Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 25

16 Ways to Conquer the Blank Page

1.      Turn off the internet.

2.      Start writing a letter to yourself about the book you want to write.

3.      Take a book off your shelf and start typing in the first page of that book.

4.      Go back to the page you wrote before and edit it.

5.      Go back and reread what you wrote the day before.

6.      Set a timer and force yourself to sit in your chair (with no internet) until it goes off. If you have to sit long enough in boredom, you may find yourself suddenly able to write.

7.      Draw what you think will happen next.

8.      Talk—out loud—to your characters and complain to them about the blank page.

9.      Find a photo on line of a character or landscape for your book and simply describe the photo.

10. Write what wouldn’t happen next in your book.

11. Write a line your character would NEVER say.

12. Type the phonebook.

13. Write about the sound of silence.

14. Reread a book or watch a movie that you hate. You may find you suddenly have something to say.

15. Starve yourself of books or movies, any source story. You may find you NEED to write to fuel the part of you that can’t get story any other way than through yourself.

16. Write a list of questions that you have for your book.

17 Ways to Conquer the Fear that is Keeping You From Writing

1.      Lie to yourself. Tell yourself that no one will ever see what you are writing on.

2.      Write by hand so that it feels less permanent.

3.      Make sure you do not tell anyone (including close family members, friends or your agent) about your current project until you feel more confident about it. Not always possible, I admit.

4.      Have a secret project to work on even while you are working on a contracted one.

5.      Close the door and turn out the lights while you write.

6.      Write a project under a pseudonym (even if it is made up).

7.      Keep yourself surrounded by good reviews, nice cards, or other things that remind you of your successes.

8.      Remind yourself that anxiety is just energy your body is storing, ready to be used. It feels the same as excitement. Try to think of it as excitement.

9.      Write out your fears, or the negative words that echo in your mind, and then crumple them up and throw them away.

10. Learn how to divide your mind so that you don’t pay attention to the fearful parts while you write.

11. Develop a routine, same time, same place, same drink, same music, which you always repeat to get you into a “writing mood.”

12. Write something easy to get started.

13. Tell yourself you are only going to do a little editing today. Then maybe if you feel like it, you can move on to writing more.

14. Write someone who has told you that you are a bad writer into a story and make something bad happen to them.

15. Do some yoga or deep breathing exercises.

16. Write a story for your inner, frightened child where a fearful child conquers fear and triumphs over evil.

17. Write your Newbery acceptance speech.

10 Lessons You Cannot Teach

We teach our children and students the lessons that you can learn in a school format, but I think we all know there are some lessons that you wait for kids to learn out in the real world.

1. Some people you can’t trust about anything.

2. Some people you can trust absolutely, but not about the things you think.

3. Only you know what you really love enough to give up things other people never would.

4. The way you find peace and comfort in the face of terrible things is likely to be unique, as well.

5. The heart-stopping feeling you get when you almost died in a car wreck can be the most wonderful thing in the world. It reminds you of all the good things about life, and yet it’s nothing that you would make anyone else live through.

6. You need sunlight, human company, and sleep. In what proportion, I don’t know and can’t teach you. You’ll try to skimp on all of them until you realize you’re doing it wrong.

7. All that stuff you wish you had, all those people you wish you were—they’re nothing like you think and you’re most likely happier without them.

8. Being happy is precious, and it is often fleeting. Hold onto it while you can.

9. Good food and friends are the only wealth that anyone really cares about.

10. Figuring out who you are is something that happens every day when you look in the mirror and put on the face you’re going to wear.

The Smartest Person on the Planet

A writer friend of mine talking about her process this weekend explained that when she was working on her first draft, she felt like she was the smartest person on the planet. She let herself drift and simply typed whatever the smartest person on the planet was experiencing. She turned off her internal editor and wrote whatever popped into her head. Because if you’re the smartest person on the planet, why wouldn’t you do that? Why wouldn’t you believe it would be good? Why wouldn’t you trust that everyone would want to read exactly what you wrote, without any editing or any reconsideration?

