The Power of a Passive Idea File

A novel isn't just one idea: It's dozens of ideas. Hundreds. Thousands, even. Because behind every little dialogue interchange, every scene's climax, every character choice: there's an idea.

You've gotta be an idea factory. Always coming up with those tiny ideas that work together to form the scene, the chapter.

And when you're long-hauling your way through a rough draft, you can go clean through all your intriguing ideas in just a couple of sessions. 

When you hit a wall, you can brainstorm your way out, or, you can grab a little idea snack. You can have a few files of inspiration ready to go. 

Inspiration before you need it. How gorgeous is that??

Think of it like stocking your pantry: If you've got the good staples on hand, you can always whip up a good meal, right? Well, this is food for your writing.

I have three main files for storing inspiration. Simple documents that are bursting with ideas--enough to keep me writing novels for the rest of my life. ... Bookshelves better buckle up.

The Title File.

What is it: Well, it's a list of titles for works that don't exist. Titles for novels, story collections, poems, essays, chapters. I've started to look at titles as their own genre, their own little art form. They're like a miniature story themselves, a story starter, a teaser. 

Have you felt this way before? The right title can make a story world, or story situation, spring up all on its own. Practically effortless.

Here's what I do: Whenever I feel like it, I'll create a little list full of titles. Try it. It's pretty dang fun to sit down and generate a bunch of really quirky book titles.

There's nothing on the line, no pressure. You get to just be your creative, freewheeling self.

If you're stuck, there are a few things you can try. Look at a bookcase, and start mixing up the titles in your mind. Scramble the words to create new titles, and write those down.

Or, switch up your environment, and pull titles from your new surroundings. Like for me, right now? A Stack of Untended Dishes. An Afternoon of Unwashed Coffee Mugs. The Unlucky Lamp: A Mystery. See what I mean? Of course they can be a bit goofy, a bit too mysterious or silly. That's just fine.

And then, when I need it: If I'm stuck on a scene, or if I'm about to dive into a writing exercise but have ZERO ideas for where to begin, I'll dip into this file. And whatever title I pick, I let it suggest conflict ideas, imagery, a mini story-world. And those ideas fuel the writing that I do next.

The Character Name File

What is it: Okay, not just any old names. These are names that have a kind of deeper feeling for me. Hard to explain it. There are names that I hear and they're just names; and then other names grab my imagination and start it spinning.

A really good name suggests a kind of physicality, a certain kind of inner narrative voice, a sense of motive.

And if I sit and think about that name and everything it implies for me: well, my fingers start itching, and words start trickling.

Here's what I do: Well, there are great name books out there, definitely. This one has been a life saver many times. 

But browsing a name book can boil my brain after a while.

Will you be shocked if I say my favorite source for names is the dictionary? (Nah, you're not shocked. You know I read the dictionary.) I'll read a definition of a less-familiar word, and the combination of the word and its meaning suddenly sparks a character in my head.

Like the word heddle. An old word, a weaving term. It comes from an Old English word for "to lift," or "heave." And somehow in reading that, I could see an old woman, working to change things politically in her storyworld, working to make a broken system better... 

And yep, Heddle is a major character in my current work-in-progress.  

So the dictionary is awesome. But you can find a good name anywhere--road signs, street names, overheard conversations, historical figures, cemeteries (yes, I've done this--try it, it makes you feel good and spooky and writerly), or your good old family tree.

And then when I need it: I'll drop a new character into a scene that's having trouble. Apparently when Raymond Chandler got bored with a scene, he'd send in a man with a gun. Well, I send in a quirky character with some weird skill or attitude or information or a bone to pick with the world... and then I'm off and running again.

The Image and Phrase File.

What is it: This is the file for the strange little phrases that whisk through your mind sometimes. You know what I mean? Chance descriptions, unusual images, just little flecks and flickers of an idea. 

They dash through your mind before you go to bed, or when you're staring out the window. They pop into your mind when your in the middle of a conversation, forcing you to actually act like a writer and go scribble it down. Bits and pieces that don't attach themselves to your work-in-progress, but which are too good to pass up.

Always, always write them down. And then pile them here.

Here's what I do: I don't really work to generate these. But whenever my mind is all warmed up and tossing out freebies, I catch them and keep them.

