Category: Creativity

Life: It Happens to the Best of Us

It’s been my experience that a creative person’s goals–fragile, beautiful little things that they are–frequently crash headlong into the mercurial realities of life.

This morning, as I sit at my kitchen table to do my morning pages, I can’t help but catch sight of the wall calendar opposite me and notice that August 28th is a mere sixteen days away. Time appears to have sprung a leak this summer. Just a moment ago, it was June 16th, and I was attending the end-of-year faculty party.

Ah, summer vacation. The kids would be in camp all day. Hubby would be hard at work with his stuff down in his studio. I’d have two

A visual representation of my mental image of summer in all its leisurely, creativity-inspiring glory.

months crank out as much work for my graduate studies as possible. Heck, I might be able to knock off every third-semester assignment before the end of August when I had to return to my full-time job of teaching science to high-schoolers. The future looked bright.

Now, I have less than three weeks before I’m back in the classroom and my creative endeavors become relegated to a dimly lit, neglected corner of existence. What the heck?!

Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote in 1785, “The best laid schemes of Mice and Men go oft awry.” Isn’t that the truth?

Now, sitting here, faced with irrefutable evidence that yet another blissful summer of writing has snuck by me, shielded by the dust kicked up by the mocking chaos of reality, a couple of thoughts spring to mind.

First, I spend perhaps a bit too much time cursing J. K. Rowling for thinking up that damnable Time Turner from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Why, J. K.? Why did you have to tease me with that thing? I’ve never been good at math, but even if I were a genius with numbers I still wouldn’t be able to count all the times I’ve wished for things that don’t exist: the ability to fly, a non-evil and therefore helpful clone, a sable-coated prehensile tail… and now, I can add a time turner to that list. Garr!!

Additionally, I find myself thinking yet again of the first episode from the 1980’s reboot of the Twilight Zone. In “A Little Piece and Quiet” (directed by Wes Craven), a housewife with way too much stuff in her life and no time for herself digs up a necklace/amulet in her flower bed that gives her the power to stop time completely. It’s fantastic until nuclear war breaks out, and then it’s not fantastic anymore.

There she is, realizing that her fabulous discovery has just ruined her life.

Hey, it’s the Twilight Zone. Nothing ever ends well in the Twilight Zone. That’s what I loved about it and still do. The thing is, I first saw that episode as a rerun when I was fifteen or sixteen. That was… a very long time ago, yet it’s still with me. A magical necklace that can stop time! Not unlike that half-alien chick from the TV show of the same era, “Out of This World” (which, in stark contrast to the Twilight Zone, was terrible) who could stop time by touching her fingers together. The time-stopping amulet was way better because of its mysterious and potentially sinister origins.

Anyway, I think about Hermione’s time turner and that doomed housewife’s time-stopping amulet all the time. If only…

Well, I’ve finished nursing my cup of coffee. The tea kettle just whistled to let me know the water’s hot and ready for my post-coffee cup of Constant Comment. The kids are awake and ravenously ready for breakfast. And the home-repair project that ate up my entire day yesterday sits waiting to be finished. If I’m to be honest with myself, this day is probably already spent, and I shouldn’t get my hopes up regarding being able to sneak in any creative writing. That said, you never know what might happen. I could be picking roofing nails out of the lawn and stumble across the uncovered corner of an ancient rune-encrusted box containing a mysterious golden amulet. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she.

What do you dream about in the harried moments when life devours your creative goals and spits out their shattered little bones at your feet?

August 12, 2017
Scrivener: It Helps Me Produce

There are tons of writing platforms out there, and I’ve found that writers have some seriously strong feelings about them. I’m no exception. For me, it’s all about Scrivener.

For a long time, I wrote my stuff in Google Docs, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would pay extra money for some fancy-schmancy writing program. Google Docs was good enough (said my inner crotchety old geezer). But then, in 2015, I took part in my very first NaNoWriMo event. I won it, too. Aw, thanks so much, imaginary reader. That’s so sweet of you to say.

Anyway, as part of my “winnings” I received a 50% coupon for Scrivener, which is already a pretty inexpensive piece of software at full price. At $20.00, I figured I had little to lose, and I’d heard plenty of people rave about its functionality, so I gave it a try.

