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You’ll have days of complete lack of faith in your abilities. But you have to keep coming back. That’s when you know you’re a writer – when you take the failures and appear at the desk again, over and over again.

Markus Zusak (via writingquotes)

keepcalmandwritefiction

You want to be a writer? A writer is someone who writes every day — so start writing.

Shonda Rhimes (via keepcalmandwritefiction)

On Demand

I’ve been continuing to strengthen my daily writing habit by working mostly on poems. My habit tracker (the Way of Life app) says I’m 354 days strong, and I’ve discussed the way I patch this long road when I stumble.

It’s interesting, this creative muscle. I’ve not worked hard on outlining or writing longer form fiction, but I can open a blank document and nudge myself to do a little riff of a thought on something drawn to the foremind.

Have you ever seen the movie Before Sunrise? There’s a scene mid-film where the two protagonists encounter a poet in Vienna who offers to write a poem for them if they’d give him a word to use in it. (Years before There Will Be Blood, their chosen word was “milkshake”.)

I marveled at this character’s ability to tap into his inspiration that way, on demand and instantly. I could go years without getting a drop of inspiration to fuel any attempt to put pen to paper. Are there real people like this character?

Now fast-forward to this morning. I parked my car outside the office, thought of two particularly uninspiring words, and wrote a little poem on my “smart” phone.

Then another.

And then wrote a third poem as soon as I sat at my desk. Okay, the third poem is execrable. It’s titled “A Saturday Afternoon With the Gang.” Should you ever somehow encounter it, feel free to shake your head at it.

My point is, it’s a surprising pleasure to recognize something of the late-night poet of Vienna in me.

How You Doin’?

Taking stock: My 2016 goals were aimed at different spheres, and my success with them over the year was decidedly mixed. Predictable, sure.

My writing goal wasn’t to get published, to complete The Novel, to breathe new life into the superhero genre or the Star Wars franchise (I kid), nor to build a typewritten monument to humanity. It was only to create a daily writing habit for myself.

Hey, did I mention to you that I have a mechanism for a little slippage? If I miss a day’s writing for any reason at all, for it not to count as a gap, the following day must include three pieces of writing: One for the current day, one for the missed day, and one for penance. That’s the only way I will not count a missed day. Fair enough?

As of today, it’s been 310 “consecutive” days of writing. In 2015 I might not have thought this possible for myself, so I hope the relevance is clear for you. It is possible to set a new, good, daily habit into your life. And it is even possible if that habit depends on spurring your creativity.

For me, ratcheting down on this goal for 2017 would mean it’s time to set targets for the amount of time spent writing per day or per week. Or perhaps, to push back to fiction, at least one short story or chapter per month. Something quantitative.

Wouldn’t it be interesting (or frightening, or manipulable) if all blog display mechanisms could measure the facial and vocal reactions of their readers and log them for bloggers? What if we could set goals for grins and chuckles, or thoughtful pauses, per written post? (”... something I’m clearly not doing at the moment!” cackles the sardonic mind in response.)

Happy and prosperous 2017 to you!

Irresolution

Happy new year!

Near the end of January 2017, I’m surprised to be reporting to you that I didn’t have the same spurt of inspiration I did at the start of 2016 to set (and monitor!) some goals for myself.

I believe this year is good for setting more specific goals, reaching for “the same but with more vigor,” you could say.

But I’m just getting through back-to-back illnesses, and there’s a lot of turmoil to get through now, so ratcheting down on myself feels like too much at the moment. My goal setting for 2017 remains the first goal to attain -- beyond “Get healthy and productive again.”

Despite distractions, I’m still eking out some writing and hope you are attaining your goals as well.

Isn’t this cool? [Artist’s name at bottom; I don’t know where it was originally published (for attribution).]

This post explains the what to expect so you’re emotionally prepared for your book writing journey—from the highs, lows, and plateaus.

I found this interesting.

There you are, happily pounding out words, the click and rattle of the keyboard creating a musical symphony in your writing space. And then…it happens. Your mind goes blank. At first, you don’t understand. You stare at your fingers. Why … Continue reading →

I like this one. A lot of useful pokes and nudges in a small space.

Characters Waiting Too Long?

Thoughts about The Stalled Novel Project are always at least simmering somewhere above my shoulders. Sometimes I’ve reached into that space for quick inspiration on a daily poem, trying to poeticize something about a character, situation, or feeling.

The way my brain goes, this works awkwardly (i.e. doesn’t work). When I pull a small bit of something from The Novel, it tends not to ignite anything that feels semi-poetic. Then we end up with the dreaded Poem Chafe, where it just feels like lame prose nibblets that evoke nothing but a wish for an energetic editor.

Pushing writing impulses more toward short stories this month, it occurs to me that this idea to play with facets of The Novel will probably work much better with short stories. I can explore backstory, get to know a character better, flesh out a scene that might end up in The Novel .. and the prose section of the brain can greedily possess all of it.

So there’s an idea for you. If you’re stalling in a larger fictional work, maybe it makes sense to spin off some short fiction around the edges of that story, or entirely away from that story, giving your characters something to do while you work it out.

