On building bridges (... and getting over them)

It is too easy to allow time to pass.


It is too easy to let all the other could, should, woulds get in the way of what it is you really want.


But if the fire of a story burns within you, you will have no rest until it’s written, or spoken, or somehow shared.


This week, I had the good fortune to hear the very talented Markus Zusak speak. Markus is back on Aussie soil after touring the US with his new book, Bridge of Clay, and he spoke to an enthralled full house in the theatrette at the National Library of Australia. Being an ardent admirer of Markus’ earlier works which include The Book Thief and The Messenger, I queued up with everyone else to have a copy of his latest novel signed, but mostly to thank him for speaking so authentically about the struggle he had writing it. Particularly because it’s been thirteen years since his previous novel was published, and he’s been working on Clay for most of that time.


Markus has spoken about using failure as fuel before, as in his 2014 TED talk, The failurist:


Here’s the thing with writers. Everyone thinks that to be a writer you’ve got to have a great imagination. You don’t. You just have to have a lot of problems. Clearly. And it’s getting around those problems that gives you the power to imagine. You’ve got to imagine your way around them.



This book looks as if it will be just as deliciously chewy as his others. 

To write honestly

In a memoir, feelings are more important than facts, and to write honestly, I have to confront my demons. 

~ Isabelle Allende 

The greater truth

"A lot of what frightens people about writing is this precise idea that once we put something on the page we are rendered vulnerable. There is truth to that, but the greater truth, for me, is that once I put something on the page I am also rendered a little less vulnerable. I have created for myself a piece of turf on which I am willing to stand." 

From The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron

Sharpen

It’s been a while. I’ve been really, really busy.  And then the school holidays come, with incessant demands on my attention, sucking the last of my intellect from my skull, draining it through my nostrils like an ancient Egyptian funerary nightmare. 

But when I’m not writing, the unexpressed writhes and scratches within me, until I can contain it no more and it claws its way free. 

So I carve out a space, sharpen my nib, and I write again. 

Beautiful moment

That beautiful moment, when the word you need flows effortlessly onto the page.

The perfect irony, when that word is Sisyphean. 

Sisyphus by Jason Tamez @ Flickr

This life of yours

Do you recall, from your childhood on, how very much this life of yours has longed for greatness? I see it now, how from the vantage point of greatness it longs for even greater greatness.  That is why it does not let up being difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

(cited by Summer Pierre in The artist in the office)

Note to self: eat that frog

Yes. I admit I sometimes struggle on the time-management front.  What writer doesn’t, given the time demands of our craft in our already-full lives?

Some people deal with this by getting up, monastically, at 4am and forcibly shoving an extra couple of hours into their lives that way, but that ain’t gonna happen.  I am not a morning person.  Neither is Neil Gaiman, as famously homaged by Diana Wynne Jones in Deep Secret, so I’ll just take that as a  literary sanction for sleeping in.

So, without adopting the schedule of a cloistered nun, there are a number of other tools we can use to improve our time use.  Some of them address big-picture issues, like goal setting, getting your house/desk/psyche organised, or prioritising by using some kind of box/list/diagram/mnemonic with daily, religious fervour.

But there’s another simpler one:

Eat that frog.

No, not the chocolate variety, although they are good too.  (Especially the sublime, velvety goodness of a Haigh’s chocolate frog).  There must be some special compound in good quality chocolate that stimulates creative thought, right?  However, to date this strategy is evidenced more by my splendid physique than by my impressive publishing record.

No, the idea of Eat that frog is to do the one thing you’re most dreading first.  Get it done at the start of the day when your energy is high. Once it’s done, you will have freed up all the time and energy you might have spent avoiding it – and the whole day will be more productive.

This is not a new concept.  Maggie Stiefvater, a YA author that I admire enormously, has talked about time management and the work ethic that allows her to combine writing, painting, and all the other things involved in being an all-round  creative genius and a mother.  At the top of her list is Work first, then play.  Which, if you think about it, is a variant on the frog eating. 

This is a really good writing tool – especially when you’re circling around a hard bit, something that you’re avoiding, something that is starting to look like writer’s block.  Jump on in, eat that frog.  The worst thing that can happen is that you will write a terrible first draft - and aren’t all first drafts awful?  Now that the frog is no longer glowering at you, you can go back and revisit and refine what you need to.  The best thing that can happen – and it may surprise you – is that you release a whole new wave of ideas and energy. 

Note to self:  this post is not about frogs, or time, or even about writing. It’s about resistance. It’s about the inexplicable obstacles we place in our own paths. Especially when we’re about to push through to a whole new level of understanding or achievement. Why do we do this? Who knows?**  All I know is that the times when the resistance is strongest, and the pressure is greatest, are the times when we are closest to breaking through to the place that we most want to be in.

That’s worth eating a frog for.