Let me be clear. I will never give up my fountain pens and my notebooks, both of which I collect like someone with a problem. Whatever. Some people collect Hummel Dolls. Some people collect Beanie Babies. I collect fountain pens and notebooks… and a few other things, but that’s a whole different post. When I am feeling stuck for ideas or just creatively drained, nothing greases the hinges and swings wide the doors to my imagination like writing with a gorgeous fountain pen loaded with some of my favorite ink in one of my favorite notebooks. So great of an advocate of this strategy for breaking up creative writing blocks am I that I regularly buy and distribute fountain pens (pre-inked with some of my favorite inks obtained via the Goulet Pen Company). If you’re ever in Boston and you’re a pen enthusiast, by the by, you must treat yourself to a trip to the oldest pen shop in the country–The Bromfield Pen Shop.

My obsessive love of fountain pens aside, however, I get most of my writing done on my mac, and since my 2015 NaNo win, it’s all been done using Scrivener.

I love the corkboard feature for organizing my chapters. I love its pre-generated templates for character development. I love its split screen, its compile feature, and its project analytics. Holy cow, do I use the words “look” and “gaze” and “glance” a lot in my first drafts. There are hundreds of other features embedded into this program that are also super wicked lots of awesome, but the feature that caused me to fall in forever love with Scrivener is its Project Target feature.

I can set a total word count for a project, a deadline, and tell Scrivener which days of the week to include in its daily word count calculations. When activated, it gives me those two lovely progress bars that you can see in the featured photo at the top of this post.

This feature won’t motivate everyone. My husband looks at it and groans, “That would drive me nuts.” Different strokes for different folks, buddy. I’ve always responded well to extrinsic motivators. Plus, my brain loves watching that bottom bar change color from fire engine red to grass green over the course of a writing session. It fills me with a sense of accomplishment.

Now, that might strike some folks as vacuous and stupid. It’s quality, not quantity they could argue. True, but if you’re not getting the quantity, what are the chances of getting any quality? If something helps me be more consistent and more productive in my writing, then by gum I’m going to use it, and Scrivener’s Project Target features does just that.

Do you have favorite technique or strategy for generating more words when you write? Is it a piece of writing software? A favorite spot you like to go to write? A favorite music playlist? Perhaps a favorite pen and notebook? I’d love to know what other writers find motivating.

July 29, 2017
Morning Pages, Procrastination, and Creativity

As part of my master’s program, I’m required to take an independent studies class each semester. It can’t be a course that is directly related to my primary area of study, which is writing for young people. Lesley University offers courses that run the gambit from travel writing to poetry to writing for stage and screen to memoir writing and more. They also offer a class that isn’t about writing, specifically. It’s about creativity, and the point is to help folks knock down mental barriers and find creative solutions.

It’s called The Artist’s Way, and I picked it as my very first I.S. class to take. Am I ever glad that I did! To help you wrap your brain around what it is, let me quote Carrie Battan from her 2016 article in the New Yorker about the book (the class I took followed the book to the letter).

“…the book is a program designed to help readers reject the devils of self-doubt on their shoulders and pursue creative activity not as a profession but as a form of therapy.”

That’s as good a summary as any. Thank you, Ms. Battan.

Part of the course, a big part, is engaging in daily journaling, what The Artist’s Way creator Julie Cameron refers to as the “Morning Pages.” The goal is to increase creativity by connecting with the dark places in our heads, facing them down and disarming them of their power. While taking the class, I sat down each morning and wrote three pages of mental stream-of-consciousness stuff into a notebook. I chose to write in cursive because more and more scientific studies show that longhand writing, and cursive writing, in particular, is super good for the brain.

Since taking the twelve-week course last July/August/September, I’ve continued to write my morning pages. My spouse joined me, too, since he’s a fine art photographer and generally creative individual. Together, we’ve worked morning journaling into our lives as a way to boost creativity and also control our general anxieties and stress levels.

Last night, I couldn’t fall asleep because I was worried about this blog project. How much time is this project was going to eat up? Time is my most limited resource. I am stretched more thinly that I can actually see. Only when others point out to me all the stuff I have on my plate do I realize the madness of it all. Parent to two young ones, both of whom were involved in town-league sports this spring, high school teacher, member of a writing group, member of an environmental group, student in a master’s program…

On top of all of that, I am a master of productive procrastination.

