Inkpunks

Last week, Christie talked about using timed writing exercises to restart your creative fires. Here’s a similar exercise that you can use to jolt yourself out of a rut. It’s based on Kerouac’s Spontaneous Prose method. You may have tried something similar in a writing class–I know I have.

Find an object to study. Maybe it’s a painting. Maybe it’s a jar of hand cream. Anything will do, as long as it’s close at hand.

Make sure you have no distractions. Turn off the phone and feed the cats. Let yourself relax.

Begin to write about the object. Don’t fuss with conventions. Kerouac recommended using the double dash as your primary divider between thoughts. Allow your mind to wander, and note whatever comes to mind.

Write until you are interrupted, run out of time, or become too physically uncomfortable to keep writing. The longer you go, the more you will scrape up from the bottom of your brain.

Don’t look at what you wrote for at least a day. Allow yourself to be surprised by what you wrote. You might not create anything of literary value, but by encouraging yourself to play an extended association game, you give yourself more stamina and strengthen your abilities to see layers of meaning inside your texts. Plus, who knows what you’ll create? I started writing about a jar of hand cream and discovered the roots of a very difficult poem about my relationship with my parents.

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After a kind of crazy summer I found myself completely unmotivated to write–my drive had just disappeared. No ambition, no burning desire to create, no stories pecking at my head demanding my attention. I think it might be overstating things to call it depression, since it seemed to be restricted to my creative life, but it was miserable and frustrating in its own way, and it lasted for months.

In the past year I’ve started getting comfortable in my reading and writing. I’ve found some techniques that work for me in creating a story, I’ve found some authors and publications that I am confident I will enjoy consistently. I had become comfortable with my evenings, which were mostly free to write, but which I spent browsing the internet instead. Comfort, unfortunately, had led to complacency, and complacency is sure to lead to creative death. So I finally got it together enough to take stock of the situation. I thought about times in the past when I had felt motivated, and what I was doing in my life at those times. It was time for a change.

The first thing I did is pick up a commitment. I invest more in my own success when I’m also invested in someone else’s. Doing this kicked off an instant spark in the cold ashes of my creative life. (It also filled my inbox with unanswered email, but that’s a different problem.)

Next I accepted an invitation from a friend to participate in some timed writing exercises based off of prompts, which we would then share with other people right then and there. This was terrifying. But it was also completely different from how I have ever created–I don’t generally go looking for stories, which is probably why I write so few of them in any given year. Writing from prompts for ten or fifteen minutes was such a new and exciting experience for me, and some of what it turned out I think can be worked into real stories. One of the things that I noticed is that my authorial voice comes out immediately in these situations in a way that it doesn’t always when I’m initially constructing a story I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

The other thing that came out of that is that I’m getting used to reading my work to other people. This is important, because I hate reading my own work. I love reading your work, and will happily do your readings for you, but doing my own makes me sick to my stomach and makes my hands shake. And here I’m talking about published work, that’s already been edited and vetted and is as good as I’m going to be able to make it. So to share first draft material that I just wrote two minutes ago was a solid shove outside my comfort zone. The first time I couldn’t even bring myself to read, I just pasted what I’d written into a chat window. The second time I just went with the sick feeling and got through it. Now I’m starting to get okay with people seeing my ugly little word babies, all wrinkled and pointy-headed and squalling. I’m even starting to think they’re kind of cute.

Then I decided I would try to write at a length I’m not comfortable with. I spent a lot of time and effort learning to use the 1200-1500 word range effectively, with enough success that now I’m comfortable writing at that length and usually feel pretty good about the results. So now I’m trying out a novelette. I have to actively stop myself from cutting scenes, because I have all of this room. Maintaining a consistent voice for that long is going to be a challenge. But it’s coming along, and I’m enjoying the process again.

The last thing that I did to change things up was to start reading outside my norm. I’ve been reading short genre fiction almost exclusively for the past few years, and not nearly as much of it as I would have liked. I recently resolved to start reading some novels, and not ones by authors I’m familiar and comfortable with. So I read Cloud Atlas, and Perfume, and The Road–which I’ll admit aren’t huge stretches, since they’re still basically genre, but the styles were unique and challenging, and that’s what I wanted. That kicked off a new period of voracious reading. I haven’t got through three novels in as many weeks in a long, long time.

