Category: observations/thoughts (Page 3 of 14)

Killing Critical Voice: A Re-watch

Last November I took the WMG Publishing workshop called “Killing the Critical Voice” with author Dean Wesley Smith. At the end of the workshop, he told us to put a reminder in our calendars to re-watch the workshop in six months. That reminder popped up for me the other day, so I’m going to attempt a re-watch of the workshop.

The first time around, “Killing the Critical Voice” was a HUGE help to my productivity. It gave me a lot more confidence as a writer. Paired with another WMG workshop called “Speed,” I was able to get back into a groove with my fiction that had been previously stalled since my return to teaching last August.

At this point, in June 2024, I’m not quite sure I need to re-kill my Critical Voice — I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on the ways Critical Voice often tries to shut me down and make me doubt my work, and I’ve got systems and habits of mind to help battle that doubt — but maybe a little extra boost of confidence will do me good.

As I read and study what other writers and artists say about their creative practice and mindsets, the more it becomes clear that the prolific artists understand that Creative Voice wants to make things, whereas Critical Voice wants to stop things. “Fix” is Critical Voice talking. “Create More” is Creative Voice talking. It’s interesting that the Matthew Dicks book I just finished also emphasized how important it is to create as much as possible. Dicks’s message was that making things leads to making more things. Smith’s Critical Voice workshop has a similar message. Critical Voice exists to stop you. Creative voice is abundant. It wants you to make MORE.

I will say, my fiction writing has been going slowly lately. Feels like Critical Voice is sneaking in. One of my biggest frustrations as a writer is that I can’t seem to produce words as quickly as I’d like. I want SO BADLY to be highly prolific, but I can’t seem to get it going. Every year, I wish I could write four or five novels, and every year, I’m disappointed. I know this is Critical Voice stopping me. Yes, there are days when I don’t have a lot of time, but honestly, I can find the time if I wanted to. But instead, when I have pockets of time, I tell myself, “I don’t have enough time to really get started.” It’s that phrase, “really get started,” that’s a killer.

I am afraid to start. That’s ultimately what’s stopping me. My Critical Voice is whispering negative thoughts all the time: “Why bother starting. It won’t be good enough.”

Good enough for whom?

Well, that’s my problem right there. I want my writing to be judged well. I want to be lauded. And it’s that desire for accolades, for atta girls, that stops me.

If there were no standards to measure up to, I could write more and faster and not let the “lack of sufficient time” stop me from getting a few sentences or paragraphs down.

If I wrote some fiction in all the little pockets of time I had throughout the day, I could probably write 2,000 words per day easily.

IF.

If I used those pockets of time to write. If I followed Bradbury’s advice: “Don’t think.” If I wasn’t afraid of being judged badly.

So maybe I DO need this re-watch of the Killing Critical Voice workshop.

I’m still blocked. I’m still operating from a fear mindset.

Thinking about my goal-setting for 2024, what if I went really big? What if I said, “My goal is to write FOUR novels in the remainder of this year”?

That seems like an impossible goal at the moment, but what if it isn’t? What if I could write 2,000 words per day just by writing whenever I get the chance and not being afraid to write badly? What if I made sure to do the best I could every time I wrote a sentence but not WORRYING if others think my best is “good enough”?

If I could write 2,000 words per day, starting now, I could write four novels this year. That’s crazy. But not crazy if I stop operating by fear and start operating with joy.

Bradbury calls it “gusto.” It’s the Creative Voice wanting to play. What would my writing life look like if I called my Creative Voice to come over and play?

Looking at my kids, they pretty much play every second of their lives. It’s us, the parents, who are trying to shut down the games for five freaking seconds so we can finish a meal or brush some teeth in a reasonable amount of time. But the kids? They are ALWAYS PLAYING. Everything is a game to them.

This play-based mindset is what I must cultivate in my writing practice. Every free moment must be for playing in my creative worlds. If I can make that switch, I really can write four novels this year. If I can make that switch, I can write so much more than I ever thought possible.

I was skeptical that I needed this re-watch of the workshop, but jokes on me. I needed it.

Kill the Critical Voice. Set the Creative Voice free.

Isabel Stories

“Once upon a time there was an owl named Isabel, and she lived in a willow tree in the backyard of a little girl named Natalie.”

opening line of every isabel story

I don’t remember when I started telling Isabel stories to my daughter. She was little, maybe two or three. We got the name from a Natalie Merchant song called “The Adventures of Isabel,” and I got the owl because owls are my favorite type of bird, and the adventures I invented happened mostly at night (these being bedtime stories), so it felt only natural that Isabel should be an owl.

