Return from the Wilderness

Seriously, the past four months or so feel like I've been in the wilderness. I was only out of internet and phone range for eight weeks, but my work on the website and my writing and everything else literature related has been flagging terribly. It hasn't been happening. The pen had run dry, and I was busy.

For me, it's been a dry spell for writing, but so much fun in so many other ways. I've set up a new apartment in Baltimore, I'm starting on my MFA, and I'm surrounded by people who aren't just working at writing, but are working their lives around writing. I, finally, am working my life around writing. And it's a great feeling. But all these months leading up to it have been the exact opposite. Instead of writing, I've been...doing other things. I've lead science students on hiking trips through the forests of West Virginia. I've seen the 2.3 acre radio telescope at Green Bank - the worlds largest moving object on land, the most precise radio telescope on the planet. I've said hello and goodbye to nearly two hundred of my best friends. I've attended lectures on global warming and breast cancer and maple syrup disease. I've talked with friends I hadn't seen in ten years, given writing seminars, driven a U-Haul on Pennsylvania Avenue through D.C. during rush hour, chased people with water balloons...and of course I was the one who got wet...

What, then, does this mean for my writing? Have I given up my novels? Do I have to relearn the short story? Am I stuck now with writers block?

The answer to all of the above is no. I stopped my forward progress, but I didn't stop my writing. I've been writing snippets of things all summer - morning show ditties, impromptu songs for my girlfriend, 10-minute free-writes with science students. But none of these short works have been typed, none of them are "publishable" or even really manageable. They fill up notebooks of all shapes and sizes, pretty much whatever paper I had on hand at the time. It's unlikely that any of them will ever show up here or anywhere else online. There were, in fact, no Dagny stories, not a one (and if you know who Dagny is, you understand what this means...the word "payback" comes to mind...)

Often, as writers, we fall prey to this myth that all our stories must be good. We believe that we must craft every word to be if not perfect then at the very least great. Sometimes, we'll spend days and months and years worrying over the same story, trying to get the elements just right. We rebalance the plot, reconstruct our characters, deconstruct the setting and the mood and the tone of our stories. We revise the one story until we're tired of it. And to become professional creative writers - the kind of people who get paid for stories and poems - this process is crucial to future success. Publishers and MFA faculty want to see the best we have to offer. They want to see that we're worth the time to read. But for many writers, this process of revision gets confused with the process of creation. Oftentimes, we credit ourselves with growing as writers because we have made one story better.

Don't stop with one story. Experiment. Spend ten minutes writing something that you know you'll throw away. Skip the laptop routine and scratch out a few words that you won't share with others. With writing, an essential aspect of mastery is practice. As in any field, be it sports or science or music, we become good because we experiment. Every professional violin soloist spent years if not decades scratching out notes that would torture the human ear - and it's that practice which provided them the confidence and skill to be performers today. It is the same with writing. Just as no violinist would spend an entire lifetime playing a single concerto to the exclusion of all others, as writers we cannot afford to work on a single novel or a single poem to the exclusion of all else. There are too many techniques, too many ideas, too many facets of life to chain ourselves - and our literary careers - to the quality of a single piece. We must break ourselves of the idea that every story will be good and realize that experimentation is as much a process of elimination as it is a process of creation. We create, we judge, and we sift the gems from the sand. But trust me, there are no diamonds without a lot - and I mean a lot - of rough.

This said, let me leave you with a bit of guesstimation regarding my own work. In my apartment, I have an entire file box filled with stories I wrote before and during high school - thousands of pages of original, handwritten work. On my computer, I have my stories sorted by year - from 2002 until now, we're looking at probably twenty to a hundred stories per year. Some of these stories were meant as novels, some as novellas, some as shorts, some as still-births. One of the stories weighs in at 190,000 words, and it even has an ending. Out of these hundreds of thousands of words - actually millions of words spend for several hundred story ideas - I have about fifteen short stories that I'm happy with. I have one short novel that I'm happy with. I have half of another novel that I'm happy with, but it doesn't have an ending. And out of all this? One short, short story has been published so far - I earned $100 for it back in February. And why am I starting on a master in fine arts? Because I'm not that great of a writer. I want to be better. I want to learn what it will take to be better.

So as you write, remember to break out of the house every once in a while. Try that wild, off-the-wall story idea that probably won't work. Don't worry about wasting time. Don't worry about whether it's "worth" your time. All writing is worthwhile. All writing is worth producing. It might not be worth reading when your done, but that's okay. It's part of the learning. We cannot succeed until we learn how not to fail.

1-2-Writing Workshops Online
About Ryan Edel

Fiction - The Unplanned Birth

In my workshop today, one of my writers touched on the fundamental difference between fiction and nonfiction. She said that she normally writes nonfiction, and that she’s accustomed to outlines and roadmaps for her writing. But she hasn’t liked the results of her planned fiction. She found that she likes the results of her freewriting, but that the process is scary – there is no planning, and editing is needed at the end. But still, the she likes the results.

