April Davila's Blog, page 11

On Mastery

There was this idea that circulated a while back about the 10,000 hour rule. It said that, to become a master of something, you had to put in 10,000 hours of practice. I’ve never really subscribed to that idea. While I absolutely agree that we get better at things the more we do them, if you practice doing something poorly, you’re only going to get better at doing it poorly. However, my bigger gripe with the idea is this term mastery.

It’s always been a question in my mind: at what point does a creative professional claim mastery? Because it’s not like a language. I’ve been trying to master Spanish for decades, but probably never will until I go live in Ecuador for a while. When I can speak easily, without having to translate every damn word in my head before I speak, I will consider that mastery (and even that is a pretty basic level of mastery). But with writing? By what metrics could I ever begin to measure mastery?

I was thrilled to open the most recent Poets & Writers to see an article that Carl Phillips summed up my own thinking just beautifully with this passage:

To be absolutely upfront about it: I don’t believe in mastery when it comes to art, any more than I do when it comes to a relationship with another person. In both instances, the relationship— between two people, between art and maker— is symbiotic and organic, ever-changing, on both sides, so how can there ever be mastery of what by definition never loses the ability to surprise, to change in ways that we can’t predict? This is why I’ve always described a writing career as a lifelong apprenticeship to what can never be fully mastered, even as the artistic impulse is an impulse toward mastery—that is, toward what only exist abstractly.

Carl Phillips

I love that he compares an artist’s relationship with art to a person’s relationship with another person. It’s a perfect metaphor. Having been in a relationship with my husband for 21 years now, I can absolutely attest to how things change. There is no mastery here. Only a blind groping toward happiness with the best of intentions.

I approach my writing in the same way. I never want to feel that I absolutely know what I’m doing. With every new project I want to be thinking: this will be awesome if I can pull it off. I want to be a student of writing for as long as I live, not just taking classes and reading books on writing, but also allowing myself to get bowled over by beautiful language, to stop and go back to read a passage again and again to understand how the author captured the cadence of it, or evoked the imagery, or made me laugh. Its fucking magic, the written word.

So yeah, forget mastery and instead commit to exploration. Always be learning. Always be curious. Even if you never get very good, you’ll have a lot of fun.

The Terrifying Joy of Trying to Decide What’s Next

I was out in my garden last weekend. It’s just a little strip of land below the window of my home office where I like to grow things. I have some chard going, and just added some cauliflower. Then I pulled some clover from the edge of the lawn. Then I trimmed back a lavender bush I planted in a pot a few years ago. I watered the redwood tree that is always struggling a little (why anyone ever thought to plant a redwood in Los Angeles is beyond me).

Wandering

I love spending time in my yard, with the sun on my skin, the dirt under my nails. I always just feel a little calmer, even after just a short time out there, and it occurred to me the other day that one of the things I like so much about it is that I don’t really have an agenda when I go out there. Yes, certain tasks will motivate me (this past week it was onions and beets in need of harvest), but once I’m out there, I really enjoy just letting myself jump from one task to the next without much thought.

It reminded me of how I used to write. I’d work on a short story for a while, then write a blog post, then dabble with the novel. It was fun, relaxing even. Sometimes things got done, sometimes they didn’t. The novel took eight years.

I don’t meander though my writing any more. These days, I almost always know exactly what I’m working on. It’s either paid freelance work, my novel, or this blog.

What’s Next?

But I just finished my most recent novel, so I’m feeling a little adrift. I know I should add a little “woo hoo” emoji here, but in truth it’s not done. It will go to the editor, there will be more rounds of notes. There is still much work to be done. If I’m feeling any “woo hoo” it’s for the terrifying joy of trying to decide what I’m going to write next. What’s the next idea I’m going to spend years of my life working on?

I have a novel that’s half done (I wrote it for NaNoWriMo a few years back), but I’m less excited about it now. I’ve been more drawn to fantasy and science fiction these days.

To try and figure it out, I’m going out to the garden (both literally and figuratively). I was supposed to go on a camping trip this week, but the forecast is calling for rain so the trip got canceled, and since I’ve already cleared my schedule, I’m going to take the days to wander through my mind, no goals, no intentions, just following whatever catches my attention. I will be writing a lot in my journal. I will be sitting in the hammock (assuming it isn’t raining – down here in LA the forecast is clear). I will be taking long walks with the dogs (leaving my phone behind).

I have to trust that something will come to me. Until then, I guess I wander.

Little Free Library

My kid’s school has figured out that they can get me to volunteer for anything book related. I just can’t say no. But when they approached me about managing the Little Free Library they have on campus, I didn’t want to say no. I was like Hermione Granger in the front row, hand raised.

First of all, what they’ve had in the past is a sad little box in the hallway outside the library. But then the fire marshall said they can’t stack stuff up in the hallway so the box got moved INTO the library, which is just frankly confusing for the littler kids. I mean, is it part of the library? Are the books free? What is this box?

(As a side note – I really hate the name Little Free Library. It’s not a library at all. It’s a book swap shelf. Okay, that name is no good. It’s a leave-a-book-take-a-book box… and here is where I just give up and use the term Little Free Library. I struggle with naming things.)

Anyway, I jumped right in and got permission to put a Little Free Library on the patio where the kids eat lunch. Now I just have to build the damn thing. And I want it to be great. No pressure.

Here are a few I found online that I love:

My current plan is to find a bookshelf on sale at the second hand store and paint it up pretty, but I am definitely daunted by this project. Stay tuned. (And if you have any advice, please drop it in the comments.)

The Title Hunt Continues

Yes, I am STILL trying to figure out a title for my new book. It’s getting down to the wire here, people.

