8 Methods to improve your Creative Madness

A novel never feels real to me until I hit the first ten thousand words. Then, I feel obligated to finish the dang thing! And excited...by the 10k word count, the ink threshold in my brain is beginning to overflow with ideas.

But how do I keep that creative momentum up? Here are a few of the methods that help me:

1. Morning Meditation: I read a bit of philosophy, poetry or biblical wisdom for a few minutes. My current favorite is Earth Prayers from around the World edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon.

2.  Exercise: I do physical exercises to get myself energized before I plop in front of the computer. Other times I write a little first and then exercise just to break things up.

3. Writing Excuses: I am getting into the habit of listening to this fabulous podcast whenever I exercise, or take a lunch break.

4. Online Stopwatch: I use the countdown tool to keep myself from getting distracted too often. Sometimes I set the timer for only 15 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes. Usually I stop using it once I get into the flow of ink.

5. Music: Playing music often inspires me while I write. This method doesn't work for everyone, but it definitely helps me. Also, making up a track list that expresses the mood of a chapter or character also gets me energized to write.

6. Get gritty! I re-read this story shared by Paulo Coelho and written by W. Timothy Gallway, and tell my fragile whining ego to shut up because every story starts as a seed. Of course it will be gangling and strange as it grows and needs pruning to shape it into its end form. So take pride in the dirt and nourishing dark and keep pushing towards the light.

 “When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.”

‘We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.
“When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped, nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear.

‘We stand in wonder at the process taking place, and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.
“The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential.

‘It seems to be constantly in the process of change: Yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.
“A flower is not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; at each stage it is the same thing — a flower in the process of expressing its potential.”

7. Write something, even if it is just one sentence: still working on this one! The point is to get myself into the habit of facing my ink demons. Start with just a sentence, and the next day make it three, and before long paragraphs and pages come next.

8.  Fallow Days: Some days I just don't write, and that's okay. Quiet times nourish creativity, too.

 What are the methods that work for you?

Writing by Taoist "Nondwelling"

"All beings work, without exception:

if they live without possessiveness,

act without presumption,

and do not dwell on success,

then by this very nondwelling

success will not leave.

-Wisdom from the Tao Te Ching 

These words struck a powerful chord with me when I read them earlier this week, because I realized I had forgotten how important the concept of "nondwelling" is in the writing process. I will break nondwelling down into four steps:

1. (Write) Live without possessiveness

Sometimes I hold myself back in my writing because I am unwilling to recognize that an idea is not working. I sabotage my own progress by clinging to ineffective plot threads because I want them to work. I have to let go in order to keep learning, improvising, and yes, revising yet again. Sometimes that means letting go of a sentence, or a page, a chapter, or even a whole book.

2. (Write) Act without presumption  

I have been guilty of presuming my own "inherent" creativity will provide enough sparkly thoughts to make a good book. But creativity is just a spark and even that becomes a weak ember when starved of fuel. The creative fire has to be fed, and that means hard work gathering all the kindling: reading other books to nurture my mind, refining my writing craft by learning from other writers (The Writing Excuses podcast is awesome!), and building a fairly consistent writing routine even if that means just one sentence a day sometimes.

3. (Just write!) Do not dwell on success

This is perhaps the hardest part of nondwelling to put into practice, at least for me. I always obsess over each word, wondering if it is inferior, if all my ideas are banal, if I am wasting my time on a novel that will never make the cut. Wondering if I just don't have what it takes: the stamina, creativity, humility, and diligence to polish a lumpy pebble into a scintillating syllabic jewel. Sometimes I don't. And that's okay . . . because I'm never done writing!

The only way to shake off my mental paralysis is to grow a writer's skin as thick as a dragon's hide, one scale of courage at a time. I must allow myself the right to ink my heart out because that is the wellspring of my dreams, while a publishing deal is more of a goal than a dream. If I obsess over whether I will ever become a published author or not, then I will fail my ultimate dream: to become a vibrant storyteller. This truth will make me suffer if I deny it, because then I am dishonest with myself about why I ever started writing in the first place.

