Inspiration Monday: Problem Solving

Yesterday, I posted about how I plan to solve my plot problems for this year's NaNoWriMo challenge. I wouldn't exactly say I accomplished it, but even small progress is progress just the same.

Today, this is how I decided to solve another one.

Hello, 2001! Welcome back to the future!

Gotta love the good 'ol CRT refresh prison stripes.

Yes, I've posted before about computers I've used for many happy hours writing, and my "regular" desktop and laptop setups are more than satisfactory.

They also internet. They internet very, very well.

For all but the barest technicality, this Indigo 500mhz iMac G3 running OS 9.1 cannot internet, and therefore will not allow me access to lolcats, Buzzfeed lists, email, or let me zip across wave after wave of Wikipedia surfing in the name of "research."

It can word process, though. It can do that like a champ.

It is just old enough that I can't use it for much except writing, but new enough to directly transfer an intact document file to my regular computer. I'm hoping it will be a distraction buster like my beloved typewriter, but maybe with its own flavor and a little more utility since it affords a modern digital format. Naturally, I'll have a good fountain pen and notebook nearby at all times.

Sometimes solving a problem doesn't mean ripping your guts out and examining what's wrong with you. Sometimes, it is as simple as modifying the environment to accommodate your needs. In this case, I'll always find distractions, but the better I know myself and my habits, the easier it is for me to place obstacles in just the right place to keep myself on task. Take a look around at your own creative space--what works? What doesn't? What works a little too well? 

Bring it, NaNoWriMo 2015. I'm ready.

(Well, if you don't count not having a novel idea yet. There's still that.)

Let the Planning Begin

I've taken the NaNoWriMo challenge annually since 2007. I have "won" in every attempt, but only once did I ever actually continue the novel to the end after crossing the 50k word mark. Even that novel has had to undergo significant restructuring and rewriting, and remains stuck on the operating table, its organs splayed out and shriveling while I figure out what needs transplanting and how to go about it.

Usually, even if I put a fair amount of planning into a concept, I end up completing the challenge as a "pantser," one who writes by the seat of his/her pants. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. In the past, it has allowed me to take a relatively thin concept and flesh it out as I go along, sometimes with remarkable transformation. I might have thought I was setting out to make a cookie, but ended up with some kind of souffle. That is a good thing, but usually leads to significant rewrites to make the whole piece consistent from beginning to end.

The last few attempts at "pantsing" have been less fruitful for me. I got a few characters and concepts I can tease out and use, but more importantly, I never found myself "on fire" for the projects. There wasn't enough backbone to engage me, or to center me when I would drift off the path. I ended up getting in all 50k words each time, but even in all that prose, I never got a clear path to where I was going, or even if I knew how I wanted things to end, how in the world I was supposed to get there.

This year, I don't want to spend a month wandering in the woods. I don't want to get lost. I need a novel GPS to keep me on course. I need to...

Outline. There. I said it. (Shuddering, cringing, and smacking my mouth to get used to the taste.)

It's not that I don't like outlines. I think outlines are fabulous. I just think I'm slightly allergic to them.

Most of my outline attempts end up being just enough catalyst to send me off writing page after page of narrative idea building that never actually turns into the road map an outline is supposed to be. I get ideas for who a character is, what might have happened in the past to bring them to this point, the history of the town, the neighbor's goldfish's name, how much money is in the main character's first cousin's savings account, and what "might" happen. I even write it like that: "...then she might end up going to his house and checking to see if he has properly insulated his water pipes for winter, as that would let her know he was responsible and ripe for picking from the husband-tree."

All of that writing can be useful--it actually is quite useful in determining motivation, making characters three-dimensional, and helping me get unstuck when I am not sure what a character would do in a situation. What it doesn't do is keep me tight to a plot or tell me how to navigate transitions.

Transitions are the worst. (Any writer who tells you otherwise is not to be trusted. Unless they're willing to tell you how to breeze easily through perfect, tight transitions, in which case you listen to them and come right back here to tell ME.)

This year, I will probably do some of my usual narrative outlining, but I'm trying to be more disciplined with it. I am going to do an actual plot outline first, from beginning to end, before I let myself wander off the trail to find shiny objects in the weeds.

Every year I start a brand new notebook for my NaNoWriMo idea, and I'm about to crack open my birthday Moleskine to see what I can come up with. Right now, I don't have the first idea which idea I want to tackle, but between now and November 1, I intend to know where to start, where to end, and every twist and turn in between.

