When I was a kid, the week or two that I spent at camp (first Campfire Girls, then church camp) were the highlight of the summer. I saved my allowance and chore money to go. Today I leave for writing retreat, one of my most favorite times of the year.
A group of women friends, all writers, are headed up to Aldermarsh Retreat Center on Whidbey Island, just north of Seattle. We'll spend the next week writing on our projects, communing with nature and our spirits, eating well, and having a lot of fun.
To create the maximum space possible for the projects, we keep silence until 4 pm each day so that there is plenty of quiet in which to breathe, dream, write, sleep, rest, read, and just be. Then we meet for circle, share our writings and our joys and obstacles, and check in on what we need from each other. Each person has a day she is responsible for meals, with license to be as simple or as extravagant as she likes. After dinner, we play games, collage, do art, talk, and some of us go back to the computer if the writing is going especially well.
It's an amazing experience to have all the time you want for writing and thinking about writing and reading about writing and talking about writing. Each of us tends to get a lot done in one realm or another and we come back more solidly inhabiting our writer selves.
Hurray for camp!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Ignoring the practicalities
I've been reading Leonard Bishop's Dare to Be a Great Writer, a 1988 compilaton of "329 keys to powerful fiction." While I don't agree with all of his advice, sometimes things are just spot on.
In a section called "Don't Postpone Your Novel," he lists all the arguments to do so. It takes years to write a good one. You don't have that kind of time. You won't get published anyway. No agents are interested in new writers. You're probably not all that good to begin with. Maybe you should take some more classes first or go to a few more workshops or find another writing group.
Instead, he admonishes: Ignore the practicalities and embrace the vision. Believe in yourself, your abilities, your talents, your sense of self. Hone your discipline, your persistence. It's that old saw about courage. That courage isn't about waiting until we have no fear, it's about moving forward anyway. And so what if your first novel isn't all that great? At least you'll have written it. That's more than the talk-about-writing folks can say.
In a section called "Don't Postpone Your Novel," he lists all the arguments to do so. It takes years to write a good one. You don't have that kind of time. You won't get published anyway. No agents are interested in new writers. You're probably not all that good to begin with. Maybe you should take some more classes first or go to a few more workshops or find another writing group.
Instead, he admonishes: Ignore the practicalities and embrace the vision. Believe in yourself, your abilities, your talents, your sense of self. Hone your discipline, your persistence. It's that old saw about courage. That courage isn't about waiting until we have no fear, it's about moving forward anyway. And so what if your first novel isn't all that great? At least you'll have written it. That's more than the talk-about-writing folks can say.
Friday, June 25, 2010
keeping a creative journal
About 12 years ago, I added a second journal to my arsenal of creative endeavors. I'd already been journaling daily for a number of years, as I've mentioned here before. While I'd been an on-again/off-again diarist (mostly writing in angst), after I did the Artist's Way, I started doing morning pages each day and it has become an emotional and spiritual practice as well as part of my creative work.
The second journal is what I call my creative journal. It's where I take notes at workshops or lectures, paste in quotes or good ideas, keep track of my thinking about my novels, write prompts or poetry, do lists with my groups. It's a record of the creative work in my life.
I don't use it every day but most days I put something in it, espcially once I started using it as a sort of scrap book.
Other people keep sketching journals or do visual journaling and while I do some of that in other notebooks, especially if I'm traveling, the creative journal is one I've stuck to.
The second journal is what I call my creative journal. It's where I take notes at workshops or lectures, paste in quotes or good ideas, keep track of my thinking about my novels, write prompts or poetry, do lists with my groups. It's a record of the creative work in my life.
I don't use it every day but most days I put something in it, espcially once I started using it as a sort of scrap book.
Other people keep sketching journals or do visual journaling and while I do some of that in other notebooks, especially if I'm traveling, the creative journal is one I've stuck to.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
4 hours a day
I spent time collaging with a good friend yesterday. It felt really good to me to be doing something visual and spatial with color after a number of weeks of word work, writing and editing most days of the week for clients. Kathie had recently taken a calligraphy class and an acquaintance was also taking the class. She told Kathie that she had been doing a year-long study with a Master Teacher, who would fly out once a month to work with her group in Salem. The first time they met, the teacher laid out his expectation.
Each of them was to work 4 hours per day on their art and craft. 4 hours per day every day all year. He didn't care whether it was evening or morning or middle of the night, in 1 session or 8 sessions, but they had to put the time in.
Think what we would happen for each of us if we dedicated that amount to our writing, our painting, our tennis, our gardening, our interests. Even if we varied the topic of our four hours, think of what that might mean.
I'd finish my novel this year. I'd write a lot of poetry. I'd finally read the writing books and painting books and creativity books that line 6 of my 8 book shelves. I'd produce a lot of pastels. I'd get good at it. I'd market my books.
I'd probably eat less, watch way fewer Netflix, sleep less. I'd probably work my paid job much more efficiently, do my errands much more efficiently, to keep blocks of time open for creativity.
What might change for you?
Each of them was to work 4 hours per day on their art and craft. 4 hours per day every day all year. He didn't care whether it was evening or morning or middle of the night, in 1 session or 8 sessions, but they had to put the time in.
Think what we would happen for each of us if we dedicated that amount to our writing, our painting, our tennis, our gardening, our interests. Even if we varied the topic of our four hours, think of what that might mean.
