Tag: writing life

2023 Artist Updates

Well, this year has not gone to plan. I don’t have nearly such a long and glorious list of publications as I did at this time last year. Part of me feels I owe some accounting for my “low” output or publication stats, though I am fairly confident no one reading this would demand such a thing.

This year has been unexpected in some not-so-great ways. There have been long stretches of time where I haven’t been able to write.

I’ve been dealing with chronic health/pain issues, and with the poor health of a beloved pet. I had my first bout with Autistic burnout this year, too, partly due to emotional stress; 0/10, do not recommend. Thankfully, we are both doing fairly well here at the end of December 2023, but a lot of time, energy, and mental space was diverted to get us through.

I placed two pieces this year: The Ring of Contradictions in Electric Spec, and Baba Yaga Goes North in Crow & Cross Keys! I’m very proud of both of these publications.

I finished and have two longer stories on sub—which seem to be tricky to place. (If you know of anyone who would be interested in a reflective gargoyle-come-to-life meets chronic-pain meets neurodivergence in an opera house piece, or a retelling of Hamlet with Ophelia as the main character, do reach out…) [UPDATE: These have both been placed! Never give up, just keep submitting compulsively and every day until you find someone who likes your stuff.]

I submitted my finished book, Blood Moon Rising (queer, feminist, cozy, menstrual magic, Handmaid’s–Tale-esque world, Jane–Eyre-style prose), to a few small presses. No progress was made there.

I’ve been working on some new novel-length stories. One (an urban fantasy story about a fae garage rock band) turned into a novel without me realizing it and needs quite a bit of TLC to tidy up. Another (a dark, Icelandic-fairy-tale-inspired gender-swapped Rapunzel retelling) popped back to life after two years of inactivity. I’ve also had some breakthroughs with the plot of the Blood Moon Rising sequel (it’s a planned duology, still in development), as well as a cool new idea (modern-day/futuristic sci-fi involving AI, religion, and fanaticism) that might be sprouting roots. That last idea came to me in the shower, so it’s probably a good one.

Perhaps most surprising to me is the chapbook of poems I wrote. These were born out of the rage of religious deconstruction and the late-in-life discovery of self that I’ve been processing for the last five-ish years. I have no idea if the poems are for anyone but me, but I love them and am viciously proud of them.

I have project goals for all of my WIPs, loose ones that I hope will be motivating without being punishing. My overall goal for 2024 is to focus more on the work of writing and the psycho-spiritual delving that work requires, to focus less on the fact that I don’t know if any of these books will ever see publication. Tricky. It’s also difficult to do while working full-time to support myself, and being an Autistic, chronically ill person.

All of this sounds heavy, because it is. Full of unexpected difficulty (and corresponding unexpected growth), 2023 has been a heavy year. I am not the only person for whom that rings true. Bad things happen. But sometimes good things happen. That is my assigned mantra for the new year.

So, here’s to 2024. To good things, to wins, to rest, to laughter, to making art, to ever-deepening authenticity, and to the friends, allies, and family to be made. May 2024 be the Year of Unexpected Good Things.

December 31, 2023

2023, 2024, art, artist, creation, creative process, creative writing, fiction, New Year, novel, writer, writing, writing life
You Think You’re ‘Finished’?

A friend recently informed me that I have “finished so many things,” referring to the short stories and novels I’ve written. I argued fiercely that I have never finished anything in my life. And, in fact, I petition that we throw out the concept of “finishing” altogether.

In my day job, I work with post-graduate writers in academia. The concept of perfection plagues some of these students. They could edit their work forever. Yet, they need to turn it in, in order to pass their courses and receive their degrees. So how do they know when their work is “finished”?

I tell them: Well, that’s what deadlines are for.

This advice is less useful for those of us outside of academia’s structure. We don’t have professors giving due dates. We might have a submission deadline we’re writing toward, but that won’t be a constant.

I propose we take a more Zappa-esque stance. Art isn’t something you finish. It’s something you work on, or that you stop working on, or that you start working on again, as you see fit.

