3 of 31 miscellaneous, so-not-profound musings on writing: Dec 1, Beware, you can lose your butt in the chair. Dec 2, Dive with your heart as deep as you dare…and then go deeper. Dec 3, Three words to unleash on the page: yearning, relationships, intention.
Tag: inspiration to write
National Novel Writing Month –NOW!
It’s day four of National Novel Writing Month and if you’re participating you should be 6,666 words into your first draft by the end of today! If you’ve missed the scoop, the goal is to write 50,000 words/175 pages of a first draft in one month–November. The folks at NaNoWriMo say the focus in on output. And I have to remind even very experienced writers that first draft is not about polish, it’s about finding the bones of your story. Good bones. Strong bones. Bones that can keep on through draft two and draft three and carry your story to …
Gabriel Garcia Marquez on Imagery, Memory and First Lines
The next time you read a novel, stop after the opening line. What promise is the writer making to the reader? A beautifully crafted novel will begin to work its magic from the first words on the page. Below is a brief excerpt of an interview of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in conversation with Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza in the marvelous book, THE FRAGRANCE OF GUAVA: Which visual image did you use for One Hundred Years of Solitude? An old man taking a child to see some ice which was on show as a circus curiosity. Was it your grandfather, Colonel Marquez? …
Writing Relationships & Einstein
“A human being is part of the whole, called by us The Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separate from the rest….a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons near us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, …
Story Form–It’s a jungle out there!
I had a call yesterday from a writer who wasn’t sure if the story she wants to write will best be told as fiction or memoir. We talked about fear of exposure and how fictionalizing a life story does not necessarily do anything to address that issue. We talked about the kinds of books she loves to read. At the end of our brief conversation, she asked if I had an exercise that would guide her along a discovery process to find her story’s form. I have a simple step, I said, to take you in that direction. Sit down …
MANTRA FOR PERFECTIONISTS
CONNECTION THROUGH IMPERFECTION
CREATIVE BANKING
Last week, in the midst of a busy coaching schedule, a busy writing schedule, and my always busy family life, I took time out for some creative banking. I don’t mean I did some funny business with my income tax prep. I do mean I took stock of past, present, and future writing projects, and I discovered how much I have in my creative “bank”. If you’ve been writing for any length of time, you have projects you’ve left simmering on the back-burner and projects you’ve just plain left behind because it was time to move on. Those that are …
WOOING YOU BACK
One of the best essays I’ve read about reconnecting to your novel and moving past “stuckness” was penned by Gail Godwin and published in The Writer. Godwin suggests that a creative work in progress may react to the fear of abandonment like an aggrieved pet, giving you, the author, the cold shoulder or even turning its back on you completely. The provocation of this punishment may be as slight as a busy weekend you spent with your family or a missed writing session. It may be more dramatic–weeks of putting your manuscript on the back-burner. When disconnect occurs, you the writer …
GUNG HAY FAT CHOY–HAPPY YEAR OF THE OX!
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 …
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 …