw material.

Pinpoint the wrong turn 

Sometimes we end up stuck because of a wrong turn that led to a dead end, a twisted forest path or a cliff with no guardrails. The only way to get the story moving again is to retrace your steps to where the wrong turn happened. I elaborate the causes and how to go about finding your wrong turn HERE.

If, after reading your manuscript and pinpointing where you think the story stopped working, you still have no idea where to turn next, let a trusted critique partner or beta reader take a look. Sometimes you are too close to the story to see the problem. My wonderful CPs have helped me find wrong turns that happened earlier than I initially thought. Getting help sooner rather than later enabled me to get back on track without having to toss out weeks of work.

Delve deeper

Sometimes we get stuck because we don't yet know the characters well enough to predict how they'd naturally react to story events, or we don't know our story world well enough to develop interesting plots. Taking time out to generate more raw material for your story can get it moving again.

• Research more deeply the milieu of your story, not only the setting, but also the larger cultural forces.
• Read up on psychological phenomena likely to effect your characters, from birth order and parenting styles to neuroses and full-blown mental illnesses.
• Think through and plan the protagonist's inner journey of emotional change.
• Research and develop associations for each character based on their upbringing, training and interests so you can better create character voices.
• Develop all the characters, even the minor ones, and not just backstory. Give every character things to do, places to be, relationships, worries, plans and goals that engage them during the "here and now" of your story--even if much of that life happens offstage. The traces you sprinkle in will make every character feel more real. 
• Experiment with handling a scene several different ways, using visualization first.
• Practice riff-writing to flesh out an already-written section.

Feed your creativity

Think of your creativity as a pet. Or better as the "good wolf" of joy, hope, kindness, and courage spoken of in Cherokee legend that fights inside you for dominance. It will thrive only if you feed it. Here are some ways to do just that:

• Spend time in nature. Studies show that it improves mood, increases energy, and reduces stress.
• Connect with a friend or relative. Talk about favorite memories or traditions, overcoming obstacles, a "stranger-than-fiction" experience, or embarrassing moment. Human interaction is one the the best ways to jump-start creativity.
• Create a movement journal in which you chronicle observations from people watching. 
• Watch visually stunning movies. Beauty can be very healing.
• Develop playlists of music that reflect the core emotions of your stories.
• Read wonderful books and let yourself be carried away or analyze what you loved and found exciting.
• Read terrible books and analyze what went wrong or simply be encouraged that you can do better.
• Pick up resource books to encourage you. I talk about one of my favorites HERE.
• Journal using writing prompts.
• Write about your childhood (Anne Lamott's favorite creativity exercise).

What are your favorite strategies for getting unstuck?

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Plot stuck? Rewind

I recently returned from my first writing retreat, which was a somewhat tough experience, because I was trying to wrangle a "problem child" manuscript. Forcing myself to write through the block made one thing very clear--I'd taken some wrong turns early on. Last night my critique group met and helped me pinpoint key choices I made in chapter three that are at the root of getting repeatedly stuck and frustrated ever after.

If you find yourself frequently hitting walls as you draft, learn from my mistake and ask a few trusted readers to take a look at your opening chapters sooner rather than later. Sometimes a decision that seemed logical to you won't to another reader. Pinpointing those issues early on will save you a lot of grief.

When you drive without GPS and take a wrong turn somewhere, plowing ahead will only get you more lost. That's when you need to stop and retrace your steps back to the place where you did have a sense of direction. (Or stop and ask for directions.)

In the case of a story, that means rewind. Go back to the last place where the story was working at its full potential, then slowly read on in search of the wrong turn.


