Unlocking Your Inner Potential - Rebecca Lisle

Well, is there inner potential, that's the question.  I'm certainly not sure there's any in me. I suspect that my innards are devoid of anything. Everything. I'm trying to write and I can't. My inner muse or well of inspiration or whatever, is now nothing but a clogged up puddle of mud.

I wondered if a self-help guide might help. Although I don't want my own self-help, I want someone else to help. Actually I guess I want someone else to write my 'book words' for me.

The trouble with this book is I am already full of fear and personally I think it's plain dangerous to do something you know for sure is scary. That's why it's scary. To stop you from doing it. Sensible really. Protective.

So this book is no help at all.

Apparently I do have an inner genius, really I do. There's lots about it on the internet. I have to find it, that's all. Unlock it. So I turn to my store of images which I gather as I go about the world, hoping one day they will become something. Anything. Since I always find doors inspiring and interesting here are a few of my favourites. They might give you inspiration. But these doors are . . .

              

          

Locked. Maybe for ever.

OK.  

I've got more photos. I've got these fascinating boxes, surely full of wonderful ideas and exciting plots:

How about this ancient box. What was it used for? Why the huge lock? Surely I can be inspired by its mysterious paintings of birds and spiky plants?  

What are those two chaps hiding in there? Are they smiling? I'm sure they look smug. I have the feeling they know the secret of how to write a good book and they've got it locked up in there and won't tell.

And what's inside this 15th century iron cask? The secret to the Universe? The best plot in the world?

And although I have some extraordinary keys - 

guess what - they don't unlock anything.

So back to the self-help books.  "How to be Happy" Impossible. It'll never happen. "How to write your novel in one year!" That's far too long. I want it done by the end of the week.  "The Easy Way to Write." That's just lies - there isn't one. "Everything I know about Writing." Fine, but you know it, you're successful, stop showing off. I know nothing. I can't write a thing.

Finally I take the plunge and write my very own self-help guide. A must for all would be novelists. It's called "The Only Way To Write"by Rebecca Lisle. Because there is only one me and only one way to write. And the best thing about it is it won't take long to read and it really does work!

There is one page of credits and acknowledgments: 

Firstly, I thank myself for all the hard work I've put into this book, myself for being my constant support and critic, myself for never giving up hope and belief in me and myself for feeding me constant cups of coffee and buns. I will never forget you. 

On the following page the advice begins. And ends. 

Stop faffing around and get on with it. 

Rebecca Lisle  www.rebeccalisle.com

Rebecca's most recent book THE SPIN, published by Hot Key Books has been nominated for the West Sussex Children's Book Award

August and the writer's thoughts turn ....... by Miriam Halahmy

"So where did summer go?" asked a poet friend on Facebook as August kicked in. I was at Lumb Bank, guest author on a writing retreat, and yes - it was raining hard.

Come August in England and dawn has gone dark and chill, leaves are clogging up the gutters and the flowers are fading in the patio pots. That's the thing about summer, by August its truly fading. I even wrote a poem about it one year.

Cheating on me

Here comes August

old prostitute

flowers faded in your red-dye hair.

You strut your green stuff

along days already crisp-edged

nights dark before ten.

All through parched June

classroom stiff with tired bodies

I dream of holidays

cheer myself hoarse at sports day

comfort the losers.

I wave my girl off to camp

and then it’s my turn.

August;

air laced with your carbon cocktail.

As we shave short the lawn

lock-up and head for the hills

the sun angle shifts.

In your see-through vest

you tease us, August;

long-limbed shadow of winter.

© Miriam Halahmy

How many writers feel like pumping out the great novel in August? Its not my best time to write, I have to admit. But if I write nothing then I feel even worse. And I’m not a big fan of the term ‘writer’s block’. It’s not that I always sit down at my desk ready to write and bang out 2000 words a day. It’s simply that I believe it is always possible to do a bit of writing, even if it isn’t the next chunk of the great work you had hoped for.

