writer's block Archives

Spring Cleaning: Three Tips for Writers

March 20 was the Spring Equinox, which means spring is officially here! It doesn’t matter that it was actually snowing on March 20 in some parts of the US. It’s spring; I’m claiming it. I think most of us have had enough of Jack Frost, Suzy Snowflake, Old Man Winter, and Polar Vortices to last a lifetime… or at least until November when we’ll be glad the oppressive heat of summer is over.

Spring in my family means more than just winter’s end. We’ll be entering about a seven week glut of birthdays, not to mention sprinkling in Easter and Mother’s Day. We have a lot of celebrating to do over the next month and a half.

But before the parties commence, the cleaning begins. My family spends weeks stripping rooms apart and scrubbing them top to bottom. Nothing is skipped over. Painted surfaces get washed or repainted. Wood gets waxed. Carpets get shampooed. Shelf paper gets replaced. Crystal and silver get polished. Winter linens get laundered and switched out for summer ones.

As a child, I hated it.

As an adult, I avoided it for a long time. I moved so often that I was able to just wait the cleaning out, knowing that in another year, I’d be packing my house and starting over in a new one, essentially “spring cleaning” anyway.

This time, however, I’ve been in Arkansas for a while. The spring cleaning can’t be avoided. I’m grateful my kids didn’t lose too many snow days; they’ll be here to help. They just don’t know it yet.

Sure, the work is hard and time consuming, but the results are always worth it. The house always smells so good—like Murphy’s Oil Soap and lemons. And sometimes fresh paint. And it reminds me of my childhood. There’s no better feeling than resting tired muscles in a clean, clutter-free house and thinking about home.

Spring is a time for new beginnings, fresh starts, clean slates. I hope as this spring commences, it promises something new and wonderful for you.

For Writers:

It’s been a long winter. Many of us have been almost in hibernation, stuck in our homes or offices. And because we’ve been inside for so long, our patterns have become ruts, maybe even blocks. Our workspaces? Well, if yours is like mine, it’s getting out of control.

It’s time for a fresh start. Time for some spring cleaning.

Sometimes the easiest way to break out of a writer’s rut or writer’s block is to simply clean our space. It’s hard to be productive when we’re surrounded with clutter. It’s much easier to do our best work when our writing space is conducive to creativity and productivity.

Desk space — Make sure your writing/typing surface is as clean as possible. Not all of us have dedicated office space. That’s okay if you don’t. It doesn’t matter if you have a glorious mahogany desk, write at the kitchen table, sit on your bed, or type at a coffee shop. Just be certain you have space around you. You want to be able to write in a notebook if you need to. Put down your cup without risk of it falling. Reach for a pen with no fear of knocking something over. Your surface space should be clutter-free.
Wall space — When you write, you don’t always stare at your screen (or notebook). Sometimes you look around when you think. If your eyes can’t rest on something relaxing or helpful, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. Do you have a bulletin board or whiteboard for your WIP? Organize it and clean it up. Do you have a picture hanging on your wall? Can you see it, or are stacks of books and papers in your way? Tidy the mess. Do you look out the window? Clean it, and clean your window coverings, too. It’s best to have no distractions.
File space — Is your computer working correctly? If it’s running slowly or your performance is poor, it could be because you have a virus, or perhaps you just haven’t done any maintenance. When was the last time you ran defrag? Are you spending fifteen minutes looking for a file because you don’t remember where you saved it? Spend some time cleaning up your system and organizing everything into the appropriate folders so your work is more methodical, and therefore faster.

It really doesn’t take much to get your workplace organized for spring. And just sprucing things up in a utilitarian manner might be all it takes to get those creative juices flowing again.

They call my grandma The White Tornado because (1) she has the most beautiful white hair and (2) she can blow through work like crazy, whipping any project into shape. She’s about to turn 96, and she still spring cleans her house. I wish she wasn’t 1,000 miles away; I’d ask her to help me with both my house and my workspace. I know she’d get both neat as a pin in a heartbeat.

What about you? Are you spring cleaning this year? Your house, your workspace, or both? Do you have any cleaning tips or tricks to share? Post them here.

Need Motivation? Look No Further

We’ve been having the strangest weather. My kids have missed eight days for snow already, and we’re in the south. I’m told that’s not unheard of for this area, but come on. What’s the point of living in the south—far from family and good Italian food—if not avoiding snow?

But I digress…

Gramma never complains about crappy situations. She just digs in and deals with what life hands her. And life has handed her some tough situations.