Unless the effort of outlining actually kills me.

It might.

Writing Saturday (with Distractions)

Today is a beautiful day. It is the first day a long, hot summer has lifted up the corner of its tarp to give us a peek of a gorgeous fall to come, with a perfect blue sky and a hint of breeze to tickle your cheeks.

Naturally, I decided to plant myself indoors to get some writing done.

I actually thought it would go well. I have some motivation to make some progress on some projects, as I'm going on a writing retreat later in the month with a group of very talented, very productive writers. I want to at least put myself in a position to get the most out of the uninterrupted writing time by putting my projects on a solid trajectory. I picked up my pen and notebook, and told myself there would be time to enjoy the beauty of this Saturday after I had gotten some work done. I meant it. I did.

Right away, my stubborn brain did the thing stubborn brains do when they're being forced to sit and write on a schedule. At least, it is what my brain does, and I like to think I'm not alone! One thing after another popped up suggesting any other activity except sitting still and getting words on the page.

I decided I would combat the insta-ADD by writing down the list of errant, distracting thoughts as they came, then get the bit in my teeth so I could go back to my writing.

This is the gist of things:

Okay, so I did just wake up, and I haven't gotten very far in my writing project. But! There is enough of this lovely day to go around. There's still time to get more work done.

And blueberries. There's still time for blueberries, too. 

A Creative Revolution

It is hard to follow up a blog post like my last one with lighthearted musings on creative endeavors, or crumbs of inspiration that land in my lap. Life is like that sometimes--just when we are gearing up to zig, a zag throws your stomach in your throat and all you can do is hang on. At least I can be grateful for arms strong enough to do a great deal of hanging on.

For myself, one of the ways I make sure I can keep doing that is by keeping in tune with my creative side. I haven't done this as much or as well as I would like lately, but these last couple of weekends, I have been working hard on getting my hands dirty with a few ongoing projects. My desk has been covered in paint, string,  pencil shavings, fountain pen ink, sketchbooks, canvases, notebooks, novel manuscripts, and other people's good good novels (hey, reading is creative too!).

It's good to be making time for myself again, and doing the things that make me feel most at home in my own body. It is indeed a creative revolution, a turf war for my time and attention. I'm still too tired to think when I get home from work, and I still don't always feel like pulling a project out to lay eyes on it, but I'm doing it anyway. I must, because I can tell you, I don't like the alternative.

I'll have plenty to share here when I get a few projects whipped into shape! Viva la revolution!

Tools of the Trade: Commonplace Book

As I mentioned yesterday, if you see me out in person, odds are you will find a notebook somewhere on me. I have them coming out of my ears (not literally, though a pair of earring notebooks would be interesting...), and I use them often. I keep them with me so I won't miss out on those important droplets of information that rain down so unpredictably. Sometimes it is a quote, sometimes an image, sometimes an idea. They're all things I want to keep, and I just don't trust my spongy gray-matter enough to hold onto it for me by itself. These notebooks are not quite journals, though they are certainly personal. They are my commonplace books.

Yes. They're all full. All.

Commonplace books have a long history, dating back to the 15th century Italy when they were known as "zibaldone", or "hodgepodge books." That's a good way of describing them--a commonplace book can hold a little bit of everything, and each is unique to its owner. Many great minds have used them to store their thoughts and information, including John Locke, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. For what it's worth, commonplace books also factored into the A Series of Unfortunate Events series by Lemony Snicket, and that deserves as much distinction as anything.

One facet that separates a commonplace book from a diary or a journal, is that the content is not always intrinsically personal, and the pages are often indexed. John Locke is credited for popularizing an index system in which each page must be given a header to identify the content and how it will be used. Locke's system was aimed toward academics, but the foundation is useful in any context. There comes a sense of responsibility for what goes on the page once that header is on there, and I find it helps me maintain focus. (Read: I feel guilty for tangents. Then I make a new page for the tangent, but since it has a name, it is no longer a tangent. Lather, rinse, repeat.) 

Allow me to outline my incredibly complicated commonplace book indexing system. Every page of my commonplace book gets the topic of that page on the upper corner, and the right page (only, unless it is a top bound spiral notebook) gets a page number.

That's pretty much it.

When the book is full, and I do mean every-single-line full, I go back and fill out an index card with the labels and contents. I tape it to the back cover of the book, and then I grab up the next one to start all over again.