This is tricky, though, because when do we know a piece is ready to submit for publication? How do we know when to present the art we’ve made?

I don’t look at older pieces I’ve placed, because I know I’ll find thirty-odd things I wish I could change. Those pieces, to me, are definitely not “finished.” I just stopped working on them, and editors and readers thought they were good enough to share.

I think working with the goal of finishing something implies a level of finality, a type of perfection, that we just aren’t going to attain. Our work on the page is not something to be perfected. It is an artifact from a version of ourselves.

I think the goal should rather be one of alignment.

In the present moment, this version of myself is satisfied with this version of the work. They line up. It’s a feeling of synchronicity, of, yes, this is what I meant to do. It’s a sign to stop.

We don’t finish; we just stop, and the piece becomes an artifact. It’s not a definitive, sublime form of anything. It’s just something we were satisfied with at some point–satisfied enough that we decided to stop working on it.

We could work on a single piece for our whole lives. It would evolve alongside us, because as we change, the art would also change, so that our satisfaction with it is maintained. Not everybody decides to stop. There’s nothing wrong with this! It’s down to the artist’s choice. Creating is a series of choices, whether those choices result in one thing or myriad. Marcel Proust worked on a single, massive novel, and I’ve never read a more beautiful opening chapter than that of In Search of Lost Time.

It’s up to us to decide what we want to work on.

I have a lot of ideas. There’s so much I want to do, so many things I want to try, and I am changing and deepening as a person at what feels like an exponentially increasing rate. I want to get to those other ideas. I want to leave a trail of artifacts behind, as many as I can. That means I have to stop working on projects at some point. I’m not finishing; I’m getting to that moment of alignment, where I’m satisfied with what’s on the page in the present, and I’m stopping. I’m not going to be satisfied with it in a month, in a year, in ten years, whatever. But right now, I am satisfied, so I’m going to stop. That moment of alignment tells me when to set something down and reach for the next.

I’ve been working on a short story this week that I had set aside a year ago. I sent it out, and nobody wanted it. So I started working on it again. I revamped and rewrote the ending. It now feels more complete, more correct. I’m excited to start sending it out again.

So, when we set something down, it doesn’t have to be forever. Because it’s not finished, we can always pick it up again. Sometimes the work needs to be set down in order to develop further at a later time. I wouldn’t have gotten to this better ending if I thought of the piece as “finished.”

The concept of “finished” cuts both ways–it can keep us from moving on to new work, and it can keep us from picking up old work.

“Finishing” something is an artificial concept, cold and dead, without roots in the natural world. It smells like factories and oil, like cardboard boxes and garbage dumps. It denies the inherent interconnectedness of existence. It denies the spiral of creation, and substitutes that ridiculously straight line.

Nothing is a straight line. Nothing is ever finished.

Happy creating.

July 11, 2023

creative writing, essay, fiction, finishing, poetry, process, publishing, writing, writing life, writing process
NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 4 Update

can’t talk right now got to write 5,653 words in three days or less with a national holiday in the middle whose idea was it to do this in November my god happy thanksgiving i guess and see you on the other side unless i write myself to death which is possible given i’m feeling a little more than under the weather but everything will be fine right

right

right

♥

(Full debrief and reflections on the whole experience will be posted in December! Onward and upward, friends! We’ve totally got this.)

November 28, 2019

creative writing, NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo 2019, National Novel Writing Month, writing life
Scarcity Mindset and the Writing Life

I’ve been thinking about scarcity mindset and abundance mindset lately. Generally, as in this NPR interview, they are applied to the way people spend their money or use their resources. Stephen Covey (the man who coined the terms) applied them to the ways people do business. I think there is an application for writers. But first, what do these terms mean?

They first appeared in Stephen Covey’s business self-help book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I haven’t read this book, so I can’t recommend it, but it has sold over 25 million copies since its publication in 1989.

A scarcity mindset can occur when you believe there is not enough of something to go around. When you really want that something you see yourself as not having enough of, you focus on it. You get obsessive about it, and that tunnel vision can cause you to think of yourself as a victim with not enough whatever-it-is, and to lose sight of long-term goals, things you could be doing that could be making you more successful/healthy/happy in the long run. Because all you want is that one thing.

