Day 14: The Issue of Fear

Fear plagues us creatively.

I've just done some writing on my new book and I am trying a few new things. But I find my critic talking to me and telling me that its crap and noone will like it. The usual BS that a critique in a particularly nasty mood comes up with when he wants to sap your of your creative energy for the day.

Why I am afraid? Ultimately its an ego thing. After all these years of writing I still have little confidence in myself. I hear my English 11 teacher's voice telling me that I don't write as well as my older brother and sister (thanks for that Mrs. W.). But I stop myself and I ask myself a couple of important questions. Is my story compelling? The answer is yes. My critique groups and fellow writers tell me that.

Why don't I believe them? Again it's an ego thing. In my arrogance, I think I know more than them. I have to because they'd see what a bunch of crap that I write. They're off a little bit on the intellectual side. Got to be. They like my stuff.

Its a vicious cricle. In the end I fear rejection like anyone else and that is ultimately what our inner critique is protecting us against.

So what do you do? You confront your fear and push through. Take chances. Put the words on the paper and live fearlessly. Well fearlessly until tomorrow or the next day when that voice tells you again that you write crap and that people are going to see it for what it is, ridiculing your efforts. Inner critiques are persistent buggers apparently requiring very little negative energy to live their days in the shadows of your mind. A little believe in their talk each day goes a long way. But they are not necessarily truthful.

Believe in your work. Live fearless. Starve the buggers.

Day 13: When the Well Runs Dry

What happens when you run out of things to say?

A bit of a loaded rhetorical question for a blog that prides itself on saying something every day. It's a bit of a trick question too because you never run out of things to say, only a momentary lapse in useable images or words to express them.

If you're feeling creatively empty, fill your well again by doing something fun: go to a movie, revisit your favorite book, go for a walk, go to the aquariam, look at old photos, remember a time when you were less stressed, listen to music, go out fior Thai food or sushi, dance, sit on your back porch and look out at the wonders around you...

You get the drift. Stories and ideas are everywhere. You just have to put yourself in the mindset to find and rediscover them.

Day 12: With a Little Help From My Friends

Ringo say it best when he said he could go far 'with a little help from my friends.'

Every one needs one or two close friends to help us spur on to greater creative heights. These people should be supportive but truthful. They need to tell you what works and what doesn't work in any given piece of work. As the artist you need to accept that your friends are always looking after your back and to give serious thought to their heart-felt critiques. Accept them with the same intention in which they are given - with love.

'With a little help from your friends', you can go far.

Day 11: Reworking an Old Idea and Having Fun

I was in a form class today. The poetry instructor had us working on some different forms. One was sestina. The group read a modern one where the poet ran together a few stanzas. I should mention that a sestina has a distinct pattern or word repeats and is 39 lines normally. This change got me thinking, thinking outside the box: a great place to play. I wondered to myself what would happen if you used single words as a line and that got me thinking about making a sestina stanza one line.

I wrote a tongue in cheek poem about Jack the Ripper in a dream state. What would a serial killer dream? I called it Ripper's Repose and I read it from time to time at readings. It goes as follows:

Rip
Flip
Flop
Hack Jack Hack
Wack Jack Wack

Well you need six words for a Sestina. Here's my version of my minimalist Sestina:

Ripper's Repose #2

Rip flip flop hack Jack wack
Wack rip Jack flip hack flop
Flop wack hack rip flip Jack
Jack flop flip wack rip hack
Hack Jack rip flop wack flip
Flip hack wack Jack flop rip

Flip Jack hack
Flop wack rip

I think this draft shows the torrid insane mind of a serial killer: quick harsh words, very visual.

I probably will change the wording of the final two lines to reflect the first line as it exists. That will result in the wording order changing throughout the poem. I just like the flow of the first line. Its a better flow for the end line. I'll have to look at puncuation as well.

On a different note, I didn't read this in class because my confidence, my inner critique didn't let me. Should have shut him up and experimented. After all it's all for fun and noone gets anywhere staying quiet. Love your art.Sing it out whenever you get the chance. This was one blown chance for me.

Day 10: Busy Day Poetry

One of those days so here's a poem:

The Twenty-First Century

No lines, instant access

Credit cards, maximum debt

Don’t pay for twenty four months

We are a society of Easy Bake Ovens

Desserts prepared in five minutes

With optional drizzle

Corporate mergers, restructurings, and layoffs

Pressures to stretch a forty hour work week

Into a 24/7 existence

Technology expands our work

More in less replaces the corporate motto

Of pride in achievement and product

A job worth doing never gets done

Time stolen with maintained pressure

Insures mediocrity

Typewriters, television dials and rotary phones

Ghosts of a  simpler life

Purged by technology to the graveyard of inefficiency

Children speak in techno-babel

Junkies to the latest electronic drug

Twitter, Facebook; instantaneous communication

No time for reflection; just regret

Within cyber bars we look

For live-long commitment via email and texting

We are a society of visual dialogue

Tactile relationships lost on a sea of cable and pulses

Telephone numbers programmed to eliminate memory

Hands free or no drive zones necessitates

A trip to Best Buy for the latest electronic gadget

With lessons of patience

No longer taught by over-whelmed parents

We stay connected; in tune for immediate gratification

Desensitized to our differences by the net

Cultures blur and individuality is lost

I choose to limit my technology

For when I am alone

I reflect

And find the best of myself

Without wires, without access

Without the chirps and beeps of modern society

I regain myself

I find my solitude, my god, my peace

Day 9: Practice What You Preach

I looked at yesterday's blog. Live fearless I said. Take chances. Expand your creative horizons. Not the exact words but you get the point. Well, it's time to take my own advice and live fearless.

