“…keep your mind gently ’round the subject you’re pondering.” ~ John Cleese.
This quote is profound, in my opinion, because it’s something I can wholeheartedly relate to. I spent more time playing Candy Crush on Facebook while I was writing my last NaNoWriMo project than perhaps I spent writing. I stopped to play every time I ran out of words, and each time I came to a wall in my story. The real beauty of Candy Crush is that, once I ran out of lives, I had to wait up to thirty minutes before I could play again. I used this forced break in the game to make myself go back to my story. Yet I couldn’t decide why exactly I needed the game. Mr. Cleese, in the video I posted yesterday, explains it.
He says, (and I paraphrase) that when you ponder a problem, allowing your mind to “rest[ing] against the subject, in a friendly but persistent manner,” your sub-conscious will reward you with a creative solution.
If you listen to music when you write; if you find yourself wandering to the fridge, or doing housework – anything that you consider procrastinating, is this not what you’re doing? How many times have you been performing some mundane task when the perfect solution came to you from out of the blue? It’s that “aha” moment which Oprah went on about, way back when, and what it is, is creativity hard at work when you least expect it.
The video I posted yesterday here: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/creativity/ is thirty-six minutes that you won’t regret taking the time to watch, whether you’re a writer of fiction, poetry or blogs. If you can’t watch it right away, I strongly suggest you bookmark it.
How can we all be more creative? How can we be inspired?
I came across this really great Youtube video today. It’s John Cleese, talking about where our creativity comes from and, not surprisingly, humour.
I can’t stress how fantastic this video is. If you’ve ever been stuck on what to write and how to go about finding the tools within yourself to spark your creativity, you MUST watch this.
Right now it’s about 4 inches — which is way too big. I might be okay with three, but I know it’s not what they want. They want two. Two inches maximum. What am I to do? Cutting it is painful, to say the least. Torturous even. At best it just doesn’t feel right. Hell, if I had my way it would be five inches if not more!
I’m of course talking about the thickness of my printed manuscript.
I’ve been working on fixing it, line by line, one word at a time and while it’s true that I’m managing to reduce my word count, I’m finding it very costly. What is the cost, you ask? I feel like I’m deleting my own voice from it. I’m trading word count for style. That can’t be good, right?
I’d like to put a question out to all my published author friends. If I decide to e-publish I can keep my inches and be happy with my manuscript. Size only matters to a publishing house. Am I correct?
For all the readers out there, how do you feel about buying a thicker-than-usual book? Do you give it a chance or do you pass it over? Of course if it’s an e-book, you won’t necessarily even know how long it is until after you buy it–I never do, since the size isn’t in direct relation to the cost.
In a truthful and incredibly rich tale of the disparity between comfortable and poor, “The Casual Vacancy” highlights the fact that one can never really know what goes on inside someone else’s existence.
I have to say that it was a little difficult to remember who was who at the beginning, but once I had all of the characters sorted out, I simply couldn’t put it down. Rowling’s ability to dive into the depths of each of her characters is every bit as wonderful as with her Harry Potter clan – but don’t expect a children’s tale. At times a difficult read, it is, (and I can’t express this enough) truthful–full of life and all its joys and misery.
This book will remain with me for a long while; it will sit in a place of honour amongst my favourites of all time.
Greater, more successful writers than myself (not a stretch) state that in order to be a writer one must dedicate one’s effort into writing: a writer must write. Here lies my conundrum.
I have no qualms over calling myself a writer. It’s what I do constantly – if I’m not physically typing on a keyboard or writing little notes, I’m composing something in my head with hopes that I’ll remember it.
But being a single mom, 80% responsible for two kids (meaning that I get to sleep 15% of the time and the other 5% is when their dad takes care of them) and having to be always within calling distance of my own mother, I don’t have time to write. What might take me three months more of full-time editing on my novel to render it publishable is, at the rate I’m going, bound to take me three years. Frustrated doesn’t begin to describe it.
