Tag: creative writing

Sleepless Opportunities

If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?

Time enough at last!

Sleep takes up most of our lives. 7-9 hours every day. 14-15 hours left to do what we need to do – work, eat, chores, leisure. What if I had those extra 9 hours to myself? What if I could do whatever I wanted with all that extra time?

The strange thing is, I’m not sure if I would do much of anything. I’ve noticed that the amount of time I have to do something is directly proportional to how little I am motivated to do it. Perhaps it’s the same as being rich – one hundred dollars doesn’t mean much when you have one hundred million.

What I would try to do is to increase the amount of time that I exercise, and get more chores done, and maybe try out some recipes I’ve always wanted to make. And I’d certainly want to write more and read more and catch up on all the hobbies that have been nagging at my mind. But, I honestly don’t know if I would.

Time is precious. And less time motivates me to try to be more careful with it. I can’t do everything, so I endeavor to do what truly matters to me.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Writers, Don’t Go It Alone

Writing is by and large a solitary activity. It isn’t something generally done in a group save for perhaps writing jams and community workshops. However, when writing your novel, short story, poetry, or any other project, you’re probably going to spend the lion’s share of your time by yourself, with only your ideas and thoughts to keep you company on the journey.

However, writing is not an isolated activity, as I have discovered. While writing a novel draft may be done in private, what comes afterward needs other people: submitting drafts to beta readers, finding editors to review your work, maybe even sharing passages with a local writers’ group. Why? Well, partly because we all need a few extra pairs of eyes to see the good and bad in our work that we can’t see ourselves. But we also need a smidgeon of encouragement from time to time.

I don’t say this out of selfishness or self-pity. All writers must build confidence in their work if they intend to publish. But let’s face facts. We all feel discouraged at some point or another. Perhaps we’ve hit writer’s block or we look back on our recent work and want to gag. Or maybe, even though everything is going swimmingly and we’re hitting all our deadlines, we still can’t shake off the inexplicable doldrums we’re feeling. And we need someone to talk to, someone we can trust and confide in.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, writers are not cut off from the world. We need other people, and we need encouragement. Being left alone with only our own thoughts to keep us company – well, I don’t know about you, but as a writer I tend to be a very harsh critic of my own work, always asking if it’s really any good.

Writing can become a lonely journey. Find someone, or a couple someones, willing to stick with you through it all, give honest feedback, be supportive, and most of all, be a friend. Writers shouldn’t live in a vacuum. It’s not healthy (or even really possible), and after all, half the fun of writing is to see people’s reactions to the things we create.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Exactly Where I Want to Live

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I would live in a comfortable cabin in the middle of a sparse but lush forest with no neighbors within shouting distance and located exactly one hour away from the nearest town. I would also have electricity and a hot tub.

Those who read my musings on my city of the future may be aware that when a daily prompt asks me what I want, I go whole hog with exactly what I want. Will I ever get it? Probably not, but my imagination doesn’t have to agree with reality. I want a cozy cabin, I want peace and quiet, and I want to huddle up on my couch and watch my big-screen TV while the birds chirp outside. And when I need to go shopping, I want the store to be an hour’s drive away.

Fantasizing about an idyllic, Arcadian existence is all fun and dandy, but actually living it is a different case entirely. Loafing around on a tropical island is fine until you need to take a shower and have no soap and shampoo. Or towels and washcloths. Or plumbing. Not to mention the bugs and the heat and the storms. Yes, I admit it, I like modern amenities as much as I like nature. So, I would live close to nature, but not too close, thank you very much.

Civilization strove for millennia to invent the modern conveniences we currently enjoy, and some of them were invented for very good reason. Who am I to throw aside all that hard work?

Okay, maybe I could go without the hot tub …

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Deep Questions about Deep Literature

Do you remember literature classes in high school? How you would spend hours every day discussing the symbolic value of the billboard in The Great Gatsby and analyzing what each character represented in The Lord of the Flies? A spade is never just a spade in lit class. There is always a deeper meaning.

So can anyone explain to me why all the books students have to read are so dang depressing?

