It made me think at all the time writers need to show courage to be true to their stories…
Sometimes it is about writing in a way which scares us a little because we´re not sure we can. It seems too powerful, too out-there, too crazy, too elaborated, simply too much for our ability but we take our chances.
Sometimes we reach a place in our writing which is painful but we power through.
Sometimes we know we´re breaking the so-called writing rules but we go for it.
Sometimes we wonder if we will ever succeed but we keep on writing.
When the writing gets tough, it may just mean we have to overcome our fear, whatever it is. We´re all courageous in our writing one way or another and we should remember it.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. (Mark Twain)
Tell me, what is one scary moment you had to overcome in your writing journey?
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We´re all hard on ourselves. We´re much harder on ourselves than on others.
If one of your friends came over and told you: “I´m writing a book, I finished the first draft but I have the feeling that I can´t do it all, that I don´t spend enough time with other things. Plus, some of the subplot is just not where it´s supposed to be and my characters don´t make sense. I feel so tired.”
Your friend would reply: “You wrote a book! It´s amazing! I don´t know how you do it all.”
Yes. most people would turn to any of us, impressed by our creativity, impressed by our dedication…Not everybody but most people.
Some may even tell us we´re a tad insane to write when we have so much uncertainty about being published for us, writing is just a thing we have to do because, most of the times, it makes us happy.
However, we do need to take a moment to sit back, to realize how much we´ve accomplished and to give ourselves a pat on the back.
Feel yourself hugged!
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“Inspiration, Ideas, Imagination” are only a part of the writing process but they are a MAJOR one.
Stephen King mentioned in his book On Writing (which I still have not read – I need to get on this) that he gets his ideas from a “small, bloodthirsty elf who lives in a hole under my desk”. Hmm any of you have one of those little elves (they do sound scary though). While this elf is less scary, I also don’t think Mister King has Will Ferrell under his desk.
Ok Mister King also said that: “I get my ideas from everywhere. But what all of my ideas boil down to is seeing maybe one thing, but in a lot of cases it’s seeing two things and having them come together in some new and interesting way, and then adding the question ‘What if?’ ‘What if’ is always the key question.” So it appears that M. King is both active and passive in his ways of getting the Triple I.
“Where do writers get them?” vs. “Where do they hit writers?”
The construction of those two sentences says it all. In one case, we’re the subject and in the other we become the direct object.
Are we passive or active in our quest for the shiny twist or the unforgettable character?
I started pondering about this because of the flash fiction I posted on my blog on Monday and which you can read here. This little piece which started with a given sentence has since then tickled my fancy. I enjoyed the voice, it felt easy and right but the characters would like me to tell their story. I have to shush them right now because I’m revising and I already started another draft of another story. But I digress.
I never stopped to think about my ideas. I have them. Or not. Depending on the days but I do rely on them to keep me going. Sometimes, they flow through my fingertips. Sometimes, I go through the creative process, where I try to find new ideas, new twists and whenI stop to ask the “What if?” question. I can ask this question in very random places or just by watching people go about their business. I am very good at the “What if?” I can get a bit on the anxious side using this way of thinking in my daily tasks.
My husband who reads this is probably rolling his eyes at the words “a bit”…
While I need to lower my “What if” scenarios when it comes to my non-writing endeavours, I think it does help me a lot, even subconsciously, with my creative process.
I strongly believe that writers are both active and passive in their quest. We have integrated certain processes and our imagination runs wild at unexpected places. However, we also work towards our “Triple I”. How? We read a lot, we scrap entire passages in our writing process because we know it does not work and we buckle up for the tough ride which is writing. We trigger our “Triple I” buttons by consciously taking part in prompts, in discussions…We type, even if it is only a few words, even if those words hurt because we know that, for the most part, the triple I is around there with us. It helps us to almost forget about those difficult moments when the writing gets going and when we fall in our happy, fulfilling, exciting writing place.
What do YOU think? Are we passive or active with our Triple I?
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I’ve been a bit out of the blogosphere and twitter the past days cos’ I’ve been a tad sick…I’ll be back full speed soon though 😀
Now, on to Road Trip Wednesday (get ready for a long post!)…
Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s unique take on the topic.
This Week’s Topic: What Shiny New Idea were you psyched to work on, but discovered it was too close to something already done?
I finished my first draft of my first-ever-finished-draft last month so I don’t have a lot of experience on this and I have plenty of ideas for my second/third/and upcoming WIPs…none of them I am tossing aside yet.
