PenGuins

My first professionally published essay is now online and available!  Please check out Freedom of Mind, published by Cahoots Magazine of Canada.

The basics of story structure are well known:

• Beginning
• Middle
• End

Beginnings must accomplish a great deal in a short amount of space.  Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, the beginning must set the stage for the piece.  You have to provide the reader with enough material to understand what the piece is and what value it may have for the reader.  You also need to capture and sustain the reader’s attention.

Middles represent the heart of the piece.  This is where you tell your story, make your points, or provide your information.  Middles need to sustain attention and provide details that achieve the writer’s objective.

The end is where you tie up your piece of writing.  You finish the story, you reiterate your points, or you present the conclusions developed from the information you disclosed.

Story structure really is that simple.  But—and this is a big but—it can get very complicated when it comes to making this all happen in a reasonable amount of space.  Over the next few weeks, as per an earlier request, I will delve into these three parts and take a close look at how each part relates to the many different structures that occur.

Procrastination is a self-destructive habit that seems to whittle away at us until we have too much to squeeze through a tight window of time.  For me, procrastination is a coping mechanism, albeit a poor one, for several different types of problems.  Those problems and possible solutions are discussed below:

I don’t know what I want to say.

This is perhaps the most difficult problem to get around.  Generally this happens when you have chosen a project (or one has been chosen for you), but you’re not entirely sure how you want it to proceed.  For me, this is rarely a problem of having too little to say.

For example, I have chosen to write a book on neurodiversity.  The topic is so deep and the possibilities are so wide, it’s a great way for me to build a meaningful career on something of great importance to me.   And yet, the topic is so deep and the possibilities are so wide, it’s hard to know which aspect of this topic to tackle first.  The project was stalled, because to go forward required making a big decision and committing my time and energy to a decision which I might later regret.

For me, the best way to get around this problem and to stop procrastinating is to put my time into thinking about the possibilities, getting feedback on those possibilities, and then planning a way to tackle the project while leaving my options open.  For example, I am going to work on two different “first” books simultaneously (for now), developing the materials to create the proposals, and then (assuming I stay on this track) offering both proposals to a publisher and let them decide which should be first.

I don’t know how I want to say it.

This is a common problem, and also results in writer’s block.  It involves knowing what I want to say, but not how I want to say it.

One of the best methods I’ve found to get around this problem is to devise a deadline.  The problem with deadlines is that, unless they’re generated from an external source, they’re rather arbitrary and easy to ignore.  The solution is to find a way to hold yourself accountable for meeting the deadline.  If/then scenarios work well for some people.  “If I get this done, then I get to do that.”  Another method is to share the goal with someone else and to fuel your personal momentum with your desire to meet the obligation you’ve generated.

My favorite solution is to devise a timetable with specific steps that should be met.  This does not produce a firm deadline, but it does help track progress.  If I’m not making progress to my own satisfaction, it creates a sense of urgency I wouldn’t otherwise have.

I am having a crisis of confidence.

Sometimes I take on projects that seem within my abilities until I sit down to do them.  An inescapable feeling creeps over me.  The voice in my mind screams: “I can’t do this!”  And I listen to it, give it heed, and I delay and delay.  I’ll busy myself with something else, anything else—just to drown out that voice of defeat.

Some projects really are outside of my abilities.  I have to postpone these projects until my abilities catch up with my aspirations.  For example, I have an epic fantasy novel outline pinned to my wall.  From a career standpoint, I’m not ready to have such a piece published.  From a writing skills standpoint, I’m not ready to do the project justice.  So, I wait, building my skills and building my career, having the steady reminder that writing that book (and the sequels that go with it) is something I will do.

Then, there are those projects that stretch my abilities.  I’m ready for them, but they’re just outside my comfort zone.  To be honest the biggest struggle with these projects is that they require more work and seem just a wee bit overwhelming.  These projects I stall with no justifiable reason.  There’s really nothing more I can do to build myself up to the project.  I just have to sit down and do the work.

This, of course, is easier said than done.  A crisis of confidence won’t go away if you ignore it.  The best you can hope for is that by procrastinating you’ll work on something that boosts your confidence enough to overcome the writing block associated with the project.  This is a hit or miss strategy that leans towards the “missing” end of the scale.  The more likely alternative is that you’ll either procrastinate so long that you’ll have to settle for a sloppy job just to get it done (which goes to further reinforce in your own belief it was too much too soon) or you’ll kill the project entirely by being too late.

