Creative Writing Corner

How Far Down the Road Do You Look?

2009-07-20T08:50:00-04:00

Some of us are very far-sighted. We like to look far down the road and plan ahead, whether it's financially or creatively. For example, some people have projects in mind that are several projects away from their current work. They may take notes on the next story while still working on another. On the other hand, there are those of us who like to fly by the seat of their pants and don't enjoy the work of planning ahead. They would rather take inspiration as it comes and not worry about what's around the next corner. While there is something to be said for planning ahead, in the creative writing world, there is also a compelling argument for the dangers of trying to look too far off in the distance.

Divided attention
For work or errand-like tasks, or the kind of work that doesn't require creative thinking, there's a lot to be said for planning ahead. Buy twice as many groceries and you won't have to shop as often; assemble your receipts now and tax time will be that much easier. With creative writing, however, the task really requires much more of you than the average errand. As anyone who has felt how exhausting writing can be, you're using all of your brain and also diving deep into your emotions as well. If you try to plan out the next story while still writing another, your current story could suffer from the divided attention.

As I've written elsewhere, we live in a multi-tasking age and that's all well and good, but a multi-tasking mindset really doesn't help creative projects. The times I feel most creative are when I am most still, with distractions and pressures banished.

So you may want to pat yourself on the back for planning ahead, but make sure you're not sacrificing the current story for the needs of the future! Try an experiment and stop thinking about the future, even to the end of this story. Instead, concentrate on the needs of the scene you're writing right now. Go even more into the present and concentrate on the needs of the current sentence. You may be surprised at the new level of quality and engagement you bring to your writing.

How to Sink Your Teeth into a New Project

2009-07-19T09:34:00-04:00

When you're starting out on a new creative project, it can be incredibly daunting to stare at that blank page. I don't know if sculptors, dancers, or musicians get blocked the way writers do, but there is a long and venerable tradition of writer's block that mostly has to do with the difficulty of beginning a new project, of investing yourself in an entirely new world and set of characters.

When I haven't written in a while, starting a new story can be agonizing. At first I think no idea that crosses my mind is even worthy taking notes about. Then I take a few sketchy notes, convinced all the while of their utter uselessness. A few days later I try a first paragraph, feeling lousy and sure that every word is awkward, cliched, and amateurish. But somehow, another paragraph and another comes. A new story is therefore born -- slowly and painfully! The way I manage to scale that mighty wall of writer's block is through a three-step process that may just help you set your first foot forward on a new project.

1) Change your environment

If you've been out of writing for a while, it can seem impossible to get in a creative mindset again. Part of the reason it seems so difficult is that you're currently in an environment where working or slacking or anything but writing is the norm.

To get yourself in the writing mood, use a technique I learned from a psychology class that insomniacs use. Often, people who can't fall asleep are people who use the bed for other activities during the day -- reading or watching TV, for example. That makes the bed an environment that isn't for sleeping, and so it's very hard to get to sleep. So to start your new project, make your first step changing up your environment. Find a quiet place where you don't normally work or play.

After the jump: eliminating pressure and taking baby steps.

2) Eliminate the pressure

If your last story was a success, starting a new one can be tremendously challenging. I know thoughts start to crowd my head: how exactly did I pull off that last story? How can I possibly write as well as that again? Will I ever have another good idea? There's a lot of pressure swirling around, and none of it is helpful for your writing. So as you pull out your notebook and pen or open a new document on your computer, take a moment to breathe. It's all right if this story stinks; there will be others that will shine, but you've got to start writing in order to get to them. Don't let the pressure be a factor in your thinking.

3) Start with a small step

As with other tasks, writing a new story is a large and frightening challenge. That is, it's frightening when seen as one whole task. Break it up into little things and just get started doing those, and you'll be amazed at how the pages start to add up. Assign yourself a manageable goal, such as just one scene or even just one paragraph or specific snatch of description. Do it thoughtfully. Then give yourself another little creative assignment. In this piece-by-piece way, I get stories done.

