Tag Archives: writer’s life

The “Creative High” is real!

25 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Inspiration, Writing

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Creative mind
Artists of all mediums have experienced the energetic bliss of the “creative high” at one time or another. I certainly did when painting and designing, as much as I have while writing. Maybe we didn’t talk about it, but we knew it was there. That it was real. Ray Bradbury, alluded to the creative high in his famous quote on writing:

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. —Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

In recent years, neuroscientists have conducted studies that scientifically prove what artists of all types have known all along.

The biology behind the magic of “Aha!”

Vienna’s Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering in collaboration with Goldsmiths University London discovered the secret of the “Aha!-moment”. When people have a flash of insight when solving a puzzle, the mood-enhancing substance dopamine is released. The same is true with artistic creation and insights.

And it just gets better! The initial release of dopamine from a creative endeavor generates continued creativity. L’Amour understood this, as shown in his well known quote on how to avoid writer’s block:

Start writing, no matter about what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. You can sit and look at a page for a long time and nothing will happen. Start writing and it will. —Louis L’Amour

The creative two-step

According to science and world-renown authors, how to get and stay creative can be summed up in two steps:

  1. Do (create), be (happy). Do, be, Do.
  2. Keep on, keeping on.

Backed by science

If you want to learn more about creativity and the chemistry of your brain:

How to outsmart the traps of ‘Writer’s Time’

29 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Humor, Writing

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Some days I wonder if Einstein set out to prove his theory of relativity after experiencing the phenomena of writer’s time:

  1. Suspension in the blissful bubble of the sparkly new idea.
  2. Trudging through horrifically hard scenes or the mire of the middle.
  3. The End…that keeps slipping away.
  4. The Wait after submission, when time freezes.

It took a couple of projects before I recognized the phenomena of writer’s time, and a few more before I learned how to sidestep the traps. The secret to managing writer’s time instead of being controlled by it is to juggle. Yes juggle.

Juggling hands

 

1. Blissful Sparkly Idea Bubble

You’ve got a sparkly new idea and you’re glowing with inspiration and so caught up in the creative process you’re not aware of time passing. You dance through the prose, and the story all but writes itself. This phase must be what Ray Bradbury was referring to when he said, “You must stay drunk on writing…” because it feels GREAT. The trap is believing that writing will always be this way. If you do, when the euphoria fades and the real work begins, you’ll quit. The secret is to enjoy the blissful bubble while lasts and accomplish as much as possible. This will help you through the other phases of writer’s time.

Creative inspiration

 

2. Horrifically Hard Scenes and the Mire of the Middle

The blissful bubble popped and you’re face with writing horrifically hard scenes or the slogging through the mire of the middle, and time crawls at a painfully slow pace. Don’t dismay. Every project this phase, to one degree or another. Trust in the process and keep writing. If the muck starts to feel like quick sand, juggle. Pick up another project for a while and rekindle the spark of inspiration. Always remember the quote by Louis L’Amour: “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”

crawling through the hard scenes

3. THE END is in Sight and Out of Reach

Time fliesTHE END is near, but as you type faster, time speeds up, flying by at a gale force velocity. It’s like being on a treadmill, running in place. Invigorating and infuriating.

You know exactly what needs to happen in your story and what to do to get there. You can taste victory, especially when chocolate is at the end of the deadline, but it’s perpetually out of reach. The secret to remember here is that time is an illusion, and in the end (pun intended) the writer always wins! Keep typing.

4. The Wait

You made your deadline with style and grace, but the excitement of sending off your ‘baby’ soon fades. You put your heart and soul into a story and now it’s gone. The Wait to hear back begins. The trap here is allowing yourself to indulge in feeling lost, or succumbing to insecurity and doubt. Don’t do it!

Instead, juggle. Start a new project, or pick up an old one you put on the shelf. Try a new genre. Write something totally different. Write anything. Keep the creativity flowing. If you don’t, you might find yourself in the same predicament as Han Solo, at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Frozen. Insecurity, doubt, and fear are insidious. Don’t give them a chance to seep in. Keep writing. The secret to getting published (again and again) is to not give up!

Han Solo

 

The secret to getting published: Don’t give up!

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Inspiration, Writing

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Writing your first book is a thrill like no other, a total high. Then the rejections come, and reality sets in. Fast. The thing is, rejections are part of the process. Get over it and keep going.

There’s no such thing as an overnight success

That is…unless you count the 10 years of hard work that came before. We’ve all heard the stories of the famous author whose success happened overnight.

The truth is, it didn’t. Successful authors put in years of work before ever getting published.

All that work was the foundation for the great books that lead to their success.

  • J.K. Rowling taught school and then was a researcher and bilingual secretary for years, all the while writing fiction on the side. She was unemployed and near poverty when she wrote the first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
  • Meg Cabot spent several years (!) rigorously submitting manuscripts before landing her agent. She got a book deal after that, but had to keep working at her job and New York University until her success with The Princess Diaries series.
  • Kate Dicamillo received something like 463 rejections before selling her first book. She went on to be one of six people to win two Newberry Medals—for The Tale of Despereaux and Flora and Ulysses—all because she didn’t give up.
  • Mary E. Pearson, author of the New York Times Bestselling series The Remnant Chronicles, admitted at an author event that she wrote five (!) novels that would never see the light of day, and that it took ten years before she sold the one that made her a published author.

The difference between a published author and an unpublished author is that the published author didn’t give up.

 

How to keep writing while dodging tornadoes

TornadosLife drops roadblocks and raves in our paths—like tornadoes dropping from the sky—forcing our writing onto uncharted detours. Who knew dodging tornadoes would be a valuable writing skill?