4. (Write, and . . . ) Success will not leave?

Maybe success will mean a spot on a bookshelf and a shiny Kirkus Review one day. Maybe it won't. But if I can wholeheartedly commit myself to honing my craft, and make even just one reader laugh, or stay up late at night reading my novel because their fingers and brain are glued to the page, then I will have succeeded. 

Ghosting vs. Fleshing Out Characters

Many Sundays, she played a Chant CD to wake my sisters and I up and get her rowdy little daughters in a reverent mood to attend church. She loved all kinds of music, from Enya to Santana, the Monkeys to Natalie Merchant, Vivaldi to Vangelis. But my mother is fading now; her voice distorts in my memory, the echoes becoming ever more indistinct since her passing in 2008. Yet, even as I continue her inexorable loss inside myself, I also find her, the very best parts of her, living and breathing along side me. In the songs she shared with me, in the books where Taran Wanderer stands strong and stubborn against the gathering dark, in my awe for the bright black of the universe nurtured during many nights of watching NOVA together. I have come to the conclusion that a body, and a body of work (loves, sorrows, kindnesses, laughs and undone wishes) are two very different things to leave behind. One decays while the other flourishes still . . . just in me. Now it is my turn to play Chant on Sundays.

As I have mulled over what treasures my mother left behind in her leaving, I have also thought about what my characters would leave behind for others to miss and appreciate if their chapter space ran out. Too often, I concentrate on visualizing and fleshing out my characters. But ghosting them can be just as fruitful. For example, if Cinderella died, what would Prince Charming miss most keenly? Her exquisitely small feet? Hardly! Perhaps he would feel her presence most strongly in a little garden space that she had made her own by dirtying her royal princess nails with rich dark loam just because she loved earth and worms and air that smelled like petrichor after rain. So go on and ghost your character:

What aspects of personality and physicality would others miss about them most?
 
What failing or unfinished goal of your dead character would still anger/exasperate/bemuse others?

What body of materials will they leave behind for others, what trash and treasures?

There are so many ways to find someone who isn't coming back. My mother is gone, I know that . . . but I also know when she is with me.

Say it in Six: Plugging characters into the 6-word Memoir

Today I want to share a writing exercise I learned in graduate school that is designed to help students distill the essence of a novel or character in a brief sentence: the six word memoir! I think this exercise can also help writers to better understand their own stories. Writing a succinct pitch is already hard enough, so why cut the kernel sentence down to just six measly words? Because characters all have conflicting desires that result in different choices, consequences, and outcomes, and confining those truths to just 6 words can lay bare core traits.

For example, here is a pair of 6 word memoirs I made up for Harry Potter and Voldemort:

Friends—loyalty more powerful than magic.

Kill you first to live forever.

Perhaps this is just a fun little exercise, but maybe it can also teach you about what your character is willing to risk, or where the heart of your story lies. The core of several of my novels can be summed up something like this:

True magic is will over wand.

Even fool's courage sparks dragon fire.

Sun shines second star to sisters (accidental alliteration, I swear!).

Character (In)Consistency

I recently watched the movie Lucy, and found myself highly annoyed by the inconsistency of the main character. Lucy simply made no sense. After gaining exponentially-increasing mental powers when a package containing a new drug is implanted inside her and begins leaking, she walks into a hospital to have it removed. She interrupts an operating room at gunpoint and insists that the medical team help her despite the fact that they are already operating on a patient. Of course, the medical team protests, but after Lucy scans the patient's records with her super senses, she shoots him, informing the doctors that they couldn't have saved the patient anyway. Too bad if the man and his family would've liked a chance for a dignified goodbye; she abruptly murders him. This is not my problem with the movie.