And then when I need it: When my writing is sounding dull, when my descriptive abilities start sagging, or when my imagination is just tired and worn out: I browse this file for a while.

I'll emerge with a way to juice up the description, or a new take on characterization.  

See? Easy. You can add to these three files whenever you feel like it. Once a week, or at the start of each writing day, or whenever you need to write but are taking a break from your main project.

It gives you that pleasing feeling of writing in miniature, of being mildly productive. And then when you need it on a heavy drafting day: well, look at that. Your bacon is already saved.

And when you REALLY need a inspirational push? Grab a title, a character name, and two or three images. And that, my friends, can save a writing day.

So, what do you think? Do you already keep inspiration files like these? What other ways have you been squirreling away ideas for future use? Let's share tips in the comments!

Wanna keep reading? Check out these posts: Write Through Your Problems and Be a Generous Writer: Empty all your pockets.

Go out and get yourself a cup of coffee.

Here's your weekend assignment. Go out and get yourself a cup of coffee. (Or tea. Or hot chocolate. Or whatever.) And turn your cafe visit into an adventure--a kind of writing expedition.

There is a long, long tradition of writers working (or not working) in places where drinks are served. Even if you've had a crappy writing week--especially if you've had a crappy writing week--this is still a writing ritual you can participate in.

Plus: you get a coffee. It's a win, all the way around.

Play it up if you like: Try out a new place, where you won't run into anyone you know. Dress mysteriously. Bring a new pen, a blank composition book.

And then eavesdrop. Write down the dialogue you hear around you--without any descriptions, just as a series of quotes. 

Immerse yourself in the place, the feel of it. How would it translate into a paragraph in a novel, or a scattering of phrases in a short story? 

Jot down notes on a napkin. Write down descriptions of the faces you see, descriptions of the voices, the scream of the espresso machine, the particular jangle of the bells hanging over the door.

Try to capture it in just nouns and verbs, in concrete terms. Get it all: the screaming toddler in the stroller, the hypercool teenager immersed in his iPhone, the overparticular-about-the-quality-of-the-espresso customer. The newspaper headlines, the array of pastries, the funky baristas, the warmth of the coffee hitting your veins. 

Be the writer in the corner who notices everything. The spy in plain sight.

After all, this is your dream job, right? Have a dream job kind of outing.

Imagine deeper meanings behind every casual gesture you see. Decide what would happen if a few of these characters were forced to face a certain conflict, a totally unexpected challenge. Mess with the whole scene: shake the coffeehouse in your mind like it's a snow globe, and see what happens as all the elements resettle.

If nothing else, just write down a string of random nouns. Scratch your pen over some paper, and feel that bit of word-glee bubbling in your brain (or is that the caffeine?). 

Go be a person, go be a writer, go get some coffee.

This Is the Writing Book that You Really Must Read

So I'm a Type A kind of person. And I have this teeny tiny problem with perfectionism sometimes. Occasionally, I get a bit tightfisted, a bit controlling, with my work and my schedule.

When I started writing fiction full time, I thought I was going to lose my mind.

Writing novels--with all their mess, their sprawling and tangled and totally non-linear process--well, it didn't so much work with my personality.

And I still don't know what would have happened to my novel ideas (not to mention my sanity) if I didn't have Page After Page, by Heather Sellers.

You guys. This is the book I would hand out to each and every writer I meet, if I could.

I'd love to just have a stack, ready to go, and whenever anyone says, "Oh, hey, I'm interested in writing," or "I know someone who likes to write," I'd whip out a copy and say Here! Take this! Read it! IT'S YOUR PARACHUTE!

I'd probably get a little overexcited. Can you tell?

Because when I started writing, I could find plenty of writing books that talked about aspects of craft (how to plot! let's write dialogue! hone your description skills!), and publication (you need an agent! here's how to market! let's write a query!). 

What I didn't find was a book on Not Going Crazy, which was the thing I needed the most.

 Fortunately, I was working as an editorial intern when I realized I wanted to write full time. And my kind boss (who probably knew my quirks better than I did at that point--my white knuckles gave me away) handed me a copy of this book.

These pages are marked up with ink of every color. Some chapters are underlined in near-entirety. I've done most of the exercises three or four times. And every time I reread it, I find sentences that hit me fresh. Ideas and helpful ways of thinking that, when I apply them, change everything for the better.

