down the writer's path

Exercising the Writer's Muse: Finding fodder in unlikely places

Many preach specialization today but writers would do well to take the generalist's approach when it comes to writing. I know time is an issue as you get more and more involved in your writing and focused on deadlines. For many writers time becomes a precious commodity, something to be coveted, protected. Their world of writing shrinks. Soon writers focus only on the latest books published in their chosen genre. This narrowed view may build up their knowledge in a specific field but it can also limit their creative expansion in the world of story.

Exercising your creativity is a productive and beneficial tool that enhances the imagination. If you're new to writing and story development, learning to find ideas and build them into viable plots is a healthy lesson. One way to keep the imagination flexible is to read outside your genre. See what other people are doing. Don't just read the story, look for the ideas that have been extrapolated and woven into the storyline. Bestselling authors frequent the world of science as a source of inspiration. Look at the works of Michael Creighton, Robin Cook, Jodi Picoult, Dean Koontz and others. They do more than dip their toes, they bathe in the ideas of cutting-edge news.

If you're muse is being a bit balky, why not take it to a new park to play? I looked at the Science Daily website this morning and quickly found three or four headlines that sparked story ideas. I'm sure you could find even more. To exercise your muse, pull three headlines that spark your imagination. Brainstorm the ideas. Do a quick mind map of the central idea. Pick a protagonist and give him a related goal that either supports or goes against the idea underlying the headline. Now write a quick paragraph that provides a brief story idea and contains a beginning, a middle, and an end. Repeat this for each of the three ideas.

Don't spend a lot of time on this. The idea is to write down your immediate responses, put a character into the mix, give him or her a goal and an endgame and write. Allow 15-20 minutes max to complete each one. Your muse will be entertained, you'll have some fun, and your creativity muscle will be flexed. As you work your imagination in new ways, you'll find new and exciting ideas bubbling up in your daily work. Give it a try and let me know what you think and remember: think big.

Note: If you already troll the science news, move to a different pool. Try history, language, mathematics or any other that is new to you and search the news of the day.

Links: http://www.sciencedaily.com/news, http://www.sciam.com/

Priming the pump of the writer's well

Finally, my creative juices are stirring. I know this because I spent all day yesterday cleaning and reorganzing my office. After years of experience, I've learned that prior to starting a project or reigniting the writing habit, the embers stir releasing fits and spurts of movement that often result in rather mundane tasks such as cleaning the office, reorganizing files, or developing a strategy, plan, or to-do list. Admittedly I've had some false starts this year but I remain hopeful that I can somehow gather the strength, focus, and discipline to jump the hurdle and rejoin the race.

The good news is that I've been pretty disciplined in posting to My Dancing Pencil, my new blog dedicated to my experiences on eBay. One reason why I enjoy blogging is because I equate it to running musical scales. Developing blog posts are finger, eye, and brain exercises anchored in the realm of writing. I like the sound of my keyboard chuckling along as my fingers trip across the keys creating words, sentences, and paragraphs. I enjoy reading and revising the posts. They're not long enough to be daunting but still demand attention to the detail of word progression, sentence logic, and reader enjoyment.

What about you? Do you have the equivalent of musical scales in your writing aresenal? If you blog, how do you view the process? And how can you tell when your writing well is being stirred?

Internet Tools for Writers: Brainstorm a new word

Next time you want to challenge a writer friend, see if they can spell and define the word "susurrus." That's today's offering in the Visual Thesaurus Word of the Day. I signed up for Thinkmap's daily offering not only for the definitions, spelling, and word fun, but also because this tool offers a mindmapping representation of the day's word. But don't stop there. Make use of the "Look up a Word" feature. I'm a big fan and heavy user of mindmapping. Have been ever since Tony Buzan's book came out in the late 70s. I find mindmapping helpful in every aspect of writing and have been known to mindmap an entire novel's structure or a full day's workshop on writing. For example, when I'm working on some aspect of a character I'll look up the word description and see how other things relate. This simple process stimulates further creative thinking and often reveals hidden and wonderfully layered aspects to the work you're doing. Stop all that cyber susurrus and give it a try.

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More info: USING FURL; USING OUTLOOK, USING GOOGLE ALERTS, USING GOOGLE DESKTOP SEARCH,USING THE BLOG READING LEVEL TOOL

Ramping up for NaNoWriMo 2007

Two weeks until the NaNoWriMo computers start but don't think you have to wait until then. Why not go into training? One useful tool is the simple concept of writing 100 words a day for 100 days. Do you have to stop when you reach the 100-word mark? No. But the minimum you agree to do is 100 words. If you start now you'll have two weeks of finger-tappin' training followed by a month of committed NaNoWriMo that begins with a daily start of 100 words.

