Writing about yourself can be difficult, as it’s hard to have perspective on your actions and motivations. A great exercise is to take all your likes and turn them into dislikes (If you like chocolate, then have your character consider chocolate ‘the devil’). Take the things you hate (maybe your toes or your eyebrows) and let your character love them. See what comes out of it.
Choose a place anywhere in the world you have always wanted to visit. Write about what you would do if you were there. Imagine what the people look like, what they wear, what it would be like if you could sit down and have dinner with them, or camp with them in their wilderness.
Now, do some research. Find out what people wear, what they do. Incorporate some reality with your fantasy of the place. Take yourself out of the story and write it about a person of the opposite sex and how they would see the world. How does your world change if you are a man instead of a woman or a woman instead of a man?
Okay. Here’s my current favorite writing exercise:
Write about your most frightening experience - something that haunts you or terrifies you, could be a memory from childhood, something that happened as a teenager. The moment could be one of embarrassment, shame or fear. Write for 10 or 15 minutes.
Now take that story and place it somewhere in nature - the mountains, the desert, a forest or field, or even the ocean. Turn the people into animals. Take out any speech and replace it with movements and actions. See what you end up with.
I recently drove to Boulder for a reunion with my teacher and some classmates at Naropa. Within a few hours I realized how much I missed having a writing community. So much has changed and taking on a full time job writing and editing has sapped my energy for new and creative ventures.
As part of trying to pass on some of the tools that have helped me survive in life, I started a workshop to integrate writing and nature. The first workshop took place this past week. I had a nine year old girl and her mother. We walked about twenty minutes to a gazebo overlooking a pond and river. The river gushed and birds tweeted and we took a few breaths and wrote about our surroundings. The next hour was filled with various exercises that got me out of my routine writing of Audrey Rose and pictures/writing of the dogs at Grizzle-T.
It was great to stretch the boundaries of where I have been writing and decided I had an idea for a new book potentially. Could be a lot of fun. So my advice: if you’re having trouble motivating with your writing, take a workshop or look up some writing exercises online. In the coming weeks I’ll be posting some exercises that were really helpful for me. Stay tuned!
Failure is the opposite of succeeding and it happens to most, if not every writer at some point in their lives. In order to succeed you must try. If you try and fail, well it really sucks, but you have to pick yourself back up and try again. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. Although, sometimes it seems wiser to take some bread and cheese and head into the the woods where words can be blown away by the wind, where judgment is lost in the breath and exhaustion replaces the tiny voices in my head that tell me I should give it all up.
A writer without something to excite them is nothing. I don’t necessarily mean something that excites you in a positive way, it can also excite you in a negative way. When you have passion about a subject, character or place, that will translate. I’ve noticed in my own works, the pieces that are the most honest, that tap into my deepest emotions are the ones that resonate with others.
Right now my passion is the dogs I work with dog sledding - www.dogsleddingtherockies.com. These dogs are incredible animals that raise my spirits when I’m down and offer unconditional love. With love also comes loss. Write from truth and people will respond. Beautiful words can stir the soul, but an honest emotion is one everyone can relate to.
So now and then, although we’ve wounded each other time and again - we stretch out hands to each other in the dark that we can’t escape from - we huddle together for some dim-communal comfort- and that ’s what passes for love on this terminal stretch of road that used to be royal. What is it, this feeling between us? When you feel my exhausted weight against your shoulder - when I clasp your anxious old hawk’s head to my breast, what is it we feel in whatever is left in our hearts? Something, yes, something - delicate, unreal, bloodless! The sort of violets that could grow on the moon, or in the crevices of those far away mountains, fertilized by the droppings of carrion birds. those birds are familiar to us. Their shadows inhabit the plaza. I’ve heard them flapping their wings like old charwomen beating worn-out carpets with gray brooms…But tenderness, the violets in the mountains - can’t break the rocks…
Time betrays us and we betray each other.
-Tennessee Williams - Camino Real
When I find a good book, I find myself thinking about it during the day, looking forward to the time I can crawl into bed and read a few chapters. I like to let books linger, read small parts at a time until I can’t take it anymore, then race through till the end. Lately I’ve been having a hard time finding that book.
While human slavery is an intriguing topic, the delivery on the book I’m reading is a little dry. Tennessee Williams is always a great standby. Am currently consuming ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.’
The one thing I love about Williams is I always find a line in every story that makes me stop and ponder the beauty of the way the words are woven together, the profound meaning in them and often the incredible pain that accompanies them. What more can you ask for?
If writing were about sitting behind a computer, trying different ways to create beautiful images, a writer’s life would be complete. But writing then becomes about marketing, selling, promoting and it’s not that things get complicated, only it takes away from the time that is used for creating.
What do people want and can you deliver? If you write horror stories, do you look creepy enough? If you write romances do you wear flowing dresses and live a scandalous life?
People expect authors to resemble their characters. You don’t have to, but you can help your sales by playing a role for a short time. Give the fans what they want and they’ll keep coming back.
I gotta tell you it’s hard to stay motivated without deadlines. I’m the type of person who has a ton of ideas and unless I make it a goal to stay focused, I tend to get lost on a new strand of ideas and before I know it, months have passed without any real writing happening.
This last month was filled with public talks about dog sledding and my first talk about building self esteem through working in the outdoors. Both were huge challenges for me, as I have a fear of public speaking. The downside was, I was so caught up in getting the presentation ready that I lost time for writing my column - www.SweetAudreyRose.com and putting more efforts into publishing my book - www.DogSleddingTheRockies.com.
My most recent endeavor involved trying to break the world record for most hugs in 24 hours. I didn’t break the record, but had a blast. People were so open and giving and amazing.
As I sit here, I’m making a schedule to keep me on track for writing articles. I’m marking out the dates in my book that articles are due, posting a list over my computer. I’ll also be trying to find new outlets for my column so I do have set deadlines again. Pretending like the deadlines are for someone else and not just for myself also helps me.
If you have any techniques for staying motivated, let me know - dagny@undiscoveredearth.com