One solution that I’ve found works well for me is to break the project into more approachable, bite-sized pieces.  For example, I map out or outline the project first.  Then, I write the first draft in chunks—giving myself full permission to let it be bad.  Then, I let the draft sit and come back to it with a fresh eye.  I look at just how bad it really is and plan a way to make it better: first by assessing and improving the content, then by assessing and improving the form, then by assessing and improving my word choices, and finally by polishing it up so it flows together.  Another step that is often necessary is the culling period, where I shrink the manuscript down to its pre-determined or post-determined size.  All this writing badly tends to fill up a piece with unnecessary words.  All that has to go before a piece can really be considered done.  Then, I send it out to my readers, who tell me what I got right and what I didn’t.  More revisions and polishing may be necessary.  By taking the project in steps it’s not nearly so overwhelming and my procrastination problem is solved.

I am too tired or too distracted to concentrate.

This is a time-management and energy-management problem.  First, as a time-management problem it means I should schedule the more difficult tasks to coincide with energy peaks.  For example, first thing after I wake up I do some mindless chores to wake myself up.  Then, I engage in some low-pressure work.  These are projects or tasks that I can do when I’m not at the top of my game.  Once my mental juices are flowing, I switch to an intense project.  I’m often multi-tasking between the intense project and something less intense.  This allows me to disengage when I need to without quitting the project entirely.  Then, as my energy starts to decay, I switch to multi-tasking less intense projects.  When I’ve fueled up again, I go back to the same or switch to a different intense project.  This way I use my own energy cycle to my benefit.

Now, as an energy-management problem, I acknowledge the importance of maintaining a good level of energy throughout the day.  At the same time, I must admit I haven’t quite gotten this solution down.  In theory, though, you can actually build up your body’s energy level and maintain a relatively high energy level throughout the day.

I don’t want to do it.

This is an attitudinal problem.  There are some things I don’t want to do that I simply choose not to do.  I don’t want to go sky-diving; therefore, I do not go sky-diving.  There are some things that I don’t want to do that I choose to do, because I want the results of having done them.  There are homework assignments I just don’t want to do, but I also don’t want to get a failing grade on the assignment.  I want to get an A, therefore I must do A-quality work.

For me, changing the “I don’t want to” to an “I do want to” is about changing what I think it is I’m doing.  I don’t want to do the assignment.  Fine.  I do want to get a good grade.  Great.  Then, I’m not doing the assignment; I’m doing the work necessary to get a good grade.

These mental switches can make a big difference, but they’re also challenging.  My mind seems to have grooves in it, and my thoughts naturally follow these grooves like the needle follows the tracks in a record.  It can be very difficult to change these grooves or to skip to a new, better, less worn groove.

I haven’t made time for it.

“Making time” is an inaccurate turn of phrase, but I like it anyway.  It expresses the reality that we can choose how we spend our time.  “Finding time” is equally inaccurate, but implies a passivity that I find especially inaccurate.

There are two truths we have to recognize.  Everyone is allotted the same amount of time each day—you can neither find nor make more time.  Each and every one of us gets 24 hours each day, which we can spend how we choose (unless we’re incarcerated, institutionalized, hospitalized, or face some other unavoidable external restriction).  Secondly, because death and other forms of lost time (such as being in a coma) are unpredictable, we really don’t know how much time we have, so we cannot allocate our time from an informed perspective—this means there will be a day or days where we do not get our allotted twenty-four hours.

Taking in the various implications of those two somewhat conflicting realties, we choose how to spend our time.  If we sit and watch television for three hours a day, we are choosing not to do something else for those three hours.

I tend to have a significant number of projects going at any one time.  Part of this is because there is so much I want to do and most of it must be accomplished in stages.  Another part is because I do not like to stay focused on any one thing for long periods of time.  I like multi-tasking.  I actually enjoy it.  I multi-task to such an extent that it bothers some people who watch me flit between tasks.  But, it’s how I work best.

Sometimes in my multi-tasking frenzy, certain projects are dropped to the wayside.  I don’t allot time to these projects in a manner consistent with my priorities.  This is generally a result of another problem that leads to short-term procrastination; which, in turn, can lead to long-term procrastination.

