The Sunday Writer [01-13-08]
The Sunday Writer
By Dawn Eastpoint (Klepto von Umbre/Kleptomaniac Can Opener)
From Lucky Kitty News
01-13-2008
I almost forgot I said I would begin posting my newsletter here. Please enjoy. ^_^
~*~*~*~*~*~
WORDS OF THE DAY
Abcedarian [noun]
1. a person who teaches the alphabet.
Abecedarian [noun]
1. a person who is learning the alphabet. 2. a beginner in any field of learning.
3. a 16th century sect of Anabaptists centered in Germany who had an absolute disdain for human knowledge.
[Adjective]
4. of or pertaining to the alphabet. 5. arranged in alphabetical order.
6. rudimentary; elementary; primary.
~*~*~*~*~*~
SUNDAY PROMPT
Q. What’s a prompt?
A. A prompt is a word or phrase that's meant to inspire you to write! It can be about anything you want: a poem, short story, or part of something greater such as a 150,000-word novel. But the number one thing is to have fun doing it!
Time Limit: 20 minutes
Prompt: Out of sight, out of mind
If you feel particularly proud of your prompt workout, feel free to send a copy to kcanopener@yahoo.com with [Sunday Prompt] in the subject heading. Depending on volume it may or may not be showcased in next week’s article.
~*~*~*~*~*~
TODAY’S TRIVIA
Q. When did all the publishers get together and decide not to indent the first sentence after a heading? And why?
A. Paragraphs are indented for one main reason: so readers aren’t faced with a ridiculously long block of text to read. Indents are used to separate groups of sentences and make the page aesthetically pleasing to the reader’s eye. It’s a design element, kind of like the black box separating each panel of a comic strip-without it it’d just all blend together.
But the first paragraph of a chapter or after a subhead doesn’t need to be indented because it doesn’t follow a long block of text. The contrast of the heading to the paragraph should be easy enough for the reader to process.
Q. Where was the first automat?
A. Horn & Hardart opened the first U.S. automat in Philadelphia in 1902.
LAW: A state law in Illinois mandates that all bachelors should be called master, not mister, when addressed by their female counterparts.
~*~*~*~*~*~
QUOTH THE RAVEN
Personally, I can’t see why it would be any less romantic to find a husband in a nice four-colour catalogue than in the average bar at happy hour.
-The Worst Years of Our Lives (1991) ‘Tales of the Man Shortage’
Barbara Ehrenreich (born August 26, 1941, in Butte, Montana) is a prominent liberal American writer, columnist, feminist, socialist and political activist. Ehrenreich studied physics at Reed College, graduating in 1963. Her senior thesis was entitled Electrochemical oscillations of the silicon anode. In 1968, she received a Ph.D in cell biology from Rockefeller University.
~*~*~*~*~*~
A TIP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Bad Wraps, Part 2
3) The Detour
A Detour ending strays from what your story is really about. You’ve got some “good stuff” that didn’t fit in the rest of the story, so you stick it at the end.
Suppose you’re writing about a doctor who incorporates alternative medicine-acupuncture, herbal remedies-into her practice. If that’s your focus, don’t finish by tacking on a few paragraphs of her thoughts about malpractice insurance.
Fixing a Detour is a snap: Use your friend the delete key. Then find an ending that summarizes the true focus of your story (which you may discover is already written, right before you veered off into dreaded Detour).
4) The Sudden Stop
Equally bad as a story that detours at the end is on that simply stops in midair. You’ve run out of good material, so you stop writing without giving the readers any sense of closure-much less any warning that they’ve reached the conclusion. You’ll leave editors and readers flipping in frustration to try and find the rest of the story.
If you have no natural ending, fixing the Sudden Stop may take a little verbal gymnastics. You’ll need to work in clues that this indeed is the end-like wrapping up a conversation (“Well, Bob, it’s been great talking to you”). Often a quote can be given a sense of resonance that makes it an effective ending. So, for instance, if you’ve suddenly stopped with an indirect quote, consider reworking it as a direct quote that packs more of a satisfying sense of summation. Instead of:
[Smith says he loves the land he ranches on and feels he really doesn’t have a choice in his career.]
