In the personal transformation work I did about a decade ago, we used to talk a lot about whether we were playing big enough. Were our dreams, our goals, our desires small (modest, ordinary) or were they huge and challenging and calling us to be our best and most outrageous selves?
I think about those conversations this time of year as I reflect on what happened to last year's goals and I set new ones. On retreat last New Year's I set what I thought were outrageous creative goals: among them, to write 100 poems, get back into painting with 10 acrylics and 10 pastels, to finish novel #2 and shop it, to start a third novel, to go on writing retreats, to teach. I put down everything I wanted. And all but one of them was completed (I don't have a good painting yet for the cover of my first novel if I self-publish; I've done a couple of drawings but they're not quite right). Several things really helped me complete this list.
I placed a copy of it in the front of my creative journal/notebook so that it was the first thing I opened to each time I used the journal and I read it through it at least once a month. Second, some of the items were things I could schedule (retreats, painting dates, classes) and for which I could get support and so I did those things early in the year. Third, they were all things I wanted to do. Not a single one was a should. And while around some of them I felt a bit unsure if I had the skill or talent, they were all things I looked forward to doing. Lastly, the only measures were quantity, not quality. 100 poems, not 100 great poems. 10 pastels, not 10 sellable pastels.
The intention behind this was relatively simple to state. I wanted to step more fully into my life as a creative. So I wrote down a whole bunch of things to do that might get me there. I had no requirement on myself that I do them all. I just hoped to do a lot of them. And in having so many, I got motivated to get started early and keep going.
What are your creative goals for the year? What support and scheduling could you manifest to make that happen?
Here's to a wonderful new year of outrageous creativity for us all!
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Sitting in the gap
About noon today, I finished the first draft of Lola's story. What had been four pages of story that Lola told her daughter became 65 pages or a whole section of the book. It has been hugely fun to write because I knew where it started and where it ended and amazing ideas and characters happened in between.
Now I am sitting in the gap. Do I move on to Carla's story? Or do I go back to the main plot? I reread some of the main plot today and it's good. It's been several months since I've looked at it and I was pleased that it holds together.
In some ways it seems quite complicated to also do Carla's story (she's Frankie's sister and Lola's other daughter), but she's an important piece of the story so far so what happens to her next will be telling. But I don't know her yet. I don't who she is or what has happened to her.
So I am sitting in the gap, in the white space between the words, in the silence between the notes, in the skin between the eye lashes. I need to show up, stay put, and wait. Wish me luck.
Now I am sitting in the gap. Do I move on to Carla's story? Or do I go back to the main plot? I reread some of the main plot today and it's good. It's been several months since I've looked at it and I was pleased that it holds together.
In some ways it seems quite complicated to also do Carla's story (she's Frankie's sister and Lola's other daughter), but she's an important piece of the story so far so what happens to her next will be telling. But I don't know her yet. I don't who she is or what has happened to her.
So I am sitting in the gap, in the white space between the words, in the silence between the notes, in the skin between the eye lashes. I need to show up, stay put, and wait. Wish me luck.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Being specific
He waited a while. Then he left.
He waited 10 or 15 minutes. He wasn't sure as the phone got no reception. Then he walked away.
One of the many distinctions between good writers and beginners is the specificity of their language. Any time you can be more specific in the plot or the description or the dialog, consider it. She had dark hair or she had dark chocolate hair? He wore long pants or he wore tan Dockers? He walked down the road or he walked down the dusty road seeking out the occasional shadow?
Notice that I say "consider it," not "do it." Because the other side of the issue for beginners is using too much specificity.
He ate his burger with ketchup, mustard, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and onion. And on his fries, he put extra salt and ketchup.
This kind of detail doesn't tell me anything special about this character. Of course, if there isn't anything special about him to know, then I don't need any detail. But if there is, how can you show me? Thus, the details can't be specific for their own sake, but to show us or tell us something. Here's another example:
He took the lettuce out of the burger and folded the lettuce so that it was the exact size and shape of the patty. He then cut the burger into 4 quarters. She wondered if he had a secret way to measure them for they seemed exact. Then he took out a towelette, washed his hands, and proceeded to eat the sandwich with his knife and fork. "I'll be you think I'm weird, don't you?" he asked.
The details here tell us a lot. He's precise, he's fastidious. Just the man she wants to do the job of killing her husband.
You may not want to worry about specificity when you're drafting. Now that I write every morning, I spend the first few minutes reading the paragraphs from the day before. While I'm not editing, I will note a place where I can be specific. This morning I added this detail.
