Time and Place

It's been a rough week for me, very rough indeed. I pushed myself to do my distance cycling (though by the end, I am not sure whether my bicycle or my knees were groaning the loudest). I also put in some quality treadmill time, took care of some household chores, finished up some business stuff, and prepared for Saturday's Writing Workshop (2:30 - 4:30 p.m., Park Forest library, for those who are interested). Right now I need find something relaxing to do.

By relaxing, I mean editing my latest work.

"How is that relaxing?" you might ask, and you wouldn't be alone in that sentiment. However, for everything we get into, we need to know the best way to react to it and the best way to take advantage of it. When I have been through a lot of physically demanding stuff along with stressful activities, I guarantee that the best place for my mind to settle into is the meticulous job of doing a line-edit or busily proofreading a manuscript (of which I have three to get through). During that process, I put my sore body into a comfortable position and let the critical, intellectual part of my mind take over. Sometimes I even have a metronome ticking in the background at 60 cycles per minute to match my usual resting heart rate (yes, there are plenty of apps for that). The point is, it works for me at that moment.

To further that point, as writers, we need to know what activities, outside factors, and other influences bring us into a place where we are ready to write. This could be a totally different set of factors than those that prepare our minds for editing, or just reading, or doing literally anything else. We need to maintain a certain self-awareness where we can monitor ourselves and realize, "You know, I do my best writing when I wake up," or, "My attention is the sharpest on a full stomach," or whatever. This way we target our senses and our moods to make the best out of a situation we're in.

You know my editing mindset already. Well, my best writing mindset is any time I am sitting in front of my laptop (that has become a physical cue worthy of Pavlov's dog), in some sort of public setting, with general noise in the background - but not too loud. It's better when I have been awake for a little bit, and preferably after having thought about personal things (I think that opens the creative doors for me). Once I have those elements around me, I just go into writing mode. Using just those little signs, I wrote an entire manuscript on my daily train ride.

Here's an experiment: Figure out what your best and worst situations for writing, reading, and for editing are (chances are they're all different moods). Then, for the next few weeks, when you find yourself in the ideal situation for writing, do some writing. Write literally anything - just start working that part of your brain. When the situation is best for reading, do that - focus on it and commit to it. And when the time is write to edit, well, hopefully you will be able to edit all that stuff you did during the writing phase.

Give yourself a month of doing that, then review the results. Look at what you've created, and examine how you feel about it. Hopefully, you will be in the first stages of forming some good writing habits, and you will be using them to the best of your abilities.       

A Little Comment About Modifiers

Instead of me rambling for a few paragraphs before getting to the point, let's just jump right into this while the subject is fresh. I deliberately used the word "little" in the title to make a point, and it's about modifiers. Specifically, what do they offer and when do we really need to use them? There are definitely occasions where modifiers are necessary - how will the reader know if a character is tall, dark, and handsome if you don't say it? - but we tend to use them more than we need to, and our writing pays the price.

Take the title of this piece: "A Little Comment About Modifiers." In this title, "Little" is the modifier, and it makes the title sound all quaint and homey. However, what does this actually provide the reader? By merely looking at the screen, you can tell that this commentary is about the usual length of my comments, so there's nothing really little about it. So, by calling it little, the only thing I am really accomplishing is a sort of trivialization of a commentary that I am actually proud of. One might say I am belittling it - pun intended.

Is this nit-picking? Sort of. We often use words such as these in standard conversation, putting an inflection on them so that whoever is listening gets the point. Often this comes with no shortage of sarcasm. "Why don't I like black olives? Let me give you a little hint - I'm allergic to them!" In this spoken-word example, little is far from referring to something small, but rather understating something that is actually very important. In this case, I openly endorse using a modifier in this manner.

However, most people don't do this, and it gets thrown around without concern, all to the detriment of our poor readers.

"I was a little mad." "We were sort of lost." "She was kind of tall." In these examples, using a modifier takes a simple point-of-fact comment, and actually makes it less interesting. A reader wants to read about someone being mad, not a little mad. How different is being lost from sort of lost? Kind of tall is kind of boring. Each of these sentences has a wonderful opportunity to bring forth some real creativity and make the lines pop, but instead they become weaker for their modifier. Whenever you find yourself using a weak modifier like, a little, kind of, sort of, or similar words, use the opportunity to write a few lines that really show off your writing. Here's what I did with the examples at the beginning of the sentence.

