A New Kind of Thinking (for writers)

I admit this next post will date me a little, but I grew up in a school system that was big on "New Math." For those who are not familiar, New Math was simply teaching certain mathematical principles in new and different ways, often to the confusion of second-graders like myself. Before this, everyone was familiar with the numbers 0-9, and how they were arranged in columns for the ones, tens, hundreds, etc., then they learned how to do all the mathematical operations. New Math, however, explained this numberical concept as "Base 10" - there were ten numbers to choose from and build off of - and then taught us Base 8, and even Base 16 where the additional six numbers were A, B, C, D, E, and F. Now, a simple problem such as 7+7 changed around depending on the base. In Base 10, the answer is 14, in Base 8 it's 16, and in Base 16 it's E. Yes, E. In short, second grade was confusing for me.

What this mathematical madness did, however, was teach us how to think outside the standards we assumed. Base 10 is a given that we just take for granted, so realizing there are other ways gives us new perspective. (As an aside, Base 16 connected to the foundation of computer processing, which was a burgeoning field at the time, so best to teach it early.) Anyway, this New Math didn't change how I did my mathematics and I stayed in Base 10 for balancing my checkbook and other manual operations we performed with numbers back in the 20th century. I didn't count my change in Base 16 or anything, but I knew when it could be applied and I knew D2 was larger than 8F.

When it comes to the creative mind, we have to flex our creativity by exercising it in different ways. This usually means blowing away some preconceived notion and seeing what the world looks like. This isn't the easiest thing to do because a lot of assumptions are so predefined we don't even realize they're there. If I were to suggest you write about your favorite food dish at Thanksgiving dinner, you would likely offer up a bit about the big, juicy turkey, a wide variety of pies (including pecan), a savory side dish, or maybe even a special holiday relish. 

All of these are fine things to write about, but it limits us creatively because the moment I said "food" is the moment you went toward the concept of how the dishes taste. The taste is the preconceived notion we can remove to really do some creative flexing. If the assignment becomes, "Write about your favorite food dish without using references to taste or smell," this forces you to examine the other sensory inputs underlying that meal. Maybe the aforementioned pecan pie now becomes enjoyable with the blending of crispy baked walnuts within the gooey filling and a crumbly crust. Maybe you go back to the hot, moist turkey breast, or the creaminess of the rutabaga pudding (I can DM you a recipe). Whatever the case is, you now think about something common through an uncommon lens. You get that creative flex.

This doesn't mean that writing always has to be about something other than the obvious. A forest can have its greenery, the sky can be blue, etc. However, when you really want to understand something on a deeper level, you need to see past the obvious and try to explore those aspects. If you write about painting your living room, make references to the crackling sound of the roller on the wall, the tacky feel of paint on your fingers, and I challenge you to find a way to describe the smell of housepaint. The color is incidental - the real challenge is making the paint tangible as something more than a can of blue stuff.     

Adjustments, Big and Small

Over the past few weeks, it seems everything is changing in my life - some by choice, some by the will of the world. Aside from being deprived of electricity for five days after last week's storm, other things are shifting. My old car finally drove its last mile, so now I am driving a different car. I am trying to settle into a new sleep schedule, which my middle-aged body is resisting, and I have a bunch of new people and new adventures I am taking on for various reasons. It's a lot to digest, and it can feel overwhelming. However, I constantly remind myself that I went through some very similar changes when I decided to adventure into writing, and yes, my mind resisted. I just had to keep telling myself that this was change for the better.

Here's a simple example most people experience when they dive into the writing pool. They have a story in their head, perhaps one they've told many times to others, or just mulled over in private. When they first decide to take that step into writing, they transcribe the story from brain to the page as quickly as they can. They take pride in this accomplishment (as they should), but realize all too quickly - perhaps as quickly as their first writing workshop - how the voice we think in and the way we tell a story do not satisfy the requirements of the written page. Often, we verbally tell stories in the passive voice, but this will hit the page with a thud. The written word needs to move quickly, reducing the excess baggage and offering sharp, concise verbs, adjectives, and descriptions. Telling a story and writing a story sound completely different, and one of the first things a writer must do is learn the new langauge of the written page.

Also, while writers often benefit from possessing a broad vocabulary, they need to learn how to throw out certain words - or at least restrain them. There are little words such as "that" which often have no purpose other than add to word count. I once edited an 80,000-word manuscript and did a quick check - "that" was used over 700 times, mostly with no purpose (It is allowed if it is the object in a sentence, but that's another subject). There is a whole list of words I will discuss in a later post which a good writer needs to scrub out of their vocabulary. Just for the moment, accept this as change for the better. (And yes, I still proof my own writing for unnecessary uses of "that.")

