Writing Stillness

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Setting and Milieu The Writing Life 2 Comments

On a quest to recharge my writing energies, I sit on a sandy beach of a lake in northern Saskatchewan. After two days of billowing clouds, flash lightening and rain storms, the blistering sun bakes away all cares. But not all cares disappear.

Guilt.

Guilt for not writing every day niggles me – taunting, chastising. The niggling stops when a loud splash in the lake is followed by a wild cheer! A young boy is no longer the monkey in the middle  – he caught his dad’s poorly thrown ball. And I watch the young lad struggle to throw the ball over his dad’s flailing arms so his brother can catch it.

A cooing mom adjusts the umbrella over her toddler so she can comfortably play in the sand. A beer can snaps open. A sunbather sprays tanning oil across her almost naked body. Knee boarders leap in the air behind speeding boats while kayaks bob in their wake.

Guilt suddenly disappears when I realize that I’m honing my writing skills amidst summer’s languid frenzy.

Pacing.

It’s all about pacing not only my stories but myself.

We call our characters to action, ramp up the tension, put them into mortal danger and write them into such tough spots that only the ingenuity of imagination can save them. We twist their lives, beat them and those closest to them by raising the stakes in ways no mortal can survive.

And we do the same for ourselves. Yes, we writers set the stakes high thinking that if we do not remain faithful to those lofty goals, and if we do not meet our self imposed expectations that we as masters of our fate, will fail miserably.

Yet, like our characters, we need to pause to recharge, to reflect, to consider our options, to find help where we can get it – take the detour, the side road which may reveal its own treasures.

So I sit in the shade, nursing tender pink skin, watching children and adults play in the lake, dogs taking people for a walk, and I sip my wine, absorbing the stillness.

And I am thankful, that the writer of my life found the pause button, set the pace a little slower for a moment so that I may reflect and recharge. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be a little kinder to my characters too.

Have a happy summer!

Sunday Reads: 15 July 2012

Kylie Quillinan Sunday Reads The Writing Life No Comments

10 reads worth your time:

Agent Kristin explains the difference between action and activeness in Writing Craft: Action vs Active Openings to Grab Attention.

Dean Wesley Smith dispells the perception that being picked up by a traditional publisher means the book will actually make it onto bookstore shelves in The Secret Myth of Traditional Publishing.

Anne R Allen has tips on guest blogging in How to Blog VI.

Amber West also has tips for bloggers in Do Writers Need To Blog?

Rachel Kent shares Twitter and Facebook tips in Why Do Readers Connect With You Online?

The Savvy Book Marketer looks at how writers can utilise Goodreads in Promote Your Book on the Goodreads Network.

The Bluestocking Blog examines how not to annoy your followers in Balancing Promotion.

Porter Anderson demystifies the @ symbol in Get A Grip On Twitter Handles.

For inspiration: Writer’s Digest has 72 of the Best Quotes About Writing.

For writing contests: check out the list at Bucks County Writers’ Group.

 

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

Guest poster Mignon Fogarty – “OK”, “Okay”, and How to Deal with Other Troublesome Style Choices

Clancy Metzger – Writing Guerilla Warfare Style

KD Alex – Writing Between Naps

 

Writing Between Naps

The Writing Life No Comments

I’m probably a little bit late to the party, but I heard about a little thing called burst writing that I thought I’d share.

Burst writing is this wonderful technique: You set an alarm clock for everything from 15 minutes to like an hour. As soon as the countdown begins, you just start writing. Whatever, wherever, however. You can’t take your fingers off the keyboard until the clock says stop.

I’ve got a rambunctious 16 month old and two equally feisty cats that take up every waking moment of my personal time. So whatever time I have to spend writing is spent scooping poop, picking up cat hair, potty training, and following the kids around with a dust pan and broom as I clean up the wreckage from the tornado they inflict on my house in their daily life.

But I don’t need an alarm clock. You see, I have one that’s much louder and much more urgent. It’s called nap time is over.

Previously, I used to take that wonderful hour and bask in the solace of silence. It was daddy’s time to eat lunch and sit on the couch reflecting on everything we think about over the course of the day. It was a time I learned to finally shut up and appreciate.

If you can turn the white noise of your brain off and focus the waves to instead awake your inner creative, well, then that’s time well spent.

And it’s not time you didn’t have before. It’s always been there. I just wish I didn’t wait 10 months to figure it out.

It finally clicked in my head maybe two weeks ago. I’ve been spending the past few months living out the whole “woe is me” thing. There’s no room, there’s no time, there’s no yadayadayada…

The only recurring theme in there was the word “NO.”

And that’s not a nice word. Just ask my kid. She doesn’t like hearing it, but she lo-oves saying it.

And apparently so do I. It’s what I’ve been telling myself probably since November. So, I started giving in and working around my schedule. On the first night I gave it a shot, I popped out 1200 words in one sitting. That was 1200 more than I’ve had in so long. And you know what? It felt great.

