Tag: creativity

Opening Doors

“Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.”
― Pablo Picasso

This quote was on Ed Lehming’s blog post, ‘The Breach’, today. The quote’s truth stormed me about other endeavors besides painting. I’d been thinking about this last night without Picasso’s quote, so I love the serendipity. I’d been thinking about how I will have been working on something, struggling to learn, understand or achieve, and then suddenly, everything lines up like a solved Rubik’s Cube. I’d done it many times in my life, facing the need to learn something and then struggling until it happens.

rubix_cube

Writing fiction is probably the greatest stretch for me. This struggle to learn happens with different elements with fiction writing. Writing is thought of as simple by many. What’s there to do but write words and tell a story?

Writers, editors and good readers understand that’s a simplistic summary. Fiction writing requires learning multiple pieces that are often taken for granted because most people only see the finished work. We know better. Sometimes the lessons learned about pacing, characters, story-telling, voice and everything else needs learned anew when writing the next project. Contemplating that, I believe that each novel or story in progress has a moment when a door opens, and the scene being worked becomes a stepping stone to other things.

It doesn’t come easily. The challenge remains to muster the focus, apply the time and energy, and accept the patience needed for me to reach the door, find and open it. These elements of focus, time, energy and acceptance are typically thought of on a conscious level. I think they work better on a subconscious level. I let the needs seep down in. Walk away. Do other things.

Eventually, the focus, time, and energy finds the path to the door. That’s a glorious exciting epiphany when the door is suddenly there. Another challenge arises then to open it and see what’s on the other side.

Within this process is the beauty of acceptance, of letting it work, of being strong and bold enough to believe it will work. It takes time. This time and patience is invaluable coin. When it works and the door opens and I step through, I create a positive loop of knowing I can face problems and challenges, and overcome them. That feeds me confidence to try again, and again and again, and to keep going. More, though, my journey becomes richer, more joyful and satisfying.

It really is a beautiful process, these exercises in imagination and creativity called writing.

Yes, I know, it’s a messy post, all over the place. I’m exploring territory. Writing helps me map the terrain.

To all, have a good writing day.

5

Pushing

It’s good to push sometimes. For me, that’s especially true for physical activities.

Feel that burn, baby. Feel the muscles demanding, cease and desist already. Meanwhile, you make promises. “Come on, just five more.” You count them down and your muscles and joints respond. Then you urge, “Five more!”

“No,” they shout back, but still they try, damn it, and you go on like this with the sweat beading, streaming and dripping, stinging your eyes and flavoring your lips with a salty essence as your heart attempts to free itself through your sternum and your pulse thunders in your temples, until the end is reached and you are spent, and you sit, limp, breathing hard, but smiling.

I used to do this, too, with projects in the military and with my various employers. One more hour, I’d promise myself, my wife, my friends as the work day ended and darkness fell, but I’d need to keep working, keep going, chugging coffee, concentrating, head down and all in, until, fini. All would be amazed, asking, “You did that in one day?”

Yeah. I was ‘ate up’ as we liked to say in the military.

I don’t do that with fiction writing. Yesterday was a beautiful, glorious writing day. Finishing and editing one chapter, I saw the sources for five chapters – this is where they begin. I saw the chapter titles and the essence of their chapters and how the five flowed to form the confluence of the novel’s climax. So I wrote notes to capture the gist. As I did, specifics for the chapters came into my head, so I wrote random paragraphs for each, capturing scenes, dialogue exchanges, and sharp special moments. This went on and on. It seemed like an endless stream. I thought, “If I push this, I can write these five chapters today.”

But no; I don’t do this with my writing. After debating it and accepting the decision, I wondered why. I knew the why but I wanted something more tangible for me to understand. As I walked après-writing, I concluded creative energy is different from physical, mental and emotional energy (or time energy, but that would be a huge other post). I can only address it from my point of view, but I have my writing history, along with my drawing and painting history, to see how I approach creative activities differently than other activities. Yes, in my employed life, I often used this creative approach to decide how to tackle issues and situations, but once engaged, the creative energy was no longer required.

