Contingency plans: Part 2

I’m a few chapters into the novel I was talking about in my last post. It seems I can relax. There are some elements that are similar with mine, but the characters, setting, themes and ultimately the style is very different. Still, there’s nothing like a threat to your creative integrity to get you back on the writing horse. I guess this is what I needed to wake me up.

Contingency plans and the gravity of words

This post is coming to you from the as yet unfinished Bibliotopia via a nearly geriatric, (very) slow laptop. It is simply too hot upstairs where my primary computer is currently located and this room feels so right just now. Even my pooch prefers the coolness of the ground floor.

I went shopping at my favourite bookstore today. It is not uncommon for me to be there, nor is it uncommon for me to search the stacks, new and old, for novels that might resemble my own. I love reading, but I also like to keep abreast of what others are writing, what’s popular and what’s becoming cliché so I can avoid writing those. I have always had an aversion to the common or popular and so have, until recently, actively avoided reading (and writing) such fiction. My own library consists largely of unique or less well-known titles, of which I am proud, but about two years ago I decided to read from the “best-seller” and prize-winning lists to see what the fuss was all about. About 50% of the time I agree with the decisions of the judges; the other half the time I have found myself either indifferent or, in more than one case, outraged, by what I read. As a reader and a writer I believe in celebrating the beauty of human languages, and I am frequently dismayed by popular writers’ inability to capture that beauty in their own work. In these cases, too much emphasis has been given to plot or to themes and structure and there is a feeling that the book has been written in a hurry, or worse, to appeal to the skimmers and skippers of the reading community. I am a deliberate reader, which means I read closely and slowly, and I believe that if I have to skim any single passage or sentence to get to the good bits, then it is not a well-written book. For me to enjoy a novel, every word, every passage must be counted among the good bits. In my opinion, not enough attention is paid in many mass-published works to the choice of words, the construction and organisation of sentences and paragraphs and to the avoidance of clichés. Thus they are not unique and do not appeal to my literary mind. I fear that fiction has become more and more about quick-selling, dramatically-themed stories that will appeal to busy Generation Y’ers who have been taught to speed-read for the sake of expediency and less about celebrating the beauty of the language in which it is written. The latter is a skill that requires a lifetime of learning and an appreciation for the nuances of each syllable, the gravity of individual words and the meanings they actuate in the sentences for which they are chosen. Every word is a choice and affects the outcome of the whole, so words are not simply a base from which to start a sentence – every word has meaning.

Now you know the truth: I am a fussy reader, an old fashioned kind of girl with discriminating tastes. In essence I write what I would like to read. So today as I was browsing the stacks I was looking for examples of novels that achieve that delicate balance between a unique plot and good manipulation of grammar and vocabulary. I was feeling pretty self-satisfied that I still hadn’t found a book that mirrored my own masterpiece in the making: the concept is unique and the language is engaging . . . I think you can guess where this is going . . . and then I saw it: every novelists worst nightmare. At a quick glance it looks like any other book in the new release section and had my mind not been trained for the keywords contained in the books title I would have missed it. As soon as I read the title my heart tumbled into my belly. I cautioned my heart to be calm, that it was infinitely unlikely this book matched mine in premise and its plot. With a cautious hand I took the book off the shelf, drew in one fortifying breath and flipped the book to the back cover. By the third line my heart sank a little further, by the fourth line the fortifying breath was released in a slow sigh. Those keywords matched closely the ones I’d used to describe my own novel. I knew I had to buy this book to read it, because it appealed to me as a writer and because I had to know if this writer had written my book. If I was in a better mood I’d say this could be a case of synchronicity, but I’m not so I won’t.

I have yet to read this book and decide how much it resembles my unwritten work, but a preliminary perusing tells me that it does and it doesn’t and that there is still a large window for my own concept. Certain elements do not match so there is hope. But, if it turns out that mine would mirror this new novel too much I have a contingency plan. Every concept, every piece I write, has a contingency plan. There’s a good reason for this: too frequently in my “career” as a writer I have been dogged with an almost premonitory imagination. I can think of half a dozen instances where I have started working on, or completed, an extensive piece whose concept has been neither popular nor very much explored, only to find the market flooded several months later with the same genre or theme. By no means am I paranoid and think that some crafty wordsmith out there is tapping into my brain, stealing my ideas and beating me to the finish line. Often it can be as simple as synchronicity where causally unrelated events occur together in a meaningful way. More often it is related to the fact that there are so many writers across the globe, living in the 21st century, facing the same obstacles and issues, that your ideas are bound to intersect eventually with one or more other writers. This is the way that culture moves. This is why I have my contingency plan – my plan B, which I will implement in cases of emergency.

Do you have any experiences with this phenomena?

Writer/director

I’ve been cooking, gardening and focusing on the house this week. I’ve noticed that even in my down times I’m still writing. When I was a kid I used to physically and verbally act out the scenes in my stories. It was often quite theatrical and mostly I did this because it was a form of play that suited my temperament and vivid imagination. Between the ages of 11 and 13 I started writing plays with my best friend who also loved to write; some we performed in front of our class, some were simply for our own pleasure. We even had the chance to write and “direct” a play for an assignment. I preferred to be in the role of writer/director rather than acting in front of an audience. As an adult I am still a director, but most of the scenes I direct are in my mind. Some of them end up on paper, but the majority won’t make the grade and are destined to be filed in the dusty corners of my mind. I’m ok with that. As long as I keep playing, I’ll keep writing.

