Creativity, A Bit Of Writer's Block and Kids...
You want to write and there's a story in your head. You have the inclination and you have the materials you need...a PC, laptop or maybe some nice notebooks?
You sit down, ready to go and... nothing happens! That's it. Your mind is blank, your characters have fallen silent and you're left staring at a blank screen (or page). You sit, for hours and hours. You stare. You will your brain to make your story come to life.
Then the doorbell rings. The kids come home; the dinner needs preparing; the dog needs feeding; your partner (if you happen to have one) comes through the door and then it's bedtime. Another day has gone and you, the aspiring writer, have done nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Except for maybe play with some fonts.
This soon becomes a cycle and, disheartened, you slowly discard the dream of writing. You watch daytime TV. You keep a beautiful home. Maybe you ( gasp ) get a real job. Your dream of being a writer remains just that. A dream.
(You'll notice at this point that I'm writing this from a female perspective. That's because I am female, but it's not to say that many many men find themselves in similar situations. In this age, we are lucky enough to see so many diverse families - for the sake of argument, we'll pretend I'm an androgynous alien and keep everyone happy.)
Lesson #1) Being a writer means being selfish.
At this stage in the game you're just starting out, don't panic too much about style, content, grammar, dialogue and all the million other things you will need to know before you get anywhere near publication. Right now, you need to worry about making the time to write. It means going against instinct, putting your foot down and making sure you write. Write anything. Write about what you saw as you were walking the dog, or the people you saw at the store. Write about the street you grew up on; conversations you had in the corner shop; that weird looking guy who always loiters around the corner of the street...is it drugs, or is he waiting for the Mother Ship to beam him up?
You get the idea. See it, write it, make it up and make sure that you at least get something written down each day. Get into the habit of writing. No-one will see this - they are exercises for your eyes only - but you are now writing. Well done!
Lesson #2) Get out of the house.
This seems counter-productive, but you are feeding your brain with sights, sounds, smells and sensations. You will need this to be able to write about pretty much anything. What does the sky look like? How does the wind sound? What is it like to have a warm breeze drift across your body as the scent of magnolias waft up your nose?
You will never know if you're watching daytime television. While Jeremy Kyle & Dr. Phil are good to draw inspiration for the odd weird character, they're not what you want to be watching if you want to write. In fact, try to watch as little television as possible. Go out. Take a book, go for a walk, sit in the open, or in a cosy cafe, and read. Feed your mind.
Lesson #3) You cannot write if you do not read.
So why not multi-task (you have to anyway - you have kids) and read a book while getting invaluable outside time? It's like tummy-time for babies. Seems pointless, but it's really not. You'll be amazed at how much can inspire you in the most mundane settings. So take the dog out, or plug in your headphones, and get out into the world.
You HAVE to read. This will teach you, without you knowing, everything from punctuation to grammar and spelling. You will see how words 'work' and it's an education that never ends. Eventually, you will also see how they don't work...but that's later on. No-one goes into this perfect. Be patient with yourself and teach yourself through books and good literature.
Remember: Bad writing is contagious and yours will always be a work in progress.
Lesson #4) The kids can do more than you give them credit for
Seriously. They can. Besides, teaching them to entertain themselves and have respect for the fact you are working (paid or otherwise) is actually very good for them. Teach them early on that you are writing and that they should try to disturb you as little as possible. It doesn't matter how old or young they are; they will pick up the habit and it will be invaluable to them in later life.
Have a work ethic and let them see you take it seriously. That is serious. If you're ever going to make a go of it, the five year old needs to learn to operate a loaf of bread and a slice of ham, so they can make themselves a sandwich. They are highly unlikely to starve in a two hour period in the evening.
Teach them to read, to play, to build - to write! Don't use the TV as a babysitter, but make sure they know you are 'at work' and can do the same. Read their little nonsense stories (after you have finished your designated writing time) and praise them. Even if they make no sense, don't criticise them...yet...you wouldn't like it, nor do your children. They have the courage to show you their work. That's a big deal - nurture it; don't kill it.
Lesson #5) Routine can help.
Kids needs routine and, at first, so will your brain. It needs to get into the habit of working and creating. Your children need to get used to you writing and creating. They need to see you knuckling down and getting things down on paper, or on the screen.