Looking back, this is what I feel that we were doing: Taking a beautiful flower and plucking its petals and cutting the stem and digging up the roots to see why it was a beautiful flower. And we very scientifically removed everything beautiful about it.

But darn it, we got educated about great literature. We knew what metaphor was. And allegory. And the subtle social critiques and genre deconstructions that mark all literary classics. We obtained knowledge! We justified our tuition!

There are people who make their living by reading stories and telling other people whether they are good or not. And their word is law, because there is no such thing as an opinion they understand the rules that govern quality writing. Where they obtain this arcane knowledge is unknown. Presumably, they dissected enough flowers.

Good stories seem to be a case of majority rules. If enough people say it’s good, it must be good. Maybe. But I didn’t like The Great Gatsby, so does that mean it’s not a good book or I’m not a good writer? Or perhaps if I had read it on my own time instead of being forced to analyze that darn stupid billboard I would have liked it.

What does it matter what color the curtains are or what suit the one character is wearing in each scene? It matters because somebody important says it matters, but what if it’s not the author saying it? Are we seeing what the writer put there, or what we think is there? Are we seeing meaning where there is none, or is the meaning not what we think it means? Does it mean what people say it means, or does it mean something else, which means that what I want it to mean means that it means the wrong thing from what everyone else thinks it means? Because that’s just mean.

Or maybe we’re just really good at gaslighting ourselves into thinking a book somebody wrote to pay their bills is a magnum opus. The writer wings it, hears what critics say, nods sagely and says, “Yes, that’s exactly what it means.”

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Kid at Heart

What does it mean to be a kid at heart?

Probably not screaming when you don’t get dessert and walking into the house with mud covering your shoes.

“Kid at heart” is one of those curious expressions we use and don’t give much thought to. There’s a general consensus that everyone knows what it means, but do we really know what it actually means? Kids are selfish, loud, noisy, sometimes smelly, and generally very expensive. They are also seen as innocent, full of potential, and the future of civilization. Which may or may not be true (especially that part about innocence).

So, what does it mean to be a “kid at heart?” Perhaps it simply means to not let go of youthful vigor and enthusiasm. To not be jaded, as kids so rarely are, and to see the world as something fresh and new every day, as kids so often do. Kids are as flawed as adults, so I don’t think we should see childhood as a perfect little utopia long lost, but rather as a time when we were willing to have a little more joy in our lives and a little more willingness to learn.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Taking A Risk

What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?

I’m not much of a big risk-taker in general, but then again, everyone’s definition of “risk” varies. What’s mundane for you can be nerve-rattling for me, and vice versa.

A friend of mine runs a podcast and has invited me to join it one day. For me, that’s a risk, not because I really stand to lose anything, but because I’m the nervous sort. Podcasts aren’t the same as public speaking, but they are public, and I’m neither the most photogenic nor the most outgoing person. The risk, then, would be the risk of me making a fool of myself across the Internet, or the corner of it that listens to my friend’s podcast, anyway.

There’s a lot of fear, there, but that’s what makes it a risk, right? And maybe someday I’ll muster up the courage to take him up on his offer.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Putting Stories into the World and Learning to Let Them Go

Stories are precious things, especially to those who write them.

We write stories for all sorts of reasons: to tell a message, to work through a grief or hardship, as a gift for friends and family, or simply for the sake of doing so. Regardless of why, stories are very personal things.

And we all have a vision for our stories. We see it for what we want it to be. We see it all – or so we think. And then the moment of truth comes: time to publish. It’s out there, others are reading it, and they don’t see what we saw.

That’s applicability for you. We plan and plan, but readers make the story into something else, because they see themselves in the story. We all see ourselves, and so the narrative comes into focus through the lenses of our own lives.

It’s hard to let go of what we create, and even harder to hear others’ opinions of our work. They claim to understand and comprehend the deep analogies and whatnot, and we tell ourselves, “That’s not what I meant at all!”

