Kate Larking's Blog: Anxiety Ink, page 35

Writing Paralysis by Over-Analysis

In James Scott Bell’s new book on writing, Just Write, he has a whole section devoted to writer life. Flipping through, I found the header on writing paralysis caused by over-analysis.

Arguably, this is the reason why writing books aren’t great for me. While I love essays on writing, genre, and experience, books on the craft of writing have always frustrated me.

As I mentioned last week, one of my not-strengths as a writer (I still refuse to call it a weakness) is that I have a hard time stepping away to see plot structure and theme. While this was true in last week’s post on academic writing and analyzing others’ works, I also have a hard time doing it with my own writing.

This isn’t to say I’m bad at plotting. I love plotting. I love taking all sorts of characters and events, tying them together, stretching them over the course of a book, and feeling it balance. I say feeling because I can’t actually look at it and identify that it is balancing. I can, if given a theme, make twists and turns that fit it. However, I can’t point out the Dark Moments or the Reversals. Acts I-III still elude me despite learning them from multiple people and in multiple ways. I can’t identify which areas of my plot project fit a specific plot formula.

If you give me a writing craft book and ask me to plot the structure of a piece of fiction–my own work or even a famous example–to that craft structure, I just kind of glaze over. And, unfortunately, I feel begin to feel incompetent because of that (one of the many side effects to having low self-confidence is that I can’t actually recognize when I am doing well, especially in the face of a theoretical construct that is somewhat OFFICIAL or supposedly UNIVERSALLY APPLICABLE).

So, at this point, I am making a choice. I am going to stop looking at the plot structures that “all stories have” and the formula for a successful story…and just keep writing. Because the writing paralysis really needs to stop.

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Avoidance is a Hard Habit to Break

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I am great at avoidance. It’s a family talent, really; we bury our heads in the metaphorical sand and pretend things will magically fix themselves. Even when we really know better.

I never intended to avoid writing, but that has been the effect of an unfortunate combination of stress and being so busy I forget to breathe. You know what I mean because you’ve been there, too.

Now I have some breathing room. I have time and space and the writer-brain is going full-tilt. I’m not binging on video; I’m binging on books for the firs time in far too long. I’ve done some cleaning, I’ve seen some amazing – and some less-than-amazing – theatre, even had the chance to see a touring performance of Cirque du Soleil.

I wrote about 250 words on Sunday and felt it was a lot. The rest of the week, I’ve been lucky to get down 50 words, if anything at all. But Sunday I wrote 250 words. And stopped.

Avoidance.

250 words. That’s a single page, handwritten in my current notebook. What happened to the days of three or five pages? How many years will it take me to get through the draft, at this rate?

It’s daunting, so say the least. It’s tough to remember to be kind to myself, to remember that I’m still ragged, that burnout lingers. It’s ok to take baby steps. I lost the rhythm and it will take time to find it again.

After all, I spent most of Sunday avoiding writing. But I still wrote a whole page. That’s pretty awesome.

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Writing Prompts

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I have to confess that I have a lengthy history of…disdain for writing prompts. Disdain is the ideal word for what I feel. And to be frank, I don’t really know where the feeling comes from. It likely stems from my years of only sitting in front of a blank page when I had something to write and not enough time spent sitting in front of said blank page needing to produce and coming up empty.

I don’t hold any disdain for anyone who uses writing prompts, by the way. That needs clarification.

For a while now I’ve been wanting to try out some writing prompt exercises to see which ones, if any, worked for me. And I did want to see what all the fuss is about, it’s true. However, I’ve been putting it off and off and –well, here I am.

I recently finished Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing and one of his main fonts of inspiration were the endless pages of nouns he wrote down. In his exact words:

“…along through those years [of imitative writing] I began to make lists of titles, to put down long lines of nouns. These lists were the provocations, finally, that caused my better stuff to surface. I was feeling my way toward something honest, hidden under the trapdoor on the top of my skull. The lists ran something like this: THE LAKE. THE NIGHT. THE CRICKETS. THE RAVINE. THE ATTIC. …” (Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity. Joshua Odell Editions, 1994. 17).

I find it intriguing that his lists led him to more honest writing because they allowed him to get to a certain purity in terms of concept. I intend to try the list exercise (I believe I have a list of story titles somewhere actually), but I want to try more.

What writing prompts have you tried? Which ones would you recommend? What are your feelings on writing prompts in general?

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Academic Writing is not Creative Writing–and those mindsets need not apply

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In being a book buyer, I get a heads up on all sorts of books that are coming out. One that really piqued my interest this month was Neil Gaiman’s The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction.

So, in this MASSIVE TOME of essays, there has been several quotes that have stood out to me. Here’s the first that I wanted to talk about:

It is the job of the creator to explore. It is the task of the academic to walk around the bomb site, gathering up the shrapnel, to figure out what kind of an explosion it was, who was killed, how much damage it was meant to do and how close it came to actually achieving that.