Her family, looking to escape harsh realities in a weak and oppressive Italy, immigrated to Colorado in the early 1900s. She was a young girl running errands for her mother when she encountered one of those tough situations.

When the Going Gets Tough, Gramma Gets Going

She was walking to the general store by herself to obtain a few provisions for her family. It wasn’t far, but the road was deserted for a stretch. She heard a horse and buggy behind her. Horses were her favorite of all animals, so she turned around to admire the animal.

It wasn’t a local farmer, or even a neighbor child.

It was a “gypsy” family.

Her parents had warned her about such wanderers. They weren’t to be trusted.

She stopped staring at the horse and turned her focus back to the road, picking up her pace just a bit.

One of the men sitting in the cart called to her, “Hey, little girl!”

She ignored him. She could see the buildings on the main street of the town, but she wasn’t close enough to yell for help.

“Girly! Wait a minute!” She didn’t know if it was the same man or his partner, and she didn’t turn to find out. They were getting closer.

She broke into a run.

To her utter dismay, she heard the crack of a whip.

They were giving chase.

They were still pretty far behind her, but she knew she couldn’t outrun a horse. She’d never make it all the way to the general store.

Her only chance was to run to the first building she came to.

She ran for her life.

The first building in the street was the post office. She darted inside and, completely breathless, ran behind the counter, ducking down, out of sight.

“Hey! You can’t be back here!” the postmaster said.

She could only shake her head, completely unable to speak. She pointed at the door just as two men and a woman flung it open and dashed inside.

“Can I help you?” the postmaster asked them.

“We’re looking for… our niece,” one of the men said.

The woman spoke up. “She ran away from us.”

“I thought I saw her come in here,” a man said.

The postmaster was silent for a moment.

My grandmother didn’t breathe for a whole other reason. She was terrified he was going to give her up.

Instead, he said, “You’re mistaken. She must have run behind the building. Did you check out back?”

“Maybe if we could just check behind your counter?” one of the men said.

The postmaster held up his hand. “No, you may not. No one is allowed behind this counter unless he is authorized by the United States Government.”

Gramma released a soundless sigh.

“I suggest you be off,” the postmaster said. “You need to find your niece, and it gets dark early in these parts.”

The gypsies left without another word, and soon my grandmother heard the horse and buggy headed away from the post office.

“It’s safe now,” the postmaster said, and helped her out from behind his counter.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” my grandmother said. “How did you know I wasn’t with them?”

“You can always tell good from bad,” he said.

Certain Universal Truths

I always love it when my grandmother tells that story. You can tell good from bad, if you look hard enough. And you can do anything if you set your mind to it. Even get away from potential kidnappers. Or get out of a winter’s funk.

I’ve been feeling the winter’s blues. A lot of my writing friends have, too. But thinking about the hardships my grandmother has overcome is quite motivating to me. I’ve never had to escape anything so daunting as potential abductors. I don’t know if they were really “gypsies,” but I do know the threat was real. And I know she’s been through other tragedies in her life, too.

I just had a minor bout of writer’s block. Not quite on the same scale, hardship-wise. Still, it’s nothing I want to keep banging my head against.

But overcoming any obstacle requires digging down deep to find that inner kernel of strength and determination that will see us through to the other side. I’d like to think I get that from my grandmother.

When you’re feeling a little out of sorts, who do you look to for inspiration? Why don’t you share that story here?

Six Speakers, I Mean, Reasons Why Saturday Was So Great

This weekend marked the return of one of my favorite annual events… and of course I don’t mean the loss of an hour of sleep. One look at the bags under my eyes and you would know that’s not something I yearn for. Nope, Saturday was Northwest Arkansas Writers’ Annual Writers Workshop. I anticipate this event for a number of reasons:

It’s yet another chance to hang out with my friends.
I get to network with writers and other professionals in the industry.
Information is always presented in a fun and low key way.
It’s the only conference I know of that’s completely free to attend.

This year was no exception. I sat with my two partners in crime (one of whom was actually mistaken for my sister, which is hilarious because she’s a blonde with blue eyes and I’m brunette and brown) and we met some really nice people. We also heard some great information, the highlights of which I’m going to pass along to you here.

There’s a group of five women in the NWA Writers Group who call themselves The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pen. Unfortunately one of them, Claire Croxton, was sick and couldn’t attend (however we’ve been promised a blog post from her regarding getting book reviews). The other four put on an excellent presentation.

Pamela Foster began the day discussing sense of place. Frequent readers of my blog might recognize Pam’s ability to set a mood—she’s guest posted for me before. Her ability to construct a scene is second to none. She defines a sense of place as nothing more—and nothing less—than the world you create for your characters and all the methods through which they experience it. It is not and cannot be separate from point of view and internalization, because it is through point of view and internalization that the character shows the reader the world.

