Knowing when it's just not working

I'm abandoning "The Creativity Book" exercise. I'm sure it works very well for some people, but I'm finding the exercises repetitive and in some cases, so obvious that I'm insulted that the author thinks I'm not already using some of the techniques. Perhaps creativity is not my problem. That leaves me with productivity issues. Time to get cracking on those, then.

Vignette: A Writing Exercise

Write Anything had a neat little writing prompt up this morning, one that works for Planners as well as Pantsers. (For the record, I am a Pantser who listens to the whispers of my inner Planner.)

The premise is: to write a scene where two family members who have been estranged, come together for the first time. The scene is built on ten prompts. You should write just one sentence for each prompt. The entire exercise takes between five and ten minutes to complete depending on whether you write or type.

For a list of the ten prompts, go to the link. (It's only fair to drive some traffic their way, no?)

My Response (Handwritten in just in 9 minutes)

1) It was hot. Hot, hot, so very hot.
2) Birds chattered and bickered in the tree above them.
3) In the parking lot, cars coated with dust from the long drive in ticked as their engines started to cool.
4) Some how, the breezeless air carried the sent of something old and metallic to the two women.
5) The handles of her tote bag strained under the load, one already reinforced with a large safety pin.
6) A sudden flurry of wings, and the birds were gone.
7) Another car crunched in, doors slam, friendly greetings are called out.
8) She held the bag out, raised it as high as she could.
9) The tremors in her hands moved up her arms. Soon her whole body shaking.
10) "This, it's all I had. Take it and leave."


What I learned from this exercise:
A) I can't not write an ending first. As soon as I read the last prompt, that line formed the body of the story.
B) I can't follow rules. The first prompt and the last two contain more than one sentence each. Good thing they call it creative writing!

I am speechless, but not wordless

A writer's headway through a work in progress is measured in words. Some of us may talk in terms of scenes completed, chapters finished, heroic steps completed, but on the oh-so-important, oh-so-ugly first draft, it's word count that gives us proof that we are moving forward. We set a daily goal. promise ourselves that we won't let anything get in the way of accomplishing that goal, and then we write. Sometimes the words flow and we fly by the number. More often, for first timers at least, the words aren't so readily at our fingertips, and we check the word count every sentence, even though we know we can't be close. I set my goal, at what I think are an attainable number, but the days I don't make goal are more often than the ones that I do make them. Not making the goals has never made me want to quit writing, however, and so I slog on. That's what this post is about - the cumulative value of slogging on.


This weekend, I added up all the chapters and scenes I've written for my two novels. To say that I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement of massive proportions.

Suclimation - 50132 words
Circus Freak - 53519 words

Excuse my repetition from the last post, but I have to say it again - I AM A WRITER.

Neither book has reached the halfway point, but considering how much will be taken out by editing, I have a very good start. Most importantly (this akes me smile, every time I think it), I am too far in to give up. My "babies" deserve to grow up.

#writechat, How do I love thee?

If you're familiar with Twitter, you recognize the # symbol at the beginning of the title of this piece as the start of a "hashtag". If you're not, don't worry, this isn't a love letter to Twitter, and you don't have to be a part of Twitter to appreciate what that "#writechat" has come to mean to me. What you do have to understand is how important group interactions can be to someone who practices a craft as solitary as writing.

First, what is #writechat? It's a very open group discussion every Sunday, 2-5pm CDT, on Twitter. Twitter, with the limiting aspect of 140 words (130 for this discussion, because each post must include the phrase #writechat if you want others taking part to see it) doesn't encourage lengthy discourses. With its free for all membership, a lot of people can take part very quickly, and it's very hard to keep up any discussion going more than a few sentences. Then there's the technology of Twitter, which may slow down, or even prohibit, a participant's responses, effectively taking them out of the chat. So how could something so disorganized, so superficial, so inclusive be of any benefit to an aspiring writer? Wouldn't those three hours be better spent actually writing? No, they wouldn't, at least not for me.

#writechat is the discussion group equivalent of speed dating. Like speed dating, you don't go in with too high of expectations, but an open mind to the possibility of something clicking. In speed dating, you might not meet the person of your dreams, but you could learn a bit about yourself through the quickfire conversations. You definitely discover a lot more of the things you aren't looking for in a mate. In #writechat, while looking for the secret that removes every obstacle to a successful writing career you'll find kernels of advice that chip away at those obstacles. You'll also have a few of those private superiority moments, when you realize you have progressed as a writer. And finally, like speed dating, you might "meet" someone who you engages you in a way that you want to carry the conversation further. Twitter's follow feature is only one click away.