There are, of course, a lot more things to keep in mind once you're in the thick of your story and thinking seriously how to construct it. It can be very daunting to try and punch through that wall of the first page, though, and hopefully these steps will prove helpful to you for conquering it.

Photo of the Week

2009-07-17T11:48:00-04:00

ICEeeeeeehhhhh…, originally uploaded by Gonzuuh.

I love the fisheye perspective here. It's a great way of making a rather ordinary scene seem skewed and otherworldly. How will it inspire you this week?

Who Calls the Shots: Editor or Writer?

2009-07-15T09:25:03-04:00

Writing, along with filmmaking and a few other media, is a very funny art form because it has an element of collaboration. It seems impossible for any legitimate work of art to be formed by committee, and yet writers really need to work closely with their editors in order to make their work reach its full potential. But what is an editor's real role in pushing a novel or story to fruition? Who's in control? Is it really a fifty-fifty relationship of equal power, or is the writer a lofty monarch with a devoted advisor?

From what I've read of some of the most compelling editor-writer relationships in history, and from what little I've experienced for literary magazines, editors aren't merely devoted word-crunchers for the writer. They have their own agendas, and in fact, to be great editors they've got to have an independent vision and artistic sensibility. A creative writing professor of mine spoke to my class about how editing was itself an art, and that some people were born to be great editors just as some were born to be great writers.

At first I found it hard to believe -- can an art ever be refining and honing someone else's creation rather than creating something yourself? But the more I thought about it, the more I started to believe it. After all, many visual artists create art by using ordinary objects or scenes and making us see them in new ways by bringing them into a different focus.

After the jump: so who's in charge?

There are as many editor-writer relationships as there are editor-writer pairs, of course, but there seem to be a few interesting traits in common in some great editors I've read about. A few editors of great writers when they were just starting out were absolutely fearless. Raymond Carver's editor cut huge swaths of the great short story writer's writing, sometimes demanding entirely new endings that changed the entire message of a story.

Other editors didn't even consult with their writers before making changes that dramatically altered the way a work might be read. This is particularly evident in the nineteenth century, and in countries such as Russia where censorship was always rearing its ugly head. To keep their jobs, editors had to walk a line of balancing art with acceptability. In this way, great works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were changed forever.

So is the editor king? It seems to me that in a "healthy" writer-editor relationship, an editor needs to take a strong hand, but a writer must always have inviolable veto privileges for any suggestions of the editor. I've seen how a weak editor can hurt a book; the more respected a writer gets, the more delicately and reverently his work will be treated, and writers such as Stephen King and Philip Roth could have used someone who was tiptoeing around them less, I believe.

With regard to your own work, if you get an editor looking at it, be sure to have a strong sense of your story. If you can hang on to that, you'll be able to defend your work and fight off any disastrous changes. At the same time, remember the old proverb about the flexible willow sapling that bends in the storm and survives while the old oak is broken. Be flexible, and be willing to see another person's interpretation of your own work! If you're lucky enough to work with a great editor, your work will reach its true potential in his or her hands.

A Summer of Possibilities and Responsibilities

2009-07-14T09:40:00-04:00

I'm officially back from my Paris vacation, and I had a terrific time. My companion and I were out and about absolutely every day, seeing both the most well-known sights and the little out-of-the-way ones. One writerly highlight was a return trip to the famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company. I was delighted to see that it hadn't changed; books were still crammed into every possible space, and the little writing nook complete with antique typewriter was intact. It's wonderful to see such a literary institution thriving.

Now that I'm back, I'm taking advantage of early-morning jet lag to plunge straight into the many responsibilities I have waiting for me. I'm just beginning to feel the urge to write new fiction, but at the same time I'm bound by dozens of more real-world obligations like filling out grad school forms and embarking on the job search in earnest. The good news is that I've gotten a couple of calls for interviews, but the blank page of my next story still awaits.

