Practical Implications of Writing as Worship

So, today as I was walking to work I thought about what it would practically mean to try and live out writing as worship.

Now this blog post is going to use a lot of Christian terminology, but the principal applies just the same in a secular context. 

Imagine the big sports game is coming up (pretty easy for Melbournians, as Grand Final is on Saturday). Think of your anticipation, you've put in your footy tipping bets, got the esky, beer and snacks, cleaned up your house so you can actually get to the couch, checked on the standing of all your favourite players. Anyone injured, unable to play? Then, on the day, you stock up on ice, putting on your jersey and sit down in front of your wide screen TV not to be disturbed. 

Just taste your pleasure as the game comes on, as those men in way too tight shorts run through those banners. 

Imagine if sitting down to write was THAT exciting. That you would put up a big 'do not disturb' sign on your life for hours.

Or if football/sport is not your thing, imagine shopping. You've worked hard all week and told yourself that on Saturday you are doing to the shopping centre. You get up early, try to wear something nice because it is always depressing looking at beautiful clothes while dressed like a dag and you drive out there. You enter the sacred halls (I'm picturing Chadstone here, but whatever works for you) and you buy your favourite smoothy which has become a sort of ritual. You wander through the shops, your fingers just softly gliding over the silky satins. 

These are all forms of worship. Guy (that's his name, not just some random guy, but my Guy, that is my pastor Guy, Guy Mason) defined worship as ascribing value to something. With the Footy, dedicating your Saturday afternoon, when you could be doing anything, to watching those beefed up men running around after an inflated bladder, you are saying this is the most valuable thing you could be doing with your time. When you look forward to shopping all week, and spend hours passing through all the shops, you are saying that this is important to you. 

So what I'm arguing is that I should be ascribing value to my writing, because I think it is something God has called me to do. Not in that whole 'everyone must read my books because they are a revelation from God.' They might never get published. It might just be a discipline and learning experience for me. But that is enough. If God says it's valuable, than I should think it is valuable too.

Okay, so after that super long set up, I'm going to continue with the Christian stuff, but try if you can to apply it to your situation and worldview, whatever that may be.

The following is from a post from 2009 on Crossways Baptist Church's and is titled How To Prepare For Worship (topical, no?) I'm going to copy it here and then see if it works for writing.

"Αcceptable worship doesn’t happen spontaneously- you must prepare yourself. Let’s look at Hebrews 10:22. “Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” That verse begins with the phrase “let us draw near”-it is our call to worship. What follows are four checkpoints to help you prepare for worship.

The Checkpoint of Sincerity – We are to draw near “with a sincere heart.” That speaks of a genuine heart, devoted to pursuing God. It is hypocritical to be worshiping God when you are really apathetic or preoccupied with self. Draw near to God with your whole heart.

The Checkpoint of Fidelity – We are to draw near “in full assurance of faith.” ... [cut bits as not highly relevant to this] You too are to be fully assured that God accepts your worship, not because of what you do, but because of what Jesus did in providing atonement for you.

The Checkpoint of Humility – We are to draw near to God “having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.” That is, you come to God with the knowledge that you are unworthy to be in His presence. The only reason anyone can come to Him is the blood of Christ, which was shed on the cross as a cleansing for sin.

The Checkpoint of Purity – We are to draw near having “our bodies washed with pure water.” That refers to the daily cleansing by the Word of God. The process of sanctification ferrets out sinful thoughts and exposes sinful behavior. Before you worship, confess the sins that God uncovered through His Word so you can draw near in purity."

The first aspect that needs highlighting is the whole drawing near thing. I actually have to come to write in order for this whole thing to work. 

Action: Make appointments to write and keep them. 

Sincerity: I'm drawn to the whole 'don't be apathetic or preoccupied with self.' It's true, these are really detrimental to writing (and watching sport: if you are thinking about work the whole time, everyone throws things at you and tells you to get off the couch.) 

Action: take a few minutes before starting to drop all thoughts of self, and find my excitement in the exercise. 

Fidelity: For me this means trusting in my Muse. I do the turning up faithfully and trust that he is doing the rest. (Sort of like my whole thing with Walking on Water with Tap Shoes.)

Action: Trust my Muse.

