Knocking on the Story’s Door

September 1, 2018September 1, 2018 / Lisa / 4 Comments

I’m using this blog post in order to work my way through a writing barrier. It always helps to problem-solve through putting things into words.

The current work in progress is a dark story in a lot of ways, and draws from myths. I can see where it came from, during health issues and radiation and the ‘monsters’ we fight in all walks of our lives. I’ve put a lot of work into it and am at almost 80,000 words. The characters are joining up and I think I’m building toward the end, but there are still scenes to go.

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I’ve been fighting discouragement over the story because I can’t see the individual pieces as a whole. I’ve never written something where I have multiple points of view and multiple storylines. It’s been challenging to write, but up until now has also been fun because of that challenge. I work with one group of characters and if things slow down I can simply set them aside and move on to the next group. In a way it’s like writing several stories at once, with the fun of seeing how the threads all eventually tie together in the pattern of the story as a whole.

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I know how the story will end, and how all the pieces will eventually fit. But right now, writing the individual threads has become hard. I’m tired of fighting those threads, and want the lace fully woven.

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Added to that, I can see that a lot of editing will be needed. I’ll have to format the manuscript first, to put all the pieces in one place. I’ll then have to read it as the whole cloth and revise where threads don’t match, or where they pull away or snag. Plus the normal editing of things I fear I’ve ignored. For example, this is a story set in rain and woods, and yet my characters seem to be moving through it under invisible umbrellas, for as dry as they stay. Another example is that they are all dealing with the inciting incident, but smaller conflicts aren’t built up enough. So once the first draft is done, there’s still going to be a lot of work to do.

And as if that wasn’t enough, a new story is tapping on the door of my imagination, trying to pull me through into its world.

I need to reignite my passion for the mythical story. I need to focus on it and quit looking for excuses to stop working on it in order to open the door wider to the new one.

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I’ve thought about taking parts of the current work to my critique group for review. But at least one person was uncomfortable with the selection I took last time because they don’t like scary things. And I have to ask myself this question: am I taking a piece there to be critiqued, or to have them tell me it’s awful so I can quit?

The thing is, it’s not awful. It’s rough and not great at the moment, but I think it’s going to be okay. I owe it to the characters, and the story, to finish it.

Which means I need to ignore the new one tapping at my imagination and immerse myself back in this myth, walk with these characters as they make their way through the mountains. I’m just not sure how to do it. If I take a break from this story, I’ll never go back to it.

Okay, so I guess that means the solution is as simple as the old adage to put my butt in the chair and work.

Thanks for listening.

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What Makes Creativity So Hard?

August 27, 2018August 27, 2018 / Lisa / 11 Comments

People talk about how hard it is to write, to paint, to create. They’ll talk about the time commitment, having to learn the craft, struggling with prose or dialog, character development or plot arc.

Sure all of that external stuff is hard.

But you know what makes it really hard? Yourself. Not just the voice of the inner critic, but days when you know you need to plant your butt and work, but discouragement is a weight on your hands, imprisoning them. Or the evil little Comparison Gnome that whispers you’ll never be as good as…(add anyone you want here). Or the stuffy accountant voice that points out the money you spend vs. the money that isn’t coming in. Or any of the thousands of ways we tell ourselves we can’t. Or shouldn’t.

The writing space left all alone.

Today is a discouragement day. I have the afternoon to write, but instead I’m thinking of the things wrong with the current work in progress. Things that on any other given day I know I can fix during editing, but that today, weigh me down and whisper ‘is it really worth it?’

Recently, I came across this quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

‘Often the creative life is slowed or stopped because something in the psyche has a very low opinion of us, and we are down there groveling at its feet instead of bopping it over the head and running for freedom. In many cases what is required to aright the situation is that we take ourselves, our ideas, our art, for more seriously than we have before. Due to wide breaks in matrilineal (and patrilineal) succor over many generations, this business of valuing one’s creative life – that is, valuing the utterly original, beauteous, and artful ideas and works which issue from the wildish soul – has become a perennial issue for women.’

Along with trying to balance, or juggle, too many things

Easily said, right? Take our creativity more seriously. Value our creativity more. Ms. Estés goes on to talk about the inner wild woman needing to not act nice about protecting her soulful life but to draw the line and push that inner critic back where it belongs.

That all sounds wonderful when you’re reading it, but come on, what exactly does that mean? How exactly do you do that? This gives us theory but no nuts and bolts.

I think the nuts and bolts come through experience dealing with the external pressures on our lives that tell us our writing, or our creativity, aren’t as important as going to work, paying bills, cleaning the house, or whatever our brain tells us are our responsibilities.

After all, responsibility is more important than being selfish and doing something like writing a story or painting a picture that will never pay the bills. Right?

But over time, I think we all slowly learn that we need something that gives our souls some peace, even if it’s skipping work once in a while to go fishing, or take a walk in the woods, or see a play.