What do you do when you're torn between creative possibilities and real-world responsibilities? It can a tough balancing act sometimes. I feel the tug of a new story just rarely enough that I'm tempted to throw aside all other obligations in order to think creatively. What if that elusive impulse to write fades away while I'm still diligently filling out forms? At the same time, being a writer for the long term requires a certain amount of faith that inspiration once experienced will again return. It's sort of like the faith we all have to hold that after a long, dark winter, spring will return.

Find the Joyful Side of Creativity!

2009-07-13T09:52:00-04:00

With all the talk about getting published, about the hard work, the right pens, the little technicalities, and all the other sometimes painful details of writing, we can sometimes forget about the joy of writing. Creativity in general is 99% perspiration, like what Einstein said about genius, but it's nothing without that occasional flash of joy and elation at the power of making something new and wholly your own.

I was reminded of the joie de vivre of creativity recently when I saw Pixar's latest gem of a movie, Up. There is a touching amount of humanity in this story, and every character has a compelling story and personality. Besides that, though, there is a sense of sheer inventive delight in every frame. The explosion of whimsical color as a mountain of balloons climb into the sky, pulling a house with it; the gymnastic feats of a giant, fantastical bird as it tears through the jungle; and the little, telling details, such as the quiet, loving relationship between the main character and his wife, are all beautiful expressions of the power of writing and imagery to express reality and fantasy. It seems at times that the artists of Pixar are creating for the sheer joy of surprising and delighting audiences. At the same time, the movie is thoughtful enough about the human condition to bring a tear to your eye.

It's this kind of harmonious blend that can remind us about the joy of creating works of art. Stories at their best can be engrossing, terrifying, captivating, and delightful! Take a little time out every now and then to remind yourself of why you love to write in the first place.

Currently Reading: Sister Carrie

2009-07-12T11:10:00-04:00

Image from Amazon.

I decided to go back to my old list of the best 100 novels of the 20th century according to a handful of professors, so I'm currently reading Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. This book just barely makes it onto the list, having been written in 1900, and it does feel very quaint and Victorian at times. However, there are a few interesting touches that make it intriguingly modern.

For one thing, this is a thoroughly urban text, rather than being about the country or small towns. It's about Chicago beginning to boom, rise, and rival New York in its glamor and cultural offerings. Also, the treatment of sexuality and acceptable social mores have changed dramatically from the Dickensian tales of a few short decades earlier. Our main character, Carrie, is a "kept woman" of sorts, being paid to live in an apartment and entertain herself, while being the unmarried "companion" of a man who fancies her. The sense of nineteenth-century modesty is still present in that Dreiser never makes it clear whether the couple is having sex or not. Similarly, when Carrie meets another man later on, it hasn't been made clear whether they have an affair or not. It's frustrating at times that this old-fashioned novel won't divulge exactly what is happening in the relationships, and we are left guessing.

Although that's a minus for the novel, I'm still enjoying it a lot because the story and characters are interesting and the writing is lovely. I have yet to discover if Dreiser will stop writing in such a secretive way.

Buzz: Writebite

2009-07-10T13:30:00-04:00

For those of you interested in an online writing opportunity with a different slant, take a look at WriteBite. It's a site specializing in strongly opinionated pieces -- or as it admits freely on the site, rants. If you have a bone to pick about some issue and you want to write passionately about it, consider submitting an essay to WriteBite. Best yet, the site promises some payments for the strongest pieces. So you might even get something off your chest and get paid for it.

If you've got a writing site or lead that you think the readers of Creative Writing Corner will benefit from hearing about, email me and I'll check it out. If the site seems interesting, you'll see it appear here in the buzz section.

Have More ____ Characters in Your Story

2009-07-08T11:39:00-04:00

We all have habits that we cling to in our everyday routines. We might brush our teeth a certain way or always put the left sock on before the right. We might have a nightly ritual of checking certain sites or watching television shows. In the same way, we tend to fall into ruts in our creative lives. We develop habits of what kind of stories we should write and who should populate them. This is especially true with regard to the characters that are similar to ourselves; if you're me, you might find a lot of college-aged white female New Englanders filling your stories.