I love this description of free writing. I don’t always feel this way on a first draft, but when I do, it is really great. There is a serenity that comes with not second-guessing yourself, with connecting directly to the creative part of your mind. It doesn’t feel like work when you write this way. It feels refreshing rather than draining, and you could go back to it every day and do more of it.

The trick is getting there. I don’t know if women find it more difficult than men to believe they are the smartest person on the planet, but the longer you are a writer, the more often you have turned off your creative brain and turned on your critical one. And it can be hard to switch back, in part, I think, because your creative brain is more vulnerable. And because it is sad to be jerked back to reality and realize you aren’t the smartest person on the planet.

If you are writing today, try to allow yourself to believe that whatever you are writing now, this minute, is perfect. Try to forget about how many drafts you normally write, all the mistakes your first drafts tend to have, and what your editor is likely to tell you about this. Forget about deadlines, contracts, the NYT Bestseller list, and earning out. Forget about agents and query letters and what your market is or what books might be like yours. Forget about the last conference you went to and the advice you got there. Forget about your last rejection letter and what your second grade teacher told you about your first handwritten story. Forget about what your mother says about you when gossiping with friends, and about your old boyfriend who told you you’d never amount to anything.

Write like you’re the smartest person in the world. Tell yourself that you are, and maybe you will actually become it for just a moment. Long enough to write what you need to write. And then hold that small part of yourself that believes deep inside and go back there and be the smartest person in the world again tomorrow, and the next day.

One of Us

I hear people talking about how writing is a business and you should treat it as one. You should get up, go to work, get your words in, and meet all your deadlines. You should figure out what your audience wants, and give it to them. And yes, it is important to do the work, when you can. It is important to be face your fears and learn to overcome them.

I also hear people talking about how writing is art, and you need to give your whole self to it, pour yourself onto the page, that you need to stop caring about whether there will be an audience or if you will ever be paid a dime. Give your soul to others, and don’t care about the rest. (I think there is the secret promise here that if you don’t care about money, then you will get lots of it, but I’m not sure. Maybe I’m the only one who hears that).

The problem is that it’s messy, the relationship between art and business. Sometimes you write because you love writing, and you don’t care about getting paid. Sometimes you write because you are on deadline and you don’t know if you even like your book anymore. I suspect most writers vacillate between these two attitudes, and that is perfectly normal.

Sometimes I love my family so much I could fly. Sometimes I am burdened so much by my own mistakes and by the unhappiness radiating around me that I turn to anything else in my life that will help me feel better about myself. And that is perfectly normal. That is the human condition, soul-destroying and joyful sometimes at the same time.

My point here is that there is no one way to be a writer. You can treat it like a business and that might work for you some of the time. You can treat it like a dessert, a secret, hidden treat that you may or may not share with others. Both are valid ways of being a writer, and you will likely experience both in the course of your career. Welcome to humanity. Writing isn’t so very different from anything else that people do that gives them meaning—or doesn’t—in their lives. You’re one of us. You always were.

Building Characters to Love

I think that a character who wants something negative is inherently less interesting than a character who wants something positive. That is, a character who wants something like—not what my parents tell me to do, or not what the school or government tells me to do—is less interesting than a character with a goal like—saving my sister (Katniss Everdeen) or becoming a Jedi.

By the same token, when I fall in love with a character, it’s more because I find that character interesting and unique than it is because that character is noble, self-sacrificing, and heroic. Noble, self-sacrificing, and heroic are great traits for a character, don’t get me wrong. But I also want a character who loves the feel of her fingers on the piano keyboard when she’s playing Chopin, or a character who hates chocolate, or a character who loves dancing in the rain with her best friend in the dark, when the moon is out.

I’d rather read about a character who isn’t heroic, but is specific than about a character who is heroic, but feels like an everyday hero, just connecting the dots to supposed reader expectations.

Tell a story about a character you know intimately. Tell about a character who has weaknesses and isn’t always loveable. Make me fall in love with a person who I will never, ever meet in any other book or in real life, either. Make me hate you for that, as a writer, for wanting to meet someone I will never meet.

If you wouldn't let someone else tell yourself this, why do you say these things to yourself?

You're crap, you're worthless. Why do you even try?

You've already had all the success you're entitled to. Time to give up.

