Writing

A “sketch” is a simple, preliminary and usually hasty presentation, of a concept, providing essential features without the details. Sketches take many forms; drawings, essays, even short dramatic skits (think “comedy sketch”) but whatever the form, they’re quickly done, without fuss, the idea being to capture the essence of the subject. I was introduced to the idea (Then called a practice or free write) by a writer’s group about 15 years ago and it changed my world.

On with the How-To!

Pick A Topic
Write it across the top of the page.

A random word from the dictionary will do. You might use a problem you’re struggling with (Your boss, family, health) the title of a long procrastinated blog-post, or a nudge along the lines of “I remember when…” or “Yesterday, I… ”

For this week’s tweak, I suggest: “Writing mindfully… ” or “As I read about Sketch Writes…”

Set A Timer
Ten minutes will do.

And no, you don’t get to procrastinate until you can go out and buy a timer. If you don’t have a kitchen timer, or a timer on your watch, give a software timer application a whirl (I’m using this one)

Start Writing
Not thinking.. writing!

Get your fingers moving on those keys, and keep them moving until the timer goes off. [click to continue...]

*Skip to the important part…
why YOU should WriMo.

For those of you with the puzzled looks on your faces (yes, I *can* see you; nice coffee cup, btw, where’d you get it?) I’m talking about National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo.

The premise is simple; draft a 50,000 work of fiction during the month of November. It started in 1999, with a few friends in the San Francisco Bay area, and has now grown to about a gazillion participants from around the world.

If anyone was wondering what happened to all of the words that were supposed to be on MindTweaks this month, well… they were busy over here, laboriously collecting themselves into a 50,000+ word document that supposedly resembles a first draft of a novel. I’m not entirely sure they were successful. I mean, there ARE 50,000 of them, and there is a beginning, middle and an end (sort of), but it’s not in order and much of it reads more like an expanded draft/scrapbook than something you’d find on the shelves at Borders.

You may have noticed an .. ahem.. decline in the number/quality of my posts during this month of noveling insanity; Nano ate the portions of my brain formerly devoted to blogging, leaving MindTweaks in an eerie Zen-like silence. Having subjected readers to this non-consensual denial of service, I thought the least I could do to make up for it was to tell you what I learned.

Ahem!

Step by Step, Word by Word.

Enormously big accomplishments happen one infinitesimal little accomplishment at a time. String enough letters together, and, tada, you’ve got a novel. Basic lesson, I know… but still valuable every time it’s reinforced through experience. [click to continue...]

So.

I’ve gone and done it.

I’ve signed up for National Novel Writing Month,   otherwise known as NaNoWriMo.  The premise is simple: Masochistic writers sign up to write a 50,000 word work of fiction in 30 days. 

Getting that much done in such a short time means forced writing. It requires writing badly, as there’s simply no time for editing.   NaNoWriMo provides a great forum, local meetups, and lots of support, including knowing that thousands of others are simultaneously torturing themselves in this manner.

I haven’t even attempted fiction in over 15 years, so this should be interesting. But what’s so dangerous about it, you ask?

Inspired by Eric Maisel’s book, Fearless Creating, I’ve decided to tackle a very personal subject, drawing from a very pivotal time in my life.  It’s a deeply painful, beautiful, and soul-rending and magical story, with elements of controversy, shame, and growth.  It’s everything I’m very private about, and there is a lot of fear around the idea of committing it to paper, even in highly fictionalized form.  But there is a sense that I *need* to write this particular story, even though it scares me to death. It feels very dangerous.

But it’s in that very sense of danger that there’s a power, strength, and challenges.   It’s from that sense of danger that really good creative and novel work comes.  It’s in those shadows that the deepest, greatest art is born.

Even knowing that, it’s horrifically scary. Without tackling this through a forced-writing concept like NaNoWriMo, I would continue to procrastinate about it. I mean, I’m already procrastinating. It’s the second day of the project and I’m already behind by 1200 words.

So.. on with the danger! I’ll keep you updated. (maybe)

Meanwhile, you can check out previous ramblings on the topic of Dangerous Creativity

Yesterday I bit off a bit more than I could chew, post wise… an interview with an expert in identity, a lot of musing about plate spinning - even the “simple” posts on anonymity proved to be more time consuming than I expected. So you’ll have to wait a few more hours, at least, for an entree article. Meanwhile.. here’s some short ala carte stuff for YOU to chew on.

