This Book Is about How to Love Writing over the Long Haul

I am always hungry to read memoirs about the writing life. I'm downright greedy for more information: How do the best writers think? 

How do they arrange their days? How do they view themselves and their work? What do they do with schedules, when and what do they read, do their families think they're crazy?

All that juicy stuff.

But sometimes, it gets depressing. 

Some writers hate writing. Or at least they find it so difficult and excruciating that, yeah, it practically amounts to hatred. 

This is not the kind of stuff I want to read about. (I know it can be helpful to all yowl about writing together, but ... sheesh. It does get discouraging.)

I'd rather hear from someone who's been around the block and still loves to write. Someone who still has that freshness, who can't help enjoying it, who thrives on stories.

That's how I want to be. That's who I want to learn from.

Which is why I loved Stephen King's book On Writing. 

I loved this book for his tone--he's funny, salty, honest, and generous. It has a practical, companionable feel, but there's a crazy amount of wisdom in it as well. (Get ready to underline a bunch!)

Best of all, he still loves writing so much that it reinvigorates me when my own enthusiasm starts flagging.

The first section he calls C.V., "a kind of curriculum vitae--my attempt to show how one writer was formed."

It's essentially a memoir, but a memoir through the lens of writing. Experiences from childhood that turned into themes in his fiction.

Totally cool, right? The story nerd in me just eats that up. It sent me musing through my own childhood, thinking again about stuff from childhood that stayed with me, the themes I am always writing toward.

And King shows how the kinds of stories he loved as a kid became the kinds of stories he aimed to tell as a writer. (Which, I'm finding, is also true of me.)

That whole first section is laced with writerly thinking, but it's in the second half of On Writing that he talks about writing itself--what makes good writing good, and why you should read everything you can get your hands on.

He also talks through his own process (soooooo helpful), and how he thinks through each stage of a project. There's so much practical stuff in here! A lot of ideas that I took and applied to my own work.

This is a good one, friends. It's personal, and interesting, and will help you see how your life has shaped your writing, and how your writing shapes your life. At the same time, he talks about the craft in a way that sharpens your writing, and hones your attention.

This is an especially good book to grab if you're tempted to feel grumpy about your writing life, or how hard writing has been. 

As King says near the very end of the book,

Writing isn't about making money, getting famous.
... It's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work,
and enriching your own life, as well.
It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over.
Getting happy, okay? Getting happy. 

Getting happy.

He's been through just about everything, he's written a zillion words (I'm sure that's an accurate number), and he still gets happy about writing. 

That's exactly how I want to be.

This Book Will Teach You How to Steal, Why Be Boring, What to Subtract, and 7 Other Supremely Helpful Things About Creativity

Happy Monday, lionhearts! I have another book recommendation for you. It's quite likely that you've already picked it up, but if not, if not, well... you must!

It's Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, by Austin Kleon. 

Every time I reread this book, I get more out of it. (The sequel, Show Your Work, is also awesome, and it was one of the main reasons why I started this blog at all.)

You guys!! It's excellent! There is so much that you're going to love about this book. And since it's based on a top ten list, well, I thought I'd give you ten reasons why you'll love it:

1. For starters, and because I'm related to a designer and therefore I now Notice Such Things, I love the design of this book: small, square, with tons of hand lettering (swoon!) and memorable Sharpie illustrations: Kleon considers himself a "writer who draws," and the drawings and edited photos in here are just as valuable as the text.

2. Also, Kleon does this thing called blackout poetry. It seems simple, and then you try to do it yourself, and, um, it's tricky. Blackout poems pepper the book, and like the illustrations, they give you an extra layer of content.

(Plus, a new hobby. All you need is a Sharpie and a sheet of text... Try it!!)

3. All right, but let's talk about his "Ten Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative."

The first five-ish are about how to look at the world like an artist, how to combine ideas and techniques to make new ones, what to do with your inspiration, when to get started, what material to work from, why analogue skills are still important (love that!!), and how to use all of yourself in what you do. 

WHOA, right? So good. And it keeps going.

4. The last five-ish are more about being an artist in the world: how to think about your obscurity in the beginning, how to reach your audience, how to interact with other creatives (the lovely ones and the meanies), how to respond to the people you admire, as well as some awesome practical advice on how to not burn out.  