Try ending with:
[“I really don’t have a choice except to be a rancher,” Smith says at last. “I love this land.”]
5) The Meander
The opposite of the Sudden Stop is the Meander, where you do have a natural ending but haven’t recognized it. Like the Detour, you’ve gone past the real ending, albeit with material that’s at least germane to your focus. You may even Meander through multiple natural endings, each time signaling readers that “this is the boffo finish!” only to keep going. (Think of the endless endings of the Lord of the Rings movie.)
Stories with some dramatic and/or chronological thrust are particularly prone to the Meander but they’re easy to fix: Once you’ve deliver the dramatic conclusion to your yarn-the patient survives the heart transplant, the soldier returns from Iraq-know when to quit. Don’t keep prattling on with lesser events or information better inserted earlier in the story or omitted altogether, which simply detract from the drama of your natural conclusion.
Never, in short, overstay your welcome as a writer. If, for instance, you’ve promised to deliver five tips, don’t ramble into a sixth and seventh. Know when to say:
The End.
-David A. Fryxell (Writer’s Digest, May 2005)
~*~*~*~*~*~
THE WRITER’S HANDBOOK
1999 Edition
Doing It for Love
By Erica Jong
Part 1
Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us. That is also why we pretend to be hard-boiled, saying things like “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money” (Samuel Johnson). Not true. No one but a blockhead ever wrote except for love.
There are plenty of easier ways to make money. Almost anything is less labor-intensive and better paid than writing. Almost anything is safer. Reveal yourself on the page repeatedly, and you are likely to be rewarded with exile, prison or neglect. Ask Dante or Oscar Wilde or Emily Dickinson. Scheme and betray, and you are likely to be rewarded with wealth, publicity and homage. Tell the truth, and you are likely to be a pariah within your family, a semi-criminal to authorities and damned with faint praise by your peers. So why do we do it? Because saying what you think is the only freedom. “Liberty,” said Camus, “is the right not to lie.”
In a society in which everything is for sale, in which deals and auctions make the biggest news, doing it for love is the only remaining liberty. Do it for love and you cannot be censored. Do it for love and you cannot be stopped. Do it for love and the rich will envy no one more than you. In a world of tuxedos, the naked man is king. In a world of bookkeepers with spreadsheets, the one who gives it away without counting the cost is God.
I seem to have known this from my earliest years. I never remember a time when I didn’t write. Notebooks, stories, journals, poems-the act of writing always made me feel centered and whole. It still does. It is my meditation, my medicine, my prayer, my solace. I was lucky enough to learn early (with my first two books of poetry and my first novel) that if you are relentlessly honest about what you feel and fear, you can become a mouthpiece for something more than your own feelings. People are remarkably similar at the heart level-where it counts. Writers are born to voice what we all feel. That is the gift. And we keep it alive by giving it away.
It is a sacred calling. The writers I am most drawn to understand it as such: Thomas Merton, Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson. But one doesn’t always see the calling clearly as one labors in the fields of love. I often find myself puzzling over the choices a writer is given. When I am most perplexed, I return to my roots: poetry. The novel is elastic: It allows for social satire, cooking, toothbrushes, the way we live now. Poetry, on the contrary, boils down to essences. I feel privileged to have done both.
And I am grateful to have found my vocation early. I was also blessed to encounter criticism early. It forced me to listen to my inner voice, not the roar of the crowd. This is the most useful lesson a writer can learn.