I suspect that the film's makers are trying to amp up the shock value by showing Lucy's callous disregard for a human life as she slowly loses her own humanity and evolves into a Super Ultra Mega Zen Being. My problem is that after Lucy casually knocks off the patient, she then goes on to fight nasty drug lord villains and randomly leaves several of them alive (hanging in the air with her psychic powers, actually) to attack her again later on. The brutal logic that compelled her to mercilessly kill the patient mysteriously breaks down in her confrontation with the bad guys. Furthermore, after her casual execution of the patient, she also takes the time to print out a medical prescription for a sick roommate and give her advice on eating and living better.

Thus, her character makes no sense. The movie would make more sense if Lucy hesitated to execute the villains because that was not in her nature, but became increasingly brutally logical in her decisions as she evolved beyond an emotional rationale. The timeline of her character development is mixed up: Average human girl - ice cold killer - hesitant and vulnerable super girl- transcendent disembodied intelligence.

Character consistency is something I struggle with in my novels, forcing me to ask: Are my characters' emotional reactions equal/appropriate to the circumstances? Are my characters' emotional responses too abrupt? Is there a pattern in their development? A drastic change requires a logical transition. 

Note: Despite the character inconsistency, I will admit there were parts of Lucy that I enjoyed, such as the idea that human existence has become rooted in having, whereas the primary aim of other intelligent animals, like dolphins, is living in a state of being.

The good kind of writer's block

I took one acting class as an undergraduate and was made keenly aware of the fact that I can't act. 

However, I did learn one very important theater term that has helped me in my writing endeavors, and that is "blocking." 

In essence, blocking refers to how actors move and are positioned on a stage. Where are they standing in a room? What are they doing in that space? 

Blocking also refers to the posture and gestures used by an actor. For example, you can display the character trait of laziness through a slouch, or nervousness through hands that are never still and fingers twisting together. Proper use of body language sets the mood of a scene. 

I believe blocking is a useful concept for writers because it's easy to get bogged down in lines of dialogue without having concrete references to what characters are actually doing in the space they occupy while conversing with other characters. 

Your Word

Note: I have used this activity as an introductory exercise at the beginning of my English classes, but I think it works well as a character analysis exercise, too.

Your Word

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.

                                                         -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

(Character) Name:

Word:                                              

Pronunciation:
Etymology:

Directions: Please write a short paragraph about the word that best represents your life right now. Summarize the definition and explain how it represents your identity.

Comestibles & Character Identity

(The most perfect dessert from a wonderful bakery/cafe called "Bread and Chocolate")

As Thanksgiving is swiftly bearing down on us, I thought I would hail its many gravy boats and gooey marshmallow yam dishes,  praise buttery mashed potato peaks and  liberal dollops of fresh cranberry sauce that gleam like jelly garnets. But I'm not engaging in run-on sentences just to rant about the sanctioned sweet gluttony of this coming Thursday, though, believe me, I could go on for paragraphs about how my grandma's dinner rolls maintain the perfect ratio between airy fluff and warm substance. . . I want to talk about food as a potentially defining aspect of character identity.

For example, who can think of Charles Dickens's Miss Havisham without shuddering at her petrified wedding cake, the symbol of her ruin and lost hopes? Who can imagine Gollum without his repulsive penchant for gnashing raw and wriggling fish? Food can also function as a driving force in your character's life; in the manga/anime Kekkaishi, Yoshimora is obsessed with making the perfect cake for a girl who once almost lost her life because of him. Food can also define a place. I must confess that I still harbor a secret hope that when I die, heaven has a welcome feast at Redwall Abbey (Long have I dreamed of their nut-crusted cheeses and berry cordials)! 

I'm not saying that you should randomly insert your characters's most loved and loathed dishes, but I do think that food can sometimes act as a lens for insight into your characters. In my own life, there are dishes that uniquely define my identity, scents and tastes that now belong to the secrets of the past. For many Thanksgivings, I didn't eat turkey. My Mom lived in Spain for almost two years in her twenties and learned how to create several dishes, including paella. Thanksgiving in my family meant the sizzling of shrimp and the sweet juice of scallops mixed with peas, vegetables, and brown rice (though I always picked out the red peppers. I detest peppers). But my mother passed away and foolishly, I never learned how to make paella her way. So I will always nurse a tiny sorrow on Thanksgiving even as I treasure the memory of lost spices and flavors.

