Don’t Think, Just Write

Sometimes, when life gets hectic, it is just impossible to find a moment to get a little writing done. Creativity might be knocking but the house is so full, you’re not sure you can open the door and let it in.

There is simply no room for it.

We all have responsibilities to fulfill and obligations to meet. We’ve got bills to pay, jobs to do, children to care for, and pets to play with. The lawn has to be mowed, garbage taken out, laundry done, dishes cleaned; the list just goes on and on and on.

How are we supposed to find time to do a little writing?

I’m not talking about writing content or keyword articles or composing documents or communications for work. I’m talking about the writing that happens when the muse is happily seducing our imagination. When new worlds magically appear on the page and when fictional characters seem more real than some of the people we know in our day to day lives.

Writing is one of those pursuits that for many people, is a dream. Like music, dance, acting, and art, it seems unattainable. Like athletics, entrepreneurship, and presidential leadership, it seems meant only for the chosen few. Every day a writer is born. And every day, a writer gives up, overwhelmed by all the things in life that require time, energy, and attention.

Every day, another blog is abandoned, another novel shelved, poem left half unfinished. “I just don’t have time anymore,” a writer says, then deletes a file that was going to be the next great American novel, or crumples up a poem that would have inspired the next great world leader and throws it in the trash.

What if J.K. Rowling had given up on her fantastical story? What if George Lucas had given up on his groundbreaking film? What if the Beatles hadn’t taken a chance on that new sound everyone was calling rock and roll? What kind of world would we be living in?

I almost gave up on writing. For several years, I rarely wrote, other than the writing I had to do for work. It was only by sheer luck that the company I worked for closed, forcing me to find some other path, and only by an odd combination of chance, drive, and a willingness to dream did I return to my writing so that I could sit here a year later amazed that now I make a living doing it.

And I’m willing to take the dream a little further. I’m willing to dare dream of writing a novel. Whether it’s this year, next year, or in five years, that dream is mine, and I’m not giving up on it.

Neither should you.

If you don’t have time to write, then make time. You don’t have to sit down and write ten pages a day. In five minutes, you can jot down a few paragraphs. In fifteen, you can run off a page. Some days, you’ll get lucky and be able to steal an hour or two. Other days, you’ll have to crunch just to get a couple of minutes.

A few years ago, I came across this website called One Word. It’s one of those sites you bookmark, then forget about, but rediscover every few months when you’re cleaning out or surfing your favorites. Every time I visit, I use it (because it’s interactive), and by the time I leave, which is maybe a minute and a half later, I feed strangely refreshed and revitalized.

One Word gives you just that — one word. Then it gives you something else. It gives you time. You get sixty seconds to write whatever you want, inspired by that single word, that gift.

It doesn’t sound like much, but every time I’ve visited that site and cranked out a minute’s worth of words, I always feel good when I leave. Like my right brain just got a little massage and the rest of my body is thanking me for it.

It’s a lot like the way I feel when I hear an inspiring, uplifting speech that motivates and moves me. Except at this site, the words aren’t someone else’s, they’re mine. Well, except for that one.

Here’s the thing about creativity: It is food for the soul. It’s the one thing that has a guaranteed return on investment. The more creativity you spend, the better you feel, the more creative you become, and more nourished is your spirit.

People like us need to feed that fire to keep the passion burning. Giving up isn’t an option because if we give up, we dry up. When you feed your right brain, your whole body benefits, and when you feed the fire that is your passion, your whole life and everyone in it reaps the rewards.

It’s called happiness folks.

I like to post writing exercises on Fridays. I’ve been doing this for a year, and it’s starting to feel a lot like a tradition. I think creativity is a phenomenal tradition, don’t you?

So make some time this weekend, take some time, to write. Go to OneWord.com and write for just a minute (surely you can spare sixty seconds — how about right now?) or close all those windows and open up Word, turn off the computer and pick up your journal and just write. Write creatively and then come back and tell me how damn good it feels.

Yes we can.

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Work Your Jaws

photo credit: Taylor Hain

We’re writers and that means we spend a lot of time alone tapping on a keyboard. Maybe there’s a little music playing in the background or the occasional sound of an airplane flying overhead or a dog barking off in the distance, but for the most part, I bet most of us spend our days in relative quiet.

Many writers have commented that computers brought ease, speed, and flexibility to the writing process but good penmanship has been lost. Another thing we’ve lost, which hardly anybody mentions, are our oratory skills.

