Tag: Wiley Wednesday

  • Wiley Wednesday: Irreducible Minimums

    There’s an idea in piano instruction called the Irreducible Minimums. It’s the idea that there are certain things that one must do on a regular basis, those “at least” things that keep us with one foot in the water.

    As it relates to writing, there are certain things that we must do on a regular basis to keep the pump primed and the ideas flowing. But for each writer, those things are different.

    Here, then, is the List According to Noony (which is the only right list, you know…)

    1. Morning Pages

    Those of you who have been readers of mine for a while have heard me harp on this subject quite a bit. It bears repeating: Morning Pages work. They work because they keep the channel clear. They are the small step that leads to bigger steps.

    In case you haven’t been reading my material (and if not, you should feel very guilty and go fix that right now by reading everything) (from the beginning) (and making comments on each thing) what are Morning Pages? They are an idea from the genius mind of Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way and other books, and are three pages of longhand writing, done in the morning. They are hardest for writers, because our temptation is to write them. They aren’t meant to be fine prose, or even grammatically correct. In fact, one way to really get a lot out of them is to try to write them badly. Write them from the perspective of a child throwing a tantrum. Write them however you write them, but write them. Three pages of them. Every morning.

    2. Regular Sleep

    This may sound like a “duh” moment, but it amazes me how many people I know who don’t let themselves get enough sleep. They try to burn the candle at both ends and wonder why they’ve run out of wax. Stupid. Sleep is necessary for mammals. (In case you haven’t been paying attention, if you’re reading this, you’re a mammal.)

    3. Support

    This may sound foo-foo, but it’s critical. Studies have shown that people with extended networks of family and friends do better on all sorts of measurements from tests to longevity. Writing is a solitary activity, since it comes down to us with a pen or keyboard. But you do not need to be solitary to pursue it. There are all kinds of writing groups, online support, and other resources you can use to meet this basic human need.

    4. Practice

    In order to keep it going, and get better, storytellers need to practice. Experiment with new techniques, write to writing prompts, and keep your hand in. Blogs are a good way to keep it flowing and to get support, all at the same time.

    5. Write

    It may seem simplistic, but in order to keep writing, one must… write. It’s not hard.

    Of course, it ain’t easy, either…

    What are your irreducible minimums?

  • The Lady with Dust Bunnies in Her Hair

    The gal in question wrote to an animal welfare website where folks tell how they discovered a beloved pet, often found languishing in a shelter after being heartlessly dumped. Her story stood out, though. This goodhearted person wrote that the poor cat spent his initial two months “with me hiding under the bed.” What? An adult woman spent two months under her bed?

    It’s a sad tell on misuse of the English language that it took me a few moments to realize that the cat hid, not the woman. Should I expect a preposition to precede the subject of a verb? Of course not. Yet that was exactly how I interpreted her opening sentence. Why did she even add the words “with me”? Where else would the animal have been, an ocean freighter?

    After reading the sentence, I find myself particularly grateful for demanding school teachers. I also have a constructively perfectionist mother who instilled a strong respect for precise grammar and punctuation. I’m far from perfect, to be sure, but my problem is more along the lines of capitol versus capital and the like. All the same, I think it’s time to pick up an edition of “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynn Truss. If nothing else, the intrinsic humor and a foreword by delightful author Frank McCourt will make the informative read well worth the time and money.

    Instead of worrying about perfection, however, I’d definitely rather read these types of heartwarming stories. And that goes for fiction, too, so happy writing!

  • Get Into The Groove

    A couple of songs popped up in my Rhapsody play list the last few days, and I noticed a trend. What played was Madonna’s Get Into The Groove, and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Let’s Grove Tonight. It got me thinking about the crazy summer, and my writing – or lack thereof. Summers in Montana are woefully short. It’s not really warm till mid-June and by mid-August often the leaves are beginning to turn. See what I mean? So we like to make the most of the warmth and sunshine while we can.

    This is not overly conducive to sitting at my computer, however, when the gorgeous outdoors beckons. And while it is perfectly logical, my distance from those magic words that I string together day by day to make a story still call to me and I get antsy and unsettled because I am not writing. So what’s a poor author to do?

