[-quick tip, practice-]

A Quick Creative Practice
~simple habits can have profound impacts~

Keep a tablet and a pen or pencil on your bedside table at all times!

DREAMS
If you wake with a dream still in reach, jot it down immediately. If you want to fall back to sleep, don’t worry about transcribing the full dream. If you write the most important words and images you’re likely to remember the connecting links later.

SOLUTIONS
Those transitional times just before falling asleep or waking—especially from a nap—are rich times for problem-solving and inspirational ideas. Having paper and pencil nearby will allow you to capture these gems that might otherwise disappear from your mind as the world crowds in.

SKETCHES
The tablet isn’t just for words. If you’re like me, you’ll sometimes *see* images that need to be painted or drawn. Make quick sketches before they too are lost to time.

[-photography, process-]

Originally uploaded by tejana.

This beautiful macro taken at a beach, by tejana, reminds me of the impermanence of … everything.

Sand is one of the most malleable of substances. It’s constantly altered by the tides, the wind, even the small beings living within it. Whether a large wave, a sprinkle of raindrops, or a human foot, each causes a rearrangement and a new design.

Our lives, our creative efforts are no different.

If I had finished my novel last December, for example, instead of waiting until now to do it, the words I chose would have been different. I’m subtly rearranged from the person I was when I put the writing aside. Therefore, what comes out of me now, will be altered from what it would have been then. This isn’t a bad thing, but it is something to acknowledge. It might be a (well-needed ) reason not to put things off if we can help it.

Each new day, we need to attempt to put our mark on something in order to capture what and who we are on that particular day - the way tejana so beautifully preserved the sand’s essence in this spot on this day.

Thank you, tejana ~~~

Here are some links to articles about paying attention to the marks we make:
- doodles by Maureen Shaughnessy
- marks have meaning, about self-promotion
- marks have meaning, an art tutorial
- mark my words, a graphic reminder

Procrastination articles:
- Suze Corte - Mind Space
- a PCQ-QCP - The Imaginary Deadline
- a Practically Mperfect article - Collecting Dust

The other side of NOT finishing things:
- Karen Hatzigeorgiou - You, Me and Leonardo da Vinci

Originally published in the original Practically Creative blog, February 2006

[-writing fiction -]

Are your stories missing the mark?
This article may help you to understand what isn’t there that needs to be.

by contributor, Russ Kremer

Many of the stories we read, including most of the good ones, follow a fairly simple formula, one that’s easy to learn — but difficult to master! We see it so often we don’t always recognize it, but many otherwise fine stories suffer by ignoring it. All we need to do is introduce a character with a goal, or some event that needs resolution. Then, build up the suspense to the climax, which is when the goal is met or avoided, or the event takes place or not. As simple as this is, executing it is another matter entirely.

The most frequently missed element is conflict. Ideally, the main character should be in conflict on every page, and the reader needs to feel it. This doesn’t mean we all have to write action thrillers. Romeo and Juliet, The Odyssey, To Kill a Mockingbird all use this formula. What they avoid - and what is common in early drafts - is passivity, characters waiting around not doing anything.

It’s almost impossible to get to the conflict too quickly.

I notice in my own writing that too often it takes me several unnecessary chapters, or in the case of a short story, paragraphs, to warm up and get to the point. The reader has nothing invested in the characters or the world I’m describing when she picks up my story, and the first thing I need to do is capture her interest. I spend far too long on set-up, and the backstory of someone the reader doesn’t care about yet is boring.

When I look over my first drafts I see long stretches where nothing happens. Oh, sure, I’m describing things, but most of them have nothing to do with the character’s journey, or with resolving the dilemma I should have introduced in the beginning. It should be easy to start off by saying Ann wants to move, that Bill wants to marry Sue, that a peaceful town is threatened with fire, then write the story where we follow along and see what happens. But it isn’t as easy as it seems.

If someone in your story has a secret, and she’s asked “What’s new?” there’s tension and conflict. Will she reveal her secret or won’t she? If she has no secret and is asked the same question, there’s little to engage the reader, nothing at stake. When there’s nothing at stake, nothing that depends on the outcome, the “What’s new?” question should be removed. Nothing is answered, nothing is revealed, nothing is added.

Writers love words, descriptions, their characters. Readers have no such immediate reactions, but they want them. They want to love or hate your characters, but they need a reason. They want to see them in action, doing things, making decisions, taking the initiative. It is not always enjoyable to read about someone waiting for something to happen, for something to respond to. Sure, that’s a big part of life, but it rarely translates to a good story.