And of course, the newly-minted writer who may explore the first-person point of view will come to a striking realization of how many things don't need to be said. A sentence such as, "I thought to myself, 'That's weird,'" explains the character's mindset but forgets that we, the readers, are already in the mind of the character. We don't need to be prompted with, "I thought..." because we know the perspective we are coming from. And, of course, when a person thinks, who else do they think to but themselves? Wipe out the "to myself" part. In short, that sentence could (and should) be rewritten as, "That;s weird." with the italics used to suggest internal dialogue. Same sentence, two-thirds fewer words.

There is a whole laundry list of adjustments we make as we explore creative writing, and they are all a hassle. However, such as my change of cars and sleep schedule, it works out better when we accept these things as moves for the better. Uncomfortable, yes, but also necessary.    

The Story of the Storm

I feel it necessary to offer a modest apology for the tardiness of this post. Now, as some of you know from my posts or from having talked with me, I have been recovering from surgery in June. Well, my recent lack of content has nothing to do with that. Rather, the larger influence on my creative process has been the impact of the tornadoes that rolled through this region a week ago, downing trees everywhere and knocking out power lines wherever they could be found. I spent five days without power, sitting in the dark, listening to everything spoin in the refrigerator, and I was one of the luckier ones. There are souls who still don't have power and might not see electricity for another week. I am guessing they won't be posting much either.

Now, when about half-a-dozen tornadoes come storming through your area, etching a path of destruction in their wake, we want to tell this to others. Writers want to turn this into a story, of course, but this is where it gets difficult. Tornadoes are terrifying things - everyone knows that. They sound like freight trains rolling toward your house, and the sound of a one-hundred-year-old oak tree snapping its trunk resonates like an explosion. The wreckage afterward can be other-worldly, leaving us just slack-jawed at the carnage surrounding us. And yet, where is the story? What is it that we, as writers, can pull out of this to bring the interest to our story? This is where it gets tough.

For a story to be something more than just reporting on what happened, there needs to be a thread woven through the entire thing that contains a unique mood, a sentiment, a perspective, or something the reader can follow through like a clear path through the disaster. Without that, stories drift around aimlessly, providing a lot of information but not really taking the reader through an experience. 

I offer my experience as an example. I had been outside for over two hours that morning, and the humidity was unreal. Even though the sun was not very intense, my clothes were saturated with sweat, my energy quickly draining. Then, just as I prepared to walk back home for a video call, I felt the air change. The sweat on my body chilled as the air pressure dropped, and heavy clouds rolled in, their ominous green tinting speaking of dangerous weather. I walked a little faster as the wind picked up, the first rumbles of thunder coming in from the west. I wasn't inside five minutes before the rain sheeted down in torrents, and with one flash of lightning, the power went out. I made my video call on my phone and tried to focus on the other voices, but for twenty minutes there was the constant interruption of thunder, of something hitting off the house, of a tree trunk rupturing, and the rain trying to sweep away the house.

And then it ended. Within a minute, Nature's wrath was over, the torrent was a drizzle, the green sky now just a boring, overcast gray. However, looking outside, the weather had rewritten the geography of my street. Mighty trees were horizontal, pulled up from the very roots, my street now a river of branches and garbage clogging up the sewer drains. My shirt was still damp with the sweat from a muggy morning, yet I was in a new, unrecognizeable world.

My thread in that story was change, my vehicle simple sensory pickups. I was lucky - no large trees fell on my house or car, no structural damage, just no electricity for about 121 hours. People a few towns over would have much worse stories to tell, so I am not complaining. For now, I am just offering this as my story - it's what happened to me, and this is how I offer it as a writer.

And I do apologize for the recent lack of content. I will try not to have disasters interrupt me in the future.    

Nobody's Perfekt

Now that I am getting back some of my energy and feeling a little more up to speed, I thought it best to provide some fresh content. More to the point, I wanted to bring up a writing trait worth complaining about. Or, rather, I should say, a not-writing trait worth complaining about. It has everything to do with the art of perfection, and what some people do to their writing in pursuit of this goal.

Let me preface this by saying there is nothing wrong with perfection. By definition, that statement is true. Pursuing it is also admirable, since such an endeavour forces us to become better writers. Now, having said all that, let me drop in the little caveat: We should all pursue perfect, but we should never expect to achieve it. This is where a lot of writers go off the rails.