She then introduced another “sister,” Ruth Burkett Weeks. Ruth discussed document formatting. It’s a standard assumption in the industry that if a writer is sloppy with formatting, she’ll be sloppy with writing, so she spent a few minutes covering industry standards. Then she pulled out the big guns—Ruth is all about the bling. There’s no point in writing if you’re going to be boring. She likes words that sizzle and pop. She gave us a long list of lazy words to avoid and examples of ways to avoid their usage and strengthen those passages. She ended her presentation with a word of advice about the glitz—a little will make your work shimmer; a lot will make it bruise. Avoid purple prose.

That brought Jan Morrill to the podium. You might recognize Jan from a recent guest post she did here utilizing a strategy she actually discussed at length at the conference. Jan discussed ways to get to know your characters and make them memorable. She covered interviewing them, having them describe artwork in their voice, writing a scene over from a different character’s point of view, and writing a letter from one character to another. Jan gave us examples of the strategies she used from her published book and her work in progress and then gave us time to work on our own character interview. Many people learned new things about their characters.

Jan introduced Linda Apple, who is referred to as the Mama of the group. Linda covered reasons why writers don’t write and offered solutions to their problems. She really nailed them all, too—editing as you go, having no ideas, feeling drained, spending time on other writing activities, sabotaging yourself, managing your time ineffectively… And like a true mama, she had excellent advice for conquering all of the issues. She left us with a poignant thought: There’s only one guarantee in writing… if you don’t write anything, you’ll never be published.

If you get a chance to hear the Sisters speak, I highly recommend it. I just took a six week course they taught at the Fayetteville Public Library, and they did a phenomenal job. You won’t be disappointed.

After lunch, one of the founding members of NWA Writers took her turn offering some advice. Velda Brotherton talked to us about promotion efforts. Contrary to what many writers think/wish/hope, promotion doesn’t start after the contract is signed or the book is published. In fact, you may not get the contract if you haven’t started connecting with readers long before your book is even written. The first thing an agent or editor will do is Google you, and if your name doesn’t pop up, your novel won’t get picked up. Velda strongly recommended having a presence on Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest, in addition to a webpage and a blog. Her research shows that Google+ may overtake Facebook in the not too distant future, because Google+ allows you to choose who views your content where Facebook decides for you. Above all else, she stressed that a social media presence is about connecting with readers, not about hawking your books. We’re here to make friends and help people, not scare them away by being nuisances.

The afternoon ended with the other co-founder, Dusty Richards, giving us a writing tutorial. It was twice as nice because he used many examples from his own books. He covered everything from the importance of writing short stories as well as novels to how sequels must stand on their own as well as in their place in their series. Dusty is an expert storyteller, and he engaged the audience from the first piece of advice to bidding us farewell. He already has the room reserved for next year’s conference (March 8, 2014) and I know I’ll be attending. I hope I’ll see some of you there. Like I said, it’s a great day to hang out with your friends, network with people in the industry, and learn valuable information. Mark your calendars now so you don’t forget!

Get in the Groove

Originally posted August 24, 2011

I have a routine. I put on music (classical music – channel 866 or classic rock channel 862 on DirecTV) when I’m writing (depending on my mood) or my own personal playlist (the Rocky soundtrack if I’m writing an action sequence or some of my favorite love songs if I’m doing a love scene) and sit down at my laptop. I make sure I have something to drink – water, coffee, or tea – and I make sure the dog has gone out and has toys and snacks at his disposal so I won’t be interrupted.

Then I write.

Routine is important. I need background music for flow. I don’t listen to it, but I hear it, and it keeps me going. I need something to drink nearby because writing hard is exhausting, and it makes me as thirsty as a hard workout does. If I’ve got something to quench my thirst right near my hand, I don’t have to get up, and therefore, I don’t have to break my rhythm. If the dog is placated, I won’t be interrupted, and I can just type.

The familiarity gets me in a groove easier than if I try to write somewhere new everyday. It gets me back in my story faster. And the sooner I’m in the story, the sooner the story is on the page.

Yes, there are benefits to a change in scenery or an interruption or two. If I have writer’s block, changing the music or sitting with my laptop in a cafe or at a park can work wonders. If the plot or characters start wandering in an odd or stagnant direction, a change in my routine can result in a change in my writing – a change for the better. But if things are going well, why mess with the formula?

My recommendation? Find what works for you and stick with it.