Humility: Just as we are humbled that we can't play as well as those men can, or that we can't design and makes clothes as beautiful as the ones we see in the shops and must have, so in writing as worship, I need to acknowledge that I can't actually write brilliantly myself. Any gifts I have are from God. And the purpose of this is not to make me feel bad or worthless, but grateful for what I have been given. And relieved, because the pressure is not on me.

Action: Admit that any good writing I do is from God, and let that release me from fear.

Purity: For me concerning writing, this means letting go of all thoughts of writing for the money/fame/men (who wants more women? I have plenty of those, bring on the good looking men!). I need to approach my writing with a purity of intent that focuses on telling a story because it should be told, even if there isn't a 'market' for it at the moment, etc. 

Action: Focus on the story and the process, not potential results. 

Those are my thoughts on worship. What they actually amount to in practical terms appears to be:

1. stopping before I sit down to write, 

2. put aside my worries for the day, 

3. listening to some worship music (this just helps me focus my mind) and 

4. laying my heart before God. 

Then going from there. Tried it tonight and I think it worked sort of well (have more words, though now have three starts to the Secret Railway, which really would have been better if I had moved forward with just one of them. Oh well).

I don't know, do you think I am stretching this all too much? Do you have another interpretation?

Awakening Your Genius

So far I have talked about finding your muse as well as working with  your creative youth and judgemental elder. Now it is time to look at you genius and how to put it all together. 

For some writers, I suspect Stephen King based on his discussion in 'On Writing', your muse and your genius are the same thing. It is the part inside of you that is totally beyond your control but brings the goods.

This is not how I'm going to classify these terms. As defined in Buffyworld (Buffyworld is a phenomenon my brother Dave noted many years ago, and it is a very great place to live, though I am not sure what it would be like if other people lived there too, that might just be scary):

Your Muse: is perceived as something external to you that inspires you to write. It might turn up the ideas, or perhaps just the passion for the task.

Your Creative Youth: this concept was developed for me by Dorothea Brande, and describes that creative spirit that is overflowing with ideas and cares not for order and structure, just for creation and freedom. She termed it as part of your unconscious. However, while it is harder to control and does need you to let go of the reigns to fully function, I think it is not quite at the level of the unconscious. Using more pop-psychology, I am starting to think of it as my Right Brain working.

Your Judgmental Elder: this was summarised by Dorothea as your conscious analytical mind. Very useful in the editing stages, and in the general process of getting you to sit down and write even if you don't feel like it. I think this can be viewed as you Left Brain nature, the logical and ordered aspect of your personality. Not so strong in a lot of 'artistic' souls, but can be cultivated and is very necessary for actually producing an end result.

And then there is Your Genius.

This I believe operates at the real subconscious level. It is involved in that moment where the brilliant solution just suddenly appears fully formed in your mind. It sits there and gobbles away at your problems, and given time and opportunity, it will spit back to you an answer.

Now, Dorothea argues that she believes absolutely everyone has some genius in them, some more than others and some are better at accessing and utilising theirs, but still everyone has one. It is a very nice thought, and idealistically I would like to say I agreed. Unfortunately, I know too many people. In reality there are a few people you just meet and think: wow, you have no spark in you whatsoever, do you? Which is nasty, possibly, though often they do not care and think spark is something to be avoided. Is it mean if it's only an insult in your perception? Well, I suppose so, because my intent is still to think less of them. But it does not change the fact that I do believe that most people have a spark of genius, and a very select few might have originally had it, but something horrible in their childhoods, maybe a great aunt with a love of cats and a hatred of little boys, killed that spark.

Given that premise, if you are reading this blog, and have got this far down the page, you are probably interested in writing, and therefore most likely has some spark within you. So, let us work under the happy belief that if you are reading this, you have some genius.

Therefore, the goal must be to utilise this as much as possible. Clearly, the more 'Aha!' moments you have, a) the more exciting your writing will be for you, b) the more exciting it will be fore your reader and c) the less conscious effort you will have to put into trying to be clever. All these are very desirable things.

So how do you get your genius to come to the party? Dorothea presents facilitation of genius in the following formula:

X is to Mind as Mind is to Body, where X is Genius.