Lately, we keep hearing dire warnings about the impending death of the novel. As one who has written frankly autobiographical fiction (Fear of Flying), historical fiction (Fanny, Serenissima or Shylock’s Daughter), and memoir (Fear of Fifty and The Devil at Large), I think I’ve begun to understand how the process of making fiction differs from that of making memoir. A memoir is tethered to one’s own experience in a particularly limiting way: The observing consciousness of the book is rooted in a real person. That person may be fascinating, but he or she can never be as rich and subtle as the characters that grow out of aspects of the author. In the memoir, the “I” dominates. In the novel, the “I” is made up of many “I”s. More richness is possible, more points of view, deeper imitation of life.
When I finished Fear of Fifty, I felt I had quite exhausted my own life and might never write another book. What I eventually discovered was that the process had actually liberated me. Having shed my own autobiography, I now felt ready to invent in a new way. I wanted to write a novel about the 20th century and how it affected the lives of women. I wanted to write a novel about a Jewish family in the century that nearly saw the destruction of the Jewish people.
~*~*~*~*~*~
EXERCISE YOUR WRITES
Take a favorite character from any story you’ve ever read, or from a movie you’ve seen. Describe him or her. What does he look like? What’s her job? Then place them in a setting they’ve never encountered before. What happens?
~*~*~*~*~*~
AUTHOR OF THE WEEK
Mercedes Lackey (born June 24, 1950) (also known as Misty Lackey) is a prolific American author of fantasy novels. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar. Her Valdemar novels form a complex tapestry of interaction between human and non-human protagonists with many different cultures and social mores.
The other main world in which she writes is one much like our own, but also populated by elves, mages, vampires, and other mythical beings. Some of the interlocking series in this world are the Diana Tregarde thrillers, the SERRAted Edge books about racecar-driving elves, and the Bedlam's Bard books, describing a young man with the power to work incredible magics through music.
There is a Mercedes Lackey fan group on Usenet. The fanclub, the "Queen's Own", is named after Herald Talia's position in her books.
Her earlier Velgarth novels are all solo projects, but later volumes in the Valdemar saga are illustrated by her husband Larry Dixon, and in many of her latest works he is also credited as co-author. Many of her other novels are collaborations. She has worked with fantasy genre giants Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Piers Anthony, and most recently has written The Obsidian Trilogy with historian James Mallory and a historical fantasy series based on Elizabeth I with romance writer Roberta Gellis.
While at Purdue, she took a one-on-one class of English Literature Independent Studies with a professor who was a fellow sci-fi fan. He helped her analyze books she enjoyed and then use that knowledge. Lackey then encountered fan fiction, which further encouraged her writing. She began publishing work in fanzines, and then discovered filk and had some filk lyrics published by Off Centaur Publications. She submitted a story to Sword and Sorceress, then sold the rewritten story to Fantasy Book Magazine. Her first sale was to Friends of Darkover.
She met C. J. Cherryh through filk, who mentored her during the writing of her 'Arrows' series. During this time, Marion Zimmer Bradley included her short stories in an anthology and Cherryh helped Lackey through 17 rewrites of 'Arrows'.
Lackey has been active in the filking community. She was a major contributor to an early album of space filk, Minus Ten and Counting. She has won 5 Pegasus Awards, mostly for her songwriting.
~*~*~*~*~*~
ASK DAWN
Q. What kind of writing exercises do you suggest to help with writers block?
-Cat from Houston, Texas
A. Wow, that’s a tough one. Everybody responds to writer’s block in different ways, and from all of the many techniques I have heard of and used (many which have nothing to do with actual writing) you will have to find what works for you through trial & error.
• Work on something else for a while.
This one is a common method to fight writer’s block. Sometimes working on another project for an x-amount of time gets the creative juices flowing. Prompts, challenges, a stray thought, a journal entry, your take on a scene from someone else’s work, anything would be fine.
• Read over the story from start to where you left off.
If you have a block, it could be that some element within your story is inconsistent and your subconscious picked up on that.
• Write down your goals.
What must absolutely happen for your story to move towards its big finish? Once you’ve plotted out these events, jot down what can and who can get the story there. Which would be the most interesting for you to write?