Before: She dried off in front of the window, watching the women in the garden below.
After: She dried off with the only clean towel in the bathroom, watching the women hoeing in the garden below.
See what comes alive in your writing when you add a few specifics.
He waited 10 or 15 minutes. He wasn't sure as the phone got no reception. Then he walked away.
One of the many distinctions between good writers and beginners is the specificity of their language. Any time you can be more specific in the plot or the description or the dialog, consider it. She had dark hair or she had dark chocolate hair? He wore long pants or he wore tan Dockers? He walked down the road or he walked down the dusty road seeking out the occasional shadow?
Notice that I say "consider it," not "do it." Because the other side of the issue for beginners is using too much specificity.
He ate his burger with ketchup, mustard, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and onion. And on his fries, he put extra salt and ketchup.
This kind of detail doesn't tell me anything special about this character. Of course, if there isn't anything special about him to know, then I don't need any detail. But if there is, how can you show me? Thus, the details can't be specific for their own sake, but to show us or tell us something. Here's another example:
He took the lettuce out of the burger and folded the lettuce so that it was the exact size and shape of the patty. He then cut the burger into 4 quarters. She wondered if he had a secret way to measure them for they seemed exact. Then he took out a towelette, washed his hands, and proceeded to eat the sandwich with his knife and fork. "I'll be you think I'm weird, don't you?" he asked.
The details here tell us a lot. He's precise, he's fastidious. Just the man she wants to do the job of killing her husband.
You may not want to worry about specificity when you're drafting. Now that I write every morning, I spend the first few minutes reading the paragraphs from the day before. While I'm not editing, I will note a place where I can be specific. This morning I added this detail.
Before: She dried off in front of the window, watching the women in the garden below.
After: She dried off with the only clean towel in the bathroom, watching the women hoeing in the garden below.
See what comes alive in your writing when you add a few specifics.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Love this
The Road to Mastery
Unconscious incompetence
Conscious incompetence
Conscious competence
Unconscious competence
-anonymous
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Blog post on income writers can expect
A writing friend, Cheri Lasota, sent a link to this blog to me. I found it most interesting and it certainly is a recommendation for picking a genre to write in and continuing to write and write and write.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Drafting or polishing?
In one of the monthly writing groups I lead, Molly mentioned that she was working with a writing buddy who was making a lot of specific suggestions. She liked the buddy's suggestions and so had turned her efforts to polishing the stories she had already written, rather than continuing to draft new material. This sparked a very interesting discussion in our group about when to draft and when to polish.
I've come to believe that it depends on what kind of editing and polishing we're talking about, and it depends a bit on how experienced a writer you are.
The two processes are different. Drafting requires a level of thinking, mulling, imagining, arguing, feeling that editing does not. For many of us, this is why it is so much fun. But it can also be scary for this isn't about control but expansion, it isn't about perfection but about making a mess and maybe even some big mistakes that will have to be undone.
For myself, I do rework some things when I'm drafting but they have to do with content. Like this morning, I couldn't remember if I'd made it clear that Cassie was a redhead and I wanted that identifying characteristic to be enough for the reader to know who had been in the accident. So I went back and reworked the physical description of that character the first time we meet here. I could have made a note to do it in a revising or editing time, but it seemed simpler to find it and fix it while I was thinking about it. Then I scrolled back down and went on with the scene. When something seems to be part of the content of the writing, that falls into drafting for me.
Editing is about grammar, punctuation, word repetitions, clumsy sentences, saccharine sentences, style and mechanics issues. And that's left-brain, what's-the-rule kind of work.
I don't recommend mixing these too closely. It's too hard to do a good job on either one if you're trying to do both at once.
In Molly's case, I was concerned that she would fall into the pit of perfection, of getting one story just right. That's not a good way to write a book, or learn all the many marvelous things there are to learn as a writer. Instead, most of us need to keep drafting for a good, long time, and then turn to the editing side of ourselves.
I've come to believe that it depends on what kind of editing and polishing we're talking about, and it depends a bit on how experienced a writer you are.
The two processes are different. Drafting requires a level of thinking, mulling, imagining, arguing, feeling that editing does not. For many of us, this is why it is so much fun. But it can also be scary for this isn't about control but expansion, it isn't about perfection but about making a mess and maybe even some big mistakes that will have to be undone.
