Tag: Reflections

  • Writer Wednesday: Why Blogs Are Good For Writers

    In thinking about a topic for today’s post, I am reminded why blogging is good for writers.  Of all the forms of social media available to us, blogging is the most flexible and the most adaptable to an individual writer’s style.  Not to diss Facebook, by any means, I merely want to point out that if you’re a writer, you ought to be blogging.  Why?

    Here, then, are Aunt Noony’s Five Reasons Why Blogs Are Good For Writers:

    1.  Blogging allows you to explore your voice.  What is voice?  It is, quite simply, the thing you use to talk with.  It’s a Zen concept and, for that reason, tough to pin down.  But what is definite is that voice is as individual as the writer.  The better we can get in touch with our own voice, the better writers we become.  We get in touch with our voice by writing.  A lot.  Blogging lets you do that in a low-pressure, supportive environment.

    2.  Blogging gives you a platform.  Do anything long enough and you begin to develop a set of topics and opinions upon which you can feel qualified to write.  If you love coffee, for example, pretty soon you’ll get tired of writing “I love coffee” and start to come up with some interesting coffee facts.  Collect enough of those kinds of articles and poof: instand coffee platform, just add water.

    3.  Topics for blogs are unlimited.  Do you enjoy talking about underwater basketweaving?  Go for it! Cosplay?  Have at it!  Knitting?  Do it!  Any and all topics, both tame and adult-oriented, lend themselves well to blogging.

    4.  You can expand your skills by blogging.  You will, over time, learn a bit of HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language), the language in which websites are written.  You will begin to understand how search engines find topics when users are looking for things.  You will make friends and influence people though your blog, and one day, maybe help others into the world of blogging.

    5.  You don’t have to limit yourself to arbitrary character limits.  If you only feel like posting a sentence or two and a bunch of pictures, you can.  If you feel like writing and writing and writing on a topic that makes you passionate, you can.  The sky’s the limit!  You can adapt your writing to your moods and, in the process, collect a set of clips that you can leverage later to other blogging opportunities.

    Still on the fence?  Why not ask your favorite blogger if they’d be willing to let you do a guest post on a particular topic?  No one says you have to dive in head-first your first time.  You can ease into the blogosphere gently.

    I’ll warn you, though.  It can quickly become addictive.  Enjoy!

    Write on!

  • Rest in Peace, Tony Scott

    While this is no longer fresh news to the internet world, the undisputed suicide of British-born film director and producer Tony Scott has left a distinct sadness in my household.  And yet I find inspiration from him still, even as I wish his family and friends all the best in their time of grief.

    According to website IMDB.com, Mr. Scott said about “Days of Thunder”, which  failed to reach the critical acclaim or financial success attributed to many other of his works, “… you always have to get a story and you’ve got to get character first, and we hadn’t.“

    Wow.  So simple, and yet so important.

    According to Mr. Scott’s tell, putting 1990’s era Tom Cruise behind the wheel of a race car was all creators thought it would take to sell “Days of Thunder” to moviegoers, and that vein struck fool’s gold.  I believe all writers kind enough to read this know better, but I still felt the point worth sharing.

    Whatever you create, though, enjoy the process first and foremost.  That’s a lesson we can all take to heart.  I can only hope that Anthony D. L. Scott is at peace now and enjoyed his success while he had it.

  • On Blocks and Other Frustrations

    Have you ever set a goal for yourself, like, “I’ll finish this story by X date,” and then realized your mind’s gone blank?

    Yeah, me too.

    I wanted to have the next chapter of The Night Is a Harsh Mistress today, and set that as my goal.  Then, when I sat down to write, my mind went blank because I worried about whether it will be any good.  Rather than fight the goal, I figured I’d chat about what works for me for getting around it.

    First, be careful about what goals you do accept.  If you know that setting your expectations can tend to block you, then be selective about what goals you do try to struggle for.

    Second, set small goals for doing the work.  For example, try using a timer and set it for 30 minutes.  Even if you just stare at your computer for that 30 minutes, (and no cheating on Facebook or garbage surfing), see what happens.

    Third, if that doesn’t work, try sitting with your journal for a while.  Write about why you don’t want to work on your goal.  Write all the nasty, petty, complaining little putsy comments that you can think of.  Sometimes, just getting them out there can help.

    Fourth, try something else.  If you have another craft, like knitting, do that for a bit just to get moving creatively.  Or, try a blog post, like this, for example.

    Fifth, give yourself permission to fail.  By the time it got to be dinnertime, I realized I wasn’t going to get the chapter done today.  Instead, I decided to be honest and write about my block, and in the process, came up with some ideas for how to get around them.  It doesn’t make my goal happen, but it does keep me moving in the right direction – and that, in and of itself, can help you.

