Struggling

Well, here is an unexpected source of both pride and frustration.  The coordinator and leader of our Writers' Group gave me the honour of asking me to be one of a dozen members to write an historical article for a local chain of small newspapers.  I have been on my own writing journey for so short a time so, you can bet I view it as an honour and a compliment.  Of course I said 'yes' - some combination of ego, anxiety and ambition.

Now that I have been trying to do this thing (no pressure, oh no) I find myself struggling to produce anything anyone would want to read.  Or even get my arms around the scope of material to cover in up to 500 words.  Or, more specifically, to find a way into the story that I am satisfied with.

It is, to say the least, preoccupying much of the time.  This way or that way.  Maybe I could try this.  No, that doesn't work.  Ho hum how ordinary that way would be.  Where's the joy?  Where's the sparkle?  Where's the simple target of just writing something someone will happen upon, read, and say to themselves, "I'm glad I read that."

It's due in three days.  I have written one sentence I feel OK about. Whoopee.

Catch Up

Just to recap - For the purposes of our blog, a writer is a person who writes to enrich the lives of those who will read your work and your own life as well. 

I have shared my goal -- when someone happens upon my words, they are glad they paused and read them.  I suggested that, if you set your own goal, you will clear much of the static out of your head that is getting in your way.

Third, I suggested you do your very best to find a
Writers' Group and join it.

One of the reasons to join a Group that we haven't talked about is that being in one with regular meetings keeps you writing.  Like one of our members shared with us, she went from having a head filled with potential ideas to a binder filled with actual work.

[To be Continued.]

Have a Little Faith

When you're wrestling with structure, or a passage, or a sentence or, heaven please be kind, a word, if you are anything like me you wonder why on earth you ever got involved in this stupid enterprise.

In the words of one of my favourite children's books, it is a "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day".

On the other hand, when you find / dream / steal / hear / read / create / etc. just exactly what you meant all along, only better, then life is worth living again.  Or, at least, lunch is worth eating.

Paul Tillich said: "Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith."

So, in any creative process, doubt is not only possible, it is mandatory. On the minus side, doubt triggers a preoccupation with niggling issues that no one but another active writer can understand.  Why on earth are you so upset and depressed?  And, it helps explain why so many publishing deadlines are missed.  On the plus side, it leads to better, if not necessarily perfect, solutions.

If, like me, you are a new or renewing writer, you may very well have developed competence, even an enviable reputation in another field.  All that skill and distinction does not just flow over to writing.  It's new and it's hard. And on some days, it is loaded with joy.

So, have a little faith.  Keep going.  Avoid alcohol and drugs - these are not practical solutions.  Try not to drive your family and friends crazy.

Try.

Good luck with that.

What are your goals Part 2?

Reading, either on purpose or by accident just surfing or browsing or previewing books or articles I may or may not have wanted to read in full, I happened upon the trigger for my own writing goal.  At least the one I have at present.  

Having a goal truly makes a difference, both in what I write, how I write, what I write about and so on, but it also provides me with a ready model for the level of quality I want to aspire to.  And, it provides me with the kind of comfort I would not otherwise have trying to follow everyone's advice for what to do and how to do it.  

It's hard to know what advice to follow when you don't know what your goal is.  If you're like me, you end up doing everything and nothing.  You're all over the place with seldom feeling right about your decisions.  

After reading this poem by Norma West Linder, I knew my goal was to write pieces that, if people happened upon them, many would be glad they had the opportunity to read them. You may find it helpful to find your own model for what you would like to achieve - T.S. Eliott or Dr. Seuss or Mario Puzo or Danielle Steele or James Patterson or Alice Munro or Norma West Linder.

Roll Back the Years

To feel thirteen again

fill your pockets with wild rose petals
leave them there to dry

To feel thirteen again
go to the beach
flop down on a cold wet towel
on burning sand
open your ears to the waves
to the cries of children and seagulls
eat a bologna sandwich
on white bread smeared with mustard

To feel thirteen again
colour your restaurant place mat
make the trees purple, the sky green
Throw a snowball
at a passing stranger
Learn to play the guitar
Wish on the first star
Avoid mirrors
             – Norma West Linder

This poem spoke to me and I am glad I read it.  I'm happy to share it with you.  On top of all that, it helped steer my own course.

Not that it needs to steer yours, naturally.  But you may find some other piece that speaks to you and helps you get your arms around your direction.

Voice 2

I am slowly, inevitably slowly I think, discovering that I may have a 'voice'.  That when I write, you could tell it was Bob writing, not Faulkner, or Fitzgerald or Alice Munro.  Uh huh.  

