Category: writing process (Page 1 of 13)

Creative Writing: Week Two

April 9, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I told them that input could be whatever they wanted, so I have to refrain from being judgy about their choices, but after looking over their input logs from the first week, I think it might be time to talk about high-quality input versus low-quality input.

It’s a tricky subject because it reminds me too much of the snobbish position that certain kinds of literature are better than others, that comic books and video games are worthless, that pulp literature and Hollywood movies are for the unwashed masses, etc. etc. All that elitist crap.

I’m a “more/and” kind of person. A “yes” person. I like liking things, to quote Abed. And for too long, science fiction and fantasy were looked down on as “lesser-than” by the literary establishment, and I don’t want to contribute to that kind of judgment, a judgment more often born out of snobbery and cliquishness than actual merit and quality.

But. But, but, but…

There are certainly artistic avenues and byways my students could be exploring that they aren’t, and if they did explore those byways, they might find them rewarding and much more satisfying than what they are reading/watching/listening to right now.

I’m tempted, therefore, to maybe give them more required reading/viewing/listening/etc. Not a lot, but a few assignments each week that they have to engage with. “Read X by Wednesday and we’ll talk about it in class.” That kind of thing.

Yeah, I’m backtracking a little from what I said at the beginning of the term, but I think/hope it will help them see that it’s not about which art is “good” and which is “bad” so much as it’s a question of whether the art I’m inputting is expanding my life as a writer or limiting it. If it’s limiting/narrowing/same-old-same-old, then what’s the point? A kind of familiar numbness? The comfort of hearing my old notions parroted back to me? Inertia?

Or is it that they don’t know what else is out there? If I’m going to assign better input experiences for them, then I need to meet them where they are. Maybe something like the book recommendations John Warner does? They give me a list of their last five input experiences and I put together a list of five more to explore that are of a potentially better quality. It’s worth a shot.

We’ll be watching Richard Linklater’s School of Rock in Week Three, partially because I want to introduce the concept of going back and exploring the influences of those who influence you.

I feel like I’m only in Week Two and the year is almost over. These quarter-long classes we do at my school just don’t feel like enough time, especially this fourth quarter with senioritis hitting hard and Easter and all the random days off and schedule changes. There’s SO MUCH we could be doing in this Creative Writing class. If I am going to teach it next year, I’ll need to scale back my ambitions for the class considerably. At the moment, there’s too much I want to do and no time in which to do it.

I need to repeat my mantra from the beginning of the year: “Slow learning.”

We don’t have to do it all. We can leave a few chips on the table. We can do less. We can go deeper on the things that matter for us right now, not some predetermined schedule.

I need to remember that. I’m building a space for them to write creatively and develop ideas and skills. It takes time to build that space, and maybe we only start to build it together, and it’s up to each student to finish building it on her own (or with each other, after the last bell has rung on the school year).

Whenever I want to do too much, I end up regretting it.

For now, we’re looking at input. Better quality. Exploring influences. Finding the good stuff that will expand your imagination. Leaving the stuff that limits you.

I’ll go down this road with the students until I feel like we’ve gotten what we need. Then we’ll move on. Maybe that’s by the end of Week Three, maybe it’s by the end of Week Four. Maybe we stay on this for the rest of the school year — IF it’s yielding fruit and helping us all grow.

Otherwise, we can keep going down the road: going slow, but going beyond the surface of things.

The “Morning Routine” is cliche at this point, but it still works

April 3, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I hesitate to write about morning routines because I feel like at this point, all the gurus have spoken (often annoyingly), it’s gotten cliche to spout off about how important one’s morning routine is, and we’ve heard the advice ad nauseam so what more is there to say?

And yet, I have been thinking once again about why I’ve been floundering since mid-December, and the answer is crystal clear: It’s my faltering morning routine.

From early August until the end of November, my morning routine had been relatively steady (I even managed a modified version of it while visiting family over the Thanksgiving holiday), and even though my writing output wasn’t huge in that span, I was writing consistently and enjoyably. Life was in balance.