    Above all, remember we are all imperfect beings.  It’s not about the goals you accomplish, but the journey you take along the way.  As they say, you win some, you lose some.  Just keep moving forward and you might be startled by how many you start finishing.

    Happy creating!

  • Why Big Goals Don’t Work – Baby Step Your Way To Success

    Every so often in writer circles, there is talk about goal-setting and success and word-count and other such lofty things.  I repeatedly hear writers moan, “My word count is too low.”  “I need a kick in the pants.”  “THIS month it’ll be different and I’ll write a NaNo length manuscript.”  (NaNo refers to the National Novel Writing Month held every year in November; more information at their website.)  What these goals fail to do is offer a workable way to achievement.  They’re not bad goals, exactly, just ineffective ones.  Why?

    The secret lies in why we don’t write more.  The common misconception is that we don’t write because we’re lazy, or because we’re doing other things, or because that other person got there first and there’s just no use, or because all the good stories have been told and there’s no space for us and our stories.  The reason is rarely because we are physically incapable of writing.

    I’d like to tell you an anecdote.  A professional friend of mine, under deadline for a novel (and her novels are over one hundred thousand words each), became very ill.  After hospitalization, she returned home and was given the wrong medication.  She nearly died.  Her ability to sit up at a desk at all was gone.  She could not type.  She could hardly see the monitor in front of her face.

    What did she do?

    She typed that novel, word by painful word, with one finger.  Tap.  Tap.  Tap.

    If that doesn’t blow any excuse out of the water, I don’t know what will.

    What’s the lesson there?  When we have large projects in front of us, the only way to accomplish them is by one bite at a time.  One does not eat a chicken by stuffing the whole thing in one’s mouth.  One has a nibble at a drumstick.  A bite of wing.  One eats the chicken, slowly, swallowing each bite before going on to the next one.  So, too, with writing a novel.  One does not sit down in one sitting and write a novel (unless under rare circumstances).  To have sustainable growth, one gets into the habit of writing a small amount, each day, which add up to a completed manuscript.

    Next time you have the opportunity to make a large goal, why not try taking a step back and set a small one instead?  Maybe, “I’ll write 3 pages a day.”  Or, “I’ll write 1,000 words a day.”  Or even, “I’ll write 3 pages today.”  See if that unlocks some of your potential and gets you onto the page.  That way, at the end of the month, you won’t be one of the writers who laments, “Wow, I had such high hopes for this month but… [fill in the blank].”

    Tap.  Tap.  Tap.

    Write on!

  • 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

  • The Gift of Friendship

    As I write today, I’ve been joined by a tiny parade of three cats taking turns at sitting or lying by my side. It’s a joyous reminder of the friendships I’ve garnered through my penmanship.

    Even as I allowed a dry spell to overcome my creative tendencies, friends on this blog have continued to encourage and support me. Cards and gifts have come my way, much to my great joy. Also, kind words at the work place have occasionally brightened my daily routine as a few folks in the know inquire as to my doings in the realm of writing.

    Thanks, my dears, for uplifting me! Now I’m going to move forth with some new project. All I really have to contribute to folks is the message that we must count our blessings in remembrance of all those things and people that help us create. Happy writing, or whatever endeavor you pursue!

    ~

  • Pursuing Perfection

    I had an experience today that brought home to me once again that the Critic is something I fight in my daily life as well as in writing, and that I often do things that make it even easier for the Critic to get some punches in.

    Probably everyone says this, but it’s true for me.  My grandmother was a great cook.  She passed when I was in seventh grade, but I still have very vivid memories of Saturday afternoons in her kitchen, homemade beef noodle soup on the stove, fresh cinnamon rolls warming on top of the wood stove, and pies cooling on the counter.  My grandma was the first person to put milk instead of water in my tomato soup and to make me a gingersnap cookie.  I won’t pretend that my picky younger self loved every single thing my grandma ever cooked, but I always loved eating as a family, and I especially loved seeing the smile on my grandma’s face when we raved about what to her was a very minimal gift.

    Now I’m grown up, and one of my favorite things  is to have family and friends over for a meal. It’s not an every Saturday sort of thing, but I do it whenever I can.  I don’t know that I actually enjoy cooking so much as I enjoy bringing everyone together, giving the gift of food prepared with love and taking the gift of love and conversation and time spent in return.

    Which brings us to today.

    Due to my new work schedule, I now eat “lunch” at 9am.  I have been bringing traditional lunch food, and that’s worked out fine, but towards the end of last week I was really starting to think about preparing some breakfast food on the weekend to take for leftovers during the week.  I invited my family over for brunch today as a way of nudging myself into actually taking that step instead of just thinking about it. 

