Writing Is Not a Mystery - Characters and Intimacy

My happy stressless place - oh it's about people with intimacy issues!

by E. Amato

Raise your hand if you have intimacy issues.

Yeah, we all do, right?

We're more comfortable as avatars than as people. Okay, that's cool. You have your friends, fam, acquaintances and real intimacy, well you know.

Only one problem: you're also a writer. And if you want to get through a draft of that screenplay or novel, you are going to have to get real cozy, and maybe even naked, with your characters, and by reflection, with yourself.

There's no substitute for this. No cheating. If you want to get through the writing process, at some point, you are going to be challenged in this way. The mirror that is the writing process will hold itself up to you and you will have nowhere to run. Best to strap yourself in and hang on tight.

We write what is interesting to us. Often this means we write about what we haven't worked out yet. Sometimes we do this in very sneaky ways. Your story may be about two brothers, one of whom betrays the other, but somehow, you are feeling twisted as you work on it and finally realize it's about you and your ex-girlfriend and how she disappeared one day without even a note.

If the issues being brought up are too painful STOP WRITING and start healing. This can be as simple as meditating, free writing, or just doing gentle self care through the process. It may mean getting a therapist or doing regular check-ins with a friend.

As a coach, I would never push someone past their level of comfort. There should be stretching and growth in this process, of course, but not pain. Pain is bad.

When it gets like this, breathe, put on an episode of The IT Crowd and get yourself a milkshake (or the vegan, sugarfree alternative that suits you best). Be willing to reconsider your project, or put it away for later. It's possible you don't have to write it now. It's very possible you don't want to write it now. A screenplay or novel can take over your life in the best of circumstances.  There's no need to intensify that process.

On the other hand, you're going to have to find the place between the outside of your comfort zone and pain. That's where the good stuff is. In order to write characters with depth and a level of reality, you are going to need to spend serious time with them. They are going to start to feel real to you. Their world may start to feel more real than your own. This is okay. This is good. This is creation. Love this.

I often think of Eames Demetrios who has created a parallel universe to our own in his Kcymaerxthaere  He could not create this fantastic world if he didn't want to hang out in it, know these people and live these stories. Your world may not be 3D, but it needs to be real inside of you. For that to happen, you are going to have to get close with these characters and their joys and sufferings. It's inevitable.

The good characters, the evil characters, they are all emanating from your imagination and they will all contain parts of you. You may find things out about yourself you did not know. That might be weird.  If you go over to the dark side in your brain in order to write your villain, that doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you a person capable of compassion and understanding. But remember, it's your actions, not your inner literary ramblings, that define who you are and your boundaries. Create a safe and balanced safe for yourself and write.

Zestyverse Editor/Publisher E. Amato has woven a creative life that moves fluidly between words, stages, film, and practical activism. She was a member of the 2011 Los Angeles Slam Team and has competed at Poetry Slam Nationals and WOWps. In 2010, Zesty Pubs released her first collection, Swimming Through Amber, her Kindle book 5 in 2012, and her second poetry collection, Will Travel, in 2013. In 2007 and 2008 Down Home traveled to the Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, garnering 5-star reviews consecutive years – a rare honour. She recently produced Homeless in Homeland, Saria Idana’s solo piece, which received 4 stars at the Brighton Fringe 2013. 

Writing Is Not A Mystery - That Sinking Feeling

The thing about the Titanic is...

...it always goes down.

We know the end.  We know, but we watch.  Something about the sinking affirms us.

Cut to:

You.  Sitting at your writing spot.  Feeling...

...bad.

Why are you feeling bad?  You're writing.  You're in your spot.  What's going on?  Is it not going well?  It's going, at least.

But still somewhere deep inside you have that sinking feeling.  You're tanking.  You know it.  No one else sees it, but you know it.

What is it?

It's life.  Life is coming to get you.  Your vulnerability is sneaking up on you.  Your fragility.  Your issue.

Whatever your issue is, it's wrapped itself around you and is now entwining itself into your creative process.  This is good, right?  This is what we want.

