Kate Larking's Blog: Anxiety Ink, page 9

Boxes and Imagination Muscles

The past few weeks have seen a lot of my old neuroses come to fore. Ones I thought I had legitimately dealt with, not buried. So that’s been fun. It has also been illuminating.

My current course instructor is not an individual who believes in detailed instructions. Or back information. Or, seemingly, explanations of any kind. Simple assignments are taking me hours because I obsess over the fact that I don’t know what he wants and I’m not sure if what I’m creating is what is expected.

I’ve always been this student: Give me a detailed list of what you want and expect and I can deliver. Easily. Quickly. Give me a vague, open-ended, self-directed assignment and I will struggle. Endlessly. Miserably. I like to have boxes that I can check off. They make me feel like I’m making progress and hitting targets.

Now, the correlation to my writing…obviously, fiction writing doesn’t come with a straight set of boxes to check off as you write. Sure, there’s the requisite setting creation, character fleshing, genre conventions, and plot points (usually) that need to be tackled, but beyond that there’s a lot of freedom. Much of writing involves vague, open-ended, self-directed ideas that cause me to flounder.

Instead of disheartening myself with this moment of epiphany, I’ve decided that the current issues I’m having with maintaining and completing projects is simply a lack of muscle. I’ve been so thoroughly trained to create and complete according to others’ specifications that my own imagination muscles have atrophied. Even here on the blog there’s a mandate in terms of content. Sure, I can write about whatever I want, but there’s an expectation that it my topic covers writing. It’s a box for me to check off.

Perhaps these vague assignment write-ups are an opportunity for me to trust my instincts and challenge myself to let my imagination go. Gosh it’s stressful, but I’m willing to try. If it helps me in the long run I am all for it.

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Deep in the Sirens Nest

I am writing this post from Avon, Colorado at the Sirens Studio component of Sirens.

And I’m feeling at peace. I mean, minus the slight headache from altitude sickness (definitely not as bad as other people are experiencing coming from sea level) and the overly long travel day on Monday (2:50am to 10:45pm).

I can have wonderful conversations with those around me, really push myself with the programming topics, and steal some time to write.

I’ve worked on my vision for the future, my goals for next year, validated my anime consumption (it’s a form of narrative consumption like reading, which refills the creative well!).

Old friends and I talk as though we haven’t spent a year apart, and there are so many new faces here (so so so thrilled!) that I can’t wait to meet even more people.

So this is a short post this week. Next week, I hope to start a series of posts inspired by Sirens programming, presenting, conversations, and other experiences. Until then, I’m going to find a hot tub.

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Ink Links Roundup – Phillip Pullman, Protecting Creativity, and Self-Pub Stats

Philip Pullman: Rules of writing from man behind His Dark Materials

6. Write for yourself

When you’re writing, you have to please yourself because there’s no-one else there initially.

But the book doesn’t fully exist until it’s been read. The reader is a very important part of the transaction – and people have to read things they want to read.

I’m writing for me – I write for all the “me’s” that have been.

From the first me I can remember, the me who first got interested in stories and loved listening to them; to the me who was here at Oxford 50 years ago; to the me who was a school teacher, telling stories to the class.

All of these. I’m writing for me. And I am lucky to have found such a wide audience – and an audience which contains both adults and children is the best of all.

6 Lifestyle Changes You Can Make to Protect Creativity

The problem is “making it” is never enough. There is always another mountain to scale, always another sacrifice to be made, always a little more money needed to put more bounce in the safety net of your life’s savings, always one more 5-star review to be earned before you’re finally a success.

Self-Published ISBNs Hit 786,935 in 2016

Kate found this to be an interesting news tidbit…but also woefully inaccurate. Why?

According to the report, ISBNs for print books rose 11.3% to 638,624 titles, while e-book ISBNs for self-publishers fell 3.2% to 148,311. Since Bowker measures the number of self-published books by ISBN, its count does not include e-books released by authors through Amazon’s KDP program, as they use ASIN identifiers rather than an ISBNs.