Let’s translate into writer.

So say you want to be a published writer, and you’ve got a piece you think is really, really cool. Maybe it’s a comic science-fiction short story about an alien invasion, in which the only commodity the aliens value is opera music. Maybe it’s something else. The content doesn’t matter. It’s just an example. You start thinking this piece could really put you on the map. Get you noticed. Get your career moving. So you polish it up real shiny, research markets, and start sending it out.

Rejections start rolling in. That’s normal. You tell yourself that’s normal. But it feels…bad. You start to feel…panicky. You get feedback from writer friends about it, apply their revisions, and try again. Nothing. And you start to feel like you’ll never be published, never be recognized, never be able to have the kind of life or career you wanted…

…all because ONE short story (that’s really niche, if we’re being honest) isn’t getting picked up.

That’s scarcity mindset. Really, a single short story is never going to launch anyone’s career, or sustain it. Pinning all hopes and dreams on one story isn’t fair to the story, nor is it fair to the writer, or to the craft of writing.

There’s never just one good idea, or one idea that will help you break through and find an audience for your work. Writing flows.

Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. –Annie Dillard

The world is teeming with ideas. Every moment of every day could provide enough inspiration for a lifetime. Scarcity mindset tells you, “It’s all on this short story, all my hopes and dreams ride on it.” But that’s simply not true. Your hopes and dreams ride on your ability to flex and grow, and keep on taking ideas as they seep into your conscious mind. Shaping those ideas. Practicing craft. Learning more about grammar, and sentence structure, and paying attention to the ways other writers sculpt the ideas that they have.

Even if that short story really is the best thing you’ve written to date, time flows, too. Your peak moment when you finished that story is in the past. You can be better, each day, if you practice.

You are limitless. You participate in Writing, an Art bigger than yourself. There are infinite ways for you to write, infinite subjects to choose from, and infinite chances to share out of the overflowing of your work.

That’s an abundance mindset. And it strikes me as a far healthier, fertile place to create from than the grasping, fearful place of scarcity. It’s also a clearer, more right view of what happens in the creative process.

If you’re interested in practicing an abundance mindset, check out this blog post I wrote a while back about purposefully cultivating positive thoughts about my own writing.

♥

August 10, 2019

abundance, abundance mindset, scarcity, scarcity mindset, writing, writing life
2018 Year-End Reflections, part 1
A series of unexpected events including a family health crisis, new job opportunities, and limited writing time have conspired to turn the second half of 2018 into a largely blog-post-less enterprise. Not ideal. I have found writing this blog to be useful, I hope to you, but mostly to me. I am by nature an intuitive person. I drift. Without prompting, I won’t spell out my thoughts or understand them fully. So I’ve used this blog as a medium to sort out my thoughts, which has led to forward leaps in my novel. Selfish. But isn’t all self promotion?

You know what I mean.

Anyway.

