Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 6
June 30, 2018
Idle moments
People check phones all the time now: At red lights. On commuter-train platforms. In the elevator. While walking down the street.
And all these little stray bits of time are when we used to zone out, stare at what was around us, check our mental to-do lists, mull over what happened at work, or count the days until vacation. Sometimes we daydreamed, and sometimes we eavesdropped on conversations around us.
I wonder if we've lost anything valuable in filling those idle random moments. I've long been a big proponent of the idea that daydreaming, rest, and zoning out are a neecessary part of a creative life, and a healthy life in general. I believe the mind needs time to wander. I've also long been resistant to the notion that we have to be outwardly productive every second.
Maybe I'm wrong, and these idle moments serve no real purpose. But I've been making a conscious effort to go with them when they crop up. To look around me, rather than constantly busying myself. I can't point to a quantifiable output resulting from these moments, but I feel the need to just let them happen.
And all these little stray bits of time are when we used to zone out, stare at what was around us, check our mental to-do lists, mull over what happened at work, or count the days until vacation. Sometimes we daydreamed, and sometimes we eavesdropped on conversations around us.
I wonder if we've lost anything valuable in filling those idle random moments. I've long been a big proponent of the idea that daydreaming, rest, and zoning out are a neecessary part of a creative life, and a healthy life in general. I believe the mind needs time to wander. I've also long been resistant to the notion that we have to be outwardly productive every second.
Maybe I'm wrong, and these idle moments serve no real purpose. But I've been making a conscious effort to go with them when they crop up. To look around me, rather than constantly busying myself. I can't point to a quantifiable output resulting from these moments, but I feel the need to just let them happen.
June 23, 2018
Trying something new
My second novel grew out of an attempt I made at writing a verse novel. I had never written a verse novel before, but I thought it would be interesting and challenging and fun. The book ended up morphing into prose--and fairly quickly--but I found my way into the opening scenes through poetry.
Last year I went to a live performance that included a piece I had written. I'd never seen my work acted by professionals before, and it was a thrill. The whole thing happened because when I saw the call for submissions, instead of saying, "I've never written a performance piece for dual voices before; I can't do that," I told myself, "I want to try that."
Whenever I teach writing workshops, I talk about the great luxury we have as writers--a luxury not shared by, say, brain surgeons--of being able to start over whenever we want. We can delete, copy, produce multiple versions. We can switch a piece from first to third person, try something as a memoir or a novel (as long as we don't call fiction nonfiction), rewrite a poem as prose or vice versa, change the age of the audience we're aiming for, take a stab at a genre or form we've never worked in before. Most of my early publications were short stories. For the better part of a decade I wrote books almost exclusively. Lately I've been writing more essays.
Experimenting is always an option.
Last year I went to a live performance that included a piece I had written. I'd never seen my work acted by professionals before, and it was a thrill. The whole thing happened because when I saw the call for submissions, instead of saying, "I've never written a performance piece for dual voices before; I can't do that," I told myself, "I want to try that."
Whenever I teach writing workshops, I talk about the great luxury we have as writers--a luxury not shared by, say, brain surgeons--of being able to start over whenever we want. We can delete, copy, produce multiple versions. We can switch a piece from first to third person, try something as a memoir or a novel (as long as we don't call fiction nonfiction), rewrite a poem as prose or vice versa, change the age of the audience we're aiming for, take a stab at a genre or form we've never worked in before. Most of my early publications were short stories. For the better part of a decade I wrote books almost exclusively. Lately I've been writing more essays.
Experimenting is always an option.
June 16, 2018
History and the illusion of inevitability
I've been thinking about historical fiction and nonfiction. From a plotting perspective, they're unusual in that we usually know how the story ends. We know how World War II came out, what happened to the Hindenburg, and when Vesuvius erupted. The writer's challenge is to create tension in the face of a known ending. Sometimes writers choose historical mysteries for that reason, or historical figures about whom very little is known, so they can create a world from plausible conjecture. Sometimes they create tension around the fate of individual fictional characters--for example, we may know how and when a war ended, but we don't know whether the characters we've been following will survive it.
The inevitability of known outcomes is also tough to keep out of the characters' minds. When we readers and writers know how things come out, it's tempting to think the characters should know it, too. But when I look at the world today, I have no idea how things will go. Many historical events only look inevitable in hindsight, and I think that sense of uncertainty, that sense that anything could happen, is crucial if difficult to capture.
The inevitability of known outcomes is also tough to keep out of the characters' minds. When we readers and writers know how things come out, it's tempting to think the characters should know it, too. But when I look at the world today, I have no idea how things will go. Many historical events only look inevitable in hindsight, and I think that sense of uncertainty, that sense that anything could happen, is crucial if difficult to capture.