I imagine there is, somewhere in the universe, a switch that can be flicked which could cause me to be able to stop merely calling myself a writer and become one. I realize that I cannot expect to ever take on a full-time job; my life is with my children, and taking care of them is apparently my job and mine alone. Would I want it any other way? Absolutely not.
Yet writing is also my life. I don’t live for my children – anyone who says they do, in my opinion, is in for a huge let-down when their kids leave home for good. I live for myself and I am a writer. I have a story that I feel needs to be told, of a world where I hope one day people will be able to escape, as I have. It’s inside me, it’s on my screen and it’s on paper, and all it wants is to be polished to a bright, shiny tale that many will love.
If only the magical switch to make it all come true wasn’t so far out of my reach.
There are reasons why unpublished authors don’t walk around telling people they’re writing a novel. First and foremost is the puzzled, glazed-over expression that immediately comes over the other person’s face, as they think to themselves, What kind of a flake am I talking to? Then quickly on the heels of that comes the hasty change-of-subject or the hands-behind-the-back stroll-away as they whistle and hope the author doesn’t follow them all the way home.
But it comes to something when an novelist’s family members don’t even take him/her seriously.
Are you a novelist? Do you ever hear your significant other say, over the phone, thinking you’re not listening, “Oh yeah, it’s just a hobby,” regarding your writing? Does the person supposedly looking after your kids allow them to come and ask you questions while you’re trying to work? Do people wander in to ask you if you’d like coffee while you’re trying to write?
It’s said that marketing a book is harder than writing, but on some days I seriously wonder. It takes a great deal of concentration to write something as complicated as a novel. There are many things to keep track of, characters to write and to get into, believe it or not. Getting into a character’s head so that his or her voice comes through well takes time.
So if you walk in on a working author to ask if he/she wants a cup of coffee (the answer is no) and he/she turns to you slowly and asks you in return if you’d care to have your fingernails removed with a screwdriver, chances are the author is in the middle of a torture scene and it has nothing to do with you. Still, back away with your hands behind your back and try to remember next time, IT’S NOT JUST A HOBBY!
I consider myself a fairly observant person. I’m certainly aware of what works and what doesn’t, most of the time. It’s taken me a year on WordPress however, to figure out a few things concerning how to go about getting followers, and how to keep them engaged.
Some of my recent realisations came about as a result of Opinionated Man’s posts and the comments we’ve shared between us, and also because of my struggle to get people to read and follow my fiction blog. It’s here: http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/ by the way, in case you’re interested.
I think half the key to building a following on WordPress is in the comments themselves. Commenting will let people know you’re invested in what you write, and that you care what people think about what you write. It’s what separates your blog from other media – newspapers and the like – which give little chance to allow the reader to express his or her thoughts on the topic. So what is the other half?
This is where I’ve picked up what I think is the problem I’m having with my fiction blog. It’s the content. Not that my fiction is necessarily bad, mind you, (go to http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/ to decide for yourself) but unless you’re looking to read fiction, you’re not going to look up that particular blog.
I was advised when I first began at WordPress to decide on a theme for my blog. I started out, nevertheless, with a mish-mash of parenting, articles about life in general, as well as fiction and poetry. I didn’t notice much of a difference in who followed my blog after I started my fiction blog (at http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/ ), but even though I let people know it existed, people rarely visited it. The realisation I’ve come to is that my fiction is probably not going to change anyone’s life.
When I write about the trials and tribulations of parenting, particularly two special needs children, people want to know what I’ve learned. When I talk about being part of the sandwich generation, people out there can relate. My readers come to me because they’re hoping to share something. They’re hoping they may be able to offer suggestions (the comments again) or they’re looking to find a fellow sufferer in me, to possibly allow themselves to feel less alone.
My point in all this is, when I blog, I have an audience. Who my audience is will depend on what I write. If I blog about something no one can relate to, I can’t expect to have anyone follow me; I can’t expect comments, and comments are what keep people engaged.
