The Week in Creativity: Jan 16, 2023
My father had a penchant for driving cars until they fell apart. I was driving his Plymouth Fury when a tie rod broke and the front wheel collapsed. My brother drove that same Fury to school but couldn’t get it into Drive after school, and had to drive it home in reverse. My other brother was driving my dad’s AMC Ambassador when the wheel fell off on Memphis Avenue.
None of us got hurt, but it really messes with you when things don’t work the way you expect them.
That’s how my creative writing felt last week.
Everybody has a plan…
As part of the run up to this new year, I made all sorts of plans for articles and newsletters. Then last week happened and it felt like the wheels came off, just when I thought I was on my way to someplace else.
A lot of it was my day job which got real busy and I didn’t have a lot of creative energy. On top of that, I had several days of poor sleep which compounds the lack of creative energy.
Finally, my wife left mid-week on a trip. I thought I’d have a bit more quiet time but she left the three dogs behind and running the house — caring for dogs, meals, and everything else — chewed up a little bit more energy.
…until you get punched in the nose
It’s not that I didn’t write, but the writing went in a direction I didn’t expect.
I’m still working on the ending of that novel and I spent a lot more time on that than I expected. It was a vibe thing. When I woke up in the morning, I thought about the novel. When I napped, I thought about the novel.
So when I sat at my desk, I worked on the novel. It was like the newsletters and articles were someone else’s problem, not mine.
Story Ideas
I’m into the nitty gritty of the novel, trying to stick the landing. So the key scenes are really scene sequences that lead to a bigger climax. It’s tempting, when writing a scene, to have one or another character explain what’s at stake fully, to make it easy for the reader to understand the set up so that you can pay it off and move on to the next scene.
Of course, that doesn’t make it easy for the reader; it makes it boring for the reader.
It’s an easy trap of telling instead of showing, especially when showing requires several small scenes to lay out the dynamics and the tensions between the characters, and to do it convincingly so that it seems perfectly natural to the readers that this is what would be happening.
Then, and only then, can you land the pay off with full dramatic impact.
Easier said than done, as they say.
The Story Story
So this story story is four days late by my reckoning. You, my dear reader, probably wouldn’t even notice had I not mentioned, and don’t give a rat’s ass anyway.
The thing about these articles and newsletters is that I have no control over when you read it, if you read it at all. It’s all but guaranteed to be long after I publish it, and there’s no point in mentioning my tardiness.
Except that the antidote for tardiness is persistence. I’m telling you about it because I could have ignored this entire week and started on next week’s story story. But showing up to do the work is what really matters more than my “schedule.”
So I’m proud of myself for sticking to this, writing about my not-so-great week, and trying to share my experience as a writer with you.
My novel is years behind schedule, but I still have high hopes. In fact, I have high hopes for us all.
You just have to find a routine that sort-of works for you and stick with it as best you can.
Going Forward
I’m pulling together everything I’ve learned about creativity and storytelling to give it all back to the community.
So If you’re tired of watching others create and you want to finally join in the fun, sign up for my newsletter, Creativity for Fun and Profit and I’ll send you a free course, Awaken Your Creative Abundance.