• Talk to your characters.
I’m not being crazy. Ask your characters what they want to happen, then decide if any of them are right or if they’re all completely wrong. Don’t forget about that random minor character who saw everything happen.
• Read praise.
Praise makes you happy. Being happy puts endorphins into your body. Endorphins stimulate your brain. If you’re a new writer and don’t have a stock of ready praise to read, look at someone else’s and allow yourself to get excited about it.
• Take a break.
It’s possible to burn yourself out on a specific story/project/etc. Go watch TV, read a book, take a walk and get some fresh air, nap, relax.
• Change locations.
A fresh scene could be all you need. Go to a coffee shop or a library, or anywhere else you could sit down and write. Listen to the conversations around, see what others are doing; they could inspire a part of your story. Ride a bus or train around town, as being on the move can be very stimulating. Or, if that’s not an option, just change rooms. Have you ever written in the bathtub? It worked wonders for Benjamin Franklin, Edmond Rostand, and Vladimir Nabokov.
• Change positions.
Writing while sitting down is the usual and obvious method, but other have found that lying down (Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Truman Capote) or standing up (Lewis Carroll, Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway) was better for productivity.
• Change materials.
That’s right, go back to good ol’ pencil and paper. Or if that’s what you usually do, get on the computer, or use crayons instead.
• Talk to a buddy.
Bounce your ideas off of someone (mom, neighbor, childhood friend, Fluffy). Talking out the situation will get your brain into its problem-solving mode.
My main piece of advice is to do anything but stare at a blank screen. Nothing gives a writer’s block more weight than doing nothing at all.
*Ask Dawn is written by Dawn Eastpoint. If you have a literary question you would like an answer to, please write to kcanopener@yahoo.com with [ASK] in the subject heading. Depending on volume and/or time restrains, questions may be posted in next week’s newsletter or answered privately.
**If you would like to make suggestions, a contribution, or have any concerns regarding the newsletter, please send your queries to kcanopener@yahoo.com with [Newsletter] in the subject heading.
By Dawn Eastpoint (Klepto von Umbre/Kleptomaniac Can Opener)
From Lucky Kitty News
01-13-2008
I almost forgot I said I would begin posting my newsletter here. Please enjoy. ^_^
~*~*~*~*~*~
WORDS OF THE DAY
Abcedarian [noun]
1. a person who teaches the alphabet.
Abecedarian [noun]
1. a person who is learning the alphabet. 2. a beginner in any field of learning.
3. a 16th century sect of Anabaptists centered in Germany who had an absolute disdain for human knowledge.
[Adjective]
4. of or pertaining to the alphabet. 5. arranged in alphabetical order.
6. rudimentary; elementary; primary.
~*~*~*~*~*~
SUNDAY PROMPT
Q. What’s a prompt?
A. A prompt is a word or phrase that's meant to inspire you to write! It can be about anything you want: a poem, short story, or part of something greater such as a 150,000-word novel. But the number one thing is to have fun doing it!
Time Limit: 20 minutes
Prompt: Out of sight, out of mind
If you feel particularly proud of your prompt workout, feel free to send a copy to kcanopener@yahoo.com with [Sunday Prompt] in the subject heading. Depending on volume it may or may not be showcased in next week’s article.
~*~*~*~*~*~
TODAY’S TRIVIA
Q. When did all the publishers get together and decide not to indent the first sentence after a heading? And why?
A. Paragraphs are indented for one main reason: so readers aren’t faced with a ridiculously long block of text to read. Indents are used to separate groups of sentences and make the page aesthetically pleasing to the reader’s eye. It’s a design element, kind of like the black box separating each panel of a comic strip-without it it’d just all blend together.
But the first paragraph of a chapter or after a subhead doesn’t need to be indented because it doesn’t follow a long block of text. The contrast of the heading to the paragraph should be easy enough for the reader to process.
