April Davila's Blog, page 10

Start Before You’re Ready

There’s a road near my house that winds along the side of a hill above Pasadena. On the rare occasion that I’m out and about early on a Saturday, I have to drive carefully because that little windy road is swarming with runners.

I know who they are. I looked them up years ago. They’re the Pasadena Pacers and they meet up at the Rose Bowl every Saturday to go running. I looked them up because I desperately wanted people to run with, but then I didn’t go.

I kept telling myself I WOULD go, just as soon as I was fast enough and could run enough miles that I wouldn’t make a fool of myself. I continued to run by myself around the neighborhood and on the treadmill, wishing I was ready, longing to be a good enough runner that I could go join the Pacers.

Then I guess I got tired of waiting. Two weeks ago I just decided to go. I’m not in particularly good shape right now. Running even a couple miles on my own is a struggle, so I’m not sure what got into me.

I joined their “conditioning” group, running five minutes then walking one, as we headed out along that lovely hillside road. I got to chatting with the other runners and had a great time and – get this – I ran 5 MILES. It didn’t even seem hard. Running with other people is so much more fun than running by myself.

The next day, while researching something online, I came across this quote from Amy Poehler:

I believe great people do things before they are ready.

Yes. Waiting until we’re ready is such a trap. It’s just our ego, trying to protect us, but if we let it hold us back, if we always wait until we’re ready, we can miss so much in life. It’s just as true in creative endeavors.

If you feel you’ve got a story in you, don’t wait. Don’t spend your days creating the perfect writing space and finding the appropriate pen, or the right candle to light, or any other silly thing. Just start, even if you don’t feel ready. Just start.

This is not the first time I’ve taken writing wisdom from running. Which reminds me, I’ll be teaching at the Writers Who Run retreat this July in North Carolina. The theme this year is If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It. If you’re a runner and a writer (or if maybe you’ve been waiting until you’re ready?) check it out. I’ll see you there.

Being A Good Sport

I just finished reading Jennette McCurdy’s memoir (“I’m Glad My Mom Died“) and I really loved this line. The whole book is about how she was raised to be a good girl and prioritize everyone else’s needs over her own and this moment in the book is when she starts to realize that always being a “good sport” isn’t serving her at all.

I’m sharing it here because I feel like I talk to so many writers who prioritize everyone else in their lives. If you replace “playing charades with Tom Hanks” with “writing my novel,” I bet there are a lot of us out there who would do well to embrace a little f-bomb every now and then.

Take a moment and think about who or what you might be prioritizing over your writing. How often do you step into the roll of “good sport” when you’d rather be working on your own creative projects?

Of course, I’m not saying we should always be selfish. Instead, I’m proposing that a balance be maintained. If you have kids, you are going to have to do stuff for them (I swear every time 5pm rolls around I marvel that we have to feed them AGAIN), but it’s also important that you make time for yourself, even if it means closing the door, or hiding in the closet with your laptop, or letting them watch another episode of Avatar The Last Airbender.

You will be a happier person if you make your own needs a priority. If you need permission, consider it granted. You’re welcome.

You’re Writing in the Wrong Format

I was away last week at the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in Temecula for a writing retreat. I had an idea for a new project and had been writing a little bit here and there on it (I had about 10,000 words), but I wanted some focused time to dig in and figure it out.

This is something I’ve done from time to time in my career. I’m a firm believer in the idea that, to finish anything, you have to sit and work on it (almost) every day, if only for an hour. That said, sometimes you also need some longer periods of time (I’m talking days) to see a project as a whole, to step back and really think about structure and theme and characters. That’s what these retreats do for me. They’re like a pit stop on a long road trip when I check the map.

The week went well at first. I wrote roughly 13,000 words in the first two days (which is A LOT for me), but on the third day things slowed down. I would think of a scene to write and know that it simply didn’t fit in the story.

Normally, I coach my writers to just push through, just keep writing, and you can sort it all out after you have the first draft, but I kept feeling this resistance. In the past I would have called it wrier’s block, but I don’t believe in writer’s block anymore. In fact, in my coaching program, I devote a whole lesson to dismantling writer’s block. It’s not a thing. It’s just a catch-all phrase we use to describe 10 other things that often keep us from writing. So I thought about that list.