Her argument is that to fully engage your mind (youth or elder) you need to still down the demands your body make on your thinking. Either by being completely still or occupied in some routine task such as walking, knitting, chewing etc., gives your mind a chance to focus on the story. I have mentioned her suggestion of wordlessness. In the chapter on genius she brings up two other requirements for the mind to function at its best: rythmical, monotonous.

That is your secret formula for getting the most out of your mind: spend some time in rhythmical, monotonous, wordless motion and your mind can breathe and think. This is useful information and is helping me to rework my 'wordless' time. I recommend some time looking at your pre-writing activities to make sure they fit these concepts.

So, as putting your body onto autopilot helps your mind to think, Dorothea argues that putting your mind onto autopilot allows your genius to take over for a bit. This is supported by the number of times I get great ideas after sleep, or in the shower. The hot water lulls my mind into a semi coma and bam! great solution to my plot problems appears. (No, I do not then jump out and run down the street yelling Eureka. Stop picturing me naked.)

This then leads to the question of how to consciously quieten your mind without having to go to sleep or run up huge hot water bills (especially since my hot water runs out super quickly. Cold shower, not as effective, let me tell you). The key appears to be practicing meditation. Not weird, wacko, leave your body or follow your spirit guide meditation, but the practice of slowing your thoughts down and trying to stay focused on a single thing.

Like a lot of my discoveries, this is something I've felt God has been telling me to do for ages. I started off with scripture memorisation because it forced my mind to be still and focus on only one thing. At the beginning of this year I then tried to move onto meditation, trying to still my mind and focus only on God. Of course, being human, I then didn't really see the point, so did it sporadically until I had basically lost the ability and the sense that I was supposed to keep my mind from wandering. See what God has to work with?

Dorothea describes steps to developing meditation which are reasonably similar to this in practice, though content of course is different.

First she suggests just a simple test; to try to hold your mind as still as your body.

So, right now, close your eyes and try to hold your mind as still as you can, even if for only a few seconds.

How did you go? If this was easy for you, great. If you were not so successful, then that is a useful skill to develop in aid of your writing.

'The best practice is to repeat this procedure once a day for several days. Simply close your eyes with the idea of holding your mind quite steady, but feeling no urgency or tension about it. Once a day; don't push it or attempt to force it. As you begin to get results, make the period a little longer, but never strain at it.' p. 165.

She then goes back a step for those of us that are slow and have difficulty with that.

'Choose a simple object, like a child's gray rubber ball... hold the ball in your hand and look at it, confining your attention to that one simple object, and calling your mind back to it quietly whenever it begins to wander. When you are able to think of the object and nothing else for some moments, take the next step. Close your eyes and go on looking at the ball, thinking of nothing else. Then see if you can let even that simple idea slip away.'  p. 166

That is the basic skill; that you need to relax your mind and give your genius room to move. To apply it to your writing she suggests taking an idea, or a character, and just holding it in your mind and letting your stillness centre around that.

'Presently you will see the almost incredible results. Ideas which you held rather academically and unconvincingly will take on colour and form; a character that was a puppet will move and breathe.' p. 166.

So, this is the last part of the puzzle for putting it all together, the preparation of the artistic mind for creation.

Let us start from the beginning (and so as not to be accused of plagiarism, this is a mixture of Dorothea, Kate Forsyth's advice on Creating Flow, and my own experience/thoughts).

First, you should have an image, a chance phrase, a personal description, something which you consider to indicate you have a book. Take this little spark and spend time blowing on it, brainstorming it out further; fuller descriptions of the characters, charting out possible plots that could include that phrase or image. Dorothea suggests viewing the whole in a pleasant, indulgent mood, seeing what turns up. If you are in the middle of a work, take the scene that you think you will be working on that day. Plot out how far you want to get in the block of time you have set aside for writing. Start building the anticipation for what you will write.

It is then time to give your mind a chance to play with it further. Take the draft with you, and go for a walk around a loop. Not a fast walk, but something that becomes rhythmical and monotonous.  In this time, don't think on how to write the story, but just on being in the story. That is, don't choose words to describe scenes, or think of dialogue tags, but just watch your characters talking or the action as it takes place.

