Creative Writing Corner

Designing Your Creative Space

Renting an apartment for the first time in my life has changed a few things about how I see the world. Before, I didn't have the slightest interest in interior decorating, design, furniture, and planning out a space. I lived the world of the child and the student, which is one in which I'm given a space with furniture I didn't choose, and I have to do my best to make it workable for the very brief and temporary time that I have it. Now that I get to choose how to fill my space, it has made me just a tad more interested in furniture and decorations.

I've found the awesome website Apartment Therapy tremendously helpful and interesting for learning how to make a space both pleasant and workable. In particular, this site has a plethora of ideas about making a small space nice. It's helped me to figure out where to put my desk, how to make use of my wall space, and the like. And it also has gotten me wondering about whether designing your creative space is important for other writers out there. Do you need everything to be just so in your space? Do you plan things out so that writing will happen easily and naturally there, or will any spot do? Do you need a desk, or can you write on a bed?

Because this is my first apartment, I certainly can't have everything I want; I have to make do with what I have. Even so, I can't help dreaming of the perfect writing space, a space I'll be glad to go to in the morning and get some creative work done. I imagine a place with a wide window letting in the morning light, a little set off from a larger space, making it cozy but also open. I can see a desk there, and myself, looking out the window and thinking, or typing busily.

Do you ever indulge in domestic or creative dreams like these? Share what you imagine in the comments.

Break Your Writing Bad Habits

What are your bad habits?

We all have them. Leaving dishes in the sink? Apologizing too much? Saying "like" or whatever"? Bad habits have a way of creeping in to every aspect of our lives. They usually are so sticky as activities because they're the easier way to talk or act or think. It's a form laziness and inertia that keeps us doing them over and over, in spite of our wish to stop. And just like not flossing or leaving the curtains open, we have writing bad habits too.

Identify the problem.

The first step to eliminate a writing habit, just like any other habit, is to identify it. Read over your old work and pick out the mistakes or weak parts that seem to pop up again and again. Do you use a character stereotype, like putting a thick mustache on an Italian character or making a rich person snooty? Do you fall into writing bad habits like a certain uninspired word ("good", "boring")? Do you keep using tired imagery ("my heart was pounding")?

Think of a way to improve it.

Now you've got to consider how you would fix this problem. Can you think of a more inspired way to describe a character? A better, more vivid word? An image that hasn't been done to death? Now that you've got it, get ready to put it into use.

Make a new habit.

The experts say all it takes to create a new habit is to do it again and again for an unbroken chain of events for about 30 days. That means that with you're writing, you've got to create a chain of stories or paragraphs or pieces where that bad habit doesn't occur. Every time you feel tempted to write in that lazy way, you've got to correct yourself immediately. Work harder. Think harder. Write better. It'll be hard at first, but pretty soon you'll develop a new habit -- a habit of using vivid images instead of dull ones.

Hibernating in the Winter

 My parent's house during the last snowfall.

As everyone can see in the news, this past week has been a doozy for heavy snowfall and plummeting temperatures on the East Coast. Before that, we've had weeks of brutal temperatures, even for this time of year. And I've just about had it.

Do you ever find yourself sinking into hibernation mode? You start wearing your very warmest clothes day after day no matter how frumpy you look, and all you can think about it getting where you want to go as fast as you can? Do you start hating to go outside and wishing every day could be a day of hooky curled up on the couch?

As someone who gets colds fairly easily, I can tell you the temptation to hibernate is very strong for me right now. The problem with a hibernating mindset is that it starts sapping all of your energy, including your creative energy. You can start using it as a justification not to be creative. Or as the interior monologue goes in my head, "I don't have to write today. It's so cold, and I'm tired and half-frozen." Or, "I don't have to write today. I have to go outside later, and it'll take the rest of the day to recover and get warm again." Or, "There's no way I'm going out to the library to write today -- it's too darn cold!"

I know I'm especially lazy when it comes to cold weather, but I bet there are sympathizers out there, people who also feel their creative juices drying up when it's just too darn cold to work up the energy. Anyone? Anyone? My tips for fighting this feeling involve giving yourself a bit of tough love. If you know you won't get work done while you're at home with all your creature comforts around you, force yourself out to a public place and don't let yourself come home until you've completed a creative goal of some sort, such as writing three pages or taking notes on a new scene. Then you'll be able to enjoy your hot chocolate and your fuzzy slippers in guilt-free peace.

Photo of the Week

, originally uploaded by AAGCTT.

Great perspective in this shot.

