Helping the Writer’s Mind

Oh my God! I desperately wanted to finish that story. Look! I have abandoned it. I had been working on it for the past one month. It’s been six weeks since I haven’t touched it. Would I be able to resume it? How could I do justice to the story, now, after such a long time of discontinuation? I do have some notes made from the times, while I worked on the stuff. I do not think those notes are of any help, anymore, though. 

It is clear to me how vague the classification of writers would be if I categorized them based on such feelings as above. A writer, at almost all stages of his or her growth feels this way. Most of those super-successful writers may not experience it the same way, because they have the ability to pursue writing without bothering much about another day-job, but apparently have other issues that affect them the same way.

If writing gives a person immense pleasure or joy, and the person is forced to work in a bakery in order to make a living, the resulting conflict could damage the mental equilibrium of that person. Those person(s) who have no aptitude for working in a bakery, when forced to compromise their psychological ecosystem with the sophistication of an altogether different system of things, creative writing suffers. This is when one feels; “Oh my God! I desperately wanted to finish that story. Look! I have abandoned it.”

The fear for being not able to do justice to one’s work of a lifetime deserves wise handling. If not, it will consume the writer, wholly. The totality of all fears has their common grounding in the unknown. In the case of the above-mentioned writer (let us call him Paul), the unknown part is the quality of his work. Paul does not know and fears this fact: how would it all turn out to be. How could I do justice to the story now, after such a long time of discontinuation?

In order to undo the fear of the unknown, the simplest method can be the Jungian concept of assimilation of psychic realities. Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) was a German psychoanalyst, whose groundbreaking theories on human mind, guided the world into a modern-renaissance. He argues about a specific course of action through which a human being can bring out the contents of his unconscious and experience it in the conscious level in order to alleviate the pressure from the unconscious side.

This same method is useful in undoing the fear for the unknown in Paul’s case. If Paul is uncertain of the results his work could bring him after a considerable gap in the process of writing, he should first, look at the results. There is only one way he can get the result—by completing the work. Paul just needs some gut feeling to cross the initial fear.  

If one is stuck with the fear of how the work would turn out to be, the possibility of writing a book or a story is obliterated entirely. It is up to you to take that step courageously. Your work deserves to be born, simply because you have such strong feeling for it. Let your fears not obligate the stopping of your creative work.

About Anu Lal
If you liked this article, you might like my book too. Take a look.

Anu Lal is the author of Wall of Colors and Other Stories. He lives in Kerala, South India. He blogs at The Indian Commentator 

You can catch up with him in Facebook too.      

Bin to Bestsellers: the Importance of Other People in your Writing Life

Making money writing is the hardest job on planet earth, however, there are people who do it effectively and make a living out of it. Being not one of them is not your problem, but aspiring not to be one is.

Is finding a publisher the best option for you as a writer? Richard Bach once mentioned in an interview; it’s not a publisher a writer searches for, but an editor. This relationship is one that should last for a lifetime. An editor understands where the music of words has to be slowed down or where it must run faster. But to get one worthy enough, you must do a lifetime’s waiting.

As a beginner in freelancing and in professional writing, how do you get an editor whose service can be worthwhile? Beginners are always stuck with the same problem; lack of funds. This in turn hampers your look out for an editor. Good editors are sale items with relatively high price money. There are many writers’ communities that offer editing services. Even some literary agencies offer you with editing services. However, if you are a first timer and one without enough weight in your bank account, hiring an editor for your book or manuscript will not be, normally, easy.

The best way to tackle this situation is to find reliable and easy options for editors. One need not go much farther for this end. Just look around and you will find yourself to be blessed with many minds, gifted with the one serum of eternal life—love—around you, ready to help reading your manuscript.

Showing your manuscript to your friends and family or girl friend would be a better option. In such a case, the money spent would be much close to null on editing services. The best editors are those who actually care for our work. You must be open to their criticisms; however, in harsh criticisms you can always rely on their lack of professional experience as the hideout from humiliation.

Stephen King, when he wrote his first novel, Carrie, did not think it would make up to the publishing standards and threw it into the bin. But his wife Tabitha King accidentally discovered the manuscript and read it. Thinking that it would be something worth of a quality, she put it back on the table and later helped King to rework on it. The novel went to become a best seller of its times and was made into a successful Hollywood movie.

This is one real life example from the life of America’s most celebrated and enthusiastic writer, Stephen King. This could be yours too. A relationship not just helps an individual to maintain one’s emotional health but the creative output as well. Now wait your sweet heart to tell you where to put the period.

If you liked this article, you might like my book too. Take a look.