My fiction blog? It’s another kettle of fish altogether. Fiction, without a cover blurb, is an unknown entity until people begin to read it. On top of that, I probably could have chosen a better title. I’ve learned that a blog’s moniker can seriously narrow an audience. A title like “Dark Fiction of the Occult” (not mine) isn’t going to catch the attention of people looking for chicklit. The title on my blog doesn’t say anything about fiction whatsoever. I’m currently in the middle of posting a series (which is really great – you should go read it at http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/ ) but as soon as it’s finished I will perform a complete revamp. As it is, it could easily be mistaken as a foodie site.
Go ahead and learn from my mistake. I’m humble enough. But most of all encourage comments and write in a way that relates to your audience. If you want followers, don’t talk about yourself in a way that narrows your post so much that it can only possibly relate to you.
WordPress is a wonderful, interactive site if you want it to be. If you want followers, give them something they want to follow – and for goodness sakes, follow them back and comment on their sites too!
(Note: All mentions of my fiction blog in this post are strictly in the interest of humour. In no way was this post written in order to promote http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/ . Thank you for reading.)
I write pretty much the same way I speak. Not only do my speech patterns show up in my blogging, but so does my attitude towards life. Positivism is my greatest tool for survival. Okay, yes, I’m guilty of being tempted to get on WordPress and bitch and complain about things. But I don’t do it in real life unless someone specifically asks me my opinion on something (the weather may just be the exception to that rule), and I don’t like doing it here.
Thing is, we can all be different people online than we are in real life. Not only can we appear to be who we’re not, we can put forth a persona for ourselves that masks our true feelings. I reserve the ‘who I’m not’ part of my personality for my fiction – in most cases. There’s a certain part of me that thrills in writing horrible villains, which I’m not in real life.
Is it worth asking you all if who you write on your blog is who you are? Would you admit it if you weren’t? What I’d really like to know though, is whether or not you’ve ever analysed the content of your posts to see if it reflects your true self.
I came across an article today which drives home the importance of editing and putting out one’s absolute best work when self-publishing. I would have re-blogged, but that wasn’t an option.
This: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/01/28/follow-up-on-self-publishing-readers-are-not-good-gatekeepers/ is the article, by Chuck Wendig. In it, he explains how self-publishing is becoming a decent and viable option to traditional means, and how that could change if self-published authors present sub-par efforts to the reading public. It’s an excellent article. You should read it, even if you’re not an author.
Before I started writing poetry, I hated reading it. Half the time I found it boring, and the other half I simply didn’t ‘get.’ It was unexciting and confusing. When I came across it in the middle of a novel (Lord of the Rings is a perfect example) I skipped over it or skimmed it.
What I realized, however, the first time I wrote a poem, was that it’s a way of drawing a mental image on paper. Unlike fiction, in poetry anything goes and no one is going to question whether or not a heart can sing, or a colour can have a scent. Good poetry can connect people on a deep level: through senses.
In my experience with poetry since I started to write it, I’ve never managed to accomplish writing in any of the dozens if not hundreds of forms, other than a couple of haiku. The idea of following a rhyming scheme or a particular metre hurts my brain in ways that cease to make the writing of a poem pleasant. Occasionally I’ll write something that actually rhymes, and I do try to keep to some type of rhythm – mostly I’m scribbling to the beat of my own drummer – but the importance, to me, is getting the mood and the sensation across to my reader.
There are people out there who won’t read free verse poetry; some even believe that it’s hack writing, and turn their nose up at it. There are those who will read it and enjoy it, but never practice writing it.
I’ve learned that poetry, like music, is a universal. Well written, it can convey the human condition in ways that no other art form can. It speaks to our emotions, our senses, and connects our life experiences.
I’d like to know what you think: what is most important to you? What is your criteria for reading poetry, or for writing it? Is it the feeling, or making sure it rhymes? When you come across it in the middle of a novel, do you skip it, or do you read it and re-read it to get the full meaning?
Expound at will, and feel free to illustrate your thoughts in poetry, in the comments! Or just tell it like you see it. I want to hear from you!
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!
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