Perhaps it’s only me; we’re all different. Even though the end results, words in some media, look the same, we came to it in unique, individual ways. For me, the creative energy is deeper and more taxing to draw out, even when it starts gushing. I’ve come to understand, accept and respect that.

But this is a new day. Fortunately, I can draw fresh creative energy almost every day. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

0

Mom’s Fault

It’s pouring rain. Soaked dark, my coat dribbled rivulets across the floor as I walked across the coffee shop.

“Did you walk?” the coffee shop owner asked. “I know you like to walk. I’ve seen you walking all over town.”

“No, I just walked a mile,” I answered. “I wanted to feel the rain and wind.”

“You like to walk, don’t you?” the owner said.

“Yes.”

Yes, I like to walk. It’s Mom’s fault. In my young life’s dawn, I’d want to go somewhere and requested Mom drive me. “You have two legs, you can walk,” she’d reply. Stories about her walking when she was a child followed. She walked to school miles in both direction, no matter what the weather was, digging trails and tunnels through the Iowa snowstorms, if necessary, fording rivers and forging trails, dodging wild animals while picking berries or nuts on the way home to use in baking, and stopping to milk the cows. If she walked in those conditions, I could walk.

I might have exaggerated about what she claimed to do.

So I walked. I walked everywhere. I didn’t have a car in high school for several years, so I walked the miles home from school after sports activities and play practices. I walked to my girlfriend’s house, miles more, and back again. Sometimes I was given rides. Sometimes, people attempted to molest me.

Once in the military, my wife and I didn’t have much income, so we walked. Over in the Philippines on duty, I didn’t have a car and had plenty of time, so I walked around the base and the town. In Germany, walking was organized into Volksmarching and celebrated with drink and food. Terrific!

By the time I began writing, walking was ingrained as part of my thinking process. I was pleased to discover that studies validated my impressions about walking. Walking ten minutes a day made most people happy besides providing exercise. Walking also enhances the creative process for most.

I was sure of that latter. Deciding I needed to put myself and my goals and dreams first, I started taking an hour out of the work day to write. Bosses, co-workers and team mates didn’t care as long as I did my share. As part of that, I observed that walking helped me shift from work Michael to writing Michael. As I walked to write, I would ask the eternal writing questions, “Where the hell am I? Where does the story go next? What do I need to write next? What did I write yesterday?” Asking these questions and thinking about it prepped me to sit down, ready to type.

Likewise, after leaving, I’d often continue working out characters, scenes and plots as I walked back to work. Then, walking to write the next day, I would recall the previous day and resume writing with little effort.

I was surprised that studies didn’t demonstrate a link to improved focused thinking, as well, and problem solving. Perhaps I’d trained myself to solve problems by walking, but I always felt leaving work for a short work, changing the scenery and releasing my brain from the work environment, was hugely instrumental in being able to see answers and develop solutions. Perhaps, though, that was still the creative brainstorming that writing seems to encourage.

My walking continued once I started working from home. I walked to take breaks and enjoy fresh air and sunshine. Then, walking to the coffee shop to write, I walked to reduce my carbon footprint and help save money and the environment.

Now, I have the Fitbit to encourage me to walk. If I haven’t walked in an hour, it buzzes me to get up and walk. So I leave the coffee shop and hustle down the steps and around the block and back. That’s enormously reduced my writer’s ass, which is when your ass goes to sleep after being almost stationary while typing or writing at a desk or table. When I’m at home, my wife and I jump up and start running around. Sometimes, we chase the cats, but they’re not into it, so we don’t do that much.

But, like many things I do and enjoy, my walking started with Mom.

4

My Problem

I’m naming names today: Jenn Moss and Alan Sorrentino.

Alan Sorrentino is in the news about his letter to the editor decrying women wearing yoga pants in public. I know what Alan is talking about. His yoga pants were my muffin tops.

A muffin top is the fleshy overspill above a waist band, developing and exposed when one is wearing a tight lower garment – pants, shorts, skirt – and a cropped top. They were most prevalent among girls and young women. Probably still are. I haven’t seen one for a while.