Just as bad, is when the conflict is introduced, but then ignored. We did not hear anything about Juliet’s shopping excursions before her dates with Romeo (although I’d imagine she and he both were concerned about their appearance). It may have been interesting, may have contained some great descriptions, but it wouldn’t have added anything necessary to the story. It would not have advanced the plot, and that’s another common error. If a scene can be removed without having to re-write huge chunks of the story, it isn’t necessary.

Readers are being asked to spend their precious spare time in the world we’ve created. If dawdle along, refusing to get to and stick to the point, they’ll spend their time elsewhere. If, however, the beginning is gripping, the characters are growing, the plot is advancing, they just might keep reading to see what happens next or even, how the conflict is finally resolved.

© 2005 - 2007 Russ Kremer all rights reserved

Check out another of Russ’s writing articles, Necessary Things.

About the author: Russ lives and writes in LA. He has had several works of short fiction and non-fiction published. He is a yearly participant and winner of NaNoWriMo where he’s well-known by newbies as a guy who knows a lot about writing. He began the “older, but not the official, NaNoEdMo website” - a group for all year ’round editing support, writerly exchanges and feedback which can be found at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nanoedmo/. His website: half-dozen.net. His blog: crenallated flotsam

Originally published in the July 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: space and spaces

[-essay-]

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

This German word - zwischenraum - comes back to me from the past. I first heard it over 25 years ago soon after the funeral of my father. Grief is one of those painful but natural and necessary pauses in our lives. The kind of “time-out” that our minds tend to capture and highlight forever.
Because my father wasn’t a religious man, we called upon a previously unknown to us Unitarian minister to speak at Daddy’s funeral. He did a graceful job of it and the family - in thanks and in need - attended his church the following Sunday. He spoke that day of the importance to our lives of something we have no one English word for, something we rarely notice: zwischenraum, the gap between things. The concept and the significance of it has never left me.

Several weeks ago I attended my step-daughter’s dancing competition. During the adjudication portion, the judge told a group of student choreographers, that the most powerful moments in dance are often not the steps themselves, but the moments when they hold their bodies still and, by doing so, hold the audience’s rapt attention. Stillness between movements. Zwischenraum.

Musicians may have an advantage in this area because the rests - the pauses and stopping points - are not only ordered by the composer but also timed. The Ramones notwithstanding, most music would lose much of its power and pleasure without those moments of silence between the notes.

For the rest of the arts, the spaces are not always as obvious but they are just as important. When you draw something you see, do you pay attention to what you aren’t drawing? This is Negative Space and paying attention to it is a vital step in learning to beautifully reproduce what is in front of you. The air space around solid objects. Zwischenraum.

It isn’t just the arts that show us the importance of space. In our cities, the often almost non-existent breathing room between buildings, houses and signage has a negative impact on quality of life and how people respond to each other. In some places green space has become the rare oasis between everything hard and contrete. In our homes as well, we long for the luxury of more space in which to work and play. And in our days, time and space sometimes merge. “I don’t have any more space in my day” we say as if they were one and the same. Free time in-between what has to be done. Zwischenraum.

Nature abhors a vacuum and space - whether it’s actual physical space or, time - has a natural tendency to fill up before we’ve even had time to notice it’s there. When we don’t honour the spaces in our lives we feel stressed, even frantic. Overloaded and overwhelmed. Incapable. Exhausted. At times, for many of us, the lack of space/time overtakes even our most physically necessary space: sleep.

Pauses in life are restorative, necessary. A long soak in the tub. An afternoon fishing or lying outside with a good book. Meditation. Prayer. Naps. Vacations (though these have to be specifically planned to be restful!) A proper night’s sleep. These are indeed necessary. But essential time-outs aren’t always joyful. A time of grief or depression can be a time apart, a pause. These pain-filled spaces in our lives are as necessary as the pleasurable ones. These are the times when we grow into more evolved persons.

After reading this, take some time/space to consider zwischenraum. Close your eyes for a moment and think of how you feel when you are truly rested. Think of the feeling you get when nothing is looming. Or when the path ahead feels open and wide and unobstructed. It may even make you anxious if it’s been a long time since you’ve had this luxury of inner space. It is, however, vital to living life well and can be cultivated in our busy lives.

The minister from long ago was pointing out that the gap is as important to our quality of life, as what the gap is between. We must pay attention to it, or it will be filled and will vanish along with our peace of mind.

In the arts as in everything else in life, mind the zwischenraum.

‘Zwischenraum’ photo by nancy sm waldman © 05-07; all rights reserved
‘Mind the Gap’ photo by suze corte © 05-07; all rights reserved

Originally published May 2006, The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: space and spaces