Then December hit, Christmas prepping and end-of-semester-grading took over my life, and the morning routine was decimated. I tried to get back on track in January, but to no avail. I couldn’t get to bed on time, and in the morning, sleep felt more important than writing, so I would snooze until it was time to get my kids ready for school.

And now, here I am in April, and I’m grumbling about how out of sync I feel, how paltry my creative output has been, and how, frankly, depressed I’m getting.

It’s the lack of a morning routine!

I’ve known it the whole time, but for some reason I had convinced myself that perhaps my life was too unpredictable to commit to a regular morning routine and I’d be better off sneaking my writing in whenever I could, doing my art whenever the small snatches of time presented themselves. Planning didn’t seem to be working, so I would be more spontaneous.

But spontaneous is just another word for not getting shit done. Without a rhythm, without a routine, I never was able to find those snatches of time. My output nosedived.

Here’s the thing: it wasn’t that planning didn’t work. It was that I had given up on committing to the plan. I wanted my sleep (I still do, of course). And I figured it was too hard to get to bed at 10:00 p.m. My life wouldn’t let me. I had to face reality. Blah, blah, blah.

But what I was facing wasn’t reality. It was my own resignation in the face of a challenge. I had given up and soothed myself by saying it was pragmatism.

It wasn’t pragmatism. It was a reluctance to make changes. To turn off the screens and go to bed even if there were other things I wanted to do. The real reality is that we have to make choices, and from December to April, I had been making the choice to stay up later and not wake up early to do my morning routine. This was a choice I was making. I didn’t have to read one more online article after 9:00 p.m., but I did. I didn’t have to watch a second episode of that TV show, but I did. I didn’t have to put off my paper-grading all day so that I had a stack of them to grade at night, but I did.

These were choices. They still are choices I must face each and every day. But if I want to establish my morning routine again, then I must make different choices. Some things, yes, are always out of our control. I can’t control when my child has a nightmare and needs me to sit with him in his bedroom. I can’t control those nights when we get home late from visiting family and I have to stay up late to make the lunches and wash dishes.

But on typical nights, those normal nights when I have more control over my choices and time, I can start making the choice for the morning routine — the routine that gives my life balance and structure and health — over the choice for one more episode, one more article, one more paper to grade.

If it’s at all interesting to others, my morning routine consists of waking up at 6:00 a.m. and immediately doing stretches in bed to help with my back problems and muscle stiffness. Then I get up, drink a glass of water and take vitamins, and then begin walking around the house for exercise. While I walk, I usually pray. If it’s light enough outside, I might walk outside, but usually it’s too dark for that.

After my walk and prayer time, I do my Julia Cameron-style morning pages in my notebook, and then I do some creative writing, either fiction or nonfiction or poetry, whatever feels right and I’m most excited about.

By this time, I have to get ready for work, so I shower, pack the kids’ lunches, eat breakfast, and head to work with enough time to grade papers for thirty minutes before my first class period starts.

This is the ideal morning routine for me. In this three-hour span, I’m able to exercise, pray, reflect, write creatively, eat breakfast, and make progress on my teaching job, so that by 9:00 a.m., I have accomplished all the important things I need to accomplish for the day related to my health, my spiritual life, my art, and my job.

After 9:00 a.m., if I’ve done my morning routine, whatever else gets accomplished throughout the day, I can feel good knowing I did the things I needed to do to make myself feel whole.

Maybe some of the gurus would say my routine is too ambitious, and that’s why I fell off the wagon.

Maybe.

But over the years, I’ve trained myself to become more and more of a morning person, and as I get older, I know that by the time the afternoon hits, I’m too tired both physically and mentally to be effective at my creative work. The best time for me is the morning. Before the day has had a chance to drain me. So I need to get several things done in the morning because my health, my spiritual life, my art, and my job are all things I need to keep in balance for an ordered, satisfying life.

And if that means I need to wake up at 5:30 a.m. and go to bed at 9:30 p.m., then maybe I need to start making the choices that will allow me to do that. But it all comes down to choices, to what I value, and where I focus my time.

