Feed the (Metaphorical) Bears

Also known as, the Consequences of Waiting

Dearest bloggers, writers, friends. I'm struggling with a problem so strange that the only recourse seems to be blogging about it. Except I'm having trouble doing even that. I'm too impatient. Because, dear friends, my problem is that nowadays, when I have a creative idea--new website to design, new novel to write, new scene, new art, new anything--it comes to me fully formed. Plop! Like that. One adult idea, standing there looking at me and going, "Well?"

You may think this is not such a bad problem to have.

I have to agree. It could be a lot worse. I could have ideas that refuse to form, or I could have no ideas at all. This certainly isn't the worse thing that's ever happened to me.

But it still kind of sucks. Right now, my brain is like a small company that's getting more demand than they can handle; everyone is on the scramble all day, every day, and they're hiring and hiring, but they simply can't keep up.

Or, could you imagine a young couple that decides, hey, let's have a baby, and POOF! She's in labor. There isn't even time to get to the hospital. She's having the baby, and she's having it now.

This is what my writing life has been like. And heck, my life in general. I tend to be a slow writer, in the sense that I brainstorm a lot, let ideas gestate, tumble, grow. I explore them and prod them into different poses. And I like this part of my process. It allows me to manage my time, balance projects. I know that if I start brainstorming a novel idea on Thursday, that by Saturday, I'll be ready to write, and I'll be able to write all weekend. Then the well will dry up: I'll go through my week, get all my tasks done; start brainstorming again next Thursday.

That was my process.

Not anymore. Now, if I brainstorm on Thursday, thirty chapters plop into my lap, fully formed; I have to make a dash for my computer and write and write and write, but there's no way I'm getting it all down in time. Even at my fastest, 1,500 words an hour, it would still take me days of endless writing to get that all down.

And I don't have that much time. Everything is moving too fast. The next chapters are already plopping out, boom boom boom, and I happen to have class the next day. Also I have two part time jobs. Also I have school projects that need work. And then, horrendously, torturously, when I manage to wrench myself away from writing and turn to school projects, they have the audacity to begin popping out fully formed, too. There's no respite.

Doesn't it sound awful?

Agonizing, in the best possible way?

I really don't know what to do with myself. I'm seriously starting to wonder if I could scrape aside a few days and just pound out one of those novel ideas, get it all down on paper, so the darn thing would give me a break.

I guess my problem is not that I have too many ideas, or that they're forming too quickly; it's that I'm physically incapable of creating them as quickly as I need to.

One of the worst parts is, I know why this is happening. I have been working on MIRRORPASS for years. Years, I tell you. Years on one novel. Ideas have come and gone, come and stuck, come and niggled, but I kept plugging away at MIRRORPASS, shelving those ideas for later. They're plopping out "fully formed" because they already went through their gestation period--growing rather than incubating. And now they're coming out. Having my hard drive crash for a week was a bit of a tipping point, I think; being unable to work on MIRRORPASS, all the other ideas came torrenting to the foreground, shrieking, "Me, write me!"

they're terribly needy, novels.

And it's good thing. Okay? I'm really not complaining, I'm just stymied. But to all you people slugging through edits right now, let this be a warning to you: write something new. For goodness sakes, don't keep putting it off. That sign in your mind, the one that reads, "DON'T FEED THE BEARS"? That sign is plain wrong.

Try to avoid diving headfirst into a new novel, if you can, but you can likely keep it at bay with a few hours of attention here and there. Pass it a few animal crackers. Go feed the bears. In the case of creativity, they'll be much more patient if they're gaurenteed a cracker every now and then. Plus it keeps your writing muscles nicely toned for when you finish edits and prepare to start drafting again.

Please forgive my insane rambling. This was going to be a much more coherent post, but I discovered I was in too much of a hurry to write even that, so it devolved into the stream-of-consciousness beasty you see here. I'm counting on the fact that every writer feels a bit insane sometimes. Feel free to commiserate. Anyone else ever been overwhelmed by creativity?