Here are some common culprits:

Characterization
~Protagonist loses sight of his/her objective

~Protagonist's desire or motivation shifts unexpectedly

~A character does something with no logical motivation

~A character doesn't do something s/he'd logically be motivated to do

~A character overreacts and conflict escalates or resolution happens too soon

~A character underreacts and forward motion doesn't happen

~A secondary character or subplot suddenly steals center stage

Structure/pacing
~A plot complication is too low-stakes

~Early information dump leaves too little surprise to be revealed later

~You've withheld information that would enable forward movement

~You've introduced too many complications or obstacles too soon

~You've introduced too many characters--some aren't important or interesting

~You need to introduce secondary characters sooner and make them pull their weight

~You have no subplots, or you've failed to keep moving a subplot forward

~You've given inadequate attention to the protagonist's inner journey

Whether your story is plot-driven or character-driven, emotions are the real energy behind it all, so developing characters' emotions well and "on pitch" is the core challenge. Thus, it's very often characterization issues that get us off course most frequently.

Every time I've made a wrong turn with plot, there were seeds of off-pitch emotions behind it. Those off-pitch moments can start very, very subtly--a yelp when a gasp would do, an analytic thought in a moment of panic. Or perhaps the plot complication I introduced is not high stakes enough to trigger the big emotions I need to move the story forward. Balancing plot with characterization is a tricky dance.

Don't be surprised when you rewind to discover a seemingly nothing moment that inadvertently set the wrong tone, which then snowballed all other emotions in the wrong direction. Tweak that moment, and you'd be surprised how quickly you're back on course again.

How might the rewind concept help you?

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Finding brain space (and a winner!)

I won't torment you finger-crossing, breath-holding entrants in my anthology giveaway. Let's cut to the chase.

Heidi Willis

is the winner of  Poetry Pact volume 1!!

Thanks to everyone who entered. And note that the Kindle edition is now available for just $2.99. All proceeds go to Direct Relief International, a global aid organization.



Finding brain space

In the past year or so, I've struggled with an inner world that sounds a bit like this:

laundry - train - how many characters is too many? - school bus - out of aluminum foil - how do you document this version of Joyce's Ulysses? - veterinarian appointment - ADHD - printer jam - 1703 merchant costume for social studies project - Ezra Pound estate - ironing - prayer - elevator scene - weed and mulch - does Turkish have a possessive case? - choosing gratitude - blog commenting - dentist appointments - advertising deadline - back cover blurb - playdates - squirrel - baby shower - moldy shower curtain - curtain styles in the 1960s - Beatnik poetry - poetry anthology - Duotrope e-mails - another birthday party ?! - dinner with "the girls" - weight gain - parenting through puberty - date night - dying neighbor - homonym errors - book trailer - fleas - wedding present - friend's divorce - abiding in Christ - evil candy-filled vending machine - stroke or no stroke in chapter 11? - dog's arthritis ...

If I were to go through the list with colored markers, I could pretty quickly identify what thoughts are consuming most of my brain space (job, household management, kid) and which ones are barely registering (hello neglected hubby, extended family, poetry writing).

As I've been reading up on "executive skills" to help my daughter become less scattered, I've had to come to grips with my own strengths and weaknesses. My girl has a very poor "working memory"--the ability to hold and quickly draw on practical information--yet mine is excellent. I rarely write lists, believing I don't need to. But the more I keep adding new information to my mental lists, the more noisy my brain becomes. Soon that "excellent working memory" becomes more of a handicap than an asset. So much is in my head, I can't easily articulate my needs so others can pitch in. I get more and more overwhelmed because I've made my memory my master.

And you know what else? I have no brain space for aesthetic pleasure, creativity or long-term planning and dreaming. And this, friends, is no way to really live.

I've been able to help my daughter tackle her morning, after school and bedtime routines with fewer reminders and nagging by simply creating lists and incentives. As she successfully completes tasks and moves a magnet or pushpin from the "to do" to "done" column each day, she earns songs for her MP3 player. She's doing great, I'm yelling less. And best of all? I don't have to remember what she needs to remember.

In fact, remembering less feels so good, I want to start doing it more often in other areas of my life. At the office, I've made more use of spreadsheets and the "tasks" function in Gmail.

