If you're like most writers, you have two lives.
Mild-mannered fusion physicist by day... sf writer by night!
Fun-loving graphic designer... and fantasy writer!
Nurturing mom... and sf/f writer!
If you're at all like this, you may find it difficult to balance these two sides. There are times when the demands of your "day job" (and yes, mother/homemaker counts) completely overwhelm you to the point that your creativity may feel blocked by sheer exhaustion. Sometimes you'll experience a period of high demand from your mild-mannered alter ego, and writing will get pushed to the side.
This happens to me a lot, and I find that after an extended period of this, I need to feed my writing soul. There are many ways that I do this. Sometimes all I can do is find a really good book to read, to help me feel inspired. Sometimes I call a writing friend and have a good chat about story ideas, story structure, rewriting, etc. When I can, I try to find a convention that I can attend, even if it's only for one day.
I occasionally do this crazy thing where I fly to a nearby convention, stay for a day, and then fly back without spending the night. Yes, I know it's nuts - but it's something I know I can do, and when the convention is close enough, it's worth the trouble. I save money by not staying in the hotel, and I get a few good hours of solid time where I can be a writer - shed the alter ego and be the superhero just for a little while. It tires me, yet energizes me at the same time.
I'm going to be flying down to Los Angeles for a day at LosCon on November 27th. Even just knowing the plan is in place has made me feel more energized to do my writing, and I know that being there will help me even more.
For all of you who may occasionally (or more than occasionally) feel trapped behind the mild-mannered alter ego, I encourage you to look around for things to feed your writing soul. Even the small things. Even the things that seem a little nuts. Keeping yourself inspired as a writer is really important to keeping that alter ego happy. Even though I do my mothering while I'm not writing, I know that I'm a better mother when I'm feeling strong and energized in my writing, because I feel like a whole and happy person. So making sure to care for your inner writer-superhero can make every part of your life better.
Showing posts with label writer's block. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writer's block. Show all posts
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
When the set piece has to be UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME...
A couple of days ago, I got to a point in the scene of my latest story, and had to stop. Why? Because I knew I was on the verge of writing the climactic set piece of the story, and whatever I wrote had to be unbelievably awesome.
Living up to my own expectations can be enough to shut me down for days (I suppose it's a variety of writer's block).
Just in case this has ever happened to you, I thought I'd share a few of the things I do when I get blocked by my own expectations.
1. Review your plans.
I look back at what I've sketched out. Usually I have a basic sense of the events required by the plot. "She kills him," for example. Of course, it's important to keep in mind that events alone are not enough. Even the most exciting-sounding events can fall flat if done badly.
2. Back up and look for clues to how you should approach the next piece.
If you work with themes or consistent imagery, see if there's a way to incorporate the theme or the ongoing imagery into the piece that's coming up. In my case, I realized I should try to work typhoons into the scene as it progressed. Even if you don't typically work with themes, you may be able to find little hints that your subconscious has seeded throughout the early sections of your story - places where an image or a connection can be repeated or enhanced.
3. Try getting as close to the ground as possible.
Immerse yourself in your events, your characters, your text. Get as deep into the point of view as you can so that you can be inside your main character's impressions and reactions, and forget everything else. After all, what's looming ahead (the set piece) is primarily looming for you, the author/drafter/editor. For the characters, it typically won't loom as much. Your character may be aware that they have to kill the bad guy - but even if they are, they may not realize it's about to happen now. If you do happen to be in a Percy Jackson situation where you know your time is short, you know the big bad guy's coming right now, etc., then see if you can rely on the supporting characters.
4. Forget about the magnitude of the task, and about trying to make it awesome.
The strength of set pieces comes from two different sources. You might expect that the words you use in a set piece are key to its success. This is true - but those words by themselves aren't what's going to lift this piece into the realm of true awesomeness. If you work too hard to make the words of your set piece awesome, they won't be awesome - they'll be strenuous. The other place you'll be able to build strength for your set pieces is in the material that leads up to them. For example, if the action of the set piece is going to have a huge impact on your point of view character, set up the needs and sensitivities of your character early on and let readers know that certain things will have particular impact for him/her. That way, when you get there, the words you use will gain the additional resonance of all the places where you placed supporting material.
To use a wacky metaphor, imagine that your main character's plot arc is like a boulder rolling down a hill. To make it more exciting, you can decorate the boulder, or you can stick something in the place where it's supposed to land - but how much more exciting would it be to have a whole bunch of boulders (of different sizes?) rolling in from different directions to converge on that one spot? The impact would be much bigger, and its consequences would be much trickier to anticipate.
