Lori Ann Bloomfield's Blog, page 6

Writing Prompt

First Line: Jack knew his luck would change soon.

The Power of Small Steps

Image courtesy of Dexchao/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net It’s that time of year when people make big resolutions.  And that’s great.  It’s good to have big goals.  I completely encourage big goals.  In fact, whatever you think you are capable of, I think you are capable of twice as much.  At least.

But…


 Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking big goals are accomplished in big steps. Then we feel overwhelmed, discouraged and eventually give up. 


 

Here’s the thing: big goals are accomplished by taking tiny, baby steps.  Lots of them.


 So, whatever you are dreaming of doing this year, consider breaking it down into the smallest steps imaginable.  Seriously, there is no step too small.  Then go step by step in the direction of your dream. 


 Remember: books are not written in a few marathon sessions.  They’re not written chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph, or even sentence by sentence.


 They are written word by word. Remember: tiny, baby steps.


 And this year, along with your other resolutions, consider adding one more: to be kind to yourself. 


 Give yourself all the time, patience, love and tiny steps you need to accomplish your goals and you’ll reach them.


 I believe in you.

Writing Sutras

If you follow me on twitter you know that every day I tweet a small bit of writing advice.  I think of them as my “Writing Sutras.”  Here are some of the most popular from 2013.  






Exhale irritation.  Inhale inspiration.

All your potential awaits you on the white page.  Do not hesitate – write.

Stop waiting for permission – declare yourself a writer.

Release fear.  Embrace wonder.

Abandon the rules.  Write like no one has ever written before.  Write like you.

Silence is to creativity what water is to a plant.

Trust your impressions.  Write from that wild, free place inside of you that knows only truth.

Writers - don't be afraid to play.  Doodle with your words.

You have a story worth telling.  Keep writing.

Writers need inspiration.  Try something new today, even if is only a new food.  Be an ink-driven adventurer! 

We are our greatest mystery.  Writing helps us solve it.

Write with your whole being, then let it go.  It is not your job to decide if it is good or bad.

Perfection is boring. Aim to be unique, it is always intriguing.

You don't need to know the story when you start writing. You write to discover the story. Just begin.

Write first drafts quickly.  The Muse loves speed and favours the fearless.

Forget what everyone else will think.  Write to please your 95 year old self. 

Writing is the best writing teacher.

You are a creator. What do you want to add to the world? 

When your fingers can't keep up with your words, you know you're on the right track.

Write with the curiosity of an explorer, the courage of a warrior and the compassion of an angel.

Reasons to Write (Besides Getting Published)

Image courtesy of Anusorn P Nachol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net I was in a bookstore the other day, browsing the books about writing section and it made me sad.  It seemed every title was about getting published.  There were books about getting an agent, writing for children, completing your manuscript in thirty days.  (Thirty day!!!)


It appears the definition of writing has become very narrow.  Judging from those shelves there’s no reason to write except to get published. 

For me there are so many reasons to pick up my pen.  Writing offers a rich and varied spectrum of benefits: a veritable rainbow of gifts.  I’m not knocking publication.  It is thrilling to be published (at least briefly).  But if I had to give up one colour in my writing rainbow it would be the one for publication.  Really.  All the other gifts writing has to offer mean more to me.

Here are some of them:

The page is the perfect listener.  The page never interrupts, never judges, never changes the subject when it gets uncomfortable, and it never ignores me.  The page has been my longest relationship, my most constant comfort.

The page is an oracle.  Maybe not an oracle exactly, but whenever I feel unsure of what to do, either because I have too many choices or too few, I write it down.  Without fail, getting my jumbled thoughts onto the page helps me to find a solution. 

The page is my witness.  Whether it is a notebook I take on holiday, or my day-to-day journal, writing is way to document my life.  It bears witness to all the ways I change and all the ways I stay the same.  How comforting and exciting. 

The page is stronger than I am.  In times of great stress when the weight on me becomes too much to bear, I unburden myself on the page.  The page is always strong enough to carry what I cannot. 

The page is my constant companion.  With a pen and a notebook there is always someone for me to talk to, to tell my new idea to, to ramble on to.  With the page I am never lonely.

Writing has been everything from therapy, to companionship, to charting my journey, to a way of making money for me.  Mostly it has been my joy.  Staring at those books in the bookstore that tried to turn writing into little more than an exercise for my ego made me reach for my notebook and begin listing all the reasons that I write.  It made me want to count my blessings. 

When to Let Go of Your Goals

It is good to have goals.  Goals are what get us started.  They are the light that cuts through our internal fog.  They are the path our first steps follow.

But don’t marry your goals.

Just because you start down one path doesn’t mean you have to follow it to the end.  When our goals stop working for us it is okay to let them go and choose new ones.  If the horror novel you are writing takes a turn and becomes a space age love story, go with it.  Don’t struggle on trying to write a horror novel.  Make it your new goal to write that space age love story and keep going.

And don’t waste energy worrying if you are a quitter.  Making art demands flexibility and fearlessness.  The rule of the artist is:  Adopt anything that keeps you moving forward and   abandon anything that slows you down.

Let your goals be what get you started, but if you outgrow them, shed them like a snake sheds its skin. 

Being a Writer is a 24 Hour Thing

I’ve been busy the last few weeks and have not had much time to write.  Ideally, I like to write five days a week.  Whenever I get busy and can’t write as much as I would like, a voice in my head starts berating me.  It says I am not committed enough.  It says if I was serious about my writing I would find the time to write no matter what.  It reminds me for every writing session I miss, I put off finishing my novel by one more day. 

The funny thing is when I am writing every day this same voice tells me that my writing is crap and I am wasting my time.            



