writing

How Not to Handle Returning from a Writing Hiatus

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Writing After a HiatusUpon the times that I’ve returned to writing from a longer hiatus, I’ve exhibited the following, possibly unhealthy, pattern.

  1. Get story spark from divine events.* Hastily jot down notes on character and plot. Start writing.
  2. After two to four weeks, encounter the inevitable snarl. The writing is bogged down, going nowhere fast. Spend a session or two alternating between unsnarling, writing new scenes, destroying old ones, and beating head on desk.
  3. Step back and realize I failed while crafting original story outline, failed to think through motivations , sub-plots and things of this rudimentary ilk.
  4. Get disgusted with story. Start a new story, learning from my mistakes.
  5. Get it right. Pen masterpiece?

As experienced writers understand, momentum plays an enormous role in bringing about good writing. It keeps you on the edge of your game, thinking through all the elements of story a good writer needs to be thinking about. Remembering what you did in the last book, or last week, comparing it to what you just read, and so on. You’re in the zone of your craft, as it were.

If I take a break, then several of those perceptions and skills, some of the subtle, tend to shake loose and become misplaced. If I take a break, I need a practice round, something expendable. Or at least it becomes expendable in the process. I’ve never planned this, but looking back, I’ve recreated this pattern several times. You would think I would see it coming. No matter, it’s still something I have to do. The price I pay for taking a break. I should know better.

*And by divine, I mean mundane.

Writing Rituals and Other Forms of Wizardry

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Writers have their rituals, don’t they? They have to have their cup of tea, or their blue Bic, or their yellow notepad, or their time of day, or they must be facing West.

I have fewer rituals than I once did. Now that I’m a parent, they’ve dwindled to simple ones like don’t-talk-to-me and can-we-not-scream-right-now. I also prefer to have a window or a big space in front of me (because I read something about it in a feng shui book once and it’s worked for me since).

I believe the writer’s rituals are important though, for two basic reasons.

First, we’re creating the circumstances for success by enforcing a kind of discipline, albeit one that is hiding behind superstition. Because ritual puts us into a routine, which in turn triggers our mind to say, “Okay, we’re in writer mode now, so the rest of you distracting thoughts clear out.” Like any habit, the more we do it, the better we get at it.

But second, this ritual is a kind of magic. Writing is an activity unlike virtually any other. To function in society, we have to wire our brains to speak to us in certain ways. There are certain logic connections we have to make, so that when we interact with others, everybody is on the same page. For example, if you tell me you’re ready to get out of here, I can infer you mean out of our immediate vicinity. I’m making a logical deduction based on context and past experience that you don’t mean the country or the planet. But, in writing, that kind of logic often hinders us whether we realize it or not. Our minds make enormous leaps between unlike objects to create things that are new and fresh and interesting. To harness that power we need a bit of magic. We need to believe in a little super power to craft strange new worlds. And if ritual can bring the lightning down, then by all means, wear the fuzzy Snoopy slippers that you keep tucked in a wooden box in the closet for just such an earth-rattling occasion.

Pace Setting for Writers

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As I come up on 250 pages in my novel, I’ve been pondering the importance of pace in writing. The closer to the end of the narrative I come, the more anxious I become, and I sometimes fear that I write too quickly. I used to not dwell on this. You write at the speed you write, right?

Years of practice have shown me this isn’t so. I’ve learned that slowing myself down a little can help the quality of the work. Slow enough that I consider how the language is fitting together. Word choices, symbolism, character motivations, all of these background components get a little more screen time in my writing brain. It’s important to not go so slow that you lose your emotional momentum. That is probably more disastrous than the alternative. But pulling back a little, I’ve learned, makes everything shine a little more.

Writing as Ritual

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I think there’s a little mysticism in every good writing process. The little tics and superstitions that we pursue that help us enter that proper state for ultimate wordsmithing. The act of creative writing involves a bit of tearing into our subconscious, and it’s very unlike mentally painless processes like changing a tire. We’re are taking advantage of our fragile psyche, and so we need to get comfortable first.

Here are  a few of my rituals:

  • Location: A public venue, like a coffee shop, with a busy, but relatively quiet clientele works best.
  • A beverage: Lately this has been a red bush tea.
  • The right spot at the right angle. This is probably some mental residue from having read one of Carlos Castenada books and his discussion around places of power. See, I told you: Mysticism.
  • A review of what’s been done before, usually to include the last paragraph or so of prose and my notes on plot and character.

Many years ago, I was compelled to write everything longhand and then transcribe back to the PC. Obviously, this is terribly inefficient, and through pure consideration for the time I have on earth, I trained myself out of this. Although, I must say, I still compose most poetry by pen first.

Your Environment: The Other Character

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Today’s blog post was inspired by this excerpt from the comic, Breaking into Comics The Marvel Way. The passage from which it is taken focused on advising new comic book artists:

Include more backgrounds to give us a better sense of place. Think of your background as another character in the story and use it to help enhance the storytelling and the world your characters are inhabiting.

While the writer, C.B. Cebulski, was talking about comic art, his advice could just as easily apply to fiction writing. It’s so easy to forget the importance of the background. When developing a story, we’re often trained, formally or informally, to think about sentient characters and their development.

But the background, and here I mean the environment or the setting, is critical to your story in that it provides that layer of texture that grounds the more ethereal qualities of dialogue and action. Not only that, but it’s also a key element in differentiating your story from all other stories. And by thinking of your environment as a character, you can really flesh out its nuances and peculiarities.

I suggest writing up a character persona on your environment. And finally, think about how that persona interacts with the other characters in your story. What do each do for the other?

Why Write When You Can Relax Watching the Latest J. J. Abrams Concoction?

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I’ve heard other writers say, “I write because I have to. ” A lot. And maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s some universal truth among writers. I even used to buy it of myself. But I don’t anymore.

I’ve had dry spells where I wasn’t writing. Turns out, I didn’t self-implode or shrivel up or anything equally horrible. I survived. I’m here writing this to prove it.

But what I do know is that when I’m creating, I’m happier. I’m more alive. And I see the world more poetically. Things are more magical. Those things of value are amplified and those of insignificance are diminished. And I know, intuitively, that it’s just a better way to live.

I think I must be an artist first, and a writer second. If my talents lent themselves more to music, I would have followed that path. I think we must all find that one thing that makes us burn with life and follow that thing, with a vengeance. If we could all do that, I’m certain the world would be a better place.

The Inevitable Impressions of Good Writing

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How often has this happened to you? You’re working on a novel, and simultaneously you’re reading a good book or story. And as you’re reading, you start thinking, “Hmm, maybe I should do something like that in my story.”

It happens to me constantly. I’m considering changing the entire genre/sub-genre of my novel just because I read a couple of good short stories. It’s crazy, right?

My excuse his time is that I’ve never read this particular genre/sub-genre, but still, it seems a bit drastic. Of course, I usually advocate drastic, so I’ll do it.

I never plagiarize, but I do tend to zero in on emotions, moods and character relationships. I was just reading a story about this group of friends who were a team with one, aristocratic leader. It was done very differently from what I was used to reading, and I became inspired.

Here’s a completely different thought I had recently. The word “unspeakable” is horrible, isn’t it? Because it’s non-specific, it calls on the worst possible thing you can think of, which is, of course, horrendous. It very much reminds of Lovecraft, who often referred to things so dark and horrible that to just know of them would drive a man insane.