The Lure of Open Windows

Posted on November 3, 2010 by waxings

I’ve never been one for planning.  Not when I’m off duty. In strategic games like chess or Scrabble, I rarely think beyond the next move or two; in life generally, I’m much the same. I may have a hazy idea of where I’d like to end up, but mapping the journey from A to B in minute detail is beyond me. I’m too impatient – I want to get to what happens next. I’d rather just get on with it and trust that instinct will keep me heading in the right direction.

Don’t get me wrong. Professionally, my attention to detail borders on obsessive; my control freakery, well, a little out of control. But when it comes to my personal life, I like to climb through the nearest open window and find out what’s on the other side. It’s rarely what I expect – but nearly always worth the diversion. Turns out my writing develops in much the same way.

A few days ago I sat down with a simple idea in my head – a beautiful golden-haired child who is adored, doted upon all the years of his life until he grows into an irresistibly charming man who has never known rejection, who believes every  admiring compliment ever paid to him and whose self-confidence is without limit. I wanted to write about what happens to this man after his beauty fades.

So I began. As usual, I had no plan, just this general concept of a character. I liked the idea and was interested to learn more about this man, his circumstance, how others responded to him. I tapped away at the keyboard all that afternoon and his story gradually came to life. Except – it wasn’t at all what I expected.

At the end of the very first line, the character, the scene, the entire story, took a collective and utterly unexpected leap through the nearest window and landed miles from the destination I had intended. The original character in my head, roughly sketched as he was, morphed into another creature entirely. The story’s end left me incredulous. How did that happen?

More experienced writers will nod sagely. Apparently it is common for characters to take over. For stories to write themselves in unexpected directions. Even when you have a plan.

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The Sound of Silence

Posted on October 22, 2010 by waxings

How do you describe silence?

How to evoke the stillness of the early morning, when it feels like even the grass and the trees are asleep and you are the only living creature looking out at the crisp majesty of the world?

Or the heaviness of the silence when you’re at home alone, darkness crowding at the edges of the warm halo from your bedside lamp, malevolent shadows lurking just out of sight, impotent until you  foolishly extinguish the banishing light?

Or the soundless shattering of your heart into a thousand painful shards when all hope of joy is extinguished by a single, heedless rejection?

Some of my favourite books have had very little in the way of dialogue. Instead, skilful writers have invoked the power of silence to transport readers into the worlds of their creation.

Their writing is often spare, their sentences short and clean. They choose words of deceptive simplicity and combine them with elegance in descriptive sentences that, while brief, still saturate the mind with colour and meaning.  The plot-lines are similarly sparse, action often confined to the hearts and minds of the protagonists.

There are no superfluous words to distract from the image or emotion wrought. The reader, newly arrived at the scene, is left to experience it in silence, to look around and notice the details, perhaps to draw from their own experience for additional depth and texture.

This morning, a good friend posted an extract from his book-in-progress, Post-Mortem. Like the writing I describe above, this work is simple, powerful for the absence of flourish. It is a beautiful piece of writing – evocative, heart-wrenching and flooded with silence.

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Desperately Seeking Daniel

Posted on October 20, 2010 by waxings

Late last night, I was hit with a game-changing revelation. (Note to distributors of insight: there’s no shame in throwing under-arm, people.)

It turns out, when you’re trying to think of something to write about – wait for it, this is big – squinting at a blank screen and frowning intensely in pretend concentration DOES NOT HELP. True. I’m not kidding. I can hardly believe it myself.

As I picked myself up from the floor after this revelatory lightning bolt – still frowning fiercely because that’s quite an appropriate facial expression when one’s core beliefs have been shattered – I realised I needed some help with this creativity caper.

So I went searching through the interspace for some advice on finding a muse, you know, like Olivia Newton John in that movie about muses that roller-skate. Personally, I’d prefer Daniel Craig, not roller-skating, maybe emerging powerfully from the waves, a look of intense manly musing in his eyes…mmm, now that would be inspiring…sorry, what was I talking about?  Oh yes, the interspace.

The first piece of advice I came across was the usefully titled “How To Call In Your Writing Muse”. “Jackpot!” I said to myself. With characteristic efficiency, I picked up my phone as I began reading, the other hand hovering over the keypad, prepared to speed-dial my muse – let’s call him Daniel – the very instant his contact details were revealed.

Imagine my disappointment when the instructions began with a list of “Things You’ll Need”, including athletic shoes, running clothes, journals, cassette tape recorders, aromatherapy candles, candles, bubble baths, sandlewood incense, music for zen meditation, notebook papers, pens and pencils, printer paper and candles.