Isabel lived in the willow tree in our backyard (which I have very recently discovered is not a willow tree at all but a type of cherry tree… more on this later). Every story started with this fact, and every night (at least in the early days), my daughter would look out the window at the willow tree. Of course, Isabel was never seen because it was nighttime and Isabel would be off doing owl things, but we pretended she lived there. I pretended she lived there. My daughter often asked, “Does Isabel really live in the tree?”

“I think she does,” I would answer. It was, looking back, a cruel answer.

Isabel had a number of friends, from the fireflies that dotted the lawn at dusk, to a wolf named Wilbert and a beaver named Benny. The opening patter (after introducing Isabel and her tree) always included the line, “She had lots of adventures and lots of friends,” so naturally, I had to invent some friends for her to have.

Behind our house is a wetland, and we can’t really see much of it because of the aspens and pines that block our view, but we know it’s back there, and it became the perfect setting for all of Isabel’s animal friends to inhabit. Who knows, maybe a silly, slightly cowardly wolf really does live in that wetland. It’s quite possible a beaver lives there too. And deer. For sure there are deer. And snails and muskrats and all manner of creatures who showed up over the years to be Isabel’s friends.

Even the star bear must exist in the constellations. Isabel has flown into the heavens and met with the stars. She’s been a lot of places.

If only I could remember them all.

I’ve often told myself to write down the Isabel stories. It was always my plan. To preserve them. To remember them. Why else do I write down so much except to help myself remember?

But as the years go by, and my daughter is no longer as little as she once was, the Isabel stories have faded. I remember afterimages, little turns of phrase, a few rhymes and rhythms. But I don’t remember them all in their fullness. They are piecemeal stories now. And I reprimand myself for not writing them down when they were full and vital and alive.

I fear it may be too late. What if I can’t remember them all?

There’s a sense of desperate urgency to this because the Isabel tree must be cut down.

This is not a metaphor.

It really needs to be cut down. It’s four trunks all split off from each other, and one of those trunks is breaking away and rot is setting in, so the tree service guys have told us either we cut it down ourselves or nature will take it out for us. Storms have been bad lately. High winds. Random tornadoes out of nowhere. The tree wouldn’t fall on our house, but it may fall on our power lines and back fence. If nature takes it down, it will cause destruction.

That’s not what we want. Not for the tree. Not for us.

So we said, “Okay.” We told the tree guys to cut it down, to leave a bit of its trunks so we can try to grow button mushrooms, to stack the wood so we can use it for bonfires. We’ll remember the tree and try to honor it.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to see it go. It doesn’t mean I’m not crying as I type these words.

“What about Isabel?” my ten-year-old daughter asked me the other day when we told the kids about cutting down the tree.

What about Isabel? I thought.

“She’ll be alright,” I answered. “She’ll fly to a new tree.”

But I knew what my child was really asking. What about our stories? What about the opening to each of those tales? How can we tell another Isabel story without the willow tree?

Once upon a time there was an owl named Isabel who lived in a willow tree in the backyard of a little girl named Natalie…

Turns out it wasn’t a willow tree. The tree guys told us it was a cherry tree. We were wrong all these years.

Maybe that’s a metaphor. In my stories, Isabel always lived in a willow tree. We were wrong about the tree in our backyard, but we weren’t wrong about the story tree. The tree in our backyard was always more than just a tree. It was part of a story, and the story isn’t bound by what’s growing out of our yard, it isn’t bound by what is ephemeral, by what lives for a span and then dies. The story exists outside of that finite realm. It is more than a cherry tree succumbing to rot.

It is a love letter, a bond, a world created between me and my daughter that can never be cut down. It exists even if the real tree no longer stands. And it exists even if I have forgotten to write it down.

The Isabel story lives in my heart. In my daughter’s heart. Two trunks growing out of the same source.

I can hear the chainsaws cutting outside my window. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t heartbroken.

I might not remember every word and jot of the old Isabel stories, but I remember enough. And I still have time to write down what I remember. As the tree is hewn into firewood, I can replant its stories into a new soil. I can do what I’d always planned on doing.

The old stories don’t have to be forgotten, even if what I remember is piecemeal. I can write them down, and Isabel can, indeed, fly to a new tree. The real willow tree. The tree my daughter and I both share. Two trunks, growing from one source.

People Are More Important Than Things (but things still have deep meaning)

Re-watching Pixar’s Up (first time watching it with my kids).