Q. Where was the first automat?
A. Horn & Hardart opened the first U.S. automat in Philadelphia in 1902.
LAW: A state law in Illinois mandates that all bachelors should be called master, not mister, when addressed by their female counterparts.
~*~*~*~*~*~
QUOTH THE RAVEN
Personally, I can’t see why it would be any less romantic to find a husband in a nice four-colour catalogue than in the average bar at happy hour.
-The Worst Years of Our Lives (1991) ‘Tales of the Man Shortage’
Barbara Ehrenreich (born August 26, 1941, in Butte, Montana) is a prominent liberal American writer, columnist, feminist, socialist and political activist. Ehrenreich studied physics at Reed College, graduating in 1963. Her senior thesis was entitled Electrochemical oscillations of the silicon anode. In 1968, she received a Ph.D in cell biology from Rockefeller University.
~*~*~*~*~*~
A TIP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Bad Wraps, Part 2
3) The Detour
A Detour ending strays from what your story is really about. You’ve got some “good stuff” that didn’t fit in the rest of the story, so you stick it at the end.
Suppose you’re writing about a doctor who incorporates alternative medicine-acupuncture, herbal remedies-into her practice. If that’s your focus, don’t finish by tacking on a few paragraphs of her thoughts about malpractice insurance.
Fixing a Detour is a snap: Use your friend the delete key. Then find an ending that summarizes the true focus of your story (which you may discover is already written, right before you veered off into dreaded Detour).
4) The Sudden Stop
Equally bad as a story that detours at the end is on that simply stops in midair. You’ve run out of good material, so you stop writing without giving the readers any sense of closure-much less any warning that they’ve reached the conclusion. You’ll leave editors and readers flipping in frustration to try and find the rest of the story.
If you have no natural ending, fixing the Sudden Stop may take a little verbal gymnastics. You’ll need to work in clues that this indeed is the end-like wrapping up a conversation (“Well, Bob, it’s been great talking to you”). Often a quote can be given a sense of resonance that makes it an effective ending. So, for instance, if you’ve suddenly stopped with an indirect quote, consider reworking it as a direct quote that packs more of a satisfying sense of summation. Instead of:
[Smith says he loves the land he ranches on and feels he really doesn’t have a choice in his career.]
Try ending with:
[“I really don’t have a choice except to be a rancher,” Smith says at last. “I love this land.”]
5) The Meander
The opposite of the Sudden Stop is the Meander, where you do have a natural ending but haven’t recognized it. Like the Detour, you’ve gone past the real ending, albeit with material that’s at least germane to your focus. You may even Meander through multiple natural endings, each time signaling readers that “this is the boffo finish!” only to keep going. (Think of the endless endings of the Lord of the Rings movie.)
Stories with some dramatic and/or chronological thrust are particularly prone to the Meander but they’re easy to fix: Once you’ve deliver the dramatic conclusion to your yarn-the patient survives the heart transplant, the soldier returns from Iraq-know when to quit. Don’t keep prattling on with lesser events or information better inserted earlier in the story or omitted altogether, which simply detract from the drama of your natural conclusion.
Never, in short, overstay your welcome as a writer. If, for instance, you’ve promised to deliver five tips, don’t ramble into a sixth and seventh. Know when to say:
The End.
-David A. Fryxell (Writer’s Digest, May 2005)
~*~*~*~*~*~
THE WRITER’S HANDBOOK
1999 Edition
Doing It for Love
By Erica Jong
Part 1
Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us. That is also why we pretend to be hard-boiled, saying things like “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money” (Samuel Johnson). Not true. No one but a blockhead ever wrote except for love.
There are plenty of easier ways to make money. Almost anything is less labor-intensive and better paid than writing. Almost anything is safer. Reveal yourself on the page repeatedly, and you are likely to be rewarded with exile, prison or neglect. Ask Dante or Oscar Wilde or Emily Dickinson. Scheme and betray, and you are likely to be rewarded with wealth, publicity and homage. Tell the truth, and you are likely to be a pariah within your family, a semi-criminal to authorities and damned with faint praise by your peers. So why do we do it? Because saying what you think is the only freedom. “Liberty,” said Camus, “is the right not to lie.”
