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Posts tagged ‘creative life’

Aug 23

Inspiration

My summer semester concluded yesterday and I feel myself taking a long deep breath.  The class was good, but I need a break. Just two short weeks and then it is back into the grind…

However, I combed through some of my old papers and I found two inspirational quotes I had forgotten about.  I’ll share them here as a way to keep pushing myself.  I hope you like them too.

1) “I think that if art is not made then the world will go on, but once art is created, it sort of connects you with just about everybody else who’s around.”  — Edward P. Jones

2) “Write about what you love and write about what scares you… If you’re writing about what you love, you might have stories that are perfectly resolved and quite happy.  If you’re writing about what scares you, you may sometimes have a story that’s not quite resolved.  If you write about what you love and if what you love scares you, then you may have the ‘Great American Novel’.” — Greg Bear

Apr 19

April 19, 2013

It’s been a busy 6 weeks or so.  I’ve got to catch you up.

First, I don’t have a new fiction piece for this month.  Last month I started writing a new short story, which has now become a monster story.  It is bordering on novella length, something that completely surprised me, so all of my effort has been focused on writing and finishing this story.  The piece that I planned to post I presented to my grad class back in Feb.  I got wonderful feedback and now need to rewrite it before I post.  I only have a few more weeks left of the semester, so the rewrite will happen soon! First order of business is finish the novella (or novelette, not sure yet), then rewrite.

Then, I’ll start on the thousand other stories that are patiently waiting in my head.  Sometimes I wish I was more like Ray Bradbury.  The man wrote an new story almost every week…

I was once asked where I get my ideas.  Lot’s of people always think about writing, but when they go to sit down and write, their minds go blank.  My advice, if this happens to you, is to do one of three things:

1) Use a writing prompt.  If you Google this, you will get plenty of ideas for a story to write.  I heard a good one last week.  It read, “There once was a __________, who ___________.”  There, now you have your first line! Don’t worry about whether it is good or not.  That’s what rewriting is for!  Just get the story down.

2) Write a story like someone else’s story.  This is only an exercise.  If you like Lord of the Rings, try writing something like that.  Don’t try and publish it.  Technically, you are committing plagerism, but if you just keep it for yourself and don’t try and publish it, why not?  It will get your creative mind working.  Then you will be surprised how the ideas will flow.  Soon you will have your own unique story and you will dive right in.

and finally 3) Write somethig from your real life.  We all went to school (or maybe you were home schooled), have family (or not), or go to a day job.  You may think your life is dull, dull, dull.  So what are the strange funny moments that make your life unique.  Maybe you live somewhere odd.  Maybe you know someone interesting.  If nothing interesting is happening, write about that.  In college, I once wrote a page and a half about how I had nothing to say.  LOL!  I kid you not…

Open yourself up and don’t be afraid.  It’s just you and the page.  No one else is there.  If you really hate it, to the recycle bin it goes!  Then start on something new.  One great thing I have learned since being in grad school is to open yourself up to everything.  Read everything and try writing it.  That’s why I’m posting a lot of the books I read.  You can see I read a lot of different people.

Here’s what I have read since my last post:

1)Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
2)A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
3)Cover Her Face by PD James
4)”Hell is the Absence of God” by Ted Chaing (short story)
5)”Smooth Operator” by Darnell Cansilla (short story)
6)”Bright Morning” by Jeffrey Ford (short story)
7)”Lull” by Kelly Link (short story)
8)”You Have Never Been Here” by M. Rickert (short story)
9)”Answering the Call” by Brian Freedman (short story)

Some of the short stories were out of this anthology.  I read it a few years ago, when it first came out.  The stories are so good, I find myself revisiting them every now and then.

Currently I am reading Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.  A friend lent it to me, before I decided to buy her other collection Vampires in the Lemon Grove.  After that, I will start on 50 Shades of Grey.  Yes, you read that right.  I want to know what all the fuss is about!

Happy writing, and I will post again soon after the semester ends.

P.S. — I got my book mojo back.  I found Harry Potter #2, first printing, first edition on the shelf at the thrift store last week!

Feb 2

Writing and Reading — February 2013

Even snow days look pretty at my new place!

Snow Day!

Snow Day!

It has been a little over a month since I moved in to my new place. I still need a few more bookshelves, a chest of drawers, and some nightstands, but all in all, I am moved in. The biggest change has been how much more productive I have been. It may not seem like it, but I have actually done a lot more writing.