I’ve missed you, and this, is what I’m trying to say, in typical incoherent, intuitive fashion. (My thoughts spiral inward toward the center. A beautiful inefficiency.) There have been several things I haven’t written about here in the wake of all unexpected.
1. I went to a great writer’s conference in Denver: The Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer’s Gold Conference. TONS of great notes and thoughts I could share here. Maybe that’ll be my 2019 material…hmm… See, that’s that intuitive thing at work. I literally just thought of that. Anyway: I met some great writers there, had a great pitch session with an agent, and basically, I need to get my damn book finished, because there are people in the world who want to read it! Motivation received.
2. I bought a typewriter. A vintage 1964 Olympia SM9 Portable Manual, to be exact, from the Etsy shop Mahogany Rhino. Friends, I am absolutely in love. In addition to just being FUN, writing on it is showing me things about writing process. For example, how often my thoughts loop (like a spiral): when I can’t jump back a few lines, add, edit, or move text, I notice how often I WANT to do this and can’t. Not sure whether this beauty will straighten out my thoughts, but if you love putting words together like I do, I highly recommend exploring other methods of word production. Also, robots are taking over the world, and I, for one, am not for abandoning all old tech in favor of AI that will probably kill us in our sleep. It’s the dystopian future, sheeple! WAKE UP!
3. I plotted out an ending to my novel. This one is huge, folks. I haven’t been able to envision a good-feeling, solid sequence to wrap up this giant mess of notes and Word files that will one day (universe willing) be a book. I was reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, in particular, a phrase about forgetting “to carry through on the wider consequences of an action” in a story. Not sure why my subconscious needed that prompt in particular, but I scribbled two pages of summary and the whole fucking thing just fell into place. It was amazing. Now, on to the…execution…the, uh, “writing” part…
It’s been a pretty great writing year for me, mostly because I chose to prioritize this work over other kinds of work (like, you know, the kind that actually pays). I have a good friend who encouraged me to do this: I went to a writing retreat in May, and a conference in September. If you’re like me, a little stranded from literary circles by geography, I highly recommend saving up to take these kinds of adventures. Both jumpstarted my novel in fabulous ways. I got the beginning in May, and, after the conference, the ending. I plan to do at least two similar events in 2019.

Keep an eye out for at least one other blog post before the New Year…
December 22, 2018

2018, creative writing, writing, writing life
Writing in Community

I just got back from a week-long novel-writing retreat in Wisconsin. After recovering from the shock of stepping out of the airport into 95ºF with 80% humidity (and it’s not even June God help Kansas), I thought I’d share some reflections from that experience.

We often think of ourselves as solitary creatures of coffee shops, basements, closets, and libraries, ink stained, prone to eye strain, our preferred writing utensils now just another extension of our bodies. Popular media portrays writers this way, too, and to an extent, it’s accurate. The work we do involves the page and the brain. This caricature is the bare minimum of what we need to do our thing. I don’t know about you, but bare minimum has never been appealing to me.

Working intensely in isolation may be productive for a while. I need these times, when my ideas are mine and nobody else’s opinions are in the mix. But it gets…exhausting. The task takes on Herculean proportions. Everything is endless and impossible.

Change of scenery is medicinal in and of itself. Being surrounded by people–writers!–who are passionate and determined about their own projects? Inspirational.

Never imagine you can’t learn something about the craft. Even if you have every upper-level degree and tons of industry experience, hearing another writer describe their process in their words can open up new ideas and ways of understanding your own work that you would never have come to by yourself.

I’ve also come away with a greater sense of pride in the work of writing. Because it is work. It is a job. Getting published is an entirely different animal. It’s always nice, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the work of writing. We write. We’re writers. We do our work.

I had the chance to practice pitching to three agents. All of them were taken with the premise of my novel-in-progress (hugely encouraging!), and talked to me about next steps. Step One, finish the book. And they talked about that step so matter-of-factly. It wasn’t a matter of whether I could finish it, but of HOW and WHEN.

So I’m working on my self-discipline. I’m working to keep to a stricter daily routine, to spend increasingly longer periods of time writing, and to always write at my desk. In the end, writing is really up to me. Though some of my fellow retreaters might get after me from time to time, no one will hound me. If I give up, no one will make me start again. It’s down to me.

So I’m plunging back into the solitary part, refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to finish this dang book.

♥

May 29, 2018

creative writing, retreat, writer, writing, writing life
Why is Writing So Hard?

You’ve set aside a couple of hours to write, and you’ve been looking forward to it all day. You finally get home. You get your snacks, your tea or coffee, settle down to write, and… You can’t find the mental energy to begin the process of writing, or stay in the groove long enough to be productive.

This lack of mental energy shouldn’t be confused with writer’s block or some other problem. It occurs simply because our writing brainpower is limited.

Every creative act requires us to make decisions. These decisions, conscious and un-, take a toll on the brain. It can only make so many in a day.

Writing requires TONS of decisions. In an hour, a writer makes hundreds if not thousands of decisions. Simply putting one word after the other means a decision: choosing what word comes next. And the English language in particular has many synonyms and shades of meaning to choose from. Then there’s the big-picture decisions. Character description and development. Dialogue. Scene. Overall plot. Subtext. The list goes on.

