Time to Write

PS: Is broadcast TV violence a race to the bottom?

A few days ago I started to watch The Blacklist, one of the more intriguing new dramatic series on broadcast TV, but it turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back. I turned it off and I doubt that I'll be watching it or shows like it again.

The reason: the first few minutes were dedicated to showing a man drugging a woman, kidnapping her, and, when she wakes up tied to a make-shift operating table in his home, telling her in detail how he was going to torture her. As he started to do it, I switched off. She was in mid-scream.

I've written thriller scripts in which people get killed. I know that violence and death are staples of drama going back to the Greeks (and there's plenty of both in the Bible, for that matter). What bothers me is that broadcast television series are getting more and more graphic. So many plots are driven by the hunt for a serial killer that the writers try to figure out ever more grotesque ways for the killers to torture and murder their victims. The producers and the networks are fine with showing these acts in lurid detail. 

Does seeing this stuff several times a week (and for heavy viewers, several times a night) have no effect? I'm not suggesting that a well-adjusted person suddenly is going to turn into a sadistic murderer but I have a hard time believing it doesn't affect us at all. There are plenty of kids absorbing this every night. I wonder what it's doing to their brains. 

Of course there are plenty of alternatives, including the "off" switch. That's the one I turned the other night and I have a feeling my life is going to be richer for it.

Some tips from 100-year-olds

Mental Floss magazine rounded up 100 bits of advice from people who have lived 100 years or more. I don't think getting old necessarily makes one wise but they did have some great tips. Here are my favorite ten:

 “I don’t care what you’re passionate about: maybe saving Dixie cup covers. But if you do it passionately, you’re alive.”

"Nobody else controls you."

“[Humor is] a life force, a way of surviving the difficulties of living.”

“We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep. I believe that we can keep that attitude as adults, too. It’s best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.”

"Don't compare. You'll never be happy with your life. The grass is always greener."

 “Have lots of people in the house and lots of different kinds of people—young, old, black, white, people from all over the world. People have always energized me.”

“Do one thing each day that is just for you.”

 "Don't look at the calendar. Just keep celebrating every day."

"I make myself go out every day, even if it's only to walk around the block. The key to staying young is to keep moving."

"Find your passion and live it."

Plus one I doubt is true, but I sure like the sound of it:

"The secret to longevity is ice cream.”

(I offer these mostly for fun and as food for thought, but in terms of writing these also might be useful for creating lively, appealing, energetic characters of any age.)

Three keys to having creative confidence

What's the secret of having creative confidence? After all, every creative act entails some kind of risk.

Mainly there's the risk of failure--whatever we create may not work or be appreciated.

There's also the risk of success. This may not be as overt but lots of people worry that if they are successful there could be negative effects: prompting jealousy from one's current friends, not being able to handle success, and even the fear that we wouldn't be able to sustain the success we've achieved.

I'm reading a book on this topic, Creative Confidence, written by brothers Tom and David Kelley. They have the necessary credentials: Tom Kelley wrote the best-selling book, The Art of Innovation; David Kelley is the founder of Ideo and the Stanford Design School. 

The first step is to accept that creativity is not restricted to artists and writers and eccentrics. I suspect most people reading this are past this step and agree that anybody can be creative. 

Another is to get into the habit of experiencing things that will spark creative thought. You can't force creativity, but you can invite it. Realizing that we do have an element of control helps us to feel more confident. Generally the wider the variety of things you experience, the more raw material you have from which to generate new connections. 

A third is to cultivate a growth mindset. Rather than thinking "I'm good at this, I'm not good at that," we need to be open and willing to learn new things. As we've seen in just the last few years, the tools of creativity keep developing and changing and the people who can learn them have more opportunities for exposure. 

If you want to check whether these ideas could help increase your creative confidence, here are a few quesitons to think about:

1: Do you believe that everybody can be creative? If so, have you tapped the creativity of your spouse or partner, your kids, your friends? Can you think of some fun ways to do so?

2: What are three things you can do in the next week or two that you've never done before? This doesn't have to be skydiving or anything big, it can be going to a restaurant and eating a dish you've never tried (or cooking one), or reading a magazine you've never looked at before.

3: Is there a skill that would help you to progress with your creative projects? Where and how could you learn it? Sometimes you don't even have to do it yourself but you have to know enough about it to outsource it to somebody else.

There's lots more in the book and I'll share more information from it in future posts. 

(You can also get lots of great ideas from my book, Creativity Now, published by Pearson and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

Do you have a creative name? Should you?

People judge how creative your work is partly by how unusual your name is. That's the result of a study done by researchers Izabela Lebuda and Maciej Karwowski. They had five groups of people judge four different types of creative projects: art, science, poetry, music. In each case the projects were the same but the names of their supposed creators were different. They were one unusual male name, one unusual female name, one common male name, and one unusual male name. A fifth group judged the projects without seeing any name attached. 