#6 on the list things masquerading as writer’s block is “You’re Writing in the Wrong Format.” For instance, you think you’re writing a short story, but it’s really meant to be a poem. Or you’re writing an essay that’s really meant to be a memoir.

Turns out, I’m writing a novella. I googled the word count range for novellas (it’s 10,000-40,000) and gave a little head nod. Am I really writing a novella? I think I am. I knew this project would be short (it’s political satire), but realizing it’s a novella suddenly made the whole structure fall into place.

I spent Thursday and Friday reorganizing what I had into a new structure and writing some scenes that needed to be written (no more “writer’s block” here), and then BAM, I had the first draft of a novella. Oh, the satisfaction!

Now I get to hand it off to my husband. We developed the idea together and he’s the political junkie in the house, so I asked him back in November if he would co-write it with me. It felt a little like proposing marriage and he said yes before I even finished asking him. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about co-writing (we’ve never done this before), but for now, I’m just feeling pretty proud to hand over a solid 27,000 word first draft.

What Book Would You Live In?

Last night, as I was tucking the boy in, he asked me, “what book you would live in, if you could?” (I love this kid). My first instinct was Lonesome Dove. What an epic. To partake in a cattle drive from Texas to Montana, back when there were no fences, no roads, not even any railroads. I know it’s an imperfect book (its representation of native people is (to put it mildly) ignorant, and there are only two women in the book (a whore and a homesteader who watches her whole family die), but if I could be the main character for just a day or two… sign me up.

But then, that wasn’t what he asked.

“I have to be me?” I clarified. “In the world of the book?”

“Yes.”

Okay. Forget Lonesome Dove.

He chose Harry Potter. He wants to play quidditch, not as a muggle, but on a broom, with the team from Gryffindor. Spot on.

I’ve been thinking about it all morning. I wouldn’t want to choose any of the literary fiction I read, because that would just straight up be a missed opportunity. But I don’t want to choose anything too scary or apocalyptic (no Station 11 or Lapvona, or even The Four Winds).

So here I am, scrolling through my GoodReads list of books I’ve read as if the boy is at all still interested in my answer.

Maybe Project Hail Mary (assuming there’s room for one more on the ship), or Robin Hobb’s fantasy world (I think I’d choose to live in Bingtown). I would definitely like to visit Matt Haig’s Midnight Library (but by the rules of the story that would mean I’m dying, so maybe not?). It could be fun to visit the 12th century England of Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, just to drink beer for breakfast and watch a great gothic church be built without power tools.

Such a good question.

Where would you go?

No Purity In Art

I’ve been listening to the audio book of Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow and I’m really enjoying it. I like that the main characters are my age and are super relatable. I’m enjoying the glimpse into the world of gaming and game designing. And I like the questions it raises about art and creativity.

This quote in particular caught my attention:

There is no purity in art. The process of how you arrive at something doesn’t matter at all.

I totally agree. Everything we make as artists is really just an accumulation and reorganization of the art we take in. The shows we watch, the books we read, the conversations we have… they all seep into our subconscious, mingle with whatever it is that makes us unique, get processed through our synapses and ultimately come out as something entirely original, but not pure. There is no purity in art.

Embrace it. In fact, use it as an excuse to read a novel in the middle of the day or go to the movies. It is our job as artists to absorb as much as we can, to feed our creative minds. And don’t listen to anyone who tells you what you “should” like. Follow the enthusiasm. If you’re drawn to cheesy sci-fi, read cheesy sci-fi. If you love bodice-ripping romance, by all means, read bodice-ripping romance. Then take a long walk, let it all percolate in your brain, and get writing.

Robin Hobb Has My Number

On January 1st I finished reading the Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb. I’ve already read the Farseer trilogy which (given that each book is about 800 pages) means I’ve read about 4,800 pages of Hobb’s work and now I’m eyeing the third set, the Tawny Man trilogy.

I can’t even figure out why I love them so much. They’re not perfect (I skimmed about 100 pages of the third book in the first trilogy), and there’s almost no sex (which is usually a deal killer for me – I like a steamy story), but they just suck me in and won’t let me go.

