Wiley Wednesday: Finding Inspiration

Writer Zen Garden Posted on by

Checking the Writer’s Retreat calendar this morning reminded me that I’m scheduled to post a Wiley on the blog. My mind blank, I tried to recall the sleepy thought occurring at an odd moment last weekend. Unfortunately, I failed to jot down a note and have no clue as to what it might have been.

Am I going to beat my head against the wall for that failing? No. If the half-formed idea really merits sharing, the notion will surely return. In the meantime, I decided the best solution would be simply setting words down. If this rambling endeavor turned to scrap, a useful idea might still percolate. So, with the opinion that even this questionable exercise deserved a little effort, I thumbed open my thesaurus for words meaning “idea”.

The reference book on my desk first defined the word. Curious, I read, “Idea: that which exists in the mind as the product of careful mental activity”. The editors supplied this same description for “concept”. And suddenly, therein lay my inspiration. The last word I would use to identify my formative thought process is “careful”. I think many folks would agree.

Ideas and concepts form in countless ways, many more than one human can conceive. Meticulous or erratic, “careful” just doesn’t characterize it for me. Ingenuity might stem from failure or flow from the stuff of dreams. Either way, the English idiom popularly associated with ill-conceived ideas is “half-baked”. If you ask me, undercooking something hardly matches vigilant activity.

Brainstorming is a popular expression evocative of unpredictability and confusion. Many more methods of group or individual invention fit this style of “tossing out ideas”, which is yet another turn of phrase defying “careful” proceedings.

This deliberation leads me to believe the importance is where deliberation takes us, not its source or means. Experiment if you’re struggling for inspiration. There are some interesting suggestions within the archives of this very blog. Whatever you do, “careful” is a silly constriction for the mind, regardless of your goal.

By the way, Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus defines inspiration as “high spirits”. I like that.

Wiley Wednesday: A Tool to Tame Entropy

Writer Zen Garden Posted on by

Someone reminded me recently, entropy is the natural state of things. It’s the state toward which things are inclined, so it is, in fact, inevitable. Thus, taking from the old standby, the Serenity Prayer, we know that we need the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Assuming we can apply that wisdom, and have figured out which things we can’t change, what about those things that entropy affects but that we CAN change? What do we do then?

It’s a factor of modern life that things have sped up beyond all reasonableness. Sometimes I think this is due, in part, to the ubiquitousness of computers and the internet – in fact, it’s hard to remember that it’s not even half the population of the world who has regular access to broadband! So, I guess I should say that in the small corner of my world, which is so all-encompassing to me and seems to reach to the horizon in every direction, what tools can help further productivity when the task list stretches off the desk and the clock points to fifteen-minutes-to-zero?

First, focus during entropy is critical. Our own ability to laser-think is underrated, but powerful. Like the force contained in two atoms that is released during fusion, when they are brought together, our laser thinking can bring us in alignment with our goals and actually bring those goals to actuality. Unlike fission, which provides energy by ripping things apart, laser thinking can bring order to the chaos that entropy creates.

While all of that is easy to write, it’s sometimes nearly impossible to put into practice. I’ve ruminated in these pages during prior Wileys about productivity tools, so the calmer, more focused tools have been discussed. But what do we do when the… well, it hits the fan? We can’t stop and breathe, we can’t take thirty minutes to do pages, we can’t run around the block? We all have those moments when we must sink or swim and we really don’t feel like breathing underwater, thank you.

What then?

I use a tool I came across from Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. She suggested using what she called a “Spatter Pad” to ‘bucket’ all the tasks that you need, want, or think you should do. I use it at work as a sort of chronological running journal of stuff that comes at me. Some days, it’s one page and very neatly-written (i.e., legible to someone other than a specialist in dead languages and cuneiform). Other days, it would make a surgeon laugh and squint.

But the point is not pretty, the point is productivity.