Muffin tops caused me problems. How could someone wear something so tight and not be appalled by the flesh spilling out? Do they know how they appear? That developed my second problem. I’ve always been irritated by America’s ideals of beauty and perfection, and how humans should look. And here I was, sucked right into it. Damn America.

So I wanted to praise these people for being indifferent about my problem and showing their body as it is, and without embarrassment. But, sigh, I was also disturbed, because these people looked obese and overweight. Shouldn’t they be taking better care of themselves? That led directly to self-confrontation: is that what you think about NFL players with their big bellies? 

No, Michael, it usually isn’t. I was all about the player and what they brought to the table.

Alan, of course, was writing about his problem in what the yoga pants revealed to him about his opinion of female curves. Just like me and my muffin tops, the yoga pants were not about the people wearing them: the problem is him and his perceptions.

Now let’s move on to Jenn Moss. She’s a writer who posts on roughandreadyfiction.com. On Meta Monday, she posted about seeing Richard III at STNJ. Dwelling on Derek Wilson and his awesome guns, she wrote about how this buff actor compared to people’s usual perception of Richard III. In her final paragraphs, she wrote:

Meanwhile, this whole muscle thing got me thinking: what kind of assumptions do we bring to a play or book that we know well? Have you ever rejected a portrayal of a beloved character because it just didn’t match the vision you had in your head? Did a remake or reboot ever leave you cold? I love the Star Trek reboot, for example. But the 2005 film version of Pride & Prejudice just doesn’t do it for me.

I’m going to keep asking myself this question whenever I see a revival or any other remake: How open am I to a different look or fresh interpretation of a favorite character?

Why yes, Jenn, I have thought about these questions. I mutter and rant quite often about what so many – like you, Guy Ritchie – do to Sherlock Holmes. I grimaced at the treatment endured when the television show, ‘Wild, Wild West’ was made into a movie. And then someone did it – gasp – to the ‘Man From U.N.C.L.E.’. Look what’s going on in the Marvels Universe movies. And ‘Star Trek’…grrr…. “What is the world coming to?” I bitterly huffed in best BitterBen fashion.

Of course, I was always talking about my problem. I didn’t realize it until I grasped that I do the same thing to the fiction I write. I take original ideas and torture them into something else. In my science fiction, I discard the intelligent scientific foundations from the likes of Asimov and Clarke. The science and technology just are, a big leap from here and now. Sure, internal logic to the novels is solid, but I make no effort to explain how we made advances in space travel, FTL, teleporters, compilers, terraforming, and colonizing other planets: they just are as part of the setting, much like televisions, cars, cell phones, malls and aircraft travel just are as part of a modern setting.

Reluctantly I concluded, it’s a good thing when a television show, movie, novel, song or idea is re-interpreted and presented in a new light. It is how art, science technology, and government in all their forms have worked since just about the first time a story was done, a ruler proclaimed, a tool was created, or a drawing was made on a wall. Someone saw it and thought, “Wouldn’t it be better this way?” Then they offered their interpretation – thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

We’re always doing this, imagining, re-imagining and re-interpreting all the art, technology, history and events of time.

Now leave me alone. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. After all, that’s what all this is really about.

And that’s my problem.

 

4

A Beautiful Thing

Writers, poets, musicians and artists all know this, I think, but I write to express my feelings to and for myself. I share it on the blog to find some validation and to give others encouragement, so I’ll share this today.

I’m riding the wave. The wave is when the work in progress is fully comprehended and effortlessly reached, providing a calming high. I’m buoyant and yet introspective, but I don’t mind being like that because I’m happy. Writing is going great. It’s constantly with me but I see that as a beautiful, wonderful state.

My friends probably wonder about my absence. I haven’t been out for beers for over a week. My wife probably thinks I’m losing some cognitive functions because I drive to the wrong place. I can’t and don’t explain that I’m still writing in my head. The story is so rich and real, I don’t want to disturb it, but just write and write. I also know that my enthusiastic descriptions of what I’m doing, what’s going on with me, and what’s happening in the novel tends to create an EGO state for her – eyes glazing over. Only other creative people, involved in their own realms of endeavor, can truly understand. I get that. It shades my existence with loneliness because I can’t share with all these others, these non-writers, non-musicians, non-artists and non-poets. They just don’t seem to get it. But then, I’m not social, so I don’t hunger with the urge to socialize, and it amuses me to watch others engage in that drive.

