Category: Inspiration for your writing

Need some in­spir­a­tion for your writ­ing? Some ideas to help get the juices flowing.

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Where I write

It’s true, a per­son can write any­where. On the bus, at a park bench or even in the bathtub. I be­lieve each per­son writes best when they’re in a place that is per­fect for them.

Some like the back­ground buzz of a cap­puccino bar while oth­ers thrive on the clat­ter of key­board keys as they pound out story after story in a news­pa­per news­room. Personally, I prefer the quiet am­bi­ance of my home of­fice. And, as the old­est room in our 96-year old house, the room def­in­itely has ambiance.

To be­gin with, its ample size provides plenty of room for two desks, built-in and port­able book­cases, a fil­ing cab­in­et (there are more in the base­ment) and two tables to pile things on. (Despite the best of in­ten­tions, I’m a piler, not a filer.)

But it’s the transom win­dows that I love best. At 1.6 metres tall by one metre wide  (or 5 feet, 3 inches and 3 feet, one inch for the met­ric­ally chal­lenged) the nat­ur­al light provides a wel­come res­pite from the glow of the com­puter screen.

And to tell the truth, they also present ample op­por­tun­it­ies for dis­trac­tion. In the spring my eyes are drawn to a snowstorm of white plum blos­soms, a mini­ature forest of daf­fodils and a two-storey tall mock or­ange. Fall storms bring a rust col­oured car­pet of plate-sized maple leaves.

The view from my win­dow one day this May.

But it’s the wild­life that lures me out of my com­puter chair. Over the years I’ve watched deer, rac­coons, mink and squir­rels, as well as fer­al cats and rab­bits out­side my writ­ing room window.

Then there’s the caw­ing of crows and ravens and the high pitched screech of an eagle. Or the ca­co­phony of sound an army of small birds made the day a Barred owl perched in a Douglas fir. I watched as a hum­ming­bird dar­ted for­ward to stab the en­emy in the chest with a tiny beak. Despite his or her bravery, the owl did­n’t budge.

The most sur­pris­ing dis­turb­ance though, was the day my fin­gers paused on the key­board as I wondered why I thought I heard a tur­key gob­bling. We do live in a rur­al area but there aren’t any do­mest­ic fowl in the neighbourhood.

But when I peered out the win­dow there was a full grown tom, tail feath­ers fanned out in an im­press­ive dis­play, dan­cing around a flock of fe­male tur­keys on the lawn next door. I don’t know where these do­mest­ic birds es­caped from or how they went wild, but they hung around for a month or so, un­til one by one, they all disappeared.

After 22 years of en­joy­ing a great view and hav­ing a ring­side seat to nature’s drama, I’m totally ad­dicted. If we ever move, at the top of my cri­ter­ia list for a new house will be a writ­ing space with big win­dows and a view.

 

Posted on

Where I write

It’s true, a per­son can write any­where. On the bus, at a park bench or even in the bathtub. I be­lieve each per­son writes best when they’re in a place that is per­fect for them.

Some like the back­ground buzz of a cap­puccino bar while oth­ers thrive on the clat­ter of key­board keys as they pound out story after story in a news­pa­per news­room. Personally, I prefer the quiet am­bi­ance of my home of­fice. And, as the old­est room in our 96-year old house, the room def­in­itely has ambiance.

To be­gin with, its ample size provides plenty of room for two desks, built-in and port­able book­cases, a fil­ing cab­in­et (there are more in the base­ment) and two tables to pile things on. (Despite the best of in­ten­tions, I’m a piler, not a filer.)

But it’s the transom win­dows that I love best. At 1.6 metres tall by one metre wide  (or 5 feet, 3 inches and 3 feet, one inch for the met­ric­ally chal­lenged) the nat­ur­al light provides a wel­come res­pite from the glow of the com­puter screen.

And to tell the truth, they also present ample op­por­tun­it­ies for dis­trac­tion. In the spring my eyes are drawn to a snowstorm of white plum blos­soms, a mini­ature forest of daf­fodils and a two-storey tall mock or­ange. Fall storms bring a rust col­oured car­pet of plate-sized maple leaves.

The view from my win­dow one day this May.

But it’s the wild­life that lures me out of my com­puter chair. Over the years I’ve watched deer, rac­coons, mink and squir­rels, as well as fer­al cats and rab­bits out­side my writ­ing room window.

Then there’s the caw­ing of crows and ravens and the high pitched screech of an eagle. Or the ca­co­phony of sound an army of small birds made the day a Barred owl perched in a Douglas fir. I watched as a hum­ming­bird dar­ted for­ward to stab the en­emy in the chest with a tiny beak. Despite his or her bravery, the owl did­n’t budge.

The most sur­pris­ing dis­turb­ance though, was the day my fin­gers paused on the key­board as I wondered why I thought I heard a tur­key gob­bling. We do live in a rur­al area but there aren’t any do­mest­ic fowl in the neighbourhood.

But when I peered out the win­dow there was a full grown tom, tail feath­ers fanned out in an im­press­ive dis­play, dan­cing around a flock of fe­male tur­keys on the lawn next door. I don’t know where these do­mest­ic birds es­caped from or how they went wild, but they hung around for a month or so, un­til one by one, they all disappeared.

After 22 years of en­joy­ing a great view and hav­ing a ring­side seat to nature’s drama, I’m totally ad­dicted. If we ever move, at the top of my cri­ter­ia list for a new house will be a writ­ing space with big win­dows and a view.