The question would be: How close is too close for comfort?
Let’s say I am writing a dystopian book and my new shiny idea is: a world where each year tributes from different sectors fight to death until only one stays alive.
This may sound a tad too close to something already published (*cough* The Hunger Games)…unless…it takes place in an avatar-like world and it’s beasts vs humans and we see the perspective of the monster and it’s in an arena where everybody can cheer them on and nobody volunteers for somebody else and the humans become more monstruous than the beast and a beast rescues a human and they flee the game and the winner of the game needs to kill them both if he wants to survive and it’s her brother and the monster and the beast discover they have more things in common and….the story is actually different.
Does my actual draft (the one I wrote, not the imaginary one I just made up above) have similarities to something already published?
Yes.
Is it a bad thing?
I don’t think so.
My book has witches in them. It also has love, steamy kisses, sad moments and learning to know oneself.
Plenty of books have witches and love, just like plenty of books had vampires before Twilight. And don’t get me started about books where love plays a role in…
Would you pick my draft up and think: wow, wait a second, I read this and this French lady should totally be sued for copyrights’ infringement, like Deforges for Gone with the wind? (by the way I love the Bicyclette bleue series)?
No
I will not toss my idea aside for two reasons:
By the time I am actually done with the process of seeing my book on shelves: revising, sending it to my beta-readers, making changes, querying, getting-the-agent-who-loves-my-story-and-the-way-I-tell-it, making changes, landing the contract with amazing-publisher, possibly making more changes…, the market may be curious for new stories about witches.
The story will be different. Let’s take another example the fairy tales re-telling…they have the same idea in them but the way they are told make them stand apart,
Let’s talk movies.
See, I love that movie!
And I love that one too 😀 (not ashamed to admit it)
And wow, Drew Barrymore in that one? (amazing…)
Ok to get back to point 2) 🙂 The story will be different because this is the one I wrote. We all bring ourselves to the paper, one way or another, if we recognize it or not. Books are not written in a vacuum – New Historicism amongst other literary theories help us to see this. I get inspired by other people’s writings, by the sun, by the clouds, by music, by a certain light, by a smile…by many things. I get better thanks to other people’s writings but the story I am telling is still my own.
Sometimes, as a reader, we see story lines which ring a bell but we still dive into a novel because of the craft of the writer, because the characters become endearing, because this story becomes fresh in our eyes when we do so.
My story is original and I certainly hope that it will get the chance to see the wild wild world…And if it does not, it might get tossed aside for awhile but it will always hold a special place in my heart!
Wow…this was a looong post 🙂
I cannot wait to read your thoughts on this!
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Not too long ago, I blogged about the music muse for my novel (you know the one I actually finished on Sunday *happy dance again* :D).
I still wonder if the inspiration is already there and the music just seems to fit or if the music actually inspires me.
I had one of those moments waiting for the train last week. I have the musical Mamma Mia in my ipod (yes I do :-)) and as I stood in the cold at around 7am, I listened to these particular songs:
and this one
Both of them always move me. No doubt about that.
However, this time I immersed myself in my WIP and it made “click”. The first song inspired me a scene or released it, it was a very tough one to write (and no it´s not a break-up per se 🙂 but gosh the emotions flowing through it ripped my heart apart). The second one showed me I need to add some details about the mother/daughter relationship in the story.
Do you have one song which inspired YOU to add something to your story? or inspired you an entire scene? Do you listen to music when writing/editing?
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It´s Friday night, a long and productive week behind me and while waiting for my tea to heat up, I am trying to remember when I knew I wanted to become a writer…Going down memory lane. Ready? Hop on 🙂
As a child, I loved to read and make up stories. As a teenager in Junior High, one of my favourite assignment was “composition écrite” or a sort of creative writing. I used to tell stories out loud (even practicing my English or German as I went along). I wrote poetry (either love poems or socially engaged ones :-))
In High School, I started what I thought would be my first novel. I cannot remember why I stopped. Here and there, I tried again. I finished one short story (which I was very proud of and am now thinking I could actually use in a future work).
