Just One Page
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Blank pages frighten most writers, me included.

I’ve often thought that one reason I took to blogging so well after “upgrading” my process from writing HTML pages in Notepad to using MoveableType was because the page wasn’t quite so blank and much smaller than the average text file. I found it easier to fill in a little, tiny bit of screen instead of that “endless page” in WordPerfect, which is what I used back then to write.
And, I’ll be honest, I’ve never been good at giving myself writing quotas. When I wasn’t thinking about it, I blogged virtually every day. At the time, it just seemed natural to me. I had a lot to say, I guess! But, I never thought about it being a quota. Now, of course, that I’d like to be more serious, more intentional, about my writing, I do think of quotas. It is, after all, what most professional writers, or even very serious amateurs, all say they do to keep things moving on a regular basis. Inspiration, they tell us, comes to those who are sitting in front of that typewriter, or computer, every day, grinding out their quota. The latest of those writers I’ve read was Anne Lamott in her excellent writing instructional book Bird By Bird, who advises hopeful writers to set a daily goal, whether it be 300 words or just one page, and stick to it.

Well, now there’s help.  Help, of course, in the form of an on-line app called One Page Per Day.
The premise is simple; “What if you wrote one page each day?” the site asks us.  What if?  This free tool asks you to find out.  You sign in with your Google or Twitter account and will be presented with a single, blank page to fill.  After that, you will be presented with a “gentle reminder” every day to complete your daily, one-page quota.  Rinse, repeat.  Until, eventually, you have your book, or story or article or whatever you’re trying to get written.  Simple, clean, elegant.

Only you can decide if it will be effective.

Rekindling The Fire
by | posted in: On Creativity | 0

You have got to want it.

When I first started writing, that was all I wanted.  It really was.  That was all I really wanted to do and every other thing in my life was just something I had to do to sustain that obsession.  Creating was everything.
But, then, as the old, old story goes, life intervened.  I developed debts and I started to indulge in habits that, frankly, weren’t cheap.  I discovered that, in spite of what the romantics tell you, money does seem to make the world go ’round.  And I set about making it as quickly and in as much volume as possible.  Truth be told, I did pretty well.  I mean, I didn’t quite sell my soul, but, you know, I did manage to make a career that has afforded me a fairly comfortable living for quite a few years.  Don’t misunderstand me, now, it still does make me a fine, safe living, but, well, along the way to level of physical comfort, something else died a little.

For a long time, I just stopped writing at all.
I mean, I didn’t crank out a single word that wasn’t in the service of my “day job”, which, I assure you, was anything but creative in the ways I wanted to be.  In short, I wasn’t writing fiction.
So, in an effort to combat that, I got a camera.  A regular, old, second-hand, film camera.  A Nikon, in fact, with a 55mm lens and a zoom lens, too.  The kind you see the old photojournalists use in old movies.  But, I had no time to really get to use it, so, even that lay by the wayside until I got a digital camera a couple years ago.

And, oh, do I have excuses for why I haven’t chased any of those creative dreams!
Me oh my, the list seems endless!  But, recently, I’ve been reminded that no matter how long the list is, it is still a list of excuses.  This past week, John Scalzi wrote on his blog about just this thing.  In his post, titled “Writing: Find the time or don’t“, he basically said that if you really loved writing, you’d make the time to do it.  That, somehow, you’d find the time and energy to write your 250 or 300 words or whatever your writing goal is for the day.  And, in principal, I agree with him, though, of course, the reality of that is sometimes a little more difficult to accomplish.  I should mention, however, that 300 words on this post was the end of the sentence that started this paragraph.  So, yes, it is possible, isn’t it?

The other thing, though, that sort of got me thinking along these lines was the light in a co-worker’s eyes when he talked about using that old Nikon of mine for a class.  You see, he’s a young husband and father and trying to get a degree and can’t afford a film camera of his own and, being the sort of kind-hearted guy I am, I lent it to him so he didn’t have to spend the money.  As it turns out, though, I may be the one getting the most benefit from it.  See, the light in his eyes, the joy, as he discovers the wonder and magic of photography for the first time.  It reminds me of the fun I had that first year with my DSLR, pointing it at anything I could, just for fun.
But, somewhere along the line in just the past three years, I got so caught up with the technical aspect of photography, the settings and the gear and such, that I forgot to look through that viewfinder at the picture I was taking.  I’ve been told by an institutional source, essentially, that my composition sucks, and I find it hard to disagree.  The only problem is, I’m not quite sure what to do about it.  How do I recapture the fun of taking photos and let the volume of shots slowly build up into some skill?