So it’s working. And while I needed to do these things to break myself out of a period of creative entropy, I think it’s important to keep reassessing, keep learning, keep challenging ourselves before we reach that point. I’ll need to keep looking for ways to keep things fresh, and keep the spark alive.

What are you doing differently?

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What do you think of your goals? Are they all thorny stick, no carrot cake? Do your goals tire you more than they inspire you? If so, you’re not alone!

Think of this post as a Dear Abby or Savage Love column for those of you who, like me, are in dysfunctional relationships with your goals.

I’m a dreamer and an idealist with a perfectionist streak. It’s difficult for me to set realistic goals for myself.  And get this: I’m a project manager by trade. I set achievable goals and manage expectations for a living. I play well with others, but really suck when it comes to setting my own personal creative objectives.

Over time, I’ve come up with some ideas that help me manage my goals better:

1. Learn the ABCs of Goal Setting: Ambition, Balance, Compassion.

Pursue your goals with ambition and compassion in balance with each other. Don’t sacrifice ambition for compassion, or compassion for ambition.

Compassion for others is a given, but I’d like to highlight compassion for oneself. I am sadistic, cruel and merciless towards myself in ways that I would never dream of with my friends, family and colleagues.

While training for my first first marathon, I mentally scourged myself for every missed or shortened workout or run at a slower than target pace. After completing that arduous 26 miles, I was disappointed in coming in over my target time, for hitting the wall too soon, for walking too much. I scolded myself for not being more disciplined in my training.

I have a kinder view now. Looking back on that accomplishment, I see that I went from couch potato to training for that race, week after week, at high altitude, in Utah’s summer heat! I’m not a runner, and I ran a fucking marathon! I should be proud of myself, and I am–now. Even if I do think I was kind of insane.

2. Focus on Success.

Turn the focus away from failure by recording your accomplishments and progress. Write down your word count, stories submitted, that red velvet cupcake you resisted, etc. You can do this each day, each week, and/or each month. Also, note successes not directly related to your goals.

Recording my accomplishments keeps me motivated. Because I set my goals so high, it’s often more inspiring to see how far up the mountain I’ve climbed than to measure the remaining distance to the far off summit. This worked especially well during the first half of my latest NaNoWriMo. (“Hey look! I wrote 10,000 words!” vs. “Ohmigawd, 40,000 words left to go!”)

I also find it helpful to track successes not directly related to my explicit goals.  In my list for the past week is a note that I spent an entire Saturday with my daughter, exploring part of Santa Monica. It was a rare (and pleasant) gift to spend that length of time with my busy, driven, socially-active teen, and it put my reduced creative output for the weekend in proper perspective. It was time spent in the best possible way.

3. Prioritize and Review from a Weekly Perspective.

Schedule your shortest term goals and priorities from a weekly perspective, instead of daily. Spend at least half an hour each week recording your successes from the previous week, reviewing (and if necessary, revising) your goals and scheduling your priorities for the coming week.

The late personal productivity guru, Stephen Covey, who said “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” This is easier to do from the perspective of a week than each day. I’m not suggesting that you don’t plan or prioritize each day, but do set your priorities for the week first. I find that if I wait until the morning of, many decisions are already made for me, by the urgency of proximity.

Also, between my day job and family commitments, I routinely have little control over my schedule for at least a day or two each week. But I can look at the entire week and reserve time for my priorities: writing blocs, workouts, etc.

Even a journey of a thousand light years begins with a single small step…

These three approaches have helped me to come to peace with my personal goals. I’m not sure if I’m more or less effective in pursuing my objectives than I was in the past, but I’m definitely happier.

In closing, shoot for the stars, don’t necessarily settle for the moon, but do congratulate yourself for making that far! You’ve escaped the Earth’s gravity well, after all.

And let me know if you have techniques or approaches that have worked well for you!

Disclaimer: my suggestions aren’t intended for every goal-setting scenario, especially where you may have commitments to others, external deadlines, and calendared events. These approaches are mostly about personal goal setting, where you are answerable only to yourself, and where you’ve grown frustrated with the process. As always, YMMV.

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goals, objectives, planning

Another month is coming to an end–and we Inkpunks are coming to the end of another great year of blogging. That kind of stuff makes me want to check my to-do list and make sure I’ve made enough check marks. It also makes me want to check in with our readers. What have you seen on the blog this year that you loved? Is there anything you’d like to see more of? Do we need more guest bloggers? What about more cocktail recipes?