5. He presents a good mix of the practical with the creative. The result is a book that is super accessible, broken into bite-sized bits, yet still with plenty of butt-kicking potential, if you know what I mean.

It's not all theoretical. You can get your teeth into it and start using it right away. 

6. This book will push you. It will help you see what was right in front of you, begging to be used in your work.

If you're like me, it will also call you out on the places where you might be getting a little bit lazy, or a teeny bit precarious. ... I always re-tweak my attitude to work after going through this book!

7. It's also going to comfort you. You'll see yourself in some of these pages and say Hey! Awesome! Yeah! I do that too!

It will give you permission to be yourself, and then to be more of yourself. To dive in to the places that you thought your art wasn't going to reach. To support your writing brain with other creative pursuits. 

8. It's going to help you with the question of how to live like an artist, like a creative soul. He'll remind you of things you might have known or suspected but forgotten.

It's going to feel doable, all over again: how to give your wonderful-crazy writing self a place to live in the real world. You can do it.

9. It's a fairly quick read, making it ideal for a weekend creativity-retreat for yourself, or a week-long master class.

It's an excellent companion on your journey to being a better artist, a better writer, a better creative. 

10. After spending some time reading this book, you will want to get Making Things. Your brain will itch. Ideas will flow. And you'll be ready to dive in again.

What could be better than that??

As Kleon says at the beginning of the book: This book is for you. Whoever you are, whatever you make. 

You will love it. 

Happy stealing.

Immersion Camp for Writers (The Joyful Way to Never Stop Working)

So Tuesday was my older sister's birthday. (If you spontaneously ate chocolate cupcakes with lots of sprinkles and didn't know why--well, that's why.) 

Among her many other qualities (incredible sense of humor, fantastic taste in music, and my main movie-watching buddy), she's an awesome graphic designer.

Y'all know I love learning from other creatives, and hanging out with K is no exception.

One thing I've noticed about her? She's a designer all the time. Down to her marrow. 

It's pretty cool.

When she was getting her degree, one of her fellow design students was always showing up to class in pajamas. And not in an occasional, "it's casual Friday" way, but in a this is all I wear kind of way.

Totally normal college behavior, right? I agree. 

But here's the thing: they were all training to be designers. As in: highly sensitized to the effects of color, pattern, shape, and the way those aspects complement each other for a certain effect.

And not-so-much the pajama effect. 

Is it possible to care about design some of the time, and to totally disregard it the rest of the time? Of course it is. The pajama-wearing designer turned in decent work; she's probably doing fine. 

And then there's my sister. Who always has a genius sense of style. She picks her clothes with care because she's a comprehensive designer. It's literally how she thinks. All the time.

She doesn't quarantine her interest to a certain kind of design. She doesn't limit herself to only caring about it between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., only when she "has" to.

She's always paying attention: to digital design, to printed ad campaigns, to the effects of typography and handlettering, to packaging in grocery stores, to the composition of a plated dish at that new restaurant, to photography, cinematography, book covers--

She's always aware of it, always learning about it, always moving toward it. 

I admire the heck out of her.

And right now, as I'm looking to go deeper into my novel, I'm realizing, yet again, how brilliant her example is. I can't help comparing her approach with that of the pj-wearing design student.

How deep can your design sense go, if you don't give a fig about what you're wearing? If you never make it personal?

Why would you practice not attending to your craft?

If you're a designer to the core, wouldn't that come out in all kinds of ways? (Glancing over at my sister: Yup. Yes. Yes, it does.)

So what about us? What about the word-slingers? 

Are we wearing pajamas to class?

Do we think about our novels only when we have to? Do we only care about words and stories when we're "at work"? 

If we only act like writers when we have to, we might not be working at our full potential.

Who are you when you're not writing? When you're not at your desk?

Where does your mind go when you have downtime?

When the writing isn't going well, I sometimes blame everything else--life is hectic, complicated, something unexpected happened, crappy immune system letting me get sick, I've overcommitted myself, blah blah blah.

I look at all the noise everywhere else in my life and feel overwhelmed. Writing is hard. 

But when I remember to treat my work the same way my sister treats hers--existing all around me, all those opportunities, always fascinating--well! Everything changes. 

Regardless of how busy my schedule is.

Watching her example reminds me: I have a choice. And I start consciously pursuing a writer's frame of mind. I focus on thinking like a writer, wherever I am.

It takes some serious intentionality. It's not accidental.