About Anu Lal:

Anu Lal is the author of Wall of Colors and Other Stories. He lives in Kerala, South India. He blogs at The Indian Commentator 

You can catch up with him in Facebook too.      

 

The Weather-talk

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Meet your neighbor in the bus stop, or a relative, an old colleague, or acquaintance at a party, the most convenient and approachable topic of our conversation—the no-fire zone of our lives—is weather talk.

“What a weather! Hadn’t felt anything like this in years!” It could also be ‘rain-talk’, or even ‘snow-talk’, and vary in accordance with the environmental peculiarities of the place one inhabits. Here, in Cannanore, Kerala, the Southern side of India, it is mostly ‘rain’. Sometimes, ‘heat’ becomes a topic too.

What does this have to do with a writer?

Take your Pen, Pull the Trigger

What is the ‘trigger’ in storytelling?

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Trigger in a short story is the point at which the individual reader’s emotional levels start fluctuating corresponding to a specific action in a story or according to the changes in the lives of characters.

This is “meeting the reader’s mind”.

In a short story, this moment is very important due to the limitations of its size. Unlike a novel, the writer should be especially careful in order to bring the reader’s mind to care for the main character’s agony, joy, or temper within a limited period of time and limited number of words.

23 Tips from Famous Authors for New and Emerging Writers

I.

“I have advice for people who want to write. I don’t care whether they’re 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can’t be a writer if you’re not a reader. It’s the great writers who teach us how to write. The third thing is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it’s for only half an hour — write, write, write.” ― Madeleine L’Engle

II.

“Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.” ― William Faulkner

III.

“Read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly hate the advice to write first thing in the morning, but if you can manage it, it might well be the best thing you ever do for yourself. This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later advice manuals derive from it. You don’t ­really need any others, though if you want to boost your confidence, “how to” books seldom do any harm. You can kick-start a whole book with some little writing exercise.” ― Hilary Mantel

IV.

“Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that – but you are the only you.” ― Neil Gaiman

V.

“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you’re conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.” ― Anne Lamott

Your Regular Job

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Regularity in action often turns the act into a habit and the habit is always capable of sustaining itself into time. Great many self-emancipation gurus contempt habit and ask people to move on and do things that are out of their regular rhythm and comfort zones. There is a certain truth about what they say. Especially, for a writer, it will do her great good if she prepares herself to experiment with the daily, the mundane, the spiritual, and the fantastic.

Even writing these words—fantastic and spiritual gives me goose flesh. Such is the power of the fantastic and the spiritual upon human consciousness. But in order to experiment with these out-of-the-ordinary-experiences, a writer must have a strong control over the craft. In this article, I am focusing on nothing else but how to manage this hold on one’s craft.

 It is an art in itself.

In order to hold onto one’s craft, one must be artistic enough to know that it takes the understanding of the rhythm of the art to do this. The rhythm indicates regularity. Regularity is the consistent interaction with a focused intention towards a cause.

Regularity with some intervals in its practice is rhythm.

To write is to follow the rhythm one’s mind allows one to be comfortable at within the premises of the art.

How one follows, one’s cause depends on individuals and also on the craft they follow. For a writer, she should decide the frequency of practicing their art in consideration with what their art wants from them, what time, what attention, what diligence.

In the case of writing, it wants from the artist—everything.

Sustaining frequency is very important in developing style and craft. In order to achieve frequency, a ‘habitualization’ of the craft is crucial. Turned into a habit, the craft of telling stories will accompany the frequency, unaffected by the interventions of the outside world—the nagging family, the demanding wife, the short tempered boss of your day job and a particularly bad day in the coffee house.

But how does one achieve this? How can a habit be useful tool for a writer?

As one can see, in cases of human metabolic activity such as the activation of salivary glands at the sight of food items and the initiation of hunger at the usual lunch time, that habits can leave such tremendous impact upon us. They govern our responses both physically and mentally. Salivary glands in their daily action indicate this very truth. The ejection of saliva is both a physical and mental action. In this manner, if a writer habituates his writing activity, the act as such can flow uninterrupted at the precise time or manner that the writer practices daily. At least, the mental and physical preparedness can precede the real act of writing.

Still, it is a matter of debate whether creativity is time bound or if it could be habitualized.

Perhaps, it is not.

Hemingway said there are no great writers, but only great re-writers. This means, you have a chance if you have a draft, although not much ‘creative’ in its appearance or impact, to think about and depend on in your writing journey. The life of an uncreative story ends in the editor’s waste bin. But for a blank page, there is no life at all.

Anu Lal is the author of the up-coming collection of short stories Wall of Colors and Other Stories. He lives in Kerala, South India. He blogs at The Indian Commentator 

You can catch up with him in Facebook too. 