Return home and have something light (not sugary or caffeinated) to eat. Kate suggests something like a banana, which makes good sense. I have found toast too insubstantial, porridge good but can make me want to sleep, and straight protein and vegetables filling without inducing drowsiness (had left over steak on mashed cauliflower for breakfast today, which was pretty good, but some might find having steak that early a bit weird, which I can understand).

Then have a shower or a bath. This does wonders for the body, mind and genius.

Now, find yourself a dark space and lie down, unless prone to falling asleep, in that case trying sitting. Now is the genius' time. First, still the body, then still the mind. As Dorothea commands 'lie there, not quite asleep, not quite awake'.

'After a while - it may be twenty minutes, it may be an hour, it may be two - you will feel a definite impulse to rise, a kind of surge of energy. Obey it at once; you will be in a slightly somnambulistic state indifferent to everything on earth except what you are about to write; dull to all the outer world but vividly alive to the world of your imagination... the state you are in at the moment is the state an artist works in.' p.169

Now, I should put in a disclaimer. I have yet to try the entire sequence. In the morning I have been trying to still my mind a bit before sitting down to write, but don't have time to go for a walk before work. After work I go to the gym, eat then have a shower, but then sit straight down and write because I won't have enough time if I try to brainstorm and then meditate.

However, tomorrow is my day off, so I'm going to test out the entire sequence and see how I go. I can imagine that it would probably improve the more you do it, too. So, will see if I can implement it more frequently.

If anyone else wants to test it out and review it as a method, I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

Until tomorrow night.

Buffy. 

 

Walking on Water with Tapshoes

As you know from my last blog entry, having a bit of trouble getting into my next book. After I wrote to you guys last time, I went to bed and tried to do my Bible reading for the night. One of them was when Jesus, followed by Peter, walks on water. Quick recap for those who don't know and don't really care but want to know how it relates to my writing: Peter and other disciples set off across giant lake in boat, Jesus has told them to go ahead so he can get some chillax with God, and ends up taking a short cut by just walking on water to them. They think: Argg, it's a ghost! And Jesus is like: Dudes, it's me! And Peter's like: well, if its really you, tell me to walk on water to you. So Christ is like: sure, go for it. Peter steps out of the boat and starts walking towards Christ.

Okay, pause story there. What would you do if you suddenly found you could walk on water? You've seen your best friend and supercool guy doing it and he says you can to, and so you step out of the boat and hey presto after a life of being a fisherman and falling into water you are suddenly walking on it?

Options:

a) think, this is pretty cool, and keep walking.

b) think, oh, that winds a bit strong, and start sinking.

c) think, this is awesome! And start dancing.

So, for those who know the story, Peter went with option b. I personally think the obvious response to finding out you are walking on water is to see if you can tap dance.

So, there I was, picturing what it would be like to tap dance on water (anyone seen that dance scene from Step Up 2 where they are dancing in the rain? Mine sort of looked like that, but cooler). Then I sort of felt God pointing something out: so, you think that if you could take a few steps on water, you would then see if you could dance, but you write two novels with my help, and then curl up in a ball and say that was a fluke and you can't do it again. Huh? Huh?

The first novel I completed and was amazed I could write so much, the second one I completed and was amazed I could write a story from beginning to end, the third one I've started, and then thought 'oh, maybe I can't do it with a story I don't know'. Yes, I am the Peter of fiction writing. It is sad, but true.

So, I realised, I need to find the tap dancing on water equivalent to writing.

Am still not quite sure what that is, but it sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?

The Big Question: Is It Me Or The Book?

So, yesterday I started my next series. I decided not to use the French plot I had developed, because I like those characters too much and since this is the prequel to two other books, I knew that the main characters in this book would be happy by the end but dead by book 2 (sorry, spoiler, but I haven't written them yet, so might change my mind). So, of course, I didn't want to use characters here that I might want to make an entire series of with all by themselves.

So I sat down to write yesterday morning with no idea where to go. An hour and a half later, I had only done 2000 words and didn't like most of them.

While at work, I thought I had a brainstorm and was excited coming back. After going to the gym and having dinner, I finally sat down to write at 8pm. With my new ideas in place, I cut what I had already written and chucked it in my zero-draft document (don't think I've covered zero-drafting yet, but I will, give me time). Starting from scratch, I soon found my ideas weren't leading to the rapid writing I had hoped. After over an hour of work, I had a total of 1000 words to show for it. Though I felt like had been writing reasonably constantly, but just at under half my usual speed.