Or nap under the Lupine

And those are the nuts and bolts we slowly learn. The tiny little things that allow us to mute the inner ‘predator’ as Ms. Estés calls it. That voice of discouragement, or criticism, or cruelty.

Today, with my weight of discouragement keeping me from writing, what tools will I pull out to bury it?

I’ll go for that walk in the woods. I’ll make some tea. I’ll read for a bit. Maybe I’ll look for some new music for inspiration. I’ll allow myself to be discouraged, to think everything I’m writing stinks, because today, it all does stink. I’ll allow it to stink for a while, and then I’ll email my fellow-writer and tell her why I think it all sucks. She’ll come back with what she’s struggling with in her current project, and we’ll laugh, problem-solve, figure out what honestly does reek and need to be deleted, and what just needs to be polished a bit to shine again.

Where I’m headed shortly to ‘walk it off’

So my nuts and bolts: acknowledging the voice that’s preying on creativity (today, discouragement), recognizing it’s a temporary thing and will pass, knowing stepping away for a bit will help, and then sharing with someone who knows exactly what it feels like and who will keep me from doing something stupid like deleting the whole book. Or from doing something dramatic like declaring (with hand to brow) ‘I’ll never write again!’.

All tools that have taken me a lot of time, trial, and error to learn how to use. To learn what works.

Today the discouragement is heavy. Maybe in a few hours it will have eased. Maybe in a few days. Either way, it will eventually fade.

For a while anyway.

Because creativity is hard, and we’re our own worst enemies.

The writing space, soon to be occupied

Velveteen Fifi

August 17, 2018 / Lisa / 4 Comments

When I was three my dad gave me a stuffed dog. He was sick by then and paralyzed on his left side. I don’t know if he went to the effort to have someone drive him to a store or if my mom chose it.

Me with a velveteen hat, and dad off to the side in his wheel chair that he would give me rides in

Either way, it was a kind of ugly, kind of weird stuffed animal. She was pink with a white patch on her chest and long floppy ears. Her body was soft and cuddly but her head, too large for the body, was made of something hard. That head was also so heavy that the soft neck wouldn’t support it. The head always flopped over like her neck was broken. But still, she was the last gift I received from my dad before he died.

Me at six weeks when dad could still manage to stand

I’ve always been the one to buy the plant that’s dying on the sale rack, the pot with the lid that doesn’t fit right, the item others pass by or laugh at. I feel sorry for inanimate objects that no one wants. I think it’s the fault of that hard-headed stuffed dog. Who in their right mind would have bought her? Obviously one of my parents. Obviously the empathy with deformed objects is hereditary.

Mom's wedding

At some point I decided I should name that dog, although I had no interest in doing so. I felt I should love her more than anything because she was a gift from my dad. I pretended to love her more than anything. I named her after a kitten we had at the time. I made sure she rested on my bed between the pillows in a place of honor. I kept her for many years because I felt I should. I remember one time being a teen and upset about some drama. I held Fifi close as I cried because it seemed like something I should do, as if a stuffed dog would comfort me because the person who gave her to me was gone. But even in the middle of crying and clutching that hard head, I felt stupid, like I was putting on an act.

I never got attached to Big Doll either. This cute sibling inherited the hard plastic doll.

Eventually, well into my thirties, I finally got rid of Fifi. She was ratty by that time, with most of her body stuffing gone. The head was still intact though. I wonder two things now. One, why I never cut open her head to find out what was so hard in there. And two, if I had kept her, loved her more, would she have turned into a Velveteen Dog and come to life?

Our son had lots of stuffed animals, as most kids do. Oscar was the most loved. A little black and white dog that now sits on my bookshelf. Our son had to sleep with Oscar every night. And any parent will know what comes next. Oscar got lost. Oh, the drama! The heart-broken tears at night when he had to sleep alone!

Our son out for a walk with his grandpa, and a real black and white dog, Jello

We searched the house. My parents, who had given him Oscar, got online (a momentous feat for them), found the company, and ordered another. The two dogs looked almost identical but this new one was named Fraser. That was acceptable to our son because at the time he was an avid fan of Due South and the main character’s name was Fraser.

Oscar on top, Fraser on the bottom

Of course after Fraser arrived, Oscar was found. Our son had used him as a basketball for an indoor set, and Oscar hung suspended in the basket netting. Our son then slept with both.

He clearly loved them, which is why we still have them. He clearly loved them for real, unlike my pretend love for Fifi. I’m more attached to Oscar and Fraser than I ever was to Fifi. So maybe she wouldn’t have ever come to life after all.

In spite of my recent post about how we accumulate way too many things, I find myself wishing I’d kept Fifi. She could be up on that bookshelf with her ratty pink fur and broken neck and tipped-over head, right next to Oscar and Fraser.

Proof that maybe she was loved after all.