JUST WRITE
#39: Daydream Believer (Guest post by Becky Tidberg)
For the past two years my daughter’s parent-teacher conferences having included discussions of her most evident weakness. The conversations have been rife with words like “pokey,” “slow to complete assignments,” or “easily distracted.”
When asked about this phenomenon, my seven-year-old is quick to explain that she has trouble focusing on her assignments because she is engaging in the mortal sin of (gasp) daydreaming.
Since I spend a chunk of every day immersed in a story world of my own creation, I can hardly reprimand her. In fact, I’ve looked for ways to encourage what I consider to be a lost art.
My daughter and I carve out time to sit on the couch and look out the window during different times of the day, we brainstorm why that man is walking down the street carrying a mysterious package and bounce back and forth “what ifs.” We look at pictures in magazines and give the models super powers or fatal flaws.
Suspense author James Bell Scott tweeted last week, “Dream for five minutes, work for fifty-five. A good ratio.”
So, go find yourself a good view, a comfy chair and take some time to daydream…and then just write. (Thanks, Becky!)
#38: The Gift
Jan Karon, of Mitford fame, had a successful advertising career. She gave it up, sacrificing everything to pursue the writing dream. She was tested, she says, and it was during a time of despair that she “turned it all over to God.”
That’s when her talent became a “gift.” She says, “A talent is a bold running creek. A gift is an ocean. A gift is a bigger thing–you can draw on it more deeply.”
Is your writing a talent or a gift? How can you tell? Amazing things happen when God gets involved. Explore the idea of talents, gifts and God on the page. Set the timer for ten minutes, grab your favorite writing tool and then just write.
#37: Collections
Since I started doing mixed media “art” (mixed media meaning anything goes) I’ve amassed a collection of stuff. Beads and baubles, bits of this and dabs of that. Empty egg cartons. Tiny rocks. Sand from the beach at Waikiki. Textures. Pictures that appealed to me. Pages from magazines torn and saved just for the color on them, or a word or phrase that interested me.
What will I do with the bits and dabs of stuff? I have no idea. Yet. And so it is with writing.
Day by day, as we live our lives, we collect the “stuff” of future works. We store up the images and the sounds, smells, tastes and touches of life. Later–soon maybe, or not–we’ll draw them out of storage and use them to create a scene, or enhance a dialogue, or let them provoke an emotion in us first, then the reader. We’ll use them to remember. We don’t know what or how or when. We don’t need to know how we’ll use something–our job as writers is to collect.
We collect as we pay attention. Paying attention we are alert to possibilities. Our job as writers is to collect. What are you collecting? Are you involved in life, love, happiness, pain? Are you taking notes? Learn, love, laugh, try, fail–in other words, live–and take notes. Then, when you’re ready–you’ll know it when you know it–just write.
#36: Be Quick to Write, Slow to Judge
Marshall Cook says, in Freeing Your Creativity, “Creativity is stopped by judgment, even if the judgment is positive.” You write a sentence. You stop to read it. “That’s not bad,” you think (or say out loud if you’re like me).
That judgment alters the creative process. It’s no longer you and your words flowing. The Critic has arrived. The writing becomes self-conscious. Will the next sentence be good too? Will it be awful? What will I think of it? What will the reader–no, those millions of readers think? EEK!
The creative flow has stopped. What to do? STOP. Walk away. Breathe deeply. Get a cup of java. Eat lunch. Do whatever you can do to separate yourself–physically–from the scene. Then, relax and refreshed, come back to the page.
If you’re working on a keyboard, close your eyes (or block your view of the monitor) while you type to protect your creative work from prying eyes. If you’re working longhand, set the timer and keep that hand moving without reading your work.
Creative flow is stopped by judgment. It is restarted by openness. So open up and then–just write.
#35: Because You’re a Writer
Be ready to record ideas whenever, wherever, they come to you. A notebook at the bedside. Index cards in your back pocket on a hike. If you can’t stop to write, grab your cell and record the idea, or snap a picture of whatever, or call yourself and leave a voicemail.
I’ve returned home from walking the dog with pockets full of sumac leaves, maple seeds, and roadside weeds. Other trips bring in rocks, fern fronds, and an empty pack of Camel cigarettes. Why? Just because they caught my eye. Because I’m a writer.
Back in my office, I’ll freewrite about fall or gardens or life or my father. Why? Because I can. Because the stuff I’ve gathered and the ideas I’ve recorded spark the writing. Because I’m a writer.
So gather, record, collect to your heart’s content. Why? Because you can. Because you must. Because you’re a writer. Gather, record and then–just write.
#34: Turning Over Rocks
In her book, poemcrazy, Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge offers suggestions for “practice” at the end of each chapter. This morning I read this one: “Go somewhere outside and turn over a stone. List in detail what’s under the stone that you didn’t expect.”
So, eager student that I am, I went outside my office and turned over a rock. I found the expected: ants, bird seed, dirt, sand. The surprise and delight? A tiny red bug–no, not just a red bug, but a bright, fluorescent red bug, strutting about like a minuscule crab. Meanwhile two tiny centipedes and a pale white worm–each less than half an inch long–frantically sought cover, like celebrities caught in the act of something sinister, startled by unexpected paparazzi.
What will you find? Go. Turn over a rock. Then just write.