There are other drives I don’t have that others display. Hunting, dancing, hobbies, making money. Thinking about them and striving to gather insights into those activities and their influences on the people and societies is part of my writing enjoyment.

It’s been a long ride on this wave. I wonder when it’s going to break, so I’ve resisted writing about it, fearful my mentioning it will jinx it. Even as I finished writing this and I read it again, I think, do I really want to put this out there? This wave is so strong, I’m still with Handley on the bridge, peering over her shoulder and spying on her thoughts and actions, and contemplating what’s happening with Pram, Richard and Brett. This wave is strong.

Oh, the coffee is drained. Two thousand words have been written and edited, and ninety minutes have elapsed. A weather storm is approaching so there are real existence matters to attend. Selfishly, I hope we don’t have a power outage, that the storm isn’t strong, because I don’t want the wave to break. I know how shallow that seems, that in this world of life and death, I’m thinking of myself and my writing. I laugh at myself, mocking my priorities.

But of course I hope others safely survive, that the damages aren’t too great, that when they are great, people are able to rebuild and continue on. And of course, I understand, death is a natural part of life. Yet, even in those wishes, hopes, and acceptance, the writer within thinks of the scenes, emotions and dialogue, and imagines the emerging stories….

Writing really is a sickness.

But it’s such a beautiful thing.

Cheers

9

Five Points

Getting ready to walk and write. Writing dominates my thoughts but other matters press in. Cats. Home improvement. Trips. Phone calls I owe people. Beer night this week, and whether to go or not.

But the walk and writing are the current play.

1. Pen; check. Ink is a little low. Take an extra pen. Notebook, check. Half full. Should be sufficient.
I’m still on paper, with my laptop returning to me tomorrow.

2. Naturally, zombies also worry me. Multiple species exist. I don’t know which zombies inhabit my region. What if I’m attacked during my walk? What will I do? They never addressed zombie attacks during my twenty years in the military.

I haven’t heard about any attacks. But the US POTUS election is underway. The Olympics are happening, and there are a million celebrities eating, drinking, farting and divorcing. Plus business news, and new movie releases. Zombie attacks might not make wide news coverage.

3. Received a royalties payment. Enough for a week of beer. That’s something. Haven’t done any advertising in July. Haven’t checked any sales reports. Awaiting the computer’s return.

Haven’t done anything with the website, either. It also awaits the computer’s second coming.

4. Five points is of major concern. I’m writing a short (5K) story to occupy me with writing until the computer returns. The short story is Merger. Science fiction. I’ve come to the point where I realize four different endings for Merger. (See, I’m on one path, and I’m coming to a point where the road splits into four directions – five points…in case you didn’t catch that.) By endings, I refer to the climax and denouement. Considering it today, I think, why not write all four endings? That would be fun.

5. The nature of my novel writing process prevents me from pursuing writing them. Two sequels are in progress. I’m eager for the laptop’s return so I can return to them.

And I also need to type up the short story.

Not having the laptop increases my awareness in the different types of writing and my approaches to each. Novel writing is a complex, organic process involving a lot of ongoing revision, like painting with oils. Short story writing is also complex but more like sketching with pencils. Emails are less complex and easy. Blog posts are generally barely edited stream of consciousness spewing. So I can do that on the iPad mini (with its keyboard cover). Not much movement and back and forth is needed for my blog posts, unlike the novel and short story writing.

6. Another novel concept’s topography is developing in my mind. I’m picturing a science fiction detective thriller, and it’s exciting to embrace it. Can’t wait to start writing it. There are always so many writing projects.

But for now, it’s pen to paper. I have my quad shot mocha. Time to write like crazy, one more time.

3

Dueling Novels

Hard writing day. When the Dallas sniper struck, it sapped my interest/desire for writing about murder.

