As July winds down and I finish up this months Creativity Challenge, I can only say that I'm so thankful I decided to do it. This challenge has been such a great experience, and the last 28 days have allowed me to get back into a mindset that I've missed and struggled to find for years now.
In all honesty, the challenge itself hasn't exactly gone the way I thought it would. I'm not writing every day, and I still haven't made any sort of visible progress on the story I began a while back. But I am writing more. In fact, I'm writing nearly every day, and the fact that I've been doing it more and more often makes me want to continue doing it more and more often. I'm thinking about writing all the time. I'm looking forward to it. And while my story is still stuck stubbornly in its conception stage, I'm not frustrated or upset anymore.
In fact, a funny thing is happening to me: the act of writing so much, of thinking so much of writing, and of looking at everything in terms of how it can inspire me has sort of caused this domino effect in my life. I'm being creative again. It sounds silly, I know, but I'm being perfectly serious when I say that this is monumental in my life right now. I may not be able to get to chapter 2 in that story, but I've got ideas again. Tons and tons of ideas. In those years when writing was not just a want but a need, when I needed it to be my crutch, my filter and my repository, I used to come up with ideas in daydreams, in classes, in car rides and in the middle of conversations. Dialogue would just come together like magic and it seemed so effortless to me that I couldn't imagine that those ideas would someday stop. And then they did, and I thought I'd lost something. I realize now that I was just...rusty.
This Creativity Challenge is bringing it all back to me. I now spend about an hour and half each night before bed writing something. Most of the time its just a stray scene that played across my mind sometime throughout the day, but a few times that idea has resulted in 3-4 pages of conversation and story. I don't know where or if any of it will ever be used in a larger sense, but the fact that it's becoming a wonderful, fulfilling habit for me to think them up and get them down is a reward in and of itself.
And for the first time I can offer this excuse for not having written a blog post in nearly a week: I've been busy writing something else!
So thank-you, Ashley, for issuing your challenge, and I'm so excited to continue it long after July comes to a close.
Showing posts with label a creativity challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a creativity challenge. Show all posts
July 29, 2010
July 22, 2010
A Creativity Challenge: Side Effects
Perhaps what I'm loving most about tackling this Creativity Challenge (currently in week three!) is all of the side benefits its seemed to have. I thought and intended to use this month to concentrate solely on my writing, and I've been doing more writing this month than in maybe the last few years combined. But tapping that aspect of whatever creativity I seem to have has also tapped others.
I've started playing music again. When I was a kid, I played a bunch of instruments; I played the piano, the violin, the clarinet, the ukulele. I stopped somewhere along the way when my interest died out or to keep playing seemed like too much to put on my plate at the time, but I've begun picking some of it up again. Specifically, the piano. N. is a jazz pianist and has always been in a band of some sort. He doesn't currently play or go to gigs, but he did a lot of that when we first began dating, and when I figured out just how talented he was, it made me proportionally intimidated to do anything musical in front of him. Who wants to look like an amateur loser in front of this guy she's into, right? This is a ridiculous reaction since, as I've learned lately, he absolutely loves the fact that I'm showing an interest in the piano again. This in turn has given birth to a whole new goal of mine: I'm hoping one day to consider myself good enough to play in front of him.
The other side benefit of the Creativity Challenge has been that I'm learning to be a little easier on myself when it comes to my writing. As I mentioned in my last update, my story is giving me trouble (in that I can't get passed the first 10 pages). And I've been stuck behind this monumental wall that is Chapter 1 for the past few months, not willing to move on until I've made the necessary transition seamless. This Challenge, like NaNoWriMo, is forcing me to get something down on paper no matter where it fits into this story or any other for that matter. As a result, I'm learning that maybe this story isn't one that I'm ready to tell just yet; maybe I need to work on something else, something more...on the surface of my mind...before trying my hand at this one. I would never have gotten here without this month.
I've started playing music again. When I was a kid, I played a bunch of instruments; I played the piano, the violin, the clarinet, the ukulele. I stopped somewhere along the way when my interest died out or to keep playing seemed like too much to put on my plate at the time, but I've begun picking some of it up again. Specifically, the piano. N. is a jazz pianist and has always been in a band of some sort. He doesn't currently play or go to gigs, but he did a lot of that when we first began dating, and when I figured out just how talented he was, it made me proportionally intimidated to do anything musical in front of him. Who wants to look like an amateur loser in front of this guy she's into, right? This is a ridiculous reaction since, as I've learned lately, he absolutely loves the fact that I'm showing an interest in the piano again. This in turn has given birth to a whole new goal of mine: I'm hoping one day to consider myself good enough to play in front of him.
The other side benefit of the Creativity Challenge has been that I'm learning to be a little easier on myself when it comes to my writing. As I mentioned in my last update, my story is giving me trouble (in that I can't get passed the first 10 pages). And I've been stuck behind this monumental wall that is Chapter 1 for the past few months, not willing to move on until I've made the necessary transition seamless. This Challenge, like NaNoWriMo, is forcing me to get something down on paper no matter where it fits into this story or any other for that matter. As a result, I'm learning that maybe this story isn't one that I'm ready to tell just yet; maybe I need to work on something else, something more...on the surface of my mind...before trying my hand at this one. I would never have gotten here without this month.