    Recently, Rowan Lark, author of A Love Neverending and one of the authors on the new Nightlight blog, published a wonderful idea, and one I am planning to dive into once our family camping trip is done. She proposed the idea of 100 words a day for 100 days. It’s beautiful in it’s simplicity. The key here is consistency and habit. And the daily word count is easily achieved, so that you can be successful. It’s just what I need to get back in the habit and for P.M. to get her groove back. Pure genius.

  • It’s All In Where You Look

    Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
    — E.L. Doctorow

    It was the fall of my freshman year of high school that I fell in love with E.L. Doctorow. I was fourteen, and that was…too many years ago now to admit to. My English teacher had a few shelves of books she considered ‘should reads’ and loaned them out. As it happens, I”d read most of them already, but then I discovered Ragtime sitting there. The cover back then was a plain, solid color – rust as I recall – with the title in retro script across the top. I took it home. I was still reading in the wee hours that night. Lunch was forgotten the next day, and by the time 6th period rolled around I was, reluctantly, returning it to the shelf. Even now, all these years later, I still feel nostalgic when I think of it.

    All that (ancient) history I present simply to explain why I picked the above quote. It’s a bit of synchronicity at play. I am now reading Bird By Bird, by Anne Lamott. I am only a few chapters in, but loving it so far. She mentioned this quote and it really hit home with me.

    So often, when the urge to write a book hits us, we face an initial panic at the idea of writing something ‘that long’. How will we ever think of enough to fill two or three hundred pages? How will we ever figure out a whole storyline? The first blank page then looms huge, becoming overwhelming while we try to see all the way to the end, even as we are typing Chapter 1 – the heading, not the actual text.

    That’s when these wise words can make all the difference. We need to focus on what we can see, what we are writing right now. What happens in this scene? What makes it important? How will it advance the characters? Is it believable and will it pull the reader in, make them feel as if they are really there? Focusing on what’s in the headlights, the scene before you, will make it happen. And that scene will lead to the next, and the next….and before you know it, you’ve made the whole trip. Enjoy the ride.

  • Cruel & Unusual ~ An Artist’s Trials

    Honoring my commitment to follow “The Artist’s Way” from beginning to end, I opened my copy of Julia Cameron’s guide Sunday afternoon. Never quite knowing what to expect from these highly spiritual messages, I had been warned of a week in which artists are advised not to read, particularly for pleasure or to waste snippets of time. Well, I discovered that this is it, week four.

    I didn’t foresee that being a tremendous hardship, not for a mere seven days. It came as a surprise to discover just how often I grab a book when settling down to some mindless physical task. Discovering this addiction to the written word has become my first real epiphany through the Artist’s Way and made me want to examine the habit more deeply.

    I remember that the tendency started before I could even decipher the English alphabet. My mother likes to remind me how her little girl would sit on the potty training seat flipping through a catalog or magazine, admiring the neat lines of print as much as the pictures. At the breakfast table, the outside of cereal boxes became as much a staple as the contents. When finished with whatever interested me, I would consume the ingredients list. This appetite always seemed like a good thing, and it is. However, I do understand the goal of abstinance.

    By resisting a constant stream of input, we stop sedating the creative mind with others’ thoughts and ideas. Already, the AW exercises received more attention this week because they gave me something to do besides open the novel I’m currently reading. I actually enjoyed undertaking those assignments and hope this might inspire a new level of commitment to Ms. Cameron’s process.

    As I am composing this on Monday, we shall see how the rest of the week goes. I passed two difficult tests so far, restraining myself from pouring over what two talented colleagues have recently composed. One of these treasured individuals didn’t know about this temporary restriction and actually emailed story snippets for something to brighten my workday. She graciously understood my reason for not being able to read, which is turning out to be a real trial!

    It’s just a good thing I didn’t read “The Artist’s Way” any earlier than I did on Sunday. Being forced to set aside Kimberly Gardner’s novelette “Phoenix Rising” halfway through would have truly been cruel and unusual punishment.

  • Wiley Wednesday: How To See the Forest If You’re a Tree Person

    As a right-brained and big-picture thinker, it surprises me when I throw a whole bunch of ideas at someone and I see their eyes widen in panic and they blurt, “You don’t want to do all that right NOW, do you?” I’m not a naturally cruel person, and causing this kind of stress in my friends, colleagues, and fellow writers is saddening. Which brings me to my topic for today’s Wiley Wednesday.