And here's a nice cautionary tale about what happens when you don't:

I kissed it but it just got bigger
by Cpt<HUN> @ Flickr

  

**Actually, Stephen Pressfield might know. He has written a whole book about this, The War of Art. I haven’t read it but it comes highly recommended by a fellow writer whose entire being lit up when he was describing its value to his writing practice.  

Write every day

Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear. For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage, courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world. 

~ Robert McKee

I wrote a lot by Mullenkedheim @ Flickr 

(Denoue)mental!

Writers live twice.  They go along with their regular life, are as fast as anyone in the grocery store, crossing the street, getting dressed for work in the morning. But there's another part of them that they have been training. The one that lives everything a second time. That sits down and sees their life again and goes over it. Looks at the texture and detail.

~ Natalie Goldberg, Writing down the bones.

Well, my darling denouementees, time for an apology regarding my lengthy absence.  It’s been pretty busy up on the high road to denouement over the last month, … er, couple of months.

My advice to you all: do not try to combine tertiary study with the writing life. Ever. 

So, what have I missed in that time?

Firstly, I was invited to co-present a “get started writing” workshop for members of the community at the Tea Tree Gully Library.  Life is a wonderful and mysterious thing, and as I stepped up to share the great joy and reward of writing, I was answered by a very personal and life-affirming magical moment. (More on that, later).

And then there was the supreme excitement of the announcement of the finalists in the words and writing category of the Sydney Writers’ Centre Best Australian Blog competition. (More on that, too). 

And if it was at all possible to top that, I did, when I flew out to the National Library of Australia for a week-long Writing Masterclass with none other than Australia’s biggest-selling (and much loved) author, Bryce Courtenay.  (Definitely more on that).

And then I came home, and ploughed through the end of the Semester on nothing but single-minded determination and a packet of jaffas.  And in the sleep-deprived haze that followed, I had my first personal feedback session with the Mutant Stepchildren.  What’s not to love about a writers’ group that calls itself the Mutant Stepchildren?  (More on that, and perhaps I’ll wax lyrical about the art of feedback, too). 

It has been such a tasty slice of life pie that I’ve been fully taken up with consuming it, and I’ve had nothing left over to blog with.   But I’ve been storing it up, my darlings, oh yes I have.  Like they say, writing is life lived twice…   And you will be reliving it with me shortly.

Double life

“Writing is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice:  once in reality and once more in the mirror which waits always before and behind [her].” ~ Donald Murray



Reflections (A) by camil tulcan @ flickr

How do I write?

I tend to write like I quilt, sporadically but with great intensity.  However the last quilt I made was in 2008 and the last thing I wrote was yesterday, so it appears that  writing takes a higher priority in my life.  Plus, I dream about my stories, but I have never dreamt about a quilt.  If ever I do, no doubt it will be woven into a plot line.

Despite the intensity of my efforts, both quilting and writing tends to be a slow process - with a lot of unpicking and rearranging to get it just right.  I like to pause and admire the work as it takes shape, savouring the alchemical transformation of an idea from a formless interior spark into something whole and real and exterior.

The actual manner of the laying out of words onto paper or fabric into patterns varies widely.  Sometimes I prefer the flow of a soft lead pencil onto whatever large clean paper I have handy.  Sometimes it is an urgent scrawl into the notebook that I keep in my handbag.  Other times I enjoy spreading it neatly out onto the computer screen. 

Flow is more important than order, especially in the first draft.  I start with the part of the story that holds the most energy and ride the flow until I feel pulled to another place.  This non-linear process makes perfect sense to my creative subconscious.  As the work blooms into a fuller shape the order tends to arise from within as a result of each part reaching completion, and then the left-brain can fuss and trim and reshape it to fit the desired outline. 

Just like in a quilt, the balance of the whole story comes from balance within the parts.  Each piece needs to be well crafted of itself but also sit coherently with the other pieces.  But both quilt and story will be bland unless harmony is tempered by contrast.  The skill lies in the subtle placement of clever peculiarities, that lure the reader into something they didn't expect. 



greatgrandmother's quilt by normanack @ flickr

What do I write?

I’m blogging aren’t I? (Don’t snicker.  It’s unkind).  I turn out pieces for my local writers’ group.  I journal, ferociously.  My immediate goal is to sharpen my claws skills on a series of short stories, with a hint of the fantastical about them (Zombie grandma, anyone?).  And of course there is my great unwritten novel, brewing in the vast smoky teapot of my mind. 

In fact, the brew is just about ready to pour.  I’ve slopped a bit into a cup and stared at it for a while.  But it’s a bit daunting.  I’m still grappling with how to organise the structure of the thing, and whether I’ve got enough plot layers for a good well-rounded story.  Plus there’s a bit more research to do about the locale.  While I’m all for editing and the power of the roughest first draft, I would rather get it as good as I possibly can right from the start.  Hence the extended stewing.