So, that brought me to the awful question: is it me or the story?

If it is me, it might be that I've let myself get too tired or drained and I just need a break and my mystic powers will flow back. But what if it is the story? That this is a story that just doesn't want to be told? Or needs to be told but will be painfully slow and will require me to work twice as long each day? Then there is the possibility that it is just because it's the beginning of the story. Once I get into it, know my characters, know where I'm going, will I speed up?

See, these lead me to totally contradictory solutions:

• I could take time off and just rest up, which would be good if I'm just a bit burnt out, but counter productive if it's actually just the nature of the story that it needs to be picked at constantly and carefully.
• I could drop the story and try to work on something else, which would solve the problem if the problem is this story, but what if it is the nature of new stories, or this story, to be slow? And this solution exacerbates the problem it if is me.

The only real solution for me was to talk to my muse find out what he was up to and why this felt like it wasn't working. So, I finished last night with only 1,000 words written on the actual story, and spent some time praying and reading. It ended up also involving a bit of sleep as I was trying to pray. I took this as a divine indication that I was actually really tired.

Therefore, I slept in this morning instead of writing, allowing me to get just over 11 hours sleep. Glorious! I then spent the day fasting from food (normally I don't tell people when I fast, but this blog is about honest, so I will not hide my weird Christian things from you and ask in return you do not judge me too much) and prayed at lunchtime and on the way home. After having dinner (my fasts are arranged between God and myself so do vary but my all-purpose fast is from when I wake up until work finishes, or sun down, or 6pm or something like that) went to the gym, did a big shop (which did not impress my little arms after doing a weights work out) and then cracked it and cleaned out my fridge. Since my fridge has been smelling worse and worse for... lets just say quite a while, I must have had serious issues with my writing to make cleaning the fridge look attractive.

But at 8.15pm I sat down and decided I was just going to keep being faithful and write for the next two weeks. I might not hit my word targets because this story seemed to be coming out a lot slower, but I would write faithfully every day for my usual two sessions until the fortnight was up. If the entire thing was crap at the end, well, it was only two weeks. If, on the other hand, it was a slow blooming beauty, I would then put it aside to come back to later.

As it was, sat down to write for just over an hour, and got 2,500 words done. So, probably a mixture of me being tired, and needing to get into the story. Will need to see how tomorrow goes before final judgement.

For those who want to write on command, cannot recommend highly enough getting suitable amounts of sleep. That's my tip for the day. And on that note...

Misguided Beginnings and Finding the True Path

Well, shot myself a bit in the foot, but appear to have been able to limp back. To fully explain, I'm going to leave my entry for yesterday unedited (which I didn't get to post because of internet troubles, but I've worked out a way around it now, I think). And afterwards I'll tell you about today.

Starting from Scratch.

I am sorry Ben, I ignored your advice to my own detriment.

Instead of continuing on with the final book in my trilogy, I decided to start something completely new. Within minutes I realised that these next two weeks are going to be a serious test of my dedication to the challenge.

I started on the next book on the list, which is really the prequel for another story I have wanted to write and have quite a few notes on. All I knew about this story was that it was a historical romance which ended with her escaping from France with him, and them getting married. Not really a lot to go on. I didn't even really have a starting image (I just have the end image of the wedding), so couldn't even begin by describing that and seeing where that led me. (also, these two characters are the parents of my main character in the next book, so don't even know what they are like.)

So I started a few different ways, and realised they were more a brief summary of my main characters, rather than an actual story. So then tried just starting a scene: you come in with him being told by the hostess of the party that uninvited guests are always welcome, when they are my Lord Averley. I thought it would be a debutante party for hopefully my main character, and it is her mother greeting my main guy.

But he couldn't come here for her, because they have not already met. So he's come to meet up with someone else.

That led to secret messages and I soon found that I was in trouble of just making him the Scarlett Pimpernel, who has already been wonderfully written. But I did want him to have a purpose other than being an aristocrat, and decided it would be fun to write an adventure book, that just happened to have a very satisfying romance in there. So, not the Scarlett Pimpernel, what else is sure to involve adventure? Thought about smuggling, but then couldn't think of a way to make sure he was also honourable. So hit on spy. James Bond for the 18^th Century.