Have a great Thanksgiving, fellow denizens of Earth! In the words of a friend, "Be good to each other." 

Camping on the Iceberg: How to turn an idea into a novel

 

An incarnadine clue . . . 

         The first week has already evaporated and it's time for my very first progress report on Project Two Moons. I must confess that the first week is always my favorite, because the majority of my ink is dedicated to plotting my brains out! I have a very specific process I follow before I begin writing a manuscript, because there is nothing worse than plunging many thousands of words into a story line only to realize that the plot is a shallow ink stream that meanders off the page into a lethal mire of tiresome cliches. Every writer has their own process, but this is the method that works best for me:

 1. Working Title -a title sets the tone. The words may change, but it is essential to pin down the general ambiance of your book.
 2. Kernel Sentence & Pitch Combo (the big SO WHAT. In other words, why I am writing this? How is it different? What is my golden hook?)
 3. Synopsis - I know it might be tempting to write the synopsis AFTER you have finished your manuscript, but this initial step cannot be skipped, ever. Even if significant details change later on, having a solid idea of the plot's progression and how the characters evolve over the course of your story before you commit major ink time to it is crucial.
 4. Character Profiles (for everyone, major, minor, even animals.)These include the physiology, sociology, and psychology of each character. See my previous post for greater details.
 5. Master World File - The landscape of my world-geological, political, economic, magical, etc. This step outlines all setting details, histories, and important terms, etc. It also establishes the story's boundaries. For example, the consequences of magic systems (I learned this rule when I had the good luck to take a creative writing class from Brandon Sanderson at BYU). Massive power is boring without a clearly defined consequence for using it. Imagine Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood without the Law of Equivalent Exchange!
 6. Chapter Outline - Honestly, this part takes me the longest. Each chapter is its own microcosm of evolving characters and events that must thread seamlessly into the next. Correctly weaving all these shining beads of thought together is a process of trial and error. Mostly error, but eventually, after much random pondering, sounding off ideas with friends and family, and late night scribbling . . . I get it! The working blueprint. A lot of this information won't make it into the actual novel. The reader will only see the tip of the iceberg. The foundation must lie beneath the page, within me. I must admit there is a certain keen satisfaction that comes when I can hold the luminescence of a new world in my head and play grand high creatrix of destiny! My WIP has gone through these initial steps. Now comes the hardest part - fitting ink and syllable to the dream. Time to blast some M83 music to accompany the tap of my keyboard.

Faraway: Words as Self-Signifiers

                                                                    (Jewelweed)

What are the words that define your physical identity? In other words, if someone conducted an impromptu inventory of your cosmetics/accessories, what would they learn about your personal taste? Depending on my mood and the situation, I bedeck myself in a variety of signifiers every day--perfume, makeup, and nail polish, etc. After my own survey, I recorded some of the words that define me:

Spellbound, Amethyst Amelia, Shimmer Bleu, Islands in the sun, Scintillez, Irish Mist, Seaglass, Lucky Green, Aquadisiac, Shimmering sands-sable chatoyant, Blue Angel, Pink Flare, Goddess, Sunrise Sunset, Cool Orchid, Milani Ruby Jewels, and Japanese Cherry Blossom.  

What words accent your characters' physicality, and thus illustrate their personality?  Do they have a "signature" look? How do they stand out from the crowd with their personal taste? (Or lack thereof, as the case may be!). For example, my late mother was allergic to many perfumes, but there was one fragrance that she would wear whenever she was going somewhere nice: Faraway by Avon. I will always associate that scent with the warmth of her presence. In many ways, that scent defined her soul. There were many things that she could not do in life because of health limitations, but her dreams, no matter how lost, never left her. Now they linger in me, and in a word: Faraway.  

Plugging characters into social media

Ever wonder what a status update by Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen or Gollum would say? (Okay, Gollum is easy: my precioussssss!)