The corrective measure that works best for me is to evaluate my real priorities for the project.  If the project is a high priority in relation to other projects I have going on, I must evaluate why I began procrastinating in the first place.  Then, I take corrective action.

In Conclusion

First, you need to understand why you’re procrastinating.  Then, you have to decide what to do about it.  The methods that work for me might not work for you, but they’re worth a try.  Any method you try isn’t going to work for every project, but I believe there is always a solution.  The most important thing is to remember that procrastination is a choice.  Time speeds on by whichever choice you make.  Will you choose to procrastinate today?

For those of you not in the know, it’s been a rough week or so for my family.  Before that, we had to skip out on a meeting of Penguins.

Now, it’s time to get back on track – whatever that track may hold for us.  Does anyone in the group have a recommendation regarding a meeting time?  Please leave comments so we can get a discussion going “amongst ourselves.”

For anyone else who may be reading, I’ll start my “regularly scheduled” posts once again this weekend.

Writer’s Digest is a professional writing magazine.  Writer’s Digest is also a Web site with many writing resources available to the public.  Features of this site include writing prompts, articles on writing, information about publishing, and a writing community with tips and advice, goal posts, and success stories.  Check out the blogs for on-going discussions, too!

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

Cyril Connolly (1903 – 1974)

Cyril Connolly is known for writing The Rock Pool and The Enemies of Promise.  He was the founder of Horizon, a literary magazine, and was also an intellectual and literary critic.

In an earlier post, I wrote:  “Ideas are the result of experience.”  This concept is worthy of further development.

First, communication, by its very nature, is a form of interaction.  When you write to be read, you are attempting to communicate with your readers.  Because communication requires time, you have to offer something of value in exchange for the readers’ time.  Often, this value comes in the form of information, entertainment, or to fulfill an external requirement imposed on the reader (which would involve getting someone else to require others to read your work).

As a writer who wants to be read, it is in your best interest to provide information, entertainment, or both.  The ability to provide these valuable qualities is based on a congruence of skill, experience, and knowledge.  Simply put, in order to provide something of value you have to have an idea your reader does not have, or to put that idea in a form the reader has not yet experienced.  The more experience and knowledge you have access to the more you are able to satisfy your readers.

Experience and knowledge are both gained through exposing yourself to stimuli.  The more stimuli you expose yourself to, the more experience and knowledge you gain.  This does not mean you have to do everything you write about, but you should learn about those things you write about.  Furthermore, you should learn more than your readers are likely to have learned.  For example, I wouldn’t recommend taking LSD in order to write about the negative effects of LSD; nor would I recommend taking LSD so you can describe the actions and thoughts of someone who is tripping in your story.  However, you can learn by reading the written accounts of others’ experiences, or by studying the scientific literature accumulated on the topic, or by speaking with one or more people who’ve actually taken LSD.  The more stimuli you seek, the better qualified you are to write about a topic.

The more things you want to write about, or the more in-depth you want to write on any one topic, the more stimuli you have to experience.  Whether you’re interested in writing about a single topic or multiple topics, you should expose yourself to several fields of interest.  By gaining experience and knowledge with multiple fields of interest, you can align information that overlaps between these fields in unique ways, creating and gathering experiences and information which your readers will value.

By exposing yourself to many fields of interest, you gain a complex perspective that contains a great deal of value worthy of your readers’ time.  This enables you to bring more to your chosen genre, field, or topic than what naturally fits inside the preconceived box you or your editors may have.

For example, I just read a fantasy novel that was also a whodunit.  What made it a fantasy novel?  One of the main characters was a giant, talking bird who could practice magic.  What made it a whodunit?  The plot involved a corrupt government official trying to seize control of the “United Nations” and imbue it (and especially himself) with powers that were not rightfully theirs.  The plots, characters, and structure of the story required a lot of information and a lot of creative interaction between intersecting fields of interest.  Had the writer only studied magic, or only studied birds, or only studied political intrigue, the story could not have been told.  Because the writer studied those and other topics, and combined them, the writer was able to create a story worthy of readers’ time.

It works much in the same way with nonfiction pieces.  Information from several fields of interest can be used to expound on a single topic.  Doing this allows others to understand your message and conveys information they might not access otherwise.  This, in turn, creates the value which you offer your readers.

