The start of each new year offers us the chance to begin again, at least in heart and spirit. It is a time to celebrate renewal and rebirth; a time to initiate new projects and to set new goals. We may also need to restate our commitment to ongoing projects at this time. If you weren’t ready to fully embrace the “new” on January 1st, tomorrow offers a second chance. This Chinese New Year–the Year of the Ox–begins on January 26th, and it is the year’s biggest celebration in China and much of Asia. Also called the Lunar New Year …
Author: Sarah Lovett
WELCOMING SILENCE
Weeks into this new year I’m coming out of a silence. Don’t misunderstand. I have been writing and working. And through the holidays–which extend through Chinese New Year in our household–I’ve been social. But I’ve also felt the desire and the need to retreat into reflection whenever possible. At this darkest time of the year, just past the winter solstice, this yearning for silence makes sense on many levels. It represents the time and space to let my creative spirit rest. It is a necessary and welcome element of replenishment, healing, and rejuvenation. It is the white space on the …
THOUGHTS ON CREATIVITY AS THE YEAR TURNS
“The role of the writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” ~Anais Nin “I’m a terrible cook, but if I could cook, I would see that as art as well, it’s how much creative energy you put into something.” ~Tracey Emin “Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which as cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.” ~Henry David Thoreau “If there is a book you really want to read, but …
TREBLE THE TROUBLE
Writing fiction? Then Les Edgerton’s nifty book, HOOKED, is a great choice for your holiday gift list. (If you’re like me, you play secret Santa and buy yourself a few pounds of libros for the holidays.) Edgerton covers well-traveled ground when it comes to the how-to of structure. But he does it by focusing intensely on the basics of story setup–the opening hooks and problems–that directly connect to deep story structure. Edgerton defines the Inciting Incident–a term often used in the language of screenplays–as something that “happens to the protagonist that creates his surface problem and introduces the first indications …
A NARRATIVE SENSE OF PLACE
“If character is the foreground of fiction, setting is the background, and as in a painting’s composition, the foreground may be in harmony or in conflict with the background…where there is a conflict between background and foreground, between character and setting, there is already “narrative content,” or the makings of a story.” Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft As an exercise, Burroway suggests writing a scene in which two characters are in conflict over their surroundings. One wants to stay, the other wants to leave. If you choose to do the exercise, you might try it twice–first …
SCAFFOLD SCENES–Part One
Scenes are basic building blocks of narrative. A scene can be defined as a story episode rendered fully and dramatically in order to make the reader feel she is present and witnessing the action in real time. In effective scenes, things happen and the world shifts. Secrets are discovered. Adversaries are confronted. Revelations arise. Decisions are made. When you write–especially when you rewrite–you should know what each scene accomplishes in your story. Ask yourself what function it serves. Effective scenes do more than one thing at once, but a quick inventory will help you stay on track and in action …
ANXIETY AND IMPULSE
Today–a special day for me–I’m sharing a quote from Hackneys, Huskies, a Glimmer Train essay by author Roxana Robinson, the award-winning author of four novels and three short story collections. To read the essay in its entirety visit glimmertrain.com. “All of the fiction I write arises from the same sort of impulse: it’s a feeling of discomfort, a kind of unspecified anxiety, a need to uncover something that troubles and disturbs me. I write toward that feeling. I try to explain it to myself in order to disarm it, to rob it of its potency. I don’t know how this …
DREAMING CHARACTER–A FICTION EXERCISE
I’ve been cooped in at home all week with a sick child. Today, Pearl is on the mend and I had the chance to hop on my trail bike and take the dogs out for a ride. When I haven’t been on the trail for awhile, I’m always amazed how the New Mexico sky and landscape ground me, and how bike riding fires up my imagination. Along the way, I came up with a writing exercise. If you feel so inspired, try it and let me know what happens. 1) Invent a new character or choose one you’re already working with. Let …
QUOTE OF THE DAY–DIGGING FOR DEMONS
I’ve taken today’s quote from Les Edgerton’s nifty book HOOKED: Write fiction that grabs readers at page one and never lets them go. “The best sources for significant story problems reside within yourself in the form of your personal demons. The very best writers are those who are courageous enough to go deep inside themselves to face and expose the warts and hidden and forbidden feelings most of us want to hide from or deny, at least to others. Not everyone is able to face his demons and bring them out to the light of day, but if you …
MAKE MEANING
In his book OUT OF OUR MINDS: LEARNING TO BE CREATIVE, Sir Ken Robinson writes that creativity “…is applied imagination. To call someone creative suggests they are actively producing something in a deliberate way…a first definition of creativity then is imaginative processes with outcomes in the public world…” It takes courage to put yourself and your creations into the world. With sharing comes risk–of rejection, of visibility, of success. Whatever your fear, applaud your commitment to creativity. Each creative offering adds energy to the collective desire to make meaning. Each creative offering is a message to others: Be courageous, take …