How Much Time Do You Waste?

The flood of productivity blogs and websites out there like to remind you about how much time you waste every day. They make tidy charts and graphs, pointing out the average times spent by Americans doing non-productive things. It takes ten minutes every day to brush your teeth! Another five minutes every hour wasted looking out the window! Gasp -- a full thirty seconds out of every minute are spent with your eyes not being glued to your computer screen!

I'm being a little facetious here. In truth, I do like being more productive, and I hate how much time is actually wasted checking email, staring at random websites, or just goofing off around the house. There are definite ways we could make more time for our creative work. At the same time, it's important to be discriminating, and figure out what time is truly wasted.

After the jump: how to figure out when you're really wasting time.

What Technology Do You Use to Be Creative?

All of this talk about Apple's new iPad has me wondering how writers, taking part in one of the world's oldest professions, keep up with the technological times. Do most of you still love to get your ideas on pen and paper? Any typewriter purists out there? Or do you prefer cutting-edge technology to keep your novel's notes in order and your words constantly spell-checked?

Being a picky sort, I use a variety of different writing tools depending on my needs and my mood. For blogging, I use the handy, elegant and functional software Marsedit. It can automatically post to a long list of blogging platforms, as well as store drafts, categories, and keywords. For my creative writing, I use a wide range of things depending on how I feel. There's my good old notebook and pencil for when I don't want to be staring at a screen. While slow, it can often match the pace of my thoughts very well, while typing on a computer can sometimes make the words come too fast, running heedlessly without restraint and temperance. Then I also have an antique typewriter, a beautiful 1935 Royal portable. It feels great to be pounding out a story on those keys; it makes writing feel almost like an aerobic and muscular activity, giving my thoughts a more dynamic and tactile sense.

Of course, sometimes the computer is just too convenient to resist, but even then, I avoid the standard Microsoft Word. I sometimes use Apple's Pages, but I also play with programs that enable me to write on a blank screen so that I won't get unduly distracted. The two programs I love best for this are Writeroom, which give you a completely black screen with text of a color of your choice, and the new Ommwriter. I'm really excited about Ommwriter these days even though it's still in beta because it gives you a really peaceful, non-distracting environment for your writing, even including some meditative audio loops to play if you like. It makes writing a very Zen experience, to use a cliche phrase, and the files created can be plain text, usable in any other word processor. I highly recommend it.

So I want to open this up to my readers. What word processors do you recommend? Or are there certain notebooks you can't live without? Sound off in the comments so that the rest of us can benefit from your writing tools.

5 Reasons to Get Your MFA

Are you considering an M.F.A., but not sure if it's worth it? Now that I'm a semester into my M.F.A. program, I can tell you some of the most compelling reasons for taking the plunge. While an M.F.A. is not for everyone, and it's not worth plunging into enormous debt, it really has proven to be an invaluable experience for me, and not just in terms of improving my writing. Here are five good reasons to get your M.F.A.:

You will meet other writers!

In college, I had only a few literary-minded friends. I made good friends, but I didn't realize how great it is to be surrounded by fellow-writer friends until I came to my grad program. It's wonderful to meet people who are struggling with the same things you are, and are ready to support you in your writerly quest. You can compare notes and have great conversations about your shared craft.

You will be exposed to great writers.

In addition to surrounding you with fellow student writers whose work you will find inspiring, M.F.A. programs do a great job of giving you opportunities to meet established and legendary writers. There are readings, talks, Q&A's, and panel discussions every week. My resolution for the new semester is to attend more of them: every one I've gone to has been helpful and interesting.

After the jump: three more reasons to get an M.F.A.

Get Inspired by a Museum Exhibit

We're lucky to live in a time and place where there are so many sources of inspiration. We don't have to just read books; we can watch movies, listen to music, go to concerts. One of the ways I get inspired is actually to go to museums. Whether it's the MoMA, the Louvre, the Met, or Boston's MFA, I inevitably find something in an art exhibit that has the power to stop my heart for a moment.

Recently I took a trip both to the MoMA (that's the Museum of Modern Art for you non-New Yorkers) and the Met (the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Both of them are terrific and inspiring in different ways. At the Met, I got a chance to revisit some old paintings that I adored. At the right you can see an all-time favorite of mine, Van Gogh's "Wheat Field with Cypresses." I love the dreamy, swimming quality of the sky, the dynamic, wind-tossed movement of the trees, and the fully textured appearance of the wheat. By seeing it in real life, I got to see how thickly the paint was globbed on to the wheat field, giving it that authentic appearance of texture. The Met also has an impressive ancient art collection, which I also find inspiring. As a scholar of religion, for one, I'm very interested in how ancient art can inform us about early ritual and belief. It's art that tells us how a people sees itself, heaven, gods, and the universe. I love masks, engraved swords, religious statues, and all that; to me they represent the dreams of another time.