Heather Sellers talks about what your life needs to look like so that your writing gets done. But she isn't a hysterical, strict, mean-spirited person, sucking the fun and the imagination out of everything. Nope. Her view of the writing life is a very generous, happy, and passionate approach.

The chapters are short and quick to read, so you'll zip right through. (And if you're in a major writing slump, my best advice is: Binge-read this book. Go straight through it. You'll be much better on the other side.)

She talks about anxiety, how to deal with other people's attitudes toward your writing, what kinds of tools you need. She talks about when writing isn't for you, and what to do when you're frustrated about writing. She talks about how to deal with your moods.

Because writers have some moods. 

She'll tell you how to find your best material for your work, how to discover what you already know. She'll tell you what your apprenticeship in writing will look like, how long it will take, and why that's okay.

She talks about all kinds of things that kept me writing when I wanted to stop.

Best of all, she helped me see that if I didn't have a healthy writing life, with a healthy writer's heart, then all the books on craft and marketing wouldn't make any difference at all.

If the blank page scares you too much, then who cares about dialogue practice? Who needs an agent?

So. That's my writing challenge to you, friends. Snag a copy of this book, at a library, at a bookstore. Check it out, and then please do tell me what you think of it! I have a hunch that it will be a game changer for you too.

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Wanna keep reading? Check out Me + Future Lucy and Lighten Up.

You're Already a Magician

If you're in a creative field for about, oh, five minutes, you'll hear this quote:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe*

When I began writing Book One of my trilogy, I was escaping two huge novel projects. We're talking fifty-page outlines, and 500-page drafts. HUGE. I wrote Book One like a runaway.

I had a couple of plot ideas, three character names, and a murky idea for a villain. A city name that I thought sounded fun. And that was about it.

I dove headfirst into NaNoWriMo, and by flinging myself at the blank page day after day, I came up with a story of over 50,000 words that completely dazzled me.

I found out that I didn't need a massive strategy. I didn't need dozens of plot complications listed out. I didn't need scene diagrams. Somehow, I already had the whole story inside me.

And it just took diving in to find it.

So what is it, this boldness of just BEGINNING? You're saying to yourself that anything is possible. That this is a road you are willing to go down. 

And when you do that, three things show up.

You're a genius.

When you dive in, with a whole heart, with all the boldness cylinders firing, you just get smarter. Really! You do. When problems show up, you find a way.

Because there are always problems. And there is always a way.

You find in yourself a cunningness. An openness to unusual solutions.

What's the prerequisite for solving a problem? Believing that you can. Believing that there exists an answer, somewhere, and that it is graspable. 

Funny what you'll invent, what you'll create, what you'll make, as long as you believe that you can. Answers arrive out of thin air, exposing what you didn't know you knew.

You're powerful.

When you really go for it, you make your own momentum.

This is a crazy good thing. Stoke it, build it, add to it in any way you can.

And never ever take your momentum for granted.

A strong beginning builds its own energy and strength. An oomph that can move you over hurdles in your way.

And hey, you're putting ideas into the world, putting words down on paper, that didn't exist there before. No matter how you slice it, no matter how you feel about it, that's powerful. That's big stuff.

You're a magician.

As you come up with your genius answers, and as you build momentum, weird things start showing up.

Characters start talking to you. I mean it. Really talking.

You start seeing things that aren't there.

No, I'm not getting spooky on you. I think another word for all this is "overactive imagination." But for once, that's a really good thing. That's exactly what you want!

Yes, you, with the overactive imagination: Please bring it over here and start writing your novel.

I think that when you've voted YES for your creative work in a really solid, hands-down, not-gonna-back-out way, your brain takes a little bit of time to catch up. (Maybe to get over its surprise.) But then when it does--oh baby. When it does.

It brings all kinds of stuff out of its attic, out of the basement. Ideas and imagery you didn't know you had in you. I mean--you really didn't know.

Character voices and mannerisms, crazy settings, and astonishing conflict ideas that you can't explain in a purely rational way. Because they feel like they came from something outside of you, not you at all.

And instead of scraping the bottom of what you can imagine, you discover depths below depths.

Dive in.

Sometimes, if we don't start when we should, all that genius, power, and magic goes the other way. It goes backward, works against you.