So after a couple of days and after talking all these elements through with my best writing buddy, I managed to sit down last night and write the piece. Of course it needs work - but it's out there now. The fear is gone.
I hope these suggestions can help you with your set pieces too.
Living up to my own expectations can be enough to shut me down for days (I suppose it's a variety of writer's block).
Just in case this has ever happened to you, I thought I'd share a few of the things I do when I get blocked by my own expectations.
1. Review your plans.
I look back at what I've sketched out. Usually I have a basic sense of the events required by the plot. "She kills him," for example. Of course, it's important to keep in mind that events alone are not enough. Even the most exciting-sounding events can fall flat if done badly.
2. Back up and look for clues to how you should approach the next piece.
If you work with themes or consistent imagery, see if there's a way to incorporate the theme or the ongoing imagery into the piece that's coming up. In my case, I realized I should try to work typhoons into the scene as it progressed. Even if you don't typically work with themes, you may be able to find little hints that your subconscious has seeded throughout the early sections of your story - places where an image or a connection can be repeated or enhanced.
3. Try getting as close to the ground as possible.
Immerse yourself in your events, your characters, your text. Get as deep into the point of view as you can so that you can be inside your main character's impressions and reactions, and forget everything else. After all, what's looming ahead (the set piece) is primarily looming for you, the author/drafter/editor. For the characters, it typically won't loom as much. Your character may be aware that they have to kill the bad guy - but even if they are, they may not realize it's about to happen now. If you do happen to be in a Percy Jackson situation where you know your time is short, you know the big bad guy's coming right now, etc., then see if you can rely on the supporting characters.
4. Forget about the magnitude of the task, and about trying to make it awesome.
The strength of set pieces comes from two different sources. You might expect that the words you use in a set piece are key to its success. This is true - but those words by themselves aren't what's going to lift this piece into the realm of true awesomeness. If you work too hard to make the words of your set piece awesome, they won't be awesome - they'll be strenuous. The other place you'll be able to build strength for your set pieces is in the material that leads up to them. For example, if the action of the set piece is going to have a huge impact on your point of view character, set up the needs and sensitivities of your character early on and let readers know that certain things will have particular impact for him/her. That way, when you get there, the words you use will gain the additional resonance of all the places where you placed supporting material.
To use a wacky metaphor, imagine that your main character's plot arc is like a boulder rolling down a hill. To make it more exciting, you can decorate the boulder, or you can stick something in the place where it's supposed to land - but how much more exciting would it be to have a whole bunch of boulders (of different sizes?) rolling in from different directions to converge on that one spot? The impact would be much bigger, and its consequences would be much trickier to anticipate.
So after a couple of days and after talking all these elements through with my best writing buddy, I managed to sit down last night and write the piece. Of course it needs work - but it's out there now. The fear is gone.
I hope these suggestions can help you with your set pieces too.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Fallow Mind Time
I went camping this weekend. I did not take my computer. The notebook I brought with me was a little 4x6 journal from Japan, and in it I wrote less than a page - all tiny little things to jog my memory.
I packed stuff. Drove windy roads (very windy roads, where I had to be super-careful not to nauseate my poor son). Unpacked stuff. Cooked meals over fire (and on the wood-burning tent cabin stove). Hiked.
And two days in, the answer to a plot problem just bloomed in my head like a flower. So I wrote a couple of notes down, and then left it alone again until I got a chance to talk to a writer friend, whereupon I talked out what I'd figured out, and then left it alone again.
Boy, am I keen to write today.
The funny thing is, for the last week I'd been pushing myself, up against two intractable story problems I couldn't get past. I was coming at them from every angle when what I really needed was to leave myself alone for a bit.
I think every writer should go out and look for a good fallow mind activity, if they don't have one already. A fallow mind activity IS NOT surfing the web or going on Facebook or engaging in normal daily routine. For me, at least, those things fill my mind instead of emptying it. They're a distraction and not a help. A fallow mind activity is something that requires you to concentrate on something different, hard enough that other distracting concerns fall away. These are a few of mine:
hiking
difficult driving
camping
playing piano
rock climbing
dancing to strong music
I wish I could climb rocks more, in fact, because I found the activity so mentally absorbing that I couldn't think about anything else while I was doing it. I find activities like these push away distraction and allow my subconscious to work on my stories by itself - with remarkable results. I encourage other writers to seek out similar activities, because you might really like what happens next.