Two years ago, I dipped my toes into my current WIP, then put it on hold when work got too intense or I let things get in the way. I have seriously dived into it in September. I think somebody asked me: “what would you like to achieve in life?” Of course I said “world peace” (love the movie Miss Congeniality *smiles*). One of the answers was to be a writer. It does not mean I am looking for the money and the fame (even though I would not say no 🙂 ) but it really triggered me to realize how much creating stories, plots, characters meant to me. It is part of who I am, one of my passions and one of my goals. I am glad I decided to be more serious about it and making the time for it. I am happy to have already “met” wonderful support and inspiration in the blogosphere and forums on top of the one I have at home (I know, dear husband, that you will be reading this, that is, after you´re done playing with the PS3)
My tea is waiting for me but before I go, I have a question for you: when did you know you wanted to commit to your writing? Looking forward to hear your stories 🙂
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As always, there seems to be different takes on this: music inspiring characters, stories, plots, listening to music while writing, blocking out music altogether…
I personally do not really listen to music when I write, except sometimes in the train when I am blocking out other noises (especially loud conversations because my natural curiosity makes me listen, I may be a tad nosy but aren´t we all? :-))
It´s kinda of the chicken or the egg question for me. Do I get inspired by the music or does the music illustrate some of the plots/characters I already have in my head ready to jump on the paper?
So tada…here is a list of songs which make me think/or inspired me some of parts of my story:
Behind Blue Eyes – Limp Bizkit
For my male Main Character or should I say Main Characters…They both have some dark sides to them just like you and me and they struggle with it. It goes way back to 16th century France after all…
Love bites – def leppard
No, there are no vampires in my story. The title of the song may be misleading 🙂 But there are some love issues stretching over hundred of years…Yes, there is a love triangle (crossing my fingers that it is an original one :-)) and I just like this song…
Through glass – Stone Sour
Forever does seem like home…(no stalking but a curse hard to get rid of)
These are just examples of some of the soundtrack of my WIP…there are many more…which I will share with you very soon, I promise.
What songs would you say is YOUR soundtrack for your novel? Looking forward to listening to them 🙂
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By the way, as you can see by my drawing, I should stick to writing 🙂
At first, this question may appear a tad silly. After all, don’t we, writers, want all the creativity we can get? Whatever the muse decides to throw our way?
Yes.
Definitely.
Because we can rely on these little hints of plots, characters whenever we go through a dry spell (and they do happen, don’t they?)
Because it may become the next great story.
Because we just love those random ideas
However, I am finding myself being distracted by bursts of creativity which have nothing to do with my current WIP and I do not want to start working on something else. My aim is to finish this novel, to finally put the word “end” to a first draft…
I do write these other ideas down briefly to make sure I don’t lose them but it is a bit frustrating to see my inspiration not going the way I want it to be.
I find it more difficult to meet my daily writing goal. I am going through one of these moments where I believe that everything I write will need to be tossed away once I go through the editing stage because none of the ideas or the scenes are as good as the ones I cannot currently write.
Now my own little prep talk 🙂
Luckily, nobody said it would be easy. I’m up to the challenge because deep down I know that my WIP is worth it…Plus I know now that after this one is done, I will still have inspiration to go on to another project.
In the mean time if you have any advice, feel free to throw them my way…if you want to sympathize, please also feel free to leave a comment (I never say no to some cheering up)
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By what do you get inspired? It is almost like asking: why are you writing?
Sometimes, it is difficult to grasp where the writing scenes come from…
Sometimes one can recognize in the MC´s habits, way of talking some small characters of a loved one, an acquaintance, of somebody from the past or even of oneself.
Tonight, as I was outside looking at the moon reflecting on the water, I wondered what my main character would feel on an evening like this with everything she has been going through…
Is she thinking of Aleksi, the one who not only gives her butterflies but is no longer as mysterious as she first thought?
Is she pondering the words of Ben? Is she wondering what he meant when he said Aleksi was dangerous? How does he even know him? The guy just arrived…
Or maybe she is actually tired of the stupid drama and just wants to figure out why this entity is coming after her and her loved ones, why she has flashbacks from another time and what the heck happened to Marie and Elijah, those girls who are linked to her over the centuries?
As I type this and look at the moon, I know a scene is unfolding, I feel the pain of my character and I just want to tell her “Sorry you have to go through all of this but remember, you have it in your power to make the right decision…this time around”
And if she did hear me, her reply would be “Can´t you be a tad more specific? I mean come on people…I just cannot guess what you think, you need to spell it out for me. I am tired of this!” and she would storm out.
She does have a little temper of her own…(my husband would say I am projecting :-))
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Elodie Nowodazkij 