My commonplace book is a comfort. I know I always have a safe place to scribble down a thought or an image so I can save it for later when I'm going to "really" write. If I'm away from home and inspiration calls, I can do a little novel drafting and the index keeps me from losing the pages in the mix. These books also hold my idea stockpile. If I can't find something to write about, I can flip through them and find all kinds of inspiration. When I do find one of those rare free moments to write something down or read something back, I feel more intensely myself than any other time throughout my day. That's a pretty big gift for a tiny little pad of paper.

It might be a notebook to you, but it is more than a place to scribble a grocery list. My commonplace book is like a beating heart tucked into my purse or pocket, and I am better off for having it there.

Inspiration Monday: From Observer to Narrator

I'm currently reading On the Road by Jack Keroac. While it is billed as a novel, Keroac made no secret about the fact that it was built from his own experiences. The narrative rumbles on and on in stream of consciousness like a jazzy drum solo, complete with unexpected adjectives that ring in your ears like cymbal crashes. Every interaction the narrator has with another person is colorful and alive, not because of the amount of details provided--on the contrary, he blazes from one place to the next like a shooting star in Mexican huarache shoes--but because of the ones he chooses to include. This is a gift Keroac had, for sure, but another reason he was able to capture so much noise and turn it into music was that he was purposeful about it. As a writer, Keroac did not just observe. He observed with intent.

Through years of writing fiction, especially those projects with a dash of fantasy, I have become well-practiced in observing entire worlds unfolding only in my head. How a person talks or drives a car or folds his pillow under his head comes from the jumbled trunk of collected experiences stored in the attic of my mind. There are all kinds of odds and ends in there--little bits of conversations, half-remembered sensory experiences, a few scars, and probably a good amount of Jell-O.

I didn't store all those things in the back of my mind with the plan of someday channeling them into a story, a blog post, or even to color the way I see things when I read books. They are largely just things that somehow stuck with me for better or worse, unimpeachably stamped with my perception and voice, that find their way out of the box when the time comes. These things can be useful, but they aren't intentional. 

I recently tried a little experiment. During a conversation with Husband, I grabbed up a notebook and I narrated him. He wasn't sure what I was doing at first, but I read what I had written back to him afterward. He not as amused as I was, but he was a good sport (because as sports go, he is the very best good one). I noticed a few interesting things. There is a cadence to his speech and a little dip in his accent that is all his own. I must have known; we've been married for years. I would recognize his voice anywhere, but I still hadn't noticed. He didn't talk like I write, he talked like he talks. Instead of remembering him on paper, I captured him.

Try it out this week. Don't just listen to the world around you, listen with intent. Write things down the way they are, not the way you remember them. Put on your journalist's hat and tell it like it is. Not only is it good practice for developing varied character voices, it is a great way to stockpile images, dialogue, and scenes that could come in handy later. Pay attention to the nuance. Give yourself a chance to really notice things. It'll become second nature, and you'll find yourself remembering things in a new, purposeful way.

It is one thing to go through life as an unexamined observer, but once you become a narrator you take on the responsibility of opening your readers' eyes to the way you see things, and underneath, why you see them that way.

Your life story is happening now. Tell it.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

I read an article in The Wall Street Journal a few years ago* by novelist Paul Theroux in which he described his creative process. He mentioned that writing by hand is a crucial part of his writing process (and he always uses a Lamy pen on good-quality Docket Diamond paper). In that article, he quoted Hamish Hamilton who would often praise writers' handwriting, stating, "He has a good fist." Mr. Theroux went on to state that he was once approached by a budding novelist who asked his advice on how to improve her work. He quickly told her that she needed to go back and copy the first fifty pages of her novel by hand. She asked, "Can I do it on the computer?" Mr. Theroux did not chuck her into the sea, but explained no, she needed to write her words by hand so she could study them, and that typing is vastly different than actual writing. In the end, the woman did not take his advice. Mr. Theroux said he knew it would have helped because he "would have been able to see her 'fist' in it."

We already know I'm on board with putting my "fist" in my work. Like Mr. Theroux, handwriting is a crucial part of my process. I can't think at all unless I have a pen in my hand--it is where I store my brain. Handwriting is not optional; I need to do it or I cannot write well. At least, I cannot write like me. (Also like Mr. Theroux, I do enjoy a nice Lamy pen.)

