Guest Post

Today I am guest posting over at Twitter friend Billie Jo Wood’s blog, Out of the Woods. Billie Jo lives in England, and is fond of Flash fiction. Something I haven’t  tried my hand at…until now.

    Come on over and join me there!

Drafting vs. Outlining

The debate can get quite heated on this topic. We’ve all read the various posts, articles and books touting one method above the other.  Some folks say they must have everything down on cards or a ‘beat sheet’ before starting their novels. Others just seem to write their first draft without doing any of that.

I recently got to thinking about these two, seemingly opposing views, because a writer in my workshop was having trouble with her first novel. This woman is a talented writer, and a quick study. So I wondered what was going on when she missed a few meetings. An email exchange revealed the problem:

A “writing teacher” had told her she couldn’t write anything further until she had a complete outline to work from. That she had to have her plot twists and characters—all figured out ahead of time. And she shouldn’t write another word forward until then.

This proclamation had gotten the writer all jammed up and critical of herself—because she couldn’t ‘think’ of an outline, and had therefore deemed herself a failure. She despaired she could ever write anything to completion, and was now experiencing a mental block to her own creativity.

I have to say here…my first reaction, once my hair laid back down on my scalp, was extreme annoyance with said “writing teacher”. I had an almost irresistible urge to paddle the teacher and send her down to the principle. So the first thing I did was wait for that to pass. (Nothing good ever comes from violence!)

Then I wrote to the writer, and this is what I told her:

What some people call outlines are what other people call first drafts.

It’s as simple as that. You can write your first draft on cards, or in notebooks, or on your computer in files labeled as chapters. Whatever you choose to label it, if it’s words, written in a sequence, using the letters of the alphabet, naming characters and what they are doing, it’s a first draft. And you can’t get to it without sitting down and filling white space with words.

What we choose to call it is just semantics.

The method we choose is just preference.

It really all boils down to how different people create, well…differently. Some are sprawling, like me. I write big, loose, wild first drafts without any outline. I have some scenes, some of the characters, and I kinda know what the story is about—a premise. The entire first draft is where I find out exactly what the novel or short story is about, who all the characters are, what they sound like, and what parts they will all play. I cannot create any other way. I sit and write. Wildly. Fast. 1500 or more words in two or three hours, every morning. During the rest of the day, when I am doing my day job, or washing my hair, or the dishes, or reading…that’s when I am thinking about what I wrote that morning, and what it means, and what I might write next. (I keep notebooks handy and jot down ideas and cryptic words, sentences and images to help guide me the next day.)

A more ‘traditional’ outline simply doesn’t work for me. I’ve done a lot of thinking about this and I think I know why. It’s because writing that type of outline requires the use of my left brain. And all the really good stuff, the creative stuff, comes from my right brain. That’s where my muse lives, and she doesn’t come out to play when I am being too analytical.

The rational side of me likes the idea of file cards and beat sheets. It seems so deliciously orderly. It’s like folding laundry or plotting the fastest route for a road trip. So very organized and rational. Unfortunately it’s also completely stifling, creatively…for me. Everything I’ve ever written from this kind of left brain activity was utterly boring. If I resisted the urge to deviate from the outline as I wrote, (to pop out of my left brain and into my right) what I ended up with had none of the power, inventiveness or surprise of the work written ‘by the seat of my pants’.

Do you remember ever doing a paint by number painting when you were little? They’re fun. You get to fill in numbered spaces with numbered colors, until gradually a picture emerges. Unfortunately it’s not a picture you want to look at for very long. You definitely don’t want to frame it and hang it on your wall. They usually end up in the trash…which is where they belong. That’s what ‘writing from an outline’ does for me. I end up with a finished story, that I don’t want to read.

If you listen to folks who study the brain and how it works, you quickly pick up that all the most creative stuff we do: inventions and works of art—even Einstein’s flights of mathematical insight—comes from the right brain. So it stands to reason that however we choose to create anything must be the way which stimulates this side of the brain for the individual. If postlets or file cards do it for you, so be it. Call yourself an outliner and go for it, my friend.

But please don’t insist this is the only legitimate way to do it. That it is superior in any way (it’s not). This is just one way. It’s the thing that stimulates you creatively. And we are all wired different.

An outline is a first draft is an outline.