The spatter pad is literally all the day’s thoughts, spattered on the page like a Jackson Pollack painting. Can you do that lunch order? Did you get the car for my trip tomorrow? I need the figures for the Jackson Pollack family estate. Where’s the performance for Tim’s book? Did I do the passport renewal forms? Do we have eggs? What do I get my grandmother for her birthday in – gasp – a week – AND she’s out of state, so I need to send it by tomorrow or pay through the nose for Fedex…

All of that goes on the pad. That way, when the calmer times do come (and let’s face it, if you have time to surf the ‘net for news of the weird, you have time to sort out your spatters), you haven’t lost anything.
And THEN, you can impress your friends and confound your enemies, because you’ll gain a reputation as someone who forgets nothing. “How do you get all that done?”

Thank you, Spatter Pad. You make me look good.

Now, do we have eggs at home? And when is Mom-Mom’s birthday? o.O…

Off the Beaten Path

Writer Zen Garden Posted on by

I am not a social creature. After a day at a bustling office, all I want to do is go home and immerse myself in fiction, either my own works or a book.

This good group at the Writer’s Retreat has coaxed me out of my shell and encouraged me in ways I’d not thought possible. And the more people I meet, the more I find published authors and hopefuls alike announcing a roll of contact resources longer than my grocery list. I’m starting to feel foolish for hanging back.

One friend flat-out insists I need a Facebook presence to become a successful writer. Yet even as my resistance is tested by this gloomy forecast, I haven’t given in. For one thing, my employer blocks social networks, which means I must investigate them at home. And when I’m there, precious few hours are hoarded like treasure and spent on (hopefully) uninterrupted writing time.

A naïve part of me dreams of discovery by some powerful entity in the publishing industry. I want a benevolent handler who will front the business end and let me write. How’s that for fantasy? Especially since so much of what I write is rather far off the beaten path.

Perhaps it’s best for me to remain that way, peacefully occupying my own patch of undiscovered country, and enjoy sharing stories without the stress a professional encounters. I don’t want just another job entailing more dull meetings and endless emails.

Anyway, all of this speculation is pointless without finished product. Nobody has use for an incomplete story. That said, I’m going to try to block out the world for a while and have some fun.

At what point is an obsession unhealthy?

Writer Zen Garden Posted on by

Did you guys know that I have the spot for blog posts the first Saturday of every month? I certainly didn’t.

My attempt at sarcasm and humor aside, I was actually thinking that my first post would be due next week. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the first Saturday of the month was actually today.

Anyway, I have no real idea what to do for this one, so I’m just going to talk about what has been on my mind for the past several weeks.

Jesus Christ Superstar.

I suppose it all began when I stumbled across a post on the Highlander Message Boards talking about a Phantom of the Opera sequel that mentioned JC Superstar (which features music by Andrew Llyod-Webber, as well). I had seen it three or four times before, but it never really made that much of an impression on me, but I recalled really liking the first song of the show (called “Heaven on their Minds”).

A quick Youtube search later and I immediately fell in love with the song. That is when the obsession started. I put it on my iPod and listened to it, on repeat, for the couple of hours I spent cleaning the apartment (all by myself, but that is a totally different rant) the next day. I’ve been rather obsessed with songs before, but not that much.

When I went home for Spring Break, I decided to watch my father’s VHS copy of the original 1973 film adaption of the show (there’s also a 2000 film adaption, which I don’t care much for) and realized that there are some damn good songs on the soundtrack.

I decided to record my father’s vinyl record of the original recording (which came out before the stage show) and basically listened only to that on my entire five hour drive back to campus. I only changed the CD once to a different mixed album that I only put in because it had the recording of Heaven on their Minds from the first film version (I prefer that Judas to the one on the original recording).

Since then, I don’t really think I’ve deviated from the JC Superstar playlist that I have on my iPod and am even now listening to it.

So, I guess the whole point of this is to raise the question: at what point does an obsession become unhealthy?