Tag: Motivation

  • Writer Wednesday – More on Establishing Routines

    Yesterday I brought up the value of establishing routine.  A. Catherine Noon commented with a good idea, too.  She recommends weekly planning, which makes sense; looking at matters within a larger block of time would cut down on the minutia of daily scheduling.

    I do intend to resume spending time each day at my desk, regardless of whether it be a Wednesday or a Sunday.  That kind of discipline can only be good for me.  Many writers have a set goal for their office time, such as producing a certain word count.  I used to be that way, with a hope of reaching a thousand words every day.

    Now, however, I’m not going to be that strict upon myself.  It’s enough to take baby steps in the right direction.

    In fact, whenever the weather cools back down I might count sitting on my porch with a laptop or notebook as office time.  I’ve enjoyed much creativity there.  And the creative process deserves flexibility to flourish.  At least I find that is true for me.

    So, here’s a proverbial toast to routines without restrictions.  I hope that any endeavor upon which you embark gives you more a sense of freedom than burden.

  • Haiku and You

    By no stretch of the imagination do I consider myself a major poet.  I dabble at bringing images into a snapshot focus through the art of haiku.  It’s not even something I do very often.

    Today I read something disheartening from a blogger I admire.  A British fan of all things Japanese, she goes by the moniker Haikugirl.  In this post she talks about a haiku workshop that made me realize that there are far more rules to it than I knew.  Her own experience involved a criticism that I found undeserved.

    This makes me wonder if I’ll continue pursuing this art form.  Should I forge on even if I’m doing it wrong according to the experts?  My inner critic says no but I think that’s the wrong answer.  I hope the childlike artist inside me finds another haiku she determines worth sharing.

    And speaking of sharing, here is the post I reference:
    Catching the Blossom with a Haiku

    I hope you’ll read her post.  I’d also like to know your opinion on the subject.  In the meantime, happy writing!

  • Writer Wednesday: Daily Maintenance

    As my daily round brings me back to the first Wednesday of the month, I find that the post I intended to write has evolved. Originally I wanted to discuss writing conferences, since the RT Booklovers Convention is here in Chicago this year. While that is a fabulous thing and I’ll write about it in other places, today I wanted to downshift and return to home base. It’s easy to forget, in all the fuss and bother, that the daily round is a daily round, not a line, and that the things we thought completed come around again and again. And not just laundry or dishes.

    I’ve been working with Julia Cameron’s book Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance and find that, as is usual for Cameron’s work, many of her ideas resonate with me. In particular, one passage jumped off the page at me: “I must write. I must walk. I must pray. I must content myself with small amounts of progress. Above all, I must not binge on drama and despair.”*

    As I talk with other writers and creative people, I find that many of the folks who I talk to assume that creatives must be able to do what they do just because of who they are, because they are creative, and not because of concrete, grounding behaviors that they must invest effort, time and care on an ongoing basis. In addition, the thought process seems to progress to the idea that if we, ourselves, cannot do that kind of thing – prodigious art creation without any real grounding – then we must not be “real” artists.

    This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Regular creative output is like any other kind of output, be it legal briefs, laying bricks, or cooking and cleaning for a family of adults and children and pets. It takes energy, effort, and consistency; it also requires rest and recharge for the creator unless one wants to have an ugly breakdown. And sometimes, despite our best efforts, we end up at breakdown anyway.

    What is the lesson there?

    I think it’s just as Cameron says, above. There are several simple things that, done daily, help us stay on track. It’s like Curly says in the movie City Slickers: you have to find your One Thing (see below). You have to respect your own process enough to know what works for you, and if you don’t know, then you need to find it. I suspect, though, that you probably already know a few of them: get enough sleep, eat clean, write daily, etc. Whatever your “things” are, respect them and do them. It’s the only way I know of to get to where you’re going.

    Write On!

    *Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance, by Julia Cameron; Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, New York; 2006; page 40

  • Resisting the Critic

    Inspired to write this moments ago, I recognized an attack by the inner critic. I’m sure anyone reading this knows what I’m talking about.  I gratefully say that “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron makes these insidious traps easier to recognize and combat.

    In my case, my wandering mind wondered if I should continue writing a particular theme on another website. After all, I don’t have all that many readers or reviewers. Maybe it’s time to veer away from that particular character.

    And that’s when my thoughts froze in realization that the skeptical and cranky critic in my mind was on the loose. As I’m gently reminded again and again by friends from this very blog, Story is God. Thank you, A. Catherine Noon, for sharing that particular, poignant phrase.