"I was mad. Not foaming-at-the-mouth, red-in-the-face, take-a-swing-at-anything mad, but pretty damn far from happy."

"We were lost. It felt like if we just backtracked a few intersections and took one left instead of a right, we'd be on our way, but we didn't know which right turn was the wrong one."

"She was tall. Her height let her stand just above any crowd, enough to make eye contact with her from across the room"

That's all it takes, and the reader gets a little more engaged rather than a little more bored. So, give this a little try on your next piece, and see if it makes a little difference.           

Writing the Perfect Word

I'll be the first to admit that today I am under the weather. Not in that good, hungover, "I feel horrible but it was worth it" kind of way, but in that spring cold bug in the sinuses kind of way. This kind of stuff really saps my energy, so in some ways this will not be a long post. In other ways, however, it will be very long. Confused? Well, I will fall back on Mark Twain's quote, “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

When we don't concern ourselves with getting the perfect words on the page, we can actually write quite a bit. We can write long, drawn-out descriptions of many things, we can ramble on about our annoying sinus cold, we can explain in one-hundred words what might normally take us twenty to discuss. That's where I am at right now - I want to explain something fairly simple, but since my batteries are low, I will not focus on using the one perfect word and instead throw a cloud of ten at you in exchange.

It's only by sheer chance that the subject of the perfect word came up today when I am feeling far from perfect. Someone in our writing workshop was discussing their recent writing experience, and their observation boiled down to this: Getting exactly the right word to stand for everything you want to say, knowing that word will last well beyond your time, is surprisingly hard. Words are like that. They carry a lot of weight, but they are also precise devices meant to tap into very particular emotions. Love and hate are thrown around a lot because they refer to strong emotions, but we all know that they are broad terms that sometimes miss the more detailed point we want to make, whereas passion and rage  might be far better qualified to speak on your behalf. This is the exhausting part of choosing the right word.

Back during my time in finance, Fed Chief Alan Greenspan used the term, "irrational exuberance" during one of his speeches back in late-1996. You likely do not remember the speech, but that two-word phrase caught on as the best way to describe the building stock-market bubble that promptly blew up a little over three years later. Two words that defined the late 1990s. Why did they catch on? Well, it likely comes as no surprise that Greenspan later acknowledged that he spent twenty minutes sitting in the bath, ruminating over the exact way to quantify just what the markets suspected. Twenty minutes figuring out two words? Really? Well, they were well-spent because long afterward, those words remain a key phrase in finance and economics books discussing that era.

As for my friend on the writing group, he was looking for a word to go on a headstone. I don't know how long he spent on the challenge, but I am sure it was more time than Chairman Greenspan spent. And that is just why we can rush through and write a blog post in twenty minutes to talk about the exhaustive effort it takes to choose the right words. And it's also why we read those works again when we have more time and energy, comb through the meaning, and make it a real work of art.

For now, I have finished my words, so I am going to retreat to the couch and fight off this bug.          

A Writer's Non-Writing Tip

Anyone who knows me or who is a regular (or semi-regular) reader of this blog knows I have had a pretty rough month or so. I won't go into details about that - look over my post list and I think you'll get the gist of things. Now, in the past I have discussed ways to use adversity or hard times to sharpen your writing skills - often they boil down to, "write about things." However, this has been a very trying time for me, so I've kicked it into high gear and pulled out my strongest writing tool. Surprisingly, it doesn't even involve writing.

As an aside, some of the most intense writing I ever did was during my career in finance as an economist. I had my lovely little space where I would write, and I would diligently put together some truly inspired, insightful, perfectly voiced analysis. These things were legends of economic writing, and I would share them right now if they weren't proprietary information. Anyway, the most telling sign that I was in the middle of a truly epic writing breakthrough is the energy-savers on the office lights would kick in and the area would go dim. I would have to wave my arms around so the energy-saver detectors would recognize there was a human in the office and turn the lights back on, then I would diligently go back to my work, which involved me being motionless. Not writing, not moving, not doing anything but thinking. And what thoughts they were.

Sometimes, a writer's greatest things are in their head. Not their greatest writing - that's always in words - but their greatest ideas and insights form within the chaos of the mind. A writer can sit there, eyes fixated on a blank screen, for long stretches while their mind churns over amazing thoughts, connecting the dots into unseen patterns that suddenly bring out a picture they never expected. And then... the magic happens and they write it down just as easily as anything else.