So while it is safe to say that print books have increased through self publishing, it is NOT accurate to quote that self-publishing digitally has decreased.

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Setting and Keeping Goals: An Evolving Relationship

Today brings another guest post from Kathleen Kayembe. She has some awesome things to say about goals. We talk about those a lot on here with our yearly lists and quarterly check-ins, but we haven’t really tackled them in the long term.

Reading back through posts here on Anxiety Ink has reminded me I’d like to be better about setting and keeping goals.

Acronyms like SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-focused, Time-bound) when setting goals are a good idea, but if that’s all there is to the goal, I won’t get it done. I need deadlines and external accountability—otherwise, I’ll procrastinate and eventually let things slide.

It wasn’t until Clarion in 2016 that I resumed my teenage practice of writing goals in the back of my current notebook. That teenage practice never got goals done though—merely took them out of my head so I didn’t have to remember them. Once out of sight, my goals list was out of mind until another one occurred to me, or the journal ran out of pages. Then I got depressed enough that the idea of a future was too much to entertain, and I stopped having dreams of a better future because each day was struggle enough.

At Clarion, we were told to make a list of writing goals: 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year goals—and I finally had the energy to want to. Whereas before, I would write down any stray writing dream for myself that came to mind, this time I limited my list to SMART things I really cared about. Would I like to be a guest at a convention sometime in the next decade? Yes. Was it important to me? Yes…yes it was. So: on the list! On the other hand, while it would be fun to write a comic book series, if I didn’t achieve that in the next 10 years of my life, would I be disappointed with myself? Not really. So: off the list it stayed.

I found having long-term time goals affixed to my writing dreams, rather than insisting to myself that everything happen This Year, calmed something in me. I had things I could focus on for the short term, but the long-term goals weren’t being forgotten—I had a road map for the future, even if plans to get there remained nebulous. While the shorter-term goals were higher priorities (deadline: end of 2017; see: T – Time-bound), taking steps for the longer-term goals alongside them gave me a sense of accomplishment and encouraged me to soldier on. As 2017 began and my journal ended, I looked back through my page-long list and found I’d already achieved one of my submission goals, and made progress on goals that weren’t due for years yet. Slowly but surely, I was getting somewhere.

Unfortunately, my goals to finish two existing novels could still use work and external accountability. I’d wanted to have both finished by the end of 2017, yet we’re in October and one has not been added to since I made that list, and the other is just over 1/3 of the way through—progress made, yes, but not much.

What’s helped create that progress is a roommate who likes the story and wants to hear the rest of it. Having someone excited to hear what happens next is a huge motivator for me. My writing productivity took a huge hit with the collapse of my LiveJournal communities. I’m still struggling to replicate that communal, encouraging, motivating force in my writing life, and it’s still hard.

I used to track my writing word count and what I’d written in a spreadsheet—but no more. Only since Clarion did I return to trying to track what I was writing. Now I use a Pages document (Mac’s Microsoft Word equivalent) and paste in everything new that I write on my computer. It doesn’t include handwritten or online journal entries, notes jotted in my Rhodia notepad, or ideas and story bits synced into my Evernote writing folder, but seeing the month’s word count and those jotted notes that additional things were written is, even when the total progress seems abysmally low, a reminder that I’m making progress.

Would the novel I’m currently working on be finished by now with more discipline and less exhausting day job hours? Perhaps. But I’m doing the best I can, and don’t have the physical or emotional energy to be both a functional adult with a day job and a prolific writer. I need to keep the day job, so I let my daily writing goals remain realistic, achievable, less taxing: write 1 thing a day—even a sentence is enough.