Not everything is under my control. Life will have bumps and setbacks.

But the morning routine — for me, at least — really does work as a tool and structure for making my art. I’ve noticed a huge plummet of happiness and artistic fulfillment since I floundered in my morning routine. And in just the past two days, since I’ve been trying to reestablish that routine, I’ve noticed a huge upswing in my mood and ability to get creative work done.

Reminding myself that the morning routine really does work, and that it’s worth making different choices at night, may be cliche to write about, but I wouldn’t have had the energy or time to write this blog post without my morning routine.

I’ll take the cliche every time if it means I get to make my art again and keep myself whole.

Creative Writing: Week One

March 24, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I’m teaching a Creative Writing class for the first time in several years, and this week was our first week. I’ve got fourteen students — high school kids — and we started the week watching a movie, coloring, and eating candy (an idea I blatantly stole from Lynda Barry... sorry for being a thief, Professor Lynda!).

It was great, though. Super chill. Fun and relaxing. A big part of this class is about having fun and being playful, so watching a movie and coloring felt very playful and kid-like. These are teenagers, so sometimes they want to act grown-up and mature and be sophisticated adults, but there’s also this yearning for childhood and play and fun (something often sorely missing from their busy, over-stuffed lives), so by giving them permission to have fun, to be a kid again, to be silly and do something “just because,” I’ve (hopefully) given them permission to also be creative.

We talked a bit about what it means to be creative, and my biggest message on this is that creative means “to create,” so any time they are making something, they are being creative. Doesn’t have to be “original” or “special” or even “good.” Just has to be making something.

What that something is, I’m leaving up to them.

(One student asked if she could make jam every week, and I said, “Um… okay? But maybe write, like, a poem and stick it on the label?” It is a creative WRITING class after all; I feel like some writing should be in there somewhere…)

We also spent some time decorating our writing notebooks and choosing “guardian spirits” (via Austin Kleon), and I told them they had to do some “input” every day and that a big chunk of their grade will be based on how much input they take in week after week.

Input includes reading poetry, fiction, non-fiction, essays, comics, watching movies/TV, listening to music, looking at art, and having new experiences. When I told them they had permission to watch a bunch of movies this week and count it as their “homework” for my class, they all got very excited and couldn’t believe their luck. I also got very excited. I can’t wait for them to spend their week watching movies and getting ideas and having fun.

I’m very big on fun these days. We take things too seriously, acting as if writing stories or reading books or making art is some kind of excruciating task that tortures us. If reading a book is torture, you’re doing it wrong. And if writing something that came out of your imagination is laborious and unfun, then also: doing it wrong. This is art, kiddos. Not work.

So, we spent some time talking about how to have fun, and then I tried to do things all week that were fun. We went on walks. We listened to Japanese soul music from the 1970s. We made blackout poetry. We spent an entire class period inputting things into our brains: some students watched a movie, others read novels and poetry. I too read a book during that time, and listened to some synthwave music.

Their assignment this weekend is to keep doing their input, everyday. I’ll check their input logs on Monday.

I also asked them to spend thirty minutes to an hour doing some idea-generating. I gave them a list of twenty different activities to try, including playing the “What If?” game, making a list of titles, and listening to music to see what images and ideas flow from the songs.

In some ways, you could look at this first week and say, “She didn’t teach them anything! They just goofed around!”

And you’d be right. We did goof around. We did silly things. Playful things. Fun things. I gave them some advice about writing, but mostly, we just played. Because if they’re going to be writing creatively, they must first be playful. They must first be given permission to have fun. It’s a permission they were craving.

This first week was the giving-permission week: “Yes, you can play. Yes, you can laugh. Yes, you can make jam.” (Just maybe make a poem or a clever line to go with it.)

Going forward, we’ll learn some craft; we’ll learn techniques. I’ll give them prompts and exercises. But I’ll also continue to give them space and time and permission to have fun.

Note to Self: Stop Making This Mistake!

March 23, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I’m in the midst of correcting a mistake.

