Category: writing process (Page 8 of 15)

How to Feed the Ysbaddaden Muse

January 27, 2021 / / 0 Comments

It’s no secret that I’ve been working on side projects lately instead of writing Ysbaddaden and the Game of Chess. I explained part of my anxieties already, but the other annoying thing about being away from a novel-in-progress is that everything’s been forgotten. I can’t remember what’s happened in the story or what I wanted to write about next.

I probably should keep a notepad nearby and record major events, arcs, settings, etc. (and proper names), but so far, I haven’t used that strategy.

So now, as I hope to reembark on my journey into the novel, I have to go back and reread at least the last three or four chapters. It’s not the end of the world, but all that rereading time is time spent NOT writing. And what I most desperately want is to be writing this novel, getting words on paper, and finishing it.

Maybe as I reread, I’ll do the notepad thing. If nothing else, it’ll save me time rereading next time I get in this situation.

Another thought I just had — unrelated to rereading my manuscript, but related to my slow-going with Ysbaddaden: Perhaps I haven’t been taking in the right input. I’ve been reading the pope’s new book, The Golem and the Jinni, C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet, and I’m about to start reading Nella Larsen’s Passing (for my teaching work).

But maybe I need to mix things up and read/watch/listen to stuff that’ll feed my muse specifically for the Ysbaddaden story. Stuff like medieval Arthurian romances, Appendix N books, 80s fantasy movies, old school heavy metal and prog rock, The Smiths, comic books like The Sandman series. These are all influences on my Merlin’s Last Magic world, so maybe I need to go back to those influences and draw more sustenance from them. If nothing else, it’ll be a change of pace and that might shake something loose in my imagination.

Here are some lines

January 19, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I’m in a stuck moment with my latest short story, “Things.” (This will hopefully not be its finished title, but it’s what I’ve got right now.)

When I get stuck, I sometimes try to write a bunch of different “Next lines” to see if any of them get me unstuck. Here are the ones I wrote the other day:

  1. The fighting pit smelled like wet straw and blood.
  2.  The first drink was always the hardest.
  3. Only the nosebleed seats were sold to the public. The rest were reserved.
  4. The blood inside his body burned hot; his muscles hardened like tempered steel.
  5. Jora hated the streets during the Thing.
  6.  “Odin, All-Father, grant me a good defeat.”

I’m not sure if I like any of these, or if they’re the right “next line” in the story, but I think a few of them could be the start of other scenes/sequences in the narrative. If nothing else, this exercise allows me to see various paths for the story to take. Even if I take none of these particular paths, the very fact that these paths *could* exist is helpful for me. It lets me know that the story is fluid, and that there isn’t necessarily a wrong choice, just different choices.

Random Tables

January 18, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been stuck in a mire with my fiction writing lately. I’m almost finished with a short story, “The Wind Masters,” and I’ve started another story called “Things” (that’s a working title), but my imagination has been pretty dry recently. It’s been hard to conjure images in my mind.

So I’ve decided to practice a new habit: Creativity Hour. I’m pretty sure this comes from James Scott Bell in his book on plot structure; the basic idea is that a writer should spend some dedicated time each week coming up with ideas.

A few months ago, I made a list of activities that could help me with generating ideas and images (I’m like C.S. Lewis in that way: I start with a picture in my mind), and then when it’s “Creativity Hour” time, I can pick an activity or two to do for about an hour.

I usually work in my writer’s notebook for these sessions. Sometimes I’ll listen to evocative music and write down the images that come to mind. Sometimes I’ll do a “Try Ten” and makes lists. Other times I’ll just free-write, or ask myself, “What do I want to write about right now?” I might also look at cool artwork and get ideas from the images.

Today I tried using random tables from some of my RPG books to generate ideas. The fantastic Dungeon Alphabet, the Monster Alphabet, issue #2 of the Wormskin zine, the Lazy DM’s Cheat Sheet. After about 30 minutes of messing around, I ended up on the psychedelics table in Wormskin, and then the ideas started to flow. I thought about scenes for my Norse-inspired story, “Things,” and started the seedlings of other stories and characters (one that I particularly like is a dragon with piercing white eyes without pupils).

Anyway, it was neat seeing how these random tables for role-playing games could be used to inspire my fiction. I’m not particularly interested in using my homebrew DCC RPG campaign as fodder for a novel or anything; instead, it’s more about the randomness of the tables being a nice way to challenge my imagination, improvising and mixing together disparate elements. The randomness opens up my imagination, makes me think: How can I fit this into my current work-in-progress? How can I use this to tell a *new* story? How can I combine these two seemingly unrelated things into something whole?