I was struck by the moment towards the end of the movie when Carl has to throw everything out of his house so it will be light enough to lift off the ground. The things of his life — all the things that represent the life he lived with Ellie — are not bad, but in order to help Russell and Kevin and Dug, Carl must let go of these possessions. The people in his life are more important than the things.

The movie honors the things of Carl’s life. They aren’t meaningless. The “Adventure Book” is a beautiful object that communicates Ellie’s deep love for Carl. The objects in the house hold memories, and those memories are good.

But the people (and animals) in the here-and-now are still more important than any object, no matter the memories it may evoke. The greatest testament to Ellie’s life isn’t the house or the objects within it, but Carl’s rediscover of the ability to love and care for others.

I really liked how the movie honored the objects (and the house) that helped Carl remember his wife, while at the same time showing how those objects cannot be made more important than the flesh-and-blood relationships in our lives. The image of Carl tied to his house, trying to carry it like Atlas trying to hold up the Earth, is the key metaphor for this idea. We root for him to get the house to the Falls, but at the same time, we can see what a burden carrying that house has become. When he frees himself from that heavy weight, he is finally able to live life to the fullest again, to love someone again.

As I try to tidy my own house, I sometimes have a hard time knowing what to keep and what to give away. I’m not particularly sentimental, but when it comes to my kids’ artwork or books of any sort or certain toys and stuffed animals, I have a hard time letting go. It’s not the stuff, it’s the fact that these things mean so much to my children, and because I love my children, I want to honor their love for these things. I keep the things because I love the people.

Knowing when and how to let go of stuff is tricky. I’m not good at it, frankly. I sometimes wish I had a big life-altering event that would force my hand, like Carl’s adventures with Russell. But we don’t always get to pick our adventures, and not every adventure ends happily.

Instead, I’ll have to find a way to honor the stuff in my life while also focusing on what really matters: the people I love.

Creative Writing: Week 7

Unbelievably, the term is almost over. Two more weeks to go. This is the time of the school year when I become incredibly self-critical.

All the things I could’ve done! All the lessons I should’ve changed! All the feedback I wish I’d given! All the ideas I never tried!

I am heavy with regrets. Every May, every end of the term, I am heavy with self-recriminations. Not enough time. Not enough quality. Not enough… perfection?

In a lot of ways, approaching the end of the term is like approaching the end of a writing project. Lots of couldas, wouldas, shouldas. Lots of second guessing. Lots of self-loathing.

The project we envision at the start is never what actually ends up on the page. This disconnect between head-book and actual book is disappointing. We beat ourselves up about it. I know I do.

My teaching is often the same. I have such grand plans, but when the end of the term rolls around, it feels like I just survived a post-apocalyptic road race.

And then I wonder, “Am I the only one who feels this way?” Maybe I’m just shitty at my job (possible).

It’s the same for my writing. I approach the end of a story or novel and think, “I feel like a failure. Is this normal?” (And not just the end; often in the middle, when I read over what I’ve written, it can feel like swimming through tar and slowly sinking.)

I think it’s normal. I think there will always be a disconnect between the work we have in our head and the work that ends up on the page. I think the key is to keep going even when our self-critical brain tells us we stink. I think these moments of self-loathing are “product-focused” thinking and not “process-focused” thinking.

Yes, the finished product isn’t exactly what I envisioned. It isn’t a perfect story. It isn’t “great.”

But what about the process? Was the process fun? Did I enjoy it? Did I get deep into the creating and find flow with my work? Did I surprise myself? Did I discover something new? Did I experiment? Did I do the best I could?

These are the questions that matter, and when approaching the end of either a story or a term of teaching, it’s important to look back on the entire process, not just the end point or where you think you should be.

The day-to-day act of teaching this Creative Writing class was a good experience. I learned a lot. What to do next time. What not to do next time. I learned more about myself as a writer and about what it means to teach others to write. I learned that often the best lessons or ideas are ones that come to me in the spur of the moment right before class. Sometimes the best lessons happen because a student asked a great question. I learned that learning never stops, and whatever fruit came from this term, it will continue to grow even after the last bell rings.

Because it’s all process. As long as we continue to write creatively, as long as we continue to be artists, there is no “end point.” There is only the process. This is one of the great things about teaching: it’s cyclical. We have terms, we have holidays, we start new school years, we start new classes with new students. There is a constant process of renewal and new beginnings. Whatever this semester was, the next one will be another season to try new things, refine the old, and enjoy the process along the way.

What Does One Do with One’s Comics?

I used to buy a lot of comic books. So many, in fact, that I often didn’t get around to reading them each month, and then more books would come the next month, and I would fall further behind. But I continued to buy them, and store them in those plastic bags with cardboard backing to keep them straight, and I swore I’d read them some day.