After many years of writing in a business communication context, where the objective was neutrality of person - meaning, I represented the organization, not Bob -- and clarity of message, I worked hard without knowing it at eliminating my voice.  It was, I suppose, RoboBob.  Worked pretty well too.

But [never begin a sentence with 'but'], as I write, I find that my own voice does begin to emerge. And, I am persuaded that my voice is as legitimate and important as anyone else's voice.
 
Not my skill, of course.  Big difference.  [Always write in complete sentences.]  Neither Stephen King nor Jo (her close friends call her Jo) Rowling are not looking over their shoulders yet.  My skill is novice enthusiast. Working at it, though.

Some days are diamond, some days are stone.  OK, I stole that.  (T. S. Eliot once famously said: "Good writers borrow, great writers steal."  

That can't be true, can it?  I don't think you can steal a voice and still be worth reading.  

Keep working on your own voice.  Your Group will recognize it when they hear the authentic you read your latest struggling attempt out loud.

Voice

It is great to be a novice at something again.  Something I'm interested in, that is.  I would also be a novice at auto mechanics, but have no motivation to overcome that distinct shortcoming.  I read a fair bit, some light entertainment and some fairly serious 'literature', so I have at least a half an idea what good writing looks like sometimes.  

Famous authors. World beaters.  Kings and queens of the hill.

In one of my first few weeks in the Writers' Group, though, I have been in the company of accomplished and published authors who have yet to make their first gazillion dollars 

Or be the question to a statement on Jeopardy.  

My goodness these people can write.  So, filled with totally justifiable self-doubt, I spoke out loud: "What am I doing here?  I could never write that [whatever latest example of compelling expertise].  "No, no" they said. You can't look t it that way.  "You can't write with somebody else's voice and compare yourself.  Once you start to write with your own voice, some people, or maybe a lot of people, will want to read you."

My own voice?  "What might that be?" I wondered.  

[To be continued]

Balancing Energy and Craft

Mihaly Csikszcntmihalyi famously introduced the notion of 'flow' as related to creativity, fulfillment, and similar positive and productive states.  

According this way of looking at things, flow requires you to be engaged in a challenging activity, chipping away at it, making progress and being fully absorbed.  There is also a 'dance as though no one is watching' quality to it to a certain point, and then good feedback at spots along the way.  The sweet spot is somewhere between anxiety and boredom.

When my Writing Group suggested I keep writing the story, and not bother yet to 'fix' the 'head hopping' problem identified earlier, they were speaking from their combined considerable experience - that capturing the 'flow' moments, when the story is popping but not perfect, is usually much more important than stopping 'now' to tidy up some structural issues that usually can be fixed later.

I am not, at least not now, a 'good writing is the universe flowing through your fingers' kind of guy.  But, I will say this, to stop while the story is flowing and you're feeling good about it, and you're excited requires a very very (avoid adverbs, but still) good reason.

There is the story of the good writer who after years has not yet submitted her book for publication but just keeps fixing it and fixing it,.  To do that is to shortchange yourself and deny a slice of the world the pleasure of reading your story.

Strike while the iron is hot.  Carpe deum and so forth.

The Best Laid Plans

So far, the process of this blog, and with my more recent short story efforts, can best be described as 'iterative'.  This means, for all practical purposes, you try something, you think it's, well maybe not brilliant but at least pretty good, and then you discover that while it's in the right general direction, or at least one of the possible right directions, it requires just all kinds of changes.  

Sorry for the long sentence.  Art not a science.  Art not a science.  Art not a science.

For this blog, I had originally hoped to be in a position to lay out my experience in a, you know, at least moderately orderly fashion so that you could have a sort of step-by-step unfolding of the early experiences of a newish writer.  Unless the universe begins to unfold very differently than what it has demonstrated so far, this is definitely not to be.

Last night, I took my "Head Hopping" insights back to my gentle and supportive writing group and every last one of those experienced writers said - "Oh, I would not have gone back to correct it, I would have just kept moving forward.  You can always correct it later." Then I heard the example of a 'really good' writer who has been working on the same novel for, it sounded like decades, because she keeps correcting it.  So she has never published this worthy work.

In the end, I did receive a kind of footnoted advice from the group that I needed to do what I really felt I needed to do, regardless of their earlier counsel.  A sort of "A writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do."

There were many other insightful results from the group that I never would have had the chance to consider if I had been working only in splendid isolation.  For instance, when I spoke my defence out loud it sounded a lot less convincing than it had in my head.  And, I was able, with their help, to uncover why I found not having a new entry to read to the group that week so frustrating.

I received two reactions.  The first was - "Well, so you didn't have anything this week.  So you will next or the week after, don't worry about it."  What a great thought that was.