But when I keep at it, the tide turns. And I find that I'm writing from that deep, shadowy place again. That place where, mysteriously, I feel like I'm surrounded by my story, and every day takes me further in. 

This is when the story becomes real, this is when writing feels almost effortless, this is when I think about the story, build the story, all day long.

If you want, your life can turn into a 24/7 immersion camp in your story.

Pretty awesome, right? 

There are lots of ways to do this (here are three pretty fun ones) but the best way for me to immerse myself in my story is really straightforward: 

I close my eyes and switch out my reality.

... Eeek, did I just type that? For other people to read? This isn't super normal behavior, right? Acting like you can swap realities? Very uncivilized. Not the kind of thing to talk about. 

But--oh wait, we're vagabond outlaws, so it's okay if this is super weird. Okay then.

So yeah. I close my eyes. (If I'm out in public, I keep my eyes open but I let 'em kinda glaze over.)

And I decide that one of my characters is next to me. 

I focus all my attention on making her real. I work at getting a sense of her posture, how she's holding her head, how she's communicating her mood in her stance, or how she's fighting to keep her emotions invisible. I sense the tension in her. 

Sometimes, I start to hear her voice, sometimes she has things to say, sometimes another character emerges from the mist and they start talking.

But mainly, I focus on that first thing: Making the character real.

Because when I believe that these characters are real, the whole book becomes possible to write. 

The most dangerous thing for me is when my characters begin to feel like ideas, like concepts. Mock-people attached to names. Pseudo lives. Narrative chess pieces I move around on a page. 

It is so much better--more dynamic, more thrilling--when I get convinced down to my toes that I'm talking about real people. 

I do this with settings too--conjuring up all the details of that Otherplace all around me, until I think I can almost smell it, I can almost hear the sounds there, I can almost feel the sunlight on the back of my neck.

This is deep imaginative immersion work.

Nothing saves my story like this.

When I'm really in this groove, I can drop into my story at almost any time. It gets easier to sense the characters around me, to catch the pace of the scenes, to anticipate what needs to happen next.

To feel the story world wrapping itself around me.

And then, sitting down at my desk feels like I'm just continuing something I was already doing. I'm already in the story. Breathing it. Living there.

And amazing things begin to happen. 

I ditch the dull scenes, and I write brave new ones. Characters deepen, their motivations become clear and sympathetic, their dialogue sharpens.

Kinda makes my heart start racing.

Try it. Yeah. Right where you are, right there. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and get a sense of one of your characters. Hear them breathing. Believe that they exist, that they're real, that they're right next to you.

And then buckle up, because your story just might take off. You'll have to sprint down that road after it, scribbling as you run. 

It's a marvelous way to work.

... Maybe you do this deep imagining work all the time--in which case, good for you! Have some more chocolate cupcakes. Hand them out to your characters. 

But if you've never done it before, or if you've fallen out of the habit (like I do), grab some time this weekend to practice. Look for opportunities to fall into your storyworld.

Go deep. Immerse. And find out what happens when you're a storyteller, all the time.

If DIY Editing Is Your Thing, This Is Your Next Must-Must-Must Read.

It's always hard to contain my excitement when I'm recommending books I love. But, I can't type while also jumping up and down on my desk, so I'm gonna try and stay calm ... Just know that I might get a little sweaty, and my voice might get a little loud.

But it's worth it. Because you have to hear about this amazing resource.

Before the recommendation, though, let me tell you why it was such an immediate hit with me.

If you've hung out on this blog for a while, you know I've been writing fiction for nearly ten years. I'm up to six novels--three standalones and a trilogy. (Woo hoo!) 

I've learned enough about the craft that I know these stories of mine have potential. I know that the plots are good, the characters are pretty rad, and there are some great scenes.

I also know that ultimately, they don't work.

It isn't false modesty. It isn't that I'm holding back. I just know that they're not worth publishing yet.

There's something broken in them, which all my drafting and re-drafting wasn't solving.

Can I be honest with you? I was starting to doubt myself in a really big way.

I know I have what it takes to be a writer. I know I've got the discipline and the sheer stubbornness to get a novel done. I'm willing to work hard. I've read so many books, and I've written so many words...

So why couldn't I make these novels work?

And then. This summer, I came across an interview where Joanna Penn* recommended this book. Less than a week later, I had a copy: 

YOU GUYS. This is the editing jackpot.