No strain, no heavy effort, no massive amounts of time are involved. Pressure is reduced and tension eased. Who can't come up with a few hundred words? Easy peasy, as a friend of mine would say. Writer Avis Hester came up with the concept, but it's writer Beth Patillo who organized the yahoo group: Club 100 for Writers. Does it work? Apparently so. I know several local writers who have joined and found continued success. Of course you can do this on your own but you may find the group helpful. Unless you're extremely self-disciplined, going it alone can lead to a huge rush in the beginning and an even quicker demise. So join the group, find a buddy, and hit the keyboard today. I have.

And when you finish the first 100 days, return here and mark that you are now a "daily" writer in the poll on the right side. (I'm assuming you've already ticked off your current writing habit.)

For more by me on NaNoWrimo click here.
Links: Club 100 for Writers; Yahoo Group Club100Writers; National Novel Writing Mo (NaNoWriMo)

NaNoWriMo 2007 Writers: Sharpen your pencils and plug-in your keyboards!

Once again summer ends, leaves fall, and slumbering writers stir. Across the nation they are responding to the call of the annual National Novel Writing Month challenge commonly called NaNoWriMo. Participants are fondly called Wrimos. My name is Vikk Simmons and I am a Wrimo.

Tens of thousands of Wrimos are making novel choices, charging batteries, signing up as 2007 particpants, posting their 2007 Participant icons, selecting forums, making connections, scoping out writer-friendly cafes, sharing the NaNoWriMo news, and encouraging other writer friends to join them in this annual exuberant experience of writing white-hot. Writers cursed with strong internal editors are dragging out their Alphsmarts. Shed your fears, become a Wrimo. You have nothing to lose and wordcount to gain.

Already have a novel in progress? Pledge to write another 50K words. If you look to the top righthand sidebar, you'll find my NaNoWriMo Countdown. On November 1st the clock will track the countdown for November. Every year I keep a separate blog on my Wrimo experience. VISIT NaNoWriMo and JOIN. You'll find other links below.

ARE YOU READY TO WRITE THAT NOVEL?
Read my NaNoWriMo blog WHIRLPOOL.
VISIT NaNoWriMo and JOIN.
More NaNoWriMo posts:
No Excuses
Check out my NaNoWriMo blog
Still on the NaNoWriMo Train
NaNoWriMo strikes again
No Plot? No Problem
NaNoWriMo ends but the writing continues
Hours away from NaNoWriMo. Are you ready?

Writing Tools & Strategies: Five minutes to story

Start off the week with a quick batch of 5-minute timed writings. To make it easy, I've found a handy tool called TimeLeft. In minutes I had the program downloaded and installed. Ten minutes later I had a clock, a stopwatch, a 5-minute timer, a countdown clock, and a sign on my screen. There are any number of uses for the program but for writers the timers, countdowns, and stop watches can actually become part of a strategy to make sure time is spent writing. So what is TimeLeft?

TimeLeft is a versatile desktop utility, which may be used as a countdown clock, reminder, clock, alarm clock, tray clock, stopwatch, timer, sticker, auction watch and time synchronization utility.

Since I'm such a fan of timed writing exercises, I created the 5-minute timer first. I suffer from major muscle spasms and often need a timer or stopwatch. I have to make myself get up from the computer every hour to give my neck, upper back, and shoulder a break, so I write for 45 minutes and then walk away for 15. So a 45 minute tool is on my to-do list.

When it comes to writing, I pretty much have two words that make up my discipline: "breathe" and "write." Using the signage utility I created a stamp that displays those words so they constantly inform my subconscious during my time at the computer. All these items that TimeLeft creates stay on the computer screen and are visible no matter what program you are using. I have mine in the lower righthand corner. Finally I have a countdown clock that lets me know how many months, days, hours, minutes and seconds until the new year. With NaNoWriMo around the bend, I'm sure I'll set one up for the month of November. The countdown can be used for writing or contract deadlines, contest deadline reminders, and those personal phantom deadlines. Because I'll be going back to the Donald Maass Intensive workshop in Portland in March of 2008 and want to have a completed first draft of my novel, I will also need a countdown clock for that, too.

Over the last 20+ years I've discovered many different strategies that have enabled me to stay engaged with my work, actively creating stories, and remaining full of energy and the desire to write. If one doesn't work, I go quickly to another. All have been tested by me and by my fellow writers and artists; they work. But when it comes down to it, the best way to remain productive is to breathe deeply, relax, and write.

To download TimeLeft, go here.
More information:
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises to create 55-word stories.
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises and a computer-generated story starter to create stories.
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises to write a novel.
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises to write a memoir.
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises to overcome writer's block.
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises to free yourself from the dreaded internal editor.

DWP Weekend Question on developing characters

Woke up this morning already steeped in my novel and in the characters. I immediately began working in my project diary. This led to more work on one of my main characters which then led me, somehow, to thinking about how my character developent process has evolved. Which then led to my idea for a blog post and an idea for a continuing Friday feature: The DWP Weekend Question. I'll pose a question about writing and ask for your input. The question will then be the basis for some of next week's posts.

Since I'm immersed in character development here's my first question:

How do you develop your fictional characters?