    After all, who am I really writing for? Myself. It’s a creative urge that gives great pleasure and satisfaction. What else ultimately matters? Sure, it’s nice to know others appreciate what I’ve penned. In this information age, though, I should be grateful for any kind of niche in which to be found.

    That’s not criticism of my writing, it’s simple fact. I find myself with limited time to read and a subsequently small list of writers which I faithfully follow. One can only wonder, out of all the blogging and twittering going on, how much time others lend to reading any fiction at all.

    So that returns me to what’s important – following my muse. I really just need to be grateful I hear this calling at all considering the dry spell of which I’ve lamented in previous posts. Recalling how much joy has been garnered from material I’ve never even shared with the public, I feel darn lucky at the moment.

    I hope sharing my brief battle with the critic will enable you to dip into your creative well for the sheer, childlike enjoyment of the process. Happy creating!

  • Half Past NaNoWriMo

    Today is my day to post and, ironically, it’s half way into National Novel Writing Month. If you’re involved in this frenzy, I hope you’re well on your way to fifty thousand words. I just made it past 25,000 today, myself.

    My goal this year is to rewrite an unfinished WIP and hopefully finish the manuscript. So far, I have not come up with an idea to finish the novel. Am I worried about that? Yeah, I am a little.

    I’d hate to have gone this far only to stall out and not complete the NaNoWriMo goal. What’s keeping me going is that this doesn’t have to be a great work of art. I can just go off on a tangent, have fun, and maybe come up with a better story arc. I’ll guess we’ll just have to see.

    As for you, I hope you’re enjoying whatever you’re doing creatively. And if I may say so, wish me luck.

  • Natural Inspiration

    This week I spent Thursday night at the Oregon coast. I live about 90 minutes away, but still only manage to make it to the beach two or three times a year. This trip the weather wasn’t particularly warm, but even fifteen minutes in front of the Pacific ocean still managed to make an impact.

    I don’t think I can adequately explain how much peace I find when I get into nature. Red Rock Canyon, the beach at Lincoln City, Multnomah Falls in the Columbia Gorge – it doesn’t matter where. When I let it in, something inside me just opens up. My morning pages become full of descriptions and images where wind and water and rock are living beings that interact with me.

    Even if that’s all it was – just fleeting moments when I feel connected to the world around me – it would be worth it. But it’s more than that. Making that connection stays with me, helps repair and restore the bridge that allows the words in my head to flow onto keyboard or paper.

    When was the last time you touched nature? Did you put your hands in the earth of your garden? Walk barefoot in the city park? Watch the sun on the water and listen to it rush against the shore? Feel the wind on your face while you packed a snowball?
    It doesn’t have to be a major event. Just get outside, and really open your senses to what’s around you. You’ll be glad you did.

  • Being a Writer

    Today happens to be an extremely exciting time for me. While considering what to write for this very blog post, coincidentally, I received my first ever payment as an author!

    Although this is just one more step on my chosen path, I thought it fitting to share what this humble writer thinks constitutes the title.

    If you have a million dollar, multi-book deal, you’re a writer. That states the obvious.

    However, there are many unpublished people out there with notebooks and hard drives overflowing with stories. Is he or she any less of a writer? I don’t think so.

    If you, dear writer, have the courage to share your tales, however that might be accomplished, I commend you. For those of you who’ve not yet taken that step, I hope you’ll change you’re mind.

    Bring your gift into the light of day and brighten someone’s existence. If you’d like suggestions on where to take your stories online, mention it in a comment and perhaps I or someone else can give you ideas. It can be scary but there are some wonderful places out there.  And the world can never have too many storytellers.

    Happy writing!

  • Don’t Give Up

    I recently received a very bittersweet email.  A mentor of mine and I were commiserating over low e-book sales.  I confessed to letting a few disappointed tears leak out before moving on.  Apparently, my lamentation caused him to think I would give up writing!

    Immediately, he responded by telling me not to give up.  His own sales were down 30% between this December and December of 2009.  That’s dire, especially when he’s been working toward a full-time writing career.  After twenty years, he was there in my imagination.  That goes to show what I know.

    Still, he gives advice on what else I can do.  One of them is to bundle three related short stories for a Kindle book.  I’m even told that his colleague would be willing to do the cover art for me.  She is both very talented and extremely affordable.  I swear they’ve both taken me under their wing.