I spend most of my writing time with a mystery at the present time but my first love from a creative point of view is poetry and will probably always be poetry. I love the images one can create in a few words and how the emotions of what you are writing about is right there on the surface, in the flesh for everyone to see. Nothing hidden. The truth written for all to see. So at the end of this post I am going to put up one of my longer works in draft. I wrote it during a poetry class I took in the fall. The thing about my poetry is that I have no idea whether it is good, bad, or indifferent. I guess I really should not care as it is a question for me as an artist whether I like it. Apparently I do and I was happy that to create it. Not perfect yet. Certainly not ready for publication but I have to remember what is the purpose of this blog: to examine my creative process and to facilitate your reflection on yours. So if I hide my work because I am afraid of its rejection or failures as a piece then I am a complete hypocrite in what I write. That's not who I am so I give you an excerpt from a poem with the working title 'The Wasteland.' (My apologies to Eliot). This is all I have written at this point but I will add over the coming months.

Excerpt from “The Wasteland”  

We stand

One by one

One hundred by one hundred

Thousands by thousands

A million strong

As sure as it is one

We are the lost, the incomplete

We are the teachers,

Doctors, electricians, chemists, and vets

The builders, miners, hunters and fishers

The architects, inventors, foresters, and farmers

Painters, sculptors, composers,

Poets, philosophers, and saints

Slain before our time

Our gifts unperfected

Connected, we search for our peace

But find none, for

We are beset by our regret

Tormented by our truths

We have seen the blood of many

But the blood of none stains our souls

We are valour, duty, and courage

But we are these things in vain

Pawns, sacrifices for the corrupted

But not for the good of our mothers,

Our sisters, brothers, wives, sons and daughters

Nor for our neighbours or our friends

We have died on soil unknown to our feet

We have died in battles unrelated to our hearts

We are the dead

We are your comrades in arms

Taken in our prime

Memories only to those we loved

And who loved us at home and afar.

While he is old school I take a lot of influence from Whitman in some of my work. Always open to comments about what you think about the work

Day 8: Fearless

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."

                                                                                Joseph Chilton Pearce

Courage is an attribute that an artist must have. Courage to express that which needs to be expressed. Courage to risk. Courage to take the chance to do something that has never been done before in the face of others telling you that it can't be done.

Live your life fearless. Live your life creative.

Day 7: Critique Groups

A good critique group is worth it's weight in gold. Find people to work with who are not afraid to tell you honestly in a nurturing environment what are your strengths and weaknesses in your work. Find people who want to see you succeed as much as they want to succeed. Be prepared to work hard with them to improve your work and their work.

A good critique group is one where there is give and take.

You should get some new ideas to help your writing or your story at every meeting or the group is not doing it's job for you.

I wonder whether you need to provide the obligatory 'I enjoyed your work' or 'That was nice' if you are in a trusting hard working group. I think the sandwich critique really doesn't have a place in a good critique group where there is honesty amongst it's members. Tell them about the stuff that works and the stuff that needs another look.

Above all, leave your ego at the door and work hard at improving your work and your trusted group members' works. Everyone will grow artistically in leaps and bounds.

Day 6: Criticism Moves You Places

Giving your work to trusted readers can move it to higher levels. Always be open to good criticism. But what is good criticism?

Positive criticism is that which is offered sincerely in the hopes of giving you ideas that can improve a piece. Good criticism is not offering another perspective on where a story should go. Good criticism does not seek to change the intention of the writer.

You may be told to go deeper with your work. This is code for suggesting that you can provide your reader with more intimate involvement with your characters. While potentially deflating, it is excellent criticism as it tells you that the reader thinks you can give more of your characters and more of yourself into your work.

If your critiquer offers criticsm but cannot articulate why they don't like x or y in your story, you need to look hard about what is being offered.

To grow creatively, we sometimes need to prodded by gentle friends. Look at what is being offered and make your own choice. Does the suggestion potentially improve your work? That is a question for you to think about and answer as the artist. Just be open to the ideas offered by good criticism. In the end, it's up to you.

Day 5: What Lurks in the Shadows?

Your inner critic is always lurking in the shadows, whispering to you with no face visible to your eyes. What can you do about it? I think everyone should embrace your inner critic. Hear its voice. Bring it out of the shadows so you can see its face. To paraphrase an old saying: Know your friends but know your enemy better. Give your inner critic a name. Find out what makes it tick. With knowledge you can confront your critic and possibly learn from it.