It’s some combination of great characters, life-and-death stakes, and just enough magic to make the world interesting. Also, I love knowing that I can invest in caring about the characters, because I’m going to be with them for a long time.

Makes me wonder if I’ve got a fantasy trilogy in me. If I love reading them so much, maybe I’d enjoy writing one. For now I’ll just file that under #TBD.

Setting Goals (and Intentions) for 2023

I’m big on goal setting. I am almost always working towards a specific goal of one kind or another. As the year turns over I like to think about where I want to be a year from now, but honestly, by the time December rolls around again, I don’t really remember what I said the year before. If I had to guess, for the last 15 years, my goal for the year (every year) has been “finish this draft.” It’s more about reaffirming my intentions.

Short-Term Goals

Much more useful to me on a day-to-day basis are short-term goals. I set them all the time. I use word count goals when I’m trying to get a first draft on the page. When I’m editing (and word counts tend to go down) I focus on the amount of time I spend in my chair writing. I set goals for how much freelance work I’m going to take on each month. So come the end of December, I still check in with my long-term goals (this year it is, again, “finish this draft”), but I’ve also started choosing a word for each year, something to remind me of what I want to prioritize and focus on.

Word of the Year

I don’t remember where I picked this up. It was Covid Christmas (the first one) and I read somewhere about choosing a word for the coming year and the idea just resonated. That year I chose “BRAVE.” I knew I was going to need to be bold in coming out of my little Covid cocoon and I was right. There were many times in 2021 when I had to literally step into places I wasn’t entirely comfortable with and would think of my word and remind myself to be brave. Corny? Maybe. But it worked.

In 2022 my word was persistence. I was a few months into running my coaching business and knew I had a lot of work in front of me and that it would be easy to get discouraged, so I wrote PERSISTENCE on my chalkboard wall in big letters. It also served me well as I trudged through the final, final edits of book number two (official working title: The Weight of Unnumbered Days). 2022 was all about putting my head down, doing the work.

The Year Ahead

This year, I’m going with two words: LEVEL UP. I’m starting a new novel that scares me because it’s unlike anything I’ve written before, I’m getting back into running (short term goal – 5K in March), and I’m working to expand my coaching program and work with more writers. All of these things are requiring me to up my game a bit and sustain that effort.

A few other words were contenders. I thought maybe GROWTH (but in terms of health I’m actually trying to do the opposite – I’m still working off those Covid pounds). I thought about EXPAND (but same issue). I resisted LEVEL UP at first because, you know, it’s actually two words, which felt like cheating, but ultimately I decided that I get to make my own rules here. LEVEL UP it is.

I like because it speaks to a gradual increase in challenge. I can level up over and over again. Like in a video game. Every time I hit one of my short term goals, I can up the challenge. 10K by June anyone?

Do you have a word for 2023? Or are you a more formal goal setter? What does the year ahead look like for you? Drop a note in the comments and share your thoughts.

Happy New Year!

Best Books of 2022

I read 56 books this year. Of those, I didn’t finish eight of them (I’m pretty quick to put books down these days), and nine stand out as excellent reads.

These are the books that stayed with me, the ones I thought back on after I’d finished reading. They are the books I’m telling my friends about.

Here they are, in no particular order and with no regard to publication date.

The best books I read in 2022.

(each of the images below links to my affiliate account on Bookshop.org which means that if you buy a book using that link, you support this blog AND indie bookstores – win win!)

Right View for Better Editing

Mindful Writing

Meditation has changed my life in countless ways, yes, but one of the areas where it has had the greatest impact is in my writing. It is no surprise to me, when I look back on recent years, that my writing really took off when I got more serious about my meditation practice.

I’ve thought a lot about this because, as we should all keep in mind, correlation is not necessarily an indicator of causation. But when I really picked it apart, I found I could actually quantify the ways in which meditation has improved my writing.

I can name 6 quantifiable, teachable ways that mindfulness has helped me become a better writer and none of them can be reduced to an Instagram Live post. The ideas have underlying ideas, things that take some time to understand, and the effort is totally worth it. I’ve explored one of the topics below (Right View), but if you’re interested in learning more, check out my writing coaching program at SitWriteHere.com.

Today we’ll start with the idea of “Right View” and how it can help us improve our editing.