    It might have worked a little too well!  Before I knew it I had talked myself into making three recipes (sausage egg casserole because that’s what I’d been imagining, vegetarian egg casserole because my brother’s a vegetarian, and peach french toast because it’s so darn good.)  Both egg recipes were new to me.  I did five loads of laundry yesterday and cleaned the house in addition to grocery shopping.  The vegetarian egg casserole and the peach french toast needed to be refrigerated overnight, so I prepared those last night as well.  Suddenly it’s 9pm and I’m exhausted (I’ve been getting up at 3am, so 9am after a busy day is quite a bit past my bedtime.).

    I woke up this morning and finished the housecleaning and started preparing the food, only to realized I’d put the vegetarian egg dish in the oven an hour too early. 

    And then 9am came around and my growling stomach pointed out to me that scheduling brunch at 11am, two hours after I am used to eating my first major meal of the day, was probably not a great idea.

    So, fighting low blood sugar because I had a cup of yogurt instead of the full breakfast I needed, I proceeded to brown the sausage by itself instead of with the onion the recipe called for.  I also put it in the oven for 30 of the 60 minutes it needed to bake without covering it.  And then I did the same thing with the peach french toast.

    By this time, I have to say I was not expecting great things from brunch at this point.  I was sure the vegetarian casserole would be cold, and the french toast and the sausage casserole would be dry.  And that doesn’t even cover the bacon that got a little too reheated in the microwave as well.

    But you know what?  Someone was really watching out for me today, because everything came out great.  The sausage casserole was awesome (We ate it all – so much for leftovers!), and the peach french toast was delicious.  Mom brought cinnamon rolls and Barbara brought fresh raspberries and pink grapefruit and oranges.  It was really a lovely meal.  Even better was having all of us around the table enjoying each other’s company.  There was so much positive energy in the room, I can still feel it.

    So what does this have to do with the Critic, you ask?

    First of all, dinners for my family can’t be so-so, they have to be amazing.  Hence my decision to bake three different entrees instead of one, or even two.  And heaven forbid I serve them a recipe I’ve actually made before (Except chicken pot pie.  We all love that!).  So I end up with  two new recipes that weren’t especially complicated but that did require me to carefully read and follow directions, paving the way for lots of little things to go wrong.

    Scheduling it at 11am instead of 9, or even 10 wasn’t so much an attempt to sabotage myself as it was fact that we almost always have brunch at that time (my brother and I are not early birds as a rule) and I simply forgot to take my new work and eating schedule into account.  But it was still something to kick myself with while I was trying to apply tinfoil without burning myself.

    First and foremost I am taking away a whole bunch of new memories of a great day with my family.  I have a couple delicious new recipes, too.  But there is no denying that I’m also coming away from today with a strong reminder of how important it is to be reasonable and realistic with ourselves not just with the goals and expectations we have for our artistic selves, but for the balance of our lives as well.  Our inner artist shares space with our work self and our family self, and what happens to one can happen to all.  We must be kind to every part of ourselves. 

    Today reminded me that sometimes it really is enough to take a step or two rather than running the whole race at once.  I hope all of you get to really enjoy those baby steps, too.

     

  • A Beautiful Day

    Today was gorgeous.  I mean really beautiful. It was not only sunny, but warm.  The kind of day that makes it impossible to stay inside.The kind of day that makes the doctor’s request that you take vitamin D a little harder to brush off.

    I live in the Northwest, so believe me when I say that I would never take a day like this, especially in March, for granted.  But I lit up on the inside, too, and I can’t help feeling that my reaction to this day isn’t just a reaction to a sunny day.  It’s actually been building over the last couple of weeks, and today is just the moment the switch finally flipped.

    Making notes for this post, it occurred to me that I’ve been holding things in.  Not avoiding, exactly – at least not consciously.  Just not reaching out.  Not doing morning pages.  Barely posting on my Writer’s Retreat journal, even though in the past I’ve been on there every couple of days.  I see friends and family regularly, but when I’ve talked about my life it was books I read or movies I saw, not what jobs I applied for and how my interviews went.  In fact, when the job search did come up the other day, my family was genuinely surprised to find out I was stressed out about it.  I’m not one who really hesitates to say what’s going on with me, so the idea that they really hadn’t been aware was eye-opening for me.

    So I wrote in my Writer’s Retreat journal this week.  A friend who usually calls so we can talk about her actually called to see what was happening with me, and I told her.  I wrote in my journal again.  I took advantage of a business meeting to have an artist’s date, as well.  I actually had a story idea.  I sang out loud in the shower.  I marked my blog deadlines on the March calendar.  I put my storage stuff back up on the shelf in the laundry room instead of leaving it on the couch a few more days.  I beat down the Critic and applied for a job I really wanted instead of putting it off another day.  Things that seemed little enough at the time, but that built momentum as the week went along.