We’d love to hear what you think. And in the meantime, here’s a classic cocktail to get you in the October spirit.

The Zombie

1 oz pineapple juice

1 oz orange juice

1 tsp sugar

2 oz white rum

1 oz dark rum (make it Kraken & I’ll come over!)

1/2 oz apricot brandy

1 oz lime juice

Blend everything with ice and then float on top:

1/2 oz Bacardi 151

Garnish with an orange slice, a cherry, a sprig of mint, and a squirt of fake blood.

I’ll be raising one to my fellow Inkpunks and all of you!

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Here’s another guest post from editor/poet/story spinner Kaolin Fire. His advice just might light a fire under you to get writing short stories!

What is success, for a short story writer? Your first sale? Pro publication? Joining the SFWA, HWA, or other such organization? It’s easy to attach a lot to those moments, looking forward; but the ones I’ve hit, at least, don’t last long. It’s easy to look back at them and say, great, I did that—but I didn’t change, because of it; nothing changed. I’m still going to get nineteen rejections for every twenty submissions, I’m still going to get pennies on the dollar for the hours I work, I’m still most likely to only be read by a few hundred (admittedly, awesome) people.

I imagine rock-star-dom along the lines of Neil Gaiman has to feel like success, but if that’s your measure, you’re likely to fall short, and if you don’t, well, pat yourself on the back and keep with. Or, perhaps your measure of success is being able to make a living on your writing—I can certainly empathize with that, but, for me, at least, that’s so far out of the ballpark that I’d have to just give up.

It’s a common mantra that success has to be something you find in yourself, that you can’t rely on external validation. That’s true for any creative art, I think, but more so for writing, because writing is one of the few creative arts that takes some sort of effort for others to attempt to enjoy. Though I’m tempted, now, to try framing some of my best (imo) flash pieces and posting them on the wall. 😉

That said I can only get so far looking at what I’ve written, cheering myself with the thought that some day, somebody might appreciate it as much (or more than) I do. More often, I know, some day I’ll see what all those somebodies were rejecting in a given piece, not have a clue how to fix it, and trunk it.

The moment of writing may be one of the purer joys, but even with “butt-in-chair” mantras, and “internet off”, and “write, just write!”, sometimes it just doesn’t happen (or if it happens, it’s a flesh-rending pain that’s far from a joy, and even further from a feeling of success). “Writing going well” isn’t something that can really be controlled, I find.

Finishing a story or poem (first draft, anyway) is closer to something that’s achievable without too much internal variability, but even that moment is fleeting, and strongly tied to “this growing pile of stories that may never be published”. So I find I can’t just feed that fire; and the joy is also too strongly tied to my impression of the story, good, bad, or indifferent. So I need a measure of success that’s a step removed from that, still.

The main thing I find that keeps me going (outside of “hope”, “need”, or the occasional publication) is deadlines—and here I think it’s perfectly safe to rely on external deadlines, at least as a short story writer. I have ten thousand (okay, maybe 7) to-do lists, where when one grows too absurd for me to deal with, I find a new service and move on. But on my latest, I’ve been tracking submission deadlines. A success is submitting something; a failure is failing to submit something. As simple as that.

A small selection:

SUCCESSES:
Jun 01—“great little big poems” at Every Day Poets
Aug 30—Cthulhurotica 2
Aug 31—Unidentified Funny Objects

FAILURES

Jun 30—F&SF “Skilled Labor” antho
Jun 30—Extreme Planets antho
Jul 20—Geek Love

Mind you, my successes have by and large been rejections. I wound up submitting eleven different pieces to UFO; one at the very last minute, struggling to find something funny. I think the piece is hilarious, of course, but it was turned around the next day, with apologies. Still, I have to count that a success, and hope it will find some other home. I expect a rejection from Cthulhurotica 2. And “great little big poems” was six rejections from Every Day Poets (where my hit rate is usually better than that, but success was submitting; bonus was writing a few new pieces that I’m shopping around).

I don’t always wind up submitting “my best possible work” for a deadline; I submit what I’ve managed to put together, or what I have lying around, as edited as I’ve been able to get it. That may account for a good chunk of the rejections, but even those, where I don’t have the satisfaction of knowing I created something wondrous, I call a success. I can’t control how well I’ll write a piece, how brilliant an idea or how entertaining the characters I may manage to embed in them; what I can control is the submission. And maybe someone will see something better in what I’ve written than I do. The deadline means it gets submitted, and it has a chance—more of a chance than sitting on my hard drive, anyway.