It's no joke that your brain will find things hard at first. You'll be tempted to try and force yourself to do more than you actually can. You're not going to sit down, as a novice writer, and produce War and Peace. Well, you might, but it's really unlikely.
I will add, although I said grammar doesn't matter at this point, there are some habits you MUST get into very early on. The following list is an example of basics that will get you laughed at, as soon as you join any group of like-minded people.
There is no such thing as "Potatoe's."
If the word is a PLURAL (i.e: There is more than ONE of whatever it is you are writing about, then there is NO APOSTROPHE ! For example:
Flowers
Tomatoes
Banners
Worlds (If there are MANY worlds, then they are worlds. If something BELONGS to the world, then it is the world's.)
Drinks
sweaters
trousers...
There are endless examples of these. Learn which is a plural. Never say, "They are my shoe's" - you're basically saying, "They are my shoe is." The apostrophe contracts two words. If you are not saying:
It (the word) has
It (the word) is
It (the word) owns something. ex. The dog's ball. The tomato's mould...
Then never use the contraction apostrophe. It looks amateur, and whether you have been writing a week or a year, you have to learn this rule. Many things can be overlooked, but "I ate all the potatoe's," will always be unforgivable. Get into the routine of checking for those sneakyapostrophe's apostrophes. They are the number one mistake new authors (and a few lazy established one's ones) make...and they will make a future agent or publisher laugh and move on.
If you want to be taken seriously, get into the routine of checking your work. Teach your children to spot these little buggers and point them all out, if you're unsure. Make it a game, and then they will know (and learn) how to use them too.
Lesson #6) Make this fun for your kids!
When I started writing, seriously, I'd been very ill. I'd had a heart attack and had to have a partial mastectomy because a lump was 'on the turn' as my gorgeous consultant put it. I had four children who had been through so much. They were scared, worried and didn't have the security they should have had. I internalised all my own fears and concerns, hid my depression and ordered myself to write. To the exclusion of all else.
The result doesn't take a family therapist to predict. The kids resented me. They saw the computer as taking me away from them. The attention I should have been giving them, I was giving the computer. I was stressed, too - I knew what I was writing was absolutely terrible and it was upsetting me. I took the anger I had over my own inadequacies out on everyone around me. I was withdrawn, depressed and terrified by the statistics that tell you 50% of heart attack survivors die within five years of their first attack.
It led to an almost complete family breakdown. Something had to give and, Good God, something had to change! That something had to be me. It took time to learn this lesson and balance it against 'be selfish'.
MAKE IT FUN
Include your children. Let them know you're there, just working. Teach them independence, but be there if they need you. Teach them to create and have fun with you. Take them out. Talk to them - how can you write dialogue, if you never speak to a lot of people? Let them read some of your work (make something up that's age-appropiate) and swap stories, depending on age. This works just as well with a two year old as a twenty year old. Make it a game, so they know what you're doing for hours at a time.
Do this and when you publish your work, your greatest fans will be in your house. Trust me, their faces when they realise other people like your work and will pay for it are priceless. They will have great fun, imagining spending those royalty cheques. Let them imagine - you're showing them that you can be creative and make a living !
This has a great effect. You are showing your children that you have the integrity to do what you want to do in life; you are chasing your dreams. They will be true to themselves, too. They will have a dream and you will show them it's okay to chase it to the ends of the world.
You will make cutbacks. You will lose money, at first. You won't have a brilliant wardrobe, unless your partner is rich and can carry you for however long it takes. The kids will have to learn they can't have everything...and that's not a bad thing. (Teach them to look hard done by and say, "My Androgynous Alien Parent is a writer." Everyone seems to understand that a McDonald's tea is the height of extravagance!) Your hobbies will be reading free books on a Kindle and taking the dog (if you can afford a dog) for a walk. You'll learn to wear layers to save on heating. You will know to shop at 9pm, when the stores are closing, because tomorrow's dinner can be bought for pennies. You will learn that there are places that sell 75cl of vodka for a tenner and three bottles of wine for the same price.
And you know what? It's worth it. Work at your craft, work at getting your dream. Don't hope for millions of pounds to roll in. They probably won't. You might make pennies, you could make enough to meet rent for a month. That first royalty cheque, though?