It’s life, I suppose. And it’s something all writers will have to deal with sooner or later. But it’s not all bad. The words of readers reveal other lenses, other views and new possibilities. To be a writer is to spend so much time locked up inside yourself. Letting your story go out into the world allows you to see beyond your own mind.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Persist

Persist. Persistence is needed in life. Get out of bed, go to work, clean the house. Balance your checkbook, cook dinner, take your kids to sports practice. Every day, there is the routine. Keep at it. Always keep at it, even when you’re screaming inside.

Because you know what? Today you feel rotten, tomorrow you feel amazing. Today is hard. Working is hard, writing is hard and even picking up your socks is too much. Tomorrow, the misery clears away and you can take on the world. Persist.

Sometimes, you need to be stubborn. Your job sucks, you want to go home. Endure it. Stubbornly do the work expected of you. It won’t last forever, you know.

Persistence is refusal. Refusal to give up hope, refusal to give in to discouragement. Persistence doesn’t care about feelings or being in the zone. Persistence does, whether it wants to or not. Whether you want to or not.

So persist. Persist in achieving your goals, persist in improving your life, persist in getting through another day.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

The Sound of Inspiration

What would your life be like without music?

A life without music would be dull, that’s easy enough to say. But for me, it would also be a great deal more difficult to write anything noteworthy.

It is my belief that music is the purest expression of emotions and feelings available to humankind, just as written words are the purest expression of structured ideas. How do we describe good music? Moving, exciting, stirring, heartbreaking, uplifting, thrilling, contemplative. Music makes us feel. Words can, too, of course, but where a written story might give us a good shove now and then, music slaps us in the face – in a good way. Take any scene from a movie or stage play and remove the music. What do you have left? A bunch of people yelling and prancing around, usually. But add the music, and your heart beats to a gallop, or sinks in defeat or halts in anticipation. You no longer see something silly, but an experience of deep sincerity.

So what does this have to do with my writing? Simple. I listen to music for inspiration. Lots of people do, and I’m one of them. If you’re a writer and haven’t tried music as a way to come up with new ideas and work through the details of current ones, then I highly recommend it. Music stirs up emotions into a bubbling well, and from that well I draw my inspiration to fuel my projects.

I suppose that music and words go hand in hand. Two different forms of passion that perfectly compliment each other.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Tips on Draft Writing

Drafts are a vital part of any writing project. Very, very, very rarely is any book released on its first draft. You need to pour over your work many times to make sure it’s ready for publication. But, the question often arises: How many drafts should you write? Three? Four? Eleven? How many is enough?

There’s no hard and fast answer. It depends on the author. Different strokes for different writers.

Even so, I’ve come across a few general tips that can help you decide how long to spend in the drafting stage.

  1. Set yourself goals for each draft. Pick one specific thing to improve for each draft you write. Your first draft -the vomit draft, as I like to call it – is just getting your story onto paper. Your second draft, perhaps, can center around developing story and characterization. For the next one, pay attention to grammar and sentence structure. Whatever you choose, each draft sees definite and specific improvement, and you may find yourself not needing to go through as many as you expected.
  2. Don’t expect perfection. You’ll never get there. Drafting is about improvement, not reaching an ideal but unattainable state of “perfection.” Even the greatest writers make mistakes. Focus on refining and polishing. Every time you go through your story, you’re making it better. Each draft builds on the previous one.
  3. Pace yourself. Sometimes, wrapping up one draft and jumping straight into the next isn’t a good idea. Give yourself a few days to let your subconscious mull over things. A little break can be great for your writing as you begin anew rested and with a fresh perspective. You find yourself more easily spotting errors and opportunities.
  4. You have to publish eventually. If you want to release your book to the public, you will have to stop drafting at some point. You have to tell yourself that your story is ready. Remember: Refining and editing is all well and good, but if you never stop, then you will reach a point where you’re doing more harm than good. You lose sight of the whole and get buried in nitpicks that add nothing. A sculptor who never stops chiseling the marble ends up with nothing but gravel in the end.

Some people love the drafting stage, other people don’t. I find it a useful and interesting process. I not only clean up the chaos of my first draft, but also discover new things about my characters, new storytelling techniques, and just plain mature as a writer. However many you find necessary, remember the most important tip of all: Have fun with it!

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.