I've read other articles that suggest taking Mr. Theroux's advice another step further. If handwriting can light up our creative neural pathways and open doors into our own writing, then it naturally follows that a positive practice effect can be achieved by handwriting copies of works we admire. Basically, if I want to learn to turn a phrase like Steinbeck or draw a setting like Hemingway, I can learn how it feels to do so by copying the places they did those things well. It is a way to marinate our brains in someone else's good words so that eventually, when we are writing our own work, we will recognize the cadence, the look on the page, and the feel in the hand. Then we will know when our own words are good, too.

I learned of this technique a good while ago. I thought it was a good idea, and I meant to try it. I have written miles of pages since then, much of it morning grumbles about how I always want another cup of coffee, but I had never taken up my pen to try it out. I guess I am so hardwired against plagiarism that copying someone else's work seemed out-of-bounds, even for practice.

Since I have been sick and operating on half a brain, I figured it was as good a time as any to give it a try.

Like with most good advice, it turns out it was effective, and actually a good bit of fun.

I started with a handful of nearby books I have read and admired for one thing or another. After I did the handwriting sample, I did a little slab of analysis on what I learned.

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

I have long loved Philip K. Dick. I appreciate his work for his madness as much as his imagination, his sensitivity as much as his bravado. A Scanner Darkly is unique among the PKD novels and stories I've read, and I was glad to get my finger on what makes it tick. The first thing I noticed was that his sentences are actually straightforward and simple, unfolding one idea straight to the next like a set of Russian nesting dolls. He's not big on commas, either for connection or pause. He uses them appropriately, but not for fun. It adds to the straightforward style and voice. This works well, given the way PKD's works tangle themselves up in complexity and confusion as they go along. If his writing got in his way, it would be hopeless to follow.



Watership Down by Richard Adams

Watership Down has long been heralded a classic, not just for its story, but for the creative, sensitive handling of writing from the perspective of a rabbit. Richard Adams gives his readers an experience they couldn't have any other way, and he does it in three dimensions. In the sample I copied, Adams takes his time drawing the setting and ambiance. I could feel it in the words themselves and the long, languid sentences. There was such an emphasis on all the trees and grasses, I almost sneezed just writing it. It gets the job done setting the world at a rabbit's eye view, and his lush writing mirrors the lushness he is trying his best to get his readers to see with him.




The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea was considered by Hemingway to be his greatest work. It has certainly endured as such, and is a fine example of Hemingway's signature style. The writing is sparse and unadorned, and often his sentences run on and on, nailed together with a string of conjunctions. He says a lot with a little, and does so without a comma in sight. The stark style works for the type of tale he's building, and the sentences come across as being brave and secure, unapologetic even. There are no nervous adjectives to add insurance to his descriptions. They just are what they are. Only at the end of his paragraphs does the hammer fall, and Hemingway hits us with a pitch-perfect metaphor summing up all we really need to know.



The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Giver is a deceptive book. It sits camouflaged in the children's section of bookstores and libraries, pretending to be simple. It is not. There is nothing simple about it, and any lesser writing would never be able to pull together the slow-build of complex and increasingly conflicting ideals that gives the book its payoff. In copying this sample, I was stuck by how many words I saw dedicated to mood-setting. Lowry crafts a scene in which a relatively non-threatening event is described with palpable, growing anxiety. It is almost subliminal how she does it, sneaking in emotional cue words. Hardly even allowing us to notice, she builds a history of fear in half a paragraph, all while developing the setting of a community which has supposedly banished that very emotion to extinction.


Clearly, there is a lot to be learned by studying the works of writers who matter to us. I can milk a lot out of a reading experience if I put my mind to it, but there really is something to writing down their words. It's like trying on someone else's shoes. They probably don't quite fit, but you can still see how they look on your own feet.

This is an ongoing process, and I have a lot more to learn and discover. If nothing else, it is giving me a mighty fine excuse to use my favorite pens and paper, and to wave hello to a few books that have become old friends.

*Paul Theroux, "Paul Theroux on the Powers that Flow From a Pen," Wall Street Journal online, retrieved May 21, 2012 

Inspiration Monday: Into the Fray

I have a new bed. I love it with the kind of love I usually reserve for...well, not furniture. Going without a bed for over a week and getting sick in the middle will make a person appreciate a bed, sure, but this one is BIG and COMFY and it has a shelf in the headboard for my books and pens. It is built from sleek, dark wood with sharp edges not yet worn and dinged from our touchy hands and our pets' beggy paws.