In a society in which everything is for sale, in which deals and auctions make the biggest news, doing it for love is the only remaining liberty. Do it for love and you cannot be censored. Do it for love and you cannot be stopped. Do it for love and the rich will envy no one more than you. In a world of tuxedos, the naked man is king. In a world of bookkeepers with spreadsheets, the one who gives it away without counting the cost is God.
I seem to have known this from my earliest years. I never remember a time when I didn’t write. Notebooks, stories, journals, poems-the act of writing always made me feel centered and whole. It still does. It is my meditation, my medicine, my prayer, my solace. I was lucky enough to learn early (with my first two books of poetry and my first novel) that if you are relentlessly honest about what you feel and fear, you can become a mouthpiece for something more than your own feelings. People are remarkably similar at the heart level-where it counts. Writers are born to voice what we all feel. That is the gift. And we keep it alive by giving it away.
It is a sacred calling. The writers I am most drawn to understand it as such: Thomas Merton, Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson. But one doesn’t always see the calling clearly as one labors in the fields of love. I often find myself puzzling over the choices a writer is given. When I am most perplexed, I return to my roots: poetry. The novel is elastic: It allows for social satire, cooking, toothbrushes, the way we live now. Poetry, on the contrary, boils down to essences. I feel privileged to have done both.
And I am grateful to have found my vocation early. I was also blessed to encounter criticism early. It forced me to listen to my inner voice, not the roar of the crowd. This is the most useful lesson a writer can learn.
Lately, we keep hearing dire warnings about the impending death of the novel. As one who has written frankly autobiographical fiction (Fear of Flying), historical fiction (Fanny, Serenissima or Shylock’s Daughter), and memoir (Fear of Fifty and The Devil at Large), I think I’ve begun to understand how the process of making fiction differs from that of making memoir. A memoir is tethered to one’s own experience in a particularly limiting way: The observing consciousness of the book is rooted in a real person. That person may be fascinating, but he or she can never be as rich and subtle as the characters that grow out of aspects of the author. In the memoir, the “I” dominates. In the novel, the “I” is made up of many “I”s. More richness is possible, more points of view, deeper imitation of life.
When I finished Fear of Fifty, I felt I had quite exhausted my own life and might never write another book. What I eventually discovered was that the process had actually liberated me. Having shed my own autobiography, I now felt ready to invent in a new way. I wanted to write a novel about the 20th century and how it affected the lives of women. I wanted to write a novel about a Jewish family in the century that nearly saw the destruction of the Jewish people.
~*~*~*~*~*~
EXERCISE YOUR WRITES
Take a favorite character from any story you’ve ever read, or from a movie you’ve seen. Describe him or her. What does he look like? What’s her job? Then place them in a setting they’ve never encountered before. What happens?
~*~*~*~*~*~
AUTHOR OF THE WEEK
Mercedes Lackey (born June 24, 1950) (also known as Misty Lackey) is a prolific American author of fantasy novels. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar. Her Valdemar novels form a complex tapestry of interaction between human and non-human protagonists with many different cultures and social mores.
The other main world in which she writes is one much like our own, but also populated by elves, mages, vampires, and other mythical beings. Some of the interlocking series in this world are the Diana Tregarde thrillers, the SERRAted Edge books about racecar-driving elves, and the Bedlam's Bard books, describing a young man with the power to work incredible magics through music.
There is a Mercedes Lackey fan group on Usenet. The fanclub, the "Queen's Own", is named after Herald Talia's position in her books.
Her earlier Velgarth novels are all solo projects, but later volumes in the Valdemar saga are illustrated by her husband Larry Dixon, and in many of her latest works he is also credited as co-author. Many of her other novels are collaborations. She has worked with fantasy genre giants Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Piers Anthony, and most recently has written The Obsidian Trilogy with historian James Mallory and a historical fantasy series based on Elizabeth I with romance writer Roberta Gellis.