When I get overwhelmed, my brain resists dealing with the work that NEEDS to get done by finding and focusing on non-essential work. Sometimes “non-essential work” looks like cleaning my kitchen, or getting caught up on laundry, or vacuuming and dusting the entire house, or re-organizing the bookshelf, or (and this was the thing that was keeping me from my Z’s last night) figuring out WordPress and putting together a personal blog. It feels like a form of creativity, and I suppose that it is (in a way), but it’s not the primary form of creativity that I’m hoping to nurture.

Did I just generate yet another thing to add to my already ridiculously over-packed plate? Did I unintentionally create a thing that makes me feel like I’m doing something that will help me achieve my goals as a creative writer, but that actually pushes me further away from those goals by siphoning off a little of my most limited resource?

Ah-ha! Solution!

Rather than add this blog project to the long list of things I’m already doing, maybe I can make an even exchange. I can use this as my morning pages, and that way, I won’t be adding anything, just continuing something that I’ve been doing in a slightly different form. Not every day. I can’t give up my long-form writing altogether. It makes my brain feel too good. But a few times a week, in the morning slot that I’ve already carved into my daily routine for journaling, instead of grabbing my fountain pen and my notebook, I’ll grab my laptop and generate my three pages of stream-of-conscious gobbledygook here. It’s worth a try at least.

Do you find yourself crunched for time in your life? How do you make room for it all? Do you ever sabotage your goals by procrastinating? What does that look like for you, and how do you get yourself back on track?

July 28, 2017
Who am I and what’s this blog all about?

Hello world! Here is my very first post for this project. Yes, I’m calling my blog a project. Deal.

Let’s start with the second question. What’s the point of this blog? Ugh, you may be thinking. Yet another author’s blog, another blog about writing. Sort of, I guess. It’s definitely not an author’s blog, not yet anyway. Maybe that will become a part of it one day, if I am so lucky as to get something published. And this blog isn’t specifically about writing, though as a writer that is my primary lens.

You won’t be finding a bunch of sanctimonious writing tips, or click-baity crap about “secrets to writing great [x]” or “ten mistakes that will get your book turned down” or anything else like that. What the heck do I know about that stuff? I’m in no position to be giving tips to anyone, about anything. You might as well ask the pigeon to drive the bus. Besides, there are a gazillion websites and blogs and author’s pages out there that already give you that stuff. This is one I find particularly entertaining (though the language is definitely NOT kid friendly).

This blog is about creativity, about being a creative person. The up’s, the down’s, the genuine difficulties of trying to be a creative individual living in a consumption-focused world.

And, you should know that this blog is mostly for me. If that sounds selfish, too bad. It is selfish. Last summer, I started up a masters program at Lesley University in creative writing. My focus is on writing for young people, because I have kids and they are my target readers (now and in the future). I love them. They’re great. They drive me nuts.

After sixteen years of teaching high school science and writing fictional stories in my spare time as a hobby that I loved very much, I decided to jump the shark in my life and try to pursue creative writing more intentionally. I’m a novice writer, just like every writer is at the outset of their* writing career.

I’m jammed full of ambition and excitement and enthusiasm and ideas and nerves and anxieties and doubts and frustrations; I’m a hot mess. It’s great. It’s terrible. I’m sure it’s a familiar state of existence for anyone bold enough to live a creative life.

This is some scary stuff I’m trying to do right now–switch things up, climb out of my rut, do something new and different. Most of my family, friends, and colleagues don’t get it. Not really. Sure they smile to my face and nod politely. Some of them even refrain from asking backhandedly (or openly) discouraging questions. But I’m doing this anyway, and I thought it would be nifty to document this phase of my life via a blog that others might potentially stumble upon as they peruse the vast digital spaces of the internet.

Like I said, it’s tough trying to be a creative person. It can be intensely frustrating and difficult. Creativity is, on the whole, undervalued by pretty much everyone. But I identify myself as a creative person. My husband is a creative person, too. We support each other. That’s what creative people have to do. We have to support each other. So, maybe by putting my own experiences and thoughts and mental musings here, I can in some way offer support and affirmation and encouragement to other creative-minded individuals. You don’t have to be a writer. You could be a painter, a sculptor, a photographer, and woodworker, a glass blower, a potter, an oral storyteller, a teacher, a librarian, a musician, a composer. You name it; the list goes on. If you value art and the act of creation, I applaud you. Keep creating. We need you.

Now, as for that first question. Who am I? Well, you’ll have to read my blog posts to figure that out. Heck, I’m still not sure of the answer myself. For now, let’s just say that I’m a work in progress, a WIP if you will, and leave it at that.

July 26, 2017