Category: writing process

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In a creative slump? Try thinking inside the box

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Sometimes more is not better.

We live in a world (at least, in the developed world) where choice is king. The more choices, the better the world is working, and the received wisdom is that more is always better. Whole industries are built on finding and then expanding niches.

Where we once had a choice between porridge, corn flakes or wheat biscuits for breakfast, we now have a glittering array of possibility. Walk down the cereal aisle(s) at the supermarket and see for yourself. Traditional or “classic cereals” jostle with those aimed at kids, adults, healthy adults, overweight adults, adults in a hurry…

It’s no wonder that the protagonist of The Hurt Locker stood in the store when he returned from Iran, paralysed by a surfeit of choice. It is something we all do. We rush into the store to find something for dinner, and we find ourselves overwhelmed, unable to choose.

FMI statistics show the average US supermarket carries over 42,000 items. At one point recently, Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket chain, carried 90,000 items, including 28 kinds of tomato ketchup. They planned to cut this to 60,000 to make shopping more efficient.

Mind. Blown.

How often do we grab the first thing we see, or give up and get a takeaway meal instead, in a mild state of panic? Those tempting offers and discounts take advantage of our frazzled brains, already worn out by too many choices from the moment we woke up.

In his TED talk Phil Hansen talks candidly about his quest to “Embrace the shake”. Well worth ten minutes of your time. He talks about being creative, losing the ability and will to create as he wished, and how he overcame a creative slump that lasted for years.

He vividly describes becoming overwhelmed by possibility. For writers, this equates not only to the empty page, but also to absent parameters. “Write a short story/novel/poem about anything” sounds great, till we sit down to start.

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If all paths are open, which one should we take? Perhaps your stomach is already clenching at the very thought. The cure is surprising.

Creativity blossoms where there are restrictions.

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.

attributed to Orson Welles

We all know that necessity is the mother of invention. Welles just put it more eloquently. Put some walls in place, and creativity can bounce off them, finding surprising ways to fulfil the brief. It’s not just for artists, because we all have constraints. Problem solving is a key skill for life.

If there are no constraints, there is no problem to solve, no question to answer.

We happen on a brilliant solution not by waving a hand or throwing money at problems, but by understanding that we must transcend apparently fixed parameters. We use only what we have been given to find another way.

This is a great way to recover creativity. Or to overcome the dread of the empty page. Or to continue when we we doubt our ability to get going. Here are some suggestions. The first and most important step is to suspend judgement, the endless chatter of this is stupid/no good/worthless. It’s just practice.

The idea is to move forward and get ideas flowing, so that the energy feeds into your current project. In your project there are constraints, blocks, problems to overcome, yes? First, you need to loosen your creative muscles, like an athlete warning up.

Look around you, and write 100 words on the first red or blue object you see.

Construct a main dish using only the items in your fridge right now.

Pick up a book, turn to a random page. Look for the first word that is a noun, verb, or adjective. Write a one page story using that word, in ten minutes or less.

Paint using only shades of one colour.

Use random word generators, or a random first line generator, to get started. No more than ten minutes to create something using your preferred medium; words, images, music.

I highly recommend Phil Hansen‘s talk, where he gives great illustrated examples. He tried some surprising things. One might just be the spark you need to get started again.

Limiting our fictional characters can also be a good thing. Give her a seemingly impossible situation, and then write her way out. Put him in a literal or metaphorical cage, and see how he responds. It’s a great way of showing character.

Sometimes, too many choices make us anxious. Then, we need a box as a starting point. It needs to be small enough that it doesn’t paralyse with too much possibility.

Big enough that imagination can stretch its wings and fly.

blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, writing process

Rejected? 7 ways to bounce back

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Or, how to come out swinging… again

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image: AlexVan via pixabay

So, your competition entry was unsuccessful. You get a polite standard email from the agent, or worse, you check the calendar and realise that no news is bad news. Your short story is ‘not what we’re looking for’ or they decided to pass on your poetry this time.

