Beauty and the barbs

A thistle, a thastle, a red and purple bastle--okay, my apologies!

It is a thistle, which are blooming everywhere. Most people believe them to be nasty ugly weeds. My dog thinks the fluff is delicious. I adore them.

Why? Because beauty always is barbed. Roses have thorns, actress have surgery, creative people have doubts and rejection.

Nobody gets one without the other--and when I remember that it makes it a little less painful when I get barbed by a rejection. Okay that's my philosophizing for today! Maybe for weeks!

What do you do when it stings?

Balance beams and falling off...

...and then getting right back on. Life is a balancing act--and from time to time we all fall off the beam.

I did this weekend. I taught a workshop--boy was that fun!--but because I don't teach workshops every weekend, I got a bit unbalanced. And then I fought that touch of mis-step (i.e. I didn't work on my w.i.p. on one day) and so I tumbled off the beam.

The solution? Yeah, you guessed it. I got right back on the beam. Not without rolling around on the mat a bit and a complaint or two.

What makes you fall off the beam? What helps you get back on?

SECRET: Nobody's perfect, everybody gets off-balance from time to time. Relax and get back on the beam as soon as you can.

When in doubt, nap

And nobody does it better!

So, how do you take a break?

Dog Days

All sorts of cliches come to me : "let sleeping dogs lie,"" ah, the dog days of summer, ""when in doubt, nap."

But this post is really about transitions and how exhausting they are. August for me, is a transition time. And I've noticed how it is for most people: end of summer, hot days but touched in the mornings with a taste of to-come, school almost here. I have a friend who told me that Fall in Native American tradition really is the beginning of a new year--and that somehow makes perfect sense to me.

Transitions highlight, perhaps also increase the pace of, change. Time to get out the fall wardrobe, time to get ready for school, time to start thinking about the holiday season (which starts way too early these days--I've already seen Christmas decorations!). And no time to get it all done...

What helps me when I feel my knees buckle from fatigue? Acceptance. Acceptance that everything changes every moment. Acceptance that it can be difficult to "keep up" with everything in a transition--and perhaps unnecessary--so I wear white after Labor Day, so what? And acceptance that resistance, fighting a transition (more summer! more hot days! more vacation!) is more tiring and futile than acceptance.

What do you do to ease transitional times?

Why we need "blind readers"

Okay, I had an epiphany today--I discovered a "flaw" in my w.i.p. I put flaw in quotation marks because this one is big enough to drive all the semis delivering the last Harry Potter through, side by side. The problem is I developed, added to and changed the characters, after taking Donald Maass' Write the Breakout Novel Intensive workshop (excellent), which transformed relationships which meant that a plot point disappeared. Vanished. Gone and left behind a black hole.

I'm fortunate to have an excellent writers' group that I credit for much assistance and for most of my improvement of my writing. They didn't catch the plot hole. Why? Because they had read the earlier drafts, of course!

Hence the value of "blind readers." A term which always puzzles non-writers--do you have to translate into braille? Not unless the reader is literally (sorry, bad pun) blind. A blind reader is someone who has never read any draft or section of your w.i.p. When the draft is very, very close to final is when you have as many blind readers read it as possible.

The blind reader is a great resource. They catch all the things that a writer doesn't: plot failures big and small, character problems, where the novel works and where it doesn't (especially important). Blind readers are not your family, your close friends or a possible agent. Blind readers are best if they enjoy reading and read widely in your genre or lack of genre, but are fine just as long as they love to read. Writers are nice as well as blind readers, but sometimes writers are too much editors. Blind readers are the closest thing to objective that a writer can hope to find.

How to find a blind reader? I have a librarian friend who has a couple of friends. I have a writer friend who belongs to a book club and knows a couple of avid readers. Book clubs, librarians, writers that have friends--are you friendly with the clerks at a bookstore? When you find a blind reader, resist the urge to make a new friend. Explain how you truly are thick-skinned (a little white lie) and would love to hear their honest opinion. If it's not too long and involved, a short quick list of questions at the end of your w.i.p. is also useful: "Were you ever confused or lost or did you lose interest in any of title of book?" Keep your interaction brief with a blind reader so they don't become exhausted and use each only a few times.

HINT: Blind readers are gold and well worth searching for and finding.

A million facets

It's been a couple of months since I attended the magnificent, fun Murder in the Grove Conference.

Before the conference, Murder in the Grove provided a fabulous workshop by Margie Lawson on her editing system. Margie is a psychologist as well as a writer, so she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her workshops. It's been a couple of months, and I'm still discovering new insights and developing new skill sets from her workshop. Not only has my editing of my manuscript improved, but also my writing.

Why? That leads to the title of this entry. Creative pursuits are subjective and so there is a million ways of creating and a million ways of perceiving said creation. Taking an excellent workshop like Margie's is one way of shifting perception and gaining a touch of objectivity. It also provided a whole new "toolbox" of methods for faceting the diamond of my w.i.p. How's that for a mixed metaphor? And simply the work of a workshop forces all sorts of new connections with imagination.

Hint: Stuck in a rut? Feel like your creative endeavor is going nowhere at no pace? Take a fun workshop like one of Margie's (her classes are also available online and also excellent), or a class in something unique to you, or read a manuscript or critique (not criticize) a friend's endeavors. Use your imagination!

Of drafts blowing hot and cold

Woohoo! I've finished my almost-final draft of my w.i.p.! So, to use a metaphor to death: my first draft was the foundation, the walls and roof of my novel, this draft was finishing the outside and inside: painting, laying down tile and carpet, bathroom fixtures in, etc. And the next draft is moving in (the final tweaking draft).

Okay, that's goofy. But I've found that thinking of my w.i.p. this way helps me DETACH (a little) from my work. Which, in editing is extremely useful. Any subjectivity is sooo helpful. And difficult to achieve. I think of my novel as a structure where in the first draft, I can move the foundation, have more rooms or fewer rooms, and so on. In the second draft, I can change the paint color, the fixtures, the tile. The third and final draft: the house is in place, it just needs to become a home.

Secret: Whatever your creative endeavor, thinking of it in metaphorical terms often is useful for gaining a touch of subjectivity. Another example: a friend of mine is an artist, a painter, who thinks of her canvas as a film--the different scenes are the paint she lays down as she progresses.