July 15, 2010
A Creativity Challenge: My Biggest Writing Fear
We are two weeks into this Creativity Challenge and I have yet to write enough to fill up a single page in the story I'm working on. I have ideas jotted down here and there, on napkins and in notebooks, on scrap pieces of paper floating around in my purse, even on the jacket of last weekend's Southwest Airlines boarding pass. But none of it's cohesive, and none of it gets me over this mental block I'm facing right now. In fact, I'm not sure any of it actually even applies to the story I'm writing now, they're all just little scenes that play out in short paragraphs and spurts of dialogue, half-baked conversations (or the outline of conversations) that have yet to find a plot to belong to.
I feel like the only thing left to do is to lock myself in a room with my laptop and some music and not let myself out until I'm at least a chapter in. I'm too easily distracted otherwise.
Or I could just abandon this story altogether.
But that would be giving up, and I feel like I've given up too many times, discarded too many drafts and left too many stories unfinished. Aside from my desperate fear of plagiarizing something I've read and loved and internalized, this fear is my constant companion these days: the incomplete story belonging to the writer who doesn't write.
I think I'll try option #1 first.
I feel like the only thing left to do is to lock myself in a room with my laptop and some music and not let myself out until I'm at least a chapter in. I'm too easily distracted otherwise.
Or I could just abandon this story altogether.
But that would be giving up, and I feel like I've given up too many times, discarded too many drafts and left too many stories unfinished. Aside from my desperate fear of plagiarizing something I've read and loved and internalized, this fear is my constant companion these days: the incomplete story belonging to the writer who doesn't write.
I think I'll try option #1 first.
July 8, 2010
A Creativity Challenge: Music to Write By
With Ashley's Creativity Challenge a week underway, I thought it would be a good time to write my first update. As mentioned previously, the challenge I've issued myself for the month of July is to write. Write habitually, write unabashedly, just write. My only requirements were that the writing be done daily, and that its subject matter be creative.
It sounds easy enough, doesn't it?
Enter: Me.
This isn't nearly as straight-forward and simple as I thought it was going to be, but I guess that's why I issued it as a challenge to myself. It's extremely hard for me to focus long enough to write something worth writing, or to even gauge what that "worth" means. It's difficult to stay inspired, or to not focus on the ideas I've had and then forgotten instead of creating new ones. And though I've written something down everyday so far, sometimes it was just a single, measly sentence that was hastily deleted before my laptop even had time to process and auto-save. I don't know whether this is a lack of commitment or just a genuine lack of ideas on my part.
Given all of this, my mini-challenge for the coming week is to write more. No more one-sentence-and-delete. Write to keep.
To help with this, I've resurrected my "Music to Write By" playlist. It's always been easiest for me to write with mood music. Like many authors I've read interviews of, I tend to think in movie scenes complete with soundtracks and, in fact, most of my ideas come when I'm on a long drive somewhere, listening to music that just makes me see what's happening. I usually have an idea for the general story line in my head already, but the music helps me to create scenes and dialogue, environment and emotion. It's the only time that I can honestly say my characters have told me what they'd like to say instead of the other way around. Unfortunately, by the time the drive is over, I've forgotten the details of that scene and spend the next few days mourning that loss and trying [unsuccessfully] to recreate it. This discourages me, and I stop trying.
It's an unproductive cycle, but it's one that I'm hopeful can be broken.
And so, though it desperately needs updating, my current "Music to Write By" playlist looks like this:
It sounds easy enough, doesn't it?
Enter: Me.
This isn't nearly as straight-forward and simple as I thought it was going to be, but I guess that's why I issued it as a challenge to myself. It's extremely hard for me to focus long enough to write something worth writing, or to even gauge what that "worth" means. It's difficult to stay inspired, or to not focus on the ideas I've had and then forgotten instead of creating new ones. And though I've written something down everyday so far, sometimes it was just a single, measly sentence that was hastily deleted before my laptop even had time to process and auto-save. I don't know whether this is a lack of commitment or just a genuine lack of ideas on my part.
Given all of this, my mini-challenge for the coming week is to write more. No more one-sentence-and-delete. Write to keep.
To help with this, I've resurrected my "Music to Write By" playlist. It's always been easiest for me to write with mood music. Like many authors I've read interviews of, I tend to think in movie scenes complete with soundtracks and, in fact, most of my ideas come when I'm on a long drive somewhere, listening to music that just makes me see what's happening. I usually have an idea for the general story line in my head already, but the music helps me to create scenes and dialogue, environment and emotion. It's the only time that I can honestly say my characters have told me what they'd like to say instead of the other way around. Unfortunately, by the time the drive is over, I've forgotten the details of that scene and spend the next few days mourning that loss and trying [unsuccessfully] to recreate it. This discourages me, and I stop trying.
It's an unproductive cycle, but it's one that I'm hopeful can be broken.