The failures, well—those are there to goad me on; in one case, I’m still working on a piece for an antho that closed almost two years ago. It will have to be submitted somewhere else, obviously, but that just goes to show that even failure-to-submit doesn’t mean it has to be a complete failure. Write on!

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As new writers, the number one piece of advice we hear is to get your butt in chair and keep it there. Great advice, but what if we get our butt in the chair, but the words don’t want to come? There’s nothing more frustrating than fighting to get the words down. If you’re like me, sometimes, we need an extra kick in the butt! We’re not the only ones, which is why people have come up with some inventive ways to get words on the page.

Write or Die is a popular tool for writers who need that extra push. They have a web application as well as one you can download for your ipad. Everything is configurable, you can decide your word goal, time goal and preferred punishment. For those who could use the pressure, or a little negative reinforcement, Write or Die is great. There are different consequences you can choose if you don’t do your writing.

• Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.
• Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.
• Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself

 If you’re after something a little softer and fluffier, check out Written Kitten I’ve used it to help get words down because it’s absolutely adorable. You can set the number of new words you need to produce before you get a new kitten, 100, 200, 500 or 1000. When you hit that number, surprise! A new, incredibly cute kitten picture appears. Who can resist that?

If you are on Twitter, Jane Espenson does Writing Sprints. She announces she is going to do a writing sprint and invites anyone to join in. She sets a starting and finishing time and the rules are, no distractions, you’re only allowed to write during that time. After it’s over, you check back in to Twitter and report how it went. You can follow her on twitter @JaneEspenson.

If you’re not looking for software or a website to help you out, Mary Robinette Kowal uses a forty-five minute sand timer during her writing sessions. While that sand is running, she has to be writing. When it stops, she can, but until then, no distractions, no breaks.

I also rely heavily on threats of friends. What? It works. If I need to, I’ll go on twitter and tell people to kick my butt so I start writing and you’d be surprised how many jump at the chance to tweet me back. If peer pressure works, having a group to be accountable to or to write with is also a great way to get words on the page.

You can’t be a writer if you’re not writing. I’m sure there are other useful tools out there to help. If you have any more please share them with us!

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What I remember about September 11, 2001: It was the day I had planned to move into a new painting studio. We were newlyweds living in a cramped 1 bedroom apartment, a corner of which I was using to make all manner of messes.  I had finally made arrangements to rent a spot in a nearby warehouse. September 11 was the date me and a friend had planned to move all my paints, papers, odds and ends to their new creative home, yay!

And then we woke up that morning and suddenly all our plans and projects seemed insignificant and pointless.

That’s something I’ve often struggled with. The sense that this thing I do is insignificant and pointless in the face of current events on this small blue dot we call home. However, this is mostly just a personal insecurity, because what I do believe in, strongly, is that when times are hardest is when we humans most need our creative people. Our storytellers, our artists, our songwriters, etc.

I wish I could wax more profound on that, but instead, I’ll just leave you with this one minute film by James Kelly, a poignant, wordless animation about 9/11.

(thank you Irene Gallo, for sharing that one)

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What are your most deeply held personal beliefs?No, you don’t have to tell me in the comments section below (unless you really want to), but take a moment to think about it. Chances are a few gut reactions will boil up to the surface of your thoughts.

“I’m a liberal.”

“I’m a conservative.”

“I believe all people are created equal.”

“I believe in a higher power.”

“I’m an atheist.”

Does that sound right? You might also hear other thoughts echoing up from the deepest recesses of your mind:

“All fiction should illuminate the human condition.”

“Stories should be enjoyable escapism.”

“Movies are better than books.”

“I write because I want to entertain myself.”

“I write because I have something to say.”

Some or all of these may be true for you. Maybe none of them are, but I’m sure you can replace them with convictions of your own.

I’ve been reading Morris Dickstein’s excellent book Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression. The book is a thorough examination of American arts and letters during one of the most harrowing decades of U.S. history. Writers, photographers, poets, and other artists were compelled to either face the hard times in their arts, or turn away from the abject poverty, social unrest, and crumbling security. No matter what their choice, they could not long ignore the effects of the Great Depression.