Then, when that some day came, I didn’t read them. I decided to sell them back to a store and make some money and free up copious amounts of bookshelf space.

But I still really love comics. I’d love to buy them again. I just don’t know what to do with them once I’ve read them? Keep them? Sell them back? Give them away?

Comics (the floppy magazine comics, not the trade paperbacks) are in this weird space between disposable and keepable (yeah, I know that’s not a word).

This is all to say that I took my daughter to Free Comic Book Day 2024 and we brought home a haul of comics, and now I’m itching to start subscribing to a few books, but what do I do with them once I start buying them? I don’t want to have boxes and boxes of comics again. Do I read and purge right away? But then what if I want to reread the comics? I might (I tell myself). And comics aren’t cheap. So I’m spending four or five bucks per month (or more) on something I’m just gonna get rid of?

This is why I’ve started reading comics on the Hoopla app from the library. One, they are free. Two, I don’t have to worry about them taking up space.

But still, as a person who loves physical media, there’s something wonderful about holding a floppy comic book in my hands. Going to Free Comic Book Day reminded me of that feeling.

Maybe I start small. Start with one or two subscriptions. See how it goes. And if the issues start piling up and space gets limited, then off-load them. Sell them or put them in my classroom or something.

Now which series to start with… The new TMNT looks pretty good…

(Free Comic Book Day did it’s job, I guess. It got a new customer.)

Creative Writing: Week ???

“Take art seriously without going about it in a serious way.”

Rick Rubin, The Creative Act, p. 354

I’ve lost track of which week it is in the term. End of April and all of May are such a whirlwind when teaching high school. I feel like All the Things are happening. I can’t keep up.

Anyway, in one of my recent weeks of teaching Creative Writing, we spent a week dedicated to playing games and thinking about how making art is/can be/should be playful.

To help them along the way, we played a storytelling RPG where I and another student were the game masters, and the rest of the class were our players. I played with two different groups on two different days, and one of the groups was a real struggle to engage with.

There were some in the group who just could not take it seriously, and therefore they could not be playful.

I don’t mean they were being silly and I wanted them to be serious. My aim was quite the opposite, in fact. I wanted shenanigans. I wanted laughter and high jinks.

The first group I played with was generally able to do this. They committed to their ridiculous characters (the world we were playing in was a bit of a spoof of the Twilight series), and we all laughed a lot and had a fun time. They approached the game on its own terms and took it seriously, while at the same time, being playful.

But for the students in the second group who wouldn’t take the game seriously, there was neither laughter nor pathos nor anything in between. Only grim faces and boredom.

Now, maybe my GMing skills were subpar and that ruined things. Maybe I should have done a better job of crafting the world and the challenges. But I don’t think that was the case. The likelier culprit was that for some of the students in the group, the game was beneath them. They were embarrassed by the whole notion of playing an RPG. Of pretending to be a character. Of romping around in a fantasy world.

And that’s fine. Not everyone digs that kind of fun.

But I think their overall attitude to the game illustrates Rubin’s point quoted above: Games, like art, should be taken seriously without going about it in a serious way. The first group, who DID meet the game on its own terms, ended up having a blast. They weren’t playing in an overly-serious, solemn way. They were light. They were silly. But they accepted the game on its own terms and committed to what the game was trying to do.

The second group could not do that. They didn’t see the value in the game, nor could they approach it with any sort of commitment. And thus, they couldn’t have fun.

Or maybe they thought they HAD to approach the game in a serious way, and therefore they were blocked from having fun. Because they thought they had to be serious, they disengaged entirely.

Either way, their experience illustrates Rubin’s point. We have to take what we’re doing seriously, whether it’s playing an RPG or writing a story or illustrating a comic or directing a film or whatever. We have to believe that the thing we’re making is worth making. That our commitment to the project is worth our time and effort. That we’re doing something worthwhile.

Because this is the paradox: If we don’t have that commitment, that seriousness about the enterprise, then we can’t be playful about the making of it either.

In order to do good work, we have to go about it without seriousness. We can’t make the work “important” because then we’ll freeze or play it too safe. So in order to be light and playful, we must believe in the seriousness of what we’re doing. But in order to not get bogged down, we can’t approach our work with a grim-faced sense that we’re taking our medicine or doing what we’ve been told. We have to be playful.

For my grim-faced, bored students playing the RPG, they were being told to play. And they couldn’t be bothered to. Playing an imaginative role-playing game was beneath them, I guess. So they slogged through it and never got to experience the lightness and playfulness of taking something seriously without going about it in a serious way.

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