While I was conducting observations at a local high school, I was able to experience the characters of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter from a whole new dimension: Facebook! The teacher required the students to create profile pages for the major characters that imitated the layout and options of the social media site. Their finished product included instant message conversations, status updates, pictures, notes, and interests, etc.

I believe that plugging characters into a modern social media setting is a valuable creative writing exercise. It allows me, as the writer, to "flesh out" my character via a familiar format, one I have already used to profile myself. Undoubtedly, there will be more information included in the profile than will ever be included in the actual story, but the format offers an intriguing and current method to delve into the psyche of my characters!

For example, the protagonist of my MG fairytale might create a profile containing info something like this . . .

Status update: I wonder what the first human I meet will look like? I'm not asking for a prince, but a knight errant would be nice . . .

Contact information: Silver basin by moonlight

Political views: Mortals are our friends

Relationship status: It's complicated.

Subscriptions: Hokum's Cures for 101 Common Curses

Favorite quotations:

"Courage is the best magic"-Erica Jong

"Who never lost, are unprepared
A Coronet to find!"
-Emily Dickinson

Multimodal Extras

Alas, my artistic skills are quite limited . . . which is why I love to flesh out story themes in a virtual setting!

Need some inspiration or just a chance to exercise your creativity? Create a banner or theme for your story on PicLits!

Interview with a Character: Confessions of a Warmongering Wizard

Ever have a slippery character who just won't let you pin them to the page? Interview them into defnition with a rigorous Q&A session. I sometimes find it helpful to ask my characters questions and then try to formulate logical replies based on their psychology, sociology, and physiology (see my post on character PSP for a longer explanation).

Take your typical warmongering wizard:

Q. (Interviewer) So... did you always want to rule the local hamlets?

A. (WW): That was a recent development, actually. I was originally trained as a Palace Prestidigitator, but I couldn't take all the whining from the royal court: Whip me up a love potion for the next masquerade, gimme a dragon-slayer's sword, find me the perfect princess, glass slippers included, blah blah blah. That's when it hit me: No offence, but why serve mortals when they were so much better suited to serving me?

Q. Excellent point. Can you elaborate?

A. I don't mean to brag, but my staff could incinerate you in 1.5 seconds flat. The average mortal could barely manage to latch their sandal in that amount of time!

Q. Fa-fascinating, truly. Favorite banquet dish?

A. Hmm... I'd have to go with roasted swan with braised shallots, though my mother's mutton pie definitely comes in a close second.

Q. Favorite pet?

A. I had a Baltic Leviathan once. Poor girl, I had to get rid of her. Sweet Fang kept eating all my siblings. Besides, I'm terribly allergic to leviathan scales. Reverses all my spells when I sneeze. Oops. Shouldn't have said that. Don't take this personally, but I'm going to have to incinerate you. Privacy is worth a troll's ransom these days, you know.

Q. But I haven't asked you about your first love yet--

A. She was a witch. Smashing good one, too, until that hideous house fell on top of her. Most unfortunate. Now, would you please stop fidgeting and hold still? This will only take 1.5 seconds . . .

Interview terminated.

I don't use half the silly stuff generated by this exercise, but the rambling Q&A jam often helps me to get a better idea about my character's motivations.

Courting the Invisible

The loveliest thing I ever heard I never saw. I was at the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga when I passed a music box tree in a street whose name I have since forgotten. The tree itself was rather small and unremarkable, but given the noise, there must have been an avian legion concealed within its tidy foliage and tight-woven branches! The leaves all but chimed with their lyrical racket. Starling or sparrow, I have no idea, and I don't really care. The sound stays with me like their silhouette. Too often, I think it is easy to rely on the sense of sight to describe a scene, but then I remember the music box tree and try to do better.