Writers like John Steinbeck fully engaged with the injustices and travails of the poor in such seminal works as The Grapes of Wrath, while poets like Robert Frost at first almost seemed determined to ignore the plight of the poor and displaced in favor of his homespun poetry than ennobled folksy wisdom and the joys of New England life.

I’m not as equipped as Dickstein to examine the art and politics of these two men, but in his book I came across a quote by Robert Frost that spoke to the creative soul in me, and I thought I’d share it with you.

(This is from a letter by Frost to B.F. Skinner, as quoted by Dickstein, so it’s paraphrased a bit.)

All that makes a writer is the ability to write strongly and directly from some unaccountable and almost invincible personal prejudice. Those who don’t hold fast to their own prejudices simply adopt the prejudices of others, the “received wisdom.” A strong writer (he cites Karl Marx as an example) is one who can impose his prejudices, his ruling metaphors, on those around him. Who persists and persists in the face of all rival claims. This makes creative power hard to distinguish from personal ambition.

Of course, Frost isn’t speaking of prejudices in the modern pejorative sense, but rather as the deeply held beliefs and convictions that motivate us all to create.

When I read this bit, I immediately thought of the great Hive-Mind of writerdom (this blog included), and how full it is of advice, help, criticism, do’s and don’ts, and outrage (righteous and otherwise).

There are some days when my head is so full the latest internet-fail or of well-intentioned advice that it stymies my writing to a degree. I suppose this post could be a simple lesson to log off Twitter or Facebook, unplug that router and just write — but Frost’s quote got me thinking about things on a deeper level.

You have a unique voice. Use it. When you are writing, clear out the sometimes-wonderful, sometimes-not plurality of other voices in your head. What matters in your storytelling is what matters most to you. Hold on to your conviction like it is a life raft in a tempest-tossed sea, because that’s exactly what it is.

All that other stuff is just a monster wave eager to swamp your boat.

Frost’s advice seems a bit curmudgeonly on the surface (it is, and he was, I suppose), but the man had a point. Dickstein admits Frost’s fatalism and self-promotion makes an odd combination, but that’s the knife’s edge all writers are balanced upon, I think. Frost’s “ruling metaphors” are key to winning reader engagement. If you are absolutely confident in the story you are telling, your audience will know, and they will follow you to hell and back. Or Alpha Centauri. Or Middle Earth. As for ambition, I don’t think it’s shameful to admit that writing can be an ego trip sometimes. We may be trying to enlighten, or to entertain, but we should be confident that we have something worth reading, a tale worth telling that can only be told in our voice.

A quick side note: I’m not encouraging anyone to be an asshole. Some folks will disagree, but I think you can be a powerful writer without metaphorically (or literally) battering your readers and colleagues. “Don’t be a dick” is a good rule for everyone.

So back to your convictions. What are they? What moves you to write?  Whether your chief goal is to enlighten or to entertain, don’t shy away from what matters to you. Own your ambition.

Persist.

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conviction, Frost, Steinbeck

You know what’s the only thing better than being a writer? Watching writers on tv. In honor of Labor Day, a holiday which demands either hard-core outdoor activity (camping!) or an escape to an air-conditioned home theater, here are my five favorite movies about writers.

5. Sophie’s Choice

Only the most depressing movie ever made about a writer and a mother and the Holocaust. For those days when you need to contemplate morality.

4. Misery

You want to write an unforgettable character? Annie Wilkes is an outstanding example. And here’s a great scene with her in action. It’s everything you really need to know about her, before we even see her break out the sledgehammer.

3. Gothic

Super-sexy Shelley and Byron romp. It might not be that great of a movie, but it’s Gabriel Byrne, so dig in.

(Ooooh, Gabriel Byrne … )

2. Little Women (1994)

It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry, it will make you want to be a writer. Oh, and did I mention Gabriel Byrne is in it? Dig in!

1. The Shining

Think of this one as a warning–and a reminder that it’s okay to take a movie break every now and again. After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Also, as a writer, you should take a careful look at this scene. The entire film is brilliant, but this moment is pure goose bump territory. Notice the tiny details–the sounds of the Big Wheel’s, the set of the boy’s shoulders, the way he cranks the back tire to really start it moving quickly again. And of course the skin-crawling music.

I am always looking for a great excuse to watch a movie, so please tell me some of your faves!

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