Tell me about your process. Mull over the question this weekend and return next week. We’ll discuss character building and character discovery.

Use the Rule of Five daily to move you toward your writing goals

As you build your daily writing habits, the Rule of Five is a good thing to keep in mind. I first heard about this rule more than fifteen years ago when a published writer visited a local writing group and discussed how she was marketing and publicizing her new book. She said she tried to do five things every day that moved her closer to achieving her marketing goals. Each morning she mentally dropped five marbles into her left pocket. As she went through the day whenever she did something that helped publicize her book, she transfered a mental marble into her right pocket. Her goal was to have all five marbles transferred by the time she went to bed. Recently I ran across the rule--minus the marbles--in Jack Canfield’s new book, Success Principles.

Canfield is one-half of the wildly successful Chicken Soup series. (The other half being Mark Victor Hansen.) Canfield writes of the impact the Rule of Five had on the two authors after their first book, Chicken Soup for the Soul, came out. These two new-to-publishing authors set a goal of achieving best-seller status on the New York Times list. Not only that, they wanted to be number one. Were they successful? I guess it depends on whether you're one of those glass-half-full or glass-half-empty souls. It didn't happen over night. It didn't happen over 365 nights. It took the combined efforts of the two men practicing the rule of five for two years, but yes, they made it and sold more than eight million copies in the process. Their secret? Sustained daily effort over time that slowly grew into a momentous force that still propels their book into continuing sales even to this day and has led to the generation of a line of Chicken Soup for the Soul books and products for an ever-widening readership.

Maybe it’s because the idea of transfering marbles is so visual, but for some reason it's had major Velcro power. I've never forgotten the anecdote. To this day I strive to keep the rule present on a daily basis. Sometimes I use three marbles but usually I stick with the five. Doing three is easy but the last two marbles require a concentrated effort on my part if I’m going to get them transferred into the other pocket--another reason to strive for five. Most of the time the goal attached to the marbles has to do with my current writing project and/or writing career. Even what appears to be the most insignificant action such as writing and sending a thank you note to an editor who rejected me has the power to move a marble. Ordering research books for a writing project is another. Writing a scene, scribbling three draft pages, combing through Writer’s Digest for a new market, all have been marble-movers over the course of the last twenty years. The constant daily attention to my overall writing goal has helped me keep the ball moving even in troubling times.

Now, I'm not perfect so I don't always make five. Sometimes only three marbles hop pockets, but even so I’ve managed to move forward. I'm always further ahead than I'd been at the start of the day. Then there are days that zero out by early evening. That's when I refocus and somehow manage to draw them out of the fire by reading at least five pages out of a writing book or scouring a writer's magazine for useful tips, or focus on a short story to see what techniques the author used.

This week I began my rule of five by deciding on Monday that I would attend the Texas Library Association’s (TLA) annual conference. It’s being held in Houston, so it’s the perfect time to go. By the end of Monday I was able to arrange press credentials, print out the daily conference, the list of participating authors, and skim through the vendor list. I also found two online outlets, in addition to DWP, where I’ll be posting about the conference activities. Time intensive? Not really. I think I had them completed within an hour.

You might want to think about implementing the Rule of Five in your own writing life. Tweak it to suit you, but remember that the aim is to take five actions, however small, each and every day that will move you toward the accomplishment of your main goal. Commit to practicing the rule for five consecutive days. What could you accomplish if you simply moved five marbles from one pocket to the other? Come back and tell me about it and share what you learned wtih others.

(This post has been revised and posted on Blogcritics.org.).

Take the challenge: Write!

Looking for something to do today? Click over to Fifty Words and take the weekly challenge. Not only will you start the week off right with a quick bit of writing, but you'll have the satisfaction of having written something that will be read.

What's Fifty Words?

Fifty Words works like this: Each week there’s a new writing prompt. You post your response to the prompt on your site with a link back to Fifty Words. Then you send me 50 words from your post and I put them here with a link back to you.

If you're still unclear, check the FAQs.

Thanks to Ecks Ridgehead over at Tales From The Ridge for mentioning this weekly writing contest. Be sure and read his recent entry, The Piper-Man and Me.

Take the Blogging for Books challenge and get out of your comfort zone.

You may be involved in writing the great American novel, or perhaps you're busy busting out daily articles for newspapers, journals, magazines, and newsletters and that's all well and good, but taking an occasional writing challenge or trying a new exercise can lead to new and unexpected stories and ideas. When I checked out the Writer's Edge, Georganna Hancock's blog, I found a notice about this month's Blogging for Books challenge. Why not spend some time this week composing an entry and see what happens? You'll have until 6:00 am Pacific Time on February 13th to come up with your 2,000 word entry.

Spend some additional time reading through Hancock's blog. She posts a lot of interesting information, such as the existence of the explanation of proofreader's marks found at the Designer's Toolbox, and offers plenty of solid advice on a variety of writing-related issues. Hancock is a regular reader and always offers great comments whenever she visits this blog and I appreciate her support and input.