And so, though it desperately needs updating, my current "Music to Write By" playlist looks like this:
- Lydia - "Fate"
- Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson - "Winter Song"
- Maria Taylor - "Clean Getaway"
- A Fine Frenzy - "Elements"
- Eisley - "Plenty of Paper"
- Snow Patrol & Martha Wainwright - "Set the Fire to the Third Bar"
- Kat Tingey - "Undone"
- The Temper Trap - "Sweet Disposition"
- Sea Wolf - "The Violet Hour"
- Editors - "No Sound But the Wind"
- Lydia - "This is Twice Now"
- Deas Vail - "Atlantis"
- Ray LaMontagne - "Hannah"
- The Fray - "Look After You"
- Death Cab for Cutie - "I Will Follow You into the Dark"
- Lydia - "Now the One You Once Loved is Leaving"
- Eisley - "Brightly Wound"
- Death Cab for Cutie - "The Ice is Getting Thinner"
- Lydia - "One More Day"
- Grizzly Bear & Victoria Legrand - "Slow Life"
- Leona Lewis - "Run"
- Lydia - "All I See"
- Poe - "Haunted"
July 1, 2010
A Creativity Challenge
As the month of June comes to a close and the month of July begins, I can't help but think that it's the perfect time to start a project. And as I mentioned earlier this week, I'm gearing up to take part in Ashley's Creativity Challenge and couldn't be more excited!
Now, I'm actually planning on doing two creative projects this coming month (a big one and a small one), but the small one is sort of a secret, possible surprise project and, because I'm not actually sure I'll be able to deliver it by the end of the month, I'm not going to talk about it (hehe). The big one on the other hand, that I'll probably talk about ad nauseum by the time July ends and you'll be glad the month is over.
For this project, I plan on writing. A lot. I'm not going to give myself any sort of parameters on what that writing must be, save that it has to be creative writing of some sort. This can include blog entries, writing parts of the story I began a few months ago, taking a stab at freelance writing, writing poetry (though I'm definitely not known for being poetic), hell, even writing a song if I feel like it. What it does not include, however, is academic writing, writing for work, writing emails, and anything of that sort. The only other parameter I will set for myself is that I must write every day. It doesn't have to be a lengthy writing session (so "not having time" will no longer be a viable excuse), but I think just the exercise of writing something creative so habitually will be such a great thing for me and such a great thing for my writing. I'm also hoping it will serve as the beginning of a good habit that will carry over even after this Challenge is done.
Like I said, I'm really excited about this and I think that dedicating a month to a creative endeaver was a fantastic idea! So if you feel like your own creativity has been put on the back burner lately, I encourage you take part in this Challenge as well.
Below are the details, and you can read more about it here.
If you're interested in participating, here’s what you should do (taken from Writing to Reach You):
Now, I'm actually planning on doing two creative projects this coming month (a big one and a small one), but the small one is sort of a secret, possible surprise project and, because I'm not actually sure I'll be able to deliver it by the end of the month, I'm not going to talk about it (hehe). The big one on the other hand, that I'll probably talk about ad nauseum by the time July ends and you'll be glad the month is over.
For this project, I plan on writing. A lot. I'm not going to give myself any sort of parameters on what that writing must be, save that it has to be creative writing of some sort. This can include blog entries, writing parts of the story I began a few months ago, taking a stab at freelance writing, writing poetry (though I'm definitely not known for being poetic), hell, even writing a song if I feel like it. What it does not include, however, is academic writing, writing for work, writing emails, and anything of that sort. The only other parameter I will set for myself is that I must write every day. It doesn't have to be a lengthy writing session (so "not having time" will no longer be a viable excuse), but I think just the exercise of writing something creative so habitually will be such a great thing for me and such a great thing for my writing. I'm also hoping it will serve as the beginning of a good habit that will carry over even after this Challenge is done.
Like I said, I'm really excited about this and I think that dedicating a month to a creative endeaver was a fantastic idea! So if you feel like your own creativity has been put on the back burner lately, I encourage you take part in this Challenge as well.
Below are the details, and you can read more about it here.
If you're interested in participating, here’s what you should do (taken from Writing to Reach You):
- Email Ashley at writetoreach@gmail.com letting her know you want to participate. She will list everyone participating here. Help spread the word to other people you think might be interested.
- Decide on your project and write a post on your own blog sometime this week letting us know what you’ll be working on. Feel free to apply whatever additional rules or parameters you want to be part of your challenge. If you think your readers might be interested, try to get your post up earlier so that they’ll have to time to prepare as well. Please send them over to Ashley's blog so that she knows everyone who is participating.
- Periodically throughout the month, blog about your project and the progress you’re making. You may choose to share what you’ve been working on or just talk about the process. There is no precise schedule, so you can share as much or as little as you want. Like any challenge, you’ll get as much out of it as you put into it.
- Connect with other creative people participating in the challenge. Cheer people on, ask them how it’s going, and give them feedback if they ask for it.
- Write a post at the end of July with your thoughts on the project, whether you judge it a success or failure, whether you will be continuing with your project or not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