In the end, whether it’s writing or photography or any other creative endeavor, the only way I improve is through practice and truly constructive criticism and more practice.  I know that was one of the reasons my writing declined in quality, because I wasn’t putting that into practice, and, I think, that’s one reason my photography hasn’t really clicked for me either.  So, as the saying goes, the only way out is through.  In this case, through practice.   Like Scott Bourne wrote on Photofocus, I need to “Practice Photography like the Concert Pianist Practices Piano“.  So, now, the trick is to find the photographic and writing equivalents of the piano scales.
And, of course, practice, practice, practice!

Proppian Fairy Tale Generator
by | posted in: On Creativity | 0

Yes, the internet has automated everything, even writing fairy tales.

Of course, there’s no telling how good it will actually be, but the Proppian Fairy Tale Generator lets you select a few major elements from a checklist and then, well,  generates a fairy tale, automagically.  Granted, it does take a lot of the, um, fun of actually writing and discovering characters and story out of the process, but, c’mon, admit it; when that writer’s block hits, don’t you wish it was this easy?  Just point and click your way to creativity and produce work?  Well, maybe not, but it did seem like an amusing diversion.

Pratchett Prize
by | posted in: Contests | 0

Do you write “speculative fiction”?

Is your novel set on an alternate Earth?

Are you a current resident of the UK?

Could you use some money?

If you answered “yes” to all of those questions, and can submit your work before the end of the year, you may want to check out the Terry Pratchett Prize, as discussed on IO9.  Actually, it seems like a great deal and an interesting contest, though, I have to admit, I’m a little saddened by the residency requirements.  Still, being able to start your career by saying you just won the Pratchett Prize seems like getting started on the right foot!

Expression and Creativity
by | posted in: On Creativity | 0

“My crackpot theory is that people are losing their skill to express themselves, and they’re, in a way, farming that task out. If they want to express themselves they buy a song or they buy a greeting card that’s already processed by someone who’s kept that skill. We can’t express our own feelings anymore so we have to hire someone to do that.” —Chuck Palahniuk

I saw this on Lou O’Bedlam’s Tumblr.
It rang true for me, though, especially because I struggle with expression.  Not just emotions and not just my own.  Trying to express myself and struggling to understand other’s attempts at self-expression is a major issue for me, mainly because the creative impulse has driven me and much of who I am since I can remember.

Only, I fell into this trap Palahniuk talks about.  I’ve let the skill atrophy, lately, and I feel the need to exercise those creative muscles again.

Actually, there’s a lot of back story to that, especially this week, but I think that’ll go into my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek.

Perfect Timing
by | posted in: About The Author | 0

Timing, I have been told, is everything.
I believe that’s mostly true, but, not, perhaps, in the way, I think, most people mean.

I spent most of my Tuesday this week with a dear friend who waited with me while I tried very hard not to think about a CT scan I was getting.  I’m a cancer survivor.  That seems a little ominous and, maybe, just a bit scary, too, at least to me.  But, go ahead, read it again.  Read it out loud.
“Cancer Survivor”.
It’s a title that, frankly, makes me uncomfortable.  When people hear that, they seem to think that I did something, something special, to earn that title.  They assume I was somehow braver or stronger or, well, or I don’t know what.  They seem to think that being a survivor somehow has imbued me with some kind of special skill or insight into survivability, or worse, spirituality.  But, mostly, it just means I didn’t die.

I did come close, though.  Quite close, as it turns out.
I tried to pretend that my wracking cough was getting better, that I didn’t really need to see a doctor, until things had gotten so bad, that, by the time I got to see an oncologist, she checked me into the hospital instead of letting me go home.  And, that, I think, was pretty damn good timing.
I was never actually told what “stage” I was, but I suspect that it was at least stage four, which is about like saying, “Well, he’s young, so maybe the treatment won’t kill him.  If he survives that, he might, possibly, make it through.”  I’m really rather glad no one told me what stage I was at, because I don’t think it would have helped me to know.  In fact, I think it might have worked against me if I’d known that my life was hanging by a cancerous thread.
Instead, though, I got it in my head that God wasn’t done with me yet, that I had some purpose yet to fulfill.  Based on that logic, I quite possibly will out-live my sibling’s children, because I certainly feel like I have so much to do and not nearly enough hours in the day to accomplish most of it.