I'm keeping a journal in my purse for note taking. I've also looked into the Kindle apps store, and I think I'll download calendar and address book apps so I no longer feel the need to hold so many dates and phone numbers in my head.

Creativity requires breathing space in your brain. If you find yourself frequently stuck, or simply not writing much at all, consider how you might clear some mental clutter.

Is yours as crowded as mine? How might you clear some mental space?

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Desert wandering: another kind of "writer's block"*

We all get stuck at times, find our productivity come to a screeching--or sputtering--halt. In THIS previous post, I discussed one of the causes--hitting walls because we hadn't let our intuition guide the process and had taken the story in the wrong direction.

In the comments on that post, I got the sense that walls are not as common as desert times for making us unproductive. So what is this phenomenon--"desert" writer's block?

Image from weathersavvy.com.

Desert

"The word block suggests you are constipated or stuck, when in truth you are empty."

--Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird 178.

"You're blocked because you have nothing to say. Your talent didn't abandon you. If you had something to say, you couldn't stop writing. You can't kill your talent, but you can starve it into a coma through ignorance."

--Robert McKee, Story 73-74

We've all been there--somehow stuck in a place where you're plumb out of ideas. This place feels hot and parched and lifeless--desert-like. Entering a desert usually looks like the following:

- Your characters are faceless mannequins.
- The story setting is a big white box.
- Your characters slump around looking bored.
- The sound loop is your head is chirping crickets, or some really annoying pop song with unintelligible words.
- When you sit down to write, the only word that comes to mind is "waffles."
- You can't blog, tweet or update your Facebook status.
- Your house is exceptionally clean.

Lamott says that you need to accept that these desert times are going to come. In that acceptance, you free yourself to begin filling up again. When the Israelites let the pillar of cloud and fire lead them, God sent them the resources they needed--manna to fell from the sky, water gushed from a rock. The fact was, they couldn't get to the Promised Land on their own--they needed divine intervention. So do we. Call it "the muse," one's "inner light," "intuition," "unconscious mind," "talent" or "the Holy Spirit"--the sources of creativity need freedom and care and feeding.

So how do you allow the empty places to refill? Acceptance, as Lamott says, is a huge piece of it. If you try to push, "Your unconscious can't work when you are breathing down it's neck" (Lamott, 182). She suggests writing 300 words a day culling your memories--just rough journaling to keep you loose. Then seek things that feed you--walking, visiting friends, reading lots of great and terrible books, wandering museums and historic sites.

McKee's advice is strikingly similar. He suggests research as a way of filling up in empty times: "No matter how talented, the ignorant cannot write. Talent must be stimulated by facts and ideas. Do research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliche, it's the key to victory over fear and its cousin, depression."

What things have helped feed you in empty, desert times? What new thing might you try based on Lamott's and McKee's advice?

*This is a revised repost from October, 2010

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Lessons from a Lefty

Obviously the best thing about being married to a left-handed person when you're right handed is you can hold hands and both still write. Cool, huh?

Beyond that, I've also discovered that handedness dictates one's orientation to the world. Thus, my hubby does a lot of things "backwards." Sometimes it's just puzzling. Other times I realized he's shown me an approach I'd never considered.

Take loading the dishwasher, for example. He loaded a stack of bowls the opposite direction I do--and they fit BETTER. Holy habituation, Batman! I'd never have tried that trick on my own.

I think this lesson has application to writing--especially when you're perplexed with a plot hole or an uncooperative character. Instead of plowing ahead full steam on your usual course, consider approaching from the opposite direction. Reorient. Perhaps you need to draft a scene from a secondary character's point of view in order to see your protagonist and his motivations more clearly. Perhaps your protagonist needs to react differently to her circumstances--opposite of what you've planned. Maybe the antagonist is a misunderstood hero, or the nice neighbor is a psycho.

Mental habits can be a tough obstacle to overcome. When you're most stuck, you might need to add more "lefties" to your circle of beta readers. Or you might try rearranging the furniture in your writing space or changing writing venues. You'll be surprised how a single turn can open new possibilities.