Here are the results, as reported in Psychology Today: 

"The highest creativity score was earned by a painting signed with a unique female name, while the lowest went to that same painting with a common female name. For the science-related products, works signed by any male name scored much higher than the same products signed by women. In fact, the science product signed by a common female name scored even lower than the anonymous control group. In the area of music, any piece signed by a unique male name was rated highest. Poems, on the other hand, got the best scores when signed by a unique female name and the lowest from a common male name."

It would be interesting to know how that would work with novels; my guess is that it would depend on the genre. I'm sure a thriller written by Blake Carson would rank higher than the same one written by Petunia Abercrombie; but for romantic fiction the reverse might be true.

Does that mean we should use pen names that fit the public perception? Or should we follow in the footsteps of authors whose sheer talent overcame any bias against their names?

 

Living with the shadow

Want to get a better grasp of your protagonist or other character--or yourself? Consider this quote from Carl Jung:

 "The shadow is the negative side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide. ... There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection."

One of the most revealing questions you can answer about a character is what darkness he or she is trying to hide. It's not necessarily anything they have done, it could be something they are afraid they might do. Of course it's your duty as a writer to throw temptation in their path.

If you are trying to figure out the character arc for your protagonist (the kind of transformation he or she will undergo) a story in which they learn to accept their shadow side usually is worth telling.

 

Are you making these mistakes?

Here's another roundup of common mistakes in word choice or grammar. These are all examples I've read recently:

"Quick to setup." That should be "Quick to set up". Setup is a noun referring to the process, so you might say "The setup is quick." 

"Five things you should do everyday." That should be, "Five things you should do every day." Everyday means common or ordinary.

"Back in its hay days..." That should be its heyday (singular). 

"Unless you want to give your boss free reign on your Facebook account..." I can see why this one is confusing. Giving somebody the power to reign over you like a king makes sense; actually, the term comes from riding, in which free rein is a rein held loosely to give the horse free motion. However, the use of "free reign" is so widespread that many experts consider this a lost battle.

".. people would just as sooner use..." This is a combination of two terms, just as soon and sooner. For instance, "People would just as soon throw something away as have it repaired," meaning there's no difference in which option is preferred, and "People would sooner throw something away than have it repaired," in which case the option of throwing the thing away is preferred.

"to raise moral..." This could just have been a typo for morale. I'm very sympathetic toward people who have typos in their articles mainly because I know I have quite a few in mine. On the other hand it might have been someone who hadn't seen the word in print and sounded it out, like the person who wrote the word "Wallah!" for voilà, which is also easy to mix up with viola, the musical instrument (I've been guilty of that one).

And last but not least, a sentence in Dan Brown's novel, Inferno, reads, "Apparently having received all the information the man intended to share, Sienna changed tacks." Unless she was using one set of small nails and switched to using a different set, she should have changed tack (from a sailing term). The other mix-up with this one is confusing it with tact, which is a form of politeness.

All mistakes to avoid this year! 

Jurgen's PS: Why I write

Why write? I'm sure there are as many reasons as there are writers, but when I was asked this question recently it got me thinking about what writing has meant for me. 

When I published my print "Brainstorm" newsletter I used to have a column I called PS. The rest of the issue featured articles about being more creative and productive, but the PS column was more personal and I kind of miss writing it. That's why I'm adding a weekly PS post here at the end of every week, and the question of why I write seems a good place to start.

For me, writing has always been a Way Out.

When I was a kid, things weren't that great but reading was a way out and pretty soon I realized that people actually wrote these escape tunnels and I hoped maybe I could become one of those people.

When my Dad was dying of cancer, I had a comedy script assignment. At first I thought there was no way I could do it but then I found that writing it was a way out of that reality for a couple of hours a day.

When I battle periodic depression (not as frequent or as deep as it used to be, fortunately) the story world is a way out.

When bad things happen (as well as when good things happen) I think, "Hmmm, this is story material." It doesn't make bad circumstances good, but at least it makes them useful.

Of course there are other benefits that come from writing. When you get an email from somebody who says something you've written has made a difference in their lives, that's a feeling hard to beat. Or when you really get to know your characters and look forward to spending a couple of hours a day with them, that's wonderful, too.

I guess I'll add a tip after all: if you'd like to write but have stopped yourself because you think it'll be just one more thing to worry about, try it--you may find that instead of being a worry, it's a way out.

 

 

Weird writing rituals (and a few not so weird)

Is one of your goals writing more, or writing more regularly? If so, establishing some simple rituals may be helpful.  Many writers do have a ritual and sometimes they’re pretty strange.

Honore de Balzac drank gallons of coffee—possibly as many as 50 cups a day.

Truman Capote said “I can’t think unless I’m lying down.”

Victor Hugo wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame while nude (so he wouldn’t be tempted to leave the house and do something more enjoyable instead). He did allow himself to wear a large shawl against the cold.