Also, but, see, it's making you uncomfortable.  And uncomfortable is bad, no?

No.

Uncomfortable is not bad.  Bad is a judgement.  Uncomfortable is a new place.

Try again.  Bad is what doesn't work for you.  Uncomfortable is probably working for you.  Uncomfortable is probably something you chose to work on, that is in fact working on you.  So cool.

Say, for example, you have issues with your sister.  Okay, every relationship has issues.  But this one, really just digs.  Say, it turns out, funnily enough, that your story, the one you're working so hard on, is about two sisters.  One day you show up to the page - good you! - and you feel uncomfortable.  Something's not working, you don't know what it is, and you're feeling bad.  Like fragile, like weird, like vulnerable, like new.

New is good.  So is everything that came before it in the sentence above.  This is actually a good, if not the best, place to work from.

So why does it feel so bad?

Well, for one thing, you are judging it bad.  Throw that out and about 30% of the feelings straighten themselves out for you.

Could these feelings, maybe, have something to do with the fact that you are in some deep part of yourself working on this sister problem for both your story and yourself?  That's awesome.  And very uncomfortable.  

Learning something isn't bad.  New inner landscapes are not bad.  Arriving at new insights, not bad.

Prickly, maybe.  Testy.  Uncomfortable.  Needing to be broken in.  Not bad.

It's feisty, it's unpredictable, it's open.  It's leading you to a place in yourself and your art that you cannot foresee.  How cool!  How destabilizing.  How manic.

But overall, goodness.

The first thing to learn here is how to breathe.  Take the breath right through the fear and possible panic.  Look at the work you are doing - does it look interesting, does it have depth, is it demanding more of you? If so, this is the right track.

After breathing, you're going to want to have balance.  Give that up.  You're not getting it any time soon.  This could be a transitional state.  It could be a long birthing process.  Give up balance and go elemental - keep breathing.  Working.  Breathing.  Working.  If the balance wants to come, it will arrive for you.  But give yourself the option to keep moving through this phase - don't shut off the process and get re-stuck in another not fully realized you.  Move breath through you, cause that tells you that you are alive.  Write when the panic subsides.  Breathe when it shows up.

This is the bridge guarded by trolls.  You have to pay to get across.  And there could be worse things on the other side.  Keep going.  Cause whatever they are, you can get through them.  And you will have some great stories to tell when you get back out of the forest.

p.s.  You are the trolls.  And the worse things.  And the bridge.

(This blog is part of a series - you can look the others up on the side, or go to the blog search and type "writing is not a mystery" - either should work.)

Writing Is Not A Mystery - The Art of Setting Speed Limits

The smart, cool, yet slightly generic-feeling, thriller Limitless deals with a man who embraces a drug that gives him an unlimted capacity to access his brain.  This is the dream drug.  Learn anything, master anything, remember everything.  Who doesn't want that ability?

Creative people want to work to the very edge of their gifts, and then some.  I read a New York Times article contesting the idea that willpower is limited.  It says people have as much willpower as they believe they do.  I'm not sure if that's true, but I'm willing to test the theory, cause how cool would that be?

What I believe people do not have, is unlimited focus.

And focus is the key ingredient to writing (and most other worthwhile things in life).

When I work with clients - or honestly, even with myself - I notice the tendency to beat up the self.   I didn't get as much done as I'd wanted.  It took so much longer than I planned.  I thought I'd get more accomplished.


When excuses start to show up - you can be sure you are doing a little bit of self harm.  You are venturing into fear and ego, and those are the enemy of your process.   Not working AND feeling guilty about it  - that's an unfriendly combination.  More carcinogens than a Happy Meal.  The excuses are a response to an internal pressure that has been externalized and which you are then using to crush yourself.

Wow.  We are such interesting creatures.  It's the internal pressure that needs releasing - and as long as we keep transferring it to the external, we cannot address it for what it is, we can't look at it, for we can't see it, and then we have absolutely no way to solve it.

Stay focused - absolutely. 

Stick to your plan - that's where your will comes in.