I started to write a new opening scene where my main character is escaping from a village earlier that day with secret documents.

Then came the huge problem. What are the secret documents? Who are they from? Why are they secret? I can write with enough detail about English society around that period, as long as I get to stay vague as to what year it is and what is happening other than the Gunning Sisters having been a hit and Mr. Brummel is leading society. But first of all, this was France, and second, if he's going to be a spy, might actually need to know something about politics and international affairs at the time!

This caused me enough angst that I almost threw away the idea. Instead, I went to grab a cup of tea.

On my way back, I glanced at my bookshelf and noticed Matthew Reilly's 'The Seven Ancient Wonders', and thought that archaeology is something I know a bit about and remembered (possibly from Lara Croft Tomb Raider the second movie) that Napoleon was supposed to have mounted a expedition to Egypt. So what if my main characters get in a race with Napoleon to find some ancient Egyptian artefact that would change world history?

I started to read up a bit on Napoleon's expedition, which really just pointed out to me how very little I knew about the period, and so did what any writer does when stuck, went and had a nap.

In my dream I started working out a brilliant story and writing it down, but on waking up realised it wasn't quite as good as I thought it was. (It did involve my main female character passing herself as Chinese, Indian and then French. But totally worked in the dream.)

So came back to the computer and started doing some random history searching for what was happening at the time, which just reinforced that I knew nothing. So tried to continue writing the story as vaguely as possible, thinking that if I got something out, then I could check out the details etc. later. I know this is not the desired way for historical writing, but remember my aim is to write first drafts to see if I like the style, not spend weeks doing research and then finding out I suck at writing action sequences.

So have now been working for many hours, and have a total of just over 3,000 words, which still hasn't really helped me know where to go or even when I'm setting it.

Now I have become caught in an awful time pressured loop: can't write until I have done more research, don't want to do research because I have no idea what I'm writing and can't waste time researching anything that might not be useful.

I still think there might be something in doing a Napoleon race to save the world from Egyptian artefact, but not sure.

I would need to work out how they could actually know anything, since this is really at the very beginning of Egyptology and very little was known. Then I would also have to work out what Ancient Egyptian artefact I was going to get them to find, and its powers.

Though, instead of starting in France, if I start somewhere I know like Oxford, could get myself going before needing to seriously panic. Not much at Oxford has seriously changed in the last three hundred years, I should be pretty good (except for the girls, need to take out the women, of course).

So, the next two weeks are going to be interesting. My biggest fear is that I just won't be able to make myself keep writing when I don't know where I'm going and don't have anywhere near enough research at hand. Can the academic in me let go of the reigns to let the creative youth just make it all up and then in the second draft check out if it all works? Also, I am now 10,000 words behind, if I don't use anything I've done today. So it is going to be a long two weeks, but hopefully fun.

So that was the end of my post for yesterday.

This morning I woke up, had breakfast and sat down to write and got struck by fear. In the night I had thought of a few ideas, a few starts, but it was no good. I realised that my Muse just wasn't with me. He might be with me on the idea in the future, but right now wasn't really interested. He wanted to complete the trilogy I had started. Wrap it all up nice and sound while it was still fresh in my head

(Yes Ben, God agrees with you.)

So I then moved over to my final book (I think), in my Sally Hunt trilogy, and started writing. I knew very little about this one, except of course all the characters. I won't tell you the end of the last book, in case I can convince you to actually read it, but basically it was a bit of a shock, even to me (I thought it was going to happen in this book), and left me starting this book from a totally different place.

However, managed to get 3,400 words done before gone to work and tonight, with full use of the flow (joined a new gym and had a really yummy dinner) I got up to 8,465. So, will need to keep working at the super pace as I'm one 10,000 word day behind, but my Muse has not abandoned me!

Will be interested to see how I manage to wrap it all up. I know there must be something big, but the big thing I was expecting already happened in the last book! So, like all of you, I will just have to wait and see.

And if you think an Ancient Egyptian/18^th Century romance/adventure novel could work, let me know. All ideas welcome. Also, if anyone could suggest any good books to read about the period, that would be great.