This bed and I are going to be close friends for a long, long time.

The old one was old-fashioned and too small, but it had its charms. It was antique, built by an actual craftsman. There was a little nub of wood that had chipped off one of the rungs of the headboard along the way. Someone tacked it back on with a finish nail that would sometimes get caught on our pillowcases (and sometimes on my head). The footboard had posts, worn to the bare wood from years of my husband throwing his bathrobe and jacket over them. The wood rails were scratched from years of feet getting in and out of the bed, but my favorites were the little digs from Bella's paws after years of her standing on her hind legs and begging to curl up with us, her own little wolf pack. The old bed was nowhere near the pristine beauty of my new one, but it had a personality of its own and I will miss it. Well, except the mattress. I will never let go of this new mattress. Ever.

The things in our lives tell a lot of tales. We surround ourselves with possessions, and it is not only what a person has that speaks to who a person is, but how a thing is worn.

This is the edge of my desk, worn rough and jagged from years of me hunching over it to write, draw, and make things. Desks don't get like that from just sitting. It takes work to gnaw an edge like that, and it speaks to the time I've spent there. That edge marks it as mine.

The same goes for my beaten up desk chair. It is getting ragged around its edges and it sinks gradually the whole time I sit in it until I look up and notice I'm sitting at the desk like a three-year-old without a high chair. I grumble and raise it back up to start the ride over again. I need a new one, but for now, I can still see the good in this one. I've spent many hours in it, enough to wear it out, and those were good hours. Sure, a lot of them were spent watching Netflix on my computer when I was supposed to be doing something more productive, but a lot of them were spent working, either creating or earning my keep. I earned those frayed edges.

Maybe I'm overly sentimental. I guess there's no maybe to that--it is pretty clearly true, but that isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes it can pay off. Not only can I look at the echoes on my objects and catch a whiff of the creative buzz that occasionally hovers there, but it inspires me to think about how I can flesh out my characters. If they were real people (and I am banking on someone someday believing they could be), they would not always sleep in sleek, sharp-edged beds with perfect mattresses. They would not hover weightless over their flawless desk chairs. If you are going to read about my characters and believe they are real, they are going to have to leave fingerprints. There must be cracks and smudges and carpet that is tracked flat and just out of style. If I want you to believe they are real, I have to fray up the edges a little.

Take a look around your place and I'm sure you'll find a few mementos of your presence. Run your fingers across those edges and think about the life and living it took to wear them away. Sure, worn out furniture can be an eyesore and make you twitch a little when you have guests, but for now, just for now, look at it and think of it as your own little Grand Canyon. Those marks wouldn't be there without the force of your nature.

It is an irrevocable fact of life: we touch things and they can't help but change.

Inspiration Monday: Start at the Finish

My last post was about how I want to finish things this year.

I still do.

I really do.

I want to as much as the person who put a curb and a stop sign and a little piece of road here with the full intention of connecting it to bigger piece of actual road.

Maybe the stop sign is for the deer. Makes sense.

I usually get about that far with my projects, too. Why? I have never not wanted to finish things I start. So why don't I finish them?

I have no idea. Well, truth be told, I have a lot of ideas, but to mention them here would be to finish the thought and that would be against type.

Sometimes when writing fiction I get so into the story, I feel like I'm a reader and not the writer. I cruise along dropping one word after the next in a thrilling creative fury. I fall for the heartthrob, I suspect everyone of the murder, I wonder just what heart-wrenching thing happened to the troubled protagonist to bring on such intriguing emotional scars. I wonder and write and make it up as I go along, twisting here, turning there...until I hit a wall.

Smash. Splat.

When I hit a wall, I hit it hard. Headfirst at a hundred miles and hour, and then...nothing. Complete darkness. Instant creative coma.

After that point, I start tiptoeing around my work like it is some kind of shrine to the creative consciousness that once made it alive. I read through it reverently and speak of it in hushed tones, afraid I might disturb what vestige of memory I have left of what it was to inhabit that world. The words themselves become sacred, like artifacts that should be only studied, and even that from afar.

This, of course, is a crock. There is nothing about any of my words that makes them sacred. My face will not melt off Indiana Jones-style if I dare move one of those precious words or (gasp!) ADD MORE WORDS TO KEEP THEM COMPANY.

I know this. I know it and I know it and I keep knowing it. But I never seem to do anything about it.