I learned the “1 sentence is enough” rule from M.J. King; it was hard for me, being kind to myself, letting go of unreasonable expectations, but it finally took. Would I prefer certain kinds of writing over others? Yes. Would I prefer a 4-hour chunk of uninterrupted novel-writing time curled up with my dog or at a cafe instead of an 8-hour work day an at office doing something completely unrelated to writing? Yes, of course. But that’s not my life, so I do what is manageable and realistic, and try not to stress myself out with writing goals I could meet if I were my ideal self instead of the version of me that I am.

I will finish the novel I’m writing, and the one waiting on deck, of that I have no doubt. Will both of them be done by the end of 2017? No, but they’re on the list, and I’m making progress, and for right now that progress is enough.

And when it’s not enough, I remind myself that I’ve been a panelist and a guest at conventions in 2017, so while I’m behind on the novel goals, I’m years ahead on some other ones. Life happens, but as long as I keep my goals in front of my face, progress will also happen—progress and, eventually, achievement.

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Novel in 90: Check In

It amazes me how quickly three months can fly by. I’ve been meaning to do an update on the Novel in 90 challenge for a while, but like so many things in my life lately it just keeps getting bumped.

As I predicted in my original post, I have had no time to take part in the more social aspects of Kate’s challenge—I see updates on the Facebook group but I never have a chance to comment. I believe there was an extension voted on, but I’d have to check.

In any case, I have been diligently adding words to the project I decided to work on. While I’ve devoted my three days a week of writing to the challenge, this does not translate to volume by any means. To date, I’ve written 3422 words. In three months. I’m kind of wishing I hadn’t added up my numbers. That used to be a really good day for me—a day! Damn.

Lately, getting my words in involves a pattern of me remembering I haven’t written anything just before I go to turn my computer off before bed. So I take no more than five minutes to open my manuscript, see where I’m at, and add as many words as I can in a blur. Yes, I know it’s no wonder that I have no words accumulated.

Obviously, I’m slogging it. And a novel will not be produced by the 31st of this month. However, this means I still have a relatively new project to work on come NaNoWriMo. I’m still in the get-to-know-my-characters-phase, which is one of my favourite parts of a new story; I’m hoping that excitement and newness carries forward into November.

My current course, which feels like it’s going to be a touch more difficult than the previous ones, goes until the 27th of November. I am not particularly pleased that it’s in full swing when I want to tackle NaNo, but such is my life. I will do my best to plan everything, hit word goals, and survive the month with my brain intact.

If you took up Kate’s challenge how did you fair?

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Writing Conference Prep

I am nearing the end of my sabbatical/parental leave and am working on getting on all the writing conference prep for my final time-off hurrah: Sirens Conference.

Sirens is where my writing heart lives most of the year. I’m looking forward to seeing good friends who I’ve known for up to 9 years now of attending this conference (NINE YEARS?!) and meeting new and wonderful people (Attendance is up over 70% on last year! For a little con, that’s a lot!).

This year, I am attending the Sirens Studio component: a two day pre-Sirens event with three programming streams:

writing intensives,
career intensives, and
reading intensives.

I am at a point in my life where all these things are pivoting for me: I am focusing on writing more, I am actively reading more, and am seeing some changes in my work-life (hello, sabbatical, among other things). I am really looking forward to attending and centering myself before I head back to the bookstore and drown in Winter 2018 lists.

In addition to this, there is the chaos of packing. And when doing conference prep for writing conferences, it’s a little more than clothes and toiletries. It’s:

Business cards
Postcards and other writing promotional pieces
Thank you cards (especially last year when I received so many wonderful baby gifts)
Autograph book
Notebooks
LIMITED BOOKS FOR READING (because you will be buying all you need and more for the next year from the bookstore and the auction)
Money to buy said books
Auction donations
List of talking points and questions for the roundtable that was accepted into programming
Swimsuit (yo, there are FIVE hot tubs).
A good signing pen

Why a good signing pen? Because we have done it again. Introducing, Witches and Warriors: a Sirens benefit Anthology.

