Creative Writing Corner

Look Through Your Own Blog's Archives

In the past I've encouraged readers to look through their old stories. It's encouraging to see both where we came from and how far we've come since then. But I also want to encourage a stroll through your blog's archives, for some very different reasons.

1. You'll see how your blogging skills developed.

In case you're curious, this blog first began as a slightly gushy teen writing enthusiast's spot to put her ramblings. Here is my very first post, now seven years old:

This is the grand opening of the Creative Writing Corner! I know there are thousands of teen writers out there just burning to get their thoughts out. I'm hoping some of you will email me with short story submissions, and I'll put the best of them on this site!

And that was it. I didn't know yet how to develop a thought into a long post, or how to stay on message. I didn't know how to structure a post or even what people were looking for in a blog. But I'd like to think I've come a long way since then.

2. You'll see what concerned you in the past.

It's interesting to see what things held your attention in past years. Were you worried about improving your dialogue? Strengthening your diction? Did you have a personal or a spiritual problem that needed working out? Sometimes once we've solved our problems, we forget we ever had them, but a blog acts as a record of what we were thinking about at a certain point in time.

3. You'll get ideas on what to write about.

One possible effect of reading over your old posts is that you'll see gaps, holes in topics that you meant to talk about and never got to. You may find a post that promises you'll write about such-and-such next week -- but you never did. I'm guilty of that a few times, particularly in the older posts, and it gives me a chance to finally write up that idea I had ages ago and then lost.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Stop Pretending You're Still on Vacation!

It's well into January now, but because my grad school classes haven't started yet, I still find myself pretending the year hasn't really begun. "It's only the first week of January," I tell myself. "I don't have to work on that story yet." Or: "I'm still on vacation! Why do I have to read or write? Why can't I just watch TV a little longer?"

Whatever your procrastination tool of choice is (TV; internet; movies), vacation is another way we justify not getting started. The holiday season is wonderful, but it can also be exhausting; after Christmas and New Year's, I usually feel I need a few days of recovery from my own vacation. There are relatives running around, meals to be prepared, gifts to think about, parties to go to -- all that means that I think a few days after New Year's just to de-compress are well-earned.

But after those days, how do you get back into the swing of things? The first step is to quit pretending. You tell yourself that it's okay to ease back into action; it's only the first week of January, after all, and you're practically still on vacation. Stop telling yourself that tale! Before you know it, it'll be February and you'll feel disappointed that you've wasted a month. Instead, set yourself a very concrete day to begin fulfilling your January goals. As of this Monday, say, you want to be started with a new story, or to have written a new scene of your old writing project. As of this Monday, you're starting that book you got for Christmas, or writing three blog posts for your site. As of this Monday, you're really beginning 2010.

With concrete goals and deadlines like these, you'll feel surer of yourself, and it'll get story ideas churning in your head again. If the only thing on your mind is keeping your vacation going, then you'll only have vacation-related ideas and thoughts. If you have a deadline on your mind, however, you'll start thinking about story ideas long before you even touch pen to paper. It's one way to get your brain off the couch even before you do.

Take a Winter Walk

I was driving through my neighborhood the other day, which is very currently very snowy, and I was surprised to see many people walking along the roads -- couples hand in hand, people with dogs, families with children. After all, the temperature was below freezing; what were all those people doing out there?

Then I remembered when I was younger and my family was a little less busy, how in the winter when it was looking pretty we'd take winter walks through the neighborhood. My parents would bundle us up against the cold; we'd wear our snow suits and boots; and we'd go tromping happily through the snow. In the stillness, we'd walk quietly along the roads, pausing to leap into snow drifts or make snow angels. It was wonderful fun, even though these walks were purposeless -- maybe they were fun because they were purposeless. The world can look very beautiful when snow has fallen, particularly because of that magical stillness that falls over a neighborhood, and these people with dogs and kids and significant others knew that the way my family used to.

Now, the family is all grown up; we're busy all the time, and most of the time I'm not even home. But I do still think I could carry on the tradition of winter walks. Now I sometimes go on wintery walks with my boyfriend, and there's the same sense of magic and stillness that I remember when I was a kid. It's a tradition worth passing on, and something you might try for yourself. It's a moment when you can unplug from the world and simultaneously be more tuned in to it. Enjoy the cold; use all your senses; enjoy the company of your walking companion; and when you return, you'll feel fresher, calmer, and happier.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my readers and fellow bloggers! I'm home for the holidays, and Creative Writing Corner will be taking a little break in the next couple of days so I can enjoy my time with my family. But I'll be back soon with responses to comments and new posts on improving your writing. So make the most of your time with your families and have a joyful holiday season!

Here you can see my humble little tree my roommate and I got in our New York apartment, and our cats' reaction to it. They soon learned to like sitting underneath it and chewing on the branches.