Part of the reason freewriting inspires the creative process is that it forces the mind to write automatically. The result is that the words you produce are words you’re intimately familiar with. You begin writing about your life, about the things you’ve seen in life, even if the story is not a true story. And it works. It has the feel of truth, because in a deep way the words written on autopilot are truth – your truth. The life you’ve been living.

This is the funny thing about good fiction - it can't be planned. It's as random as our lives, as constant as the stars. Certain aspects of the human experience are accepted as absolute - the need for food, for example, or the strain and exhaustion that come with stress - but the events and decisions of an individual defy outlines. It's a strange phenomenon - generally, most writers avoid crossing back-and-forth between fiction and nonfiction. Before freewriting, I tried to control my writing. I wanted to “make” it good. I believed in working hard to produce the “perfect” story. But results of controlled fiction aren't good, let alone perfect. The characters are stale, the decisions pre-planned, the conflict watered down.

Fiction is not nonfiction. How do I know? Try writing nonfiction without an outline and good sources. That's just not a good idea, not for a longer work. The reader has to believe in the work, and for nonfiction that means believable, reputable facts. And these facts have to fit together tight as a jigsaw puzzle. To make the truth coherent, you have to sit down and plan it out, piece it together, see how every isolated piece matches with every other.

It's not that fiction's any different in that regard - the "facts" must still be "right," and they must certainly "fit together," but the source of these facts is a different place entirely. Some call it the heart, some say it’s the unconscious mind, others believe it's the soul. Tapping it, though, is hard. Allowing the disorder and the chaos of the inner mind to creep out onto the page is a process all by itself. And then telling your conscious mind – the part of your brain that stops you from giving embarrassing revelations at work – to step aside? For some, it’s inconceivable. I've met people who don't believe in freewriting and won't try it - they hold on to the control they have, choking their own creativity. It's not a pretty sight - flat characters, organized plots without purpose, antagonists who don't care about anything except owning the world.

When editors look for good fiction, they aren't looking for someone who can string words together in the "correct" way. They're looking for someone who can reveal a protagonist's inner hate, someone who can show the antagonist's hidden love, a writer who makes us appreciate life in new ways. As you push forward in your writing, make sure that you are learning to write from within rather than simply pen beautiful sentences. Don’t plan your novel to death – write it. Feel it. Express it. And then later, after the words are on the page, after you’ve bled your soul through the keyboard, go back and edit. Assert the control you didn’t need before. Make sure the grammar isn’t too ugly. But don’t do this until you’re done. Don’t edit until after the last line is written. If you’re tempted to edit early, tempted to “tweak” the story a little bit, just keep one thing in mind: you can always edit grammar. You can insert and delete characters and subplots in a finished story. You can even go through and emphasize a theme that didn’t get enough “air time” in the rough draft. But no matter how much you edit, you can’t revive a story without heart.

1-2-Writing Workshops Online
About Ryan Edel

Writing through Distraction

Freewriting's open, free-form structure is great for the office, the beach, the classroom - anywhere you go that allows only snatches of time to write your story. Since the free-write is usually not intended as a marketable story, you don't have to worry about typos or smudges or whether you can concentrate enough to make the story "good." But it still takes concentration to write, especially to "get in the groove" and write fast.

This is where your real-world setting can pose some problems. Sometimes, the air conditioner is just too loud. At the beach, you just can't take the glare of the sun in your eyes. And then, of course, there's the chatter from two cubicles down - it's nearly impossible to tune-out a conversation in-progress. For human curiosity, people talking provides too much interest. It's worse even than CNN. When you want to be writing, your mind locks-in full attention on people you don't know and don't care about simply because they're producing words.

But don't worry. You can free-write through such distractions. The key, first of all, is to relax. Writing may feel important at times, but it's rarely important enough to stress over (essays, term papers, and grad school applications excepted, of course...). It's a constant struggle for me, but I've found that placing too much importance on the words themselves hurts the work itself. When I feel pressured to perform, I begin writing words because they sound right, not because they are. Distraction then pushes me over the edge. Perfection in writing is an impossible goal - thinking about it while the AC churns is a headache waiting to happen.

The next trick - and this works really well for freewriting - is to write the distraction into your manuscript. Write about the air conditioner's grim rattle or that too-hot sun - you'll think about it less once you've written around it. I used to think this was a funny idea because I've always been good at tuning things out. My younger brother is autistic, so I grew up learning to read and study while he gave my parents and babysitters hell the next room over. But I can't tune out everything, and I can't control when and where distractions arise. One night, after a very stressful week, I set all my hopes on an hour of writing at Barnes and Noble. That was to be my "unwind time" when I could catch up with the story I hadn't worked on all week. But then there was a very large, very loud man having a one-way conversation with his wife and the entire rest of the bookstore coffee shop. I couldn't ignore him, and I already had a headache from the rest of my week - so I wrote him into a free-write. It wasn't a flattering portrayal, but the writing went on. Strangely, as I wrote more about him, I stopped hearing him talk. It was as if the mind processed his existence and then moved on to other concerns - namely writing.