Finally, just to let you all know what a sense of humour my God has: have been praying for either a motorcycle (cheap, but fun) or an old MX5 (hey why not be outrageous? I look really good in a convertible, except the end of my nose tends to get sunburnt and then peel, but still). I thought either of these two would add to my eccentric image which I want to cultivate as a writer. What is the point of spending the majority of my time locked away writing if when I come out I don't get to be weird? Well, guess what? Just got given a free Holdon Vectra, circa 2001. Might not be adding to the 'eccentric' element of being a writer, but my inner 'impoverished' writer is loving it. So big thanks to my Aunt Louise! (She is also writing a book, though hers is all serious. But when it comes closer to actually coming out, I'll tell you more.) 

What I Learnt From Completing My First Novel

The first book I wrote started with just a simple image.

In reality I was in the UK studying my Masters, it was freezing cold and I was in a room that could have passed for the Griffindor Common Room, except swap the fireplace for a bar. All my life I had written stories set in England. Finally I was there, and the first image that got suck in my head? A summer scene down at a river just outside of an Australian country town. It was so warm, with heat shimmering off the long grass fields leading up to the picnic grounds. I could smell the eucalyptus in the air, and anticipated the water on my skin.

But where to go after that?

For a few weeks I struggled on writing bits and pieces. I got a main character, Sally, a bit of a tom-boy, from a dysfunctional family. I wanted a motorbike. She got a dirt bike.

I dedicated myself to writing 1,000 words a day. Hand written, in my notebook. After a fortnight, maybe more, I found that I was slipping. It went downhill very quickly. The point when I slipped? When I told people my project.

At first I had refused to tell anyone, in case they laughed: Buffy trying to be a writer, again. Finish your thesis, girl. (That last one was my mother, you can tell, right?) But after faithfully writing 1,000 words every day for almost two weeks, I had 10,000 words. Not bad. Better than my thesis at the time. So I typed up my first chapter and sent it to just a few people I trusted. Two of them were blandly supportive, and the third, my little sister, came back with, ‘well, it’s like the books we were made to read at school. But on the bright side, those were published books.’ It was not all that inspiring. It didn’t dishearten me, but I found other things getting in the way of my writing pretty soon after that.

I kept just writing bits and pieces on and off for the next year. Finally I sat down and wrote out all that I had into one draft. 20,000 words. Well, it wasn’t bad, but it was no book.

What happened next is the result of my Muse, who happens to occasionally be a bit bossy. Lent 2012 was coming around and usually I work on some spiritual element during Lent. This year my directions were clear: No TV, write every day. I felt sort of bad, because while sitting down to write was a struggle, once I started it was self indulgent joy, which I was pretty sure was not what Lent was about. But God was firm, that’s what he wanted.

I broke it three times: watched TV once with my sister, and didn’t write twice.

By the end of the 40 days I had lots of words but it wasn't yet a book. After starting with an image and developing the characters, the next bits to come were important chunks of dialogue, but didn't fit together into a story. Then, in the space of about two weeks, I found myself starting at the beginning of the book, and just writing through to the end, connecting in the dialogue to actual action and all those bits you need to make it seem real.

As it happened, I had intended to finish it around June, as there was a Christian writing competition I wanted to enter it into which last year I thought closed in July. Luckily, I decided to just double check the closing date. It was actually the 18^th of May. I had 10 days to finish the book, edit it, edit it some more, and then send it in. That was when the being able to just sit down and write from one end to the other connecting all the dots really came in handy. Also, having great support network who were happy to drop everything and proof read an entire draft was super handy too.

The important things I learned from this:

1. An idea, an image, can be enough to make a book.


2. Working out the nature of the main characters is more important than the action, as the action depends on the nature of the characters.


3. Books don't need to be written from one end to the other.


4. For me it works well to write up an image, find suitable characters for that image and then write any important dialogue/scenes, trusting that when all the major bits are in place, I'll be able to just flow through and fill in all the rest.

So, will see how that all goes for my next 12 novels!

Day 3 of Prep Week has seen me:

1. Go out for brunch and say 'farewell for a bit' to a friend.


2. Listen to some sermons and also to some podcasts on writing (my favourite which I highly recommend to anyone interested in writing fiction is Writing Excuses, now in Season 7.)