I was reminded of this by a story told by a fellow member of the workshop I facilitate. He told a story of someone known as The Maker, who tried to create the perfect being, only to be disappointed each time, leading to an obsession that eventually brought about The Maker's own destruction. This is very much the writer's dilemma, and I have witnessed it in many people trying to write their stories. They know their story, they have it all in their heads, but translating it from neurons into words on a page becomes a challenge they did not expect. They get bogged down in details, trying to create the perfect page, the perfect paragraph, the perfect sentence. The frustration takes them away from the act of creation, and often that story never gets told in full. This is truly a tragedy.

Now, do I complain about these writers? Hardly - I try to push them to write first, to create before they edit, and to commit to the story before working on the grammar. The rest is up to them. Then there are writers who bring a rough draft of their story to the workshop - any workshop, really - they read their rough draft, then apologize for it being a rough draft. At that point, I let them know a few facts. First, I tell them there's no need to apologize because what they have done is created something. That's the win for any writer. Then I ask them what feels so rough about what they just read. This forces them to do a little self-critiquing: Was there word repetition? Passive voice? PoV problems? Usually their instincts are on par with exactly what I would've commented about. Sometimes they admit it's not the story they were hoping to tell, and we discuss that as well. But all of this comes with the insistence that there's no need to apologize.

So, what do I complain about with writers? My one complaint is when a writer wants to tell a story but decides in advance they don't have the skill, tanent, vocabulary, or whatever, and they never try to write it. That one gets me every time.  

Finding the Story

Today was quite the day. The morning kicked off with some absolutely tropical humidity, and then the temperature started to rise. I was out there this morning melting away, getting chased by a stray dog, wondering how it could get so hot so fast, but then the clouds came in. Quickly. Then my phone chimed off with one of those shrieking alarms telling me (and everyone else) to head for shelter in light of the tornado warning. I went inside, the winds picked up, and a monstrous storm exploded onto the scene, replete with green skies, twisting winds, and debris everywhere. It was a drive-by storm, with the worst over before it could be appreciated, and before long the rain ended. In its wake, however, were flooded viaducts, scattered branches, downed trees, blinking traffic lights and power outages.

So, as a writer, I am thinking, "Where's the story here?"

When I say, "Where's the story," you might think, "It's right there in the first paragraph. You sketched out the key points in that one space!" That's where the difference lies - the first paragraph contains the information of this afternoon's events, and the setting for whatever story I may write. However, the storm itself is not very story-worthy. It was impressive, yes, but telling people all about the details of the storm is not storytelling, it's reporting. Finding the story is locating that one thread within the events and tracing that valuable path as it tells about a specific aspect of life. 

If I were to tell a story about this morning and the run-up to the storm, it would've involved the tensions surrounding my late-morning/noontime events. I was hot, tired, and saturated with sweat, trying to get my work outside completed. However, nature had other plans. I was repeatedly approached and harrassed by a stray dog acting erratically and drooling around the mouth. My legs grew exhausted as I tried to complete the last mile's-worth of work - all with this dog lurking nearby. I called the local police and got animal control to come out and round up the dog, knowing my clock was ticking and I had very little energy left but work had to be done. With the dog situation in someone else's hands, I went back to my last responsibilities, but saw the clouds on the horizon. Dark, scary clouds. Now I had to make a choice - race against time in my fatigued state and try to wrap things up before the storm hit, or play it safe, get inside, and dive for cover because my work could be finished afterward. 

The focus onthe challenge of time and fatigue versus completing the tasks at hand draws interest; it creates an urge in the reader to figure out how things will go. There's a need for resolution that only the story can satisfy. The storm itself is one of the forces working against the character, along with fatigue, heat, and the ever-present dog, but the story is about the challenge of completing things.

And to offer some closure, I did wrap up my duties, got inside, watched the storm from the relative safety of my own home, then went out to hand off my work.

I do not, however, know what happened to the dog.    

Writing and RAGBRAI

Regular readers of this piece know that I enjoy bicycling, particularly long-distance bicycling. In the spring and summer months (this year being an exception), I can often be found conquering the roads and trails throughout the region. I love covering the miles, taking in the fresh air, maintaining a heart rate higher than my cholesterol reading, and zooming along on my trusty Schwinn. And like any distance cyclist, I have had an interest in RAGBRAI.

My trusty Schwinn

For the uninitiated, RAGBRAI is a ride held by the Des Moines Register, going by the full name of  Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). It is a nearly 500-mile, week-long journey across a state which, much to my surprise, is not entirely a flat, empty prairie full of corn. This grand ride is one of the longest continuous ones in the country, and you will get to go with approximately 60,000 of your compatriots-in-cyclingon this grand travel. RAGBRAI has always drawn my attention because of its epic length, its challenge to the human physique, and the skill required to endure such a long ride. And yes, there's a part of me that would love to take this grand trek throughout the Midwest.