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I am honoured to have been able to continue this initiative I co-created. I contributed a story again this year and did the ebook formatting. I loved working with all these wonderful people and look forward to giving some (or all?) of them hugs next week at Sirens!

All proceeds from the book go to Sirens Conference.

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Ink Links Roundup – Endings, Magic, and Death by Emails

While reading through this list of story-ending-possibilities, Elisa was reminded that she does not excel at endings. And that’s likely why her manuscripts currently sit unfinished. She’s keeping this link handy.

Kate loves this article: “Fantasy is the Realm of Idealism”: Tamora Pierce in Conversation with the Female Fantasy Authors She Inspired. As a result, she is getting amped for her trip to Sirens Conference in a week!

Do You Want to Be Known For Your Writing, or For Your Swift Email Responses? Kate founds this article ON POINT!

It feels good to have a stranger believe that you are an expert, especially if you have grown up in a patriarchal culture that insists that women cannot be experts in anything, particularly intellectual and artistic pursuits. Institutional sexism (like racism, ableism, and other isms) teaches us to feel indebted to anyone who acknowledges our value, because they also have the power to take it away, because our value only exists in the esteem of others. Your job is not to repay the people who acknowledge you by giving them what they want. Your job was to write the thing they read, and you already did that.

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It’s Ok To Not Always Be Writing

Today’s guest post is from my long-time writer-friend Kathleen Kayembe. She writes fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction of all flavors. Her writing, her stories, have the ability to leave me breathless. She has some words of wisdom that I hope will help you, wherever you are in your process.

Hey, guest poster Kathleen Kayembe here, filling in for the marvelous M.J. King while she takes some time to settle into the newest phase of her (writing) life.

Assuming you’re not saying, “But why can’t you be M.J. King for us? We love her—she’s amazing!” (I mean, it’s what I would say), you might be asking, “Kathleen, what’s that you said about phases?” (Mostly, you’re asking the latter because that question is convenient for my post.)

Well, sometimes a phase a writer’s going through in her life mean the writing doesn’t come, doesn’t flow easily or at all—and that’s normal. So your writing dried up? Relax, it’s just a phase.

There are 5 things I’ve encountered that stop the writing flow.

1) You’re out of practice.

Writing is a muscle, and when it’s not stretched, exercised, used regularly, it begins to atrophy. The muscle’s still there—and it will always be there—but you need to work out to get it back into good writing shape. It’ll probably take at least 3 days to get it limber again, but you’re writers, so you know it’s worth the effort. When the writing’s good, everything seems good. So do some prompts, try warm-up exercises, play around, write something fun that’ll never leave the drawer. You’ll be a lot stronger soon enough.

2) You took a wrong turn in the piece that is Your Current Project.

Writing other things works fine, but the piece you’re Officially working on has stopped moving forward and is being ornery as a mule about it. That may be your subconscious telling you to backtrack and recalibrate. Re-examine your characters and their motivations in the scenes around where everything stopped. Ask questions, come up with alternate ways the scenes could go, and see if that doesn’t get you unstuck.

3) The well has run dry.

In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron compares times when the words and original images suddenly vanish to a well running dry. At those times we need to “refill the well” of images and experiences we have that fuel our writing. Were the words coming fast and easily, and suddenly they stopped? Go out, live a little, read something that stimulates you; refill the well, re-stock the pond you overfished, and the words will flow again.

4) You’re expecting writing to Do All The Things for you, and stifling your creative urges in the process.

Heather Sellers, in Chapter After Chapter, suggests naming the unconscious expectations we have for our current projects to help us let go of the unreasonable ones. When I was unemployed and received my first royalty check for a novella I’d published, my writing dried up. Unconsciously, I’d told myself I could only write publishable pieces—and there went the fun. Writing was now, officially, a Job—it was worktime, not playtime, and if I took time to write a story it should Have Merit, i.e. be something I could sell to the romance publisher I worked with. Those kinds of expectations can be toxic to creativity. You can save yourself some angst by doing Sellers’ exercise: jot down 10 things you want your current project to get you (ex. my father’s approval, a book deal, 200 followers), and then cross out 5. Your creativity will sidle back when the pressure’s finally off.