But with the help of chocolate, all is not lost!

Writing this blog will be my writing for today. Some of the points below I used in a blog for Lorrie Porter's excellent blogsite last year. But somehow in August it all seems very apt to ponder it all again.

So if you are deep in August, fed up the summer is nearly over and don't feel much like writing, here are my Five Favourite Tips for rebooting the writing fervour :-

1. Write a word, write a sentence, write something. Write with thick felt tip – my latest craze is Sharpie pens – deface a large sheet of brown paper. Take a word from your manuscript and brainstorm it all over the page. Writing is the trigger. Not writing makes us feel frozen inside. We are all about words so have fun and just write some.

2. I know, I know...  writing a set of disconnected words won’t get Chapter 14 written and you are feeling anxious and under pressure and can’t I offer something better than Number 1?

Yes I can! Sit down and write for 30 minutes and then get up and walk away. That brief writing time will return your self esteem and unfreeze your writing muscle. Do 30 minutes every day in the leanest, most uninspiring, most shut, closed, tight periods when you feel blocked, and you will breathe new life into your writing. You will stand up and walk away feeling, “I’ve done it, I’ve done my writing for today and now I can load the washing, cook dinner or watch Daytime TV without feeling guilty.”

3. Ask questions. Whenever I am stuck in the middle of a novel and I just can’t seem to write the next 50 words, let alone 5000, I switch to Bold Deep Red and put up any question which comes to mind. I answer each question before I put up the next one. I’m not brainstorming questions for the sake of it. I’m letting questions take over and trigger writing which ultimately will get me unstuck, reveal where I’m headed next and get me back to writing in a linear flow.

Here are a few examples :

a) Why am I sitting here?

b) What has just happened?

c) Who is x or why or z?

d) What do I want to say, write, do here on this page, in this para, in this book?

e) What do I honestly think is going to happen next?

I haven’t found that the question really matters. It’s a device, a trigger to trick me out back into writing. It works, mostly.

4. If it doesn’t work, or sometimes because it just feels better, I go back to pen and paper.  I wrote my first novel, Secret Territory, back in the 1990s

steam- age, by hand on the kitchen table, after the kids had gone to bed.

So when I’m stuck and the writing just isn’t pouring out of me, I go back to the old ways, the contact of pen on paper and I start asking all my questions. Usually I find I’ve covered several sheets in about 10 minutes, I’m ready to fire up the laptop once more and get back on my horse.

5. I know this all sounds a bit smug and as though I can write anytime, anywhere, with just a few nudges to get going again. Well, I can’t.

But like most people who have been doing this for donkey years, I have managed to find tricks and devices which will get me out of the doldrums and off again. 

Sometimes I know you just have to call it a day or even a week. But even in the worst dry patches there’s always something you can do.Write a poem, a shopping list, a note to teacher, a letter to your old aunt ( one of my favourites because we get so few personal letters these days)

We are writers, it's what we do, it doesn't always have to be the next great novel. But it has to involve black words on white background, strung together somehow.

Good luck with your writing and do let us know if you have a great tip for getting unstuck.

The "NOT THE THREE PAGES AGAIN" Report. By Penny Dolan

(I know it’s the first of April, but this isn’t a Fools Day post. )

Silence. It’s a horrid thing to have happen. The words in the head gone, or never hanging around long enough to be useful. The shameful feeling of no longer being able to be the writer I've thought I was,.

The silence crept up on me, bit by bit, started by several petty reasons. A sudden family incident that it doesn't help to go on about. A smattering of nagging anxieties, boring and best suppressed. A while with scaffolding rattling outside my workroom window, and similar. A longish Arts Project ,and a worthy commitment that both ate up too much administration time. (Oh, why didn’t I weigh up the time involved at the start?) As well as all the good stuff of life that still needs planning and attention and enjoyment. Way too much on your mind? Best keep your mouth shut, and just get on with it all.