The problem is, our brain doesn’t distinguish between creative decisions and daily decisions, like what to wear, what route to take to work, what to eat, and etc. So when a writer sits down to write after a long day, her brain is likely already close to the maximum decisions it can handle in a 24-hour period. She has decision-fatigue. This makes engaging in the writing process extremely difficult.

Some famously creative people deal with decision-fatigue by cutting down on decisions. Steve Jobs, for example, had a uniform–the black turtleneck and jeans–so that he wouldn’t have to decide what to wear in the morning. Those were decisions he could spend on something more significant than his appearance. Routine ways of beginning the morning and schedules can also help.

Others choose to engage in their creative work first thing, before any other decisions crop up, demanding to be made. Sheila O’Connor, author of Sparrow Road and Keeping Safe the Stars, gets up in the morning and goes straight to her writing space. She doesn’t talk to anyone or interact with anything involving words. I don’t think she even gets dressed. Straight to writing, no questions asked. That way, her freshest, best decision-making energy is spent on her work.

It’s important to be aware of where our decision-making energy is spent.

It’s also important to know when a decision must be made, and to make it firmly.

Writers (myself included) often get ourselves into trouble by trying to put off decisions. Because of decision-fatigue or sheer wishy-washiness, we don’t want to commit to a certain character’s motivation, reaction, or an event in the plot. We want our options open. We keep writing, thinking we can come back later and clarify. Meanwhile, without a solid backbone of made decisions, the work that follows becomes spongy and disintegrates.

Even if we are managing our decision-making energy well, sometimes the fear that a decision is wrong holds us back from committing to it. It is almost impossible to know if the option we choose is the best one. Even those that feel right in the moment can be wrong.

But we have to choose an option. We can’t predict the result; we have to try the decision on and see what happens. Even if we lose pages of work on wrong decisions, we haven’t wasted our time. We come away from them knowing more about the world and the characters in it.

Writing, making endless decisions–it’s hard. Understanding the way our brains works can help us make the most of our writing time, and being willing to make decisions fearlessly helps us move forward, even if it sometimes feels like we’re moving backward.

If you want to learn more about the science behind creativity, check out Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. He goes into much more detail about this concept and many others that can give you a leg up in your writing life.

♥

October 28, 2017

creative process, creative writing, fiction, writing life, writing process
Positive Thought Experiment: Writer’s Edition
My writing life is a constant rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs, especially in how I feel about the work I accomplish. I am realizing how much the way I feel effects my writing, and at the same time, that the way I feel does not always match up with reality.

My writing times tend to be colored with resentment, insecurity, or unwillingness to write. These negative emotions sometimes fade as I become more present with the work I’m doing, and sometimes make it almost impossible to get down to business.

I started to wonder whether my manuscript is still unfinished because of these emotional experiences, these negative thought cycles.

Negative thought cycles begin as self-deprecating internal dialogue. If the thinker allows the dialogue to continue long enough, those negative thoughts become engrained mental habits. It can actually change the way the brain operates. People with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and similar problems deal with this phenomenon on a daily basis, and work hard to break the mental habits their brain has developed as a result of something like trauma or genetics.

I deal with anxiety, and in the process of dealing with it, I came into contact with the idea of replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. Of course, this wasn’t in the context of writing. But as I began to realize how much my negative emotions were messing with my writing, I started to suspect a negative thought cycle in action.

The next time I sat down to write, I turned up the volume on my internal dialogue. There were infinite negative thoughts. I started to hear myself think things like,

You’re not a good enough writer to do this story justice.

This story isn’t worth being finished.

These characters are flat and you’re never going to be able to make them realistic.

You don’t care enough about this story to get it done.

You don’t have the time or energy to write.

You can’t figure this story out well enough to put it down on paper.

You shouldn’t even try.

So, I decided to do an experiment.