The Story Grid is written by Shawn Coyne, a brilliant editor with loads of experience. In this book, he breaks down his system for editing novels. A system he's refined over 20+ years.

This is what he does when he reads a novel that's worth publishing, but isn't there yet. Something's missing; something's broken. So he plugs the elements of the novel into this system.

That process shows which elements are out of sync, what's missing, what's not balanced, what should be adjusted.

It's a massive diagnostic tool for a full-length novel. 

I devoured this book. I read it straight through, and then flipped it over and started again. I considered actually eating it, so I could literally digest it, so that my cells would be better storytellers... but then common sense returned. 

(I did however read it before bed every night for a while. Trying to get it deeper into my subconscious. Hopefully that helped.)

It's not that I haven't read structure books before--I have. But this is like the Grand Master Wizard Superhero of all structure books.

It deals with micro structure--the elements of a scene--in a detail that I haven't read before. And then, it looks at the macro structure in depth--and at everything in between! 

There is so much information here, and it's all priceless.** 

AND, for those of you who are like me, who might be, oh, prone to kicking yourself for not doing a better job, or who tend to be overwhelmed by things like a massive spreadsheet with every misstep in your plot's structure--

Coyne writes with an extremely approachable tone. He starts by laying out all his thinking, defining all the terms he uses, and explaining them in detail so that you get a really good grip on it. And then he breaks down the step-by-step of the actual process, putting it all to work. 

He makes it manageable. Doable.

Taking breaks from editing? Absolutely mandatory. He keeps advising that you take the time to let your mind rest between steps. And he's super-strict about separating the tasks of the Editor from the tasks of the Writer. 

It was a mega-dose of patience and grace that I definitely needed. 

The best quote of the book, though, might be this one. I have it next to my computer, for those moments when I'm tempted to get really overwhelmed about how my book has jumped the tracks:

You as the writer are not the problem;
the problem is the problem.
-- Shawn Coyne

GOOD TO REMEMBER, right? 

What this book will help you do is clarify exactly what kind of story you're telling, so that you can do it well. It will help you see where you might have been less-than-clear (!) about certain crucial elements in your story structure.

It gives you a way to chart an internal story as well as an external story, for a more dynamic novel. And it helps alert you to why your story might feel a little melodramatic in some places, or too contrived in others. Why some scenes feel a little dull or directionless.

I had a dozen nagging doubts about my current work-in-progress. I knew things weren't working as well as I wanted them to, but I literally couldn't put my finger on where or why.

But now, after putting everything into Coyne's Story Grid, I know exactly what's causing those problems. I'm not beating myself up about it (because he says over and over not to!). And I've just created a massive plan for my next rewrite. 

A clear, step-by-step system for taking this novel to the next level. 

Will it be a lot of work? Yes.

But I feel like I actually have all the tools I need. Like I can actually do this, and have a stellar novel when I'm finished. (Huge relief!!)

So. If you're writing fiction; if anything feels out-of-whack in your story; if you'll be doing any degree of editing yourself (and isn't that all of us??), get your hands on this book. 

(Eating it is optional.)

---

*Joanna Penn's website and podcast are gold. Seriously. She's lovely, full of so much publishing and writing wisdom, and she's extremely encouraging. If you haven't checked out her blog and books for writers yet, you owe it to yourself!

**The Story Grid book itself is a little pricey if you're counting your pennies, but you can get all this info FOR FREE on Shawn's website. See the sidebar section that says "Story Grid Catch-Up (Start at the Top)"? Yeah. That's what you want. Click through those sections, and you've basically got the whole book for free. 

And now you're on your way to making your novels even more awesome! Have fun!

If You're Sick of Books about Writing, This Is the Writing Book You Need

Well, I've gotten myself into trouble. Because I want to tell you about this GREAT BOOK for your writing life--a book I'm super excited about, a book that puts a huge grin on my face when I think about it--

Only I have no idea how to describe it. 

No idea.

Here, just come over here and meet it:

(If you totally adore the cover, like I do, then JUST WAIT. The inside gets way the heck crazier. And you will just LOVE. IT.)

Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, by Jeff VanderMeer, is the jolt that your (and my!) writing life needs right now. 

Only I have no way to put it into words. No way to talk about it. Um...

Okay. I'm gonna try.