During this Rio Olympics season, it’s fantastic to watch people at the top of their game perform. But let’s not forget that the losers, those who didn’t make the cut, those who were pipped for the bronze, or who were off their best, all worked just as hard. They gave everything, but it didn’t work out.

“It is possible to commit no mistakes, and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.”

Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation

So, what to do when that happens to you?

1. Reframe

You are not your writing, even though you put part of yourself into it. This is not the worst thing that could happen, and it doesn’t mean you are a total failure as a writer and a human being.

Make sure that you followed all the submission guidelines, met the deadline, and didn’t fall before the first hurdle.

2. Review 

It’s uncommon to get useful feedback. If you get any, use it. I sent a piece to a magazine once, and while they didn’t accept it, they offered feedback. I grabbed with both hands, so to speak. They liked the writing but weren’t sure about the plot. I used that comment to improve, by going back and reviewing the story.

3. Rework

Maybe ask a trusted writing friend, or use point 1 and pretend it was written by someone else. By taking the emotional attachment out, you can see more clearly where it could be better (tip: it can always be better). Relate the feedback to your work, but take the useful parts and discard the rest.

4. Resubmit

If you conclude that the story is still good, it might be suitable to submit somewhere else. Keep a file of stories tagged with themes, and look over it when you’re thinking of submitting again. The judging process is subjective, and the next reader might love it.

5. Regroup

I subscribe to Writing Magazine and study their annual Writing Competition Guide frequently. There is an online edition, but I like to read a physical copy, with a mug of tea in hand. Plus, there is a section each month on where and what to submit, apply and enter. It’s invaluable, and keeps me thinking what next?

Find a reputable information source, and check back regularly.

It’s important to have a portfolio of completed pieces, first because finishing things is essential to progressing in skill, second because it gives a sense of accomplishment, and third because one day, someone will ask “do you have anything else?” and you want to be able to say yes.

6. Release

Write something new. Make it the best you can.

That’s easy, compared to the next part.

Take a deep breath, and let it go. Procrastination hides perfectionism; perfectionism hides fear, and fear is the enemy. Call it by its name. Step out of fear’s shadow and do the thing anyway.

You cannot win if you don’t enter the race.

7. Reward

You did it! You got in the game, and learned from the experience. Now you have to do it again, and that’s hard. Remember though, that whether they got a medal or not, all those athletes have to get back out there; training, eating clean, clocking the miles and gym hours, all without a guarantee of reward. And they have to perform the miracle again while the world is watching.

Pat yourself on the back. You faced down your demon and won this fight, though the battle continues. Keep a record of your campaign, take a small reward for effort. And make sure you have the right incentive in mind, a gift to award yourself for that glorious day when it all comes right and you are a winner. Be like an athlete.

Visualise success, work for it, believe in yourself.

blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, writing process

Sharpening my pencils

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“When the sea is rough, mend your sails”

Everything I’ve Ever Done That Worked, Lesley Garner

Last time, I talked about dropping the oars and letting my boat drift. Taking the maritime metaphor further, the quote above came to mind. It’s been years since I first read it, but remembering the phrase led me to search out a book long forgotten in my bedside cupboard. It is full of insights, the kind of book to dip in and out of, different stories for different times.

Life can feel like a long and exhausting campaign.

Each battle is succeeded by yet another clash, a siege, an ambush. The right tools are essential, the right skills indispensable. (A large, well equipped army would help too.) But there must also be periods of rest, whether chosen or enforced.

We neglect our greatest asset at our peril. Running a car without fuel and service is sure to end in disaster, yet we regularly do the same with our own selves; whipping up a frenzy of activity with adrenaline and caffeine, neglecting downtime. We are addicted to busyness, and never stop to consider whether it is the right kind of busy.

Stephen Covey, in his defining book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, talked about sharpening the saw. He advocates a balanced programme of self renewal, in the areas of body, mind, heart, and soul. He reminds us that this seventh habit supports all the others.