Then, of course, there is the MoMA, which is an entirely different experience. You first know you are in a different world when you enter the front door. Unlike the classical architecture of the Met, the MoMA is constructed in the clean, spare white walls and cutout window spaces of modern architectural thought. What you find on the walls here is generally far more abstract and more challenging to my easily befuddled mind. The MoMA can be frustrating at times -- there is actually a square of blank canvas framed on the wall -- but can also be deeply inspiring. There are abstract paintings and sculptures there that still capture the dynamism and movement of the world the way we see it, and paintings and sculptures that challenge that very perception.

These two museums are just examples of very affordable ways we can all get inspired by art. Just about every city has a museum worth visiting, and they're not always the big famous ones. A small city often has small, little-known museums housing gems, so try researching museums in your own town.

Remembering J.D. Salinger

There are many many writers and readers out there who are mourning the loss of J.D. Salinger, who passed away at 91 last week. I was one of those people who found herself moved and inspired by Salinger's stories, with their musical ear for the way people speak and emphasize and pose, and their sensitivity to sadness and trauma that can often lurk beneath the surface of a sunny morning. For one of the large thesis projects required of my college, I researched and wrote a large paper on Salinger's short stories from his brief, sharp, haunting collection Nine Stories. Here I'll include a little excerpt from this paper to show what some of his stories said to me. The paper was called "Violence Corrupts, Innocence Saves: Salinger’s Stories of Postwar Isolation and Spiritual Connection."

J.D. Salinger’s post-World War II story collection, Nine Stories, is haunted by the ghosts of violence and destruction from the war, and equally troubled by the new era of consumerism in which it has emerged. The heroes of Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “For Esmé -- With Love and Squalor” are desperate to connect with their worlds in meaningful ways, but find their efforts blocked at every turn. “Bananafish” and “For Esmé” engage with three major problems of the postwar hero, all of which impede the hero’s progress toward spiritual fulfillment and connection with the people around him. Repressed traumatic memory of the war, loss of innocence and an accompanying increased sexuality, and materialism all prevent Salinger’s narrator from relating to the world. In particular, postwar trauma manifests itself as the encroachment of violence into the ordinary world, while even young children in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” are violated by burgeoning sexuality. In both stories, the banal demands of materialistic characters invade the protagonist’s world, emphasizing his utter isolation and lack of meaningful communication. Ultimately, both stories suffer from a breakdown in language; the stories themselves ask if meaningful communication is possible in a world dominated by violence, corruption, and a cheapening of life and death. By Salinger’s reckoning, this question is a spiritual one; the protagonists of both stories are struggling to find communication and moral worth in a world seemly devoid of it. While “Bananafish” leaves its reader haunted by this unanswered question, “For Esmé” attempts to unite society and spirituality in an ultimately hopeful way. The healing that occurs at the end of “For Esmé” is not in spite of the forces of violence and materialism, but rather, is reconciled with them. In this way, the Zen koan that leaves an unanswered question as an epigraph for Nine Stories, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”, and that hovers at the end of “Bananafish”, finds its resolution in “For Esmé.”

I hope this little taste of what my paper was about will get you interested in reading the two stories "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "For Esme -- With Love and Squalor", both of which can be found in the collection Nine Stories. May Salinger, deeply troubled by fame throughout his life, find rest beyond it.

Photo of the Week

Her Split Personality, originally uploaded by me_on_flickr.

This shot is very cleverly done and may get you thinking. Try writing something about it!

Think About Your Writing Like It's a New Chance to Impress

This week was my first week back in class, for a new semester of grad school. I don't feel quite as much like the frightened freshman anymore; there were familiar faces, people to talk to, and a bit of a sense of what class would be like. As with my last semester, the class began with important concepts and questions flying thick and fast. I'm a fairly thorough note-taker and I wanted to get it all down, but I was kept busy for the entire period.

It's always exciting to be at this new stage in the academic year, gearing up for a challenging new semester. I know I've always been a geek, but I loved coming in to school in September, doing my best to make a good impression on new teachers, learning about new books. Even as a grown-up grad student, I feel the same excitement and nervousness. I think that whether they are eager students or not, writers probably feel a similar way about their writing. They're nervous; they're excited; but in addition to these emotions, they can see each new story as a new "semester", a new chance to impress and to put their best foot forward.