This voice belongs to my inner critic and is quite insane. 

I know this, though it took me years to realize it.  Even now I can still be temporarily fooled and get tangled up in its crazy rantings.   It can make me feel guilty about not writing, or bad about what I am writing.

For the last few weeks whenever this voice began berating me I practiced being kind to myself.  I know that in a perfect world I would write every day because I love to write.  Spilling ink on the page is my passion.  I feel fortunate to have something that I love to do.  So many people live lukewarm lives, not yet having discovered their passion.

I’ve also been reminding myself that even when I am not writing, I am still a writer.  Being a writer is more than just putting words on the page.  It is a way of existing in the world.  Being a writer means staying awake.  It means staying close to my life so even if I don’t have time to capture my thoughts and experiences with my pen, part of me is still paying attention to what it feels like to sit anxiously in a waiting room, or to carry heavy boxes, or stand in endless lineups.   

I remind myself that I am not just a writer when I am at my desk, but that being a writer is a twenty-four hour a day thing.

Write Your Stress Away

Image courtesy of phil1950 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Everyone has a dream.  Some people want to win the lottery, some want to retire, others want a new job or a new spouse.  But the dream doesn’t matter because what people really want is their stress to disappear.  They think if only they could achieve their dream their life would be stress-free and they would be happy.  




The trouble is stress isn’t going to disappear, no matter what you achieve.  Life has a way of presenting a new problem as soon as you’ve sorted out the last one.

But this doesn’t mean there’s no chance for happiness.  It simply means the answer is not to get rid of stress.  The answer is to learn how to manage your stress.

I suggest you do this by learning to surf the waves of your own life. 

Your life is a lot like the ocean.  And problems are a lot like waves: some are small, some are big, some are
monsters.  They come at you at a steady rate with lulls of calm in between.  Most people once they get themselves
into one of those areas of calm, close their eyes and hope it will last forever.  But it won’t.  Wouldn’t it be better to learn how to surf so when that next wave hits, you can ride it, instead of being knocked down or pulled
under?

I ride the waves of my life with a pen and a notebook.  I surf my stress by writing it out of my system. And it works.  Art heals.  
   
Give it a try.  Inhale as you pick up your pen.  Exhale and let your notebook become a surfboard.  

Writing as a Path to Enlightenment

It starts with a desire to write.  If that desire is intense enough words somehow find their way onto the page.  You start with you – because you must.  Your story is the only
one you have to tell.  It may not be the first one you share with the world but it is where you begin writing.  Your thoughts, your experiences, your viewpoint: these are the raw materials of your earliest efforts.  


And this is good.

If you continue to write and you write honestly and deeply enough about your own experiences you begin to recognize that you are not as different from other people as you once thought.  With this realization your imagination takes a leap and you gain the power to imagine situations from other people’s points of view.

This power not only makes your writing much, much better but it also gives you the gift of compassion: compassion for others and compassion for yourself. 

It is compassion that allows you to see shades of grey where once you only saw black and white.

It is compassion that cracks you open, that makes you deeper and wiser.  
 
Compassion is the pathway to Art.  It is also the pathway to Enlightenment.

May you write your way to both.

Creating Characters Readers Will Love

Creating characters that your readers will fall in love with is an essential ingredient of compelling fiction. But how do you do this?

Try this simple exercise to learn how:

1. Describe your best friend.

2. Now describe a stranger that you saw today.  Maybe it was someone at the coffee shop or in line at the grocery store.

The difference between those two descriptions is the difference between a character a reader will fall in love with and a character that remains flat and lifeless on the page.



When you described your best friend you probably mentioned more than just her appearance. You told me about
her wild love of roller coasters, her three spoiled Dachshunds each named after a James Bond villain, and her enduring devotion to gardening despite the fact she kills every plant she touches.

But when you described the stranger you could only tell me their hair colour, what they were wearing and maybe what they were doing when you noticed them.

The stranger is not as interesting because you don’t know them.  You don’t know their likes and dislikes, their habits and quirks.  Their history.  Their hopes.  For a character to be real to a reader it must first be real to the writer.  But this doesn’t mean you should only write about friends and family.  It means you should take the time to get to know your characters, to build them not just on the outside but all the way in to their souls.  Then they’ll be real enough for your readers to fall in love with. 

Tip: Think about some characters from books that you love. Think about what made you care about them.

Write with the Spirit of an Explorer

When we sit down at our desks we do not always need to know what we are going to write.   We do not need to have a destination.  We do not always have to be writing the next chapter of our book or working on an article.  We should guard against our writing becoming another task on our ‘to do’ list.  It is good sometimes to just dive in and see where our words take us.  It is good to show up on the page with the spirit of an explorer about to step off the edge of all known maps.  

When I was young my parents liked to ‘go for a drive’ on weekend afternoons in the summer.  ‘Go for a drive’ was different than running errands, because going for a drive meant not having a purpose or a destination in mind.

On those lazy afternoons the world unfurled beyond my backseat window.  We lived in a rural area
so our drives meant empty country roads between big green fields under a blue sky that was even bigger.  There were pastures with black and white Holstein cows and country stores with ice
cream parlours.  There were tall corridors of corn and sudden views of the lake.  And all of it appeared in the frame of that backseat window as I stuck my right hand out, cupping the air as we
drove.  I was young and had no expectations so everything was a wonder.  

It can be the same with our writing.  It is good to sometimes let our words pass through us as easily as miles beneath the tires of our dad’s old Chevy.  It is good to be big on the page.  It is good hold out your hand and caress the words as they rush by. 

Try:  Write, “I remember” and see where it takes you.