entrenous88 reblogged
When your brain finally has some good creative ideas but it’s 3 AM and you need to sleep
entrenous88 reblogged
After a lifetime of being a writer, of sitting down to the blank page and making up words, I can now say, with definitive clarity, that writing is exhausting.
I think, because it’s an art and a craft, and we have this idea that it’s somehow a calling and “fun” and not “real” work, that it isn’t demanding or exhausting or draining.
I’ve been writing for 30 years, and while sometimes I’m on a roll and it all just flows naturally, the usual process is a struggle. And I can struggle in a million different ways on the same day. Even a day that flows can be filled with struggle before and/or after I hit that flow.
Writing is real work. It is exhausting. It is draining. It is also rewarding. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t take a toll on you.
I’ve written nearly 20k words in a week, and I FEEL it. It has taken a huge amount of energy and focus, and was prepared for it.
You are not a machine. The words don’t come out of nowhere. Brain work is real work. It takes energy and focus and sometimes you have to fight yourself the whole way to get the words out. We might not be lifting I-beams and building houses, but we’re working.
Please remember to take care of your body and your energy and your self. Take breaks. Give yourself credit for how far you’ve come, even if you don’t think it’s far enough. Count the times you are struggling to write as part of the work, not your failure… because this IS part of the process. Staring out the window is part of it. Walking around and getting a drink. Glaring at your work because it’s not going in the direction you want it to. ALL part of writing.
Writing is hard, and it’s not just about putting cool ideas down on the page.
Knowing you have to write a ton of useless material in order to get to the good stuff
entrenous88 reblogged
high-unicorn-tolerance-deactiva
people have so little appreciation for craftsmanship and it’s frustrating and sad. like i saw this video on facebook of a guy making a small throwing axe by hand, from start to finish, and half the comments were like “or just buy an axe for $15”
the dude didnt just want an axe! he wanted the experience of handwork, he wanted to engage in a tradition of craftsmanship, he wanted to practice skills. the process of making things is about so much more than the thing you make
if i knit a hat, the fact that i’ll have a hat at some point is tertiary to everything else i get out of the experience. it’s meditation, it’s how i interact with a community, it connects me to a history, it mediates my anxiety, it’s a sensory experience, it’s me engaging with my body in a way that is careful and thoughtful and elegant and beautiful
handwork is so devalued for a lot of reasons, and those reasons are almost always socially complex – there’s a lot to be said about how class and gender play out in different hobbies; how cost can become prohibitive in learning skills that were once vital to the poor, how certain kinds of labor have become a luxury, how histories of gendered labor cause that labor to become mocked. all of those things and so many more are difficult to grapple with
automation tends to lead us to believe that making is all about things, but when you practice handwork, you give the process its own kind of value and reap all its intangible rewards. if i could explain one simple thing to anyone who has ever asked me why i don’t just buy a hat, it’s that there’s a lot more involved in a process than just its product.
#the process of making things is about so much more than the things you make#good god damn#this is so incredibly important for me to hear tonight#I know this is about#handwork#and#craftsmanship#but it applies so well to#creativity#writing#writing inspiration#the writing process#the practice is the art
entrenous88 reblogged
I wrote free-hand, not caring about the style or if something I wrote in the afternoon contradicted something I’d established in the story that morning. The priority was simply to get the ideas surfacing and growing. Awful sentences, hideous dialogue, scenes that went nowhere—I let them remain and ploughed on.
Kazuo Ishiguro (The Guardian, 2014)
entrenous88 reblogged
To write is to have rituals and then break them….I try to remember the right things to worship. I notice birds and call old friends. I give up the idea that writing is special and good. No—people are.
Michelle Kuo, from this week’s Writers Recommend (Poets & Writers, 2017)
entrenous88 reblogged
Everyone lies about writing. They lie about how easy it is or how hard it was. They perpetuate a romantic idea that writing is some beautiful experience that takes place in an architectural room filled with leather novels and chai tea. They talk about their ‘morning ritual’ and how they 'dress for writing’ and the cabin in Big Sur where they go to 'be alone’ - blah blah blah. No one tells the truth about writing a book. Authors pretend their stories were always shiny and perfect and just waiting to be written. The truth is, writing is this: hard and boring and occasionally great but usually not. Even I have lied about writing. I have told people that writing this book has been like brushing away dirt from a fossil. What a load of shit. It has been like hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver.