Jeff VanderMeer puts together fantastic chapters on all those best basics, like beginnings and endings, plot and structure, characterization, world building, and revision. Only he has a new way of seeing them, a new way to talk about them. Great wisdom and great advice.

(I've read a bajillion writing books. And I was underlining paragraphs like a newbie. So. There you go.)

His own excellent work is studded with brilliant essays by other writers--Neil Gaiman and George R. R. Martin and Lev Grossman (whose essay on revision is just COMPLETELY RIGHT, like the rightest thing you have ever read). 

... And then there are about four thousand totally bizarre illustrations and exercises and charts and--and--and stuff I don't even know how to categorize. 

(I'm getting a little worked up over here. It's cool.)

I love this book because it got me through a crazy-hard month last year. When I didn't know how to get back to writing again. When my imagination felt dry as dust and twice as clichéd. When I was just tired all the time. 

I came across this book and felt like something lit up inside. Not to get all mushy on you, but I love it.

This book is for you if you write fiction. 

(And it's at the tip-top of your To Read list if you write fantasy, science fiction, steampunk, or anything even remotely quirky or speculative.)

This book is for you if books on craft or creativity are all starting to kinda sound the same.

This book is for you if you're bored.

This book is for you if you'd like a huge book that you can dip in and out of, read from back to front, marvel at all the illustrations, or hop through and read all the essays first. If you like marking up books and dog-earing them and generally making your own interactive experience out of them--then this book is totally your style.

This book is for you. Period. Because you and I--we need something completely unexpected now and then. A curveball in book form.

That's this book. 

Grab a copy and go give your writing life a nice big zap.

The Key to Discovering Your Ideal Outlining (or Not Outlining!) Style

When I started writing my first novel, I found out that I had to choose a side.

There was a heated debate about the best way to dive into this thing. It crops up on every writing site sooner or later. You've heard of this, right?

It's the Outliners versus the ones who say: Nope, not gonna. The Plotters who have it all settled in advance, versus the novelists who create by the seat of their pants--a.k.a., the Pantsers.

Do you figure it all out first and then sit down to write?

Or, do you go by your gut and your feelings every day, and kind of ooze your way toward your finished draft?

Well. I didn't need to think much about this decision.

Heck, if you've been reading for a while, you can probably guess which side I picked. 

After seventeen years of schooling, I knew that I'm the kind of girl who will make a 99-item list and then know that all is right with the world.

Who likes creating schedules to cover the next four years. Who counts list-making as a favorite activity. I plan for fun.

I mean, come on. Outlines all the way, right?

So for my first three novels, I outlined. These outlines were amazing. They were massive airship carriers of ideas. No storm could touch these babies. They were solid. They were impeccably structured.

I looked at those huge documents, and I knew I could write the novels they described. 

But I ran into trouble.

One novel was so fun that I poured all my story energy into the outline, and had nothing left over for the actual draft. No curiosity, no drive, no nothing. I never wrote that book.

The next two novels I worked on had fifty-page outlines for each draft. (And together, they've gone through seven drafts, so... now you know how I spent my twenties.)

I loved the certainty. I felt so prepared. It was just like school, like planning a semester around a few syllabuses. I was so organized. The books would be wonderful.

But passages that outlined well didn't translate to prose. One antagonist never really found his feet, even though everything in the outline said he'd be perfect for this role. Huge parts of these stories felt dull, crammed with everything that should be there, full of all the tidbits the structure books told me to put in.

All right. I can (finally) take a hint.

For my next book, I set off in the wild opposite direction.

I went pure pantser. 

I knew a few details about the main character, the general direction of the book, a few supporting characters, a radically new setting, and a kind of atmosphere that made my heart skip beats.

And that's it.

I dove in. Writing that draft was like taking a bunch of polaroid pictures, and waving them around to see what developed, and then assembling them into a quilt. I had no idea what the next day's work would hold. Which, let's face it, was pretty cool.

Honestly? I love that novel. I love it so much.

But it's a Swiss cheese of a story: there are some major holes that I just haven't been able to fill, problems that don't reconcile, gaps where every bridge I try just doesn't feel right.

Also, I was so anxious when I was writing it, that I literally had to crawl into bed every day and write from under the covers.

I checked in with another writer who was a total Non-Outliner. Is it supposed to feel like I'm drowning? Like I'm going blind? I asked her. YES! she said. It's so EXHILARATING.