Lumosity’s “Name the Game” contest is in full swing. Mike and the rest of the gang at Lumosity have picked their top 4 contenders from user submissions, and its time for folks to vote on their favorite.

One of the final game-names just might be from someone you know. A blogger for instance. Like.. someone who wears a bag over their head.

And no, I’m not telling you which submission is mine! That would violate the fun.

Vote for Lumosity’s Brain Game Name

____________________________

I’m still struggling with the concept of short articles.

The trouble is that I get some of my best ideas while writing. The article then morphs to follow my developing thought process, and I end up with something resembling the Flying Spagetti Monster: Inspirational and yet… large and tangled.

So I used my free time this morning to see if I could find some help. I did: How To Write A Short Article In 500 Words Or Less.

It’s essentially a formula for writing a short article. I’m going to give it a test run soon, and I thought I’d share the link here.

After all.. if you plow through my long-winded dissertations, chances are that you tend to be a bit long-winded, too!

 I’ve forgotten where I first ran across the  brilliant, dangerous advice to “Murder Your Darlings, “ but I’m in good company, it seems.  A quick web-search shows that it’s been attributed to Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Twain, Wilde, and about a quadzillion other word-smith serial-killers. 

The most likely source is Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who, in 1914 or so, quipped:

     “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate
     a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it
    — whole-heartedly —  and delete it before sending
     your manuscript to press.  Murder your darlings.”

Your “darlings” are those brilliant strokes of your writer-ly wit. They’re the most astoundingly beautiful interplay of paint that ever appeared on your canvas, the best and brightest ideas that you as a Creative have ever had. Darlings are our indigo-children, the fruit of our labors, the idiot-savants we nurture and coddle and pet-pet-pet, the ones we keep under our pillow so we can admire their shine, even in the dark of night.

It’s an exhilarating moment, when we fall in love with our own creations. 

But it’s equally exhilarating to take the knife to their throats, spilling their blood onto the page and canvas - in love, worship and adoration. 

It takes some getting used to, at first, all this blood-letting of beloveds -  It takes time, practice, and a lot of rationalization to be comfortable with it.

If you’re the possessive type, try thinking of it as keeping your precious babies all to yourself, refusing to allow anyone else to share in their love. 

If you’re the nurturing type, considered it a kindness,  protecting them from the prying, critical eyes of the outside world.

Being the dramatic spiritualist that I am, I approach it as a dramatic sacrifice, spilling the blood of my precious for the good of all.

Why do I kill my darlings?

And more to the point, why should you?

Because they get in the way. 

Left to their own devices, darlings will suck away your creative flow. Who hasn’t wasted hours admiring that perfect phrase, that brilliant blot of paint, while struggling to match it to *anything* else of importance? 

Darlings grow into creative blocks, a Hoover dam of perfectionism that refuses to budge. They force you to go around them, to build a framework to support them, a framework that will never do them justice.

They’ll keep you from editing properly; you’ll catch yourself trimming and polishing in order to show off your darlings rather than to advance the story or article. You’ll never notice if the darlings themselves are in the way of the story (which they usually are).

Most importantly, ”darlings” draw attention to the writing, and steal it from whatever point you’re trying to get across.  It’s tough for me to say this, but… the last thing a writer really needs to hear is “you write well”.  

REALLY good writing is invisible. Creative darlings are a vanity, divas hogging the spotlight, staying center stage long after their scene is over, feeding our egos off and starving our meaningful work.

Beautiful though they may be, they are demanding, needy, spoiled brats.

So you, me, and every other creative type out there has a tough choice to make.  

Do we want to write perfect phrases that will be praised, or do we want to write a full article, a story, a play? Do we want to paint a spot of beautiful color, or an entire scene that works together? 

If we want to be good creative parents to our projects (and not just parent PARTS of our projects) we’ve got to be strict disciplinarians,  despots, and tyrants… 

Because those darlings have got to go.  Rationalize it however you must, but sacrifice them, spill their blood.

Don’t limit your rampage to writing.  Kill off any and all pet creative projects you’re overly attached to. Toss out that cheap end table you’ve refinished 5 times in 30 years, that never goes with anything. Cut up that silk skirt you bought 3 years ago and have never worn.  Take a razor blade to your life.

Be murderous, be dangerous. 

Be brave.

Create.

 MindTWEAK: Please, please don’t admire all my shiny pretty metaphors. I’m only publishing this as an example of what not to do, you know. Pay no attention to that small darling behind the curtain.