Truly and always and bursting at the seams,
-Creative A

Murdered Darling Monday #2

Murdered Darling Mondays is a Teaser-Tuesday spinoff that I'll be hosting once or twice a month. Interested in the concept behind this feature? Check out my introductory post.



Today's teaser is from MIRRORPASS, draft 2, chapter 2.
Cut in draft 3.



* * *

Something blipped. A lab tech looked up from the program he’d been running, and scanned the computer banks that lined the walls. The sound came from a radar screen. On it, a yellow arm swept over a tiny red dot, and it blipped again.

The tech crossed the room. His eyes reflected the screen’s green glow as he stood, staring hard, waiting a few beats. Then he hurried over to a mic.

“This is Observation Room 3, we have activity on the radar screen. Please respond.”

He waited. A voice came crackling back across the mic.

“Which radar screen, Observation 3? What kind of activity?”

He keyed the mic. “Don’t bite my head off, Leisha. It’s screen 23. We’ve got something about the size of a small meteor entering the thermosphere from the exosphere. It’s probably nothing, but you know I have to call it in.”

He depressed the button and glanced back. The dot was moving slowly down the screen. At some point this meteor was going to burn up, and the yellow arm would sweep around without making a peep. It irked him that he had to jump up and report every shooting star that appeared on the scanner. And Leisha was taking a long time answering. He thought about the meteor shower they’d had a month ago, wondering why it hadn’t appeared on the scanners. Maybe it didn’t pick them up after all. But if not, what was this?

He tapped the mic. “Leisha, you there? This is Observation 3. What’s taking so long?”

As he said it, he felt the air pressure shift, and the mechanical doors swished open across the room. He spun in surprise. It wasn’t Leisha. It wasn’t one of the other techs who came in and checked on calls. It was his boss.

Actually, both his bosses; and for a moment, he was worried. He didn’t see his bosses often. They disliked each other for one, Dr. Eschler the Canadian, Dr. Votti the American. They were smart and underpaid and disagreed on how to run the station. Each preferred to manipulate things from a distance, using puppet officers so that they avoided ever truly speaking to each other.

But here they were, on his watch. Had something gone wrong?

The two men made way for another man who looked vaguely familiar, the way a political candidate or newsperson is familiar. He made a beeline for the screen.

The lab tech stood. “Did you come about the radar?—”

But the newcomer cut him off, speaking over him, like he wasn’t even there. “Thank you for notifying me about this, gentlemen.”

He had an American accent. So of course, it was Votti who answered, clearing his throat and approaching the screen.

“Of course, General Clevland. As per your request, we always flag such incidences for you. It was good coincidence that you were here today.”

The tech stood frozen in place, realizing that these words were not for his ears, and that they meant something big, something beyond his understanding. General Cleveland peered at the screen as if deciding something. He stood back with a sudden resolve. “No need to transfer this incidence to NASA,” he said. “The Defense Department will handle it.”

Suddenly he looked up at the tech. The General’s face was shadowed in strange ways by the green glow of the radar; the tech couldn’t read his expression.

“You’re dismissed,” the General said.

The tech blinked. “I just started my shift.”

The man straightened. The tech did see his expression now. It was dark, eyebrows bent, eyes bitingly intelligent.

“You are dismissed.”

The tech looked at Dr. Eschler and Dr. Votti. He looked back at the screen, and the tiny dot slipping closer to the earth.

Flagging the incidences? What did the Defense Department care about meteors?

Nothing. No one cared about meteors.

He left.

* * *

What made this a darling:

First, mini rant. I have always hated how most other books and movies portray the government in first-contact scenarios, and from the beginning of writing MIRRORPASS, I wanted to to portray the government in a much more realistic light. Which, for me, meant exploring it on a human level. So MIRRORPASS has a scattering of supporting characters who reinvent that role. The tech really embodied that.

Mini rant over, I loved the tech. He had voice. This one scene I'd intended to write bubbled into two more lengthy scenes. He was my ordinary Joe working a lonely government job at NORAD, but he still managed to maintain his humor and morality. He gave readers an insight into the government, and when things get fishy, he has the courage to investigate. What I really loved was his role in the climax when--well, let's just say, Aria's failure/success effects all humanity, and we got to see the tech's reaction.