So, getting back to my point about this strongest writing tool that I keep in my back pocket for the truly tough times, it's surprisingly simple. In my case, I go for a walk. Not sightseeing, not adventuring. I walk around, and let my mind mill through what is really bugging me. The grief, the sorrow, the frustration or the fear of mortality - I let those things take over and watch what they do and where they go. One by one, they run around, scream, rage, bring out all their anxieties, and reveal everything I need to know about them. I let them wear themselves down until they are ragged and exhausted, and I see what they are really yelling about. I see what scares them, what frightens them, what makes them demand so much of my brain's bandwidth. At that point, I know exactly what they are. At that point, I can bring out the writer's favorite tool - I can write about them, and put them away for good. 

I'm not saying this is easy - I took a 15-mile walk today to try and wear down the current beasts - but it is important. Sometimes we need to hand the mic over to the problems and just let them rage. Preferably in a safe place, like on a walk, or while we're cycling, or somewhere without much distraction. Then, once we do this, we can create some of the most genuine, honest writing we have ever accomplished. And a little cardio as well.         

Hump Day - The Writing Version

Any writer has been there; many more than once. We have our character, we have our conflict, we know the ending we want. We jump into the creative process full-force - whether with a short story, a novella, or a full-length manuscript, we take on the project eagerly and relentlessly. It is something we have thought about, planned for, and spread out before us as the grand design for a wonderful creation. We hit those words running, and we create. We create a wonderful opening, our first sentence is a real grabber, our character introduction is perfect, everything's right on schedule. And then...

then...

Oof. Then there's a lag. A big, fat, old nothing. We've gotten our story to a point and we look forward and see this big empty page before us. We've burned through the exciting part and now we sit in the thick of creation, and it feels like something's missing. We are no longer connecting things. We know the next conflict, the next challenge, but our character is just sitting there, and we can't seem to figure out just how to get them to the next scene. It's a common problem, but it is the worst thing because we go from full-speed ahead to just sitting on the side of the road.

This is usually a sign that the character is missing an internal driver, or least the writer isn't completely in touch with it quite yet. Often, stories flow like chase scenes - the character hits an intersection and has to turn left, right, straight, or stop. Once that choice is made, they go barreling head-long into the next decision rushing upon them, turning into side plots and character-developing arcs, passing distractions and knocking over inconvenient story obstacles. However, story development isn't always so clean. Sometimes, the rush of the story doesn't force the character to make a choice, and they must make the decision on their own. That's when the trouble comes. That's when the writing can't get over the hump.

When we know a character in full, when we understand them well enough to write about them, we know the little things. Do they prefer chicken or fish? What's their favorite color? What's their go-to song during karaoke? These things may never come up, but we can jump at the opportunity to provide an answer. However, we also need to know what moves them, what draws them in, what makes them interesting enough to have their own story. And one of the most important things we need to know is what moves them from one scene to the next when nobody is chasing them through the story. When the decision is theirs alone, what do they do?

Often, this is difficult to write instinctively because a lot of examples around us are idle examples, or times when the world happens to us, not when we venture out and take a chance. The way to get over the hump is to think about what pushes us internally to make big decisions, to take major steps in life, when nobody is forcing us. We need to find our own inner force, and then look for something similar in our  character. Once we find that, the writing becomes that force pushing us past the hump and into our next scene. From there we continue.

Simply put, to truly know your character, know what moves them, what inspires them. What makes them laugh or cry? What sound might draw them into a room? What might cause them to take a day off of work, or to break from their habits? Know those things, and there won't be any humps to overcome.   

Writing Aside: Tom Hernandez

This morning I woke to, among other things, an email telling me that at 1:30 a.m., Tom Hernandez, co-founder of the WriteOn group in Joliet, passed away. In all honesty, I knew this email was coming. Everyone who knew Tom knew this email would show up. We had been preparing for this moment for a while, and yet when it arrived, I feel everyone realized they were never actually ready for it. Maybe we can never be entirely ready. And yet, at 1:30 this morning, Tom passed away.

As mentioned, this came as no surprise. A while ago, Tom notified us that he had a pretty vicious form of cancer. He would be fighting the good fight, but he acknowledged that this kind of cancer wasn't one to give up easily, and more often than not, it won the battle. This was a lot to take in, and the fight would in fact be real-life game of crack-the-whip for all parties involved. Eventually it reached a point of inevitability, and everyone found a way to process what the future would be. I took a slightly different spin on it. I made a decision that I would look at what I had learned from this horrible set of experiences, and that's how I will remember Tom.