Personally, I'm always spotting flaws in my works-in-progress, in my project plans. I see why things don't work. I'm a terrible skeptic when it comes to most ideas: the first thing to my lips is why we can't. I am full of resistance, mule-minded, with a very hard head, heels that have lots of practice digging in. 

And I can practical-mind all that magic away.

Spoiler alert: This is not the way to enjoy writing novels.

Sometimes, you really just need to leap, whole-heartedly. In spite of flaws, in spite of doubts. And you figure it out as you're falling.

Sometimes, you really do learn to fly on the way down. And, when you don't, sometimes the crash landing isn't as awful as you thought it would be. You learn. You build a better flying machine.

Sometimes, you really just need to begin.

What is it that you've held back from beginning? What is on your "one day, maybe I'll..." list? 

What would happen if you--started?

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Wanna keep reading courage-building posts? Check out Throwing a Party for Discomfort and Feed the Bears. And then dive into your week, lionheart! You can do it!

Boost a friend's Monday by sharing this post! Let's all be magicians this week.

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*So I've heard that this Goethe quote is commonly misattributed, and that the quote actually came from W. H. Murray, but either way you slice it: it's a stirring quote.

Build a Better Brainstorm

Finding good ideas.

Sometimes that feels like my total job description: finding the series of tiny ideas that turn into a character, an action line, a scene, a novel. 

A good idea has some heat to it, some intrigue--and it pulls me forward, makes the process of writing nearly effortless. A dull idea, or one that doesn't suit me--well, that adds weights to the writing process, bogs it down.

Brainstorming. It's how we scare the good ideas into the light, right? How we scrub around for ideas in the folds of our brains. We all need tools to dig around with, ways to bring those ideas out. How far can a writer get without ideas? Not far at all.

My take on brainstorming used to be: Put down all the ideas you can think of.

That was it. Pretty straightforward, pretty chill. But I've done a bit of reading about creativity since then, and these three insights have helped me up my idea-generation game. 

1. Have a question: have a goal.

In his fantastic book, Making Ideas Happen, Scott Belsky has a lot to say about brainstorming. (Actually, the whole book is about the process of turning an idea into a thing, a product. Annnnnnnd basically you should just quit reading this post and pick up that book. It's amazing.)

While brainstorming is a necessary part of the process, it's too easy to get stuck in this happy, anything-is-possible phase. He cautions, "A surplus of ideas is as dangerous as a drought. The tendency to jump from idea to idea to idea spreads your energy horizontally rather than vertically."

Okay. So true. One of my book projects is paralyzed by too many ideas. The draft is basically a collection of possible scenes, some of them written as many as four times in four different ways... So many possibilities, that I got mired in the mess and finally shelved it.

How do you get around this?

Scott Belsky says, "Brainstorming should start with a question and the goal of capturing something specific, relevant, and actionable."

Oooh. Game on.

This kind of clarity is so helpful. Especially when I'm trying to tweak something about the way I work, or what to focus on in a story. It's easy for me to take out a sheet of paper and just generate stuff. But it's so much more valuable to ask, What precisely am I looking for? What exactly is my question? 

And then to take those results and test them to see: How will this look in action? How can this translate to real life, to steps taken?

2. Go after an "aggressive quota for ideas."

One of the best books on creativity I know: The Creative Habit, by master choreographer Twyla Tharp. She advises "giving yourself an aggressive quota for ideas."

There's something in our brains that rises to the challenge of listing a bunch of ideas in a very short time frame. 

Tharp writes about an exercise she gives when she's speaking at an event. "You've got two minutes to come up with sixty uses for [a] stool."

Two minutes: sixty ideas. 

Idea generating goes berserk.

She writes, "The most interesting thing I've noticed is that there's a consistent order to the quality of ideas. You'd think the sixtieth idea would be the most lame, but for my purposes, which are to trigger leaps of imagination, it's often the opposite."

Isn't that crazy? My main takeaway is: I usually stop seeking ideas way too soon.

She says, "It's the same every time: the first third of the ideas are obvious; the second third are more interesting; the final third show flair, insight, curiosity, even complexity, as later thinking builds on earlier thinking."

So now, when I'm searching for ideas, I try to give myself a short time limit and a biiiiiiiiig list to fill. And then I let myself go crazy.

Try it! You might surprise yourself.

3. Go the other way.

One of the most butt-kicking books in my how-to-write library is Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook.