It was beginning to look like a plan to stalk, chase down and then seduce the real Daniel Craig with candle-lit bubble baths until he gave in and used the pens and pencils provided to jot some inspirational ideas in the notebooks. Not quite what I had in mind but I read on.

Step 1: “Perform your own special ritual before you sit down to write. Light a candle, take a bubble bath, burn incense or meditate. The action will “open the door” to the world of spirit and the mysteries of imagination.” (Are you kidding? I barely manage a shower every day. There’s no way I have time for a bubble bath. And incense gives me a headache.)

Step 2: “Carry a small pad of paper and a pen with you at all times. You want your muse to know you are prepared for her visit.” (Okay, that I can do. Will try to keep it away from the mushy two-day old banana the boy-child half-ate at the shops and that has been unpleasantly odourising my bag since.)

Step 3: “Keep a notebook or journal next to your bed to write down interesting dreams. Your muse may visit you as you sleep and give you great ideas.” (Sorry, sleep is out of the question. My children are resolute on this point.)

Step 4: “Take care of your body, the ‘temple’ that hosts your writing muse. Eat regular, healthy meals and exercise daily.” (I’m thinking Daniel takes good care of his ‘temple’ already…mmm)

Step 5: “Surround yourself with positive people who support your creativity and writing life.” (Do the positive voices in my head count?)

Step 6: “Try not to be too perfectionistic with your writing. At least sometimes, let yourself write first and edit later. Your muse likes to visit when your ‘inner critic’ is turned off.” (Firstly, irrelevant – see all the writing above. Secondly, “perfectionistic”? Thirdly, that last bit sounds a little old-style sexist. Next you’ll be wanting me to have his pipe and slippers ready!)

To be honest, this advice didn’t really do it for me. To be really honest, they lost me at athletic shoes and running clothes.

So tonight, it’s back to the squinting and the frowning – unless you’ve got Daniel Craig’s number?

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The Secret to Great Make-Up

Posted on October 19, 2010 by waxings

Think of your favourite book (or books if, like me, your literary affections are fickle). Now think about why you love it.

I’ll bet the first thought to mind is not ‘because it’s so well written’. That may be one of the reasons it made your top 10 – chances are that it was written very well – but the quality of writing is very rarely the reason a book makes its way to the top of the favourites stack.

The exquisite pain of adolescent love or the hard, urgent lips of a long-frustrated lover; the fresh, salty sting of ocean spray on our faces or the hot breath of pursuing demons on our goose-pimpled necks; these are the sorts of things we remember from our favourite books.

Writing is a lot like applying make-up. Done skilfully, the effect is breath-taking, the technique too subtle to be remarked upon. It’s the distinction between “you look beautiful” and “your make-up looks great”.

The best writing puts focus where it is supposed to be – on the story and the reactions it evokes in readers lost in sights, sounds and emotions rendered by the author with deft, invisible brush-strokes.

There are rare exceptions, like Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang, written in the semi-literate style of the fictional narrator. The technique is obvious, even confronting, to the reader, who might, at first, struggle to concentrate on the story given the constant distraction of having to decipher the text. Even then, once the reader becomes familiar with the unusual presentation, he or she becomes absorbed and the author’s words recede into the colourful world they describe.

For the most part, good writing does not announce itself. It remains in the background, an influential but silent partner. The star of the show is always the story.

Readers don’t buy books because they are well written. They are interested in what is being said.

Never has a well-written book sold out without a decent creative hook – an unusual angle, a strong concept, a heavy whack of inspiration. But I have known, and read, many wildly successful books in which the writing was pretty ordinary. I have even enjoyed some of them.

That is not to say writing technique is unimportant. It takes skill to write invisibly. Writing so bad as to be distracting can be crippling to anything less than a stunningly original concept. But if you haven’t got a good story to tell, no amount of clever writing is going to help.

That’s why so many competent writers remain unrecognised, spending hours, days, even years staring hopelessly at blank screens or battling desperately with armies of uncooperative words.

Inspiration is an elusive mistress. Even when she does turn up, most days, her make-up is a little obvious.

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Voicing A Writer’s Frustration

Posted on October 14, 2010 by waxings

I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn’t realize that there is something called originality and your own voice. ~ Amy Tan

There’s something about outing yourself as a ‘writer’ – in the creative sense – that renders all subsequent writing self-consciously clunky, as if to disprove such a bold claim. At least, that’s what has happened to me.