Before the advent of readily available paper and writing instruments, stories, poems, and history weren’t written down at all. They were passed along through the oral tradition. Today, the ability to read a piece aloud either from memory, from notes, or from a full text, is rare. Yet there are still many venues and mediums in which this skill proves to be quite useful:

• Reading aloud to children either at home, in a classroom, or at a library.
• Recording the audio version of a book, article, short story, or poem (did you know most authors retain audio rights when their works are published?).
• Performing a script for stage, TV, film, or internet video delivery.
• Poetry readings and slam competitions.
• Podcasts!

Even if you’re not going to be the one performing or recording a piece you’ve written, it’s helpful to be able to practice reading it aloud privately so that you can write and revise it accordingly. Read just a few paragraphs of anything you’ve written for print and you’ll quickly realize that preparing text to be recited out loud is completely different.

For this week’s writing exercise, let’s work our jaws by practicing reading aloud. In fact, let’s do more than read aloud. Try to actually perform a piece of writing! You can choose something you’ve written or a work by someone else. Pick a short story, a poem, or a script (monologues are perfect for this!).

Some tips:

• Choose a piece you like enough to read over and over.
• Select something short, about a page or less.
• If you can, record your readings and play them back, making notes about what you can improve next time.
• Pick something in your area of specialty — if you’re into fiction, choose an excerpt with dialog. Poet? Choose something with emotional flair.
• Go big with intonations, flourishing your voice, shifting between loud and quiet, and make it your goal to evoke the emotion of the piece.

I’ve heard many professional writers and freelancers say that they hate talking to clients on the phone. Some of us are just better at communicating in writing (I’m one of those people!). Exercises like this will help you build speaking confidence and improve your writing by readying it for performance or recording.

Also, lots of people squirm when they hear their own voice. If you record yourself and play it back enough times, this discomfort will pass and soon you’ll be able to listen to yourself with ease.

One last tip: if you’re really serious about improving your speaking skills or if you’re interested in getting better at public speaking, check out Toastmasters. They’re sure to have a chapter in your area.

Have a great weekend!

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A Story for a Song

photo credit: nyki_m

Art Begets Art

A compelling story speaks to us much the same way that music does, communicating thoughts, feelings, and ideas in ways that go beyond concrete language. The result? A click takes place within the psyche. When you hear a song or read a story that resonates in this manner, you connect with it on a deep level. It almost feels like the author or songwriter was speaking for you, or about you.

Some say that truly great art communicates directly with the subconscious. That’s why the arts coexist so naturally. Where you find a buzzing music scene, you can be sure a booming literary crowd is nearby. And where filmmakers toil with scripts and cameras, you can bet dancers aren’t too far off.

Creativity breeds creativity and we are like magnets, drawn not just into our own passion, but those that complement and support it. Music, film, and art all enrich and inform one another. So do the musicians, filmmakers, artists, and of course, writers.

photo credit: arimoore

Some people say that everything has been written, every story told. But that’s not true. There’s always another angle, a different perspective that can be taken. And writers have all the tools they need to grab that perspective and run with it. You just need a starting point.

Try starting with a song.

Some of the greatest stories of all time have been told through song. Remember Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee?” John Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane?” What about Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff?” Each of these songs tells a clear and distinct story.

On the flip side, we have ambiguous lyrics, like “Hotel California,” by the Eagles or “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M. Tunes like these have inspired lively debates that ask, what are these songs about, anyway? And if we don’t know what the songs are about, why do they succeed at speaking to us? How do they become enormous hits that cross genre lines?

For this week’s Friday writing exercise, double up on creativity and take advantage of hindsight. Choose a song and write the story behind it. This is kind of like traveling backward and trying to find those one thousand words that represent the value of a picture.

Some tips to make this more interesting:

• Choose a song that doesn’t have an overly obvious storyline.
• Make sure you aren’t familiar with the song’s video and that you don’t rewrite the video treatment.
• Pick a song you like, something you can tolerate listening to several times over. In fact the more you enjoy the song, the greater the chance you’ll have fun with this experiment.

photo credit: Staciaann Photography

Throughout the history, great artists have collaborated and mixed mediums and media to come up with fresh takes on ancient truths. This writing exercise provides a new source for inspiration, gets you working in collaboration with other artists (musicians), and gives you creative license to put a new spin on something that’s been around for awhile.

And if you can do this with a piece of classical music (with no lyrics), I for one, will be doubly impressed!

You can write a paragraph, a few pages, or an entire novel. Write it as a piece of journalism or a script. And if you don’t feel like writing it down, just work it out in your head. Find the connection between music and storytelling and let it capture your imagination.

And have a great weekend!

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