You guys. This is one of my desert island books. If I was going to, uh, write a book on a desert island and could only bring one book on craft, this would be it. I'm still firmly convinced that the more I apply what he discusses in these exercises, I'll have written the best darned book I could possibly write.

He has a section devoted to brainstorming, with several excellent tips on how to seek out original ideas. But my favorite tip is this: 

Remember the power of reversal. Take your first impulses, and go the opposite way. That is the secret of brainstorming.

This especially applies to the kind of work that doesn't lend itself to "write sixty possible whatevers." For me, this works best in situations like this:

What will Fiona do when the three-headed dog shows up? Run. Scream. Faint. Try to shoot it. Those are the first ideas that come to mind.

But taking those initial impulses and going the opposite way, looks more like this: 

Ignore the dog. Bark at it. Sprout a second head herself. Go closer. Offer it ice cream. Dance.

And suddenly, the scene has a whole different range of possibilities. (We readers love a bit of unpredictability, right?)

Are your gray cells tingling yet?

What brainstorming strategies have worked for you? Which of these tips are you itching to try? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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Wanna keep reading? Check out: What we write about when we write about teethmarks and The Way to Great Things.

If you liked this post and want to give your fellow brainstormers a boost, please share the link!

My Best Formula for a Good Writing Routine

My early writing schedules were torturous, terrible things. Hideous.

I was desperate to prove myself. So I devised a massive, arthritically structured plan. I wanted to do four kinds of writing (poetry, essays, short stories, novels), and I wanted to do them all RIGHT NOW. As well as researching markets and sending out submissions.

My days were frantic and bursting at the seams. I took zero time for real input, or the slow exploratory writing--the kind that so often yields the best insights, the best work.

All that's changed--thank goodness!

Now I'm a lot more interested in doing quality work, and a lot less interested in being the girl who writes everything.

After a lot of learning and experimenting, I came up with a basic, non-crazy writing template that has held up for years. It's a formula more than a concrete schedule: It's very forgiving, and the elements can stretch, collapse, or change places, based on your needs or your time constraints. You can shrink it into a thirty-minute micro-version of a writing day, or expand it to fill a full seven or eight hours.

If you're looking for a way to structure your writing days, give this a try!

Step 1: Start with a bit of courage, inspiration, and love.

I start by reading books about the writing life, books that address the attitudes and mindset and heart of the writer herself. This is my mental warm-up, my precursor to deeper thinking.

I am happily surrounded by many good books in this category. Right now, my top five are:

• A Year of Writing Dangerously / Barbara Abercrombie

• The Art of War for Writers / James Scott Bell

• A Writer's Book of Days / Judy Reeves

• A Writer's Paris / Eric Maisel 

• Page after Page / Heather Sellers

Step 2: Warm up your pen with light, unattached writing.

This could be time to do a few writing exercises, or my current technique of choice: a bit of journaling. The point is to get words down, warm-up words. Pen moving over paper; a cursor tracking across that white field. Get some words down without judgement or stopping. Write for a few minutes.

Step 3: Stock your brain: read the dictionary or the encyclopedia.

This is an insanely useful practice. I love the serendipity of what you'll find in a single page. When I'm looking hard for story ideas, I'll gulp down three pages in the dictionary every day.

It's not really about learning new words. It's more about encountering new thoughts, or familiar ones in new contexts. This practice has sparked character ideas, new settings, and whole story concepts. You never know what you'll find, what will save your bacon in a moment of inspirational poverty.

Step 4: The meat of the day: Focus Area #1.

For me lately, this means typing in the previous day's drafting work. Some rough revising work on those pages, a bit of editing, and exploring new ideas that spring up.

If you're new and don't have a project yet, try diving deep into the world of writing exercises.

I once spent eight weeks working through all 365 prompts in A Writer's Book of Days. At the end of it, I had the bones of at least four novels, as well as the ideas simmering for dozens more. If you're new to writing, this might be the best thing for you!

Step 5: Focus Area #2.

This is usually when I do the day's drafting: fleshing out scenes, sentence by sentence.

Other times, I've used this time to work on specific craft and skill-building exercises, like the ones in James Scott Bell's Plot and Structure or Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook or The Fire in Fiction.