But I didn't think I could survive another book like that.

And then I realized something. Writing a novel isn't at all like doing homework. It isn't like school. So my hyper-planning strategies from school days: wasn't gonna work.

At the same time, writing a novel isn't at all like summer break. Floating through it with some vague ideas of where I was going: also not going to work.

I found my best writing strategy when I remembered this: writing a novel is like going on a trip.

Right?

I mean: there's a beginning, a middle, an end, each with their own kind of energy, their own shape. You get yourself out there, and then you have to figure out how to get home.

There's always an "I'M PRETTY SURE WE'RE LOST" moment. High points, low points. Action balanced with reaction. Weariness and cheerfulness, excellent views and crummy alleyways. Heroes and villains. Unexpected characters. Conflict and plot twists. Maybe even a bit of danger, a bit of romance. All that.

Every novel holds its own world, and the narrative is the journey we take through it.

So I finally asked myself: How do I best like to travel?

Outlining seems like planning a trip in detail.

And the hyper massive outlines I created: That was like knowing the names of my taxi drivers in advance. Getting my hotel room number (heck, and a key!) before leaving home. Pinning down the date I'd wear each outfit. Looking at menus for restaurants and picking what I'd order.

Get the picture?

FYI: this is not how I travel.

But then the other extreme, my pantser novel: Well, that was like saying "I'd like to see this city around these dates, and hey, I'll bring these jeans." And that's it.

Also not how I travel.

When I go somewhere, I like to have a grip on what I consider the basics: general ideas of transportation. Definitely know which hotel(s) I'm staying at. And I'm a food lover, so if there's a restaurant I can't miss, I'll make sure I know the address. And then I'll get a general idea of what museums or parks or views I really have to catch. 

AND THAT'S IT. 

I like leaving room to be struck by impulse. To have a total change of plans without worrying about throwing everything off. To explore. To yes, get a bit lost.

To say: This looks good, that sounds great, hey there's a festival over there, maybe we should step inside that place--is that fudge?!

A chance to make up a lot of the trip on the spot. But not all of it.

It's not a hyper outline. And it's not just a vague intention.

It's somewhere in between.

When I wrote this trilogy during the second half of last year, I had a loose, super-gentle outline for each book. It was not hysterical. It was not highly structured. It didn't do what the outlining books said to do. 

But it also wasn't blank.

Every day when I sat down to draft, I knew one or two points I needed to hit that day, in order for the climax to happen, or in order for the tension to build. I had a general idea of who would be carrying the action and maybe what the setting would be. 

But that's it.

Enough of an outline to keep me breathing. I knew what my job was each day. But I also had plenty of room to wander, to be struck by new ideas, to take new tracks, to explore.

And guess what. It was the happiest, calmest, and best drafting experience I've ever had.

It was a near-perfect balance of structure and imagination in the moment. Freedom + safety net. With neither side outweighing the other.

So when people ask you to take a side, outlining or not outlining, just remember that it really doesn't have to be either/or, all or nothing. It's a spectrum. 

And as you prepare your next draft, don't think about homework, and don't think about summer breaks.

Instead, think about how you travel.

What rhythm feels right when you're on the road? How much structure or lack of structure helps you have the best trip?

What keeps you engaged in the experience of traveling, without making you too anxious about what you don't know?

Try giving that same amount of structure to your next writing project.

And see how that journey feels.

Let's Use Writing to Prop Our Eyes Open

So there was this one time when I was in Sicily on a train, zipping around the coast. I was exhausted, disoriented, and exhilarated. (Typical travel state.)

I knew about eight words of Italian (none of which I could pronounce confidently), and I was feeling far away from my ordinary little county of cornfields in southern Illinois.

Mostly I was trying to absorb everything. Everything. All at once.

I tried to catch the scenery with my crappy little disposable camera (this was a lonnnnnnnng time ago). But the camera couldn't get the smell of the train car, wasn't fast enough to really capture the lemon trees outside, couldn't possibly imprint the mix of emotions among me and my friends.

So I put my camera away. I pulled out my journal. 

And I wrote as fast as I could.

I wasn't writing complete, magical sentences. I wasn't framing my experience in lovely, travel-memoir terms. I was just taking notes, as if one of my professors were rapid-fire presenting all this information in class somehow.