    If you are a tree person, and like things in digestible chunks without a lot of extra fluff out of nowhere, then read on. I shall attempt to demystify the forest way of thinking in order to bring harmony between the two camps.

    The first thing to remember when dealing with a forest person, if you are a tree person, is that brainstorming is fun. Forest people like to sit above the tops of the trees, sometimes so far above them that we don’t even know what kind of tree – we might not even know if they’re evergreen or not! This is fun for us. This is agony for you. We don’t know this, and so we go on, gleefully describing how that forest over there looks from a distance, and this one there, and did you know there’s a whole ocean on the other side?

    The key to brainstorming is to remember, there are no bad ideas, and that the word “No” stops the process in its tracks. This is painful to a forest person. If the tree person can simply say to themselves, here they go again, and let the forest person natter on about their ideas and be enthusiastic, this will lead to harmony. The forest person will usually take their own notes, but it is absolute heaven to us when a tree person decides to jot down our ideas. We think, “You get it!” Reality is, according to the tree people I know, that it’s out of self defense when the tree person is asked, “Weren’t you listening last month when I had the idea for the child seat company??” If you just bucket these ideas for a rainy day, much in the way of a collection of coins, it will go a long way to diffusing the tension.

    The second thing to remember when dealing with a forest person is that sometimes one needs to clarify, is one speaking as a forest person, or is the forest person working with the details of the here-and-now? My husband, for example, is a tree person. I need to remind him, “I’m talking about the forest here,” so that he knows to disconnect from the idea that I’m suggesting we do all these things right now. This type of communication is necessary when dealing between the two camps, because the tree people I know assume that the forest person is speaking about details and the here-and-now OR they assume that the forest person expects the tree person to sort out all the details right now. Neither is usually the case.

    The third and final thing to remember is that forest people like to throw out a lot of ideas and see what sticks. For example, when I was proposing some ideas for my writing group, I tossed out a blog, another blog, a print newsletter, a steering committee… Initially, I gathered other forest people to see what excited them. Then, when presenting it to the group’s founder, I went more slowly in a step-wise fashion. It paid off in the long run, since Debbie Cairo, a tree person, and I have now started a not-for-profit writing group and have held our first annual conference. Debbie said to me the other day that she’s figured out that I like to throw out a lot of ideas, and I’ve said to her that I don’t expect her to DO everything I suggest – I’m just seeing what interest there is for possible future directions. Plus, it’s a way for me to find interest among our membership in our ideas, and maybe a member will step forward and run with the ball – as Nancy Bockoven has done with our ShopNotes blog. (Which, if you haven’t checked it out recently, please do so – she’s done an amazing job on it.)

    If you are a forest person, and you’re reading this, please remember that when dealing with a tree person, they’re not being purposely stubborn and resistant to your ideas. They simply are hearing them as something you want them to do, RIGHT NOW. That sense of urgency, to a forest person, is enthusiasm. To a tree person, it can feel like pressure. If we can learn to spell out where we’re coming from, we’ll get much more cooperation from both sides and avoid having to cut down the whole forest, so there aren’t any more pesky trees.

    After all, it takes a lot of trees to make a forest, right?

    Happy Wednesday!

  • Wiley Wednesday: Pantsing vs. Plotting

    To be, or not to be: that is the question:

    Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
    The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
    Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
    And by opposing end them? ~Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1

    To paraphrase Hamlet, to plot or to pants, that is the question. I bet Hamlet quotes are the last thing you ever though you would hear in a discussion of plotting vs. pantsing. First, let’s define these two terms, then we will take a closer look at each.

    First up: pantsing. This is the abbreviated form of ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ or in this case writing by the same. To follow our Hamlet theme – the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Basically, it involves getting an idea, sitting down to write and seeing where it takes you and what pops up in the story as you go along.

    There are as many forms of pantsing as there are pantsers. Some start with no planning whatsoever. They see the idea and dive right in on the blank page, letting the story take them where it will. Some, like me, get an idea, write down the high points like a sightseeing map, then let the characters and story dictate the rest as it comes. There are, of course, vary degrees of pantsing all along the spectrum.