So this week, try looking back at your stories and figuring out what they're lacking. What sort of characters have been under-represented? What races, genders, classes or professions of people have you been neglecting to write about? Try filling in the blank in this post's title with whatever kind of people you've been missing out on. It doesn't have to be some sort of a demographic; it could be "have more imaginative characters in your story" or "have more emotional characters." Whatever it is, try shaking it up in your next story and incorporating a type of person you normally shy away from.

Language Barriers

2009-07-06T09:38:00-04:00

The language barriers that exist throughout the world and even around our own homes can be frustrating and can throw up huge obstacles toward understanding. There's also no lonelier feeling than being surrounded by people who don't speak your language; you can travel to a new place and easily find yourself without a hope of being understood by anyone you meet. The arrogance of some tourists, who expect others to speak their language, usually doesn't help the isolation and disconnection that can come from different languages.

I think all this is very fertile ground to be explored in fiction, and I've taken a stab at it recently. A story that ended up in my creative senior thesis, whose working title was "Language Barrier", was about a young woman in love with a man whose first language is French. Though his English is excellent, the girl feels isolated by a part of his life that she will always be excluded from -- his French family and childhood, the language he thinks and dreams in first, the language he will most probably teach their children so that she will be an outsider in the family unless she learns it.

Language really can be a significant barrier to understanding among people, but it doesn't have to be an un-crossable one. My main character attempts to find some way to find insight into her lover, and eventually manages to see some deeper sides of him that don't require language. They are isolated from each other at first, but through a few trials, learn to communicate. It may prove inspiring to you to think about language as a potential story catalyst. Who speaks different languages in your story, and who is unable to communicate with whom? What does it mean about the potential for very different characters to connect?

Revisit an Old, Failed Story

2009-07-05T10:39:00-04:00

If you've been writing for a while, chances are you have the kind of folder I have on my computer, one labelled simply "Rejects." That is the folder where stories go to die. If a story flagged or didn't have a compelling enough main character or didn't seem to make sense, or just became uninteresting to me, I put them here -- I can't quite bear to delete them, but they're failures.

This week, though, try looking at your old, failed stories in a new light. It may have been years since you last looked at the piece, and now you are in a different place mentally and creatively. You have improved your writing skills; perhaps now you can faithfully depict that scene that you thought you could never write. Maybe you've learned a few more things about human behavior and you now know how a character would act in a perplexing situation. The point is, you change all the time, and a story that was "unsustainable" in the past might be viable now. Why not give it a chance?

To breathe life into an old story, first give it a quick read-through to refresh yourself of what you've got so far. Then ask yourself a few questions, and jot down notes for the answers:

Who is the main character?

What change will the character undergo in the story

What is the climactic scene?

How do you want the story to end?

If you find yourself coming up with new answers to these questions, then there's hope that this story is ready to be revived. Try adding a few scenes. It'll be slow at first and tough to get back into that particular story's world and frame of mind, but you'll get the hang of it, and you just might get a first-rate story out of it.

July 4th: What Does Independence Mean to You?

2009-07-04T11:54:00-04:00

Happy Independence Day to the Americans reading Creative Writing Corner! It's a good holiday, but as always, it's a good time to start asking yourself some questions about what the day means and what independence as a concept really means. For women in particular, I think, independence can be a daily struggle that takes both imagination and compromise. Virginia Woolf made independence a concept that is now seen as crucial to the writing life: without self-reliance, we cannot be truly creatively bold, she argued, and the women of her time particularly needed this in order to take wing. Independence can be a state of mind, but it can also be very concrete, such as the "room of one's own" and the 500 pounds a year that Woolf set as a standard for independence. We may need significantly more than that amount, but financial independence is just as crucial today as it was then.

Perhaps in your life, financial independence is proving an obstacle toward embracing the writing life, but perhaps there's a need for greater emotional independence as well. Are there people or other emotional ties in your life that are holding you back? This time of year might be a good time to evaluate your life and consider what ties need to be cut and which ones re-negotiated.