    Last night I hit the point where I had to turn the TV off because no matter how much I turned the volume down it was just too much noise.  There is no denying that part of me is concerned about being in that place when I don’t have active stress in my life, but for the most part I’m actually relieved.  It feels like I am really hearing myself, like I’m totally present in the moment in way I didn’t realize I’d lost. 

    So I left the TV off today, too.  I walked to the store for shampoo instead of driving.  I bought sparkly pink polish so I can have pretty hands at the new job on Tuesday.   I walked to Starbucks and sat in a comfy chair and drank coffee and read Z. A. Maxfield’s The Long Way Home.  I still wasn’t quite ready to be inside when I got home, so I grabbed a lounge chair by the pool and read some more.  I played cards with my brother in the garden of one of our favorite restaurants until the sun went down.  I wanted as much sunshine as I could get, and I wallowed in it.

    Obviously the nice weather helped make today pretty fantastic, but what really made this a beautiful day was feeling the door open inside me, being able to take things in rather than being caught entirely in my own head.

    I have a whole new appreciation today for how important it is to keep ourselves open.  When the door is shut, two things happen.  First our brains have no outlet for all the noise our daily lives build up and we start focusing on just managing the volume instead of listening to what we’re actually hearing.  Second, we have no way to let new things in.  It’s like driving on the freeway at seventy miles an hour.  Everything that happens becomes a flash across the windshield, there one second and gone the next, rather than sticking with us, making an impact.

    I don’t mean to say that I plan on spilling my guts to everyone I meet.  But I do think that communicating and opening myself up is something I have to be consciously aware of.  Simply trusting myself to do it naturally is apparently not enough.  I’ve learned this week that my Critic is very good at making isolating myself seem like a perfectly rational thing to do, and I know it isn’t.

    Sharing and keeping the lines of communication open doesn’t just give us a chance to blow off steam.  It lets us share our joy, too, and allows us to take things in from the world around us.  I opened myself up and had a really beautiful day today.  I hope you have a beautiful day, too.

  • Wiley Wednesday: Life After NaNo

    Those of us who have done NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) share one thing in common, whether or not we actually completed our project or not: there’s a sense of let-down after November is over, a feeling of “what now?” Rest easy, writers; you’re not alone. There are others out there to play with, other projects to tackle, and other crazy goals to set.

    A great place to look, even if you didn’t do NaNo itself, is the “I Wrote a Novel, Now What?” section on the main NaNo site. It has several sections useful to writers of all stripes:

    Revision Advice – After the draft is done, the editing begins. There are as many ways to revise as there are to edit, and this section features excellent suggestions to make the process less painful.

    Revision Pep Talks – never underestimate the power of a good pep talk! Marathoners and long-term Weight Watchers can tell you, attitude is everything; a good pep talk can help give you a well-placed attitude adjustment.

    NaNoWriMo-style Events On the Horizon – I love this section! It is comforting, particularly in the first and second weeks of December, to find that there are others out there doing what you’re doing – or, in some cases, doing WAY more. There are blog-everyday-for-a-month people, editing people, and NaNoNotNovember folks. This is a great place to come to get ideas about where other writers hang out, and what you can do to keep up the madness of NaNo. Momentum’s a beautiful thing.

    Novel Writing Contests Without Entry Fees – This is a great way to test your mettle. Many contests out there do not require entry fees and this is a place to find many of them. Not all of them are for novels, either – the Writer’s Digest “Your Story” contest is 750 words or less – a great way to prime the pump.

    Some Thoughts on Publishing – This is a very useful section. Rather than pimping for the publishing industry, it contains links to some excellent advice sites, particularly helpful for avoiding scams.

    More OLL Goodness – Last, but not least, this is the place to come to find out what else the crazy folks at the Office of Letters and Light (the organization that brings you NaNoWriMo every year) are up to.

    Bottom line, if you love to write, there are others out there who love it too. Even if you don’t have an in-person writing group in your very own town, with the internet, you don’t have to. Writers all over the world connect and support each other every day. What are you waiting for? Get out there and write!

  • Scrabbling for Life

    Having become recently hooked on playing Scrabble via an android mobile device, I realized that there are many similarities between the game and life.

    To find success and happiness folks need a balance of luck and skill. You need to pay attention and follow the rules. If you find yourself unhappy with your lot, you can gamble in making a change much like throwing away letters from your options in the game. The trick is that one needs to be willing to end up in a worse situation.

    But enough about life in general. This blog is about creative living. And that, blessedly, has no rules outside of still paying attention and definitely opening your mind.

    As for the game, I like to play Scrabble because I love words. Writing is understandably my favorite creative outlet. Fortunately, writing is very different from the game. There is no limit on the number of words or letters available to play. The trick is about putting the letters down more than having either luck or skill.

    Much can be said for other forms of creativity. I hope you’ll find yours and go have some fun. You might very well change your life for the better while you’re at it.