Organization? What's that you say?

A common question that seems to come up time and again is whether or not an outline is a good idea. I have a few thoughts on outlines. 

While earning my MFA from Spalding University, I learned to love a good outline. Prior to attending the program, I thought outlines were only for research papers. I loathed the idea of having to actually think out my entire narrative, to pre-determine arcs, tension, exposition, and gratification for my characters. Honestly, I thought it was something that would diminish from my abilities as a writer. I’ve always been a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of writer. If I have an idea, I go with it until I don’t know what to do with it.

Know what that got me?

A USB drive full of half finished stories that have no discernable plot, no clear ending, and really, very little good writing.

What I’ve learned over the years is that a good outline can really make or break a project. Of course, there are certain instiances in which an outline would totally ruin an idea. Take for example, a stream of consciousness collection. Outlining that would be nightmarish. On the flip side, my current work is a collection of interlocking shorts and it absolutely needs an outline. It needs a character tree, a map of experiences for my characters, key points I want to reinforce with each of them. In a word, it needs to be planned.

At first, I resisted this idea. Last summer, when I set down the framework for the novel, I was sure that I could just write it. I was simultaneously writing another novel that needed no outlining at all. The plot was simple enough that I could keep it all in my head. Once I finished that simply plotted manuscript, I turned my attention to this webbed story idea and found that I couldn’t write anything.

I let it rest for a few months (something I think is absolutely vital, and I’ll write more about it in a future post) and when I returned to the words, I realized the only way it was going to work would be if I spelled it all out. So out came graph paper, colored pens in all hues, a ruler and a character sheet. It took a while, but the result was very much worth it. Now, I’m able to have a really clear understanding of each of my character’s motivations, where they’ve been in the past, where they’re heading in the future.

How do you keep your ideas organized? Do you use an outline? Note cards? Spreadsheets? Join the conversation here, over on Facebook, or on Twitter. Happy writing!

Inspiring Spires #2

Inspiring Spires

Lately, this work in progress of mine feels like it has fallen off a cliff, never to return. It’s not that I don’t have the ideas, or the plot line organized, or any clear understanding of the story progression. It’s already written and has been since last summer. My task at hand is opening up the manuscript, letting it breathe, letting my characters run wild and rampant.

Often, when I’m faced with being stuck, when I have no idea what I’m doing, I look for things in my daily life which inspire me to go on. There’s simple, usually. An apt and timely message on a bag of tea, the beauty of the sun parting against the sky here in southern Oklahoma. Hell, even sometimes my cat Larry proves to be enough of an inspiration to get the juices flowing. Last week, I wrote about doorways, and how they cease to offer me a bit of inspiration when the muse refuses to flow.

This week, I’m looking at quotes. You know, those words that seem so magnificent that some other writer managed to write. The program director for my MFA, Sena, always used to tell us that the competition isn’t in the room (with us); rather, that it’s in the library. Sage that she is, Sena is right.

So here’s a collection of some of my favorite words, already written, that help get the juices flowing.

The worst enemy to creativity is self doubt. Sylvia Plath (This reminder sits on my desk in between my two screens, so I look at it EVERY single day.)

What words do you return to when you're stuck? Join the conversation here, on Facebook, or over on 

Twitter. Happy writing! 

Tick, Tock

A day in the life is never just, a day in the life. There are always a million things that capture and keep my attention, making it hard for me to stay on track. Cue Emergency Kittens on Twitter, “research” I’m deluding myself into believing is actually for my novel and not just to find the perfect pancetta recipe, a house to clean, weights to life, and well, you get the idea.

It’s hard being a full time writer for a number of reasons. Aside from the pay (haha) being a full time writer means that I am consistently forced to show up for myself. I am my own boss, so any excuses that I might make about a lack in my work performance come directly to me. There’s no coffee-sipping totalitarian breathing down my neck if I take a longer than normal break, no one who tells me to get my butt in gear if I’ve spent too long looking out the window. (Though, to be fair – time spent looking out the window can totally be effective and useful.)

While I enjoy this kind of freedom because, let’s face it, most creatives aren’t the best suited for a typical 9-5, I still treat my writing job just like any other.

I get up, shower, have coffee, dress for the day. Play with  my cat, take my vitamins, kiss my love hello and goodbye, and then I commute to my at home office. I set deadlines. I give myself timelines for projects. I try my best to limit the time I spend goofing off.