Then I face the simple fact: I would die. The ride would kill me. Literally kill me.

Why do I go on praising RAGBRAI just to shoot myself down and walk away from the challenge? Simple: I know what my training has built me for. Now, I openly admit that if I was able to dedicate myself to such distance training, get a bike better suited for distance than my trusty Schwinn, and apply discipline to other parts of my life (health, diet, physique), RAGBRAI would be very doable, and indeed enjoyable. However, that's not what I've trained for. My cycling style is slower, more methodical, and used primarily as a physical meditation on the world at 15 miles per hour. The distance happens, yes. Howevber, seven consecutive days of rides averiging almost 70 miles a shot would take their toll. I would die, and that would be the end of it. Mission unaccomplished.

 Why am I going on about this? Because I think about the same trek I have taken with writing. Without question, I wanted to write a book for many years, but the thought of it was freaking impossible. Four-hundred pages of continuous storytelling, complete with a satisfying character hourney, complete story arcs and subplots, and constant reader interest? Never gonna happen. However, I realized back then that, just like RAGBRAI, that writing journey was not possible because I hadn't trained for it. My writing was research-based, and my creative muscles were rather stunted. So, instead of disposing of the dream of writing a book, I trained for it. I worked hard, learned my lessons, wrote constantly, practiced my voice, and developed the tools necessary to write a complete novel. Then I went off and did the unthinkable: I wrote that book (and another, thank you). I just needed the training.

RAGBRAI ends tomorrow in case you want to zip over to Iowa to congratulate the finishers (it's non-competitive - the only goal is to finish). You can look at the cyclists crossing the line and taking in a little amazement at their feat. Feel free to appreciate what it took for them to do this. And then, after the last rider crosses the line, fingure out what your own RAGBRAI is, and start training for it.    

Writer At Play

Let's face it - being a writer is hard work. Maybe not in the same way as other, more labor-intensive jobs, but it's tough. There is a lot of training, all kinds of repetitive tasks building up your skills, a lot of setbacks, and the inevitable pain of failure. And we do all of this and go through all of these things in order to become a better writer, and to eventually reach some point where writing flows naturally - but there's no promise we'll hit that pinnacle. As I said, writing is hard work, which is why we need to have our fun and games now and then. 

Now fortunately, writers do differ from more labor-intensive jobs in the sense that if a writer decides to fool around, there's minimal risk of an industrial accident and a lawsuit from OSHA. Rather, when writers have some fun, they don't even need to actually be writing. It can be all mental fun and games, or letting meaningless ideas coming to mind that the writer just indulges. Most of the time, the best way for a writer to help themselves while at play is to simply challenge themselves to let go of rules, structure, and all the formalities, and look for the unexpected - then play with it.

I was trying this out with a simple idea - a writer's prompt, if you will. Someone sits down to have their fortune read, and the medium brings out the tarot deck and places down the first card  - and it's the...

What is it? Is it the Death card? The Ten of Swords (literally the worst card you can get)? Well, if you don't know the cards in a tarot deck, that actually helps. "Playing" with this story means giving ourselves the opportunity to step outside the reader's (and the writer's) expectations and draw on something new and unexpected. What if the first card is... the Mother-In-Law. Now, a normal tarot deck does not contain this card, but maybe that's the point you play upon. Maybe the medium has never seen this but feels obliged to explain the card. Maybe the medium has a truly magical tarot deck and expects weird things to appear. The next cards could be the Sloth, the Cheeseburger, the Loft Apartment... whatever you want. Play with it. Have fun.

When I went with this prompt, I had the medium draw the Death card, then explain to the frightened customer that it didn't necessarily suggest death was imminent but rather some form of change. The medium then drew the next card and it was... also the Death card (utterly impossible to do). And yes, the third card of this poor soul's fortune was - you guessed it - yet another Death card. I didn't go wild with the play aspect, but I definitely mixed it up. My thought was, "what would it be like to be constantly pursued by the Death card?" So I played with ideas, and there it was.

If you are in the mood to flex your writing muscles but not in the place where you can create, just take in an idea and try to process it through your creativity. Leave the proper and practical structure behind, and stretch your mind as far as possible outside the boundaries. It's the kind of play that will show up in your writing... you just might not realize it until you see how your horizons seem broader.