[bored character can’t believe I’m fiddling with the outline again today instead of writing pages]

mightymur

The final, brilliant word on passive voice.

“She was killed [by zombies.]” <—- passive

“Zombies killed [by zombies] her.” <—- active

cheshirealicat

The best learning tools for grammar inevitably involve zombies.

warriormaggie-deactivated201810

@emotionalmorphine

lauramkaye

BRILLIANT

faedreamer-deactivated20180128

writers take note!!!!

220, and Autumn Goal Prep

Status report.

The good news: 220 poems written since February, of varying quality and inspiration.

The excellent news: Established a very steady writing habit this year.

The bad news: “The Novel” has been on hold for over a year, other than some outlining.

As the next year approaches, I’m thinking about where to take my writing goals. Thoughts:

Don’t beat self up over the novel. Let it be for a while longer; it’s not ripe yet.

Or: Beat self up over the novel in a productive way. Set aside hours of focus, outlining, forcing answers to the tricky questions, hitting milestones.

What to do with all these poems? Look for outlets .. online zines? Might be interesting to see if any of this poetry can do anything good in the light of day. Kindle self-publishing? (I never thought I’d be considering publishing my poems. They tend to be so starkly personal they’d prefer lounging in sweatpants behind closed miniblinds.)

Increase the daily writing time. Avoid dashing something together sleepily/sloppily in the last waking minutes of a day.

Short stories would be a way to get the same kind of quick writing gratification while pushing beyond very short form work.

There’s my writing journey at the moment. Hope yours is proceeding strongly!

The Push

Funny how apparent the push is to me.

In high school I decided I’d try writing a poem a day. And I maintained that flow. I pushed and pushed, and words came out, pen met paper, the skies parted, dogs howled in the distance, the dark night rolled away, a thunderous choir .. uh .. something something ...

Okay, really, I managed it for less than two weeks. And when I look at those old poems (not gonna tell you what year it was, but it was set well back in a different century, younglings), they all show that strain of butter/toast/Tolkein .. oh, you know! .. zero inspiration spread across pages of pushing a pen, making words and letters. It’s wholly apparent.

Here I am on semi-consecutive day 214, having written mostly poems on these days, some days multiple poems.

It’s funny how it comes in waves. I can see the scraping push of zero inspiration, and it’ll last for days. Then I’ll see the next set of poems pick back up with some germ of “hey, that’s got something there.”

Then, days after a misfire, the dry pieces of poems get nudged around, dissected and redone, pulled like taffy and chewed. Usually this doesn’t get me anything better, but sometimes a ray of something worth having comes out of that original day of dusty brain chafe.

Today’s moral: Just write. It’s exercise, it’s muscle. Not every seed of inspiration is going to germinate. But go ahead and get those seeds out of the sack.

Novel writing is a long and difficult road that will drive you crazy and compensate you poorly. But nothing compares to the thrill of crafting a story that is entirely, uniquely yours. Here’s how to make it happen.

A fine article for pre-published authors flailing in the muck.

#brian klems

The Skinny Space Cowboy Says Good Night and Be Content

Struggling to find my old writing “flow” can be a little like losing weight. Well, kind of.

The good news is: I lost 5 pounds this week. Hey, cool, congratulations. Right? (Note to the nervous: No pounds were actually misplaced and forgotten.)

The bad news is: This is the same handful of pounds I’ve lost over and over again in recent years. And even earlier in my weight narrative. I just re-added those pounds in the last few weeks, so the overall result isn’t there for me yet.

So, I can be more satisfied with my week’s progress by look at the week in isolation from the weeks and months that came before it.

Now let’s consider how I’ve been working on developing my writing habit .. and not yet finding the “flow” or, really, not even finding time to pour into any writing project of scale.

If you’ve glanced at my writing blog, you’ve seen me mention my runs of consecutive writing days. Not writing of any quantity, but at least a few sentences every single day. That’s the goal. Today: 137.

137 consecutive days gets me a self-pat on the back. Nice going, bud.

And at the same time, as Lennon would add a drop of acid to a McCartney tune, I wonder how I’ve wandered so far from my teenage manic typing self for whom stories just .. poured. What I have come to know as “flow state” and where I need to drive this progression back to my writing self. (Note to the anxious: I in no way referenced “dropping acid”, happy to leave that activity to the Beatles.)

The journey I’m making back to that writing capability suddenly felt akin to the overall weight control journey. A long and winding road.

May your journey proceed apace. May your steps be mostly in the same, and correct, direction. May the distance of your goal not overwhelm the steps you were able to take today. Camp out tonight, heat some arbonaster and beans over the heatstim pack, scratch your scroungy pet zorniak on its neck before turning in for the night, and rest well for tomorrow’s steps.

Motivation to help you keep going on your journey.

Not a writing-specific post, but it speaks of journey and accomplishment. Hope you enjoy it and keep writing.

The Living Room Dig

April 2016

You can't bury a bone

In a carpet

But you can scratch

Harder and faster

Yeah, that’ll

Sure help

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