So, today I one-upp’d myself. I finished a chapter.

Sure, I only had two scenes to write. But, still. I -finished- a chapter!

This is huge news for me. Because it woke something up inside that I thought I lost somewhere over the rainbow. It led me onto other writing related tasks that I’ve pretty much been putting off forever. Things like finishing my writing, working on my 3d modeling, redesigning covers, burning excerpts, so forth and so on..

And I’m doing it all in burst time.

Who’d have thought that this whole thing only required me to put her to bed.

On a good day, I get two bursts per day while the baby’s napping. On a really good day, I get two naps, early bed time, and then my bed time.

All I really needed to do was figure out how to manage my time better. Maybe that’s all it takes you.

Give yourself a time management exercise…

Take an hour out of your day. Not when you’re at work. You know, the time when you’re home waiting for dinner, or when the laundry is cycling.

Figure out what you do with that time.

It just might be that time could be applied to something else.

I’ll rest when I’m dead.

For now, I’ve got books to write and webpages to finish. =)

 

Writing Guerilla Warfare Style

Clancy Metzger First Drafts The Writing Life Writing Tools 4 Comments

This last weekend I spent four days in a large house in the middle of the woods with seven other women.  It was understood from the get-go that this was a writing retreat, so excessive visiting would not be tolerated.  While there, we had a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack and dinner (we ate really good), and each of us was responsible for preparing one snack and one meal.  We had to clean up after as well, but that was the only time we really had to take out of our writing time.  We would stand around chatting for a few minutes during snacks and we would all eat together and check on our progress during meals.  This was fun and bonding for all of us.  But mostly, we were writing from when we woke up till we went to sleep.

Our commander-in-chief (and retreat organizer) aka the “Write or Die Nazi” said she would keep us on task. And she did.  We used Dr. Wicked’s Write or Die program ($10) and competed against each (I even did this virtually with a friend who didn’t come).  If you’re not familiar with this program, you set a word goal and a time limit – I use 1000 words in 60 minutes most of the time – and then hit the WRITE button.  It opens a new screen and this is where you start typing.  It shows you how many words you’ve typed and how much time you have left to go.  If you pause for too long, the screen starts turning pink and will go to red while simultaneously a heinous sound of your choosing starts blaring at you, but as soon as you start typing again, it will go away.  Trust me when I say this keeps you motivated.  When done, you can then copy/cut and paste your text into your main document.

Not all of us would participate all the time, but several times a day, our Nazi would call out, “Write or Die” and whoever wanted to join in would get ready and when called, we would all start at the same time.  An hour later, we’d check in and see how we each did.  After the brief cheers, we’d go back to writing.  Some would turn the sound off so as not to bother others (the red screen still keeps you hopping) and do it by themselves in between the group competitions.  We were writing almost all day of every day there.

The energy was supercharged and we all kept each other going longer and more productively than we would have if home alone.  This was exceptionally good for me because I’ve had a hard time writing lately.  I sit there thinking, fingers hovering over the keyboard, waiting for ideas to come.  At the retreat, I did this the afternoon of Day 1 and the first half of Day 2 and I had 800 words to show for it.  I was frustrated.  I had the Write or Die program on my computer but hadn’t used it in a really long time.  So, the next challenge that was called, I participated.  I did more words in that hour than I had in the eighteen hours prior combined.  I used the program and the challenges the rest of the  retreat and ended up getting almost 18,000 words done by the time I went home.  Our highest gal did 24,000 total.  We are romance writers who write in our free time when jobs, husbands, kids and everything else in our lives allows.  Some are better at making that time and being productive, others less so, but no one left from this retreat left with less 15,000 new words.

There are many of you out there that can produce like this or better without breaking a sweat, but for me it was huge.  Having the pressure of the red screen/screeching violins looming kept my brain from sabotaging me.  My inner editor couldn’t keep rereading and fixing the same material or searching for the perfect word.  My doubt couldn’t sneak in and plague me with whether I was going the right direction.  I couldn’t stall by doing research ad nauseam. I had to just write.  And I did.  Sure, I have to go back and edit it and add a lot of details that do take some thought, but it’s easier to do that when you have something to work with.  Surprisingly, it was even good material.  It’d been in my mind, I’d been thinking on it for a long time, but I’d been sabotaging my efforts to get it on the page.  Write or Die was like guerilla warfare blitzing my inner adversary.

If you are one of those who can produce consistently, I applaud you and hope to join your ranks sooner than later.  For those who may need some assistance, Write or Die may help.  I know that even since I’ve been home, if I use the program, I get more done.  I turn to it as a tool when I find my fingers hovering instead of typing.

Have you used it?  Do you use other types of warfare?  The more tools I have, the better.  Let’s hear it, troops.