Of course, I'm not a believer in absolute and total independence, the kind that denies any attachment to the world, to a community, to a family or country. A more mature outlook on life, I think, is one in which we acknowledge all of our mutual interdependence while not being afraid to strike out on our own and take wing. A country and an individual alike must acknowledge that they are not islands. But find your own way to be creative, and have a wonderful holiday this year!

Buzz: The Basilica Review

2009-07-03T13:29:00-04:00

Looking for a place to try sending your work? I've just received word about a new literary magazine called The Basilica Review. It's an elegant-looking publication that will have short fiction and poetry. Of course, there's no reading fee and all submissions are in fact read (which is more than can be said for some of the bigger publications).

So if you're just starting out and want a nice-looking publication on your resume, try sending some work to The Basilica Review. They're looking for strong voices of all types.

Is Memory Identity?

2009-07-02T10:36:00-04:00

I've read a lot of interesting articles, often by the famed neurologist Oliver Sacks, about memory and how wrapped up it is with identity. In particular, Sacks' tales of extreme amnesiacs, those who have lost all ability to make new memories, are harrowing stories about becoming unmoored in one's own sense of self. I've written a story about this; in my short story, a woman's progressive Alzheimer's disease causes her to move back in time in her life, losing the events that defined her later years.

The questions raised by such stories are whether memory constitutes identity, or whether there is something else, something residual, that makes up our self-image. The interesting thing Sacks observed was that while the patients were sometimes confused and disoriented, they often had one thing or person in their lives that kept them whole, able to maintain a sense of personality and self. Clive, the accomplished musician who lost all ability to maintain short-term memories, was held together through his knowledge of music. While he couldn't remember people or places or books for longer than a few seconds, he was able to play long piano pieces without difficulty. Other patients were kept whole through their devotion to a partner. No matter how much time had passed since a visit from a loved one, the patients remembered and were made calm and happy by the loved one's appearance.

After the jump: how do you write about memory?

With this in mind, it's interesting to see your range of choices when writing about memory. At one end of the spectrum is Nabokov, who believed that memory was essential not only to our identities but to our sense of the passage of time. The past does not exist, he believed, without memory of it. On the other end of the spectrum are writers who invest in concepts of the soul as immortal and housing an identity that cannot be destroyed by time or disease. It's up to you to decide what you think identity is dependent on.

Like me, you may be interested in the scientific and medical side of memory and what it means for our concepts of self. Or you may have a spiritual concern. Perhaps you subscribe to the Buddhist thought that there is no permanent self, only a series of mutually dependent impressions that come together. Your decision about identity will be a crucial element of how you choose to write about characters in your stories.

What Does a Writer Look Like?

2009-07-01T10:34:00-04:00

Image from Goshen School NY.

Just like other professions, writers have a certain stereotyped look about them that many writers ascribe to look like. While for the men, a Hemingway-esque beard may be essential, what I'm really talking about is clothing. Writers in movies, for example, are always dressed in a particular way. I'm talking about the glasses, the corduroy blazer with elbow patches, the slightly rumpled but still classy collared shirt. It's a look that must be cultivated carefully to project an aura of the professor with an added, slightly rumpled bohemian glamor.

With that in mind, I admit I've succumbed to a few temptations in my time to look a little more writerly with regard to my wardrobe. I went for a burgundy corduroy blazer which I love and have worn to many a reading, from, surprisingly enough, Victoria's Secret, which you can find here. I'm a little off of mini skirts and have instead cultivated an interested in pencil skirts because of their tailored, professional look. Pencil skirts are the sort of thing, I imagine, to be worn in the offices of a chic literary magazine, and I wore them most days during my internship in such a place last year. I also feel a small twinge of regret that next year I will probably be getting laser surgery for my eyes and will once and for all forgo the glasses I wear occasionally (I usually wear contacts). Glasses seem like a very writerly touch and I will be sad to lose them. However, I can rest assured that in thirty or so years, like everyone else, I will once again need reading glasses.