Have you experimented with approaching a problem from the opposite direction you usually take? How might reorienting help your writing?

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It's a wrap

Today is the last day of November and as I look back over the past 30 days, I'm SO glad I skipped NaNoWriMo in favor of NaBalWriMo (national balanced writers month).

I had a number of goals for myself and accomplished a few of them, as well as a few things that should have been on the list. Highlights for me include:

More exercise.
Committing to regularly walking the dog also got me pumped to bike more often. Hobbit girl and I have found some great places to ride and we've had a blast.

Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you.
I've been decluttering the house like crazy and donating stuff whenever possible. During one drop off, hobbit girl wanted to pop into the thrift shop to look at books and videos. She found some Harry Potter stationery and I got a freaking miracle. There was a Maytag portable dishwasher (the kind you hook up to your kitchen sink for an hour) for $50, or 10% of what the machines cost new. At last I could be free from my 10 years of sink slavery without having to spend a fortune to redo the entire kitchen. We removed one cabinet and voila, I now have an extra hour a day of not doing chores!!! Woo hoo!

Reaching out.
I participated in Harry Potter week with some old and new blog friends and had so much fun! After nearly a year and a half of running this blog, it was great to rekindle my enthusiasm for it. I also finally got an author page for myself up and running on Facebook. It's been great connecting with people there and that's helped tremendously with query jitters.

Refreshing.
Letting myself off the hook to produce has been a mixed blessing. While not writing has loosed the grip of perfectionism that had been so immobilizing, I also began to feel lonely not hanging out with my characters. I missed them and yesterday dove back in to work on plot knots.

Movies, I found, were wonderful for restoring my courage and sense of play, perhaps because it's a different medium. The documentary American Teen is one I'd recommend to my YA writing friends if you ever need to remind yourself why reaching out to kids this age is your passion. Disney's Tangled will instill you with hope that old things can be refreshed and made stronger. If you're bogged down in revisions, this is the flick for you. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows instilled in me once again that evil wins when good people do nothing and that pursuing a calling can be hard and thankless at times, but support is near and abundant.

How was your November? What things have refreshed you during dry times? Have you ever taken a break from writing? What brought you back to the desk?

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Experiments and surprises

Getting out from under a work deadline has been incredibly freeing. And so has committing myself to NaBalWriMo, my experiment in "filling up" in a period of burnout.

I got in a bike ride with hobbit girl yesterday and she was quite impressed, since I haven't ridden in over a decade. That old adage about never forgetting how to ride is totally true. My muscles were remembering all my best bike memories. The summer between eighth and ninth grade, for example, I biked 10 miles nearly every day going to visit my BF Becky and her new horse, Chess. I liked to imagine my silver 10-speed was a dapple grey gelding named Strider. Unlike Chess, he never tried to throw me. Chess was green-broke, and I don't know what Becky's parents were thinking buying such an animal for a 14-y0.

But I digress. And I have to say it's an exceptionally good sign I'm able to do so. A week ago I was so fried, I could not have called up a memory from that era.

I did some quality writing yesterday on a scene I've been stuck on for ages. As Anne Lamott said, sometimes you just have to try things. Four hundred words later, I feel like energy is coming back in this project I'd begun to despair about.

Film time with hubby was the most surprising part of the day. We'd had this Argentinian Netflix pick "The Secret in Their Eyes" sitting around for two weeks unwatched. The fact it was about a writer researching and writing a novel appealed to me. The description on the sleeve was rather offputting, though:

"A startling discovery comes to light for retired Argentine criminal investigator Benjamín Espósito (Ricardo Darín) as he pens a biographical novel about the unsolved case of a young newlywed's brutal r*pe and murder years ago. Past and present intertwine for Espósito and colleague Irene Menéndez Hastings (Soledad Villamil) in director Juan José Campanella's Oscar-winning character study in which justice, pain and love collide."