While at Purdue, she took a one-on-one class of English Literature Independent Studies with a professor who was a fellow sci-fi fan. He helped her analyze books she enjoyed and then use that knowledge. Lackey then encountered fan fiction, which further encouraged her writing. She began publishing work in fanzines, and then discovered filk and had some filk lyrics published by Off Centaur Publications. She submitted a story to Sword and Sorceress, then sold the rewritten story to Fantasy Book Magazine. Her first sale was to Friends of Darkover.
She met C. J. Cherryh through filk, who mentored her during the writing of her 'Arrows' series. During this time, Marion Zimmer Bradley included her short stories in an anthology and Cherryh helped Lackey through 17 rewrites of 'Arrows'.
Lackey has been active in the filking community. She was a major contributor to an early album of space filk, Minus Ten and Counting. She has won 5 Pegasus Awards, mostly for her songwriting.
~*~*~*~*~*~
ASK DAWN
Q. What kind of writing exercises do you suggest to help with writers block?
-Cat from Houston, Texas
A. Wow, that’s a tough one. Everybody responds to writer’s block in different ways, and from all of the many techniques I have heard of and used (many which have nothing to do with actual writing) you will have to find what works for you through trial & error.
• Work on something else for a while.
This one is a common method to fight writer’s block. Sometimes working on another project for an x-amount of time gets the creative juices flowing. Prompts, challenges, a stray thought, a journal entry, your take on a scene from someone else’s work, anything would be fine.
• Read over the story from start to where you left off.
If you have a block, it could be that some element within your story is inconsistent and your subconscious picked up on that.
• Write down your goals.
What must absolutely happen for your story to move towards its big finish? Once you’ve plotted out these events, jot down what can and who can get the story there. Which would be the most interesting for you to write?
• Talk to your characters.
I’m not being crazy. Ask your characters what they want to happen, then decide if any of them are right or if they’re all completely wrong. Don’t forget about that random minor character who saw everything happen.
• Read praise.
Praise makes you happy. Being happy puts endorphins into your body. Endorphins stimulate your brain. If you’re a new writer and don’t have a stock of ready praise to read, look at someone else’s and allow yourself to get excited about it.
• Take a break.
It’s possible to burn yourself out on a specific story/project/etc. Go watch TV, read a book, take a walk and get some fresh air, nap, relax.
• Change locations.
A fresh scene could be all you need. Go to a coffee shop or a library, or anywhere else you could sit down and write. Listen to the conversations around, see what others are doing; they could inspire a part of your story. Ride a bus or train around town, as being on the move can be very stimulating. Or, if that’s not an option, just change rooms. Have you ever written in the bathtub? It worked wonders for Benjamin Franklin, Edmond Rostand, and Vladimir Nabokov.
• Change positions.
Writing while sitting down is the usual and obvious method, but other have found that lying down (Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Truman Capote) or standing up (Lewis Carroll, Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway) was better for productivity.
• Change materials.
That’s right, go back to good ol’ pencil and paper. Or if that’s what you usually do, get on the computer, or use crayons instead.
• Talk to a buddy.
Bounce your ideas off of someone (mom, neighbor, childhood friend, Fluffy). Talking out the situation will get your brain into its problem-solving mode.
My main piece of advice is to do anything but stare at a blank screen. Nothing gives a writer’s block more weight than doing nothing at all.
*Ask Dawn is written by Dawn Eastpoint. If you have a literary question you would like an answer to, please write to kcanopener@yahoo.com with [ASK] in the subject heading. Depending on volume and/or time restrains, questions may be posted in next week’s newsletter or answered privately.
**If you would like to make suggestions, a contribution, or have any concerns regarding the newsletter, please send your queries to kcanopener@yahoo.com with [Newsletter] in the subject heading.