I packed stuff. Drove windy roads (very windy roads, where I had to be super-careful not to nauseate my poor son). Unpacked stuff. Cooked meals over fire (and on the wood-burning tent cabin stove). Hiked.
And two days in, the answer to a plot problem just bloomed in my head like a flower. So I wrote a couple of notes down, and then left it alone again until I got a chance to talk to a writer friend, whereupon I talked out what I'd figured out, and then left it alone again.
Boy, am I keen to write today.
The funny thing is, for the last week I'd been pushing myself, up against two intractable story problems I couldn't get past. I was coming at them from every angle when what I really needed was to leave myself alone for a bit.
I think every writer should go out and look for a good fallow mind activity, if they don't have one already. A fallow mind activity IS NOT surfing the web or going on Facebook or engaging in normal daily routine. For me, at least, those things fill my mind instead of emptying it. They're a distraction and not a help. A fallow mind activity is something that requires you to concentrate on something different, hard enough that other distracting concerns fall away. These are a few of mine:
hiking
difficult driving
camping
playing piano
rock climbing
dancing to strong music
I wish I could climb rocks more, in fact, because I found the activity so mentally absorbing that I couldn't think about anything else while I was doing it. I find activities like these push away distraction and allow my subconscious to work on my stories by itself - with remarkable results. I encourage other writers to seek out similar activities, because you might really like what happens next.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Sleep - tidbits for characters and writers
I don't think I know a single writer who doesn't struggle with sleep. Maybe it's because we so rarely can support ourselves sufficiently to "give up the day job." There always has to be a way to squeeze writing in alongside everything else, and sleep suffers. On the other hand, American society generally seems to be out of touch with the need for sleep - why else would coffee shops be cropping up in so many places?
So I thought I'd share some tidbits on sleep that I've picked up from my own experience. You can apply these to writing your characters' experience... and you may recognize them from your own.
Watch out, too, for any time when you end a scene or chapter with someone falling asleep. Unless you work hard to build in tension, like them being in danger because of their lack of wakefulness, or them being in danger of having bizarre prophetic dreams, then readers are likely to take this as an opportunity to put the story down.
If you're working with aliens, sleep is one of the things you can play around with. I haven't often seen characters who have highly variable sleep patterns, but I always find them enjoyable when I do. Hibernating creatures, or nocturnal creatures, could add both interest and twists to a story.
And now, on the reality front...
I'm a big advocate of sleep, for writers in particular. I don't use coffee or tea to keep me awake, or to wake me up - which makes me pretty unusual. I try not to blame myself when I'm too tired to work during my "work times" and sleep instead - taking it as a sign that I really needed the sleep. It's hard. But I notice a huge difference in my mental and physical resources depending on the amount of sleep I've had. I like to exercise to keep myself in shape, but it's basically impossible to keep the exercise up if I'm exhausted. At the same time, lack of sleep makes me lethargic and also makes me overeat trying to keep up my energy. Sleep for me is the foundation on which my other general body-health activities rests. And being rested also helps me to avoid mental exhaustion, one of my major sources of writer's block. So on a personal note, I encourage everyone to think through the balance of sleep and other activities in their lives. Small adjustments could make a big difference.
It's something worth thinking about.
So I thought I'd share some tidbits on sleep that I've picked up from my own experience. You can apply these to writing your characters' experience... and you may recognize them from your own.
- Different people need different amounts of sleep. Some are fine on five hours; others have to catch up if they get only eight. Children typically need more than adults. Newborn babies spend most of their time sleeping, even if they don't sleep at the hours when we'd like them to.
- It's easier to stay awake when your body would rather sleep than to sleep when your body wants to stay awake. This is something useful to remember when dealing with time changes like jet lag.
- If you feel anxiety about sleep, that only makes it harder to sleep (sigh). This affects lots of people with insomnia and anxiety. Sometimes if you assume you won't be able to sleep, then you feel better when you get some, whereas if you hope that you can sleep, you feel really disappointed and depressed when you can't. My husband used to criticize my "negative thinking," but especially when my children were infants it was the only way I could get through the night without hating life.
- If you are relatively rested, then you can push through a wave of sleepiness and get a second wind.
- If you are somewhat sleep deprived, you can develop the ability to nap almost any time - if anxiety or stimulants don't interfere.
- If you are sufficiently sleep deprived, you can enter a state in which you become incredibly clumsy. This is when walls leap out of nowhere to intercept you and you bang yourself on every available object.