So, just as the marksman cleans his rifle, and the gardener oils her pruning knife, I will take this time to hone my technique. I will re-read old books and remember the comfort they can bring. The to-be-read pile beckons, with both fiction to enjoy and craft books to study. It is certainly time to step away from the screen and go outside, walk, maybe dig a little in the garden. Meditation might help me still the chatter, the anxiety about the future and regrets about the past.

I don’t know how long this will last. Not forever, because everything is temporary. But I can turn adversity into an opportunity to repair and regain my strength.

And the moment there is a fair wind, I will be equipped and ready to set sail once more. 

blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, writing process

Stop writing…

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I have stopped writing.

Just temporarily, mind you. But this will be the first time in forever that I have chosen to stop, rather than come to an unwilling halt.

I will not look for prompts, or work on my second novel, or shop my first novel. I will not try mashing genres, short stories, poetry, or even so much as a shopping list.

The fact is, I am tired.

I had another rejection, and I just cannot bounce back. I think that sometimes, we need to withdraw. Pull in our horns, furl the sails, drift, rest. It is such hard work, ploughing on, ever onwards, isn’t it? I will let the wind die, the current vanish, the oars fall from my hands, and stop rowing. I will accept defeat.

There are cycles in nature, and in our lives too.

Sometimes it’s all growing, green, life bursting forth. Sometimes it’s harvest, reward for work well done. Right now it’s the hard between times; so much effort has been expended, yet the ground does not yield. Earth turns to dust, the rivers run dry, the rains fail.

I know there are ways round this. I’ve done it before. And, sometime, I will try again. Refilling my well with painting, photography, walks, staring at the sky, reading something new, it all works. Today, though… it is the time to lick and bind my wounds, feel a little sorry for myself, eat chocolate without guilt. Until I find the strength to take a deep breath and dive back in.

I will write again. Just not today.

blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, writing process

Moving forward, looking back

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“I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.”

Edna Mode, The Incredibles (Pixar)

This might be a surprising admission, but The Incredibles is one of my all-time favourite films. One of Pixar’s great feats of storytelling, it layers adolescent angst, adult bullying, loss of innocence, midlife despair, betrayal and redemption, with lovely retro-inspired graphics and some great jokes. And the quote above, from the diminutive costume designer who has some of the best lines in the film. Not to mention, it foreshadows Tony Stark’s assertion that “we create our own demons” in Iron Man 3. 

We are on a journey as creators, one which tries to honour the past but look forward, always moving onward, upward. We see film-makers do this all the time lately, with their re-imaginings and reboots. Can we do the same as writers? Well, I just did this very thing.

I refashioned an old story, and it came out great.

For my writers’ group anthology, I dusted off an old story that had lain half-finished in my drafts for at least nine months. (The prompt that started it was even older.) I also looked at something I wrote during my first attempt at NaNoWriMo. I sent the second off for editing, and got to work finishing the first.

My NaNo story came back with numerous comments, and really needed a complete overhaul. My other story, Out of Time, showed a curious thing, one which my editor mentioned. The old half had many changes, but the second half had very few. It was as if they had been written by different people, my editor said. I thought about this, and concluded he was right.

I changed, so my writing changed. I had improved with time and practice.

We so often fall into despair, that things are not going our way and we are, in fact, frauds, failures, talentless hacks whose output has even less merit than that of a monkey bashing away at the keyboard. This story showed me that I am getting better. The NaNo story showed me that sometimes even major surgery can’t save the patient, and I withdrew it. Chalked up to experience, it forms part of my progress, even if it is ugly and misshapen. I still learned from writing and dissecting it.

Armed with better skills, I was able to see how Out of Time needed a nip here and a tuck there, so that the old now fits seamlessly with the new. The whole is something I am proud to put my name to.

So, why not review something you wrote a while ago? Critical examination and comparison with your current work will show you how far you have come; how you know now where the weak spots are, where it could be sharpened, made better. Or maybe it is the failed experiment that is like training miles logged before a marathon. It strengthened you, but wasn’t for public consumption.