Therein lies my problem. I think maybe the key to finishing some fiction is to finish it first and start it later. Then I won't have a finishing problem, I'll have a starting problem, and I can't have a starting problem for a project that already has a finish. (Thank you, Roald Dahl, for creating Willy Wonka, because without him as a casual backhand reference, people would assume I am as crazy as I actually am.)

What I mean is this: if you have even a fraction of the difficulty in completing projects as I do, let's try a little experiment. Let's begin at the end. Draft out a whole expansive, fully formed, nicely written ending. It should grab you by your neck and hold on to you. It should make you want out to rush out and buy your own next book. Most importantly, for crying out loud, no matter WHAT, it was NOT all a dream.

Once you've crossed the finish line, taking a stroll back to the starting line should be like a walk in the park.

(As long as you don't get lost on your way to the park.)

The Brain Drain

I have a lot of good reasons why I don't write.

Most of the time, I say I'm tired. I'm drained. I have no energy. My gosh-darned eyelids won't stay open long enough for me to see the keyboard. Also, I'm sleepy and worn out and undone.

These things are true most of the time.

But it doesn't count.

I have too much on my mind. I don't have enough on my mind. Sometimes I wonder if I even have a mind anymore, or if my head is filled up with mushy, mealy oatmeal stuff that would stick to your fingers if you got your hands in there, falling, splatting, into gloppy blobs that don't mix well with the good firm creative brains that I started out with so many years ago.

Either way, it still doesn't count.

Lately, I stare down at my novel notes and their buzz is gone. I know that when I scribbled them down, there was some zing, some electricity that compelled me to put them there in the first place. That paper was sopping up something from me, something valuable that I didn't want to get away from me.

Somehow, it jumped the fence and ran off anyway.

Opining the one that got away is poetic and grandly sad, but it doesn't count. 

I have been neglecting the blog, telling myself that I will post tomorrow. "Tomorrow will be fine," I'd tell myself. "Tomorrow will be brighter, sweeter, and zestier than today. Tomorrow I will have the words. Tomorrow will be...not today."

Tomorrow always turns into today and another tomorrow always sprouts in its place.

Tomorrow doesn't count.

The fact is (don't you love it when people start sentences that way? Like their truth is Fact and regardless of what you think, it IS), I, like many, have grown too accustomed to being numb.

Writing, any real writing worth its ink and that is more ambitious than a grocery list, requires you to feel something. Sometimes, I am tired of feeling things. Feelings are never free. They charge admission and sometimes, I'm just flat broke and there's nothing I can (will) do about it.

But the feelings...they count.

They really, really count. 

It is worth it.

Tools of the Trade: Facilitating Daydreams

Today I thought I'd highlight some important tools of the trade that are crucial to my creative consciousness, but which do their work quietly and without heralding their importance to the world. Without these things, I could not do the one thing that fuels my every creative and not-so-creative endeavor: daydream.

I could write an entire post about the necessity of daydreaming (and I probably will), but there are a couple of things that help me be able to daydream, and therefore, to write:

My feet.

My iPod. (Actually, it's my husband's. Shh. Don't tell him.)

A solitary place to walk.

That's it. Without those things, my creative engine short-circuits and my energy is off kilter. Sometimes I have to go and "walk it out" to give my brain time to fire off all the sequences it's processing and pair them to the mood of the music I'm pumping into my ears. From there, I can begin to make sense of the little ideas and snippets that I can't figure out how to put together. While I'm walking, my mind gets a chance to wander in cadence, and it helps get things in line. Not to mention that having an opportunity to open up my senses to new stimuli that I can't directly control can send my mind off in unexpected directions, unlike my desk where nothing changes except the smell when it's time to bathe the dog.

The Feet

Mine are the big ones on the right, pictured with fellow Converse Comrades.

My feet kind of suck. They are flat and they hurt. A lot. They were actually the reason that I stopped working as a bookseller. I put a big ol' stress fracture in my navicular bone and very intelligently worked for six months with a limp before I went to the doc.

Do not do this.

I was in a boot with crutches for the better part of a year, and this turned me into a soggy ball of anxious laborador who waited by the door for Husband to come home every day so that he could drive me in the car while I stuck my head out the window and wagged my tail. I wrote a lot during that period of time since I couldn't go for my walks, but none of it was good...because I couldn't go for my walks.

My feet still hurt, and I still abuse them, but I love them so. They are more than transportation. When it comes to my creativity, they are basically an extension of my brain.