The silence grew, added to by the shadow of a “big book” not doing as it should, and one single minor review that hurt badly. Beware too thin a skin. Then there was that guard-down, coming-out-of-the-loo moment slap into the face of a slightly sneery librarian’s harsh remark. (Just who did I think I was, pretending to be a writer, I thought.) Then that one twisted school visit – out of many good ones, I know, I know - that didn’t go quite right. (Curse you, Powerpoint facilities!)  Gradually the book that should be being written, is half-written, has paused for far too long a time.

Don't worry. I don't need a large red-spotted hanky or sympathy to wallow in. 

This is just my explanation of why, slowly, the words had stopped, and that some kind of action was urgently required. 

What action? I decided to try the “Artist’s Way” again, again. So the rest of this post is about is the famous Three Pages -  or my version of how I did, and how I DO do them.

A quick aside, if you haven't yet heard  that expression yet. The Three Pages writing exercise comes from the American writer and creative renewal guru, Julia Cameron. Her first book (1994) had the title “THE ARTIST'S WAY: A COURSE IN DISCOVERING YOUR CREATIVE SELF", and took the model of the AA 12-step programme. Julia continued with more books on this theme and a strong on-line presence. Her books do offer good and wise suggestions and I respect her enormously, especially for fighting her personal demons.

HOWEVER

Julia writes very American, and I am not. When she lyrically describes breakfasting on her sunlit porch, or riding her horse through the desert, or spending money on sparkly pencils in stores, or walking the streets of Manhattan, or meeting up with this or that creative film or theatre person in her cafe, or suddenly having a dream about putting on a musical and that happens . . .

Oh dear. Apologies. Julia. The crabby bit of me makes me shrug my shoulders and go “meh”. I'm sure it is all true, but that life is not my life. Never has been my life. These events may be a movie or life elsewhere, but not here. (Peers out at the grey drizzle outside)

FURTHERMORE

Julia’s main demand, echoing Dorothea Brande’s original and earlier book Becoming A Writer, is this. Every morning, as you wake up, you write three pages. I tried this often, as my family grew from babbling to teen-sulking around me. Sorry, Julia, but I failed too soon each time I tried. ( Back then, I was a working, work-worn mum. Somehow my role was to get everyone out there each morning or we starved. Time management wasn’t my thing - and I was doing diplomas and degrees around that time too, studying in the evenings. Not a good mix.)

BUT YET

Last November, with that cold grey dog Silence crouched by my ankles, I decided to try the Three Pages method again. (Not Page Three, please note.) However this time I would do it MY way. I would scribble those Three Pages down whenever I could. If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t grieve. Or feel bad. Or all that other negative stuff that cascaded down. Agreed? Yes.

AND SO

I did -  and have now been doing - the Three Pages. I've done them for (counts on fingers . . .) about five months now, and the good news is that - even in my revised, occasionally feeble and now-guiltless version - the Three Pages have worked. I miss it when I don;t do them. Words and ideas have started whispering in my head - and something’s begun ticking again on my big project.

BUT WHAT DO YOU DO FOR THE THREE PAGES?

I use a large A4 yellow-paged notebook. Yellow because it isn’t white work paper, and the colour cheers me. Size is important too. Three large pages gives a generous space for you to listen to your muttering mind, and let all the low-level, hidden frets to rise up to the surface, to spill out somewhere around mid-second page. Aha, you think. So that’s what’s really making me so cross and fidgety!

I use a beautiful old green art-deco fountain pen, inherited from my father, which makes for comfortable writing. I keep away from the scary computer screen, the scene of my failure. The physical act of writing by hand seems to feed the task.

I use green ink, because this is not work, right? (Blue ink: school. Black ink: for depression or drawing Red ink : corrections and being marked. ) Green ink? Yes! Interesting and inspiring. Even if my fingers are always covered in green stains.

I note the day, date and year at the start, keeping a light watch on when I last made time for myself. If I have missed any days, I let myself wonder why, then start again. I even note where I’m scribbling. “Writing this in bed  . . .” or “At my desk. 4.30am”.