June 8, 2018
After dreams come true
"I had imagined my dreams coming true, but not what happened after that."--Melissa Febos, "Home," in Good-bye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York
This sentence really jumped out at me, because I've spent the past couple of years in the "after that." I think most writers expect that once we publish books, we will keep on and on. Even if we've said, pre-publication, that we would be thrilled just to publish once, just this one book, we know deep down that every step we climb shows us more steps ahead, new floors we want to reach. We reach one goal only to set another.
And sometimes we find that the new goal isn't attainable. Or isn't what we want anymore. Life is full of curveballs, diversions, setbacks.
It's also full of new opportunities.
We need not follow every single road to the end. Even if we once saw that highway stretching out clear and straight before us. There may be a side road beckoning, a twisty road that's hard to see the end of, but the sunlight and the flowers lining it are tempting.
We don't always know what's coming, but that may be part of the fun.
This sentence really jumped out at me, because I've spent the past couple of years in the "after that." I think most writers expect that once we publish books, we will keep on and on. Even if we've said, pre-publication, that we would be thrilled just to publish once, just this one book, we know deep down that every step we climb shows us more steps ahead, new floors we want to reach. We reach one goal only to set another.
And sometimes we find that the new goal isn't attainable. Or isn't what we want anymore. Life is full of curveballs, diversions, setbacks.
It's also full of new opportunities.
We need not follow every single road to the end. Even if we once saw that highway stretching out clear and straight before us. There may be a side road beckoning, a twisty road that's hard to see the end of, but the sunlight and the flowers lining it are tempting.
We don't always know what's coming, but that may be part of the fun.
May 27, 2018
Word choice and world building
I blogged about word choice and world building over at YA Outside the Lines. Feel free to check it out. A sample: "We don’t just build stage sets; we show how our characters respond to their surroundings."
May 18, 2018
Procrastination has its place
"I have got to learn not to believe I have to do everything immediately."
--May Sarton, Encore: A Journal of the Eightieth Year
I've often quoted Sarton's journals, which are all about the day-to-day life of a writer. She was writing decades ago and in a time before the internet took over our lives, but so many of the issues she discusses are evergreen. She talks about professional disappointments and envy. She talks about what she enjoys in other writers' work, and how much she appreciates the support of friends. She discusses money, and fear, and uncertainty, and anger, and the hunger for solitude. She recounts the difficulty of finding time and energy to work, of the times when inspiration won't strike, of the times when a poem gets stuck coming out, or falls flat, or gets overworked. She reports the satisfaction of words falling into place.
One constant in the journals is the feeling of pressure, of too much to do, of not enough time. Writers' lives have only gotten busier. I derive great satisfaction from my to-do lists, and they help keep me on track. But sometimes I find myself adding more and more items, feeling more and more as if life is an endless round of chores. And then I remind myself, as Sarton says above, that it's okay to let some things wait. Or even drop altogether.
Or, as Nora Ephron says in I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman:
"We can't do everything.
I have been given the secret of life."
--May Sarton, Encore: A Journal of the Eightieth Year
I've often quoted Sarton's journals, which are all about the day-to-day life of a writer. She was writing decades ago and in a time before the internet took over our lives, but so many of the issues she discusses are evergreen. She talks about professional disappointments and envy. She talks about what she enjoys in other writers' work, and how much she appreciates the support of friends. She discusses money, and fear, and uncertainty, and anger, and the hunger for solitude. She recounts the difficulty of finding time and energy to work, of the times when inspiration won't strike, of the times when a poem gets stuck coming out, or falls flat, or gets overworked. She reports the satisfaction of words falling into place.
One constant in the journals is the feeling of pressure, of too much to do, of not enough time. Writers' lives have only gotten busier. I derive great satisfaction from my to-do lists, and they help keep me on track. But sometimes I find myself adding more and more items, feeling more and more as if life is an endless round of chores. And then I remind myself, as Sarton says above, that it's okay to let some things wait. Or even drop altogether.
Or, as Nora Ephron says in I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman:
"We can't do everything.
I have been given the secret of life."
May 11, 2018
Exploring
Lately, I've been reading more and hiking more. People-watching. Birdcam-watching. Exercising more. Reading on the porch. Keeping up with my civic responsibilities (aka, calling my legislators, going to public meetings, and remembering to vote in the upcoming primary).