The mistake was beginning a novel, writing about nine chapters, and not outlining the major plot points, character details, and world-building information of each chapter as I finished it (which is a thing I do: I outline after I write, not before).

Instead, I wrote, wrote, wrote, my hair on fire, my fingers flashing, and I just kept chugging along, oblivious to my fatal error until I’d written 25,000 words and I was like, “Oh, fuck.”

I am a “discovery writer” or a writer who writes “into the dark,” so I do not outline beforehand. Instead — ideally — what I’m supposed to do is outline AFTER I’ve written each chapter, so I have a running summary of what’s happening as the story progresses and therefore I can keep track of all the details without having to use my critical voice to plan things beforehand.

Ideally.

Because what ends up happening — seemingly every time I start a new book — is I forget to do the outlining after I finish a chapter. And then about a third of the way through the book, I realize my mistake and have to spend days/weeks going back through and rereading my manuscript and taking notes. It really puts a halt to the creative energy and stalls the progress of the story. But it’s kinda necessary, otherwise I’ll forget key details and get all messed up with the continuity of the story.

So back into the manuscript I must go. Rereading and taking notes.

That’s where I’m at right now. I started writing Norse City Limits several months ago, and I was on a real roll — letting loose and getting the story down with energy and excitement — and then I realized I hadn’t been outlining after each chapter, and it was an emergency, screeching-of-the-breaks moment, quick-grab-the-notebook-and-start-outling, and now, it’s March, and I’m still not back to writing. I’m still outlining.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

I need to put a sticky note somewhere to remind me to STOP FORGETTING TO THE DO THE POST-WRITING OUTLINE!!111!12121!

This is not the first time such an error has happened; you’d think I would have learned my lesson, but apparently not. It’s kinda good that I’m so caught up in writing the story and finding out what happens next that I forget to do the “housekeeping” side of things afterward, but man, it is not good when I have to go back and do all this rereading and it just kills the momentum of the story.

I’d like to say, “Live and learn,” but apparently, I don’t learn? I just keep doing the same stupid mistake book after book.

So that’s where I’m at. Fixing my stupid mistake and trying to get back into the story so I can start writing it again.

Ugh.

Works in Progress July 2023

July 3, 2023 / / 0 Comments

I’ve settled into a groove. My early morning writing routine has kept steady (with a few days here and there where I’ve had to shift my mornings to accommodate the varieties of parenting and life), and with my morning sessions, I’ve mostly focused on Norse City Limits. I’m up to 13,000 words in that project, which is amazing in some sense because it doesn’t feel like I’ve written that much. Not that 13,000 words is a lot, but when I see it all totaled together, and then I think of how I got to that 13,000, it doesn’t feel like I did any work. That’s the point of a daily habit, isn’t it? A little bit everyday adds up to a lot over time. Well, I’m proving that adage true.

My other project is a story I’m calling “Dark Was the Morning,” about an old dragon and an old dragon-slayer who must decide whether they want to face off against each other or not. They’re both tired and filled with ennui, facing the end of their lives and the slow betrayal of their minds and bodies as they age. I’m not sure if this will be a short story or a novella or something else. I’m just writin’ it and seein’ where it goes!

I wish I could say I’ve been working on Ysbaddaden and the Game of Chess, but that book is on the back burner again due to my focus on Norse City Limits. Maybe when fall rolls around and I’m getting to the midpoint of NCL, I’ll feel like I need a shift to something different and pick up Ysbaddaden again. I really want to finish the Merlin series, but I also know that these other stories are closer to the surface and need to be fished out first. I’m trying really hard to let my creative voice dictate my writing, and if Creative Voice says NCL is the way to go right now, that’s the way I’m going.

My blogging has been pretty shitty since summer started, but maybe that’s for the best. I should be outside doing summery things not hovering over my keyboard like a pasty crypt keeper. I would like to blog more, though, and maybe my renewed focus on Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG and other OSR/indie games will be the material I need to start blogging with more regularity. I’ve written before about these old-school games, and perhaps I shall write about them again in the near future. Old school RPG stuff is wildly creative, particularly the modules and settings, and I find that it’s often more interesting and inspirational than any other fantasy media. Who needs AI when there’s a random d12 table to roll on for ideas!