Today I’m trying an exercise suggested by a former student, Colleen Titelbaum, who forwarded it from Jessica Brody at the Writing Mastery Academy.

Here’s what Jessica recommends:

Rip or cut multiple small strips of paper (the more the better!)On each piece of paper write down a word (or phrase) that in someway is associated with the story (these can be related to themes, imagery, locations, character traits, life lessons, catch phrases, key objects in the story, even a character name!)Randomly divide up the slips of paper into two equal groups and put them in two different hats (bags and bowls work too). For an added challenge, try three groups/hats!Pick one slip of paper randomly from each bowl and try to mash the two words or phrases together into something coherent.Write down all combinations (even if they don’t strike your fancy at that moment, you never know when a bad title could inspire a good title later down the road).Once you’ve made your way through all the slips, repeat steps 3-5 as many times as you like!

So far it’s creating some interesting word associations. Longing and loyalty. Lovers and death. Mothers and riches. I’m going to do a few rounds of this and see if anything comes of it.

Fingers crossed.

Eduardo’s Headshots

After studying biology and learning of his own place in the world, Eduardo has decided to expand his sphere of influence. Step one: a few good images for his propaganda press releases.

The best thing about this is how many kids took time out of their school day to draw a portrait of Eduardo – and really creative drawings too, some super realistic, some cartoonish, one in bright pink abstract. My daughter took a few of her favorites and made them into stickers that are popping up everywhere. These are just a couple she has stuck to the back of her phone.

#LongLiveEduardo

Book Mail

I’m such a suckers for books on writing. These two just arrived in the mail and I can’t wait to dive in.

Meet Eduardo

This is Eduardo. My daughter created him to be the school library mascot. She propped him up at the check-out counter and loaned him her biology text book to read (you can see he has a pen at the ready to take studious notes). Why? I don’t know. Devine inspiration, I suppose.

And why does he have an origami bird glued to his head? Also filed under: don’t know.

But I love that he exists.

Long live Eduardo.

Monthly Mini Master Class

I’ve been thinking for a while that I’d like to offer a monthly mini master class. I do a lot of coaching, but there are often questions that come up that I don’t have time or space to discuss in depth.

For instance, A Very Important Meeting (AVIM) is awesome precisely because it’s not a class. We show up, we write, we hang out a little and sometimes we have a few minutes for discussions, but there’s not enough time to dive deep into any one topic.

On the flip side, I basically designed Sit Write Here, my coaching program, to satisfy my own desire to go much deeper than I have time to at AVIM and STILL there are things I don’t have time to cover. Each week of the program has a theme, and there are some topics that just don’t fit into the curriculum I put together.

If I set up a monthly mini master class online I could go into whatever I wanted. Lately folks have been asking about writing their book synopsis. Coincidentally, I’m working on the synopsis for my second novel right now and have LOTS to say on the topic. Or POV, that’s one people always seem to have questions about.

So I guess I’m curious. What’s a topic, writing-related of course, that you’d like to know more about?

Drop your thoughts in the comments or visit me on Instagram to chime in – I’ll post this there too.

The Metta Sutta

I’ve been taking some time lately to study Buddhist philosophy a little more deeply.

That said, I almost decided not to write about it here. This blog is a place for me to document my journey as a writer, not as a Buddhist, but in a class I was in this week, the instructor invited us to try and memorize the Metta Sutta. It’s a poem of sorts, on lovingkindness (“metta” is a word in the long-dead language of the Buddha that translates roughly into “lovingkindness”).

“Don’t worry,” my teacher said, “it’s just a short one.”

I quickly realized that the concept of “short” in the mind of someone who has been a monk and spent days, if not months, studying the Buddhist texts is very different from the mind of someone who can’t remember her own daughter’s phone number. I mean, who memorizes anything anymore?

Here’s the “short” poem:

The Metta Sutta

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born—
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

Challenge Accepted

I actually love memorizing poems, and the few times that I’ve done it, I always notice new things in the lines as I repeat them. Of course, I’ve never tried to memorize such a long poem. Wait- that’s not true. I just remembered that in sixth grade I memorized the poem Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too by Shel Silverstein. That’s actually a pretty long poem. So there’s precedent. I can do this.

Wish me luck.

Audible, Libro & Libby

For some reason I will never understand, there are people out there who think audio books “don’t count” as reading. Bah, I say. I love audiobooks. Frankly, without audiobooks, I wouldn’t read nearly as much as I do. Audiobooks turn all my chores (walking the dogs, folding the laundry, cooking dinner) into opportunities to read.

Libro.fm

My favorite audiobook app is Libro.fm. If you’re still using Audible, you need to switch (and no, I’m not an affiliate or anything). The number one reason: Libro.fm prompts you (when you create an account) to designate a local bookstore to receive the profits of the books sale. Amazon gets enough of our money.

I use Libro.fm to keep up on all the newest releases. For $14.99 I get one book a month, so I choose the ones that are still in hardcover, the ones everyone is talking about. And the nice thing is, it doesn’t matter how long it takes me to “read” the book. It stays in my library. But sometimes I need more than one book a month.

Libby

Libby is an app that synchs with your local library. You create an account, enter your library card info, and are all set to search for audiobooks. But anything new (like, at all new) is going to have an insane waiting list. So I use Libby for all the books that have been on my TBR list for a while, the books that are still great, but no longer have long waiting lists.

And with Libby it’s a bit of a race, because you only get two weeks to finish the book. Usually this is no problem, but I will admit to taking the dogs on longer-than-usual walks sometimes to hear the end of a story. That’s a win for everyone.

I’m sure there are other places to find audiobooks. Do you have a favorite? If you have some insights to share, drop them in the comments below.