Neil Gaiman, The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction

As a writer I am much more comfortable exploding than talking about explosions. I’m fascinated by academia, but it’s a practical fascination. I want to know how I can make something work for me or see what others have seen, have drawn out of fiction. I love learning about fiction, but the learning is only interesting as it is something I can use.

But, because I’ve had a lot of academic influence in my maturation as a writer, there has been a struggle for me in differentiating academic English/literature skill versus creative English/literature skill. And there has been a huge impact on how I value myself as I continue to sort these tangled strings out.

One of my not-strengths as a writer (I refuse to address it as a weakness) is that I have a hard time stepping away to see plot structure and theme. It is something that has plagued me for years and most notably was the bane of my existence in English class. My trouble grappling with this is the reason I thought for so long that I was a shitty writer; that I was no good at ENGLISH CLASS and therefore, would be no good at CREATIVE WRITING.

But anyone who reads can tell you that academic writing is not creative writing. After all, NONFICTION and FICTION are kept on separate shelves. You’d think my brain would have caught onto this nuance sooner.

It has taken me a long time to understand that just because I didn’t have solid academic success and ease-in-understanding concepts–and being able to point them out in fiction–held little bearing on my creative success, plotting, balancing, and skill.

It does mean that writing blurbs on my fiction is hard, though XD

This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a tiny kickback to help keep this blog alive if you make a purchase using this link.

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The Bones of Story Structure

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Stories are strange, fantastical creatures, built on bones called story structure. They can be any shape – though some shapes are more easily accepted than others. Sometimes only their authors can see the beauty in them.

My stories tend to be commercial in that they follow a popular structure: a hook into the characters and action of the novel, an event or reveal that kicks the plot into full swing, followed by a pinch of trouble, then the big midpoint plot twist, a giant heaping or more trouble, the final piece of the plot puzzle that brings it all together, then the big showdown.

Or that’s the structure I’m aiming for, more or less. My first drafts rarely emerge that recognizable.

If that structure is a fish, my first drafts have fins sprouting from their heads and gills not at all connected to the respiratory system. They flop and wriggle and gasp and die, leaving me looking at this . . . thing that might resemble a fish if I took it all apart and reassembled it from scratch.

I’ve done that, and find it infinitely rewarding to draw a fish from the previously unviable, mutated thing. Maybe the fins aren’t all in the right place yet and an eye ended up in the belly, but revision will fix that.

In the end, I’ll have a fish. As long as the underlying story structure is right.

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Post Research Interview: That Spark

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As I mentioned last week, I was extended the opportunity to be part of a research interview concerning copyright laws in Canada mainly associated with young creators. That interview took place last Saturday, and was pretty awesome.

I’ve never been interviewed, and anyone who knows me well –not to mention not so well– knows that I am not particularly chatty. I’m simply not much of a talker unless conversation involves something that I’m passionate about. Am I passionate about copyright? No; it turns out I know sweet nothing about the topic, actually. So how did I manage to talk non-stop for 40+ minutes?

Well, the interviewer asked me about my writing, my influences, my opinions on what I think copyright to be, and about Anxiety Ink. I’ve been writing for close to twenty years, I’ve been reading for about the same length of time, I have strong opinions on appropriation and use of others media/ideas, and I’ve been blogging every Friday for three years. That adds up to a lot of passion!

You know what the best part was? Rediscovering that passion. The more I talked the more I felt that spark getting brighter.

I’ve been dragging for months for one reason or another, not writing, barely blogging like I’m accustomed to, reading little –basically having a tough go. The more I realized I wasn’t doing any of the things I loved the worse I felt. Talking about what I aim to do with my writing and blogging, how I feel about it, and discussing creativity itself was so liberating and exciting that I realized how much I truly miss it all!

I feel a new connection to my craft and hobbies (my life’s blood, really) and am itching to reacquaint myself with all of them.

Plus, it was so much fun discussing the publishing world with someone admittedly entrenched in academia. It’s been a long time since I’ve explained about the changes to the publishing world and the rise of excellent indie authors. And I got to gossip about stuff in the fiction world. It was great.

I’m thankful I took the opportunity to talk about what I do, to discover a new subject to learn about, and realize something that I don’t think Kate, Melissa, or myself have ever really given any thought to (that I know of). As a developed society we are so reliant on and accustomed to the internet and it’s variety of blogs and available opinions that we never really think that probably 20 years ago we wouldn’t be able to do what we do with Anxiety that way we do it. Heck, I don’t even know if we’d have an audience! The novelty of it is astounding.

I don’t say it often enough at all –which is terrible– but I want to extend an enormous thank you to everyone who reads our blog. As much as we write for ourselves on Anxiety and each other, we are so so SO grateful to have an audience. You are why we come back every week.

Thank you!