One of the ways that cancer changed me is that I think about death more.
For a man my age, not quite forty-two at the time of this writing, it is, perhaps, a bit unusual to contemplate my own mortality quite so much.  My judgment is that people find it off-putting to hear me contemplate hour and means of my own death.  But, you see, doing that serves as a reminder that time is short.  The end is always near!
The Writer’s Almanac for June 2, 2010, the day after I had my scan, the day after I was forced to again confront my own mortality, had an entry about Barbara Pym.  Follow that link and read the section on Ms. Pym.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.
I love reading about reversals of fortune like that.  I love hearing that people have toiled in relative obscurity for years, simply doing what they love, only to have someone finally see them and recognize the quality of their work and finally steer success to their door.  What I love most about this particular story is that she had a few of those very successful years and then she died, quite suddenly from the sound of things in the article.  From cancer.
And, synchronicity with my own cancer scare aside, that sounds like perfect timing to me!  I can only hope that I leave this world at the top of my game, with people who matter to me celebrating me and enjoying me and my work.  In my mind, that’s precisely the time to punch life’s time-clock for the last time.

I’ll be honest, when I read that Writer’s Almanac thumbnail of Barbara Pym’s life, I teared up.  I don’t think of myself as an overly sentimental person, though people who know me may disagree, but this got to me.  Maybe it was the cancer connection and how recently I was forced to acknowledge its continuing presence in my life.  I don’t know really and I suppose it doesn’t really matter, except that it frightened me a little.
It frightened me because I’m not at the top of my game, not at all.
I do try to live every day consciously, aware that we never really know when it will be our last.  But, I have to be real about it, I really am not ready to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet.  Not this week, not today.

So, what does that mean to me?
Well, it’s time.  Time I owned up to the fact that if I want my life to be different, then I have to live it differently.  I’ve been telling people that this week.  Because it’s true, and because I want it to be true.  I need it to be true.
I know, change only comes one, small step at a time, but I really, really need it to start happening.
There are rewards for change, of course, if we manage it correctly.  Promises that God makes to us, not about what we’ll get, but how we’ll feel.  I got those this week, too.  In this case, it was in the form of wildlife in my very own backyard.  Things that are difficult for me to capture in photographs, but that sat still for me while I got my gear and got set up and took the shot.  An anole.  A tree frog.  A crane.  Three different days.  Three different creatures.  Three messages from God telling me that the change is happening, even if I can’t always see it.
My timing was perfect, to capture those images, to survive cancer, to remember how precious all life is, even mine.

There are no coincidences and God’s timing is always perfect, even if I don’t always see it, at first.

I Don’t Want To Do This Anymore
by | posted in: About The Author | 0

I’m tired of my life.

I’d like to stop it now, and get off, please.  Maybe I could ride another ride instead?  I’ve spent the weekend doing laundry and keeping all my long-term commitments.  I have bills to pay and tomorrow I have to go into work to keep making the money to make them.  I’m part-way through doing my church’s prayer list for the prayer team, for which I’ve been forced into a leadership role very much against my wishes.  And I’ve spent more time this weekend being an encouraging friend to several female friends.  Worst of all, in a week, I’ll be getting my internal organs bathed in radioactive soup to see if my cancer has come back or not.

I don’t want to do this any more.
Really.
I don’t want to be that guy that’s French-kissed the Grim Reaper and lived to tell the tale.  I don’t want to live in this soft, middle-aged body that’s been wrapped in too much fat from all the wrong food.  I don’t want to be that guy women go to for advice about their men.
I want to drink myself blind and skip work.  I want to go to a different church where no one knows me or expects anything of me.  I want to be the guy who camps and skis and rides motorcycles.  I want to be the guy who wakes up next to that woman so beautiful that your heart aches to see her, especially when she doesn’t know you’re watching and is totally un-self-conscious.

I want my life to be virtually effortless and filled with passion and joy.  Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.  It really seems like I work hard, but I just get more tired and further behind.  I go deeper into debt just to stay alive, or at least to know that I’m not going to die too soon.
But, I can’t help but think, what’s the point?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not contemplating suicide or anything so extreme as all that.  I’m just stuck.  And tired.  This isn’t the life I was planning on leading.  Ten years ago, or more, I had a plan, a direction, a map for getting to the life I thought I wanted, needed, to have.  As it turns out, ten years is a long time and a lot can go wrong and it did.  I’ve become a stranger to myself.  Someone I never intended to be.  I don’t know how I got here.  Sometimes, I feel like this life is an ill-fitting suit I’ve been forced to wear.  I just wish it were as easy to take off sometimes.