Amy Poehler , Yes, Please (via jasmined)
entrenous88 reblogged
Write every single day.
It’s one of the most common pieces of writing advice and it’s wildly off base. I get it: The idea is to stay on your grind no matter what, don’t get discouraged, don’t slow down even when the muse isn’t cooperating and non-writing life tugs at your sleeve. In this convoluted, simplified version of the truly complex nature of creativity, missing a day is tantamount to giving up, the gateway drug to joining the masses of non-writing slouches.
Nonsense.
Here’s what stops more people from writing than anything else: shame. That creeping, nagging sense of ‘should be,’ ‘should have been,’ and ‘if only I had…’ Shame lives in the body, it clenches our muscles when we sit at the keyboard, takes up valuable mental space with useless, repetitive conversations. Shame, and the resulting paralysis, are what happen when the whole world drills into you that you should be writing every day and you’re not.
Every writer has their rhythm. It seems basic, but clearly it must be said: There is no one way. Finding our path through the complex landscape of craft, process, and different versions of success is a deeply personal, often painful journey. It is a very real example of making the road by walking. Mentors and fellow travelers can point you towards new possibilities, challenge you and expand your imagination, but no one can tell you how to manage your writing process. I’ve been writing steadily since 2009 and I’m still figuring mine out. I probably will be for the rest of my life. It’s a growing, organic, frustrating, inspiring, messy adventure, and it’s all mine.
Two years ago, while I was finishing Half-Resurrection Blues and Shadowshaper, I was also in grad school, editing Long Hidden, working full time on a 911 ambulance, and teaching a group of teenage girls. And those are the things that go easily on paper. I was also being a boyfriend, son, friend, god brother, mentor, and living, breathing, loving, healing human being. None of which can be simply given up because I’d taken on the responsibility of writing.
You can be damn sure I wasn’t writing every day.
…
On my off days, I’d get up as early as I did when I had to be clock in somewhere. I’d get my ass into the chair by nine or ten and try to knock out my first thousand words by lunch. Some days, I didn’t. Other days, I’d get all two thousand done by eleven AM.
And on other days, I didn’t write a single word. Yes, it’s true. Why? Sometimes, it’s because I was busy being alive. Other times, it’s because the story I was working on simply wasn’t ready to be written yet. As writer1 Nastassian Brandon puts it: “if you’re writing for the sake of writing and not listening to the moments when your mind and body call out for you to take a break, walk away and then return to the drawing board with new eyes, you’re doing yourself a disservice.” And that’s it exactly. I’ve spent many anxious, fidgety hours in front of the blank screen, doing nothing but being mad at myself. Finally I figured out that brainstorming is part of writing too, and it doesn’t thrive when the brain and body are constricted. So I take walks, and in walking, the story flows, the ideas stop cowering in the corners of my mind, shoved to the side by the shame of not writing.
Tied up in this mandate to write every day is the question of who is and isn’t a writer. The same institutions and writing gurus that demand you adhere to a schedule that isn’t yours will insist on delineating what makes a real writer. At my MFA graduation, the speaker informed us that we were all writers now and I just shook my head. We’d been writers, all of us, long before we set foot in those hallowed halls. We’re writers because we write. No MFA, no book contract, no blurb or byline changes that.
So if writing every day is how you keep your rhythm tight, by all means, rock on. If it’s not, then please don’t fall prey to the chorus of “should bes” and “If onlys.” Particularly for writers who aren’t straight, cis, able-bodied, white men, shame and the sense that we don’t belong, don’t deserve to sit at this table, have our voices heard, can permeate the process. Nothing will hinder a writer more than this. Anaïs Nin called shame the lie someone told you about yourself. Don’t let a lie jack up your flow.
We read a lot about different writers’ eccentric processes – but what about those crucial moments before we put pen to paper? For me, writing always begins with self-forgiveness. I don’t sit down and rush headlong into the blank page. I make coffee. I put on a song I like. I drink the coffee, listen to the song. I don’t write. Beginning with forgiveness revolutionizes the writing process, returns it being to a journey of creativity rather than an exercise in self-flagellation. I forgive myself for not sitting down to write sooner, for taking yesterday off, for living my life. That shame? I release it. My body unclenches; a new lightness takes over once that burden has floated off. There is room, now, for story, idea, life.