Which is good, because my class this semester is a fiction workshop class. Over the course of the class, I have to turn in three pieces. All of them cannot be things I have used in workshop previously. So I went through my stuff and found one finished piece that I haven’t looked at in a few years. I have one that is about 1/3 finished. Finally, I have a new piece that I just started, but is so interesting, I’ll be done writing it in a week or so. I’ll save that one for the end of the semester.

Almost as exciting is the news that I have been steadily working on my novel. After years of believing I had no more novels in me, last year I found myself wanting to start a new one. I tried the NANOMO. But we all know how that ended… Still I’ve been plugging away and now have a few thousand words.

It’s amazing what a little piece and quiet will do for your writing soul.

I do have one more work that I am almost finished, but I don’t want to talk about that too much. It is not for class. It was just something fun I decided to do, with a very personal motive. Once it is done, I’ll make an announcement.

I didn’t talk about this last year, but I did have a reading list. After sorting through all my books, I realized that there were a few I never got around to reading. Kate Vaiden was one of them, but there were quite a few more that I read and crossed off the list. Let me give you a rundown of those I can remember:

 

  • The Windup Girl – by Paolo Bacigalupi
  • His Dark Materials Trilogy – Philip Pullman
  • Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
  • Origin Stories – Kelly Link

 

And of course there were the five I read for class:

  • A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
  • Charming Billy – Alice McDermott
  • Isaac’s Storm – Erik Larson
  • Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand
  • Kate Vaiden – Reynolds Price

Of those, my favorite was Flowers for Algernon. I thought that was a wonderful, unique story. For those who don’t know, it is the story of a man with a very low IQ, who volunteers for an experimental surgery to make himself smarter. The story is told through his diary entries and charts both his joy and sorrow in his new life. It was a great read and I recommend it.

Infinite Jest is still sitting in the to be read pile. I packed it early and just didn’t pick it up over the break. Now? I just started reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. She is one of my favorite writers, but I never got around to reading this series. I’m only thirty pages it, but I’m having a hard time putting it down.

But I must. I have writing to do.

Anyone else found a new favorite book last year? Let me know!

Nov 9

2 Comments

Reasons to Write

This is just a quick note.  November is flying by.  I have started my novel for National Novel Writing Month, but I am seriously far behind.  I’m just happy I started, but this weekend will be a serious work push.  Not only am I writing this novel, but I have a few  short pieces to write and a book to read for class too.  We are reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (the author of Seabiscuit).  I need to write up an analysis for it as soon as I finish.

Class is going well, but I feel a bit overwhelmed.  Yesterday we spent a lot of time talking about why someone chooses to write.  Why write when you could do something else creative like paint, or music?  Why is someone a writer instead of an actor?  Every answer I had just seems too superficial.  It may not be a question that I will ever answer.  I may spend the rest of my life asking myself this.  Can you imagine that? Some in the class said that they didn’t want to go too deeply into their answer.  I get that.  Over analyzation of oneself can sometimes crush creativity.  You don’t have to look a every single motive all the time.  Human being are irrational and do things that make no sense all the time.

But it bugs me that I never really thought about why I write. I don’t always enjoy it.  I don’t always have a burning passion for it.  But it is the one thing that I have stuck with my whole life.  I read a great column a few days ago, and basically the writer said that you shouldn’t do what you love.  You should love the work you have chosen.  I think that is a big part of why I write.  I am in love with writing.  Why else would I do it?  No money.  No fame.  It’s hard on realationships. People will think you are nuts for choosing something with (seemingly) little reward. It’s damn hard work and can drive you crazy…

*Sigh* I am in love.  There is no other explanation.

I will probably write more about this later.  For class, I have to write a vision statement about myself as a writer.  It is supposed to be something I revise for the rest of my life.  So a draft will make it onto this blog eventually.

Happy novel writing!  I need to get back to work.

 

May 1

Piece of Inspiration

Read this today and wanted to share it…

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners.  I wish someone had told me.  All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste.  But there is this gap.  For the first couple of years you make stuff, it’s just not that good.  It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.  But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer.  And you taste is why your work disappoints you.  A lot of people never get past this phase; they quit.  Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this.  We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have.  We all go through this.  And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know that it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.  Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you finish one piece.  It’s only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your will be as good as your ambitions.  And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met.  It’s gonna take a while.  It’s normal to take a while.  You just gotta fight your way through. –Ira Glass

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