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Writing as Therapy – Poetry

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My life as been full of changes recently. Expecting our first child as really thrown me for a loop mentally. Between the excitement/panic of impending parenthood, the stress and organization of events for both bookstore work and comic work, and some people letting me down, I’ve had a hard time keeping up.

Time keeps moving forward. I’m still becoming a parent. I still have events to make it through.

As a result, I’ve been bitten by the poetry bug. Not full fledged poetry–whatever that can be classified as–but snippets. Some rhyme, some don’t. Some have alliterative and assonance, some a sharp and cacophonous.

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But it has helped, a lot. The feelings I can’t give words to, to think out clearly, I can write in symbols. I can visualize pain and disappointment as an image, write it down, let it flow out of me so I can move on.

This isn’t easy. It’s not a cure-all. It’s not instant relief. But it does help me move and grow, stretch and sigh. If takes the load off of my heart for a bit to help me relax.

I am very lucky to have a lot of friends around me but sometimes I can’t share things, given how interconnected some of my friend communities are, and how once words are spoken, you can’t really take them back and make the damage un-happen. And I have pained people recently with careless words that I wish I could undo.

So, I’ve been turning to writing as therapy. And poetry, since it is the type of writing I know the least about, makes it the most freeing as I don’t feel constrained by a lot of craft-related “Ought to”s.

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Stories Knocking

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Pst! *knock* Hey! *knock* I’m knocking! *knock* Don’t you hear me? *knock* You might want to pick up a pen now . . .

When stories come knocking, don’t turn them away. If you do, they run and tell their friends that you’re no fun, and you’ll find that knocking comes less and less.

Sometimes, that’s really what it feels like. I was reading a book and suddenly had a flash of a concept. *knock* I’d read a word or two and it would knock again. I got up to get a drink and the whole time, it shouted, “Hey! Hey, pay attention to me!”

. . . My stories may – just possibly – have a bit of my personality when they talk to me.

I didn’t want to take the time. The book was good; I didn’t want to put it down. But who know where that idea may lead? And if I didn’t write it down, it would disappear. Though only after thoroughly annoying me.

So I stopped. I paid attention and took notes – wrote them all down. Then I got back to the book – this time without that pesky idea going, “Mememe!”

That new idea may never become a proper story. It needs more development before it becomes a Project, but I have it.

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An Intriguing Invitation

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Sorry that I have to keep this post short, sweet, and vague, but I’m kind of in the dark.

Over a week ago, I was randomly contacted by a researcher from the Education Faculty at the University of Calgary. She’s doing a study on Copyright Laws in relation to young Canadian creators (“young” being between the ages of 18 and 26, if I recall correctly) and she asked me to be a participant.

After checking things out –yes, colour me a suspicious Aloysius– I replied to the invitation and agreed to an interview tomorrow.

Thankfully, being knowledgeable about Canadian copyright is not a prerequisite. It’s actually slightly embarrassing how little I know about the finer details of copyright law, something I’ve been thinking about since receiving my first email about the study.

I know the major things –cite sources, never claim things as your own if they’re not common knowledge, and so forth. I have strong feelings about plagiarism since I have been a victim of it and I can tell you it’s no picnic to deal with. Anyway, I also know that a few years ago the laws around using images in Canada changed so that any image that is not your own must be sourced if you use it anywhere.

Beyond that…I am walking in the dark. In all fairness, I am not even close enough in the stage of my writing to worry about it. And yeah, after typing that sentence I feel like that’s a really lame excuse.

I feel like I’m going to take away just as much from this interview as the researcher is. Plus, I get a free copy of Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide. I can’t come out of this ignorant!

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There’s nothing like a deadline to get you writing…

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Not quite a deadline…a “life”line, I suppose?

It is with a mix between joyous excitement and overwhelming terror that I announce that I am soon to become a mother. My wife is pregnant and we are expecting to become a family of three in November (with our four cats and two dogs).

I’ve had a few friends recently become parents and one thing has become abundantly clear: I should expect to have no time. As ambitious as I want to be around having a baby, I will not have time to do anything else, most likely. Especially since I won’t have any sort of parental leave in the beginning–just vacation days and compensated overtime that I’m slaving through right now.

And so my goal is to do all the writing. And I got off to a great start this week.

I finished a short story for Sirens-benefit anthology I unwittingly helped spur into action all those months ago. It’s going to betas now where they will tell me I need to worldbuild more (I mean, that’s the feedback I am anticipating and already working on).

I wrote two proposals for Sirens conference because there was a desperate need for a type of programming. Now only did I write two, but I’m actually quite pleased with how they turned out and am really eager to speak to them at the conference.

I have administrative work like crazy, marketing for the inaugural Panel One Comic Creator Festival.

Oh, and work–where I have a bunch of events this month which is making for a lot of overtime. So just kind of count me as working 6-day work weeks this week and that will be accurate.

Let’s face it, though. There is nothing like a deadline to get you working and finishing things.

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