I think my earlier goal of 2500 words per day is too ambitious. Maybe someday I’ll hit that goal with regularity, but I think the better goal is to keep the streak of days alive. Writing a little bit every morning before the family wakes up is working well so far. 13,000 words of fiction isn’t a lot, but it’s something. And if I can keep it up, by summer’s end, I’ll hopefully hit 30,000 words. That’s a third of a novel. Not bad for a few minutes every morning.

The other problem with my 2500 words per day goal, is that eventually summer will end, and when it does, I’ll be going back to a 9-5 job (well, more like an 8:30-3:30 job… more to say about that soon…), and 2500 words will be nigh impossible on most days simply because of time constraints. And I don’t want to make writing into a chore. I don’t want writing to be a pressured thing. I don’t want to even make writing into a “career” (I’ve discovered I don’t want to make anything into a career, frankly). I want to write. For pleasure. For myself. For the sheer joy of it. But making it into a career is not for me. It might be for others, but not for me. I’d like to make art and let the day job make money.

So 2500 words is too ambitious. I would rather write daily — no matter how many words, just daily — and let the practice of writing (not the word count or end goal) be what matters. A daily habit. This is much more enriching to me than striving for a word count goal. (I shiver when I think of the word “striving.” I am not a striver. Down with striving! Up with leisure and habit!)

Make Dreams Happen

May 22, 2023 / / 2 Comments

A little while ago, my husband bought me two notebook covers for my spiral notebooks (which are my preferred type of writer’s notebook). One of the covers is made of leather and has a little loop for holding my pen. It’s beautiful, but I haven’t used it yet.

Instead, I started with the cloth one, made of green and yellow cloth and stamped with the words, “Make Dreams Happen,” on the front. I don’t know why I started with this one and not the other; I guess because I felt like the leather one was too “special” to start with (listen, my brain is weird and makes up weird rules, okay?).

I love my cloth notebook cover. Everyday, when I sit down to write in my notebook, I see that message and I remember why I’m writing: because it’s always been my dream to write stories and essays and books. The notebook is the “dream-making” machine, the place where I seed my dreams and help them grow.

When I see those words stamped on the cloth cover of my notebook, I remember what is possible within the notebook space. It almost feels like a secret pocket world that I can enter at will and in which no one else has access. I mean, that’s the allure of a private diary, right? But the notebook isn’t a diary in the classic sense where I’m recording my day-to-day activities and feelings about my day. It’s much more of a playground. A dreamscape.

I go to this dreamscape often. I really like the work-play I get to do there.

(Maybe I should just call it “play,” but I don’t think “work” needs be a dirty word, either. I grew up on the edge between working class and middle class, so work sometimes has a negative connotation for me. Work is what you do for money, to feed your family. It’s often not something you enjoy but something you must do. But work excised from money-making and Capitalism is not drudgery, nor is it a bad thing, nor is it something to be avoided. If it’s work-play or play-work, then I see it as akin to real leisure — not just relaxation — in that it helps us live the good life and contemplate more deeply what it means to be ourselves. Notebook writing is work-play in this sense. It IS play, but it’s play mixed with a kind of rigor that hues closely to what we’d associate with work. It’s the work of being more human, and in order for that work to bear fruit, it must be approached like play. Anyway, that’s what I mean.)

I write in my notebook as much as I can. It feels like I’m doing my main work in my notebook, and all the other projects — whether blogging, writing fiction, teaching, gaming — are just a network of limbs extending out from the notebook. The notebook is the heart, pumping blood to the various appendages.

I feel guilty writing in my notebook sometimes (especially on days when I write five or more pages), as if the “writing” I do inside the notebook is an elaborate form of procrastination. But what I have to remind myself of is that the notebook is the dream-field, and my scratches across its surface are the furrows that house the seeds. Without such planting, I won’t have stories or essays or other creations to share with the world.

It’s all happening under the surface, between the green and yellow cloth.

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