Why it got murdered:

Most of my beta readers didn't really get the tech. They disliked Leisha. The tech was yet another POV taking up wordcount, and although we learn interesting things from him, it turns out they weren't necessary things. Plus, other characters could get the necessary info across, but better. Plus, he was an adult, and MIRRORPASS is YA. Plus, keeping his role meant doing serious research into how NORAD works. Plus...

I hung onto him for quite a while. But in the end, the wordcount issue won out, and the tech got cut.


MIRRORPASS is a YA SF novel currently undergoing revisions. To learn more, check out the WIP page.

Do you like the idea of Murdered Darling Mondays? Want to join me? If you decide to participate in this feature, feel free to linkback in the comments, and share the murdered darling love!

Truly and always,
-Creative A

Laptop Down

If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you.

― Henry Rollins

Sometimes it seems like I discovered writing thanks to computers--I wrote my first novel a month after my dad bought a new family computer, and the old desktop was moved to my bedroom. I'd always piddled with writing before then. Having access, though, hours of unlimited and uninterrupted access, seemed to unlock me.

But it also limited me. I've heard a lot of authors explaining how important it is to learn to write anywhere, anytime you get the chance, because when you're busy or on tour with a deadline, you simply have to get it done. And I always wondered about that. Because I'm not so flexible. When the inspiration is flowing, well, you can't stop me. But one of the first lessons a writer learns is not to rely on those lightbulb moments. And in general, when I'm at other locations, I'm too distracted to get into the story. Even being on another computer can be too distracting.

I'm aware this isn't good, but what's a girl to do about it? Just keep trying to stretch myself, I guess. And perhaps hope things will work themselves out when the time comes.

Well.

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, the time has most definitely come. My beloved laptop has been crashing for no discernible reason. And when I took it to the techs, they informed me that my hard drive is making "an audible ticking noise" and that it needs replacing.

And it's okay. It really is. I'm working on getting the drive replaced right now. But the interesting thing, the quite cool thing, is that only just a month ago, I didn't have any source of backup. Then there was a bit of a fiasco with work. I needed new software, but uploading the software might crash my computer, so amongst tons of stress and prayer and bustling, I bought myself an external hard drive.

Which is why things are okay now. I haven't lost a whit of data, and the very timing of things had me convinced God has got His hand in all of this, and one way or another, it's going to work out.

But.

In the meantime.

I have discovered something very fascinating about creativity. Basically, if you have it, it's going somewhere. You can channel this creativity into certain avenues like, ahem, writing, if you make a regular point of writing and keep those muscles exercised. But if you don't channel creativity, it refuses to just sit there idle. It oozes. It finds channels and avenues of its own, trickling through them to make the cracks bigger, and bigger, until it's practically fountaining through. And, well. Try stopping it then.

These past few weeks I have written on my work computer, at my library computers, at the school computers. I have written as emails to myself during class; I have cut into lab time to write. I have written on my phone, on the backs of receipts in my car, on sticky notes, and of course, notebooks. Oh my goodness. The notebooks!

People have been giving me notebooks for years, and of course, who could get rid of a pretty notebook? Not me. I'm glad. Those notebooks saved my life this past week. I hate writing in notebooks because my hand cramps, but this time around, it hasn't stopped me. I have been compelled. If I try to put it off, I end up writing on my floor and midnight, notebook and hot tea in hand.

The most agonizing part of it all is that I can't write any of the things I'm supposed to be writing. All my WIPs are on my computer. And without knowing exactly when and where I left off, most of what I could write now would be useless. Certainly not enough material there to satisfy these huge bursts of creativity I've been having. Without my WIPs, normally, I would blog, but even my blog ideas and outlines are inaccessible.

So although I hate to say it, I must: I think the blog will be a bit lean for a while. At least until I can fix my laptop and get caught up. Sigh. I was doing so good, too.

Since I can't promise you regular blog posts for a while, I thought I'd at least offer you some samples of what has been seeping out of my crazy brain lately.