    The point is that a minimum of pre-planning and plotting are done ahead of time. These writers tend to view writing more organically and are willing to test the waters to see what floats and what doesn’t. Devotees of pantsing cite the flexibility, lack of restraint, the freedom to go wherever the story takes them. These are the writers who love a good surprise, an unexpected plot twist, when writing. I’ll admit it’s a rush when something awesome suddenly pops out of nowhere that adds just the perfect touch to the story, when something I never saw coming happens and it is just what the story needed. That’s when we feel like the characters are real, living and breathing beings who want their story to be told. After all, they should know better than anyone what happens in their lives, right?

    This method is not without its problems, however. Sometimes, characters can have a conflicting view of events. Sometimes those great surprises can derail your plot and lead you down a blind alley, forcing re-writes. Last but not least, without a clear mental vision, it can lead to looser plot and pacing issues. Again, this can be tightened up in editing. But then again, it can also lead to a brilliant idea that takes the ordinary into the realms of extraordinary, a spark fed from the story itself that no amount of planning could ever foresee.

    Now the plot thickens. Or rather, the plotting does. Here’s where writers take arms against a sea of troubles…also known as disorganization. Plotters are some of the most organized people I know. At any given moment, they know how the story will go, who is in it, what they are doing in every scene and how it all will end. They know everything there is to know about their characters and setting. Moving from point A to point B comes in well-ordered fashion. These writers also have a much easier time writing scenes out of sequence. If one scene is hanging them up, they can skip to another easily, without fear of going off in a wrong direction and having to scrap the scene later.

    The tools of the plotter are impressive. Outlines are a staple, and can range from general to extremely detailed, running several pages. Storyboards are often used, which give a great visual layout of scenes and chapters. It’s a great way to keep track of who is where at any given time. Timelines make sure you don’t have time and date conflicts and that everything does not happen in a single day. The synopsis is another great tool. This is a summary of the story, start to finish, that outlines the major characters, plot points, and outcome. Some do the synopsis beforehand as a sort of road map, some after. Altogether, though, these tools serve to keep the writing process smooth and hopefully trouble free, to avoid blind alleys and deleting useless scenes.

    The downside? Sometimes it can lead to too much organization – more time spent organizing than writing. The more flexible thinkers feel all this outlining can stifle the joy and creativity of writing the story, that by the time they are done with all this organizing, they are already tired of the story and don’t have the urge to do what feels like ‘rewriting’. As in all things, your mileage may vary.

    Each method has its devotees and both styles work. Those who excel at plotting can whip out a great draft with speed and what appears to be minimal effort. Pantsers often come across as more creative, more inspired. I don’t agree. I think it’s all in the perception and when the inspiration and creative phases are done. Plotters are every bit as inspired but I think the creative burst comes more at the beginning, when they are outlining the whole plot. After all, you have to be hugely inspired to know what will happen start to finish, it just may not be as apparent as it is with pantsers.

    It’s all a matter of where in the process it happens. We all have to dream up characters and ideas, form plots and conflict, pace the action and emotion in order to have an interesting readable, gripping story. And whatever method gets you there, inspires you to get the words on the page day after day, is the one that works.

    To pants or to plot…yes that is the question. Enjoy the journey!

  • What’s in a pen name?

    Great title, isn’t it? I bet you’ve never seen anyone use a (modified) Shakespeare quote in normal language or in a blog/blog title before, have you?

    Ain’t I clever?

    Anyway, back to the topic at hand: pen names.

    This is something that I’ve been contemplating for awhile, now, especially after joining the Artist’s Retreat.

    I chose to be called “Lucius Antony” on that site (and, ultimately, here) because I liked the name and it has been something that I’ve used in reference to myself for a few years in various (albeit limited) capacity.

    But, the question is, do I really want to “brand myself” with that name? I have no problem with my real name, and would actually like to see my name in print.

    However, “Lucius Antony” might stand out better than my real name and I will always know that “Lucius Antony” is me. And, as a journalist, I’ll see my name in print often enough. It might actually help in that aspect, should a journalist be known as a fiction writer, as well? I’m sure more than a few have.

    However, I’ve already been creating something of a “brand name” around Lucius Antony, just by posting on this blog (read by Heaven knows how many people) and at the Artist’s Retreat.

    I suppose it’s all a start.