- If you are extremely sleep deprived and running on hysterical or anxious energy, you may not be able to sleep when you lie down to rest - but this doesn't mean you shouldn't. Just lying still for an hour, though it seems like a waste, can get you closer to a point where your body will actually accept rest and let you sleep.
- If you are pregnant (I realize this typically applies to females, but guys, keep this in mind for pregnant characters!) then you may feel an intense, irresistible urge to sleep. When I was pregnant with my first child, I used to call this the "ten seconds to lie down" phenomenon. When I was pregnant with my second child, my first child used to take advantage of these intervals to do things like teach himself how to use the CD player.
- If you have been sleep deprived for a long time (and stimulant use may be involved in this), you tend to go into a very very low gear that keeps you functioning somehow but has very little resilience. Once you've reached this place, having a good night's sleep will make you feel worse before it makes you feel better. I tend to think about it as the sleep bank collecting interest. Your body will seize its opportunity and demand more. It took me months to get over the unpredictable sleep schedule I had when my kids were tiny - and now a sleepless night or two will hit me harder than it used to when it was doing it all the time. At the same time, a good night's sleep will restore me instead of making me feel more desperate for sleep.
Watch out, too, for any time when you end a scene or chapter with someone falling asleep. Unless you work hard to build in tension, like them being in danger because of their lack of wakefulness, or them being in danger of having bizarre prophetic dreams, then readers are likely to take this as an opportunity to put the story down.
If you're working with aliens, sleep is one of the things you can play around with. I haven't often seen characters who have highly variable sleep patterns, but I always find them enjoyable when I do. Hibernating creatures, or nocturnal creatures, could add both interest and twists to a story.
And now, on the reality front...
I'm a big advocate of sleep, for writers in particular. I don't use coffee or tea to keep me awake, or to wake me up - which makes me pretty unusual. I try not to blame myself when I'm too tired to work during my "work times" and sleep instead - taking it as a sign that I really needed the sleep. It's hard. But I notice a huge difference in my mental and physical resources depending on the amount of sleep I've had. I like to exercise to keep myself in shape, but it's basically impossible to keep the exercise up if I'm exhausted. At the same time, lack of sleep makes me lethargic and also makes me overeat trying to keep up my energy. Sleep for me is the foundation on which my other general body-health activities rests. And being rested also helps me to avoid mental exhaustion, one of my major sources of writer's block. So on a personal note, I encourage everyone to think through the balance of sleep and other activities in their lives. Small adjustments could make a big difference.
It's something worth thinking about.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
More on hypergraphia and writer's block
After my post called "Insanity and Creativity" was featured on the SF network site "Red Rocket Station," I had a few interesting comments there, most of which said something like the following:
Hypergraphia? Can I please have some?
Really, I don't think these people want hypergraphia. I mean, the Marquis de Sade apparently had hypergraphia, which is why when people took his quills away he found all kinds of awful ways to keep writing. Hypergraphia is an obsession with writing, where you'll write on anything, with anything, just for the feeling of the writing and the words coming out.
What I think these people really want is to avoid writer's block.
Janice has a great post on writer's block on her blog, here. Maybe she and I are just fortunate, but we never feel like we have writer's block - at least, not per se.
For me the question of not being able to write boils down to three major factors.
One: having no time to write
This is not writer's block. I get frustrated because often I'll have thoughts flying through my head but I won't have a moment to sit down alone at the computer and actually get them down. Sure, sometimes I use a little notebook. Mostly - and my friends will attest to this, Janice particularly - I corner someone and talk my ideas out. Talking ideas out helps me to solidify them, to test their relevance to what I'm writing and see how they fit into the story structure as a whole.
Two: being too exhausted to write
This happens, far more often than I'd like. I get so underwater with all the other demands of my life that the words just go to sleep. Often I'll think of sitting down to write, and then decide other priorities have to come first. And then something unexpected will happen. And then it will be the weekend. And then the kids will have the day off school on Monday or something. And pretty soon I'll find that I haven't written for days. It takes a while before I can wake up the system after that. So I edit. I read what I've written. I read what other people have written. I take a Ridiculously Close Look at something. All of these things help to wake up my drowsy Muse.