Writing fast, jotting nouns and verbs in a mess. Trying to write down everything as quickly as it was happening--

The sheep on the hills, the construction worker pausing as we rattled by, the laundry on wires between houses, the look of the rooftops, all the satellite dishes, the view of the sea.

And now, eleven years later, so many of my memories from Sicily aren't really preserved in the photos I took (though of course they help).

They're in the words. In the frantic-quick phrasing, in the cascade of nouns. The lists-turned-into-paragraphs.

I read that description, and I can remember it exactly, every part of it. The giddiness, the uncertainty, the strangeness, the beauty. And the immediate mad love I felt for the island I somehow found myself on.

So now I never leave home without bringing a notebook (even if it's just a teeny one in my purse). Whenever possible, when I find myself in a strange setting, I try to exercise this creative muscle, this freewriting-meets-notetaking, getting down my raw impressions.

It's one of my favorite-ever practices.

It helps me come up with fresh descriptions. Besides--as any artist will tell you--it's good to paint pictures from life, not from photographs or stale memories. 

But the best thing for me is this:

It gets me into my skin.

When I rely on a camera, I see everything in terms of a photograph. I get panicky about missing shots--that one is beautiful, and then, oh this one is perfect, and oh gosh what about that fountain, and maybe if I line up like this...

I find myself moving from photo op to photo op, missing the feeling of actually BEING THERE. 

(Anyone else get like this??)

But writing is different. When I sit down with pen and paper to capture my surroundings, I feel entirely present. I am fully there, a pure human recorder, getting every sense impression, everything down.

And it gets me to live more fully. 

How great is that? Writing serves your traveling; your traveling serves your writing.

Win/win.

But who says you have to go far from home to practice this?

Here's my creative challenge to you: go somewhere at least slightly unfamiliar--whether it's down the block, somewhere unexplored in your town, or a nearby city.

(Or, hey, I recommend Sicily. Unless you're from there. In which case: have you been to southern Illinois? Because it's super-different.) 

Open your journal, grab a good pen, and just get it down. 

Use your senses, all of 'em.

Not just the smell and the sounds and the tastes in the air, but--does it make you feel exposed and alone, or is it tight and claustrophobic? Is there tension in the environment, or peace? 

What kind of history lurks under the surface? What feels like it's about to happen?

Who knows. You might springboard yourself right into a scene for your novel. Or into a bunch of reflections about your own life.

Or, you just might get a breathless page or two of notes. However it works--it's writing and it's immediate and it's good.

Let's use the unfamiliar as a catalyst. And get really good at capturing the life that's happening around us and in us.

Where will you be writing from? 

Here's the Truth about What You Can't Fake in Your Writing

It was a normal piano lesson. A normal Tuesday morning. And I was playing the assigned piece while my teacher sipped her coffee and squinted at my open music book.

Suddenly she stopped me. She leaned forward and stabbed at a single note. 

"You played THAT note as if you didn't care about it," she said in her dry voice.

I sat there silently for a second, fingers hovering over the keys, smarting at the interruption. 

I DON'T care about it, I thought. But it wasn't the kind of thing I could say to my teacher.

A couple of months before, I botched my initial piano audition. Thanks to that crappy performance, I was playing songs beneath my level. I hated the pieces she assigned me: I should be playing something more challenging! I always thought. Something gorgeous and exciting. 

Not this lame little dance tune.

Plus, the note I didn't care about was just a pick-up note: the eighth note that introduced the much more interesting and much more challenging run of sixteenth notes on the next page. 

No one cares about the stupid pick-up note. It was just the welcome mat, the indicator that a beautiful bit was about to happen.

So I never thought about that note. I played it without a thought. Without a care.

And my teacher--darn it!--noticed.

I didn't get up from the piano bench that day until I gave the eighth note, that stupid little pick-up note, its full due. Until I played it with good tone, the right amount of attention.

Guess what. The run of sixteenth notes sounded all the better for that firm introduction. 

So why am I telling you all this? Not so that we all become amazing pianists (though that would be fine), but because my teacher was darned brilliant. I mean: she was good.

She knew when I didn't care about something I was playing. She heard it. 

She was the unfoolable listener. 

Kinda like a really good reader. 

Did you know that you can't trick a reader? You can't fake your work. Readers are good.

They know when someone is talking down to them. They know when a writer should have cut a lame-o passage. They know when the writer stopped caring.