  • My characters don’t “say”, they proclaim…

    Okay, it’s a silly title for a blog post. My quandary is rather comically illustrated, though, for I take issue with repetitive language. A past crusade was against the word “was”. This indicative can so easily become a crutch, I think. An early original series of mine received a serious purge, then I subsequently encountered “was” so many times on the first few pages of a book that I refused to read this popular author’s entire series!

    Later, a friend kindly pointed another tendency I had to overuse “had”. Yikes. Thanks, Nikki! The kind pointers from artists like you and other dear colleagues really help my craft and improve my tales.

    Now, as you’ve surely guessed, I’ve moved onto dialogue tags. The ideal goal is to not need to blatantly indicate the speaker. An author should aspire toward the reader determining who is talking without such aids. Other times, we unavoidably need them, especially when inserting a descriptive paragraph in the middle of the exchange. In those instances, I’ve become obsessed with avoiding “says” or “said”.

    A big part of this is just me being picky. And yet I listened to a book on tape that would have been pure pleasure except for the constant “he said” or “she said” sprinkled liberally throughout. The phrase actually came to annoy me and my captive spouse during the long car ride. Whether or not “said” blended into the written page, I physically flinched as time went on.

    Considering this, let’s agree that my beef against the word is somewhat founded. Still, I face a quandary. How often am I harming my stories by using a fancier alternative? Apparently my proclivity is not rare among this generation’s new storytellers. In my Oxford American thesaurus for writers I discovered a warning that the creative ways we folks avoid repetition makes the tags jump off the page. That’s not good, either. These little verbs should blend in behind the all-important character exchange except when portraying something specific regarding the speaker, the listener, or their situation.

    The best solution is to just keep writing. Eventually, I’ll come up with a satisfactory balance. So I have to ask, what do you have to say? Is my obsession founded or is it flotsam?

  • Wiley Wednesday: Sustainable Change

    I’m reminded recently of how change becomes sustainable, and how to set oneself up for failure. I thought I’d talk about that a little here, in the context of writing, but it applies to any changes one wishes to make in one’s daily round.

    A young colleague of mine recently decided to chuck it all, move home to another state and live with his mother, and “get in shape.” Then , once he’s down below the weight requirements, he plans to apply to Officer Candidate School of whatever branch “will accept him.”

    He had a lot to say about patriotism, and hypocrisy of those who sit on the sidelines during war and refuse to participate. On the other hand, he’s a brilliant young mathematician with a shot at contributing to the field of economics or finance.

    But all of that aside, all the question ns of whether t his is the “right” choice at the “right” time during a two-front war that shows every sign of being a generational problem, let’s focus on the most critical part of his statements as they relate to us as writers: he’s going to move home, “get disciplined,” lose the weight, and apply to OCS.

    As any of us who have attempted any long-term marathon change, such as weight loss or writing a large project, or even writing small projects consistently, we know that it’s little increments that add up to a larger whole. It’s rarely the grandiose gestures that make success, it’s the small accumulation of baby steps toward a goal that create the foundation for sustainable change. After all, one cannot cram for weight loss the way one crams for a test.

    Which makes a side point – education in the institutional model does not prepare us for reality, because we believe that cramming and writing papers the night before can lead us to success long term. Really, that’s a way for short-term success, but how much to we really remember of the test we crammed? How deeply did we mine our acre of diamond to come up with a paper we wrote in one night?

    Sustainable change must be perpetual, hence the word sustainable.

    From Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, page 1189, “sustain: 1. To give support or relief to; 2. To supply with sustenance; nourish; 3. Keep up, prolong; 4. To support the weight of; prop, also: to carry or withstand (a weight or pressure)” etc.

    None of those definitions describes something immediate or transitory. None is ephemeral; one is rather minded of bricks or a scaffold, something with permanency or providing support in order to build that which is permanent. Long-term.

    We need to set up a sort of perpetual motion machine that feeds itself over time – but this is not something that can be done overnight. It is said that a habit is formed over 21 days, which is hardly an overnight cram session, wouldn’t you say? That’s three whole weeks of sustained effort. Steven Covey talks about escape velocity, and I think that applies in this case – but after escape velocity is produced, what then? After we’re in orbit of our new plan, what then? How have you changed, and how have you set up scaffolding to support your new self?