But rest.  Take time away.  This is so important.  This is what allows the work to happen.  It lets ideas percolate, and it lets your brain breathe.

Washing dishes can have therapeutic effects on the creative process.  Easy repeatable tasks are great.

So is doing nothing.  Nothing.  Stare at the sky.  Lay down on the grass.  Walk to the beach and just look at the horizon.  For as long as you want.

Clearing your head may mean meditation to you, but maybe meditation is another thing on your to-do list.

Go off list.  Just be.

When you feel the strangulation of guilt, fear, resentment, constriction, step back.

Take a look at what you have done - it's probably significant.  If you like, identify (but don't even bother to write down) two or three key problems you feel you're facing in the work at this moment:  the introduction isn't clear, the set-up doesn't work properly, one of your characters feels untruthful.  Just identify them, then take a walk, or clean something.  Let the slow and easy part of your consciousness work on this problem while you shine your favorite shoes.

You'll get lovely shoes and you'll probably get a great solution to the problem.

We all know we have to sit in the chair and do the work.  Even on a deadline, everyone needs breaks (and protein) to promote mental clarity.  I don't know how the supposedly sodden Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner wrote what they did without it.  I know I couldn't do it.

If you're working on multiple projects requiring strict focus - be gentle.  Some projects will feel like they're fueling each other and some won't.  Find your limits - test the boundaries.  You can improve your focus over time, but I don't believe we were constructed to be engaged at this level on the regular all our waking hours.  Go ahead and downshift sometimes.  Voluntarily.  Don't wait for the adrenaline drain to hit.  Sleep 8 hours.  Each night.  Give your subconscious the time it needs to construct its particular brand of magic.

My will and my focus are my best assets, so I try to treat them well.  My insight, perspective, and even my drive are fueled by what these two things can do when I am connected to my source.  I don't like to burn out the focus, I like to stretch it, push it, exercise it and use it.  Then make sure to get my ridiculous on somehow and shake it all out.  (Oooh, that seems like a Florence and the Machine song cue!)

When you feel the focus ebbing, when you feel brick walls growing up around you, when your mental landscape starts looking like a cell block, it's time to step back.  Take a real break.  Laugh with friends.  Garden.  Stretch.  Cook.  Go to the batting cage.  Take a nap.


Change it up.


You'll return fresher, clearer, with ideas and energy to fuel the next stage in the work.

People don't come with speed limits.  You have to set your own.  It's worth taking the time to figure out what yours really is.

(This blog is part of a series - you can look the others up on the side, or go to the blog search and type "writing is not a mystery" - either should work.)

Writing Is Not A Mystery - And Not Like Your Skinny Jeans

No.  Not the hipster "skinny jeans."  (Sorry, I'm feeling anti-hipster at the moment.  It'll pass.)

Those jeans, those jeans, the ones you can't fit into anymore.

Here's a question I ask writer friends, writer clients, people who tell me they want to write:

"So - how's the writing going?"

The frequent answer:

"I need to/have to/just got to get back into it."

"Back into it."  That's the key.

Like writing is a pair of jeans you outgrew.  Your favorite jeans.  The ones you  spent too much on, but they gave you booty.  The ones that got you booty.  Those jeans.  

You just need to get back into them.

Right.

But, cause, see now, as Jaha knows, those jeans might not be all that anymore.  They might be last year's jeans, or - last decade's jeans.  

         These jeans will not ever kiss these lips or

          hug these cheeks again

     And the beauty finally

     Is that I don’t want them anymore

          They are not big enough to

               hold the woman I am today

What you are really trying to get into is

a past self.

Hm.

What should we do with that?

I just have to get back into it is code for:

I'm not writing.  I'm not setting aside any time for it.

And I feel bad about it.

My rule - and I'm big on de-cluttering - is:  get rid of anything that makes you feel bad.

So - wait - get rid of writing?  

Um, not exactly.  The thing that makes you feel bad is the not writing.  Not the writing.  The absence of writing makes you feel guilty when you speak with another writer or artist or someone who believes in your gift.

So get rid of not writing. 

You can do this several ways.