Right View

Right View is the place where all mindfulness meditation practice begins. It’s about about seeing things as they truly are, not as we want, wish or imagine them to be. Only once we accept things as they are in the present moment can we begin to know what actions (if any) to take.

Okay, you say, that’s all peace and rainbows, but how does it help me edit my work?

Because we can’t edit a sentence/paragraph/chapter/story if we can’t first see what is actually on the page, as it is, without the imagined overlay we bring to it with our minds. This is Right View.

An Exercise

Try this. Imagine a kitchen.

Picture the details. The appliances, the colors, the finishes, the floor. What does it smell like? What is the light like?

Got it?

Okay, so if in my manuscript I write that my character “strolls into the kitchen” and starts arguing with her mother, in my head I’m seeing this:

But that isn’t what’s on the page. What’s on the page is “the kitchen.” For you, “the kitchen” could be this:

or this:

You can see how the different kitchens lend themselves to different moods and probably affect whatever scene is about to go down.

If it’s important to the story that you see the kitchen as I see the kitchen, I need to give more details. Not EVERY detail, but enough that you begin to see what I’m trying to convey.

The trick is, as I’m editing, my eye scans right over the words “the kitchen” because in my mind, I know what it looks like. I am bringing a whole room full of imagination and overlaying the words “the kitchen” with pale wood cabinets and brick colored tile. If I want that to be what you see, I need to get those words on the page.

Editing

Currently I’m editing a draft of my second novel and I’m finding this insight very useful. I try to see exactly what is on the page. Thinking about Right View, I try to notice every generic placeholder phrase and ask myself if a detail or two wouldn’t help paint the picture more effectively.

For instance, in the opening of my story I had written that “it was raining.” Blah. Dull. What kind of rain? Was it a drizzle or a flood? I played around with it a while and landed on: “Fat, unrelenting drops pummeled the earth leaving divots in the mud.” Perfect? I don’t know, I’ll probably revise it again, but it’s a whole lot more illustrative of what I saw in my head when I set out to write the scene.

And I would not have taken the time to rewrite the line if I hadn’t been able to really see what was on the page and ask if it was what I was seeing in my head, if it was REALLY what I was trying to convey.  

Red Flag Words

You’ll notice in the example above I started with the phrase: it was raining. I find the word “was” to be a red flag word. It’s one of those words that I really look for when I get to this final stage of editing. I’ll even go so far as to do a word search for it to help me see it (because it really can be invisible).

She was sad. It was late. The car was fast. The dog was ugly. These are boring, uninteresting sentences that actually tell us very little. Ask yourself what you actually see when you imagine her being sad. Write that.

To be clear, you’re never going to get every instance of the word “was” out of your writing, but if you look at your draft and think “it’s perfect” do a search for the word. If it pops up five or six times in a paragraph, you could probably do some editing.

My list of red flag words also includes lazy verbs (walked, looked, loved, thought) and colors (blue, red, yellow). If you have your characters “looking” a lot, consider some more interesting verbs (peering, gazing, staring). Likewise, search for colors and ask yourself – is the dress blue? Or is it saphire, or maybe cobalt? You can see how a specific blue paints a more specific image.

Take a Break

One of the best ways to see your work clearly is to take a break from it. When I finish a draft I print it out and stick it in a drawer for as long as I can. I try to give it a whole month while I move on to another project. This allows my brain to forget all the imagined details so that when I come back to it I can give it a “fresh” read and hopefully catch all the places where I need to add more details.

A break, combined with some mindfulness practice, is the best way I’ve found to really see what’s on the page. So in the name of mindfulness (and better prose) I invite you to join my partners and I at A Very Important Meeting. We start each writing session off with a ten-minute meditation. It’s a great way to introduce the practice into your writing routine. And it’s free. And the people are great. Seriously. It’s worth checking out.

Your Story Matters

A student in one my Sit Write Here workshops shared this poem with the group today.

We were talking about that feeling we all get sometimes when we’re writing, that little voice that tells us that we should just stop because nobody needs to hear what we have to say. We all feel this way sometimes. But I have long contended that we are none of us unique snowflakes. If you write something that is compelling and important to you, there will be people (perhaps a lot of them) who share your interest/history. Those people are your audience. Write for them.

Your story matters.