That's the moment you know you'll live on plain rice until you die, as long as you can write.
You sit down, ready to go and... nothing happens! That's it. Your mind is blank, your characters have fallen silent and you're left staring at a blank screen (or page). You sit, for hours and hours. You stare. You will your brain to make your story come to life.
Then the doorbell rings. The kids come home; the dinner needs preparing; the dog needs feeding; your partner (if you happen to have one) comes through the door and then it's bedtime. Another day has gone and you, the aspiring writer, have done nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Except for maybe play with some fonts.
This soon becomes a cycle and, disheartened, you slowly discard the dream of writing. You watch daytime TV. You keep a beautiful home. Maybe you ( gasp ) get a real job. Your dream of being a writer remains just that. A dream.
(You'll notice at this point that I'm writing this from a female perspective. That's because I am female, but it's not to say that many many men find themselves in similar situations. In this age, we are lucky enough to see so many diverse families - for the sake of argument, we'll pretend I'm an androgynous alien and keep everyone happy.)
Lesson #1) Being a writer means being selfish.
At this stage in the game you're just starting out, don't panic too much about style, content, grammar, dialogue and all the million other things you will need to know before you get anywhere near publication. Right now, you need to worry about making the time to write. It means going against instinct, putting your foot down and making sure you write. Write anything. Write about what you saw as you were walking the dog, or the people you saw at the store. Write about the street you grew up on; conversations you had in the corner shop; that weird looking guy who always loiters around the corner of the street...is it drugs, or is he waiting for the Mother Ship to beam him up?
You get the idea. See it, write it, make it up and make sure that you at least get something written down each day. Get into the habit of writing. No-one will see this - they are exercises for your eyes only - but you are now writing. Well done!
Lesson #2) Get out of the house.
This seems counter-productive, but you are feeding your brain with sights, sounds, smells and sensations. You will need this to be able to write about pretty much anything. What does the sky look like? How does the wind sound? What is it like to have a warm breeze drift across your body as the scent of magnolias waft up your nose?
You will never know if you're watching daytime television. While Jeremy Kyle & Dr. Phil are good to draw inspiration for the odd weird character, they're not what you want to be watching if you want to write. In fact, try to watch as little television as possible. Go out. Take a book, go for a walk, sit in the open, or in a cosy cafe, and read. Feed your mind.
Lesson #3) You cannot write if you do not read.
So why not multi-task (you have to anyway - you have kids) and read a book while getting invaluable outside time? It's like tummy-time for babies. Seems pointless, but it's really not. You'll be amazed at how much can inspire you in the most mundane settings. So take the dog out, or plug in your headphones, and get out into the world.
You HAVE to read. This will teach you, without you knowing, everything from punctuation to grammar and spelling. You will see how words 'work' and it's an education that never ends. Eventually, you will also see how they don't work...but that's later on. No-one goes into this perfect. Be patient with yourself and teach yourself through books and good literature.
Remember: Bad writing is contagious and yours will always be a work in progress.
Lesson #4) The kids can do more than you give them credit for
Seriously. They can. Besides, teaching them to entertain themselves and have respect for the fact you are working (paid or otherwise) is actually very good for them. Teach them early on that you are writing and that they should try to disturb you as little as possible. It doesn't matter how old or young they are; they will pick up the habit and it will be invaluable to them in later life.
Have a work ethic and let them see you take it seriously. That is serious. If you're ever going to make a go of it, the five year old needs to learn to operate a loaf of bread and a slice of ham, so they can make themselves a sandwich. They are highly unlikely to starve in a two hour period in the evening.
Teach them to read, to play, to build - to write! Don't use the TV as a babysitter, but make sure they know you are 'at work' and can do the same. Read their little nonsense stories (after you have finished your designated writing time) and praise them. Even if they make no sense, don't criticise them...yet...you wouldn't like it, nor do your children. They have the courage to show you their work. That's a big deal - nurture it; don't kill it.
Lesson #5) Routine can help.
Kids needs routine and, at first, so will your brain. It needs to get into the habit of working and creating. Your children need to get used to you writing and creating. They need to see you knuckling down and getting things down on paper, or on the screen.