Of course, the more structured my day, the more I manage to accomplish before working hours are done. That’s the thing though about working as a writer … I’m never off the clock, because there isn’t a clock to start, which means that if I’m in the middle of cooking dinner, expecting a quiet night with a book and a mug of tea and inspiration strikes, then I’m right back at work. This can be tough at times, but it’s also super thrilling because it means I’m never more than a short distance away from the very thing I love doing – creating worlds, tapping words into sentences which make paragraphs, which translate experience onto the page.

So how do you work? Are you as structured with your approach as I am? Or do you prefer a more free spirit concept when you write? Join the conversation here, over on Facebook, or on Twitter. Happy writing!

Mentor Matter

Mentor Matter

Like most writers, there have been so many people who have been instrumental in my development and intention to becoming a writer. During my time at Spalding’s MFA program, I was blessed with having great faculty mentors who helped to encourage my work and develop my writing skills. All of the folks I worked with while trudging through my MFA were amazing, and words really don’t do them justice.

In addition to the great leaders at Spalding, I’ve been able to count on a number of excellent friends and fellow writers who helped light a fire under my butt and keep it there.

The most widely accepted definition of a mentor is an experienced and trusted adviser.

One person who has been absolutely key in my writing career has been E-Federal, my sister. In her soul, she is a writer. A natural born editor, the kind of person who can hear or read something and know just how it needs to be tweaked to make it perfect.

In my early days, I’d dash off a poem and then show it to her, eager for her approval and comments. Thinking back know, I realize how kind and patient she was with my beginning works, poetry that rambled on and on for stanzas until I’d made my point, short stories and fragments of novels that probably had no business getting outside of my head and onto the page.

I distinctly remember sitting in her apartment years ago when she lived in Philly, reading aloud poetry that I was so certain was absolutely the best. (Talk about naivete, heh?) Efed listened to a piece that I was particularly proud of, squished her face into a smile and then grabbed a red pen. As any good editor does, she helped me distill my kernel of an ideal into something digestible, something that could be read, consumed, understood.

Ever since, I’ve relied on her when I’m thinking something is working, or something isn’t, to give me a clear and honest opinion. And if you know Efed, you know she’ll always speak her mind. Over the years, she’s become my sounding board and my beta reader. When I’m extra fired up about an idea, I’ll give her an abridged version of it, and she never passes judgement, never tells me that it’s ridiculous or too much to take on. Rather, she always says she’s looking forward to reading my draft. Thing is, I know she means it.

So who are your writing mentors? Who has been a key player in developing your skills, confidence, or other writerly traits? Join the conversation here, over on Facebook, or on Twitter. 

Inspiring Spires

Inspiring Spires

A spire can be defined as the pinnacle (of something), the slender tapering of a blade or stalk, or the upper tapering part of something. In my writer world, I think of inspiration in terms of spires. Not only do random things trigger and inspire me to create, delve deeper into thought, or to examine my world and work in a new way, but they’re also ALL AROUND. When I take the time to really be in the moment, to think about this wonderful thing called life, I find that inspiration can strike at any given moment.

For years, I took photographs doors and doorways, almost to the point of exclusivity, without really understanding exactly what it is about them that draws me so.

Looking back in my Google Photos, it’s clear that my interest in doors might border on obsession. I mean, I have months of photos where scant images of people exist … but doors? Doorways are always there. It wasn’t so much the architectural feat that drew me to these structures (though it is pretty amazing to consider that openings are built into buildings) but that these pivotal pieces in our world are often overlooked.

Doors give us the chance to begin again. To exit one stage and walk onto another. They give the opportunity for change, for distance.

In a sense, a doorway is to architecture what revision is to the written word.

Adages about doorways abound in literature –

Huxley said, “The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.”

Emerson called on us to be an opener of doors, and Dickens taught us that “A very little key will open a very heavy door.”

So I guess it comes as no surprise that in doorways, I find little nuggets of stories, ideas compressed and compartmentalized so beautifully that it’s easy to forget what true purpose doors serve.

My obsession with photographing doorways has been culled as of late since there are myriad things in this world that help me feel (and find) the muse.

What helps you feel inspired? Join the conversation here, over on Facebook, or on Twitter. 

Spotlight Review

(editor's note - Spotlight Review will be a weekly series on this blog, posted on Monday)

Spotlight Review

Holy whoa. Like seriously, whoa. Current writer crush – Odie Lindsey

Just finished his collection of short stories, We Come to Our Senses.

