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Tag: creativity

Writing Through a Pandemic, Two Years In

It’s been just over two years since we learned the phrase “social distancing”. A lot of the writers I know have been struggling. Turns out it’s hard to be creative when there’s bone-deep uncertainty washing away at your foundations. Related: the romantic myth of the writer in a garret. It’s also hard to be creative when you’re scrambling to fulfill basic needs like housing or taking care of your health and/or loved ones…even without a pandemic on top of that. (Here we give a nod to musicians, many of whom have been determinedly putting up livestreams and online concerts while their main source of income was cut off. Those have been a huge source of comfort to me, and I hope to the various musicians as well.) I’ve had plenty of creative struggles, too, during this time. I barely wrote at all in 2020, although I did manage two installments of my clockpunk serial (I’ll get back to that one day, I swear!) and a few thousand words during NaNoWriMo. During most of 2021, I could only write short pieces that all confronted the state of the world head-on, from pandemic-themed poetry to flash fiction. (We won’t talk about the short story I started in 2019, set at the Olympics during…a pandemic. Oops?) Then came NaNoWriMo 2021. I’ve talked before about how I made my secret stretch goal of 10,000 words on my unashamedly escapist feminist fantasy WIP. It felt really good. I had energy again for a few months.…

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Free Time Doesn’t Help

Hi friends! The small, mobile ones are back in school and have been for the last week. I’m getting so much done! She says sarcastically. (In case you’re wondering about the apron, I did eventually get it done, but I made it way too big somehow so it’s essentially useless. Sigh.) I was so looking forward to school starting. I was going to do so much! Write more, draw more, exercise more. Play video games. Watch TV shows! Have I done those things? Well, I have watched an entire season of Brooklyn 99. But mostly I’ve done…not really sure, to be honest. Some stuff around the house that needed doing. But otherwise… ??? (I would put the shrug emoji there but I don’t know how.) Isn’t it weird, how you look forward to free time? Like, I may not be getting as much done now as I want to, but it’s okay, because next week I’ll get lots done, or next month I’ll get lots done, or whenever, then I’ll be able to be productive. But then the free time comes and it’s so hard to actually focus on what you were planning to do. There’s probably some sort of professional psychology term for that. But I do know that they say that the more stuff you have to do, the more productive you are. That you fill the time you have with the things you have to do. Yet it’s so weird that you can have five hours to…

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Coffee Shop Exploration

You know what I miss most since we’ve locked down? Coffee shops. Specifically, sitting in coffee shops, sipping my drink, drawing or writing or reading, people watching, and generally absorbing the atmosphere. Before, I used to go at least once a week, and sometimes I would see a coffee shop I’d never been to before and make it a priority to hit it up when I had the chance, or I’d specifically look for one in a town or part of the city I didn’t usually frequent, so I could absorb a new and different atmosphere. One of my favorite things, when I go some place new, is scoping out the coffee shops. Coffee shops are almost liminal places, you know? They’re not quite local to their environment, since they tend to host a mix of locals and people just passing through, and there’s something universal about them, whether you’re at your shop around the corner, three states over, across the country, or even in some foreign locales. Vacations with the whole family can get a little overwhelming over time, so what I used to do, when we went road tripping or whatever, was get up early, before I’d be needed for anything or by anybody, and walk to a nearby coffee shop. What I did there varied—normally I would write, since I logically understand that vacations and writing don’t always mix but that doesn’t seem to always fix the need to write, but sometimes I would draw, or read,…