So remember that when you're working on a new story that others are likely to see. This is a new beginning! Will you make a good impression? Start off with a bang? Surprise and delight your audience? Be sure to throw all of your energy into each new project, and that energy will be reflected in your work.

Is the Novel Dying?

  Image from redstick.files.wordpress.com.

A lot of writers and publishers alike are very nervous right now. It feels a little like the four horsemen of the novel apocalypse are bearing towards us. Those four horsemen would be, of course, e-books and the Kindle, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Books. In their own ways, all of these things are threatening the sale and reading (and writing) of books as we know it. E-books mean that books have to be much cheaper, and available instantly, often for free. Twitter means that no one is interested in long-form narratives anymore; if it can't fit in 140 characters, why read it? Facebook is telling us that the only forms of communication that are valuable are those that are networked and collaborative. And finally, Google books is out to steal every last copyright out of every writer's hands.

That would be the pessimist's viewpoint on those four horsemen. But the other day my professor, who is a venerable and highly respected writer, commented on the apparent crisis in the literary world. He said that he found it very comforting that over a hundred years ago, in the 19th century, a novelist was horrified by the changing world he saw after the invention of the telegraph. The lightning travel of information around the globe would be, he declared, the end of the novel.

We have been calling the novel dead for centuries now, and it continues to thrive, to be read, to hold humankind's best ideas. Convenient as Twitter is, no one wants to get their reading done in Twitter. People want stories, long, satisfying, stories, and whether they read them on a kindle or in a book, there will always be a market for them. Human civilization will have to change in a way that fundamentally puts us at odds with our true selves before something like the novel disappears. We are wired to see the world in a narrative form, and to invest our emotions in fictional characters as if they were real. Let's hope writers can continue to make a living as they continue to provide us with something just as essential to our culture as music, dance, and dreaming.

Write About Love Lost

On Mondays I generally offer an exercise suggestion. For those of you new to the site, you can expect to come by on Mondays and have a concrete writing activity to do or thing to think about that will hopefully get you writing.

This week, I want you to try to write about lost love. Either write a memoir piece, or try creating a fictional story. Lost love can be interpreted in a lot of different ways; you could consider a love who has died, or a couple that never quite got together, or someone who fell out of love with someone. You could write about any one of a hundred bittersweet partings and disappointments. The point is to capture that sense of loss that is so keenly felt when we wonder what might have been. Love lost is always a significant part of the human experience because it exposes our rawest emotions and our barest selves. It shows us at our best and our worst, our wisest and most desperate, our most foolish and most generous.

What I do want to emphasize is that this piece should not be a break-up story. While a break-up story can be beautiful, as I'm learning from my current literary magazine internship, it's the most common storyline in the slush pile. It is common and unremarkable, and should be avoided. But maybe you're asking what a break-up story actually is.

It's a bit of a tenuous definition, but the break-up stories that are a dime a dozen in the slush pile tend to be slow-moving, overly thoughtful takes on a couple in decline. The love is gone in the relationship, and it usually ends in a realization that the other person isn't who the first person thought he or she was.

Do you see the difference between a love lost story and a break-up story? A love lost story still has love in it. A typical break-up story is merely the discovery that love isn't there at all. It keeps the characters reserved -- depressed, maybe, but still not baring the best and worst of themselves. So keep your stories interesting -- write about love, not about the lack of it.

Physical Genius

  Image from 4.bp.blogspot.com.

When I was in high school, a teacher gave us a little test that was designed to point out how many different kinds of intelligence there are. Students that always thought they were dumb could discover that they had high verbal intelligence or intrasocial intelligence, for example, even if they didn't have a high score in the logical/mathematical field. It was a good lesson to learn, and I discovered that there were kinds of intelligence I had never considered before, including physical intelligence.

You could say I rank pretty low on the physical intelligence scale; I'm no athlete, and I've always moved awkwardly, taking ages to learn new physical skills like throwing and kicking and dancing. Maybe it's this lack of ability that puts me so in awe of physical geniuses. I've recently become a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, because I'm convinced he is a genius, in an area I could never possibly understand.

After the jump: how Charlie Chaplin made me see things differently.

Photo of the Week

Shortcut to the Food Court, originally uploaded by pixel.eight.

This shot is both funny and oddly bleak and bizarre. Will you write something about it this week?