We all know the classic action-thriller structure: Unwilling character brought into a struggle of immense proportions and forced to not only fight for their very existence against insurmountable odds, but to eventually rise up and be the hero, saving the world and walking away triumphant. It's pretty standard, and it's always good for some high-adventure fun. The classics, however, stand apart from the everyday action movie for one reason, and it has nothing to do with the outcome. Rather, it's all about how the story was told. Did we go into the Lord of the Rings books wondering if Sauron would ultimately conquer Middle Earth, leaving the civilized world in flames? Nope - we knew that good would prevail somehow. The real grabber, however, was the telling of the story, and how everything developed.

Full disclosure: When Tom first made his announcement, a part of me knew - knew - it wouldn't end well. I was supportive and rallied for his cause, but a part of me started preparing for that day I would get the email. However, a funny thing happened. Even though in my mind I knew how the story would end, I started paying more attention to how Tom lived those moments of his fight. I watched as he put forth goals to reach and different landmarks to achieve, how he took a special appreciation for what life he had, even as his very body tried taking it from him. Suddenly, I wasn't thinking about the end of the story, but rather the story unfolding in front of me. And it was fascinating. I learned about living from Tom's last few years of life, even though the story would soon end.

The final conclusion to me is this: We all have that end coming. Some day our friends and loved ones will get that email about us. Young or old, unexpectedly or foreseen, all of our stories end with that email. However, the part that counts the most, the only part that matters, is the story that comes before that final page. To the people seeing our story, we are the hero facing the insurmountable odds, fighting the good fight, and walking away having done the best we ever could. We inspire others around us to be better writers, better people, or just better. The end of the story will come, but people will remember the adventure, so it's up to us to make it a good one. 

Rest in peace, Tom.                

A Good Thing About Social Media

I will admit this, possibly to the surprise of my many former colleagues in the financial sector, but the writer in me misses my days back in economics. During that time, I would do a lot of writing, though a lot of it was actually reporting - discussing economic indicators, legislation, political shenanigans and so forth. I would report on those, analyze their impact, and then draw conclusions from everything I processed. If this is boring you already, you truly understand the broader world of economics.

Since this was reporting, the writing could be dry. Real dry. Like overdone toast in the Sahara dry. It was very business-like, very research-driven, and finding room for a personal voice was difficult. However, the writing was only half of the job. The other half was knowing what I wrote about so well that I could defend it like a doctoral dissertation, which also meant writing what I knew well enough to explain it to people who could throw questions at me from any and every direction - and often did.

Now, did it make a difference just how I wrote about the correlation between the Spanish peseta and the Portuguese escudo during the late 1980s? Not really. What had the biggest impact was being able to sit there, face senior management, and take fire from everything from currency discussions to whether or not that's the proper spelling of escudo. (My guess is few of you know the spelling for sure and even fewer care.) This was a constant test of my mettle, every question a make-or-break challenge. I assure you that all of those questions made me a better economist, sometimes even when I didn't have an answer because it got me thinking more about the subject.

Now here's where this all ties into social media. I have often extolled the benefits of writing workshops,  in part because it provides that same question-and-discussion format that makes things interesting. Well, one thing in particular that social media offers is about a bajillion pages for beginning writers, aspiring writers, creative writers, and all other kinds of writers. These forums have people posting totally random questions about voice, perspective, PoV shifts, how to structure a story, and so on ad infinitum. More importantly, responses come from everywhere. These aren't just dialogues with one board moderator, but with an entire community of writers, some of whom have the exact same questions, and plenty who can offer their own insights and their experiences. The best part? It's all there for you to jump into. If you have an answer, throw it into the thread. If you have a question, post it and let the answers pour in. And, of course, read the comment threads (though at your own risk - comment threads are notoriously volatile) and find things you like.

Now, the writer pages on Facebook might not be as exciting as the peseta:escudo relationship back when those were real currencies, but that's for you to decide. I've been writing for over twenty years, and I still find questions that challenge me. Furthermore, I often answer peoples' questions in a way that make me really think about my form and process before I open my big mouth. It's just like an interrogation by senior management, except there's less money on the table. 

The advice part of this piece: Hop onto social media and just join a few writing groups. I prefer Aspiring Writers United and Fiction Writers, but a simple group search under "writing" or "creativity" should provide a wealth of groups to work with. (And again, be careful with the comment thread. Seriously.)