What did I gain from this past Sunday's #writechat? The two questions that started the whole thing roiling (and nearly stayed on point the whole three hours!) were posed by this week's guest moderator, @markdavidgerson, "How do you define success as a writer?" and "Are you okay calling yourself a writer if you're not published?". I've always been pretty clear on my answer to the first, but the second question, which so many other writers had no problem answering in the affirmative, has always been one of my inner demons. I know that if I don't call myself a writer, if I have some sort of inner shame or inferiority about my work, it will never be as good as it can be. If I don't respect my work, who will? #writechat, with all its crazy side conversations, occasionally spamming, and pure off topic discourse, taught me one thing yesterday. I AM A WRITER.  Thank you to all who participate in #writechat, and especially to WritingSpirit ,the founder of #writechat.

"....'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.”

The quote is from Mary Pickford and the sentiment is that although it's been four weeks since I last worked on the exercises laid out in The Creativity Book: A Year's Worth of Inspiration and Guidance" by Eric Maisel, I am not quitting. I am back at Week 6, and it is all about forgiveness. My "enemies list" has been made (and will stay private, for obvious reasons). What I have learned from listing the 24 people that came to mind in 10 minutes is that there are a few people who I harbor ill will against for a variety of reasons, and several who have only done one thing that I haven't gotten past. I've also learned that my dip into the Middle Way has left me unable to only see the negative. As I made the list, I started thinking of ways each of these people had helped me. As the exercise proceeds, I am to forgive each person (mentally, as this is NOT a 12 step program) and become a healthier person. A healthier person is a more creative person, right? My mind boggles at what Van Gogh could have done if this is true.

I'm actually doing 750, but there was no badge for that....

There's no half glass full - fewer people are reading fiction.

I've seen a quote attributed to Steven Jobs several times over the last week, concerning how few Americans read books. I traced it back to an interview with the NY Times in January of this year. Yes, he did say that “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.". As an aspiring writer, I find that depressing as all hell. Please, let him have his facts wrong. Searching further, I can't find what his source for that number was, but I did find a study published in 2004 with data from 2002 by the National Endowments for the Arts. Maybe Mr. Jobs has slightly more recent numbers, because it turns out that 56% had read a book, but that's only if you include non-fiction. If you're only looking at novels, short stories, plays, or poetry, just 46& had read a book. And that's not a steady figure. It's almost 10% than ten years earlier. The closest thing to any good news for a fiction writer in the NEA study is that the actual number of readers has stayed approximately the same because of population growth.

Oh, and if the hard facts that there are fewer people reading literature isn't a dark enough cloud, there's this little tidbit from the study - more people are writing. Goody. More competition.

Week 3, exercise 6, 3 of 3

I want to describe the sparkle, 
but those eyes are cold and black.
This story will have no happy ending
the demon muse has come back.

In my mind I see day kissed skin,
two bodies entwined as one.
But the story that he would tell
Is from a world with no sun.

My plot would have you call a lover.
But you simply will not obey.
You are every bit the hunter,
a spider that lures its prey

I loathe to write the lines that follow,
when he cowers in your heat.
I've been in this dark space before
No partner deserves such mistreat.

Week 3, Exercise 6, 2 of 3

The Closet

Little boy lost, little boy found
Little boy, in the ground.
Gotta grow up
gotta do you thing.
Little boy lost
Gonna be a big man.

Try to do the right thing
try to act the same.
Gonna marry your sweetheart
do the other on the side
Do the right thing
Gotta be a real man.

Look at all the pretty girls
Don’t you want a turn?
Stop doing what you do
Never should have gone that far 
Little boy gotta learn
The lies they call a man.

Week 3, Exercise 6

I  restarted Eric Maisel's The Creativity Book two weeks ago.  One of the exercises for this week is to "Settle into mystery" and to do that, I am to write a poem a day for three days.  Sure, I could write them and file them away in my laptop.  But that's one of the problems I'm trying to address - the confidence to publish.  Before my inner critic can talk me out of it, I send one raw and first draftish poem out into the everlasting world of the internet.

Negative energy

I don't know enough about physics
or the natural world
to say where this energy comes from.

I only know that I can feel the pull
when you are here
And when you are gone there is none.

You are a mass, a gravitational pull
At worst, a black hole
I’ve tried to balance too long.

When you are gone I move along
I have found the center
of my own universe. It is me.