I generally avoid movies with the word "brutal" anywhere in the description. I have to say, however, that this film approached a heinous crime with such sensitivity and emotional beauty. What matters is how deeply concerned the protagonist is with seeing justice served for the victim and the husband she left behind.

As a writer, I was especially interested in the protagonist's grappling with the aesthetic and ethical implications of fictionally "doing justice" to this case that has haunted and shaped his life.

The cinematography draws you in right away. Arty scenes suddenly cut to Benjamín crossing out lines and crumpling pages. He tries opening after opening--something I could totally relate to, even if my genre isn't crime fiction.

The film switches back and forth in time. In the present, a retired Benjamín writes and researches his novel and tries to make sense of his past. In flashbacks, younger Benjamín the legal counselor gets drawn into a case that is bungled by his superiors. He and a colleague (to whom he's obviously attracted) work to solve the crime and bring the killer to justice.

Justice, and how it is intertwined with love and fear (and love with fear) becomes the thematic thread linking the case, Benjamín's novel and Benjamín's search for meaning as he enters old age. Several very clever literary leitmotifs echo among the story lines. In the end, Benjamín must learn to reinterpret and re-narrate his own life. It's a powerful picture of how writing shapes the writer.

Have you tried something new lately? What pleasant surprises have resulted?

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"Writer's block": Wall or desert? (part 2)

We all get stuck at times, find our productivity come to a screeching--or sputtering--halt. In THIS previous post, I discussed one of the causes--hitting walls because we hadn't let our intuition guide the process and had taken the story in the wrong direction.

In the comments on that post, I got the sense that walls are not as common as desert times for making us unproductive. So what is this phenomenon--"desert" writer's block?

Image from weathersavvy.com.

Desert

"The word block suggests you are constipated or stuck, when in truth you are empty."

--Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird 178.

"You're blocked because you have nothing to say. Your talent didn't abandon you. If you had something to say, you couldn't stop writing. You can't kill your talent, but you can starve it into a coma through ignorance."

--Robert McKee, Story 73-74

We've all been there--somehow stuck in a place where you're plumb out of ideas. This place feels hot and parched and lifeless--desert-like. Entering a desert usually looks like the following:

- Your characters are faceless mannequins.
- The story setting is a big white box.
- Your characters slump around looking bored.
- The sound loop is your head is chirping crickets, or some really annoying pop song with unintelligible words.
- When you sit down to write, the only word that comes to mind is "waffles."
- You can't blog, tweet or update your Facebook status.
- Your house is exceptionally clean.

Lamott says that you need to accept that these desert times are going to come. In that acceptance, you free yourself to begin filling up again. When the Israelites let the pillar of cloud and fire lead them, God sent them the resources they needed--manna to fell from the sky, water gushed from a rock. The fact was, they couldn't get to the Promised Land on their own--they needed divine intervention. So do we. Call it "the muse," one's "inner light," "intuition," "unconscious mind," "talent" or "the Holy Spirit"--the sources of creativity need freedom and care and feeding.

So how do you allow the empty places to refill? Acceptance, as Lamott says, is a huge piece of it. If you try to push, "Your unconscious can't work when you are breathing down it's neck" (Lamott, 182). She suggests writing 300 words a day culling your memories--just rough journaling to keep you loose. Then seek things that feed you--walks, visits with friends, reading lots of great and terrible books, go to museums and historic sites.

McKee's advice is strikingly similar. He suggests research as a way of filling up in empty times: "No matter how talented, the ignorant cannot write. Talent must be stimulated by facts and ideas. Do research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliche, it's the key to victory over fear and its cousin, depression."

Veronica Roth had a great post on this same concept, "Not Writing, or Why Your Brain Is an Ice Cream Maker."

In other news, I just won my very own copy of Lamott's wonderful book from C.A. Marshall. Go check out her fabulous blog!

What things have helped feed you in empty, desert times? What new thing might you try based on Lamott's and McKee's advice?

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