Yesterday, I didn't write in my journal first thing in the morning for the first time in more than a decade. (Well, there was one other day in 2002, the Sunday morning that my dad died). It felt odd not to have that meditative, wake-up journaling activity, but I had decided that for the next five mornings of the retreat, I would write on my novel first thing as Eric Maisel, my creativity mentor, and other writing coaches recommend.
I sat in resistance for about 10 minutes and then slowly I began to write. As I had resolved one of the logistical issues the day before, I had several avenues open to me. And I had also realized the day before that some of the chapter order was off and that too seemed to give me license to just plunge in out of order and write what I felt like. And then it began to flow and I worked steadily for 3 hours with a brief break for breakfast, then walked an hour, then came back and wrote another hour. In all, I drafted about 2,000 words. What's more, I felt reimmersed in my characters and their dilemmas, in the flow of thinking about them.
This morning I resolved to do it again. It was harder. I hadn't slept as well and didn't feel rested and rarin' to go as I did yesterday. I missed my journal routine, slow meditation and contemplation over tea, rather than this attempt to get my brain to solve problems and generate ideas. But I hung in there and after about a slow 20 minutes, I was writing again and did so until lunch.
And while I know that 5 days is not going to instill a new habit, I can begin to see how I might be able to do this at home, if I got up two hours before I went to the gym or to work. I could then have about 90 minutes to write, a long-enough time to get out a page.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Day 1 of the retreat
I'm loving being here on retreat and I'm having a hard time settling down to work on my book. I trust that that will come, an engagement in the story and in the writing process, but right now it's a lot more fun to lie on the outdoor sofa and look at the lush gardens in the crisp marine air that's the perfect temperature and snooze and read a little of Stephen King's book On Writing.
I did spend some time this afternoon reading through my five pages of notes, and I think I have solved the issue of the missing computer and how Hansen, the detective, is going to find it. I've got a number of ideas for chapters that I can get started on but all of them have a logistical issue like that that needs to be resolved. Not necessarily before I start writing on them but it would certainly help. Knowing now what the car and the anagramed registration name is a big step in the right direction.
Our day at the retreat is spent in silence (except for meals) and that prolonged quiet, whether I'm actually at the keyboard or not, is tremendously helpful because it gives me a chance to stay with my characters and my plot and let my not-quite-conscious brain keep working on the issue.
It's also clear to me how tired I am of being at the keyboard (I've been particularly busy at my paid work lately) and so it has been lovely to do some long journal entries and just cogitate.
I did spend some time this afternoon reading through my five pages of notes, and I think I have solved the issue of the missing computer and how Hansen, the detective, is going to find it. I've got a number of ideas for chapters that I can get started on but all of them have a logistical issue like that that needs to be resolved. Not necessarily before I start writing on them but it would certainly help. Knowing now what the car and the anagramed registration name is a big step in the right direction.
Our day at the retreat is spent in silence (except for meals) and that prolonged quiet, whether I'm actually at the keyboard or not, is tremendously helpful because it gives me a chance to stay with my characters and my plot and let my not-quite-conscious brain keep working on the issue.
It's also clear to me how tired I am of being at the keyboard (I've been particularly busy at my paid work lately) and so it has been lovely to do some long journal entries and just cogitate.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Off to camp
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!
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!
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.
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