Everything about January was different; even the way we met was different. It was after last period. Most everybody had somewhere to go, a sport practice to attend or a bus to grab, and like usual, I stood out: sitting while everyone else walked, waiting while everyone else went and did. There's no point in faking what I was doing, either. Everyone could hear the sound of my mom's raised voice through the door behind us.

(Simon's Story, a novel idea I've had for a while, and am NOT supposed to be writing, given that I already have three WIPs. Ahem ahem.)

The first thing I found was a very ordinary looking "C." And I mean that exactly as it sounds. When I pushed open my front door, I heard something small go clink, and when I drew back, there was wrought-metal letter C lying on my concrete step.

(New story idea -- girl gets a mysterious message throughout the day, spelled out letter by letter. Inspired after reading Robin McKinley's "Sunshine.")

There is such a thing as ultimate power, and I was born with it. People had known it was coming for years. They could tell, because bad magic had grown stronger, and good magic grew weaker. A mixed blessing, they said. It meant ultimate power was coming, and that it would be good. If things were the other way around--bad magic failing, and good magic rising, they would have looked at each other with sad eyes, and known I was evil.

(From "She Ultimate," a notebook short story.)

It is not unusual for wars to be fought over princesses. It is slightly more unusual for wars to be fought between princesses. It is highly irregular, however, for the princesses to compete against each other, as was the case of Princess Marigold and Princess Arriana, of the kingdoms of Lucan and Obstervorn, respectively.

(From "The Princess War," another notebook short story.)

That's all from me. How about you guys. What do you do when your laptop is down? How does one cope?

Truly and always and laptopless,
-Creative A

Why Delaware isn't New York

I think there's something about living in one place your whole life, where you start to feel a bit privileged; you start to think this is the way it should be. And then you go somewhere else, and you scoff. You think to yourself that it's not as warm, as rainy, as cold, as sunny, as it should be. Those aren't the right plants. It's not a beach without palms. Redwoods. Maples.

And what you do, see, is you miss things. If you drive through Colorado wishing it was greener, you miss the inherent beauty of such a stark landscape; you miss how vivid all the reds and golds and rich browns are.

I have always sort of felt this was the case with me personally, but I still can't seem to help it. My family went to Florida once for vacation. It was during the shift between spring and summer, and I was happy to get away from the muddy transition stages of New York. But to my surprise, I found Florida a little sad. There were so many empty stucco buildings painted in whites and pinks and tans. So much sand and scrabbly weeds. So many palm trees with yellow, peeling leaves. I got a little grumpy. I felt like something was missing, but I wasn't quite sure what, until we got back to New York.

I remember bolting out of the car and stumbling into our back lawn, our gorgeously emerald green lawn. All the maple trees had spread their leaves and the boughs swayed, heavy with the abundance of it. It was gorgeous. It was so green. It was lush.

I remember running down to bask in that lushness, sunlight turning the greens transparent or thick with shadow, everything rich and damp and spongy soft, and thinking to myself, I will always love New York. I could never live somewhere where it isn't green. Later vacations to California, the Carolinas, and even Virginia only strengthened my feelings.

Then last August I got accepted to a college in Delaware.

I thought to myself, It can't be too bad. It's not that far away. It will still be green. Right?

Turns out Delaware is green enough, just not snowy enough. Snow is also very important to me. But in Delaware, nobody gets snow until February. I was a bit shell-shocked. No snow meant no white Christmases. No fluffy hummocks of white. No crisp, painfully clear night skies to stand beneath with my chin tipped up, breath crystallizing into clouds.

None of that until February.

winter in NY

The other thing I learned about Delaware -- or at least the upper end of the state -- is that it's not terribly sunny. Even on bright days, there's still this smoky layer across the sky that makes it feel like the sun never actually comes out. I spoke to some residents about this, and they explained it has something to do with New Jersey, how the wind tends to channel down through the cities, spreading all that nasty smog across Delaware. Sigh. Thanks for that, Jersey.