There are MILLIONS of books on craft out there. When I'm feeling weak on a certain writing skill (in other words, always), I'll grab two or three books that cover the same subject, and I'll map out a mini writing course for myself.

Step 6: Review the day, and plan tomorrow.

Because I'm a notetaking nerd, I usually add something to my work journal about how the day went. I'll mull over what I'm stuck on with my draft, vent frustration about what was unexpected, or celebrate the victories.

This is the perfect time to plan the next day. Before I leave my desk, I write out a detailed list of what I'll do tomorrow, category by category. When one day feeds into the next, they start to build momentum. Trust me, it makes it a lot easier to get started.

Step 7: Fall into someone else's good book.

After a day's work of word lifting, I love to flop down with someone else's finished prose. It's both a great way to unwind, and a way to keep musing on words, admiring the rhythms of sentences, getting lost in the imagery.

Plus, hey, we're readers, right? Why write if you don't love to read?

There it is! My tried and true all-purpose writing routine.

Obviously, this is just one girl's escapade in Scheduleland. Maybe this is the kind of thing that bores you to tears, but I'm a schedule junky. Really. I'm the nosiest person when it comes to how other people work, endlessly curious.

If that's you too, then check out the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (the blog that started it!) by Mason Currey. While you're at it, look through the archives of My Morning Routine, which posts once a week, detailing the morning ritual of current artists, entrepreneurs, writers, and other creative sorts. 

All right. So: How do you work? Do you have a tried-and-true routine, or a habit that helps you start, or a proven closer? Share tips and habits in the comments!

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Wanna keep reading? Check out: We the Observers and Be Patient: We're waiting for wonderful.

If you enjoyed this post, please pass it along to the other writers in your life!

Seven ideas to kickstart your writing life!

Here's the thing about the writing life: We're always starting. Starting up, starting over, starting for the first time, starting for the hundredth time. Restarting after a break, an illness, a catastrophe, a trip, a block.

One of the most valuable skills to learn as a writer is just that: the skill of starting again.

So here's a handy little list of mindsets and tricks to help you dive in--whether it's for the first time on your first day, or you're coming back from a break (as I am, this morning, after beating off a cold), or you're renewing your interest in a project you put on pause.

1. Embrace it.

I can't tell you how many hours (days, weeks?) I've wasted being frustrated over starting. Starting can be hard, y'all! And given the choice between diving into a new project or, say, eating all the cheese in the kitchen, I tend to vote for the cheese.

I don't like fighting through all the cobwebs in my brain, all the creaking noises as my word engines warm up. I don't like facing my own ignorance about the best way to dive in. But if starting is a fact of the writing life (and it totally is!), then why not make it a friend instead of an enemy?

When I shift my focus, I start to see how the break has made me better. The time away has given me a richness that I will bring to this new project. Whatever growing I've done will only benefit the work. And I probably have better ideas now.

So I decide to be patient. In spite of the cobwebs.

2. Explore. 

Beginnings are the perfect time to entertain a lot of ideas. To cast around for unusual options. You're not bound to anything just yet. 

Sometimes I've been so afraid of these early stages of beginning that I sprint through them to get to the much more comfortable phase of mundane work and crossing off to-do list items. But I think a bit of adventurousness pays off at the beginning. 

Go out to museums, ramble a bit at your nearest state park, meet new people and see them like a writer would see them. Notice everything: it's a writer's job, after all, to pay attention. To everything.

When you look at the world with a writer's eyes, you never know what you might discover. And you might stumble on an even better way to start.

3. Exercise.

In a way, this is part of exploring. Beginnings are excellent times for writing exercises. 

To be totally honest with you, I'm a long-time hater of writing exercises. Really. It's true. I bristle at most prompts, and usually don't feel any kind of idea tugging at me, other than "I'd rather not be doing this."

... Until I came across Judy Reeves's book, A Writer's Book of Days. You guys. This is the exercise book (among other things!) for people who hate exercises. Her prompts are beautifully open-ended. Intriguing little nudges to get you moving. You almost can't help but write.

And the beginning of a project (or a writing practice, or a writing week) is a wonderful time to do a few warm-up exercises, to get the ink and the ideas flowing.

My advice? Grab her book, pick a prompt, and write for ten minutes. If that makes you feel sweaty and anxious, start with five. Five minutes, picking out a path down a new road with your pen.