Three: being stuck on a story problem
Okay, so let's say I'm writing along, and suddenly I run out of things to say. The scene, which seemed to be going so well, just peters out. Or the novel starts losing momentum. That's when I know that something is wrong. It's not writer's block, because it's not something that's wrong with me. Something is wrong with the story. I call this a story problem. Generally speaking, a story problem turns out to be a question I haven't answered properly. Maybe I don't really understand the main character's state of mind in this scene (this is why I'm fanatical about writing in chronological order). Maybe I don't understand the motives of the peripheral actors in the scene. Or maybe I haven't really thought through how the logistics need to work. It's always something practical: some detail I've missed, or some angle I haven't considered. Usually the problem isn't even in the place where the writing started to get slow. Two days ago I got stuck writing a conversation between two people on page 224. After lots of thinking and several conversations on the topic with different people, I realized that in order to solve the problem, I had to go back to page 208 and think through every detail of my main character's state of mind, specifically, what models she was using to understand her situation and how and where these changed and developed. Once I could track that, I could go back and understand how she would interpret something in the tricky conversation. And voilà, today I'm starting on page 232.
Mind you, I believe in writer's block. I wouldn't say it doesn't exist. But I would encourage you to think through the reasons why the words aren't coming out right now. If it's no time to write, take notes and go back later. If it's exhaustion, take your time and do other things to wake your Muse up rather than banging your head on your notebook or computer. If it's a story problem, use whatever means you can - research, conversation, brainstorming exercises, structural revision, etc. - to address the issue, making sure not to blame the problem entirely on the area where it occurs, but to look earlier in the manuscript for possible sources of the problem.
Then maybe you won't need those hypergraphia pills that someone was asking me for.
Hypergraphia? Can I please have some?
Really, I don't think these people want hypergraphia. I mean, the Marquis de Sade apparently had hypergraphia, which is why when people took his quills away he found all kinds of awful ways to keep writing. Hypergraphia is an obsession with writing, where you'll write on anything, with anything, just for the feeling of the writing and the words coming out.
What I think these people really want is to avoid writer's block.
Janice has a great post on writer's block on her blog, here. Maybe she and I are just fortunate, but we never feel like we have writer's block - at least, not per se.
For me the question of not being able to write boils down to three major factors.
One: having no time to write
This is not writer's block. I get frustrated because often I'll have thoughts flying through my head but I won't have a moment to sit down alone at the computer and actually get them down. Sure, sometimes I use a little notebook. Mostly - and my friends will attest to this, Janice particularly - I corner someone and talk my ideas out. Talking ideas out helps me to solidify them, to test their relevance to what I'm writing and see how they fit into the story structure as a whole.
Two: being too exhausted to write
This happens, far more often than I'd like. I get so underwater with all the other demands of my life that the words just go to sleep. Often I'll think of sitting down to write, and then decide other priorities have to come first. And then something unexpected will happen. And then it will be the weekend. And then the kids will have the day off school on Monday or something. And pretty soon I'll find that I haven't written for days. It takes a while before I can wake up the system after that. So I edit. I read what I've written. I read what other people have written. I take a Ridiculously Close Look at something. All of these things help to wake up my drowsy Muse.
Three: being stuck on a story problem
Okay, so let's say I'm writing along, and suddenly I run out of things to say. The scene, which seemed to be going so well, just peters out. Or the novel starts losing momentum. That's when I know that something is wrong. It's not writer's block, because it's not something that's wrong with me. Something is wrong with the story. I call this a story problem. Generally speaking, a story problem turns out to be a question I haven't answered properly. Maybe I don't really understand the main character's state of mind in this scene (this is why I'm fanatical about writing in chronological order). Maybe I don't understand the motives of the peripheral actors in the scene. Or maybe I haven't really thought through how the logistics need to work. It's always something practical: some detail I've missed, or some angle I haven't considered. Usually the problem isn't even in the place where the writing started to get slow. Two days ago I got stuck writing a conversation between two people on page 224. After lots of thinking and several conversations on the topic with different people, I realized that in order to solve the problem, I had to go back to page 208 and think through every detail of my main character's state of mind, specifically, what models she was using to understand her situation and how and where these changed and developed. Once I could track that, I could go back and understand how she would interpret something in the tricky conversation. And voilà, today I'm starting on page 232.
Mind you, I believe in writer's block. I wouldn't say it doesn't exist. But I would encourage you to think through the reasons why the words aren't coming out right now. If it's no time to write, take notes and go back later. If it's exhaustion, take your time and do other things to wake your Muse up rather than banging your head on your notebook or computer. If it's a story problem, use whatever means you can - research, conversation, brainstorming exercises, structural revision, etc. - to address the issue, making sure not to blame the problem entirely on the area where it occurs, but to look earlier in the manuscript for possible sources of the problem.
Then maybe you won't need those hypergraphia pills that someone was asking me for.
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