So, how do you reinvent yourself?
How do you become someone new, someone you want to be?
I know only that I don’t know, and that this week, I want to be someone other than who I am.

Finding Freedom Through A Lost Notebook
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I’ve lost my idea net.

For more than a year, I’ve carried a small, black Moleskine and a pen to, theoretically, record all my creative ideas so I don’t “lose” any of them and can use them later.  At first, I faithfully used it every day to capture every crazy, wild idea that popped into my head.  Some of them were actually not bad.  Well, the whole “Biblical zombie army vs. a modern Templars” thing that came to me in the middle of scripture at church had some real potential.  Honest!  But, I will grant that some of the junk that built up there like chaotic, creative sedimentary rock was just silly.  Even that was okay, though, because it might have been mined for comedy gold at some point.
The real problem was that they never left that notebook.

See, that’s the thing.  I was great at recording the crazy ideas, but, frankly, I was terrible at getting them past that point.  It was great that I could get them down and feel like I wasn’t losing them to my Swiss-cheese, middle-aged brain, but, what’s the point?  I mean, if I never take those ideas and bring them to full-fledged projects.  Honestly, I’d settle for incomplete projects at this point, because even that would be something more than just scribbled fragments of plot, or character sketches or even just semi-random titles.  It would be progress toward something.
Look, I dream of being “creative”.  I fantasize about it like a day-dreaming school-boy.  I practically fetishize it!  But, it’s gotten to the point that I’m not even sure what I mean any more.  I know that ideas swirl around me like a swarm of gnats on a hot Texas night.  There’s an endless supply!  All I have to do is swat them!

What’s the missing ingredient?  In a word, execution.
Ideas are great and all, but what good do they do?  Everyone has ideas.  Ask any author and they’ll give you seemingly endless stories about fans who come to them with the same crazy plan.  The fan as a “brilliant idea” that they’ll “give” to the author, who will do all the grunt work of actually, you know, writing it up into a story, and for that invaluable “gift” the fan will split the proceeds with the author, who, of course, has the easy part of the deal.
But, anyone who actually does bring ideas from their raw state to a finished product knows that it’s just the opposite.  Ideas are free for the taking.  All you have to do is reach into your subconscious and fish one out.  The real trick is making them happen.  Taking anyone of those ideas and actually executing them, actually developing an end-product, is the real skill that separates a dreamer from a true creative.

So, now, I’ve got a choice.  I can get another notebook to endlessly fill with loose ideas, that may never actually get turned into something worth sharing.  Or, I can start focusing on actually producing something.
I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure how to make the shift, but I want to do more than just fantasize about creating.  I suppose I should follow the advice I give other people who are stuck and just be willing to make some bad starts so that I can eventually get to creating something I’m happy to share.

Sometimes, it’s better to make a bad start than not to start at all.

That Moleskine Isn’t Going To Fill Itself!
by | posted in: On Creativity | 0

So, you’ve got a notebook.  Great.  Now what?

It seems every creative person, or every person who fancies themselves as creative, has a notebook.  Mine happens to be a Moleskine, which are very popular, but yours may be something else.  It doesn’t matter, really, what it is, because they all serve the same purpose.  To be filled with ideas for later development.  Is it?

What are you writing in your Moleskine?  What fills your sketchbook?
Of course, the obvious answer is that you do, but that’s not what I mean.  What inspires you?  For ages now, I’ve carried that little, black notebook in my pocket, much to the amusement of some of my friends, jotting down the odd bit of intellectual fluff that gets stuck on the brier patch of my mind.  In some ways, I fill my notebook with those mental irritants that I need to scrape loose so I can think about other things.  Sometimes, it’ll be quotes or odd phrases that I jot down.  Other times, it’s titles or names.  Occasionally, whole paragraphs of thought will squeeze their way between those black covers.  Mostly, my Moleskine is filled with the flotsam and jetsam of an over-active mind that washes up on that paper shore.  Things I think might lead somewhere or that I might eventually use, either in a story or a blog post.

But, the thing is, only the things I actually bother to record there are what fill the pages.  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter so much what it is, as long as it’s something I find interesting or important or worth tracking.  One day, I hope to actually, you know, use those things, which is why I record them, but, at least it’s a step.  For many of us, who long to be more actively creative, recording even the smallest bits of our creativity is the first, most important step to actually producing something.

Of course, everyone will find different things to fill up their notebooks or sketchbooks, Moleskine or otherwise.  But, only if they work at it consistently.
So, now, what are you waiting for?  Get to work!

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