First and obviously, you can write.  In an easy manageable way.  Little moments a few times a week.  One hour on a Sunday.

When you tell me you need to get back into writing, you are telling me you're neglecting self.  Because if you were taking care of self, you'd be answering that question in a different way.  You'd be telling me what your priorities actually are now and how writing might or might not be part of those.  You'd be telling me the truth.  "Getting back into it" is a deflection.  It sounds a lot like,  "I used to be someone who used to write and if I can just go back and become that person again, I could write."  Right.

Let go of the not writing means let go of trying to be who you were when you last remember writing as an urge.  While you are busy trying to recapture that feeling in order to write, you are not writing.  You are changing and growing in myriad ways that might inform the writing if you sat down to it, but you are telling yourself that it needs to fit you like that old pair of jeans or you can't do it.

Stop making yourself feel bad that you are not writing.  Stop trying to squeeze yourself into a past perception.  Just be here and go with that.

This feeling comes up a lot when dealing with unfinished projects.  Go ahead and hate everything you've written up to now when you were a different person 6 months or two years ago, and figure out what you have and want to say now.

Now is the only you.

The jeans you have on now are your jeans.  The words you write today are the ones that fit you.

Everything else is you making yourself feel bad.  Raising mismatched expectations of self and even...romanticizing writing.

Don't do it.  Back away from that precipice.  Now, please.  Steady.

"I wrote in college."  "I used to journal."  "I used to write poetry."  Wistful sigh.

It's not romantic!  How many writers do you know sitting around drinking absinthe and having sexy rendez-vous in cafes?  That's what I thought.

Romantic has a way of feeling nostalgic and, then, again, leads to something you used to do.  You pine for this thing like an unrequited love that is doomed because....well, because that feels like a good story.  Something unattainable is always a good story.  In fiction.  Go ahead and write that.  This is your life.  Life is about growth.

The writers you know sit with their laptops and their caffeine of choice and they pound it out daily.  You don't need skinny jeans for that.  You need focus.  

Get real.  Get today.  Get you.  

Get Back is a song by The Beatles.  It is not what you need to do in order to write.

Get Here is a song by Brenda Russell.  It is what you need to do in order to write.

Get it?

To recap:

Option 1:  Write.

Option 2:  Give yourself permission to be only and exactly who you are right now in order to write.

Option 3:  Give yourself permission to let go of the before - the how it used to be, or feel - thank it, and let it go. 

Why are 2 and 3 options even if they don't actually include writing?  Because writing or the lack of it isn't really the issue here (unless you're on a delivery deadline!).  The issue is the need to assimilate the changes you've made in your life and feel comfortable with them in order to enter into a safe creative zone.  Acceptance of who you are now, and what your practice may or may not be is going to be key to writing.  Guilting yourself over a project you are choosing not to finish (yes - it's a choice) is not going to get anything happening.  

Unless you are on a deadline for an article, book, thesis - you don't have to write.  You are making the choice to do so.  Holding on to the idea that you are making a choice to write, but then consistently not writing is angst-making.  Who needs more angst?  Let. It. Go.

Here's a writing exercise to start with - go ahead and write out why you think I am completely wrong and you just need to get back into writing to write.

If that leaves you high and dry, how about free-writing on  the tyranny of skinny jeans and hipsters...the Fauxtelligentsia, if you will...

(Sorry so snarky.  Hipsters got me down.)

Okay - a real writing exercise- free write on these questions:  

What self have you left behind that you really miss?

What self have you left behind that you are so happy to do without?

(This blog is part of a series - you can look the others up on the side, or go to the blog search and type "writing is not a Mystery" - either should work.)

Writing Is Not A Mystery - What's Next?

Lately little sparks of writing wisdom seem to attract themselves to me like staticky socks.  The Jhumpa Lahiri blog on sentences.  William Martell's great article on creating drama in your screenplay that so perfectly illustrates the points I was making in the Go Organic post - that making it harder on yourself  - letting the demands of the situations and the conflicts that naturally arise dictate the writing - can actually make it easier...and better.