But I had to write, so I began writing a sequel to “Returnee”, “The Long Summer”. Yet, the me that is a writer knew that other novel, “Personal Lessons with Savanna”, remained in progress, and he still had some writing to do.

So I end up doing a chapter of TLS, and then a chapter of PLwS. I’ll be writing one and realize a line or change for the other. Both story arcs are growing and stretching out before me, beckoning as a calm sea on a summer day, but exhausting as I jump from one to the other and strive to grab the evolving threads of each and order them. Neither can be shut down. Each generates their own aha excitement, stirring enthusiasm. Writing like crazy is driving me crazy.

I’m achieving progress, but man, oh, man, that excitement is a burning fire, consuming my patience and energy as its fuel, leaving me a short-tempered, barely functioning shell.

More coffee. Quick, damn it, quick. Ah, now the battery is low.

Time to stop. For now.

0

Homage to the Stellar Queen

Two miles and 43 minutes, the coffee shop walk allows a surfeit of thinking. Today, with summer starting in the northern hemisphere, I thought of the Stellar Queen.

She’s old. I haven’t thought of her in a while. She’s so ancient in my relative life, that her original Word Perfect, PowerPoint and Paint files reside on five and a quarter floppy disks. They were transferred to three and a half inch disks, and then to a hard drive when I bought a tower Dell, in 1999.

The Stellar Queen was my first foray into science fiction. Orson Scott Card told how he liked drawing maps to stimulate his creativity. I designed cars as a child and planned to be an architect (or a rock star) so I took up designing the Stellar Queen on computer.

She was originally built by a patron of the arts who traveled the galaxies. The Lady (never named, and very mysterious) lives in an estate along the edge between the Central Plain and the Northern Mountains. A bio-dome hybrid class ship, the Queen’s bio portion is sixty-seven miles long by fourteen miles wide. Thinking in threes, she had three cities, three towns and three villages, three major climate zones (with many micro climes), and three rivers that flowed down into the Starry Sea, on the ship’s ‘northwestern’ side. One small town, Half Moon Bay, came to be on the Starry Sea, was based upon Half Moon Bay, California, where I resided for a while. The Queen featured a sun that rose in the ship’s east and set in the west, over the sea. It wasn’t a big sea, just large enough for waves, pleasure craft and some fishing. Just big enough for romance.

Three centers, for government & ship operations, markets, and education, were established, along with three wineries, three breweries, three ranches…et cetera. I began many stories about her. Murder on the Stellar Queen, Death Boards the Stellar Queen, Treason on the Stellar Queen, and so on. None were finished nor submitted. I still have them, though, in notebooks, in boxes, in the garage.

I still smile, thinking about the Stellar Queen, and I easily board her. Half Moon Bay on the Queen is a pleasant place to be, to sip wine or beer and contemplate the ocean and sunshine, marvel about traveling the galaxies, and think about the first day of summer in another year.

Time to go write like crazy.

0

The Iceberg

Friends this week asked about my writing, or, actually, about my book, or books. Writing and the many projects are so much like icebergs, revealing a little topside but mostly submerged from sight and awareness. Limited progress and activities are exposed on this blog and FB posts but there is generally so much more.

I have two books out. Another is in the publishing machine. That’s the iceberg’s tip. Another book is completed and in editing and formatting. We’ll designate that the water line. I sort of track those more in depth on Booklife but even that is just the water line and above. Below that, another ten books are written. Some have been edited and revised. All need copy editing and formatting. A spreadsheet has their progress.

But at greater depths are the many novels in progress on computer, in notebooks, folders, and realms of paper. Many, many more exist as notes on concepts, ideas and characters. Some of the notes are written. I’d say thirty percent are written notes. The other notes are sticky pages in my mind. There are short stories, plays and screenplays, musicals, novels and series. There are always many things to write.

I used to spread myself out and work on several pieces in parallel. Now I focus on one and write like crazy. Then I revise, edit and polish one. And then I publish one.

Not as much fun in many ways as plunging into creativity’s cauldron and letting all these ideas flame into being. But the trudging, one at a time process, results in more tangible progress.

Whichever way, it’s always about writing for me, and writing like crazy. Time for that, once more.

2

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