So I basically spent the first few months here pretending I was being optimistic and silently judging how pathetic Delaware could be. It wasn't cold when it was supposed to be cold. And even when it was cold, it refused to snow. (What's the point of cold without snow?) It rained a lot, which was okay, but when it wasn't raining, it was still cloudy. Half the time those clouds turned into fog.

winter in DE

My discomfort went on for some time, until, I don't know when, it kind of stopped. I just got used to living here. And that's when I started noticing the lovely things about Delaware that I hadn't the eyes to see before. For example, that misty layer over the sky? Makes for beautiful sunsets. The fog or whatever disperses the light, both softening and enriching. So the sunsets are these huge, raw, throbbing things that make you want to get out of your car and just…stand there in awe.

And at night, the fog is insane. It's thick and huge and it doesn't rise up from the ground--it hangs overhead like this thick, bruise-colored blanket. There's so many cars and stores that everything lights up with this freakish pink and gold glow. And the roads go rising and falling, so that you feel like you're on this roller coaster, this dark serpent, and it's pressing you up against this terrible black cloud above you, like you might get crushed beneath it.

If that sounds terrifying, it is terrifying--but in a totally awesome, power of nature kind of way.

And there's more, little things: everyone grows the same kind of gorgeous pink roses that smell just delicious. There's a tree that drops these huge, neon-green, soft-ball sized nut things that look a bit like a brain. There's the quick and easy access to so many fascinating places like DC, Philadelphia, and NYC.

larger than life memorial in Princeton, NJ. It's gorgeous up close.

I'm sure as time continues, I'll discover more things--oddities about late Winter, and Spring, and early Summer, and so on, and so forth--that will be amazing and special. I'm sure no matter what state or country or country I go to, I will find this to always be true. While I can't help identifying deeply with New York, I really am trying to appreciate other areas for what makes them unique. I don't just want to see how they look on the surface. I don't want to limit my knowledge to a place's tourist facade. I want to know it as it really is, as it's meant to be known.

I'm certain this is a writer thing. What I'm realizing is, there's a story in every place I live--maybe this story has more green, or this one has more sun, but it's still there, if I look close enough. And the writer in me refuses to be satisfied with anything less than the whole story.

I know this is a silly question, but I'm honestly curious to know--is there somewhere special, perhaps where you grew up, that you judge all other places against? What do you think about snow/no snow/learning to appreciate a place for what makes it unique? Share. I love it when people share.

Truly and always,
-Creative A

Have a Little Music

Some of you very perceptive followers may have noticed I didn't post this past week, like I'm supposed to. Or maybe not. Maybe I just outed myself.

Well, either way, I'm sure you'll be delighted to know that I actually had a few posts planned, and I had a whole day cleared out for it, and everything. Then something wonderful and amazing happened. I had a Creative Explosion. I suddenly, abruptly, at 9:20 at night, had torrents of words spilling out of me, and, well...

I never did get around to writing your post.

But I made a ton of progress in Shutterbug Meets (Invisible) Girl. As in, record-making progress. And I'm happy, and I want you all to be happy, too.

So here are some songs that make me happy. (I know I totally just cheated there. Let's both pretend we didn't notice. Maybe I'll distract you by saying that these songs have been my soundtrack for Shutterbug Meets (Invisible) Girl.)



I feel like this song was made for coffeeshop writers. Who doesn't go to a coffeeshop, and dream, and think about about the people they see there?




Just heard this for the first time recently. Love the chorus!




This is my current anthem for Adelle, the heroine of Shutterbug Meets (Invisible) Girl, but also a completely cute song.




Absolutely love this one. The lyrics are gorgeous and stunning, and it's part of what inspired me to include a male POV in Shutterbug. The intensity is itself heartbreaking.



Truly and always,
-Creative A

If It Isn't Working, Try Playing

People start out writing for different reasons, but in my experience, many people are just experimenting at first. They want to see if they can do it; they've always liked books; they have an idea. So they write. They’re just playing.

But every writer starts to grow up at some point. This is a business. We’re professionals. We can't afford to play. Does it have a hook? Is it marketable? Is it mainstream? Will it sell? The professional writer needs to consider such things.