It will help bring new ideas into the work you're about to do. Or, if you don't know what you're about to do, it might give you a new story to pursue. You might even get hooked on the buzz of unraveling some new images, some new prose, on the spot, right out of your funny brain...

4. Make lists.

Lists are one of my favorite tools for jumpstarting a writing project.

I don't mean lists with items like "Research the setting" or "Decide on inner conflict for Josie," although those are important.

I'm thinking more like: "Ten sounds she hears in the woods during this scene--at least three sounds should be unsettling," and "Twelve weird places where the opening conversation could take place," and "Four reasons why she has a bad reaction to country music." 

I like listing out ways to add interest to my scenes, or ways to get around the cliched first attempts that my brain is sure to fling on the page. It's a way of getting more than one option, a way of tricking yourself into a more interesting writing session than you might have otherwise had.

5. Interview yourself.

This is what I do when desperate times start begging for desperate measures.

When I'm really anxious about the beginning of something, I start talking to myself (and taking notes). I do this in a document devoted to exactly this kind of conversation. I call it a work journal, but you could pick a snazzier name if you like.

I start asking myself what I'm so worried about. What's making me anxious. What I can't stand about the beginning, why my characters make me nervous, why I'm getting a twitch. I let myself go on and on, typing down the complete answers.

Or I start poking around trying to figure out why I had this great idea that led me through weeks of daydreaming to this starting moment--only for it to abandon me. I start asking why this story or this new enterprise matters to me. What captures my heart about it. What images do I keep seeing. What is tugging at the back of my brain.

So many times, this has gotten me around a huge boulder that was sitting at the beginning of my writing path. Because the more I talk about what I care about, the more I imagine the one thing that got me to my desk in the first place.

And then I know my true starting point.

I start with what I care about. Even if it's not the "first line of the book," or the first technical stage of brainstorming, or whatever. Interviewing myself helps me find out what my guts are telling me--and then I go with my gut. 

So, try this. You might be surprised at what you find out.

6. Don't get stuck.

It's good to embrace the start. It's good to explore a bit, do a few exercises, make some lists, and ask yourself questions. 

But it's not supergood to turn the beginning of the path into a campsite. 

Beginnings can be scary, but you can also get used to them. It gets tempting to just stay there, entertaining options for weeks, once you've realized that middles are plenty scary themselves. (And don't even get me started on endings.)

I've caught myself again and again staying on the first step: mired in the first chapter of a new novel, caught in the first paragraphs of an essay, or even just paddling round and round in the pool of research. 

Dare to let go. To not make your beginning "perfect" before you move on into the middle.

Remind yourself that you can fix it later, or make it better some other day. Leap.

7. Trust the mess.

So many artists and creatives recommend that you "trust the process." And it's taken me a while to figure out what this means.

... Maybe because I was too busy shrieking, "But I don't trust the process! I don't trust anything about it!"

The process of creating is messy and confusing. It doesn't always follow logical steps, even when we think it should. It's not easy to explain. You don't always write a piece--or revise one--in a clear and orderly fashion. The route that takes you from "person holding a pen" to "person holding a story" is a bewildering road, most of the time.

(If it's straightforward and easy for you, then you're very lucky. You should probably buy a lottery ticket.) 

What "trust the process" has meant for me is: Don't flip out when it gets messy. The mess is part of it.

And that's okay. Take deep breaths. Go with your gut when you can. Do the next tiny piece of work in front of you. And don't be afraid of the mess.

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Beginning a project with some degree of grace: it's a skill I keep relearning. 

Each of these list items has saved my bacon more than once. Any of them striking a chord with you?

What have you been doing to ease through the beginning steps of your work? Which list item do you want to try this week? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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If you liked any of these tips, please send this post to your writing and creating friends! Starting a project is a lonely business--let's keep each other company!

Wanna keep reading? Check out Let's keep going no matter what and The Secret.

Oh! I didn't forget about you!

It seems like I've gone off somewhere, like I've forgotten all about you, my blog reading friends. But I haven't, I promise. Quite the opposite. For the last few weeks, I've actually been pouring hours and hours (and hours!!) into a total blog overhaul. 

I'm changing it all up.

I'm sprucing the format, looking at the design, clarifying topics, brainstorming big big big projects... All kinds of stuff. 

High fives all around.