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Misadventures in Decorating

I’m a firm believer in the importance of what I call “creative cross-training”–doing creative things that are not your primary hobby (or calling). It’s good for the brain, and it’s relaxing in a way that, say, writing a sequel isn’t. *ahem* But that doesn’t mean there are no challenges. Have you ever watched a home decorating show or flipped through a decor magazine? They make it look so easy. And yet… My spouse and I have been trying to turn our attic into a cozy sitting room / writing retreat space. It’s been a multi-year process. First the room had to be finished and refloored, then climate-controlled. Initially it was going to be a workout room that doubled as a guest room. We bought a daybed, a padded bench, curtains and storage, a decorative wall mirror that was also big enough to check your form on yoga poses. That worked for a while, but it wasn’t getting used enough in either capacity. The next plan was to create an at-home writing retreat. The rest of our house is fairly utilitarian or at least halfheartedly/haphazardly decorated, so I was excited to make one space that looked deliberately designed. I hopped on Pinterest and pinned a ton of cozy cabins and home libraries, lots of wood and an old-fashioned vibe that made me think “fantasy world”. Then the plan met reality. Even the scaled-down version turned out to be wayyy beyond our capacity to actually create. Did I mention this version of…

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When Writing Isn’t Fun Anymore

As a writer, I periodically hit this point. My Serious Novel work-in-progress feels too hard. (It may or may not have anything to do with where I am in the novel. Some parts of writing a novel just suck–even Neil Gaiman says so. But sometimes that’s not the problem.) Editing one of the short story drafts I have floating around feels too daunting. And starting a new novel? Forget it. I can drift along for months without writing anything. A couple of years ago, I even announced that I was quitting altogether. (It…didn’t stick.) Sooner or later I give myself a shake and go looking for the fun parts of writing–the parts I used to know about when I was a teenager, but somehow get harder and harder to find the more I learn. One year, I got out of this slump by writing Firefly fanfiction. Another year, I started plotting a contra dance–themed cozy mystery. Two years ago, I challenged myself to write the smallest possible thing every day–it led to a lot of haikus and then, eventually, flash fiction. (Which led to me placing third in a flash fiction contest and then getting to help judge it last year, as well as making my first pro-rate sale. But that’s not the point of the story.) Why yes, this does happen regularly. It’s a cycle. I know this. Doesn’t make it any easier to avoid falling in…but at least I’m getting practice climbing out of it? The current strategy?…

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Putzing About

Oh, friends, my November was gloriously productive. It was so productive I’ve gotten cocky. No doubt that will be a mistake later, but for now, I am reveling in it. So, the time goal worked out really well. I got a ton done. So I’m continuing that for December, though I’ve lowered it to 30 minutes because Holidays and so forth. So far, so good. I’m actually ahead for the month. Aside from that, I’m still working on drawing/shading/coloring classes. It’s been very interesting, though we may be getting to the point where I should stop doing classes and actually start working on projects.  I’ve also started doing some vocal skills classes. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any sort of instruction on the matter–probably high school. All the choirs since then have just assumed you know what you’re doing and left you to flounder if you don’t. So hopefully that will be useful in the future. Right now, so far, it’s been pretty basic, and also I have a cold and singing makes me cough. AND I’m sewing again, making presents for Christmas, as well as putzing around with other random projects (including patching the pile of clothes that need patching). My mother and I went to Goodwill Outlet last week (where you can buy clothes for about $1/pound) so I now have stuff for other projects should the Christmas presents go well. It’s a creative monstrosity over here. No doubt eventually I will have so many options of…

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Real Life Strikes Back (Again)

Two months ago I told you about my annual writing retreat and how it felt. I also shared some strategies that I was working on to keep that retreat feeling going… set up a room in my house that has NO clutter and is used for nothing but writing, reading, and other Internet-free pursuits (not a pipe dream, I’m actually working on this one) set up a writing schedule (I had one, once upon a time) — not for product, but for time spent on the process Predictably, Real Life struck as soon as I got back. Strategy number one still needs work (I am pecking away at the clutter, one itsy-bitsy step at a time) but I’ve made some progress on strategy number two. I signed up for National Novel Writing Month as a “NaNo Rebel” — doing the challenge on my own terms. Like Kit, I set a time goal for myself. My goal was 25 hours. I made it to 9. Not exactly great. But also, not bad. It got me writing for solid chunks of time again, and pushed me to do more than I would have otherwise — not a lot more, but small gains are more sustainable anyway, right? I worked a bit on the novel that Kit and I are writing, but spent most of the time wrestling with an edit of the short story that I pounded out in less than a week during the retreat. (Okay, that was first-drafting vs. editing.…