We've been in getting started territory for a while now - handling impulses, looking at the thing called Writer's Block, marshaling ideas, locating the energy in the work -  we've covered a lot!  Sitting down and opening the floodgates are the first, second, third, fourth...steps - well they are a large part of the process.

But there's more.

'Writing is rewriting' is what people always say.  And it has its truth.  I think of rewriting as something specific - different from editing, proofing, copy editing, and even different from revising.  I know - it sounds mysterious.  It's not.

Like Ike and Tina, let's start nice and easy, and then, no - I promise it'll never get that rough.



Maybe we should start by defining some of the terms.

Copy editing - Easy.  Simplest thing to do - once you've gotten the ideas out.  DON'T force yourself to copy edit as you go.  You can if you get stuck or run out of juice, but for the most part, leave the typos and grammatical agreement problems where they are until you're writing, finished gathering up the meaning, through stylizing the piece.  Don't break your flow - there'll be time to do it later.

Sure, spell and grammar check will catch some stuff, but you do need to go through it.  There are plenty of things they won't catch - like the difference between using it's and its, or their and they're and there.  Don't ask people to read or give feedback on messy files - it's disrespectful of their time AND it's going to get you the wrong kind of feedback - do you want to know if your piece has typos or do you want to know if it makes sense, has impact, has a good rhythm, is interesting?

If you don't know your basics - learn, find out, and get yourself some handbooks!


Proofreading - We're rapidly losing the distinction between copy editing and proofing.  Proofreading is looking at proofs and correcting them for publication.  For me, it's the last once-over before sending it out, uploading a file, or sending something to the printer.  I think it's a good idea to include this step even in our digital publishing universe.  Honestly, I proofed versions of my book 4 times, and still found a typo a few months down the road in a printed copy!

Don't skip this step if your writing is heading into the world in print form.

Editing - A lost art.  I lament the days of the star editor - like Jackie Onassis whose books for Doubleday were some of the loveliest, tightest volumes.  A great editor makes a good writer great.  Having another pair of eyes - a skilled pair with audience, marketing, and the feel of the read in mind - is priceless.  Before you get to an editor, you've got to do it yourself.

Editing is refining the way you say things, tweaking the order of things, playing with style.  It's taking the bones of the piece and turning them into a skeleton. That dances.  And can grow skin.  It's a huge part of the time you may spend sitting at your writing.

No matter how first-thought-best-thought you may be - you need to edit.  People don't talk about it.  They pretend they don't do it, but the best writers edit, edit, edit.  They may not even know they are editing - they may think they are reading, re-reading and poking around, but that's an edit.

Revising - For my own purposes, I think of revising as what I do after I think I have a good draft, but before I do anything with that draft.  I put it away for a couple of days if I can, and then, feeling as though I've got everything in there I need to, have checked for errors, and have turned it into what I hoped for, I step back into it.  I do this in the hopes that now that my brain has drained all the expectations it was holding for this particular piece, that I will see something else.  Something new.  Something luscious.  Something serendipitous.  Something I just couldn't see before, because I had too much going on in my head.  Revising is a great moment.  It's when you can take that extra step closer to your reader.  It's a great opportunity to become a better writer than when you sat down to write your draft.

Rewriting - Again - for my own purposes - rewriting is a specific idea to me, separate from everything above.  Rewriting is what you do once you've "published" a draft - that can mean sending out a version of a script to actors and director, it can mean standing up on stage reading it in front of people, or just letting some friends give you feedback.

It's an overhaul, based on all that you know now, but didn't know then, all the things you didn't manage to layer in the current draft.  The more complicated and long the original, the more likely it will need a rewrite.  You are not a bad writer if you need to go through drafts- going through drafts is what makes you a good writer because it is what produces good writing.

There more to be said about editing, revisions and rewrites, but at least we have some parameters for what these are.  It's important to realize this process is part of the timeline for your project - don't deliver without going throgh these steps in you can help it.  And you can.

(This blog is part of a series - you can look the others up on the side, or go to the blog search and type "writing is not a Mystery" - either should work.)