The Notebook

I want to talk about the Notebook. Not the movie, I mean a writer's best friend. In my very first creative writing class in college, I had an instructor who required all students to keep a notebook of daily randomness: observations, ideas, pictures, etc. The notebook could be made up of anything, from paper scraps, electronic files, binders or wallet-sized booklets. The only stipulation was that we constantly fill it. I still have most of the notebooks I made during different creative writing classes, monstrous compilations of magazine clippings, illegible scribblings and messy diagrams. But after I graduated from college, I'm ashamed to say I slipped out of the habit of taking regular notes. Perhaps some writers find notebooks unnecessary, but I know at least for myself that note taking gives my writing an added vitality, and I want that enthusiasm pushing through the ink again.

Time to get back to the basics!

Random note for today:

Last week I watched vendors sweep flower petals from their store fronts and doves eat the leftovers on plates. I don't know what to do with these images yet, but their loveliness sticks with me.

Distill your Story

Okay, so I am officially addicted to Wordle and Wordsmith anagrams

Paste your synopsis into Wordle and see what happens as your story is distilled in a font-fancy cloud you can randomize into different styles.

Or, crack a character's name with an anagram. I couldn't stop laughing when I discovered my fairy protagonist's name included such anagrams as "griping onion, grooving minnow" and "wronging imp." Some were beautiful, like "Morning Wing, Pin Sorrow," and "Singing Iron." You can also increase your fun quotient with the advanced option, which is how I got "Prism Edge."

Marvelous frivolity!

Paired Writing

As I have the privilege to work with Dr. Will Hochman this semester, I've picked up a few creative writing tip gems, like "paired writing." It's usually done in groups of two, sometimes three people. There are five steps. Each person starts their own story at the first step. People have only about two or three minutes for each step before switching stories with their partner. The end result can be hilarious!

1. Describe a setting

2. Insert a character (speech, action, description, etc.)

3. Insert conflict (more characters, action, etc.)

4. Insert crisis

5. Create a resolution. No "just a dream" endings

If you want a fuller description of the exercise, go to http://www.daedalus.com/wings/wings52.pdf
(Hochman, Will (1997-8). Transactional Dynamics of Paired Fiction Writing. Wings, 5(2), 7-9)

Static Tale vs. Story Variations

In a folklore class I took in college, my instructor told me something that I have never been able to forget. He stated that a healthy story is one that is retold not only many times, but in many variations. It is only when a tale becomes static and conforms to one storyline alone that it runs into the danger of being lost.

Would Atlantis or Camelot still hold the same mystique if their rise and falls hadn't been captured in ink by so many pens? Would Cinderella be half as glamorous if she hadn't lost so many slippers at different balls? I wonder.

I believe the allure of the story retelling or spin off is that it starts with a place/premise beloved to readers, but then takes them on a brand new journey. The Child-like Empress knew this when she entrusted Bastian with her kingdom's last grain of sand so that he could rediscover and "rescape" Fantasia with the power of his own imagination. *(Read Michael Ende's The Neverending Story)

Story variations not only allow, they encourage the expansion of horizons that people sometimes forget still have worlds of room to grow.

Off the page

This is one of my favorite writing exercises because it is so spontaneous. If you are having trouble with a character, take them off the page. What I mean is, introduce them to external stimuli and scenarios.

For example, how would your character react if you dropped him/her in the mall? What kind of shops would they visit first, the tattoo parlor or the Build-a-Bear workshop? What clothing stores would they prefer? Or maybe your character is not a mall rat and would find him/herself perfectly miserable. Good. Bombarding your character with external stimuli helps to develop and reveal their tastes and personalities.

Besides, it's fun!

So you want to query, do you?

What? Did you think I was going to tell you how to write a fabulous query letter? I'd rather slay a Jabberwocky. But you could always check out Writing World.

Seriously, check it out.
http://www.writing-world.com/queries/query.shtml

My marvelous agent Natalie Lakosil's template for a good query letter:
http://www.adventuresinagentland.com/2010/11/template-for-good-query.html

She also included a link on Query Tips:
http://www.agentquery.com/writer_hq.aspx

Or you could ask author/former literary agent Nathan Bransford about the "anatomy of a good query letter."
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2006/11/anatomy-of-good-query-letter.html

I'll be posting additional links as I find query letter examples that I believe are helpful.