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Writing Retreat vs. Real Life

Last week I was away at the annual writing retreat that my critique group holds. We rent a cabin on a lake (called a “cottage” in these parts), bring our laptops, take turns cooking, and sit around typing in companionable silence all day, with breaks for long walks and swims (well, not this year, too cold) and talking about craft and publishing. It’s also my Internet and news detox week for the year. I’ll read books, but that’s all. It’s always wonderful. (I wrote a first draft of a longish short story that you’ll get to see early next year, fiddled around with an edit of a different story, started brainstorming some new stuff, and even wrote some poetry.) My absolute favourite place to write is on the deck surrounded by forest, or down on the dock, or somewhere on the wooded slope in between. This year was mostly too chilly for that. But on several of the days it was crisp-not-cold, nice enough for long walks through the changing leaves. It’s like magic. The mental and physical clutter of daily life is gone. Normally I have wrist issues and confidence issues. Somehow, on retreat, the one gets managed* and the other just…vanishes. *Okay, it’s not a mystery. I managed by being very careful. I took lots of breaks, switched between my laptop keyboard and my external keyboard, did lots of stretches including solid 15-minute sessions of yoga each day, and also switched to Dragon dictation software at the first…

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Ooh, Shiny! The Art of Learning New Things

Late last year, I accidentally started learning the guitar. I didn’t mean to. See, we were cleaning up for the holidays, and my spouse’s guitar has been sitting on a stand in the corner of the living room, looking decorative and getting dusty. He picked it up to dust it and ended up plucking away on it, for the first time in a couple of years. Then I stole it and started plucking away on it. Then we started looking up chords for Christmas songs so we could sing and play together. Four weeks later, I bought my own guitar. Of course, a month after that I got hit by this year’s Death!Cold and have had no energy to practice until just these last few days. But in the intervening time, I built my calluses, learned all the common chords, can muddle my way through a couple of songs, learned the blues scale, and am working through some basic bluegrass stuff. It’s intoxicating, learning a new thing. Last year it was French. Spouse and I decided to brush up on our rusty high-school French, mostly by way of reading Harry Potter et la Chambre des secrets out loud during our commute. It worked surprisingly well. We got to the point of carrying on conversations with each other, and just barely making ourselves understood during a trip to Montreal, before running out of steam. But I haven’t lost everything. I’m still quite a bit better at reading French, and slightly better…

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Writing Cycles

Happy 2018! I know a lot of you have had a tough year for various reasons. Here’s hoping that the new year will treat you, and the world in general, a million times better. Personally, I think the best word for my 2017 was “hopeful”‘… In May I wrote here about how I had beaten my months-long writer’s block. Points 4 and 5 were about two flash fiction pieces I’d written. Several months later, both of those pieces sold–my first sales to markets outside of our co-op publishing venture here at Turtleduck Press. Score! I started a cycle: keep an eye on upcoming themed calls for submission (anthologies and the like), use the themes as inspiration, write a story, submit just before deadline, repeat. It worked really well for generating stories (though somewhat less well for selling them), and for a while I was on a roll. In September I decided to finally see a health professional about wrist pain I’d been struggling with on and off for years. (Don’t shoot me! I kept thinking that I’d be fine if only I could do more exercise on my own, or find the right stretches…or if I did see someone, they might tell me to STOP WRITING.) I now have a diagnosis and exercises I would never have thought of on my own. Things aren’t at 100% yet, and they may never be–I’m still working on the right combination and frequency–but they are much better. At the same time, I decided…

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