Maya Angelou liked to write in hotel rooms, “a tiny, mean room with just a bed and sometimes, if I can find it, a face basin.”

Obviously the answer is to write in a hotel room in the nude while lying down and drinking a lot of coffee. Or maybe not.

And there are a few probably best avoided, like Friedrich Schiller’s trove of rotten apples. His wife said he could write only when stimulated by that smell.

Some writers have a ritual that gets them started. It’s a way of separating everything else in the day from the time to write. This can be moving to a particular location. Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22 in the evenings sitting at his kitchen table. Thomas Mann worked in his study between 9am and noon.

The location itself can also become associated with being productive. Vladimir Nabokov liked to write in a parked car.

Another ritual is reading something before you start writing. John Milton, who was blind, had someone read to him from the Bible for 30 minutes before mentally composing lines that a helper later would write down.

Linking writing with another activity also works for some. Wallace Stevens wrote his poetry while walking. He used slips of paper and later had a secretary type what he’d jotted down. Not a bad idea for us mostly sedentary types!

Some writers swear by using a particular kind of pen—probably now supplanted by using a particular software program or specific font.

John Steinbeck always kept a dozen sharpened pencils on his writing desk.

Andre Dumas used different color papers for different types of writing (fiction on blue, and when he ran out he felt his fiction was not as good).

It can also be useful to have a ritual or practice with which to end your writing session.  This can be as simple as recording on a chart the number of words or pages you wrote, or putting away the pen or pencil you write with if you write longhand, or setting a timer for your writing period and stopping when it buzzes, even if you are in mid-sentence (Hemingway advised stopping mid-sentence so that you always had something to start with the next day).

Obviously the best rituals are ones that don’t take much time. You could put on a particular bit of music or read a couple of pages of inspirational prose. Or you could put on a cap or hat that you wear only when writing. If you have a ritual that works for you, feel free to share it here.

(For lots of useful, practical advice from the great writers including Dickens, Twain and Austen, get a copy of my book, Your Creative Writing Masterclass, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

Five Productivity Rules Writers Should Ignore

Entrepreneur.com recently featured an infographic showing 35 productivity guidelines, most of which make sense for everybody. But there are a few that I think writers might want to leave out:

"Tune out the news. Nothing important happens, most of the time."

Yes, spending too much time reading or watching the news can be counterproductive, and I suggest skipping speculative stories (e.g., what might or might not happen at an upcoming negotiating session, or which films will win Oscars).

But I do think writers (and everybody else) need to pay some attention to what's going on in the world and at times to take action to try to influence it.

Also, writers need to feed their heads and often in-depth feature stories are good for exposing us to people and settings we may not experience first-hand.

"Decide the outcome before even starting."

If you define the outcome as, "write x number of pages" that's fine, but often stories are not as good as they could be because writers lock them in too soon, rather than continuing to explore alternatives.

"Focus on the important, supress the urgent."

Focus is great, but I'm not sure what they mean by "suppress the urgent." I've supressed the (boring) urgent too often and the consequences aren't good. My advice, even though I don't always follow it myself: Set apart a bit of time every day for the routine so it never turns into the urgent.

"Do the easiest thing first."

I was surprised to see this one; usually the advice is to tackle the hardest thing first. Maybe if the easiest thing is something you can do quickly this would be OK, just to get you to your desk. However, I know from experience that doing the easiest thing first often leads to the more difficult one being carried over to the next day's to-do list (sometimes more than once).

"Assume you are right, when in doubt. Decisive is productive."

I think the world is too full of people who assume they are right. Of course the time comes when we need to take action despite not having enough information (we never have enough information for certainty) but I'd restate this one as, "Take action and be open to the possibility that you're wrong and will need to change course." Decisiveness is productive, but often it produces the wrong things. If you doubt it, consider the political system.

AND THREE OF THE BEST OF THE REST:

"Treat time as your money."

"Start an 'Idea Dump' book for genius ideas that you can't work on now." I'd add, write down all the ideas, decide later whether they're genius.

"If you have a mind block, make a mind map."

(You'll find lots of practical right-brain time management methods in my book, Focus: Use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." It's published by Pearson and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

Start the year with these wise ideas of Epictetus

This is the time of year when people think about their lives and what, if anything, they want to change. Sometimes changing one's view of the world is more powerful than moving to a different continent or changing jobs. See if any of these observations by the wise Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, ring a bell for you:

"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants."

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do."

"Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems."

"Who are these people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these whom you are in the habit of saying they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?"

"It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows."

"If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write."

"No great thing is created suddenly."

“Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people's weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do."

"He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at."

 

Related articles

Why to do it now (whatever your "it" is)

Too old to write? Ha!

One wish for you

My wish for you for 2014:

 

That you get everything you wish for,

starting with

the wisdom of what to wish for.