Yesterday I listened to a podcast directed at bloggers, and the speaker said something like:

Don't tell your readers you are making big changes! Don't say that you're excited. Because then, if you change it all up and they don't like it, they'll be all disappointed and stuff. Don't set yourself up like that. 

So... I was going to tell you how psyched I am. (Do people still say psyched?) I was going to let you know that I'm throwing everything I've got at this new redesign, and that I think it will be worth the wait. That I feel more energized about blogging than I ever, ever have. And that you can tell all your writing friends about it, because I really think it will be that much fun, and that exciting, and that good.

But... the really smart blogging man said, don't do that. 

So I won't say anything.

I'll just inch off this stage with a HUGE GRIN on my face, and let you draw your own conclusions.

Okay? Okay. 

PS: It all gets real on March 1. I'll be brainstorming like the madwoman that I am until then. 

What to do after finishing a novel

It's kind of like the moment when you realize you need a new haircut--like, yesterday. Or when you discover you're ravenous, and should have eaten an hour ago. When cabin fever strikes, and you needed to take a trip last week, probably. That mad-urgent feeling. You know what I mean?

Well, there comes a point in writing a story when I need to be DONE. 

I can never quite predict what that point will be. I make these wonderful, sensible schedules; and then life happens and shakes 'em up a bit. I readjust my schedules, I get back to a slightly more aggressive plan to make up for lost time; life interrupts again. I back off, I slow down, I reevaluate.

And then I wake up one morning and say: I don't care how many pages are left. What, 60? 70? Pfft. I have today free. LET'S DO THIS.

It's the drafting marathon. That's how I closed out Book Two, and that's how I closed out Book Three: last Tuesday, I worked from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., cranked out 65 pages, and yup, finished the book.

I slept in the next day, patted myself on the back a lot, and then contracted a serious case of NOW WHAT.

You have to give drafts room--a lot of room--to breathe, before you go back in and start revising. What to do in the in-between time? 

I've heard of very clever writers who crank out a mini-project before coming back to their major projects. Well done is what I have to say to them. That's a tempting option, but I don't have another project that close to being draftable, and besides, I'm practicing being Not Crazy.

I'm finally gonna keep things simple, so instead, my in-between list looks more like this:

1) Type in the draft, for starters! Lament the state of wrists and penmanship. 

2) Embark on a course of light, easy reading. Time to kick back, yes? Select something fun and beachy to start: Anna Karenina. (Although I have to say, the knees on that cover are giving me FITS. Cover design, people. Cover design.)

3) Sign up for a green smoothie challenge! 30 days of green smoothies. Because eating habits during the second half of a draft... not pretty.

4) And on that note: Realize how much sitting has happened. SO MUCH SITTING. Start a new workout routine. 

5) Maybe two. It was really a lot of sitting.

6) Go full throttle in the kitchen. I mean, all out crazy town. If you're not on your feet for three hours, you're not even trying. Reconnect with your love of good eating--I mean good cooking.  

7) And then make more lists!! Places to go! Things to do! Dust bunnies to vacuum! Closets to reorganize! Those file cabinets won't index themselves! 

Seriously, it's funny what I can find time for, without a draft breathing on my brain.

Oh, and hi, 2015. It's good to be here.

Well, THAT happened.

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Started on Day 10; finished on Day 26. In spite of oh so many things. 

I'm going to wallow in a confetti state of mind, and then, yep, make a pumpkin pie for tomorrow. Do a bit of dancing, have a day of gratitude tomorrow, and then... 

And then get to work on the next 50,000, eh? Because this novel's only half-way written, if you want the truth. And I want it done by the end of the year... oooooh, this trilogy is almost there, I can taste it!! But it is lovely to have half of the marathon over, and that with much rejoicing.

... Pfffft, what am I even SAYING??? Don't listen, I'm delusional. A crazy writing working lady just took over my brain for a second. 

I'm taking a break. I'll pretend that I'm going to write a bit for the next two weeks, but in all honesty, I'll be playing with my nieces and nephew, making up songs to sing, doing silly dances, cooking with my sisters, and generally just being family. Sure, I might nudge my writing along, a page a day, just to remember what's happening in this story, but mostly?

Mostly I'll be living.

It's good for writers to remember: we get to be humans too. We don't just write about them.

Right then. Priorities straightened out.

A merry Thanksgiving, one and all.