It's no joke that your brain will find things hard at first. You'll be tempted to try and force yourself to do more than you actually can. You're not going to sit down, as a novice writer, and produce War and Peace. Well, you might, but it's really unlikely.
I will add, although I said grammar doesn't matter at this point, there are some habits you MUST get into very early on. The following list is an example of basics that will get you laughed at, as soon as you join any group of like-minded people.
There is no such thing as "Potatoe's."
If the word is a PLURAL (i.e: There is more than ONE of whatever it is you are writing about, then there is NO APOSTROPHE ! For example:
Flowers
Tomatoes
Banners
Worlds (If there are MANY worlds, then they are worlds. If something BELONGS to the world, then it is the world's.)
Drinks
sweaters
trousers...
There are endless examples of these. Learn which is a plural. Never say, "They are my shoe's" - you're basically saying, "They are my shoe is." The apostrophe contracts two words. If you are not saying:
It (the word) has
It (the word) is
It (the word) owns something. ex. The dog's ball. The tomato's mould...
Then never use the contraction apostrophe. It looks amateur, and whether you have been writing a week or a year, you have to learn this rule. Many things can be overlooked, but "I ate all the potatoe's," will always be unforgivable. Get into the routine of checking for those sneaky
If you want to be taken seriously, get into the routine of checking your work. Teach your children to spot these little buggers and point them all out, if you're unsure. Make it a game, and then they will know (and learn) how to use them too.
Lesson #6) Make this fun for your kids!
When I started writing, seriously, I'd been very ill. I'd had a heart attack and had to have a partial mastectomy because a lump was 'on the turn' as my gorgeous consultant put it. I had four children who had been through so much. They were scared, worried and didn't have the security they should have had. I internalised all my own fears and concerns, hid my depression and ordered myself to write. To the exclusion of all else.
The result doesn't take a family therapist to predict. The kids resented me. They saw the computer as taking me away from them. The attention I should have been giving them, I was giving the computer. I was stressed, too - I knew what I was writing was absolutely terrible and it was upsetting me. I took the anger I had over my own inadequacies out on everyone around me. I was withdrawn, depressed and terrified by the statistics that tell you 50% of heart attack survivors die within five years of their first attack.
It led to an almost complete family breakdown. Something had to give and, Good God, something had to change! That something had to be me. It took time to learn this lesson and balance it against 'be selfish'.
MAKE IT FUN
Include your children. Let them know you're there, just working. Teach them independence, but be there if they need you. Teach them to create and have fun with you. Take them out. Talk to them - how can you write dialogue, if you never speak to a lot of people? Let them read some of your work (make something up that's age-appropiate) and swap stories, depending on age. This works just as well with a two year old as a twenty year old. Make it a game, so they know what you're doing for hours at a time.
Do this and when you publish your work, your greatest fans will be in your house. Trust me, their faces when they realise other people like your work and will pay for it are priceless. They will have great fun, imagining spending those royalty cheques. Let them imagine - you're showing them that you can be creative and make a living !
This has a great effect. You are showing your children that you have the integrity to do what you want to do in life; you are chasing your dreams. They will be true to themselves, too. They will have a dream and you will show them it's okay to chase it to the ends of the world.
You will make cutbacks. You will lose money, at first. You won't have a brilliant wardrobe, unless your partner is rich and can carry you for however long it takes. The kids will have to learn they can't have everything...and that's not a bad thing. (Teach them to look hard done by and say, "My Androgynous Alien Parent is a writer." Everyone seems to understand that a McDonald's tea is the height of extravagance!) Your hobbies will be reading free books on a Kindle and taking the dog (if you can afford a dog) for a walk. You'll learn to wear layers to save on heating. You will know to shop at 9pm, when the stores are closing, because tomorrow's dinner can be bought for pennies. You will learn that there are places that sell 75cl of vodka for a tenner and three bottles of wine for the same price.
And you know what? It's worth it. Work at your craft, work at getting your dream. Don't hope for millions of pounds to roll in. They probably won't. You might make pennies, you could make enough to meet rent for a month. That first royalty cheque, though?
That's the moment you know you'll live on plain rice until you die, as long as you can write.
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