There are happy detours, and those filled with sadness and loss. Even life threatening, if you discover a loved one’s being extorted by the Russian mafia and they come after YOU when you publicize their crimes across social media, looping in the FBI. Hey, it could happen. Tornadoes come in all shapes and sizes, all equally disruptive to our writing goals.

Whatever tornado you’re dodging right now…know you are not alone. Here’s a few things that kept me going when tornado dodging got tough:

  • Write something every day. Even if it’s only a note to remind you to write something better tomorrow.
  • Go to author visits. Invariably, you’ll hear the ordeal that published author went through to get their first book deal.
  • Read. Read. Read. It’s the next best thing to writing. You’ll be surprised how much you absorb on craft, especially when reading a variety of genres.
  • Watch TV series in your genre. It’s a great way to study story and character development.
  • Read author blogs that inspire you.
  • Read books on craft that help polish your writing weaknesses. We all have them. Most of us, more than one.
  • Remember what got you excited about writing. Revisit whatever it was that sparked the creative fire that set you on your writing journey.
  • Believe you’ll make it across the publishing bridge after the tornadoes pass. Because you will. As long as you don’t give up.

Rainbow Bridge

 

Mark Twain and the Kitten that Played Pool

16 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in Animals, Cats, Writing

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Twain’s softer side

Mark TwainThe name Mark Twain is synonymous with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn—rough and tumble boys full of adventure, daring pranksters who were afraid of nothing.

In many ways, the characters an author creates are their reflection. But like Hemingway, Mark Twain had a softer side he hid from the world.

Like so many creative people, Mark Twain was sensitive and more than a little reclusive. People who knew him said he was most comfortable around animals, with a particular love of cats. According the Mark Twain’s daughter, Suzy…

The difference between papa and mama is that mama loves morals and papa loves cats.

Twain loved cats so much he had up to 19 living in his house at one time, according to one source. And that was just at his Connecticut home.

Mark Twain biographer, Albert Biglow Paine, revealed that Mark Twain even traveled with cats. Once on his travels, he missed his cats so much he rented a few local kittens for the summer. “He didn’t wish to own them, for then he would have to leave them behind uncared for,” Paine explained, “so he preferred to rent them and pay sufficiently to ensure their subsequent care.”

The kitten that played pool

It’s odd to think that an author as accomplished as Mark Twain suffered from nervousness about his writing. But he did. His cats helped calm him, as did playing billiards. Amazingly enough, there was one special kitten who did double duty by playing pool with Twain. For real. I am not making this up.

Kitten on pool table

When Twain took a break from his writing to blow off nervous energy, he’d pick up the kitten and tuck him into one of the pockets of the billiard table and the game began. The kitten swiped at the balls as they darted by, amusing Twain to no end. Rejuvenated by the kitten’s antics, Twain could then return to his writing.

Twain’s love of animals lives on

Generations of cats have called Nook Farm home—the famous author’s house in Hartford, Connecticut. Dozens of cats still live on the grounds of The Mark Twain House & Museum today, much as they did during the famous author’s lifetime.

When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction. ~ Mark Twain

Many of the staff members at The Mark Twain House are proud owners of Nook Farm cats, continuing Twain’s legacy.

Mark Twain’s love of cats lives on in his writing, as well. Cats stalk, slink, pad, and play their way through many of his best-known books, including The Innocents Aboard, Roughing It, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and Puddn’head Wilson. If that’s not reason enough to read Twain, I don’t know what is. But I’m a hopeless animal lover too. What can i say?

Get that Half-Baked Story Out of the Oven!

17 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in Story, Writing

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Writing Recipe for Success

Toddler chefIt happens to every writer. At least once. We start a project, excited and inspired by the sparkly new idea. We run with it, fleshing out characters, working magic with dialog, setting, and plot. Then something happens. Our inspiration dissipates, like air from a hot air balloon. We’re slugging forward through molasses, when once we soared.

It’s easy to get discouraged, or possibly even give up on that great idea at this point. I’m here to tell you…

DO NOT GIVE UP!

Writing a novel is a lot like baking a cake. You carefully organize and mix the ingredients, select and prepare the pan, then put it in the oven to bake at the right temperature for the perfect amount of time. Unlike the cake, a creative oven requires our input for the heat, and the time it takes to fully bake is not always in our favor. Deadliness be damned. Unfortunately, half-baked is only half there.

The good news is that you got the story into the oven. Here’s a few strategies on how you can get it out…fully baked.

Turning Up the Heat

We get stuck in our writing for lots of reasons. The best way to get unstuck is to shake things up, take a new approach, do something totally different. The unexpected has a way of jump starting creativity. Here’s few suggestions:

  • Go someplace you’ve always wanted to, but haven’t. A change of scenery, especially a place that elicits intrigue, works wonders.
  • Watch A LOT of movies and TV shows. Joss Whedon would watch four or five movies in a row (in one day) to study story. You never know what will provide the boost you need for your story.
  • Read A LOT of different things, both magazines and books. Read outside your comfort zone. Change is good. Embrace it.
  • Talk to people who have cool jobs, or who’ve had very different life experiences than your own. This is one of the things Amie Kauffman, co-author of Illuminae and Gemina, does to get new ideas.
  • Go to a public place and people watch. Imagine where they’re going and what they’ll do when they get there. Have fun creating stories without the pressure of an outcome.
  • Start a totally different project in a completely different genre, just for you. Published authors confess to doing this when they’ve been paralyzed under a deadline. TheFemail chef illustration story they started “for themselves” got them excited about writing again and they made their deadline. Those stories later became wildly popular books too. A win-win.
  • Brainstorm with other writers. Especially if you’re under deadline. Screenwriters work this way a lot.
  • Write stuff. Then write more stuff.
  • Fire your internal editor and keep going until you reach The End.

You’re doing great!