 Oh, and the writer from the workshop? She’s back to doing some writing. She’s still dealing with her inner critic…which grew bloated and strong on what she’d been ‘taught’. She is working on getting over the idea that the published novels she reads were somehow shat out by people, complete and polished. But knowing she doesn’t have to show her work to anybody else has helped, and I know if she sticks with it…if she just fills white space with uncensored thought, she will get there.

“It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.   

E.L. Doctorow

 “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. Perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force.”  

 Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird

Patricia Highsmith is one of my favorite authors. She wrote her tightly plotted suspense novels using notebooks and a typewriter, and writing many drafts. I suspect she fell somewhere between a plotter and an organic writer.

Writers, how do you create best? Are you an ‘organic’ type of writer? Or are you a ‘plotter’? Do you fall somewhere in between?

Mr. Bacon’s Visit

This past week was such a busy time for my household. We were in a frenzy of cleaning and preparations: dusting and vacuuming, readying the guest chamber. You see, we were expecting the arrival of one of the most renowned and erudite celebrities of the blogosphere…yes, you guessed correctly. None other than Mr. Bacon!!

I knew this visit would be a whirlwind of activity…Mr. Bacon’s ‘handlers’ keep his schedule fast-paced and there is always much pressure to fit in all his scheduled engagements…and yet I hoped to still have some time to get to know ‘the man himself’, away from all the hoopla of his more public persona.

Alas…the beginning of our visit did not get off to the best of starts.

RUN Mr. Bacon!

Mr. Bacon’s legs are, regretfully, rather short.

Oh my! <muffled shrieks of HELP!>

 As you can see, things got a little dicey for Mr. Bacon. Zeus got a whiff of his bacony mojo—and deemed him irresistible.

<louder shrieks><muffled giggles>

<arg!>

 

<oof!>

Things happened rather fast. But at last order was restored.

The whole episode took a little shine off our guest. A bath was  ordered for Mr. Bacon…or HG (His Greasiness), as we now call him here. Followed by a time out in the birdbath spa, to regain some lost composure.

Mr. Bacon relaxes after 'his ordeal'.

After some R&R HG was “fit as a fiddle” and ready for his much awaited visit to the Arizona Novel Writers Workshop.

Mr. Bacon treats the ANWW to a reading of his dissertation

There he deigned not to hear any of our “country scribblings”, but offered instead to read us his 400 page dissertation on, The Benefits Obtained by Living a Kosher Lifestyle, or (subtitle) Failing That, At Least Be a Vegetarian For Pete’s Sake.

This was a surprise (and, I must say, a little bit of a disappointment) to those attending, since we had presumed HG would be giving us advice on OUR writing. But HG brushed aside our misgivings, and, after dealing with my ‘silly question’ as to who this Pete was, for who’s sake we should become vegetarian, launched into the opening pages.

The suggestion was made that perhaps the title should be shortened, (and indeed, the entire thing) to perhaps say: The Benefits of Being Vegetarian. This made HG scoff. You see, (he informed us, chest puffed and head high) his host with whom he resides is obtaining his MFA, and he therefore knows that lengthy titles are de rigueur for dissertations. In fact, it can hardly be considered a dissertation without a lengthy title. To which I responded, stutteringly, (he’s very intimidating) that I knew that. I have, after all, “been to Berkeley”. I could see this disclosure had the desired effect, and I was greatly raised in HG’s esteem. (He needn’t know it was for a Joan Baez concert back in the 70’s.)

Dissertation read, I awoke the other members of the ANWW, and we commenced to party. And I must say, HG is a man, err, bacon strip, who can hold his own.

Bacon with wine

 

Hurry back, Mr. Bacon!!

HG exerts his charisma and tames the beast

 

 

 

For more bacon bits check out my friend Julia’s blog. And if you’re still craving more, try Melissa’s blog. To reach Mr. Bacon at home go to Patrick’s blog.

 

 

Full Moon Madness

My backyard is bathed in moonlight so strong it’s almost like day. Colors are muted, but discernable, and furniture and potted cactus cast shadows, though it is almost 2am. My muse feels it; she has awoken me, scratching at my eyelids and whispering to me. She’s restless and wants me up.

What is this strange effect the full moon has on us? Have you ever felt it? This month it feels like a bad case of ADD, to me; like an itchiness just beneath the skin. I can’t settle on anything and am being pulled in many directions at once.