I didn’t post yesterday, and it was starting to look like I wouldn’t post today, either. Then I realized that I could fall back on a post about not posting. Ha!

More specifically, I could write about what i do when writing seems to bog down under its own weight.

Which my writing has done, these past few days. Bogged down, I mean, sinking into a pool of quicksand and punctuation.

Sometimes I know what I need to write, but it just won’t come together. The workload gets heavier and heavier. Each phrase, each word, each keystroke seems to take me further away from the point I’m trying to make. I can’t find the right presentation, the right tone, the right connection, and there is no flow. I find myself wandering off on tangents again and again, until finally the whole thing stalls. Thud. Crunch. Creak. Silence. I’m ready to declare defeat, and — Stop!

Yes, you. You with the bogged down post. You with the tangent.

You who are about to dramatically declare that you have Writers Block, and use it as an excuse to flop in front of the TV and break out the Twinkies.

Just… stop. I mean it. Put down the pen, step away from the keyboard. And for gawds sake get away from those Hostess snack cakes.

Ok, so you’re stuck.

You’ve lost the original point you were making, and your words keep going off on a tangent. But look at that tangent. Really look at it.

Most likely, you’ve got a good point, with that tangent. Most likely, it’s something worth pursuing, and that’s WHY it wants to be written.

Maybe the tangent even deserves to be written.

But ask yourself (and it) if that tangent part of your article, or is it really a separate thought, worthy of it’s own article?

(or scene, or painting, or whatever)?

I thought so.

You’re trying to do too much at once.

Now listen up, ’cause I’m going to give you one of the secrets of creation.

Most creative blocks don’t come from “not having enough ideas,”
but from having *TOO MANY* ideas.

Here, I’ll say it again.

Most creative blocks don’t come from not having enough ideas — but from having too many.

Creativity begets creativity. The more you write (or paint, or dance, or photograph) the more ideas you will have. Sometimes, the ideas get all muddled up. They tangled each other up in a gordian knot, until you can’t sort them out, and you trip over the wealth of ideas.

What you need to do is to step far enough back to see just how many story lines, ideas, concepts and points you’re working with here. You need to figure out if they work together, if they depend on each other, or if they’re actually separate concepts that can (and should) stand on their own.

Take a look at that article you’re stuck on. Think about that last paragraph you wrote. I know I know.. you deleted it. That’s what undo is for. So hit undelete, and read over it.

Now, does it actually develop your original article, or is it a separate idea? Are you trying to cram too many ideas into that one little space?

Take out those separate ideas. Plonk them onto a new document. If they haven’t been written out yet, write them out. If one of them is just screaming at you for further development, go for it. Follow through on any of the ideas that simply won’t shut up and be still. Give them a voice, get them down in a rough form.

Then, and only then, go back to your original point in your original article. Chances are, it will cooperate with you now.

Oh, and… no more Twinkies until you’ve finished.

MindTWEAK: You know the hazards of trying to do too much at once. Now learn to recognize when you’re doing it.

MindTWEAK: Give yourself permission to fail.
Really. It’ll be ok. You’ll see.

Back in the days before I aspired to be a real artist, I aspired to be a real writer.

(No, I can’t tell you exactly what a “real writer” is — for that matter, I can’t tell you what a real artist is, either. )

When I aspired to be a real writer, I bought a lot of books on writing. (I even read most of them)

Among those books was one which I have mostly forgotten (including it’s title) except for one ominous, beautiful, intimidating line:

nulla dies sin linea

That’s “never a day without a word” in Latin. Or so the book said. I don’t read Latin, so I can’t be certain, but I thought it was good advice.

The reasoning was something like this:

“If you want to be a writer, write.
Write every day.
Even if it’s only one word. Write.”

I liked it then, I like it now… but I’ve never followed it.

Today? Well, I don’t want to be a writer. I don’t want to be an artist. I just want to breathe, and be, and blog. So I’m not going to write today. Not even one word before I go to sleep!

What’s that you say?

Yes, Blogging is writing, I guess.

Oh.

I see your point. Fine then. Here you go.

Today’s Word is …

WORD.

There. I even did it in a big font and everything.

Does this mean I’m a real writer, now?

Oh, that book I couldn’t remember the name of? It was Writing on Both Sides of the Brain. I looked it up. Don’t say I never did anything for you!

MindTWEAK: It doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be right. It just has to be *REAL*.