3. Start reading a new fantasy book.


4. Cook enough Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Risotto to last me through a minor blizzard.


5. Do my tax return (which will hopefully allow me enough money not to starve when I drop my work hours).


6. Finally, take one of the 12 novels I've scheduled for the next six months, one of the ones I know the least about, and write out the image that suggested it could be a novel, then develop descriptions for the major characters.

Until Later Today!

Buffy.

Preparation Step 1: Finding a Muse.

What is the first thing a writer needs to prepare for a challenge such as this?

I have to admit when I sat down to start preparing for entering into Phase 1, my first thought was how many blocks of chocolate I would need to get me through the entire period. This is an important aspect to the writing process, but probably doesn't need to be planned more than a few hours ahead of sitting down to write. My local supermarket is just around the corner, and if I find I become agoraphobic during this experience, I can also have it delivered. One of the many joys of being a writer, you are always home to accept the internet parcels you have been ordering while supposedly doing research.

Therefore, I turned my mind once more to the preparation process, having assured myself that running out of chocolate would not be an issue. The major concern with entering into a project such as this is the fear of failure. I've put it all over the internet that I'm going to be writing 10,000 words a day, what happens if I sit down and nothing comes out?

To be honest, this had not worried me too much until I started to tell people of my plan. Even my loving family who know the ridiculous lengths I can push myself to out of pure stubbornness gasped and said 'But what if you run out of things to say?' 

'Not to worry,' I said, 'I have a secret weapon!' 

(Well, I didn't actually say this, I muttered something about having lots of good ideas and just not having the time or the discipline to write them all down, which was the purpose of this whole exercise if they had stopped to listen. However, I am a writer of fiction, what is reality to me when I can tell truth as it should have been?)

So, I will unveil for you now my secret weapon:

A Muse.

(Did you just read that anticlimactically? Really? Try it again and put a bit more oomph into it this time! Thank you.)

The concept of a Muse is obviously a very old idea, but I feel we have lost its true meaning and effectiveness. What use have I for a beautiful woman to make me feel jealous and disgruntled? Even a good looking man that just lay around on a couch all day is not really going to help me write.

To put it bluntly, what I want is someone else to blame. And I am not alone! That is to say, this idea is not entirely mine. Recently I was listening to a TED talk on creativity. The woman, and I can't remember who she was or what she did for which I apologize, was discussing the modern concept of the suicidal creative figure. Her argument was that it is only a reasonably recent phenomenon that creativity has been internalized to the individual. Previously an artist would have their muse, or genius, which was a supernatural being separate to them which gifted them with inspiration. If that artist then wrote a particularly bad poem etc., no one blamed him exactly, it was his muse which had let him down. Of course, he still didn't get paid and had to actually go and get a day job, but that self consciousness which leads to self blame and then to self destruction was not such an issue, so she argued. 

She then continued on that she had now developed for herself the belief in a personalized, external, supernatural muse. After a particularly hard day of bashing her head against a wall she called out to the world in general to take note, that she had kept up her side of the bargain and it was her muse which was to be held accountable. This then brought laughter, and helped her to relax and took off the pressure.

As I was listening to this talk I discussed this thought with God.

As you will find out soon enough, I am one of those strange beings that never got rid of the concept of the supernatural world. I converse on a daily, or even minute by minute basis with a divine being who listens kindly, puts me in my place when I'm being silly, and encourages me when I'm getting down. This whole writing thing was actually his idea. So when I heard this woman talking about blaming her muse, I similarly turned to the air and said 'I also want it known that...' and then I paused. 'that every time I turn up God gives me something to write!' And that was the first time I realiszd it was true. The only thing that has ever limited my writing was the amount of time I actually turned up to do the task. No matter how blank my mind was when I sat down, if I were faithful, God would turn up the inspiration.

Now, I am not at all saying that my work is divine in any actual way, but I am sure that I have a Muse who helps me and that I can blame if nothing is coming out. And that, just that, is a huge relief. It is really the only reason I am even thinking about this crazy adventure. I felt my Muse say that as much as I wanted to write, he would give me ideas and help. With an offer like that, why limit myself to just one book a year?

So, tip for today: find your muse. The ultimate divine being works pretty well for me, but find out whatever works for you, because the other way lies madness (or just lots of blank pages and a career as a bank teller.)