The Music

iPod 5th generation, 2005-2013 RIP (Died of battery cancer. Very sad.)

I am a musician and I married a musician and most of my friends are musicians and I imagine that most of my characters are musicians even if they don't say so. Music is not just an important part of my life, it is part of my DNA, like blue eyes and sarcasm. I devour songs, stringing them in one ear and out the other, sucking all the inspiration off of them and leaving nothing but bones behind. I am always trolling for a new song or band or melody or lyric. I slurp them all up. Without music to keep up my energy and set the mood, my walks become painful and exhausting and my writing empty and without ambiance. I can say unconditionally that I am addicted to music. I hope I never recover.

The Path

I am a solitary creature. I crave aloneness like oxygen. If I do not feel alone, I cannot think. At all. Ever. I do my best writing in the middle of the night when my brain finally feels comfortable that every other sentient being in perceivable range is locked firmly in the "off" position. 

That goes for my walks too. If you're sitting on your porch and see me coming, I will pretend to tie my shoe and walk the other way. I will go back into my house and come back an hour later praying with all my might that you have tired of porch-sitting. Don't take it personally. It's not you, it's me. I go it alone, or I cannot go it. Period.

My neighborhood is great for walking. It's quiet, it's safe, and there are multiple paths I can slink and slide around if I see any other person stick their head out of their home. (Obviously not having gotten the memo that when I am outside NO ONE ELSE is allowed outside. Anywhere, for any reason.)

Achieving Success

If a walk is successful, it means that I have managed for some short period of time forget who and where I am and absorb myself in the more fertile patches of my mind where story ideas and characters are spawned. The music keeps the pain from my feet at bay, keeps my breathing steady, and helps me forget. My feet keep moving, one step and then the next, keeping my energy pumping a cadence. The road sits a silent servant beneath me, rolling on and on until my idea crests its apex and sends me running back in the house for a pen.

Of everything I love about my walks, my favorite part is, was, and always will be running back in the house for a pen.

Tools of the Trade: Rattletrap (the) Typewriter

For as much as I go on about my love of fountain pens and exotic inks, it may surprise you to know that I do, in fact, know how to type. I'm actually pretty good at it. *looks at nails smugly* My computer and I spend a lot of time together, especially my buddy the backspace key (who knows the truth that I'm not nearly so good at typing as I think I am), trying to decipher all those scribbly words in all my scribbly notebooks.

When I need a good refresher in typing precision and my anachronistic streak just won't leave me alone, I turn to my good buddy Rattletrap.

Rattletrap is a 1930's Royal Portable typewriter purchased from a dark, dusty corner in a pawnshop where it was overshadowed by half a clarinet and a stuffed cobra battling a mongoose. Once I got my husband to pull it away from the cobra (I don't do snakes, remember?), I opened the decrepit case and glowed with the kind of instant love I usually reserve for kittens and used books. Rattletrap was destined to be mine, I knew it down to my typewriter-less bones.

When I carted the typewriter up to the counter, the shop owner fed me a story about how it had been in the possession of a ninety-year-old woman who had it sitting peaceably on a table in her hall--the typewriter equivalent of, "She only drove it on Sundays." True or not, I forked over a twenty dollar bill and sauntered out with my new toy under my arm. I did not even notice the stuffed snake on my way out.

I named the typewriter Rattletrap because the keystrokes have such a pleasant kachank sound, which in quick succession smoosh together to sound like a fun, peppy maraca rattle. The "trap" part comes in by the fact that by the time I have this bad boy out of the case, I know that I'm going to be sitting in front of it for a while. It literally sticks me to my chair because it's simply too cool and quirky to walk away from. Anyone who writes knows how important the "stick to chair" part of the process is.

I also call it Rattletrap because--let's face it--it's a ramshackle typewriter from the 1930s that I bought from a pawn shop that sells dead snakes. Even in such only-driven-on-Sundays-by-a-sweet-little-old-lady pristine condition, this ain't no highbrow machine. This is an object that was made to work hard until its keys wear out. (Which, thankfully, they are a long way from doing.)

