Bring Back that Writing Feeling

 

By Maggie

So, you've lost that writing feeling? Wondering if you need to take your muse out for a nice dinner or send her flowers to bring back that creative spark? Of course, staying in your muse`s good graces is important, but maybe what you need to do is recharge with a change in your writing life.

Many writers I know, myself included, tend to form habits and stick to them, by golly. The reasons start out valid: I can only write when the baby is asleep, or my husband is at work, the house is completely quiet, the moon is in the seventh house, etc., etc. Or, I only write in third person, always fantasy, never with pen on paper. Only. Always. Never. Really? Let`s have a Write a Different Way Day and see what happens.

Story changes for us to consider:

•  If your work in progress is in third person, switch to first 
• Pick a different character as your protagonist 
• Make a nice, kind character wicked instead 
• Change the setting to an opposite climate 

Changes of where and how:

•  If you write in a quiet room, go to the park or the mall 
• Write with a pen on paper instead of a computer 
• Dictate the day`s writing into a voice recorder and play it back for yourself

The possible changes for a day have no limit. Write without a plan. Pretend you are actually a best selling author and your words are sought after by millions of rabid readers. Boldly go where your writer mind has never gone. I'll  take a Write a Different Way Day before my next blog post and tell you how it went for me, what I did and didn't like about my day.

What will you do on your Write a Different Way Day?

Your 10,000 Hours

Post by Jerry
Stephen King disheartened a lot of folks when, in On Writing, he declared that you couldn’t make a great writer our of a merely average writer, or something to that effect.  In King’s view, a very good writer could succeed to greatness.  A mediocre writer might ultimately produce good writing, etc.  Essentially he was saying that with lots of study, hard work, listening to others, reading great books, a writer might advance a stage or two, but not to the top of the heap.  Not unless she started well up the slope.  Having no illusions about where I was starting, those words almost made me quit.
King’s view reminds me of those signs on Interstate highways.  If phrased as “Keep Off The Median,” I love it and have taken it as a lifelong credo, an excuse to do some weird stuff. In Colorado, however, the sign reads, “Do Not Cross The Median.” Take that edict as a statement of social policy just for fun.  That means if you find yourself among the dregs of society, or even just the lower 50 percent, you are stuck there.  Suck it up, Colorado’s CDOT authorities won’t let you across that median.  Like King, who won’t let me, a struggling neophyte with no writing training and a sketchy history of prior efforts, aspire to greatness.  If I can’t at least dream the dream, why should I try?
But there is hope.  I just finished Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. In his chapter 2, titled “The 10,000-Hour Rule,” he makes a persuasive case that what made Bill Gates, the Beatles and other notable examples stand out is that they each put roughly 10,000 hours into perfecting their craft before they hit the big time. Now ten thousand hours is daunting, but it is do-able. Starting from scratch, write 3.5 hours a day, 6 days a week, and you’ll hit the magic number in about 10 years.  Is it any coincidence that nonfiction authors often say it takes about 10 years for finish a best seller?
I hear your groans, your OMGs, your “I can’t or won’t put in 10,000 hours.” OK, I’ll give you half way as a head start since most of you aren’t the raw neophyte that I once was.  How ‘bout five years? Do-able now? Look, my main point is that nobody ever said this was gonna be easy.  As with everything else, attaining excellence takes time, commitment, passion and one helluva lot of hard work. So who will join me in proving Stephen King wrong?

How many hours do you write in your typical week or month?

I'm Not (Just) Scatterbrained, I'm a Writer

Post by Jenny

I’m noticing lately that my body is acting a little older than my mind thinks it should. My knees sometimes hurt. My neck gets stiff. And hold the Rice Krispies, thanks; I hear enough snap, crackle, pop just rolling out of bed in the morning.

And then I wonder how many mental changes I’m experiencing, because I tend to be…what’s that word?…oh, yeah, forgetful. My sons know they’ll need to remind me more than once about important stuff like permission slips and saxophone reeds. My husband knows that if he asks me to bring him something from another part of the house, chances of me actually remembering to do it are about 1-in-3. Pretty good batting average, that, but dismal failure for many other things.