Know thy place

Yesterday I read a passage in an essay by Barbara Kingsolver that I’d like to share, since it got me thinking about writing about place:

Several summers ago on a cabin porch, surrounded by summertime yard sales and tobacco auctions, I wrote about Africa . . . I wrote long and hard and well until I ended each day panting and exhilerated, like a marathon runner. I wrote about a faraway place that I once knew well, long ago, and I have visted more recently on research trips, and whose history and particulars I read about in books until I dreamed in the language of elephants. I didn’t need to be in Africa as I wrote that book . . .

Barbara Kingsolver, ” Knowing our place” in Small wonder, Faber and Faber, 2002

How important is it to visit the places you write about? Is reading about a place enough to give you a good feel for it? Can you recreate atmosphere from a book? If you’ve never been to France or Persia, can you write confidently and convincingly about them?

Cabin fever

I have production phases and absorption phases. I’ve been in a heavy production phase since April, but recently I’ve noticed some slippage. At first I thought it was disinterest, but the more I stare out at the world framed by my study window, the more I realise it’s just a new phase: the absorption phase. I want to get out and play for awhile, breathe in some fresh air, gather some inspiration and have fresh experiences. Writer’s are collectors as much as we are purveyor’s of the word, but a writer cannot observe the world from his/her chair alone. We have to walk among the pidgins, get sunburned, feel the cold wind on our faces, take train rides and ponder the significance of a ten foot brick wall. We have to keep the creative stores stocked and the only way to do that is to interact with the world. What do you do during your absorption phases?

Task one for this week accomplished

I’ve already crossed one task off this weeks assingment list – number four (Find/join a discussion group for bioanthropology). It has recently occurred to me that I might miss my old vocation just a little bit. I’m out of touch with the world of biological anthropology and have not written any articles for several years.  This morning I signed up for my first discussion group on Newsvine.com. Now I need to get hold of some journals and catch up on what’s happening in the world of human discovery and with any luck start writing about it.

The power of a good book

Last night I managed to sit down and read Everything is illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer straight through without returning to the computer as I thought I would. It wasn’t because I couldn’t put it down, rather it was that I’d made a commitment to finish this one last night. I read without stopping to jot notes down – nothing felt important enough for me to record. After finishing Foer’s book at around 11 pm I picked up The Power of Place and human environments by James Swan. Two minutes into reading the first essay I had a spark of an idea for my novel, an idea that could potentially solve my recent dilemma of not knowing who the main character was.  That is the power of a good book. I did not dash off to record my thoughts because I was certain this idea would hold, and it has. Today while I was book browsing in Borders (embracing my inner bibliophile by carrying around a bundle of books to return home with) I had several sparks and recorded them in my phone. That’s the power of technology. Now as I sit here, a proud pile of new books at my side, I am torn between diving into them tonight and writing what is currently in my head. Pace yourself, girl, pace yourself . . .

Reading as exercise

Why does reading inspire the desire to write? Once a week I like to sneak off to my library for some quality time with a stack of books. I’ll prop myself on the sofa with a couple of big cushions, a pot of tea and climb under a blanket if it’s cold enough. I always start with a quick review of the chosen stack, nibbling at a few pages – like a taste test  - and set aside the chosen few. After snuggling in with a book and reading a chapter or more I begin to think about my own novel and the desire to return to the computer comes back with a vengeance. A bad book makes me want to stop reading, but a really good book makes me what to keep writing. Reading is as much a creative exercise as writing, but sometimes I wish I could switch of the writer’s brain and just enjoy a good book from the first word to the last full stop.

Mind mapping: part one

I have a confession to make: I don’t really get mind-mapping. In my quest to be a flexible and involved writer I have explored this technique endlessly. I’ve produced pages of pages of organisational charts and mind-maps that just end up looking like words suspended in a spider web. It comes down to the way I think: I can’t think around an idea and apparently I’m not alone. Instead of trying to figure out mind-mapping for this post I decided it would be more helpful to take online thinking tests to determine my thinking style. Half a dozen tests later I have an opaque idea of my thinking style: I’m a right brain dominant, abstract sequential, intrapersonal, intuitive, short term visual thinker with a balanced male-female brain and a mild case of OCD. This is good to know but it still doesn’t help me with mind-mapping. I feel like this is something I should know how to do well. It’s all the rage at the moment and I’m sure if I could get my head around it there’d be rewards. More research is required.

Creativity training

We are born with the components for creativity, but just like learning to walk, talk and read, children (and adults) learn to use their imagination. Children learn to be imaginative through visualisation, play-acting, exploration and by using their natural curiosity. As adults we sometimes write these games off as trivial or even inappropriate, but there is real value in this kind of play, especially when it comes to the getting of ideas. To train your brain, start thinking like a kid: 

For example, you could

• ask “what if”
• daydream
• be attentive to unusual connections
• ignore preconceptions
• forget logic
• forget you know anything
• write it as it comes out
• play because it’s fun, not because you have something to gain

This is only one technique out of many to train your creative self. It’s a good technique and it’s always worked for me, but ultimately the best advice I have to train your imagination to spit out ideas is to just write – write anything and do it often.