I wonder though, if in our effort to transform into professional, publishable authors, we get a few things backwards. If playing is perhaps just as essential as being marketable.

Let me back up for a moment, here, and try to define "playing." Because anyone can say, "Oh yes, I play. Look! I'll put an adverb in. I REALLY like to play. See? Gosh, that was fun. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go edit it out."

That's not what I mean by playing. I don't mean indulging oneself every so often. I'm talking that absolutely ridiculous plot you’ve had floating around in your head for ages—you know, the one with the octopus apocalypse? The one nobody but you would enjoy? Writing it would be a complete waste, and of course you’ll never bother. But it’s just fun to think about.

Have you ever had one of those ideas? I did. It surfaced about three years ago, when I revolutionized my writing process to reduce self-induced pressure. I decided to simplify. Take a break. In the past, I always pressured myself to start the next project, but this time, I vowed to wait and let things play out naturally.

A month passed.

A second month passed.

I got a little antsy. Still, no serious ideas came to me. I toyed but none stuck. True to my vow, I let them go and continued waiting.

A third month passed.

I couldn’t bear not writing anymore. I was bored, and I was hungry, and I wanted story. I opened a word doc. In sheer desperation I wrote the beginning to one of my favorite daydreams--a mysterious flying girl who falls to earth.

It wasn’t high premise. It wasn’t serious at all. But it was fun. I was happy as a kid mucking around in a mud puddle. Like the Dread Pirate Roberts to Westley in Princess Bride, I finished each writing session thinking, “Made good progress today. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Might kill it in the morning.”

I never did kill it, though. The more I wrote, the better it got, and I finally had to admit MIRRORPASS was a real novel. And now it turns out MIRRORPASS is one of the most serious novels I’ve ever written. Of course I managed to conveniently forget I could ever be that unprofessional. Until now.

With this new year, I find myself faced with the dilemma once again: choose a serious project, or a fun project?

Was MIRRORPASS a one-time fluke, I wonder, or did I stumble upon something crucial, something true?

Here’s how I see it.

Playing frees you from all expectations.

When you’re “just playing,” you don’t expect the idea to go anywhere. Nobody ever needs to see it but you. It sets you free to explore. And though we often forget this, exploring is the whole point of a first draft.

It’s just for fun—which is why it IS fun.

Be honest. Sometimes, writing a novel because you want to get published sucks the actual fun out of writing. Writing is fun again when you write with the purpose of enjoying yourself. This is the story you'd tell yourself late at night, the story you want to read curled up by a fireplace when it snows outside. It doesn't matter if it's a Harry Potter ripoff or not, as long as you enjoy it.

Playing is full of possibility.

Some things, like evil scientists, are so clichéd that you just don’t write about them. But I happen to love evil scientists. MIRROPASS was like my fantasy novel, and I could do whatever I wanted with it, so I included evil scientists. And government chases. And crazy escapes. And special abilities. I felt free to do that because I knew this was my novel to have fun with.

A powerful end result.

The combination of these elements--the privacy, the freedom, the indulgence in possibility, the purity of writing what you enjoy and enjoying what you write--combine to create something explosive. Suddenly, this idea is serious. It is high concept. It is marketable.

How did that happen? If you look closely, “playing” is recommended by more than one rule of writing.

• Write what you know
• Write what you’re passionate about
• Write crappy first drafts
• If you don’t enjoy the story, readers won’t, either
• Turn off the internal editor
• BIC. (Don’t over-think it.)

I hear these rules all the time, and I’m sure you do, too. But I think we lose sight of what’s really being said here; that we need to stop worrying about being serious writers, and we need to just play. Enjoy ourselves. Just play.

Because when you play, you don't care about crappy first drafts; you write what you think about most often, and what you enjoy, what you're passionate it about; you don't care about the internal editor, and you're not overthinking.

You're having fun.

Just playing.

Who's to say, where it will take you?


All right gang, pitch in. Do you ever write that unmarketable idea just for fun? WAS it fun? Did you end up trunking it, or taking it seriously by the end? And even if you did trunk it, do you think it was worth it?

What do you all think about playing?


Truly and always,
Creative A