I note the time I start, out of curiosity, and when I end. Dawn, morning, afternoon, late night, before I sleep. All sorts of times, whenever I can. The aim is to do it, not to be perfect. (Sometimes my three pages take 50 minutes. I note that I lose focus, get distracted. Small must-be-done’s arrive, start yapping and too soon I give in, but I try better next time. Yet, thinking about this blog, I got three pages covered in 20 minutes.

I use the Three Pages for . . what? Not for “writing on a given theme” at all, nor as a diary, although some entries do sound a bit like that. Nor are they reflective odes to all that is lovely around me, ever searching for the precise, right , perfect word. The Three Pages work by getting the hand and head moving, and even if angry thoughts flicker on some pages, somehow the yellow paper isn’t greyed over with gloom.

The Three Pages are just me writing,however the writing turns out, whatever the words think: a sort of low-level meditation. The pages are private: what’s in three pages stays in three pages, or they did until I used one set to consider my thoughts for this blogpost. Maybe the pages are changing? Maybe they are becoming about what I write about? Who knows?

For me, the Three Pages have become a place to rest and be alone. No readers, no editors, no revisions, a space where inspiration is not demanded, where my writing doesn’t matter - although in a way, it does, very much. And day after day - or almost - the pages have helped the other, the “Real Writing” begin again, too.

 

I’m sure that, to some of you, this wittering about silence will sound self-indulgent and weak. "Lives are different" is all I can say, and I have worked on some briefs that ended up in print and cheered me immensely. It was the big writing thing I'm wanting to finish that scared me. Onwards - and this post makes sense to anyone, thank you for reading.

 Penny Dolan

www.pennydolan.com

Why Do You Write? - Heather Dyer

I don't find writing easy. Sometimes, when things feel particularly difficult, I wonder why I'm still sitting at the computer getting a bad back when I could be out there living a life. So I wrote a list of the reasons why I think I write.

Why do I write?

To learn what I think.
To preserve beautiful moments or images.
To understand.
To discover truths.
To make children laugh inwardly.
To give children somewhere to go.
For the pleasure of arranging words as precisely as musical notes.
To feel as though I'm revealing a story that pre-exists.
To feel I'm receiving communications from something bigger.
To remember.
To go on an adventure.
To make something that reflects my self.
To contribute something positive.
To make something that goes beyond me.
To make something that lasts after me.

Why do you write?

Creativity and Play - Heather Dyer

I've been teaching a class called Developing Creativity. It's a lifelong learning class, so there's a really interesting mix of ages and the class includes an abstract painter, two businesswomen, two poets, a watercolour artist and a forensic scientist.

Having only ever taught creative writing before, I was keen to introduce exercises that each of them could apply to their own projects. So, at the end of the second session I asked them all what they wanted from the course.

 

I was quite taken aback when, as one, they shouted: "FUN!!"

I rolled my eyes and I thought: "pearls before swine!"

 

But then I got to thinking that maybe they were right, and that it was they who had a thing or two to teach me about creativity, and not the other way around.

Because creativity and play have a lot in common.

In order to be creative, we need to develop the same attitudes and state of mind that we do when we play. Firstly, we must be completely absorbed but not too attached to the end product. We must remain fluid and able to respond spontaneously in the moment. We must let the game take us where it will - outside any preconceived notions or linear thought processes. We mustn't be too anxious when we play, or too self conscious (perhaps that's why adults play so little). Play requires that we forget ourselves, let go, and see what happens. Exactly the qualities required for creativity.

A long time ago I asked an older, wiser writer friend if she knew a cure for writer's block. She said she met with her fellow writer friends once a month just to do writing exercises. I told her I didn't have time for that and that I needed to focus on getting this book done. She replied that she found the exercises helpful because they helped her to 'take it all less seriously'.

There was a pause, during which we looked at one another and I knew that there was a lesson in there for me, somewhere. But I didn't take it. Now my students are teaching me the same lesson. Perhaps it's time I listened.