I’m not a great writer, far from it. But I thought I was getting somewhere, slowly traversing that stage of mimicry through which most writers pass before, ideally, emerging triumphant with their own voices.  Frustratingly, my writing confidence has collapsed at the prospect of public scrutiny – ironic given my previous incarnation as a print journalist.

The struggle to regain a sense of flow and originality to my words in recent days has included an extended meditation on the nature of ‘voice’ and, as is my wont, a search through the interspace for enlightenment.

Many writers have published their thoughts on the challenge of ‘voice’. As with the best of advice, the most useful suggestion I found seems obvious now that it has been articulated.  

Charlotte Rains Dixon, who blogs on Wordstrumpet, says:

…the more you write, the more likely you are to find your personal style…Honestly, it all comes down to writing. In a pinch, choose quantity over quality. Let it rip, baby. That’s what God invented the art of rewriting for.

This is the woman to blame for the deluge of words to come.

Let it rip.

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Diary of Events

Posted on October 13, 2010 by waxings

No blog tonight as I am absolutely exhausted after compiling a calendar of writers’ festivals and other wordy events in Australia and beyond for 2010 and 2011.

You would think someone had done this already, but I can assure you after a day of Googling that this is the best compilation of such dates you will find in terms of Australian activities plus a smattering of international.

I will continue to update the diary – especially with international dates, of which there were too many to include in this first push.

Stand by for a similarly helpful resource listing writing competitions and the like.

If you can suggest any additions for either list, please send the details, with links if possible, to waxings.blog@gmail.com .

Who says I don’t share the love?

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Scratching the Night Itch

Posted on October 12, 2010 by waxings

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.  But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can. – Samuel Lover, Handy Andy, 1842

As sleepy silence falls over the rest of the house, I find myself contemplating the lot of part-time writers, ‘hobby’ writers – those who must contend with a day-job and/or waiting for the kids to finally rest their noisy, demanding heads before stealing precious ‘me time’ to play with words.

The day finally over, we throw ourselves in front of these glowing screens with relief, revelling in the silence and the freedom, finally, to write without distraction. Well, except for the occasional chat with another night-owl or perhaps a friend who has just leapt out of bed on the daylight side of the world. Maybe a quick break for a cup of tea and a biscuit or seven; or a fossick for that bag of chocolate freckles at the back of the freezer. But that’s all part of the creative process.

My point is, we all persist in writing whether we have the time to or not. If ‘not’, we do it anyway, sacrificing rest and enduring the early morning joie de vivre of all-night sleepers with stoicism, mostly, and recognition that this is the price we must pay for what we do.

And I say to all my fellow ‘write-owls’ – bravo! (yawn)

 (*I don’t care what anyone says, I like to begin a sentence with a conjunction now and again. It’s all part of the ‘flow’.) 

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Rioting in Greece

Posted on October 10, 2010 by waxings

A writer friend sent me a link that has rent my fantasy world asunder.

Where once I dreamt of warm days on a poolside lounge, a teetering pile of books and the time to devour them in turn, interrupted only by the serving of cocktails and a daily massage, my heart’s desire is now a writing holiday in Greece.

The link was to Skyros writing holidays. The website descriptions – and sun-drenched pictures of happy holiday-makers I presume to be successful writers – are seductive.

…described by the Guardian as Number 1 of the World’s Best 5 Writing Holidays…offers writers, thinkers and dabblers the opportunity to learn from distinguished authors, share the joys and struggles of the creative writing process, discover their strengths and polish their skills.

Courses convene for up to three hours every morning. They may include group and individual exercises, feedback sessions, varying scenic locations and always camaraderie and fun.

The site quotes a succinct Angela Neustatter, of The Times: ‘Intellectual rigour, spiritual encounters and good old-fashioned rioting in the evening’.

A Greek island. Distinguished mentors. Evening riots.

I’m sold. Sign me up. Who else is coming?

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And So We Begin..

Posted on October 10, 2010 by waxings

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamouring to become visible.  ~Vladimir Nabakov

After years of being haunted by these ghostly words, I have decided to turn and face my fears. I will heed their call for life and finally discover, for better or worse, what kind of writer I am. The prospect is terrifying.

I recently discovered a community of writers whose love of words leads them to create clever sentences every day in response to a word challenge. As simple as it seems, the daily discipline and the warm support of this talented company has reawakened my love of writing and given me the confidence to tackle bigger challenges.

The next step is Waxings, which I hope will provide inspiration, encouragement, useful writing resources and the comfort of knowing we are not alone in our uncertainty and boundless capacity for procrastination.

With thanks to my friends at In A Sentence.

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