If you haven’t heard about it, Lindsey’s work is almost novel-like in its feel. Stories of veterans, both male and female, are told in the pages of the work and it examines issues relating to what it means to be a modern-day veteran. The prose is lyrical, engaging, captivating. I’m generally a fast reader, but this was a work that I just didn’t want to put down. I didn’t want it to end.

Lindsey’s style is one that allows the reader to become so consumed by the lives of his characters that it’s impossible not to carry a piece of their stories along with me every day. Because I live at an Army post, because I see men and women in uniform every single day, because my house shakes with artillery fire and Black Hawk helicopters routinely train overhead, I felt like this work really spoke to the challenges that active and veteran Soldiers really face. It’s not the glossed over standard fare of writing about veteran life. Sure, there are some themes that seem to repeat in war stories – alcohol, struggles with intimate relationships, challenges with sleep, but the way that Lindsey presents his characters is unique, engaging, thrilling.

The characters in this collection are varied, coming from myriad backgrounds with distinct voices. The author’s ability to translate the challenges of being a veteran into something that rings true is nothing short of amazing. I don’t mean to gush SO much, but seriously. Lindsey writes like no one I have ever read.

The thing about these kinds of stories, about the kind of voice that Lindsey brings to the page is that it makes me want to be a better writer. It makes me look at my own work and ribbon in some of the fluidity, the beauty, the seemingly effortlessness that he makes look so damn easy. Bravo!

What do you think? Have you read this collection? Thoughts on Lindsey’s writing style? Join the conversation here, over on Facebook, or on Twitter.

Boundaries Abound

There are days when the muse just speaks. Shouts from the top of Mount Scott and makes its way past the artillery fire at Fort Sill all the way to my little house. From my office, I can feel the juices flowing. On those days, it’s easy to feel like my creativity is limitless. I’ll rewarm the same cup of coffee over and over because there’s just so much to type and there’s no time to drink!

But those days don’t always happen and when the muse is absent, or when my fingers are raw from the previous day’s lift and ALL I want to do is curl up with someone else’s words, I force myself to remember a few things.

One: Almost all creative work is crafted alongside limitations. There are always going to be reasons why I can’t, or I don’t have time, or the energy just isn’t there, or I’m sure that my work in progress is pure garbage.

Two: There’s too much pressure. Read – there’s too much competition and there’s no concrete way that my stories are going to stand out amidst the rest of the world’s greatest writers. Too much weighing on me to actually sit down and get to work on my newest manuscript. There are other deadlines to meet, chores to be done, trips to be planned, friends and family to talk to, and the list goes on and on.

Both of these are self-imposed limits, borders that I’m putting on my time and my creativity. Both are reasons that help fuel that voice that tells me to stop going, to forgo this plan of being a writer, to return to the world of work (in the conventional sense) and hang up my typing fingers. But at this point, I just can’t walk away. What I’ve learned to do is to create boundaries. A boundary can be anything – a time limit, a self-imposed deadline, a list of things that must be done every day. Boundaries help take the wide expanse of the creative world and make it less scary.

Earlier this month, I published my first novel. Truth is, I have little idea what I’m doing, how to actively promote it, how to reach my audience, and how to make it work. Couple that pressure with the fact that I’m pretty much going into this blind at limes leaves me feeling like I’m stuck. I lose myself daily in the labryth of information about publishing, book marketing, the do’s and don’ts of this new world. And in the midst of all that, it’s really easy to forget that this should be a joyous time. I just published my first novel! It’s a dream come true, something I’ve been working at for decades. So why do I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything? Because I haven’t set limits. I haven’t asked for help from those around me and I haven’t made clear deadlines. I’ve let the wide open world consume my passion and leave me breathless. I’ve forgotten that I’m here to create, to inspire, to tap out truths of this world as I see them.

So the last few weeks, I’ve started making daily lists of what absolutely needs to happen and divided the list into book promos and current work. Now I’m super clear on how much social media work I need to do every day as well as how many words I need to write on my work in progress to finish it by my own deadline. Seeing it all written out helps me focus, compartmentalize where I need to concentrate my efforts, and helps me feel like I’m not spread so thin. Writing a new novel while trying to promote the one that just published is tough, but I’m sure I’m not the first writer in the world to do it.

So the TL;DR is this:

Name your boundaries.

Be clear about your goals.

Negotiate with those around you.

Create deadlines.

How have you used deadlines to help your own creative work? Join the conversation here, on Twitter, or on Facebook.