As for writing ... I'm refilling the well, no longer feeling the need to write constantly just to be writing. This is my third consecutive year of keeping a daily journal (something I did only intermittently in the past), and I participate weekly in the micro-nonfiction exercise known as #cnftweet (Creative Nonfiction's challenge to tell a true story in a single tweet, including the hashtag #cnftweet). So I am writing regularly. But I am trying new things.
I love YA literature, and once I began to publish in that field, I thought I'd come home, that that was where I would stay. And I wouldn't say I've turned my back on it. But I'm being called in new directions at the moment, so I'm exploring. A writer's life is ever unpredictable.
As for writing ... I'm refilling the well, no longer feeling the need to write constantly just to be writing. This is my third consecutive year of keeping a daily journal (something I did only intermittently in the past), and I participate weekly in the micro-nonfiction exercise known as #cnftweet (Creative Nonfiction's challenge to tell a true story in a single tweet, including the hashtag #cnftweet). So I am writing regularly. But I am trying new things.
I love YA literature, and once I began to publish in that field, I thought I'd come home, that that was where I would stay. And I wouldn't say I've turned my back on it. But I'm being called in new directions at the moment, so I'm exploring. A writer's life is ever unpredictable.
April 27, 2018
Writing's silver linings
I have a new post up at YA Outside the Lines. All month we've been blogging about rejection, and mine is about "good" rejections.
In other news, today I was thinking how one of the best things about writing is how many times we can start over, and change things, and choose our own endings, and try alternate scenes. We can bring characters back to life, undo any crisis, stop time while we perfect a line in a scene. In these ways, the page is more forgiving than real life. It's not like brain surgery, I always say--if we totally screw up a story, we can put it aside and start over.
In other news, today I was thinking how one of the best things about writing is how many times we can start over, and change things, and choose our own endings, and try alternate scenes. We can bring characters back to life, undo any crisis, stop time while we perfect a line in a scene. In these ways, the page is more forgiving than real life. It's not like brain surgery, I always say--if we totally screw up a story, we can put it aside and start over.
April 5, 2018
On exercise and assumptions
Some of us who were bookish kids, who didn't play organized team sports at a young age, believed that we just weren't athletic. If we didn't care much about the most popular sports, if we didn't understand the rules of whatever game we were playing in gym class that day, if we were afraid of being awkward or missing the ball, we bought into the idea that physical activity just wasn't for us. I bought into that myth for years, until well into high school.
At some point, though, I noticed that I liked to dance, and while that wasn't a sport, it was certainly a physical activity. And I liked volleyball, and was lucky to go to a college where the athletic director had made it a sort of mission to get as many students as possible involved in intramural sports, especially volleyball, by emphasizing fun. No longer was exercise something I "couldn't do" or "wasn't good at." I also started to realize that I'd played outdoors in the woods as a kid, and I liked to walk everywhere--and when you put those two things together, you get hiking. After college, I joined hiking clubs, and I still make walks and hikes a part of my daily life.
So I suppose there are two conclusions here. First, writing is a sedentary activity, and it's important to balance it out with physical activity. It doesn't matter what--yoga, martial arts, walking, running, tennis, dance, swimming, bicycling--anything that seems fun. And second, sometimes it's good to question our assumptions about ourselves, especially our perceived limitations.
At some point, though, I noticed that I liked to dance, and while that wasn't a sport, it was certainly a physical activity. And I liked volleyball, and was lucky to go to a college where the athletic director had made it a sort of mission to get as many students as possible involved in intramural sports, especially volleyball, by emphasizing fun. No longer was exercise something I "couldn't do" or "wasn't good at." I also started to realize that I'd played outdoors in the woods as a kid, and I liked to walk everywhere--and when you put those two things together, you get hiking. After college, I joined hiking clubs, and I still make walks and hikes a part of my daily life.
So I suppose there are two conclusions here. First, writing is a sedentary activity, and it's important to balance it out with physical activity. It doesn't matter what--yoga, martial arts, walking, running, tennis, dance, swimming, bicycling--anything that seems fun. And second, sometimes it's good to question our assumptions about ourselves, especially our perceived limitations.
March 27, 2018
After a rest
Winter is slowly loosening its grip. The hardiest flowers are coming up, shaking off the last of the snow. Birds are nesting.
The trees are still bare of leaves. But inside them, we know the sap will soon rise. The earth wakes up after its rest. I've always believed that the sleep of winter is essential to the beauty of spring, just as I often have a burst of creativity after a fallow period.
The trees are still bare of leaves. But inside them, we know the sap will soon rise. The earth wakes up after its rest. I've always believed that the sleep of winter is essential to the beauty of spring, just as I often have a burst of creativity after a fallow period.
