Filling and Spilling, The Writer's Journey

photo courtesy of sxc.hu

"We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing 

how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." --Ray Bradbury

Still on the journey, how about you? Shall we discuss our progress over a cup of coffee? Sugar and cream with that, or black?

(Love this Ray Bradbury quote!)

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Broccoli and Intuition

"Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level." 
                                                                                                                 --Joyce Brothers

photo: scx.hu

A group of us friends get together periodically for a meal and movie, hosting in our homes in turn. We've done this for so long, toddlers have grown up and gotten married. Sometime ago we decided to do themed dinners--starting with international meals where everyone brought a dish linked to a chosen country. From that idea we moved to more unusual themes. For example, for this last get-together our hostess emailed: "It's the middle of winter, and we need a little sunshine. Let's do 'lemon and lime.'"

For my part I researched and came up with an elaborate recipe called "lemon spaghetti." It involved said spaghetti, steamed broccoli, carrots, and red bell peppers, and a lemon-yogurt dressing. And then I came down with a nasty head cold. My instincts told me I was not going to be able to go, let alone make this dish.

Hubby (who was not sick) stepped up. "Can I adapt the recipe, make something easy?" he asked. "That way I can take a dish when I go." We settled on steamed broccoli with sauteed garlic and a splash of lemon juice. Sufficient for the occasion and, it turns out, well received.

I only share this because the incident reminded me of a favorite passage from Anne Lamott's popular book on writing, Bird by Bird, in the chapter called (fittingly), "Broccoli." 

She writes: "There's an old Mel  Brooks routine...where the psychiatrist tells his patient, 'Listen to your broccoli, and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it.' And when I first tell my students this, they look at me as if things have clearly begun to deteriorate. But it is as important a concept in writing as it is in real life. It means, of course, that when you don't know what to do, when you don't know whether your character would do this or that, you get quiet and try to hear that still small voice inside. It will tell you what to do..."

In other words, rely on your "intuition."

Intuition (n.)--"the act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; a perceptive insight."

Ms. Lamott goes on to say that intuition, however, won't kick in if we quit too soon. You sit down, she says, at say 9:15 a.m. and you only have your rational mind to guide you. Then, if you're having a bad day, you crash and burn within a half hour and give up. But "if you stick it out, the image or situation might come to you that would wedge the door open for a character, after which you would only have to get out of the way. Because then the character could come forward and speak and might say something important...and your plot might suddenly fall into place."

"You get your confidence and intuition back," she adds, "by trusting yourself. You get your intuition back when you make space for it...You might have to coax it (since intuition is "a little shy")...(but) try to calm down, get quiet, breathe, and listen...Train yourself to hear that small inner voice."

Tips then on tapping into our intuition:

Stay in chair.

Don't quit.

Stick it out.

Trust yourself.

Make space.

Get quiet.

Breathe.

Listen.

And, in conclusion, "Listen to your broccoli. Maybe it will know what to do. Then, if you've worked in good faith for a couple of hours but cannot hear it today, have some lunch."

Ha. Did you know you could learn so much about writing by embracing a hunk of broccoli? How much do you depend on intuition in your writing? Have you consciously tried to train yourself to hear that small inner voice? Have you given your intuition a name?

Next assignment: Name your intuition, and tell us why that name "speaks" to you!

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6 Keys to Opening Up New Possibilities in Your Story

"What makes familiar things worth writing about is that we are able to find a way to see them new, both for us and the people we write for." --Bruce Ballenger

Some years ago we had a mail-delivery problem when a bird built its nest in our mailbox. A problem with a simple solution, it would seem. Just pull the nest out and discard. But when, the next day, we observed how the bird flew down, perched on the box, opened the lid with its beak and subsequently made several trips to deposit more nest-building straw inside, we knew we had to do something. After all, how many times could we pull out the bird's work only to see it come back and start all over? We didn't have the heart for that.

Thankfully, at about the same time, we happened to hear a park naturalist speak at the local library. During the Q&A session, I asked for advice.

"The key," the naturalist said, "is to put a brick in the mailbox. It will change the space so that the bird will want to look for a new home. Hopefully a place that's a better fit for him--and you."

A brick? It was worth a try. And, happy ending, the bird soon disappeared, never again to take up residence in our box.

Remembering the incident prompted me to wonder what keys we writers might use in dealing with some of our writing problems--problems like bogging middles, lackluster writing, stories that seem to go nowhere--or that elusive, "something just ain't working" feeling. How can we change the "space" of the piece so that we look at it differently, see new possibilities? Some ideas:

1. Experiment with point of view.  This is a suggestion made by Ann Whitford Paul in Writing Picture Books. "Rewrite the opening paragraph in your story," she says, "in different forms." In other words, switch things around. If you're writing in first person, change to third--or even second. Single POV? Try multiple. Change your POV character. "While you’re writing these different opening paragraphs," she adds, "be playful. Let your imagination run wild. See how your experiments will take your story in new and surprising directions."

2. "Go Topsy-Turvey." This is how Jane Yolen puts it in Take Joy, A Writer’s Guide to Loving the Craft. “Writers know that if they turn a picture upside down, the central shapes are better exposed. No longer concerned with the drawing...what comes through is the composition itself." She acknowledges that you cannot very well read a book upside down, but you can look at its composition differently. For example, "Take one of your chapters, and reread what you've written with all the modifiers blocked out. Declare war on adverbs. Change your main character's gender. Turn a prose paragraph into lines of poetry to see how you've overwritten it...When we force ourselves to go topsy-turvy, we can see anew what is on the page."

3. Play "How Many Endings?". This is a personal favorite--an exercise I did that opened up a whole new realm of possibilities in my writing. In How to Write with the Skill of a Master and the Genius of a Child, Marshall J. Cook says this: "Select a finished story—your own or somebody else’s—and play the ‘How Many Endings?’ game. How many different ways could you end that story? Don’t judge, analyze, or otherwise evaluate your endings as you jot them down. And don’t bother polishing the prose. Just capture the idea. When you think you can’t think of any more endings, think of one more." At this point I was sweating, but I did it--one more idea--and it was by far the best.

4. Vary your writing tools. This idea came from the March/April 2011 SCBWI Bulletin, in an  article titled, "Rhythm and Flow in a Writer’s Life" by Pedro De Alcantara: “Writing by hand has a different rhythm and feel from typing at a manual typewriter or at a computer. And writing by hand on unlined pages is different from writing by hand on lined paper. Alternate using pens, pencils, various notebooks, computers, Post-its, and other media. Each writing tool triggers your creativity in distinctive ways."

5. Grab your camera. Bruce Ballenger, in Discovering the Writer Within, proposes taking a series of pictures of an object of choice--making each shot different by varying the angle, distance, lighting. Print the pictures, spread them out, and ask yourself, "Do any of the images help me to see my familiar object in a new way?"

6. Change your space. Again, from Ballenger: "Go for walks, swim, run, go to a movie, read. Do anything but write for a day or so...(and) don't allow yourself to indulge in negativity."

Experiment. Turn things topsy-turvey. Go a step deeper when you think you've given it all you've got. Vary your approach. Play with images. Change your own space to make room in your head for solutions. Just a handful of ideas. When troublesome birds build nests in your head and hamper your writerly deliveries, what are some of the keys you turn to?