For myself, I do rework some things when I'm drafting but they have to do with content. Like this morning, I couldn't remember if I'd made it clear that Cassie was a redhead and I wanted that identifying characteristic to be enough for the reader to know who had been in the accident. So I went back and reworked the physical description of that character the first time we meet here. I could have made a note to do it in a revising or editing time, but it seemed simpler to find it and fix it while I was thinking about it. Then I scrolled back down and went on with the scene. When something seems to be part of the content of the writing, that falls into drafting for me.
Editing is about grammar, punctuation, word repetitions, clumsy sentences, saccharine sentences, style and mechanics issues. And that's left-brain, what's-the-rule kind of work.
I don't recommend mixing these too closely. It's too hard to do a good job on either one if you're trying to do both at once.
In Molly's case, I was concerned that she would fall into the pit of perfection, of getting one story just right. That's not a good way to write a book, or learn all the many marvelous things there are to learn as a writer. Instead, most of us need to keep drafting for a good, long time, and then turn to the editing side of ourselves.
Monday, December 12, 2011
The instructive nature of reading bad fiction
In the course of my editing work, I read quite a bit of bad writing. Much of my work is non-fiction and it's relatively easy to clean up and polish the writing if the thinking behind is sound. Bad fiction is another category entirely because so much goes into writing a good book. It's not just a strong feel for the mechanics of English, which are helpful but can be easily fixed. It's more knowing what makes a good story and balancing a whole series of components.
A good novel or memoir requires more than dramatic events. One reason novels and memoirs based on the life of someone often fall flat is that much of our lives are mundane, which isn't very interesting. On the other hand, and stringing together just the dramatic moments doesn't completely satisfy because that isn't realistic. Many less experienced writers don't take the heart that fact that the narrative arc, that crucial plot component, is more than big happenings. It's about making a choice, a decision that alters everything, sometimes for the protagonist and more often for everyone involved. If you can't identify that choice or those decisions, your novel may not hold.
A good novel or memoir requires a clear division between the major characters (only a few) and the minor players. Gone is the 19th-century tendency to fill novels with dozens and dozens of major players. While it is possible to have lots of characters, we only want cursory details on those that aren't major..
Back story should be brief and absolutely to the point. The information should be something we really need to know about the main character and his decisions. Again, we do not want back story on minor players. Often, we don't even need to know their names.
Omit facts and data from back story or from dialog. Readers don't care about a lot of facts. They're reading fiction for enjoyment, not for education. It's important to give sufficient facts so that the reader believes the author knows what she's talking about but beyond that, skip it. Even if your novel concerns the intricate dealings of a the financial world or an engineering firm, readers want plot and character, romance and danger. They don't care about the percentage of a loan.
Avoid verbs of attribution other than "said." No commenting, pleading, querying. If you absolutely must, it's okay to have a character "ask" but the question form of the dialog should carry that.
Learn what passive voice is and avoid it like the plague.
Limit indirect speech to a tiny percentage of your text. If it can't be dialog, maybe you don't need it at all.
Of course, there are exceptions to all these ideas but if you follow them most of the time, you'll write better fiction.
A good novel or memoir requires more than dramatic events. One reason novels and memoirs based on the life of someone often fall flat is that much of our lives are mundane, which isn't very interesting. On the other hand, and stringing together just the dramatic moments doesn't completely satisfy because that isn't realistic. Many less experienced writers don't take the heart that fact that the narrative arc, that crucial plot component, is more than big happenings. It's about making a choice, a decision that alters everything, sometimes for the protagonist and more often for everyone involved. If you can't identify that choice or those decisions, your novel may not hold.
A good novel or memoir requires a clear division between the major characters (only a few) and the minor players. Gone is the 19th-century tendency to fill novels with dozens and dozens of major players. While it is possible to have lots of characters, we only want cursory details on those that aren't major..
Back story should be brief and absolutely to the point. The information should be something we really need to know about the main character and his decisions. Again, we do not want back story on minor players. Often, we don't even need to know their names.
Omit facts and data from back story or from dialog. Readers don't care about a lot of facts. They're reading fiction for enjoyment, not for education. It's important to give sufficient facts so that the reader believes the author knows what she's talking about but beyond that, skip it. Even if your novel concerns the intricate dealings of a the financial world or an engineering firm, readers want plot and character, romance and danger. They don't care about the percentage of a loan.
Avoid verbs of attribution other than "said." No commenting, pleading, querying. If you absolutely must, it's okay to have a character "ask" but the question form of the dialog should carry that.
Learn what passive voice is and avoid it like the plague.
Limit indirect speech to a tiny percentage of your text. If it can't be dialog, maybe you don't need it at all.
Of course, there are exceptions to all these ideas but if you follow them most of the time, you'll write better fiction.
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