Here's a good exercise. Write a descriptive paragraph outlining everything you can about your inner critic. Provide as much detail as possible. Shine your beacon on it. Like most bullies, your inner critic will runaway when confronted by you. Take it a step further. Make a doll or a drawing of your inner critic. Put it in your writing space. Make fun of your inner critic daily. Bully it back. Talk to it and tell it that you're not listening today.

Day 4 - Where Does It All come From?

Have you ever sat back to consider how we generate ideas and where the ideas actually come from. In times long past, one thought the words came on the breath of god. The writer, poet, or composer acted as a lowly transcriber of words conveyed by a higher being: chosen by divinity to pass on thair art.

A conforting thought to the deeply religious. Not particularly helpful in answering the question.

I don't know why Mozart was able to envision and hear his music fully formed or what spurred Shakespeare to write his sonnets but I find the question of where it comes from fascinating.

On a personal level I wonder why I come up with a variety of ideas for stories that I write, why I am able to see the story played out in vivid detail in my head simply needing to transcribe what I see playing out in my personal movie theatre of my mind. I think I will pursue the answer to this question for the remainder of my life and will likely never find the answer. It is a journey that is exciting. Perhaps the answer does not lie in finding the answer but marvelling in the process that is new and fresh every time it happens.

I'm posting another draft poem of mine. Where did it come from? Why did I write it? I don't know. All I know is that it was there one day and needed to be expressed by me at the time.

Litany

I am a man

With a benevolent god

Who reminds me daily

Of my shortcomings

My weaknesses and my strengths

He reminds me that I am human

A joyful state of being

  

Day 3 - You Don't Have To Be an Artist To Be Creative

'Imagination is more important than knowledge.'

An interesting thought. Do you agree? At the seed of imagination is wonder. I wonder how that works? I wonder if I try it this way what will happen? I wonder if I write my story this way...

All the knowledge about the mechanics of writing and various issues of poetics isn't going to make you a great writer or poet. A vivid imagination exercised daily will. It will take you to places that no one knows about until you discover them. You are a courageous explorer. Your imagination will let you see the questions that you wonder about from new and unique perspectives. Imagination expands our knowledge.

Use your imagination fearlessly each day in all aspects of your life and you will be creative.

Who said imagination is more important than knowledge? Albert Einstein. I don't think anyone could disagree. Develop your imagination daily. There are no wrong ways of using it, just different perspectives.

Day 2 Thinking About a Box

The only good thing about boxes is what they hold inside. You never know what's in a box until you take it out. Keeping it in the box is no fun. What's the point of all this?

If you embrace your creativity, always think outside the box fearlessly. Staying within the box is no fun. Getting outside the box is where the real fun begins.

I'm new to this blog thing and I actually never even posted a comment to someone else's blog until about five days ago. It was a comment that was directed towards the blogger's role in the development of many writing voices in our community. It was poetic (or at least the attempt was there). Some other reader/poster took offence to a grammatical error in my post. Affronted (not really, just wanting to have some fun) I suggested that the rules of grammar wasn't (see what I mean) something that I was overly concerned with and that sentence fragments were my friends. My comment was completely self-deprecating. The reader/poster felt obligated to comment again adding that the failure to utilize the rules of grammar was a reason he didn't read blogs regularly. Good grief, Charlie Brown.  This Fella lives his life in the box. Obey the rules. I before E except after C type of guy. Where would writing be if everyone followed the same rules? Would we all write in the style of Dickens, Tolstoy, or Bronte. Where would be without Hemingway? Could Hemingway even write like Dickens? Would The Picture of Dorian Gray even be a hit ( in today's world it could be written in three or four chapters.)?

My point is simple. Next time you're in the box, step outside it. Turn your creative juices to the spaces outside the walls of your box and see what you come up with. At least you'll have fun trying to find ways to say the same old things we've been writing about or storytelling about since the cavemen days.

Here's a poem I might revisit from time to time. Its a draft in the jelling phase:

My Medusa

My Medusa

How I pity your being

Alone, you have turned your gaze within

And looked upon your own heart

Cold, Hard, silent

Your stone weeps no blood

Only the bitter tears of anger ooze

From the hardness of your soul

With my love forgotten

And my compassion my shield

I am immune from your stare

I am fluid eternal

I am soft ever-lasting

Blood weeps from my soul

My blood weeps for you

Let me know what you think. Until tomorrow. David

My first blog

Here I am sitting in the computer lab in a course on blogging. Created the account and I'm ready to go in less than five minutes. Bare bones right now but I'll add as I go. The goal: write a post dealing with some aspect of the creative process once a day. See what I find and to have some fun with the creative process being creative.

Heard a neat idea the other day for developing story lines for characters in your stories when you're stuck. Give the character a tarot card reading. I'll do two different ones and post about it tomorrow.

Plan to post some poetry and see how it changes over time, see if I can better understand my own process.

Maybe I should tell you  a little about me: writer of fantasies, mysteries and poetry and a developing teacher of creative writing. Drop me a message. David