The Tripod of Short Stories

Courtesy: Google

Brevity makes a “short” story. But a short story is not just about length. As a genre, the short story is complex. Many other aspects, along with length decide the genome of a short story. Some of these elements are still unidentified. In fact, it is apt to say that those elements that are identified crucial elements of a short story are few in number. Short is just a metaphor, short stories are actually tall.

W. H Hudson and many other scholars, suggest that length is the crucial aspect and a story that you can read in single sitting is short story. If we take this as our measure, we cannot hail Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach or The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway or The Buddha and the Terrorist by Satish Kumar, a short story. The Old Man and the Sea might be a bit longer, but consider Jonathan Livingston Seagull; with all the photographs, that adorn the pages, it is just about fifty pages long. Many of the short stories in Stephen King’s collection, Full Dark, No Stars are longer in length, in fact longer than Jonathan Livingston Seagull, usually called a novel.  

What is, then, the magic potion that delivers its spell in the making of a short story?

Let us remind ourselves, once again, that there are only “major” elements to discuss. The minor elements, still evade our attention, as they are all part of the subjectivity of the author and the wiring of creativity inside our brains.

Creative writing classes and ‘How-to’ guides often suggest many systematic steps in producing literature. The problem with such a systematic, limited academic method is its side effects—all the crap you write and all the crap you evaluate ‘wonderfully artistic and deep’. Once you are into the struggle to create stories with flesh and blood, stories that earn, you will know that the first thing you need to do should be to unload the garbage, you accumulated as a student. Practical experience makes you wiser and stronger. From my experience as a writer, I have learnt my lessons and here are a few for your consideration—the three cornerstones of short stories.  

Voice

Terrain

and

Trigger

With this minimum number of components, you can create a short story. As we have already seen, the rest of the magic comes from within you, the writer. It is an alchemy, much like how Sodium and Chlorine combines to give a product, very different in quality and use from the two parent components—Sodium chloride; salt.

Next: What is Voice?

Anu Lal is the author of the up-coming collection of short stories Wall of Colors and Other Stories. He lives in Kerala, South India. He blogs at The Indian Commentator 

You can catch up with him in Facebook too. 

Have You Hit the Ground Yet?

What is ‘terrain’, in storytelling?

Image Courtesy: Google

This part will mostly help those who have difficulty in understanding what ‘plot’ means. I know it is a bit shaky when we talk about plot, but most often, I have seen people using this term interchangeably for theme or action. No one says it aloud, though, but everyone is a bit confused if asked; what is plot?

Do you have the Voice?

What is voice in a story?

 

Image Courtesy: Google

Voice is the dominant leg of the tripod of storytelling. It could be the voice of the narrator, the voice of the main character or the voice of the story itself.

Best Route to Success?

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Lee Child, the bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series, once, in an interview remarked that the best advice for a beginning writer is not to listen to any advice at all. This seems to be the best advice any writer has given anywhere in the world, about writing to a beginner.

Beginning is always a confusing stage, where the person is not at all sure which way to turn at the fork on the road. Writing classes, interviews, biographies, memoirs, and newspaper advice gurus become the best way and the beginner is often lost in chasing one of them for the best advice.

If you listen to John Irving, for example, you will begin your novel writing the end of the story first. If your faith leads you to Jeffery Deaver, you will spend the rest of your life plotting and planning. Stephen King will tell you never plan, just follow your story, which is an advice much like what the great master Sidney Sheldon might give you as well.

The difference between writing advice and the materialization of a manuscript is a term called ‘Self’. Every snowflake is unique in its own way, says science. Every drop of honey is sweet with its own sweetness. Philosophy calls this uniqueness ‘qualia’. Similarly, every individual is unique too. This uniqueness has a name—Subjectivity. Creative energy takes its own course in through every individual. It is different with each individual.

The varying opinions of each of the above-mentioned masters of the craft prove the same. You have a way of yours’ own with words; this is the truth, the only, undeniable, unalterable, unquestionable truth.

Successful creation of a story of any length depends on the trust a writer develops on one’s own way with words. Plot your story or do not plot your story, you are still the best and no one can change that.

The only thing that matters is the finished manuscript of your book, short story, or poem and the courage to send it to a publisher or post it on your own blog, for the public to read.              

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling

These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar’s Story Artist. Number 9 on the list - When you’re stuck, make a list of what wouldn’t happen next – is a great one and can apply to writers in all genres.

1. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
2. You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
3. Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
4. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
5. Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
6. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
7. Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
8. Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
9. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
10. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
11. Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
12. Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
14. Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
15. If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
16. What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
17. No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
18. You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
21. You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
22. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.