They don't stab the page with a finger and tell you about it, though. Instead they chuck the book, or close the web browser, and just find something else to do. 

Yikes, right?? 

So what don't you care about in your current piece? What feels like it's not worth your time? 

Where do you tell yourself: "Aw, man, this part of writing, this part of the work--it's beneath me. I should be doing something flashier, something more impressive."

What in your writing feels like the stupid little introduction for the main attraction, the pick-up note to the place where you prove yourself, to the place where you'll get the applause?

Here's where it lurks for me. Here's what happens when I start to care a bit less:

• I'll fill my cast of characters with people I feel obligated to include: token players. Stand-ins. Characters just to add balance or dimension, just to round things out. But then I stop caring about them, because I'm not really invested in them.

• I rely on "standard scenery." I'll plunk a scene in the first setting that comes to mind (kitchens! nameless outdoor areas!), not because it serves the story but because I'm so darn LAZY. Whoops!!

• In between the larger plot points, I am tempted to let my story slump. Settling for humdrum plot movements. Clichéd conflict. Canned antagonists. 

• And, oh yeah, RESEARCH. (Oh poop, can't someone else do this for me?)

What about you? Where do you find yourself throwing material on the page without a care?

I think what my piano teacher was saying to me boils down to this: 

You are not above any of the notes that you're playing. If you're too good for this song, then prove it by playing every single note with excellence.

And she was so right.

We prove ourselves on those pick-up notes. We prove ourselves on the small things.

It's those details, after all, that show the kind of writer we are. It's the care we lavish on what could have been a throwaway scene; the precision we use on the introductory moments; the careful construction of all our marvelous settings. 

Let's take a lesson from my piano teacher, that savvy listener.

And let's be worthy of every word we write.

Borrow the Best Advice from Another Discipline

One of the loveliest ways to grow as a writer: Listen to a talented non-writer talk about what they do.

It's amazing how your sense of creativity expands. How you get new ideas for ways to solve problems. How your appreciation for other art forms helps you write more dimensionally.

This is why TED talks are so great. I've only listened to J.J. Abrams talk about mystery boxes seven hundred times. And then there's the amazing designer Kelli Anderson and her pursuit of disruptive wonder. (Listen as she talks about "the hidden talents of everyday things," and see if that doesn't get you rethinking what's possible in a novel!)

What about documentaries? (I'm not the only writer who was insanely inspired by Jiro Dreams of Sushi!) I just found Chef's Table and The Mind of a Chef on Netflix, and I'm thrilled. I can just feel the creativity bubbling: they're looking at ingredients from every angle, and I find myself translating, thinking about new ways to consider characters, settings, conflict...

What about learning from master pruner Marco Nucera? This man shapes trees for a living, and he's darned good at it. This except from the totally gorgeous book Educating Alice:

"He has a natural talent for seeing the shapes in trees and bushes," she said. "There is a poetic quality to his work as well as a theoretical one. Both are equally important." ... "I wanted to keep the natural shape of the tree, but bring out its line," he explained. "Trees each have their own strong character. Landscape pruning is like being a sculptor of trees." 

Yeah, they're talking about trees. But somehow, reading that, all I can think of is revision. Listening to the work, instead of just hacking away. Being a sculptor of words. Balancing the poetry with the theory. 

Or what about this--think about your writing life as you read these words:

"Don't overestimate the skill and wisdom of professionals. Take advantage of what you already know. Look for opportunities that haven't yet been discovered. ... Ignore short-term fluctuations." 

It's advice on evaluating the stock market, written by Peter Lynch. But I hear it as a way of trusting your gut with writing, as a way to investigate your own work, and to look for places to keep pushing it. And ignoring the short-term fluctuations of my I love this/I hate this reaction to the work. 

Isn't it about writing too? 

Especially this line:

"Stick around to see what happens--as long as the original story continues to make sense, or gets better--and you'll be amazed at the results in several years."

It's how he judges stock picks, but it's how I think of some of my revision projects as well.

It's so energizing, borrowing perspective from other fields of work. I'm pretty convinced that when we only listen to other writers, all our advice gets stale and reused and dull. 

Borrow from some non-writing creative thinkers this weekend. People who are talking about skills other than writing, other than story-making. 

How are other craftsmen solving their creative problems? How do other disciplines grow in their craft? 

Who can you learn from this weekend?

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.