I joke about my short attention span, but the truth, I realized, is much cooler: more often than not, my distracted moments mean that my brain is busy writing. Even when my body is doing something else entirely—making dinner, painting my toenails, clambering toward the summit of Mt. Laundry Pile—my brain is engaged in writerly things. I might be composing a blog post, reworking a sentence six different times to find the best one, or following the thread of an intriguing first line that popped into my head—even if I know it won’t amount to more than a momentary diversion.

When I’m reading or watching a movie, I sift through dialogue and plot, mulling over what works, what doesn’t, what’s brilliant, what’s laughable.  When I’m walking the dog or sitting at a baseball game, I might think about how to describe the quality of the sunlight or the smell of whatever is rotting in the trashcan nearby. And, yes, I have to confess that I have spent a few idle moments wondering what it would feel like to be a bestselling author.

If I’m out with a friend for coffee, and we are discussing life and writing, family and friends, I listen fully and respond thoughtfully. But if talk turns to something lighter, say American Idol or Pinterest, a part of my mind will detach and start to wander…over to that exotic-looking woman in the corner, maybe, and start to work up a story about how she came to be sitting in a Starbucks at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning.

Does being a writer make you feel more distracted or more focused? Or both?

Strange Terrain

Post by Lynn

In my post of January 23rd, I shared that I was leaping into poetry for the first time by taking a class at my local community college. Well, I handed in the final portfolio last week, so I’m here to report on what I saw during my travels into that strange terrain.

Reading, writing and revising poetry for a semester has definitely altered my view of the genre, and forever affected my writing process.

The top three things I learned in poetry class:

1. The difference between image and abstraction. In short, you get at the big issues by way of the senses. I knew this on a certain level, but I sunk into it more deeply with poetry. When you’re in your poet mode do you mention the word “war”? No. You talk about “each round of the M-16 like a high-velocity wind.” Depression? Un-uh. You write: “One plate, with last night’s half-eaten ham sandwich, still on the table this morning.”

2. Adopt a persona. Kristin Abraham, our professor, randomly assigned each student a persona. “Write from this point of view,” she said, “and address your poem to Santa Claus.” Crazy stuff! I got the Headless Horseman. What I thought might be hard turned into a romp. I became a headless fiend, begging Santa for a new, preferably non-pumpkin, head. This introduced me to a previously-unexperienced freedom. I had permission to leave my hidebound self, enter another being and let the words flow from that vantage point.

3. Revision. More than the tweaking of sentences. I learned to take numerous sweeps at a poem, each time with a different goal, and to talk to my writing. Really!

Adapted from Heather Sellers, here are a few questions to ask your poem/story:

• What are you scared to really come out and say?
• Are you keeping any secrets from me?
• What do you really want to be?

There are many more lessons, of course – more than I can share in a short post, but let me just say that with poetry I walked in new places and I’m a different writer because of it.

What strange terrain are you exploring in your writing life?

Hugging the Curves

By Rich

I've been reading Andrew McCarthy's travel memoir The Longest Way Home as of late. It's a terrific story of Andrew's solo adventures to places we wouldn't choose for our annual holidays -- Patagonia, for example -- as well as a tale of a man conflicted between his solitary trips and the new family he has waiting for him at home. If you look underneath those storytelling layers, there's yet another theme to his memoir -- coming out of the curve. I'm not talking about Andrew righting himself when he gets lost in Vienna; rather, I'm referencing the curve in the road which led him to life as a travel author.

With a successful movie career and membership in the illustrious Brat Pack, things seemed to be going well for Andrew during the 1980s and 1990s. Then he it a curve as the roles dried up and he battled the ravages of alcoholism. He came out clean and sober, but another bend was up ahead. After a spiritual walk across St. James Way, Andrew hugged the figurative hairpin and came out a different man - willing to settle down and commit himself to a new career. Hence, how Andrew McCarthy, actor, became Andrew McCarthy, award-winning travel author.

Many of us have hugged the same curve as Andrew - minus the Hollywood stardom, of course. We've been absorbed in other careers and lives when, without a yellow sign of warning, a curve pops up on the metaphysical highway. Though some take the curve slow - sometimes stopping to absorb the view - others hug it so tightly they rocket away in a brand new direction.

The same concept applies to what we write. The manuscript sitting on our computer can be almost done, but another idea may pop into our heads quicker than a cup full of Pop Rocks and Coca-Cola, changing the whole concept and thought of the story. In these types of situations the author can let the idea sit on the railing or push it through the curve to see how it turns out. Sometimes the inclusion of werewolf zombies works for your romantic steampunk novel, and sometimes you have to reverse around the curve to get back to where you started.