I had never heard of the full moon having any effect on people prior to meeting my husband. But he informed me one particularly grouchy full moon that he was a ‘wolf man’, and not to take seriously anything he might say or do during some full moons. Since then I have met others who are adversely affected by the full moon. And I’ve noticed that I sometimes am too. Not always; maybe just a few moons of the year.

If you Google full moon madness you will pull up stories about it. Here’s what Wiki has to say about the phenomenon:

The exact origins of this theory are ambiguous historically, because paleolithic moon artifacts from many cultures predate written history. This belief has been around for many centuries. The term lunacy itself is derived from Luna, “the Moon” in Latin. The connection between the words lunar and lunatic can also be demonstrated in other languages, such as in Welsh, where these two words are lloer and lloerig. Perhaps the most famous myth arising from this theory is the legend of the werewolf.

So it’s not something new or that only one culture has experienced. And it’s a simple leap to imagine it as the impetus for the wolf man myth; a human who cannot resist the draw of the moon and turns into a wild creature, sprouting hair and claws and behaving in ways s/he wouldn’t the other days of the month.

It’s said that if you limit your exposure to the actual light of the full moon its effects are lessened. But I haven’t noticed that to be true. When it’s ‘one of those full moons’ the moon’s power can reach me where ever I hide.

When I was much younger I worked in a hospital as a CPD aid. I recall hearing that nurses and doctors dreaded emergency room duty on nights with a full moon. There was a greater than average chance it would be a rough and busy night. In my current day job incarnation I’ve had nurses for clients, and they’ve confirmed this to be true.

Have you ever felt the effects of a full moon?

Welcoming Change

 Last night I sat under the patio with my husband, sipping sangria and watching lightning tear through the darkness and stroke toward earth. Palms creaked and rattled in the wind. The leafy tops of ficus and oak shuddered and tossed. A light rain pattered down, dimpling the water in the pool. The air had cooled, and carried the now familiar desert smell of wet dust and ozone. I felt fall coming. A relief after a another long, hot summer.

For me July and August are not my favorite months in Arizona. I don’t enjoy having to run an A/C non-stop, (or pay the extortionist electric bill that results). Having to keep the doors and windows shut against the relentless desert heat. Having to walk Zeus before sunrise; the hour I’d rather be meditating, or writing. If I had my way we would have more of the other ten months of the year, rather than these two bright and searing months. But, nature has her own idea of what’s perfect, and in July and August she lets Arizonians know she’s the boss. I have no choice but to acquiesce. I try to do so with as much grace as I can muster; enjoying the gifts these two months have to offer. Resisting only makes life difficult.

We humans have a tendency to try to make every situation like others that have gone before it. We seek out what seems familiar to us, and shy away from that which jolts us out of our comfort zone. It’s so apparent here in the Valley of the Sun. Rather than embracing the bio-diversity, many of us migrate from the North—then try to make this desert place like the place we just came from. We plant lawns, and the sort of fragile plants that would never survive here naturally. We water it all copiously, then despair when it fries.

Recognizing what is within our power to change, and what is not, can keep us from a lot of grief and stress. Sometimes we must accept circumstances or conditions that separate us from the familiar, or from what we think we’d prefer. But, if we are flexible and tolerant, if we open ourselves to change and look around ourselves for the good, rather than kicking and complaining about what isn’t to our liking, often an experience or situation we thought we wouldn’t enjoy teaches us something new and unexpected. 

Have you ever been jolted out of your comfort zone? Do you find yourself seeking out only that which feels familiar?

Here’s a fun challenge: This week, keep an awareness about you as you travel through each day. Watch for opportunities to try a new experience.

I’d love to hear what  happens, and what you learn. Feel free to write me about your experience via the contact page of this website.

Fall is coming. This morning I heard the first faint strains of marching band  music drifting over from the high school several blocks away. And the air outside is cool enough to turn the A/C off—at least for a few hours. Soon I’ll miss the season of  barbeque parties and midnight swims. Floating in the pool while reading a paperback. The smell of Corona and lime. I’ll miss the cascades of bougainvillea slouching over wall and fence in bright magenta waves, and predawn skies of dusky purples and fiery pinks.

But I’ll be sipping pumpkin spice lattes. Camping beneath Cottonwoods, and hiking in Sedona. Driving with the windows down. Reading in bed beneath a big fluffy comforter. And always, of course, watching for what new experience will come my way.

Pumpkin spice latte is one of my fall favorites. Here’s a link on how to make your own right at home. Yum!