Openings of short stories are actually my favourite parts to write. That’s when I am most inspired to capture a potentially great idea and create the story I envision. But this writer cannot resist spending way too much time honing the first few paragraphs, thereby losing focus and enthusiasm to complete what I’ve started.
Thus, a stack of ‘beginnings’ has been growing considerably over several years, but endings? Not so much. Recently a short story writing contest inspired me to sift through the files and choose a story to finish and submit. Read more
E. L. Doctorow once said, “fiction doesn’t have to be real, it just has to seem real.”
It’s a great piece of advice, and one of the basic tenets when I write fiction. Characters, setting and dialogue all help to create the “real” world of your novel. But research is the mother of it all.
I enjoy the research part of writing, which is a good thing, since my latest project required dozens, maybe even hundreds, of hours of research. And all for a short story of about 5,000 words! Read more
Yes, I’m working on a novel. And it’s coming along fine. But there’s still a long way to go until it is written, edited, published, and receiving splendid reviews and whopping cash advances from publishing houses.
Speaking of cash, I needed to generate some. I wanted to do it by writing something shorter than a great long novel. My friend suggested freelance writing. Editors are often looking for well-written articles for their magazines, he said.
Write about what interests you
OK, but what could I write about? I asked myself. I love research, I love the outdoors, and I love history. OK. My first step was coming up with an idea I thought would be fairly unique and interesting to people who also love those subjects. Once I had the idea, I fleshed out points that I wanted to cover in that article. I would return to those points later. Read more
I will have to say, Saturday was one of the scariest moments of my life. Entering a room full of about sixty people, armed with six copies of 10 pages of my own original writing, about to hand it over for semi-strangers to read and give their analyzed comments and criticism to me. They don’t just write down their comments on your manuscript – NO – these cringeworthy words are said OUT LOUD for ALL to hear. Okay, not everyone in the room is listening, thank goodness, just the six people at my table and any eavesdroppers who were lurking (yes, I was even worried about eavesdroppers).
So, what’s the big deal? They read it, they comment on it and you go home, right? WRONG. Read more
Charles Dickens walked at night, roaming the streets of London to work on plot lines.
Mark Twain paced.
J.K. Rowling stated: “Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas.”
Hemmingway also walked to think through his stories.
Is there a connection between walking and sparking creativity?
When you walk, you allow your conscious mind to access new ideas in the subconscious. For most of us, walking doesn’t take a lot of thought but does get our body moving and allows our mind to meander at the same time as our feet are wandering.
I recently listened to a radio program interviewing Eric Weiner about his new book, “The Geography of Genius”. Disclaimer: I haven’t read the book, but I was curious enough about his idea to read online reviews, on which I based the following. I gather that his thesis is something about geography – in his theory, urban centres – being important to producing works of genius. He claims that genius thrives in chaos: in terms of geography, that means, cities. Urban centres abound with chaos as anyone from Grey and Bruce Counties knows when we try to navigate Toronto traffic. He points to historical genius figures who lived in cities, such as Mozart’s Vienna, and the Greek philosophers in Athens.
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to take part in something new for me: a writers’ retreat. I didn’t attend the first one the Ascribe writers’ group had organized because I figured, hey, I can write by myself at home any time, can’t I? But after listening to the comments made by members when the group met up after the retreat, I realized I had missed the point.
The point of a writers’ retreat is to get away for the sole purpose of doing nothing but concentrating on your writing. Seems fairly obvious, right? What I didn’t think about – until I took note of what I did in the same time the group was away, were all the interruptions that occur in the course of writing at home. Most of them are so automatic you don’t even notice them: making a meal, running to the store for something last minute, doing that chore on the weekend you didn’t have time to get to during the week, gassing up the car, returning library books. The list goes on, full of little weekend projects and chores that stop the flow of creativity before it even gets a chance to get started. All those little jobs that call out to be done, all those little snippets of time add up, and before you know it, the weekend is ending, and once again you never got to work on that blog, short story, or novel.
Here’s where a writers’ retreat is brilliant: you are not niggled by guilt to do any small jobs or quick chores; you have a space dedicated to work; and you need not stop for anything except when you feel like taking a break. Read more
I’ve been transported back in time to 1938!
Okay, not really, since I haven’t (yet) mastered time travel (although the subject does very much interest me!). But my “new” purchase is as close to 78 years ago as I’m going to get.
Being a writer is sometimes difficult. There are times when you sit at your writing desk and stare at your screen. No typing; just staring. The white blank page becomes a dark scary place with an evil black cursor blinking back at you, daring you to write something worth reading. It’s like being stuck on a raft in the middle of the ocean, with no paddles, hungry sharks are circling and no matter where your eyes focus, you see nothing. No land. No help. No words. Your inner voice is stalled. The fear envelopes you. You can’t think and you can’t write. Not one single word. And, if by some miracle you find it in yourself to write a sentence or two, five minutes later you are hitting the delete button. You are right back at the beginning: the blank screen, with criticizing readers circling, waiting to attack you with negative feedback. This is when you think about giving up. It would be so much easier. Maybe, you weren’t meant to be a writer?