We should celebrate our journey, as much as we march onwards to better things. We need the internal validation of recognising our own progress, and to map our progress we must see the distance we have travelled. Sometimes it’s good to look back, just for a moment, until we remember Neil Gaiman’s words.

Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

 

 

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How much is too much?

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Cerinthe major purpurascens

How many ideas do you have at any given time?

I read somewhere that most writers have more ideas than they know what to do with. I imagine their heads crammed with story seeds and baby notions, all crying out to be fed and developed and watered. They would look something like the path by my back door used to be, overflowing with impulse buys and supermarket bargains, waiting for a permanent home. Then I’d be going away and all those little pots, too small to sustain themselves, would be crammed into a shady corner or plunged into the ground, in a frantic last minute rush to save them.

That’s how I ended up with a towering bay tree, all of twelve feet or more, rather too close to a bamboo. I had no idea it would get that big… and need so much pruning. But I digress.

I don’t have so many ideas.

If I read writing prompts, just one or two might interest me. But when an idea does take root in my mind, it grows. It demands attention. It gets bigger and stronger and it has to be followed to the bitter end. That is how I found my novel, that rose from a one hundred word seed of an idea. Rather like Jack’s beanstalk.

My forest of little pots sometimes suffered because I couldn’t tend them all. If I have more ideas than I can handle, I write them down. That’s like putting pots in a holding bed. [God bless the notes feature on my phone.] But in general, I look around and let things settle until one strong shoot appears. I nurture it, until it can look after itself for a while. Only then will I look around for another smaller thing to keep me going.

It’s more important to do a few things well, than to do a lot of things badly.

It is also vital to finish properly. Half done is not pretty. Some things work better than others. You try things out and you learn from success and failure.

Writing is a kind of gardening. Different timescales, and different spaces, and different care schedules are needed for all the projects. But put together, they make a wonderful variety.

Whether you want to collect all of one species, or one of all species, a garden grows in stages. Over time, a writer collects a body of work that reflects them, just as every garden reflects its gardener.

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Getting to The End

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So, I’m a confirmed pantser who usually comes up with the end of the story about 60% of the way in and then I write my way towards it. And if I get stuck, I try a little light outlining, which can help but feels a bit forced, for me.

Right now, I am 80% of the way through a short story. I have the ending, even the last sentence. Yet every word is a struggle, even though I know where I’m going. I have tried leaving it and returning to try again. The story is promised for an anthology that my writers’ group is publishing, there is a deadline, and I want it finished because I have other things to do. I need to move on.

I am struggling to reach the finish line.

Still like the story, still have something to say, still can’t get there. Why this resistance? I am reminded of this quote by Ernest Hemingway:

“Sometimes (writing) comes easily and perfectly; other times it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.”

The only thing I know is to keep going, one word at a time, wrestling my meaning from an uncooperative keyboard the hard way. The muse is not making this one easy for me, but success will be the sweeter, I think (hope). I resist the urge to switch into editing mode, for that will surely kill my little flame of inspiration. Sentences flow like treacle in the snow.

Why is this so hard? Looking for reasons, all I can come up with is that I’m writing in first person, always a challenge for me. But the protagonist will not survive.

Perhaps he has more to say than I thought; it is the story itself that does not want to end.

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Spark your positivity

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It’s time to sparkle and shine

We get ground down by life, events outside our control, drudgery and rejection. We lose our shine and forget why we’re doing what we’re doing. Our enthusiasm fizzles and dies.

But what is better than enthusiasm?

It arises from passion, from creativity, from hope. It’s bright eyes, talking fast, hands tracing out ideas that tumble from us unchecked, until we’re breathless and laughing and shaking our heads and saying ‘you probably think I’m crazy’.

It’s a bit like being in love.

I admit, it can be hard to understand another person’s obsession, whether it is model cars or snowboarding or antique hunting. Or writing, come to that. But we need to listen and in turn be heard. We need to let passion flow through our veins, because without it life is dull indeed.