Rattletrap got a shave and a haircut (or some trumpet valve oil and a new ribbon thanks to Staples' wonderful selection of cash register ribbons), and has been working like a champ. The novelty of it stimulates my brain, getting the stories warmed up to trot out for a walk across the keys, but the added benefit is that it slows down my typing and makes me really concentrate on what I'm trying to say. It messes with the automatic muscle memory I usually use to type and that's a good thing. One of the reasons that pens are good for writers is that you can't write faster than you think like you do with a computer. With a typewriter, you get the same neatly typed text, but it slows you down to a rate comparable to that of handwriting. Throw in some decent OCR software (I use OCRTools for Mac), and you're well on your way. Another cool thing is that typewriters, like pens, are pressure sensitive. If I'm really hammering away at an intense scene, the words on the page reflect the physical tension I expelled when writing it. It doesn't matter much in the final product, but it's a cool meta-writing effect to consider when reflecting on your own work.

It's also worth noting that typewriters don't do a lot of the distracting things that computers do, like, I don't know, GET ON THE INTERNET. This alone makes writing productivity increase a whopping 100%!*

Rattletrap inspired a short story with the utterly creative and original working-title of "The Typewriter" which I will hopefully finish in the near future.

Just as soon as I check my email and finish this game of solitaire...

*Percentage based on the fact that I do 0% work on my writing while email, message boards, blogs, Hulu/Netflix, Amazon, or any other website ever created is available to me.

Inspiration Monday: Life Inside the Banyan Tree

Thomas Alva Edison's famous banyan, Ft. Myers, FL

This is a banyan tree. Banyan trees are fascinating. They are fascinating because I'm 99.7% certain that my brain is actually a tiny banyan tree straining in my skull.

A banyan tree begins its life as a parasitic vine-like plant that uses a combination of charming pick-up lines and sneaky little seeds to dig itself into the cracks and crevices of a naive host tree.

My brain was once a naive host tree, but somewhere along the line, through huge amounts of fiction reading and an overabundance of precocious creative energy, I picked up a pen. Those little book-seeds have gotten into my cracks and crevices. The banyan brain is born.

Once the host tree is well covered in baby banyan, there is not much it can do but sit there and watch it go. It is an overachiever, completely unsatisfied to just be a tree on top of another tree. It must encompass all it surveys.

The Edison banyan tree was the first on U.S. soil.

It grows up and out, twisting, turning, and showing off. It practices growing branches, out and out and out. They keep growing just to see how far they can go. The branches grow so far and fast that the tree loses sight of the ends of them. They are growing on their own without supervision. These branches are wild things in and of themselves. They sag under their own weight. They are heavy, too heavy for any tree, even our overachieving banyan.

Likewise, too often my stories grow too distant and heavy for my overachieving, well-meaning brain.

These branches, mighty though they be, must have support to stand. The brave banyan rushes to work raining down snaky vine-roots that curve and curl their way to the ground where they push themselves under the dirt and slurp up all its nutrients. They grow thick and solid, assuring the branches success on their journey.

The tree carries on this way, this direction and that, throwing down these auxiliary trunks wherever it needs. This is why the banyan is sometimes called a "walking tree." 

The story threads that zoom off from my banyan brain in directions unbidden can only live if they have something to hold them up and connect them to the ground. This is where I find myself struggling sometimes. It's easy to think up scenarios, but having scenarios that can suck nutrients straight from the ground (reality) and use them to grow strong and prop up the idea can be a little harder to come by. I continue to try. I'm raining down little trunk-vines every which way hoping that some of them take root. I keep walking.

If the banyan is given the room to grow, it will encompass acres of land. It becomes more than a tree, it is a Tree, a forest of Tree, an entire woodland that is made of one sprawling, interconnected, single Tree.

If the idea is given room to thrive, it becomes more than an idea, it is Story, pages of Story, an entire tome of Story that is made of one sprawling, interconnected, single Idea.

So, fellow creatives, what do you see when you sit under the banyan tree? Can you lose yourself in it, dropping breadcrumbs so you remember how to pull yourself out? Maybe you tag every branch and measure it as it grows, trimming any willful sprout that dares to stick out an unwanted tendril.

Maybe your tree is not a banyan at all, but a steadfast oak, or a hard-worn and ever-verdant pine. Write about your tree, maybe even draw it. Close your eyes and smell the sap, listen to the leaves rustling up new thoughts. What kind of fruit does it bear--and is it sweet or sour?

Personally, I'm finding that I like to sit in the middle of my idea-banyan and marvel at it, full of awe and nerves at the sheer magnitude of the human imagination. It reminds me that the struggle is worth it, because the struggle is what it takes to get those roots on the ground and to keep on walking over all the earth.