5) You’re going through a fallow period.

In the seasons of your writing life, you’re experiencing winter. Your creativity is hibernating in a cave in your subconscious, and all the CPR you’re frantically performing on that sleeping grizzly will do is make you exhausted and feel betrayed when you get clawed open for your efforts. (Psychically. Not physically. Unless your muse is a literal grizzly bear, in which case, I’m silently judging you.) Many places go through a winter-esque period where the ground’s gone fallow and it seems like everything’s dead—but seems is the key here, because life is simmering under the surface, and will emerge when it’s time and the atmosphere it emerges into won’t kill it while it’s vulnerable. Sometimes, when life gets super crazy, creativity goes underground for the same reason. There’s not enough energy to spare for creativity to flourish, so it goes dormant—sometimes for years at a time. Sometimes, if you’re like me, you’ll wonder if you’ll ever be a writer again, someone for whom writing is like breathing and the ideas come at a steady stream, and the monthly word count goes up and up and up. If “a writer is someone who writes”, as the Amherst Writers and Artists philosophy goes, what am I if I’m not writing? Answer: a writer going through a fallow period—a phase when creativity has gone underground. Don’t worry—if you wait long enough, it’ll grow back. In the meantime, live your life, take notes when you can, and just try to be present. Everything you do will fill that well (#3), so when the writing returns, you’ll find you’ve got plenty to say.

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Catharsis: Getting Literal with Stories

A main theme for me on the blog here is discussing the connection between writing and catharsis. I absolutely use my writing as a means of dealing with numerous facets of life. Writing is my way to work through problems, anxieties, and other what-ifs. I can’t remember how many times I’ve written about it, but I’ve brought catharsis up a few times.

Lately I’ve been dealing with a lot of anxiety inducing life stuff. They’re not life or death issues. They’d hardly even register on the major scale in the grand scheme of things. In my little, closed world, though, it’s all starting to keep me up at night.

In an effort to face these things—and I apologise for the vagueness, but I don’t want to get into long life stories—I decided to write a book explicitly devoted to one major cause of anxiety. My main character is not me, we’re actually nothing alike, I’ve just put her in my shoes in another reality.

I’ve never done this getting literal with stories thing before. Sure, I’ve given characters similar problems to my own, but I’ve never had them play out a narrative I’m living in an effort to allow me to face my fears. It’s fun, scary, interesting, and it’s making me think.

I’m not sure how this project will go in terms of the long haul: Will it ever be read by anyone else? Will I even finish it? I haven’t the foggiest clue, but I’m grateful to it right now.

Have you ever done something similar with a story or do you follow my normal trajectory and the catharsis is more happenstance than literal?

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Proofreading proves just how slow I am at reading

I am proofreading this week in freelance work. And it is becoming glaringly obvious how slow of a reader I am.

Back in the day, when I was a reviewer, I would often hit a point where I had to pick out the slimmer books in the TBR stacks in order to have a HOPE at making deadline.

Which, reading for story and enjoyment is one thing. Everyone has parts of the story where they naturally skim or just flick their gaze down lines of banter as quickly as possible.

Reading for proofreading is a whole different beast. Is there a comma missing? Is that an en dash or a hyphen? En dash or em dash? Is that name consistent with what was mentioned before?

(For added bonuses, British turns-of-phrase seem to totally throw me off. I’m either googling to confirm or writing an edit note of “I don’t even know what is going on here in order to suggest a fix?”)

But I have two days to proof a long novel, and, as a result, this post is short :P. What about you? Are you a fast reader or a slow reader? Would you ever proofread or would that just be too slow of a pace for your reader brain?

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