By developing multiple fields of interest that you keep an eye on and an ear open for, you can develop a well of information readily usable for your work—in other words, you’re attracting butterflies.  By also looking outside these fields, you can gather information that will interact in ways decidedly unique to you—which attracts even more butterflies.

You never know which piece of information is going to be the last little bit you need to “percolate” an idea that’s been fluttering around your mind for years.

Funds for Writers is a site (and newsletter) from C. Hope Clark.  The site lists markets, contests, and grants available to writers.  The newsletters contain articles that include writing tips, as well as highlighting markets, contests, and grants.  Not only does this help you find places to be published, it can also help you brainstorm angles to take with your topic(s) that help capture marketable ideas.  And Funds for Writers even hosts a contest with an October 31^st deadline!

There’s also a new newsletter especially for writing kids!

From PublicDomainPictures.net

There’s one writing quote I always hated.  “Show, Don’t Tell.”  Succinct, yes; self-explanatory, no.  So few writers were inclined to explain what they meant by that catchy little phrase.

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

~Anton Chekhov

Now that’s an explanation I could have used when I was twelve!

The truth is the human mind is “built” to create.  The process of unleashing this potential is dependent on many factors and in some sense is not a “process” so much as a state of being.

The mind is not finite and enclosed (not unless we box it in), it is open like the sky.  There are many things happening there:  from processing sensory input to processing knowledge gleaned from that input; from the feelings and mixed emotions we all have to processing the impulses of our bodies; and much, much more.  Most of the time we’re not aware of all that’s going on inside our own heads, just like we’re not aware of the incalculable interactions that are going on in the air we breathe and the sky over our heads.  Ideas are the beautiful but seemingly elusive butterflies of our minds’ sky.  You can attract them and even catch them, but it doesn’t happen automatically.

First, you must acknowledge that attracting ideas and catching them are two distinct activities.  Idea generation, which reeks of “factory” and “computer” analogies, tries to capture both activities in a single set of criteria.  For practical, problem-solving situations, that approach works well enough.  In the world of articles, books, short stories, and novels, people don’t usually come to you with ideas they want you to write about.

So how do you generate ideas without that external impetus?  The short answer is that you don’t.  The ideas are already there.  They exist in the environment.  In order to access them, first you must attract those ideas and then you capture them.  This is a more creative, being-centered approach.

Ideas are the result of experience.  Reading and talking people help you accumulate other people’s ideas.  This is helpful and necessary.  However, you must interact with that information in order to discover something new.  Relate information to the world around you, your own experiences and memories, and the interactions between all of these varied and rich stimuli.  Like butterflies in your mind, the ideas will flutter towards you, attracted by the sweet nectar of your own openness and your own thoughts.

Attracting these ideas is not enough.  We’ve all had thoughts, elusive and slippery, that were lost.  Most people recommend keeping paper handy so you can write down any idea that comes to mind.  Personally, I find this impractical.  For one, I write down the idea, thinking it’s safe, but then lose the paper.  If that works for you, fine.

Another method is letting ideas percolate.  Ideas on scraps of paper are rarely fully formed.  They’re rarely usable.  You still need to force the idea to come to fruition.  When you let an idea percolate, you’re doing something different.  You’re letting the butterfly flutter around your mind, you’re noting its features and watching its behavior, and then you let it float away.  When it’s ready, if it’s ever ready, it’ll come back to you and come back more fully formed and ready to be used.  Patience is the key.

If you’re open to ideas, there will be plenty to work from.  You don’t need that one elusive butterfly that keeps flying through your net.  Use what you have and let the rest come to you when it’s time.

The butterfly net approach is about being open to all this world has to offer.  There are a lot of ideas, a lot of perspectives, and a lot of fields.  Explore them.  Connect them.  Interact with them.  Then write about it.  You may need to revert back to the practical idea generation process once you’ve given yourself your “assignment.”  However, in order to get that assignment you need to start exploring your world.  The ideas are already there, and they will come to you – if you’re open to them.

Coffeehouse for Writers is “an internet-based community of writers from all genres.”  On this site you can join a community of writers, participating in on-line workshops, and get help generating ideas.  They have newsletters and links and provide a lot of content to offer.

As they say:

Welcome to the Coffeehouse.  Grab a comfy chair, choose a likely conversation, and join in!  We’ve been waiting for you!