I put my hands on the keyboard and begin.
entrenous88 reblogged
I write because writing is the hardest work I’ve ever done. It is slow and painstaking and frustrating. I do not begin with an idea or a theme, and I don’t make outlines. I don’t have a plan for the ending or, usually, for the next page or the next line. Even short pieces might take shape over years. Everything that I have ever seen, done, or felt, had, shared, or lost, is in play, and the word of the day is, on most days, confusion.
Donald Antrim on living “The Unprotected Life” (via newyorker)
entrenous88 reblogged
writingquotes-deactivated201509
“But” – you may say – “I don’t even know my story yet.” My answer is: “Of course you don’t know your story yet.” You are the very first person to tell this story ever, anywhere in the whole world, and you cannot know a story until it has been told. First you tell it; then you know it. It is not the other way around. That may sound illogical, but to the narrating mind, it is logic itself. Stories make themselves known, they reveal themselves – even to their tellers – only by being told. You may ask how on earth you can tell a story before you know it. You do that by letting the emerging story tell itself through you. As you tell it, you let the story give you your cues about where it is going to go next.
Stephen Koch
artlesstumbles replied to your post: Keep reading
I feel this way a lot too and mostly try to ignore it. With varying degrees of success.
That honestly seems like the best thing I can do at this point -- sort of anticipate I’ll likely feel this way, acknowledge it when it happens, and try to move on.
semper-ama replied to your post:[[MOR] I’m torn between feeling badly that I...
If you’re doing between 2k and 4k in a day, you’re doing reaaalllyyy well. I know I consider 2k a really good day, personally. Obviously it’s different for everyone, but I definitely don’t think you shouldn’t feel guilty for not writing more!
I appreciate that! Basically my writing process goes through cycles and changes up semi-frequently (the trend I mentioned is for the last week and a half). I think if I wrote, say, 1k a day fairly consistently, it would feel easier to feel sanguine about that output. But as it is, I always feel like there could be a less-productive period or a dry spell coming up, so I get that whole, “why am I not striking more while the damn iron is hot?” impulse. And then, if I’m writing 3k in one day, why not 4k, huh? Etc., etc.
I don’t know. It’s also probably due to the fact that I function mostly on guilt and thoughts about making coffee and baking too much.
entrenous88 reblogged
I think the biggest obstacle for people with their creativity is that they feel they have to sit down and create this finished, polished product. Especially nowadays, it’s so easy to have a library of two thousand CDs, books and records. So many things. We’re used to having all of these finished works of art in our life that seem to arise out of nothing. I think that so much of the creative process is a fragmentary one, and then it’s about just allowing your intuition to put it together for you. It’s funny how you create something and you think you’re going in a million different directions, and then the thing you end up with is the thing that you wanted to create your whole life, but you’re just as surprised by it as anybody else.
Jeff Mangum (x)
entrenous88 reblogged
One final comment on editing: Let us never forget that in an early draft of Lord of the Rings, Strider was a Hobbit who wore clogs and was named Trotter. Your drafts will go through drastic changes from their original conception, and that’s okay. Have a look at some of these original pages of manuscripts. We often think of classics as untouchable, original, and pure, but look at how all of these changed! Let them be an inspiration to shake it up and better your own pieces.
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens Take a look at the entire original manuscript!
Stings - Silvia Plath
A Family Sketch - Mark Twain
Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce
The Iron Ring - Lloyd Alexander
entrenous88 reblogged
writingquotes-deactivated201509
There is only one plot—things are not what they seem.
Jim Thompson
entrenous88 reblogged
writingquotes-deactivated201509
You’re writing, you’re coasting, and you’re thinking, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever written, and it’s coming so easily, and these characters are so great.’ You put it aside for whatever reason, and you open it up a week later and the characters have turned to cardboard and the book has completely fallen apart. That’s the moment of truth for every writer: Can I go on from here and make this book into something? I think it separates the writers from the nonwriters. And I think it’s the reason a lot of people have that unfinished manuscript around the house, that albatross.
Jacqueline Woodson
So the thing is, I think people with unfinished manuscripts = also writers. Certainly stopping a project versus polishing it works as a divide of sorts, most obviously as one between those who work to publish (or post) and those who do not. I also think editing and revising bring their own satisfactions and joys, so sure, taking a project to that level is something I'd recommend for multiple reasons.
But writing is writing is writing. If you write, you are a writer. I don't care if you have ten or fifty incomplete manuscripts hidden around your house. You have accomplished something in writing those pieces, even if no one else ever sees those (un)finished manuscripts.