Every day before I started to write, I would journal positive thoughts. Even if I didn’t believe them, even if they sounded ridiculous, even if anyone who found the journaling would think I was insane (a la April Kepner), I would drown out the negative thoughts by consciously thinking and then writing down positive ones that directly contradicted the negative.

For example:

Thought: “I can’t write well enough to meet my own standards.”

Replacer: “I do have high standards and am careful about how I put words together. I do not let that care stop me. I produce more exactly. I rise to my own challenge. I will meet my goals.”

Thought: “This will never be finished. I can’t finish it.”

Replacer: “I am working hard and making progress. It is okay if I don’t finish it today. If I keep working, I will finish it someday.”

In the psychiatric world, this is called positive thought replacement. And let me tell you, it works.

I was far more productive than I had been in previous weeks. My emotional life was more stable, and so was my writing life. I had given myself permission to feel good about the work I was accomplishing, and I did.

The practice carried over to other areas of my life, too. I started to feel more positive during the rest of my day. I would catch myself in the middle of a negative thought about something totally unrelated to writing, and reverse it. Even though the experimental term I set for myself has passed, I still do positive journaling before every writing session. I have no intention of stopping.

I highly recommend trying this! Here are the steps I followed:
1. Identify the negative dialogue you are allowing and engaging with.
2. Write down empowering, positive statements that directly contradict each negative thought.
3. Repeat.
4. When you feel all the negative thought demons of the moment are still, begin writing.
Good luck silencing your negative internal dialogue…

Write, and be happy.

♥
October 7, 2017

experiment, negative thought cycle, positive, positive thought replacement, writing, writing experiment, writing life, writing time
Ways to Spend Your Writing Time That Aren’t Writing
Almost every writer successful enough to gain a platform to talk about such things prescribes setting a consistent writing time. So, desiring to be a successful writer yourself, and maybe even a good one, you set aside a block of time to write. You look forward to it. You have visions of filling up all of that time with productivity, swinging words and sentences into place like a discus thrower.

Then your writing time arrives. You get your tea/coffee/water/snack and settle in to write.

Some days it goes really well and you can write the whole time you have set aside. Other days…not so much. You stare at the paper/screen and nothing happens. It’s like your writing brain switched off by itself and you don’t know how to turn it back on. Suddenly you start remembering all kinds of unrelated things, like how long it’s been since you cleaned the bathroom, or you black out and when you come to, you find yourself deep in a Wikipedia wormhole of research gone wrong, or writing a blog post.

*clears throat*

There will always be days on which we are less likely to produce new words. A variety of factors can affect this (sleep, time of day, energy already expended, preoccupation, stress, etc.). For whatever reason you find yourself unable to write. The good news is, there are lots of legitimate alternative ways to engage with your work without actually generating new combinations of words and recording them.

Here are some of my favorite writing alternatives for slow days:
1. Take notes. This is a close relative of writing, but it takes the edge off, because you aren’t WRITING the real project. You’re writing ABOUT the project. I use this often to figure out what exactly I’m thinking about and then to sort through all of those thoughts on the paper. This tactic often leads me into writing the project.
2. Draw. Sometimes words hold us back. Yes, even us writers. Sketching a character, setting, object, or map of something involved in your project is a way to get your head in the game without actually writing. I usually discover something new about an aspect of my project when I engage with it in shapes instead of words.
3. Timeline/Outline. Starting with the beginning of what you know, outline the events of the story or the sequence of your argument as far ahead as you can. It doesn’t have to all come true. In fact, play around with different variations. See what makes the most sense, what makes the least sense, and why. The goal here isn’t to nail down all the events of a story; it’s to get you interacting with your project, so don’t be alarmed if you feel you can’t stick to the outline later on. You don’t have to!
4. Flow Charts. This is one of my favorites. I do this whenever I get stuck on a character’s next decision. I draw the decision at the top of a very big sheet of paper, and then map all the potential reactions she could have below. Then I follow each of those reactions as far as I can based on who she is and her central desire. You could use this with anything you’re unsure about that you can see many options for.
5. Meditate/Apply Intense Brainpower. Maybe there’s a particular spot you’re unsure about, or you don’t know what happens next, or who a character is. You’re stuck. A ton of thinking and decision making is involved in writing. On some days, it is enough to spend time thinking about the project. Turn off the lights, close the door, sit, and just think about it. Do this for a really long time. Until A) Your writing time is up, or B) You feel the urge to write. I’ve solved many a twisted plot problem this way.
6. Take Time Off. This is the last resort. Even so, skipping one day will not end your career as a writer. In fact, scientific research about the creative process suggests that our biggest breakthroughs happen when we step away from a project to give our subconscious mind time to work it out. Time is an essential ingredient to writing. So go do the dishes, clean the bathroom, take a walk. When your brain has a solution, it’ll bring it forward for your inspection. And if a breakthrough doesn’t occur, at least you’ve cleaned or gotten exercise. Tomorrow is a new day with new writing opportunities.
I’m sure there are lots of other ways to write without writing. If I missed your favorite, let me know! I can always use new tricks.