Random tables serve as a kind of tonic for the imagination. They can give a jolt of energy to an over-tired, dulled mind.

Trusting the process

January 13, 2021 / / 0 Comments

So I went on a bit of a rant today in my AP Lang class. I brought up the “love boredom” quote from Atomic Habits because a student was wishing/complaining that she wants to be good at things instantaneously. To her credit, she admitted that this was an unrealistic attitude, and she knew that it takes practice and diligence to become good at something. But still, she wants to be good right now, dagnabbit! (I might have added the “dagnabbit” part…)

We were talking about writing, but this could apply to anything, and despite my attempts at sage advice, I can understand where this student is coming from. Several months ago I started a new hobby: naalbinding. I have never knitted before, can barely sew, and I’m not great at spacial reasoning (nor am I nibble of finger). Which means that naalbinding does not come easily. So far I’ve only managed to make a wonky hat that’s too small for anyone in my family to wear (though it fits pretty nicely on a stuffed animal). I am now attempting to make hand-warmers.

It is not going well.

I wish I was amazing at naalbinding. I wish I was good right now. But I know I’ll probably suck for awhile. And what’s hard is trusting the process: trusting that if I practice I *will* get better. It’s the same feeling I’m sure my student has. She knows it takes practice and diligence, but when there’s little-to-no progress — especially in the early stages — it’s hard to trust. It’s hard to put faith in your abilities when the evidence right in front of you is that your abilities stink.

I often wonder what would happen if I practiced naalbinding every day for an entire year. Would I ever be able to make a good hat, or mittens, or socks? If I’m honest with myself, probably not. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m sure I’d get better at it, but “getting better” is not quite the same thing as “getting good.” And I think that’s where my student (and I) both get demoralized. Yes, practice can lead to improvement, but can it lead to mastery? Can it lead to being the kind of writer or naalbinder that we might want to be?

I wonder if sometimes we have to temper our goals. Or better yet, not have any goals. Not to sound defeatist, but if the activity (writing, naalbinding, baking, running, etc.) is something we do for its own sake, then it won’t matter if we master it or not. DOING the activity is its own reward. This mindset is hard to achieve, though. We have to *love* doing the thing, despite our mediocrity. And it can be hard to develop a love for something if we aren’t very good at it.

At some point, we either decide we’re “okay” with mediocrity and keep doing the activity, trusting in the process and knowing that practice will make us better even if it never makes us “good.” Or we give up the activity and move on to something else.

I’m not sure where I stand yet with naalbinding. Part of me wants to “conquer” it: to become really, really good. To prove that I can do it.

But another part of me just enjoys moving the needle through the loops and around my thumb, even if the finished piece kinda sucks.

I’m also not sure where my student stands. Does she want to become a great writer just to say, “I did it!”? Or does she genuinely enjoy moving pen over paper, stringing words together, sharing her ideas through writing?

If it’s only about results, then it’s hard to trust the process. The results may never come — especially if our goals are too high. But if we want to do better — not great or even good, just better — then practice works. The process works. We have to trust it.

Sr. Corita’s Rules

January 5, 2021 / / 0 Comments

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I shared the Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules with my English students today. It was part of our ongoing discussion about education, grades, and what it means to learn. Each of my four classes focused on different aspects of the rules (this wasn’t intentional on my part, but happened as a result of their own interests and ideas). Some groups really responded to Rules 6 & 7, and we got into a big discussion about how “win” and “fail” are concepts that only work if we focus on either the past or future. We can either spend our time dwelling on past successes and failures, or looking ahead to future successes and dreading future failures.

But if, instead, “there’s only make,” then we’re living in the present moment. There’s no past or future when you’re in the process of making, there’s only the now. This is something that’s proven really helpful for my own writing. I’ve been making a conscious effort to do my work without thinking about what will happen after it’s done. The act of writing is more important than the finished product. Instead of thinking ahead to the future, or being stuck dwelling on the past, I’m allowing myself to do the work that’s right in front of me.

The one rule we never really got to discuss was the last one (“Break all the rules… Leave plenty of room for X Quantities”) that comes from John Cage. This rule is the one I’m struggling the most with right now in my teaching. Because of Covid restrictions in the classroom (which are all very necessary and I fully support), and because I’ve chosen to make all my assignments available online at the beginning of each week (so students quarantining at home can still keep up with their work), I’m not leaving much room for the “X Quantities.” The spontaneous and unexpected are in short supply this year, and it’s hampering my work as a teacher.