I'd finish my novel this year. I'd write a lot of poetry. I'd finally read the writing books and painting books and creativity books that line 6 of my 8 book shelves. I'd produce a lot of pastels. I'd get good at it. I'd market my books.
I'd probably eat less, watch way fewer Netflix, sleep less. I'd probably work my paid job much more efficiently, do my errands much more efficiently, to keep blocks of time open for creativity.
What might change for you?
Sunday, June 20, 2010
In media res
I spent some time reading fellow editor Christine Fairchild's Editor Devil blog yesterday and was struck by the following paragraph:
Of the many techniques I learned from studying film and scriptwriting, my favorite is “enter late, leave early.” This means your scene is really just a middle slice out of a sequence of events (i.e. it does not contain all the events).
I'd been struggling a little with how to explain to a client why the start of his novel was dull and Christine's comments reminded me of something I learned in a literature class early in graduate school. Drop your characters "in media res" was the advice: in the middle of things. Don't give all the background, don't set everything up, don't have the main character get up, brush her teeth, feed the cat, etc., as Christine notes, just drop them into the middle and hook your reader.
My client, I'll call him Steve, has several chapters of background. In and of itself, the historical reasons for the story are quite fascinating but they don't put me in the story itself and that's where I want to be, from page one.
Of the many techniques I learned from studying film and scriptwriting, my favorite is “enter late, leave early.” This means your scene is really just a middle slice out of a sequence of events (i.e. it does not contain all the events).
I'd been struggling a little with how to explain to a client why the start of his novel was dull and Christine's comments reminded me of something I learned in a literature class early in graduate school. Drop your characters "in media res" was the advice: in the middle of things. Don't give all the background, don't set everything up, don't have the main character get up, brush her teeth, feed the cat, etc., as Christine notes, just drop them into the middle and hook your reader.
My client, I'll call him Steve, has several chapters of background. In and of itself, the historical reasons for the story are quite fascinating but they don't put me in the story itself and that's where I want to be, from page one.
Friday, June 18, 2010
The Creative Tao
One of my favorite creativity references is Pamela K. Metz's The Creative Tao, published in 1997. It's both about the artistic process and about living life in a creative way. Her interpretation of Lao Tze's ancient text is always inspiring to me. Here's are a couple of excerpts:
37. Practice
The creative Tao does nothing,
yet all things are done through it.
If women and men would practice creative living,
then our world would be more natural.
People would find the artistry in their daily lives and be surprised by their inventiveness.
When creativity is practiced,
there is contentment in the world.
52. Telling the Story
Each person has a story to tell.
When you know your own story,
you begin to understand your life.
If you refuse to know yourself,
you may limit your possibilities.
If you embrace your journey,
you may find peace in your heart.
Seeking the unknown helps to create mysteries.
Giving up the known may lead to enlightenment.
Telling the story is a creative person's quest.
37. Practice
The creative Tao does nothing,
yet all things are done through it.
If women and men would practice creative living,
then our world would be more natural.
People would find the artistry in their daily lives and be surprised by their inventiveness.
When creativity is practiced,
there is contentment in the world.
52. Telling the Story
Each person has a story to tell.
When you know your own story,
you begin to understand your life.
If you refuse to know yourself,
you may limit your possibilities.
If you embrace your journey,
you may find peace in your heart.
Seeking the unknown helps to create mysteries.
Giving up the known may lead to enlightenment.
Telling the story is a creative person's quest.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The role of cogitation in fiction
I'm spending a couple of days at the beach. One of the projects I brought with me is to transfer all the notes on my current fiction project into my new creative journal (I keep two journals going all the time--a daily journal and an ongoing creative journal that keeps all my notes and quotes and ruminations).
The soon-to-be-completed creative journal, I'm happy to discover, is full of notes and questions and thoughts about the novel I'm working on. I take regular writing retreats and at the end of them, I spend the last few hours writing a lot about what's next to resolve. Copying these into the new journal is a great way to refresh my thinking and so it has set me contemplating and cogitating in preparation for my upcoming retreat and how I'm going to tackle some of the issues that await my characters.
As a long-term recovering alcoholic, I have a very conscious relationship with thinking. In the throes of my addiction, when I drank all day every day, I never really thought, I just reacted. And when I got sober, I became conscious of thinking again, of generating ideas, of being pro-active instead of just reactive.
Nothing pleases me more than the ideas that come to me about the characters and the plot tangles and the ways to resolve the predicaments I've written them into. And it takes quiet and space to do that, quiet and space that I don't usually allow myself at home. But I'm delighted to have this pre-retreat to get reved up.
The soon-to-be-completed creative journal, I'm happy to discover, is full of notes and questions and thoughts about the novel I'm working on. I take regular writing retreats and at the end of them, I spend the last few hours writing a lot about what's next to resolve. Copying these into the new journal is a great way to refresh my thinking and so it has set me contemplating and cogitating in preparation for my upcoming retreat and how I'm going to tackle some of the issues that await my characters.
As a long-term recovering alcoholic, I have a very conscious relationship with thinking. In the throes of my addiction, when I drank all day every day, I never really thought, I just reacted. And when I got sober, I became conscious of thinking again, of generating ideas, of being pro-active instead of just reactive.
Nothing pleases me more than the ideas that come to me about the characters and the plot tangles and the ways to resolve the predicaments I've written them into. And it takes quiet and space to do that, quiet and space that I don't usually allow myself at home. But I'm delighted to have this pre-retreat to get reved up.
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