Whatever it takes to keep us at our desks…

♥
September 2, 2017

creative writing, how to write, inspiration, writing goals, writing life, writing process, writing time
the in-between

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of liminal space. The English word liminal comes from the Latin word limen which means threshold. It is the in-between. Something has ended and the next thing hasn’t started. You have left the security of what has been known, but haven’t yet entered into a new understanding. You’ve left the oasis but haven’t crossed the desert. The ship has sailed, but isn’t to the next port. You’ve left one job and haven’t gotten another.

Liminal spaces occur in every context, and they are uncomfortable.

In the writing life, liminal space is no less (and perhaps more) inevitable. Between projects, one short story is completed, and the new page is still blank. Between chapters, paragraphs, sentences, words.They feel like desolation, emptiness, and a total lack of inspiration.

…incidentally, I don’t believe in the need to feel i/Inspiration to get work done. The inspiration I have experienced is too fickle. You could make a case that there’s an inverse relationship between i/Inspiration and liminal space, but given how infrequently i/Inspiration comes knocking, this is probably a more depressing than useful hypothesis…

There’s no time limit or expiration date on liminal space. Sometimes they last only as long as it takes to remember that one word (existential, pungent, cruciferous, snafu). Often, longer.

In order not to be conquered by it, we have to figure out how to deal with liminal space in our writing lives and writing processes. Maybe first, by acknowledging that all writers experience liminal space.

The liminal space is one of uncertainty. It is not safe. We do not know, cannot guess, what might be on the other side of it.

Some deal with this discomfort by self medicating. This isn’t a good long-term solution.

A better strategy may just be learning to be uncomfortable. Getting used to sitting quietly in the middle of liminal space. Meditating in the desert. Discomfort can reveal a lot about ourselves as writers and people. What in particular gives us the most anxiety? Why is it so hard to be uncertain?

The most common fear of the liminal space is that there may be nothing on the other side. That we’ll wait and wait, and struggle to forge ahead, sitting in our writing chairs, putting words together like blank puzzle pieces, and nothing will come of it. We’ll cross the threshold and step blindly into an abyss.

Here is something I have learned and that I believe in and cling to with (what I hope is) an unshakable faith. There is always something there. The threshold does not lead into a vacuum. It may lead to a place I do not at first want to go, or somewhere I do not expect. But there is always something to write. Words are omnipresent and until my brain ceases its electrical firing, I will have ideas.

They fill from beneath, like well water. –Annie Dillard

Liminal space is a time of testing. It takes guts, stamina, determination, and discipline to get across the threshold. You cannot rely on Inspiration. Inspiration does not enter the liminal space. It abandons you at the borders. You enter alone, and must find your own way to the other side.

There is always a way. Writing is the only way to find it.

Lay down your track of thoughts. String them into notes, lists, pictures, graphs, words, sentences, paragraphs, and watch where the engine of your mind takes you. It may take a long time to travel through the liminal space. It may feel like you’ll never arrive on the other side, but you will.

If you write.

♥

August 12, 2017

creative process, creative writing, desert, liminal space, threshold, writing, writing life