To close on a philosophical note, life is never a straight line - it's full of curves and dips. It's whether  you decide to plow ahead or see how others get through first that determines who you are and what your writing will be.

What curve brought you into the writing world?

A Year of Plummeting

Guest Blog by Children's Author Debbie Dadey

At the 2012 Northern Colorado Writer’s Conference, Kerrie passed out a carabiner to every participant with an assignment to fill the ring with clippings of things you would not normally do-in essence, to push yourself to do more, to boldly go where your writing world has never taken you before. My particular ring had a quote attached, ‘The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail,’ by Edwin H. Lana.

 Frankly, I have to disagree with Mr. Lana. I think the essential part of creativity is doing it anyway even if you are scared to death. And that’s what I’ve tried to do since that 2012 conference. I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone to speak at conferences and workshops. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but when I’ve been out of town I’ve forced myself to go to fun restaurants instead of hiding in the hotel with room service or take out like I would normally do. I’ve tried to stop being so shy and speak to strangers. I’ve emailed bunches of book festivals and asked to attend and most of them have said yes! I’ve literally stood at the top of a sixty-foot drop and plummeted down into a pool of sharks. I did it to as research for a book, Danger in the Deep Blue Sea. I was terrified, but I did it.

 Why push myself? Why not stay at home in my little writing office surrounded by my three dogs, who love me even if I forget to buy treats? It has to do with the conference and the goal of filling up my carbiner ring. It’s awesome to have goals and I definitely recommend them for everyone: personal and writing goals. My goal today is to finish this blog. It might not be perfect, but it will be done. But, pushing myself also goes back to a quote by Robert Wickman I have right beside my computer. Sometimes, I stop and stare at it.

 The quote is: ‘Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and proclaiming, “Wow, what a ride!”‘ That’s the way I want to live my life. I don’t want my tombstone to say she was good at watching TV. I want to push my writing and myself. I want to fill up my carbiner ring and say, “Wow, what a ride!” So, I’m stepping out of my comfort zone again to host a Princess Party, complete with crowns to decorate. It’s scary not knowing if anyone will show up for the booksigning party for my newest book, The Lost Princess, but I’ll be there. And as another conference passes, I’ll have one more clipping to add to my carabiner.

What are you adding to your carabiner?


Debbie Dadey is the author and co-author of 158 books, including The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids series and the new series, Mermaid Tales.       http://www.debbiedadey.com/    LinkedIn   Twitter   Facebook

Spirit of Writing

      

By Maggie

I thoroughly enjoyed this year’s Northern Colorado Writers Conference, and I, as always, got my essential spring fix of information and inspiration to help me to improve as a writer, not to mention the reminder that if I give up trying to write, I give up every chance of publication success. Joining many before me, I thank Kerrie Flanagan and all others who made the 2013 NCWC a creative work of art.

If there had been a way to manage it, such as a quick self-cloning, I would have attended every single workshop offered. With my current novel still in its infancy, though, I chose to draw on three favorite artists of writing to remind me how to lay down a solid foundation for my story and keep it sparkling: Trai Cartwright, Todd Mitchell, and Bonnie Ramthun. Scurry, do not saunter, to take classes from any or all of them. You have a treasure trove of knowledge to gain.

Spending time with new and old writer friends was wonderful. Listening to keynote speaker Andrew McCarthy was a joy, although when he signed his book for me, I wish I had actually said, "Nice to meet you" instead of a suave, "I-ah-baba." Frequent laughter, always a creative and freeing art in itself, rang through this conference. Bonus true-story writing prompt: Bonnie Ramthun, a male hotel guest, and I are descending in the elevator for the lobby when we stop, the door opens, and in walks a man wearing only white hair and a towel…

For me, the novel I’m working on is a must write. This is different. I tried, but I can’t write this one as a pants-er, as I have all my stories so far. My research has slowed my writing down from my usual due to the obvious necessity that my protagonist be authentic. Does this feel different because it really is? Is this The One? I’ll never know if I don’t keep writing with the true spirit and art of writing creativity.

Thanks again, NCWC 2013. I can do this. And I will.

Will you be attending the 2014 Northern Colorado Writers Conference?