    So that tells me I should just keep plugging away.  Honestly, to stop writing altogether is unfathomable.  It feels good to know that’s the right thing to do.  Write?  Right.  Best of all is having someone halfway around the world pulling for this fledgling writer.  Thank you, my friend.

  • Wiley Wednesday: The Minutiae of the Mundane

    Every Wednesday, one of the writers of the Writer’s Retreat shares their thoughts on writing and the creative life. Topics range from how-to’s to inspirational thoughts about keeping the fingers moving on the page. This week, I wanted to share some more general thoughts about life and decisions about how to use one’s time on this plane. I hope you enjoy!

    “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” -Viktor E. Frankl

    I’ve been re-reading Sarah Ban Breathnach’s book, Simple Abundance, and a phrase jumped off the page at me: ‘the minutiae of the mundane.’ As in, “…a detective who searches through the minutiae of the mundane in hopes of finding clues for what was missing in her life.” (1995 edition, from Jan. 7 entry in daybook) It’s been my experience that the details are where “it” is at – that sense of peace, or of majesty, or of connection with the Universe, the Holy Spirit – whatever your name for it is. Call it the Tao, or ‘in the moment,’ but it’s in the mundane that we find it.

    Have you ever driven somewhere that you drive normally, and sort of ‘wake up’ at the other end not quite remembering how you got there? Or, while taking a shower, have you had the solution to a problem pop into your head? These sorts of mundane activities, the rote activities that make up our daily round, can give us a sense of routine and order if we let them. They can also be a source of drudgery or unpleasant duty, if we choose to let them. The trick is in deciding which we want to do. The laundry must be washed, and I have yet to meet a pair of self-brushing teeth – so these kinds of tasks are part of our rounds whether we like it or not.

    Today, I am reminded that “whether we like it or not” is an interesting phrase. I think it’s been used, for some of us anyway, as I way to brow-beat us into doing something for our own good or out of punishment: “You’re going to sweep this floor whether you like it or not!” “You’re going to do this homework whether you like it or not!” What if, instead of rebelling against these very routine tasks that won’t, after all, do themselves – what if we decide to love them a little and do them with a sense of gusto? Is there a way we can enhance our daily round so that instead of drudgery it becomes something of a glorying in our own abundance? After all, we must have clothes in order to have laundry; we must have a home in order to have to vacuum and dust; we must have food in order to have dirty dishes… These are all things that many people around the world do without on a regular, sometimes daily, basis. If we have these things, what if we allow our gratitude to be shown in the simple act of doing the tasks that maintain them with grace and enjoyment?

    In the path of doing these things with gusto, what if we kept note of those things which brought us happiness? For example, if we serve hot cocoa with marshmallows for dessert, or if we brought out the fancy china and made a special occasion out of dinner – maybe even use candlelight? We can note what things make us happy and then begin to incorporate them more into our daily round, creating a self-sustaining cycle. For me, it’s a box of tissues that makes me happy. I like having a box of tissues when I want to blow my nose. It feels decadent. This is because, for many years, I didn’t have the money to spend on tissues and I made due with toilet paper. Now, it’s become a habit not to buy boxes of tissue. What if I made that a priority for my weekly groceries? Did you know they now make all sorts of fancy tissue boxes? They don’t even cost much more than the el cheapo grande versions, but they come in colors and patterns and all sorts of things. There are special covers for tissue boxes, too, if I really wanted to go whole hog. Yikes!

    My point is, that some of the things that make us happy aren’t decadent and fancy and uber expensive. Sometimes, they’re just the small minutiae that surround us in our daily round, and they’re small touches we can add to our daily round to enhance it.

    After all, there’s not a do-over option to life.

  • NaNoWriMo

    If you’re involved in the writing community, you’ve surely seen these NaNoWriMo participation badges in various shapes and sizes. As I write this a few weeks in advance, I can only hope my opening effort honors the event.

    To be honest, I am equally excited and nervous at the moment. Writing has never created such a mix of emotions before. I’m telling myself this is a good thing. A minor shake-up is good for us, right?

    Time will tell if I have that many words in me for one story. So far, I’ve tended to author much shorter pieces. In fact, such a tale is due to be published any day in a science fiction m/m erotica anthology. So I should be on cloud nine anyway, right? That said, I guess I am.

    Breathe, Darla. Better.

    So much of every day’s outcome depends upon our attitude, right? And taking things day by day is the only way to reach any goal. I hope your attitude is great, your day is good, and that you’re joining me in the truly international National Novel Writing Month.

    May good things come your way whatever you choose to do!