 

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What every writer needs

Every writer craves a pub­lish­er, an ed­it­or and most of all, time to write. An ocean full of story ideas, hefty roy­alty cheques and some re­cog­ni­tion doesn’t hurt either.

But you know what writers need most? Downtime. That’s right, big chunks of do noth­ing time when frag­ments of ideas can bounce around the cra­ni­um and pos­sibly morph into some­thing brilliant.

At some point every writer sits in front of their com­puter strain­ing for the right word, phrase or sen­tence. But let’s say they for­get all that and take a hike with the dog or stand in the shower for a long time let­ting hot wa­ter sluice over their limbs. That’s of­ten when an “aha!” mo­ment and the an­swer to the prob­lem appears.

But how of­ten do any of us give ourselves any real down­time? There’s al­ways an email to an­swer, an er­rand to run or a dead­line to meet. And in today’s high tech world, even a walk in the woods doesn’t guar­an­tee un­in­ter­rup­ted downtime.

Scott Belsky, au­thor of Making Ideas Happen and CEO of Behance, dis­cusses this in “What Happened to Downtime? The Extinction of Deep Thinking & Sacred Space.” According to Belsky, every­one, es­pe­cially cre­at­ive folks, should sched­ule reg­u­lar downtime.

One thing Belsky sug­gests is es­tab­lish­ing a ritu­al for un­plug­ging. Yes, I know it sounds blas­phem­ous but this means mak­ing a point of turn­ing off your com­puter, cell phone, Blackberry and maybe your land­line too.

Downtime on a Sunday af­ter­noon. And, no, I did­n’t chop any wood first.

Sundays are my down­time days. I get up when I want, eat when I want, take a nap if I want, read and putter with no par­tic­u­lar goal in mind. And, even though I don’t com­pletely un­plug, I try not to have the com­puter on for long.

Once a year or so, Rick and I head to Tofino for a totally un­plugged hol­i­day. The beach cab­in we stay at does­n’t have a phone or Internet con­nec­tion and there’s no TV, ra­dio or even a clock.

It’s hard to de­scribe how lib­er­at­ing that is. And the re­lax­a­tion goes way be­yond an ocean view and strolls on the beach. The sense of let­ting go – the re­lief of not hav­ing to check or re­spond to any­thing or any­body — is enormous.

And, what’s really in­ter­est­ing is the cre­at­ive en­ergy I feel after a do noth­ing day or an es­cape to Long Beach. Plot prob­lems seem to dis­solve, a good re­source comes to mind or a pos­sible way to end a chapter presents it­self. Not every time, of course, but enough to know that down­time is an im­port­ant part of be­ing a writer.

Downtime. It’s im­port­ant and I need more of it in my life. So, I’ve just made a big do noth­ing date with my­self for the week­end. Who knows, it might be the best cre­at­ive ses­sion I’ve had in a long time.

 

 

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The writing triangle: three essentials for writers

Sometimes it seems like the stars have to be per­fectly aligned in the heav­ens for any real writ­ing to be done, nev­er mind start­ing and fin­ish­ing a book.

But there are some ele­ments that help. Inspiration is one but it’s un­pre­dict­able at the best of times. It’s far bet­ter to use what I call the the writ­ing triangle.

The tri­angle is com­posed of a place, a time and a plan.

Every writer de­serves – and needs – a place to write. Some folks are happy at the kit­chen table or su­per cre­at­ive at the loc­al cap­puccino bar. Personally, I think to be most ef­fect­ive, a per­son should have a room – no mat­ter how small – that they can call all their own. If need be, it can even be part of a room. What’s im­port­ant is that this be a place where you will not be disturbed.

Once you have a place, you need a time. And that doesn’t mean whenev­er you can make time or the cre­at­ive muse hap­pens to strike. If you are ser­i­ous about writ­ing you will make time to pur­sue your craft on a reg­u­lar basis.

This might be a couple of hours in the morn­ing be­fore you go to work, two hours after the kids go to bed or four hours on Saturdays. The im­port­ant de­tail here is to have a reg­u­lar time and stick to it. Make this your time for writ­ing, wheth­er you feel like it or not. Believe me, if you sit in front of a blank screen long enough, the bore­dom will make you want to write.

And, con­trary to pop­u­lar opin­ion or a strong sense of re­spons­ib­il­ity or guilt, very few things will hap­pen that re­quire your im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion. Years ago when my step-daugh­ter was young, I had my writ­ing desk in a corner of the liv­ing room. After many in­ter­rup­tions I nicely but firmly asked her not to dis­turb me un­less we needed to evac­u­ate the house or someone needed to go to the hos­pit­al. It worked. (But hav­ing a private place makes it easier.)

Now for the plan part. If you want to fin­ish a book and not make it your life work, it’s best to give your­self a dead­line. Let’s say you’re start­ing your pro­ject on January 1 and want to have a com­pleted first draft by Sept. 1. Divide those 35 weeks by the num­ber of chapters  you es­tim­ate your book will have. Now you know how much time you can de­vote to each chapter. For ex­ample 35 weeks di­vided by 16 chapters means you can spend about two weeks writ­ing each chapter.

Don’t be overly op­tim­ist­ic – va­ca­tions and life hap­pen and you want to en­joy them. But you also want to fin­ish your book. And don’t get overly anal about your plan; it is a guideline, not writ­ten in stone.

Every time I be­gin a book I make a plan and ad­just it as ne­ces­sary. That means once a month or so I check my plan to see how I’m do­ing. To date I’ve nev­er fin­ished a draft or book when I ini­tially thought I would, but without a place, time and plan, I know it would have taken me much longer.