No one really likes you. They're just pretending to be polite.

It's just a matter of time before they see through you, and then it will all be over.

You used to be someone who mattered, and look what happened to you! You've changed, and not for the better.

No one wants to hear how you really feel. Just keep it locked inside and put on a happy face.

Do all the things that other people tell you to do, and none of the things you want to do, because that's what you deserve. That's how you get along in the world.

Let people take, take, take. No one will ever give to you, anyway.

What you think is wonderful and amazing is really stupid. Try to be more like other people and like and do what they like and do.

Just keep doing what you've always done. Don't try anything new. It's too scary.

Try instead these:

It will get better. Not tomorrow, or the next day or next week, but one day.

People need to know how you feel to help you. Give them a chance, at least.

You are good. You are just hurting right now.

There are people who love you, if you will let them.

You have done some things wrong, but many more things right.

You will do great things again. You may be on the path to a great thing right now, if you give yourself space and time.

The people who hate you don't matter. Let them talk, and you get on with your work.

Try something new. You might fail, or you might succeed. But if you don't try, you'll never know.

Happiness can be yours, if you insist on it and work toward it.

You bring a unique light to the world. Let it shine!

By the way, it is so much easier to come up with the first list than the second.

10 Female Stereotypes I've Seen Enough Of

The best friend who turns betrayer

The two girls fighting over one guy

The perfect wife and mother

The emotionless warrior woman

The executive business woman who throws it all away for love

The mysterious pixie girl

The abused mean girl

The prostitute with the heart of gold

The nerdy/smart/sassy computer girl who stays behind a desk

The girl with glasses who has a makeover to become beautiful

Telling, not Showing

So I just wrote a critique for someone in which I suggested doing more telling, and less showing. Or at least having a higher ratio of telling rather than showing. I do this every once in a while, and then I laugh, reminded that no advice is really universally good.

Here’s the thing. You’re writing a book, not filming a movie. Writing a book uses words. Filming a movie doesn’t need any words at all. You can show everything. You can’t do that with a book (unless it’s a graphic novel, I suppose, or a wordless picture book). In a book, you use words to do all the things that you use the actor’s face to do in a movie. And in addition to that, you get to do this cool extra thing where you can orchestrate the emotional reaction of your reader. With words.

If you are only giving a play-by-play of the action, you’re missing the real power of a book. A book gets you into the head of your pov character. You’re along for the ride in a way that a movie can’t really allow you to be. You get to know everything your pov knows. You feel everything your pov feels. You become your pov in a way a movie can’t quite manage. Now, movies can do other things that are amazing, but I don’t think they give you the same emotional connection.

Don’t just show me what is happening. Tell me what is happening in the head of the pov you’ve picked for me to ride along with. This is the pov that you’ve chosen for a reason, right? The one who is going to give the reader the most emotional ride? The one they’re never going to forget sharing an adventure with?

Make it hurt. Make it sing. Make it stay.

Scars

There are two ways to deal with scars:

1. Hide them because you are embarrassed that you were ever weak enough or stupid enough to do something that scarred you.

2. Show them off because you are proud of yourself for surviving something terrible and getting stronger or wiser from it—or just having a good story to tell.

I’ve had lots of scars, as a writer, as a mother, as an athlete. I can show you the scars from the first time I took my lovely Cervelo out in the rain. My right elbow, my whole right hand, my right thigh. I can show you the scars from crashing into another racer on my left side. I can show you the scars from pregnancy, those thing white lines all over my stomach.

I can “show” you the scars from the first contract a publisher ever canceled with me. I can tell the story about that time I got fired from the job I had spent six years getting a PhD to get. I have scars from things reviewers have said about my books, from amazon 1-star reviews that I was stupid enough to read, and from cruel things I’ve heard from other authors.

Some of the scars don’t hurt at all anymore. Some of them twinge at me. Some are still a little raw, frankly, and I’m tempted to put gauze, ointment, and bandages on them when I go outside. But it helps to remember that everyone has scars, inside and out. Sometimes we get back on that bike again, and sometimes we decide that isn’t a good idea and we ride indoors from now on. It’s OK. They’re your scars. You choose the story you tell about them from now on.