The second was - "You mean you don't have a continuation of that story tonight?  One main reason I braved an April snowstorm to get here tonight was to hear Part Two."  What a great feeling it was to hear that.  

For Instance Head Hopping

Here's my recent experience.  I had written the first part, about 800 words, of a longer short story and I was really excited about it.  I thought it was an interesting story and that I was capturing it pretty well by the third draft.  I was anxious to share it with the group to see if I was delusional.  They seemed to think it was worth listening to and I received only two pieces of feedback for improvement.  One was grammatical in nature, which I happily changed right away.  The other went something like this "Sometimes when you switch perspectives so often, it's a little confusing."

I have zero interest personally in breaking new ground in the art of fiction writing.  I just want to tell a story people will have been glad they read.  At the same time, out of the corner of my eye, I was a little inflated to think that by incorporating all these unannounced point-of-view shifts, I may have created a new post-modern contemporary approach to fiction writing. Sad to say I was a million miles from correct, or even from reasonable.


Now, I need to report that the writing group I belong to is gentle and supportive.  I know that some groups thrive on brutal direct feedback.  It is also true that our group is filled with writers all of whom are far more experienced than I am.  So, I at least had the good sense to listen to the 'confusing perspective' feedback.

It turns out, in this story I am so excited about, I had indulged in a writer's sin known as head hopping.  Of course, no one has the exact same definition of what 'head hopping' means - writing is an art not a science after all -- but according to the self-described "Mad Professor of Fiction Writing", head-hopping is the practice of switching point-of-view characters within a single scene.  So, at one moment you are the omniscient narrator, at another you're the hero, at another you're the villain or the boyfriend or the dog.  And the writer does all this so that it is confusing for the reader to know just who is thinking these thoughts or making these observations.  

And, it also turns out that this is a common problem for new writers.  C'est Moi.

So now, I need to decide whether to follow my pounding heart and plunge ahead with Part Two of the story or to follow my head and go back to fix Part One.  By comparison, Hamlet had an easy choice.  In the end, I decided on doing the repair.  Which means, I won't have anything new and exciting to read tomorrow to the Group.  

So, I'm going to share this blog entry and let them know how appreciative, if a little grumpy, I am.

Without a Writing Group, I never would have known I was not a brilliant inventor of a new form of avant-garde storytelling.  At least not yet.  

Join a Writing Group and listen hard.

Join a Writers' Group

With a basket full of anxiety, I decided to try attending a regular meeting of our local Writers' Group. It was the best and easiest decision I have made so far. You probably have such a group in your area but you may have trouble tracking it down.  Your local library, or community college creative writing instructor may know.  Or, they may make themselves known on Facebook or simply as a Google search result. 

Join them.  Both you and the Group will be glad you did.

I asked the long-time members of our local Group why a novice or experienced writer should join.  I received seven answers:  

1. The Group provides a writer, from the published author to the tentative new person, to share their work in a supportive environment
2. Even the most experienced writer will find that sharing, especially out loud, provides a unique opportunity to polish the work.
3. You get writing ideas - everything from potential genres and forms you never would have otherwise considered to structural, perspective and other technical feedback.
4. It keeps you writing.  Many go from a head filed with potential ideas to a binder filled with actual work.
5. It often generates enthusiasm, excitement or simply re-assurance.  
6. There's an accountability, absent unless you have been accepted for publication somewhere
7. There is the simple social aspect of sitting together with like-minded people.  This is a concrete benefit for writers who, typically, spend a lot of time alone.

Last week I received kind feedback related to Point 3 above that caused me to stop and revise.  So much so that I will need to confess to the Group I don't have anything ready for this week's meeting except my gratitude.

What Is Your Overall Goal? or Watcha' Tryin' Ta Do?

If a writer is a person who writes to enrich the lives of those who will read your work, and your own life as well, the first answer to your question "What is my goal?" is probably not a marketing or sales answer.

Much of the online advice you read will probably address sales and marketing issues; and there are lots of good reasons for that.  It's easy to get caught up in that swirl, though, long before you are either ready to judge that kind of advice or are prepared to take it.

My answer for myself is this: "I want to write so that when someone happens upon my words, they are glad they paused and read them and, as a bonus, they decide they want to read them again."

This is far different, triggers and inspires a different kind of activity, than possible answers such as: "To be famous"; "To live forever"; "To change people's' minds about something"; "To be important"; "to make tons of money like J. K. Rowling" [good luck with that]; "to be mysterious, attractive and special"; "to be cool"; "to make my true self known"; "because it's the only thing I can do that anyone else might care about".

Your answer may be different than any of those.  I have found that articulating my own goal, even though it may change later, helps take a lot of the static out of my head and lets me move forward with the actual writing part.