But what about “X Quantities” in my work as a writer? Am I leaving plenty of room for them there? That’s a tougher question, and one I’m not sure of the answer. I do tend to have several projects going on at the same time (i.e.: a novella, a short story, and my second novel are all works in progress at the moment), but I don’t think that’s what Cage means by “X Quantities.” I see it as being more about leaving room for the unexpected, for tangents and digressions. Am I doing that in my writing? Am I willing to try something new if that’s where my work needs to go?

Writing poetry has been an “X Quantity” for me. It’s not something I normally write, and definitely not something I normally publish. I think that by allowed myself to “break out” of my normal writing patterns, I’ve had more fun and learned new things. But I wonder how I might “break all the rules” and leave room for those “X Quantities” in my fiction writing. I’m not sure I have an answer for that yet.

Starting a new notebook

January 3, 2021 / / 0 Comments

My daughter watched as I began a new writer’s notebook today. She wondered if it was a new notebook because it was a new year. I told her it wasn’t; I just happened to finish my old notebook the other day, so now it was time to start a new one. I showed her my “guardian spirit” from the old notebook (I chose J.R.R. Tolkien last time, because I started the old notebook in September and therefore felt very much like an academic who’d rather be niggling around in my imaginary worlds than grading papers), so my daughter decided to make me a guardian spirit for my new notebook.

The first creation was made from recycled paper and was three-dimensional (which wouldn’t quite work on the inside cover of a spiral notebook), so she tried again and made a colorful picture from an old piece of paper towel. I decided it was perfect for reminding me to be playful and use whatever material might be lying around.

After adding the guardian spirit, I copied over my list of “Books to Read” from the previous notebook into the new one. This is a ritual I always do when starting a new writer’s notebook. My list of books to read is LONG, so it takes at least four pages to fit all the books, plus I leave extra room for new books that I’ll add as the weeks go by. I used to use Goodreads to keep track of my books, but when I said goodbye to social media, I also said goodbye to Goodreads.

Honestly, Goodreads made me anxious. I didn’t like people knowing about my reading habits; it made everything seem very performative, as if I had to play a part (“self-published fantasy author”) instead of just being myself. Not that I read weird books or anything; I have nothing to hide, LOL! But it was just stressful having my books-to-read and my currently-reading books all out in the open. I felt pressure to add books to my lists so I could been seen to have all the same books as everybody else.

(A lot of this was tied to my work as a self-published author. Goodreads was a marketing tool as much as it was a personal one, so all my interactions on the site felt driven by that marketing aspect. I felt compelled to keep up with the latest self-published books as a way to show my support for the community. I’m not opposed to supporting other authors — not by any means! — but my books-to-read list became more about that than about what I really wanted to read.)

Even more stressful was getting updates on other people’s reading progress. I have a bad problem with envy and jealousy, so I would get super envious when I saw other people reading more books than me, or when I saw other self-published authors getting all kinds of good reviews. It was not a healthy way to spend my time, and it wasn’t making me feel good about my reading (or my writing).

When I decided to keep track of my books using my notebook — and keep it private — everything changed. I started reading whatever the heck I wanted, and I let myself go down strange reading paths that had nothing to do with my public persona as a fantasy author. I’ve been much more prolific as a reader since I’ve stopped doing the Goodreads challenge thingy: I don’t set any goals for myself, I just try to read as much as I can. No longer is that little bar graph thing on Goodreads taunting me and reminding me that I’m behind on my goal. Now I can just read and see what happens, and be excited by all the reading I’ve done. After I finish a book, I mark it as “Read” and write the date I finished. It’s my big, beautiful, analog reading list, and I love it.

For the record, I’m not opposed to others using Goodreads or the reading challenge. My husband still uses Goodreads like a boss, and it’s a useful tool for him. I just know that it didn’t work for me.

So now every time I start a new writer’s notebook, I get to use the first few pages for my book list, and it’s a nice little ritual: I write “Welcome to the notebook” and the current month and year on the first page, then I start my “Books to Read” list on the second page. Four or five pages later, I have all these book titles calling out to me, and whenever I’m ready to start a new book, I go to my list and see what stands out. The notebook is no longer blank; it starts off newly-christened with a gloriously long list, and I feel as if I’ve accomplished something (even though all I’ve really accomplished is copying a list).

A new year, a new notebook. I’m ready for 2021.

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