When someone (finally!) asks how the project is going, do we shake our heads, talk about the blocks, the fears, and look downcast? Or do we reconnect with the spark and talk about the progress, the high points, the fact that we are further on, even if that has meant several detours?

Write that log-line. Polish up a sentence or two that captures what excites you about your creative project. Remember that we all love different things, and don’t forget to listen in turn. We can give each other the gift of attention, and we can choose to be positive and light.

We are drawn to positivity like moths to a flame, but remember that we all have our own inner fire. Even if it has dwindled to a mere pilot light, it can be rekindled.

Remind yourself what fun feels like.

Try drawing, painting, sculpting, photography, with no end except enjoyment. Try a new recipe, get lost in a new town, look around a gallery or a garden. New ideas are the oxygen on which the inner flame feeds. Turn your back on your chosen form for a moment, dabble in something else and come back to your project renewed.

Be warm, dynamic, committed, lively.

Show your spark to the world. It might just light a fire.

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The colour purple

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Purple is my favourite colour.

And with the passing of the fabulous Prince (rest in peace), it is popping up all over media currently. It will always resonate with me, in all its shades from palest lilac to deepest imperial. As a writer though, I am told to avoid and remove all purple from my work, if it comes in the form of purple prose.

Purple prose is hard to define and somewhat objective, but it is essentially language that is excessively ornate and overdone. It is verbose, redundant and melodramatic. And usually it is at odds with the writer’s true voice. Arthur Quiller-Couch coined the phrase ‘murder your darlings’ and I try to obey.

But what happens to the vivid image, the phrase that sings through my heart and whispers in my ear when I try to sleep? I don’t murder it, no.

I simply transplant it to a more conducive spot, where it can grow and find full expression.

Much as I would do in my garden, where there are no weeds, just plants out of place. (Sometimes that place is the compost heap, but I digress.)

I take my eye-catching words and make them into poetry.

In poetry the vivid image is encouraged and welcomed. I may not be much of a poet, but writing it exercises different writing muscles. It encourages economy as well as expansive imagery, squeezing a quart of meaning into a pint pot of syllables and stanzas.

John Vorhaus put it well in his recent post Easy no help you where he talked about challenging yourself to do difficult things, in order to grow as a writer.

I agree wholeheartedly, though like any form of exercise, each to their own. I can’t imagine writing detective stories or historical romance for practice. Not my thing at all. But prompts and random words and genre-mashing? Bring it on.

Poetry is difficult to do well but I enjoy the attempt, so that’s where I push and test my writing skills.  I can take my newfound discipline of economy with words back to my novels and short stories. The aim is sharper, leaner description without getting too flowery.

And I don’t miss my brilliant phrases, because they have another place to bloom.

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Hidden in plain sight

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hidden face_b&w

I wrote a short story, and now I’m afraid to publish it.

Not because the subject matter is risqué or difficult, or it’s no good. I think it’s a great piece; honest and true. And that’s the problem. It is too honest, too raw, and reading it over feels like dissecting a part of my heart and leaving it open for anyone to see.

Writing is often confessional, but this piece was not meant to be. I wrote it for a competition, and I missed the deadline, but anyway. I draw on lots of sources for characters and stories, both internal and external, in order to create something new from those bits and pieces. How could I be happy to send this off to be judged, but hesitate to post it on my own media?

The difference is anonymity.

It is too close to home, too close to uncomfortable truths. I usually bury those truths within the lie of fiction, but here they are all too visible to anyone who knows much about me. I’m not sure I can expose so much tender flesh.

The dilemma we face as artists is the need to be authentic, to bleed onto the page, while retaining  emotional integrity. If we put all of our selves on the page, will there be anything left for us? Still, I feel that changing the particular details of this fictionalised tale would sap its emotional punch.

Perhaps the cloak of a pseudonym would give me the confidence to lay the personal bare. Yet another mask to wear online, trying to remember which bits of me hide behind which constructed façade.

I want my stories to be strong. But I don’t want to have to write them with my own blood.

And so this piece will sit on my hard drive for a while, till I can find a third way. Or until I find my courage.