But then there's the big question: what do you do when you can't write a word? When staring at the page makes you sick? When the AC and the sun and those yapping coworkers simply will not go away? Or, worse, what about when there's no physical distraction? When you're busy worrying about your taxes and your health insurance and the upcoming visit with your mother-in-law? How do you tune out your own mind?

Sometimes you don't. Instead you start writing a journal entry. You call up a friend and gripe. Or you break out the old 1040 and start filling in rows of numbers for the IRS. At some point, you have to resolve the personal distractions in your own life to allow your mind to focus on creative pursuits.

Sometimes, though, even that isn't enough. It's worse, of course, when you're working under a deadline, when you know that you have, say, one week to finish a story for a class. The days get whittled away as you sit at the keyboard contemplating the blank screen, your blank life, the blank career prospects for creative writing. You contemplate ugly notions involving your computer and the window.

That's the time to go outside. Call up some friends and hit the volleyball court. Catch a movie. Stroll on over to the local pub and start talking with random people about random things (if the people are no longer so random, then you know you're a regular). The key is to get out and live a bit. Let the brain rest. Let the ideas simmer without too much thought. Later, when you get back to your page, you'll find that the story is still in there, still ready to come out. It just flows a little better when you're relaxed. And, of course, a beer or two never hurt - never enough that I remember, of course.

1-2-Writing Workshops Online
About Ryan Edel

Inspiration for Creative Writing

I once asked my classmates in an online workshop about their habits for "finding inspiration." I think I asked "what do you do to get in the writing mindset." The first response I got back was "You should strike that thought from your mind." According to my classmate, no one who wants to be a writer should wait for inspiration or "the right mindset" - you have to just sit down and write. The next day, our teacher chimed in her complete agreement. Writing, as she pointed out, is a daily habit.

Unfortunately, those weren't the answers I was looking for. Mostly I wanted to start conversation, but also I was looking to get an idea of the sort of writers my classmates were. Writers come in all shapes and sizes, and the reasons for why they write reveal a great deal about their personalities. Some write for catharsis, others for the sheer joy of words on the page, a few here and there for the sadistic pleasure of writing a horrible end to people they don't like (not that any readers here would do such a thing...right?)

But most writers don't exactly know why they write. I can give ideas as to why I write, but no one reason is "the" reason. But the tricks I use for inspiration, those are facts. For a long time, I only had simple tricks. Sometimes I'd take a break and watch a movie. Usually I had a good book sitting by my computer. Every once in a while, when nothing was flowing, I'd play a video game - I don't know why, but it helps.

But then I took a freewriting workshop. For those of you unfamiliar with freewriting, it's a way to channel your unconscious thoughts directly onto the page. To freewrite, you sit down and set a timer for maybe ten or fifteen minutes (you can go for longer or shorter, if you like). During those minutes, you write. You write fast. You write the first thing that comes to mind and the next thing that comes to mind and you edit nothing. Just let it flow. Outlandish, unusual, uncomfortable - whatever the thought is, get it on paper and move on to the next one.

From freewriting, I discovered a whole new meaning for the word "inspiration." Instead of waiting on an outside stimulus to "get my mind going," I learned that the greatest stimuli come from deep within, like the deep ocean waves you never see or feel until they come rumbling to shore.

I've taken a few freewriting seminars, but the course that introduced me was a week-long Amherst Method residency taught by Pat Schneider. Pat's Amherst Method is a complete package for learning to write from within - she incorporates freewriting with guidelines to maintain an open and accepting environment for her writers to share their work. If you can, I highly recommend taking an Amherst Method workshop with one of the many certified instructors nationwide.

If you can't make it to a workshop due to time and/or distance, Pat has two very helpful books on the Amherst Method. Writing Alone and With Others and The Writer As an Artist: A New Approach to Writing Alone & with Others are both great resources for getting in touch with your inner self through the Amherst Method. Also, I have heard very good recommendations for the works of Natalie Goldberg. Her most well-known book on this subject is Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Written in 1986, this book explores Goldberg's own experiences with inspiration and how to capture it on the page - Pat Schneider recommended it to our class as a way to become immersed in the methods of freewriting.

If you have a chance, take a freewriting workshop or take a look at some of these books. And let me know what you think. What do you do for for inspiration? How do you get "in the mood" for writing? Or have you found a motivation that keeps you sitting at your writing desk every morning?

1-2-Writing Workshops Online
About Ryan Edel