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January 20, 2012

Creating your own practice

A common worry with practice is that it involves too many prompts and nudges from outside, and is therefore not legitimate Writing (see that capital W? Makes all the difference).

Firstly, it’s all legitimate. No one else is doing the writing, the idea generating, the sentence  construction. It’s all you.

Secondly, you can learn a lot from being pushed by something external to your own mind.

But, thirdly, if you generate your own ideas for practice you’ll quickly understand what interests you and where your preoccupations lie as a writer. It’s a shortcut to your unconscious.

So how do you go about it?

Well, the tutor who gave me the title for this blogsimply noted down things that interested her in a little notebook she carried around. Her practice was so advanced that she only needed a sentence or two to recreate a whole story about the trials of trying on clothes in a Marks & Spencer (a clothing store, for you non UK folk).

Image credit: Gary Hayes

But it could be anything – a building you like the look of. A person with luggage of unusual size. A row between serving staff in a restaurant. Anything that sets your writerly brain off with a train of questions – where is she going with that enormous case? To dispose of a body? Perhaps she’s stolen a grandmother clock that had been willed away from her by a vicious relative and she doesn’t have a car so she has to drag it across town, dismantled and crammed into a huge case which will obviously damage the clock beyond repair? But why does the clock mean so much to her?

Image Credit: cwgoodroe

You see, the best writing is simply paying really close attention and putting down into words what we all see, hear and feel, but let wash past us most of the time. This applies no matter what kind of writing you’re doing.

(Did you notice the bird? I didn’t at first.)

If you are always looking for things to note down for your practice, then you are always open to ideas, and you are always paying attention.

After you’ve started writing you might find that the mundane questions get replaced with something far more interesting. Or they might not. It doesn’t matter either way – you’ve paid attention. You’ve tried out the idea. Sometimes they have legs and sometimes they don’t.

Buy yourself a tiny notebook, or make notes on your electronic device of choice, and try this exercise next time you’re out:

Come Back with a Face

This is one of my own, and one I do most frequently. My preoccupation is people, obviously.

While you are out, make brief notes about the appearance of someone you find interesting.

For your practice, invent the life behind the face. This can be quite surprising, and lead you  a long way from where you started. Just remember not to tie the face to the place you see it, or you’ll be in too tight a corner.

(Indoor variation: search Flickr for ‘interesting face’.)

Image Credit: JakeBrewer

Happy Practicing!

Filed Under: Notes on Practice, On Writing Tagged With: , , Leave a Comment
January 12, 2012

Serious Play: What is Practice?

Let’s have a closer look at what practice is, or perhaps I should come at it from a different direction and say what practice isn’t.

It’s not journalling.

It’s not stream of consciousness writing.

It’s not morning pages.

All of these things are useful tools for a writer’s toolkit, and they have their purposes, but practicing is more than simply turning up to the page and writing whatever comes into your head.

Writing freeform and undirected is a great way of warming up, but it doesn’t necessarily make you better at description or dialogue. Once your mind has got rid of its everyday clutter and chatter, then you have the space to focus on aspects of writing you find difficult, or just practise something you find enjoyable.

Photo credit: Willster K

Other art forms give us a good insight into what directed practice can be: singers do scales, or go over difficult pieces of music. A ballet dancer practices the basic steps, plies, and arabesques before they try a new choreography. Painters often learn to paint by copying the old masters. They warm up, in other words, but in ways that strengthen the basic knowledge of their art, and give them solid foundations to stand on when they create something new.

It’s the same with writing fiction.

You might worry that using prompts and practices will lead you to write in a certain way, or like everyone else, but it’s simply not possible. You always bring yourself to your writing, and you are unique, so your practice will be too.

Think about when we learn to write, physically, with a pen: we practise the letter forms over and over again. Over time, our confidence and skill grows, and we develop our own style of handwriting.

Practice is only ever a starting point. You might notice that certain themes or characters keep popping their heads up when you practise. They might be new to you, or old friends, but if this does happen, don’t feel the pressure to try and keep them out. You never know what your mind might be trying to tell you.

And what should you do with your practices? Nothing if you don’t want to. But – keep them. Somewhere safe, where you don’t have to look at them. You might want to later, say in six months, to see if there are ideas worth mining, but if you can’t bear the thought, then just know you have done the work, and that is valuable enough.

Later this week I’ll be posting about creating your own source of practices, but for now sharpen your pencils and keep writing.

Filed Under: Notes on Practice, On Writing Leave a Comment
January 5, 2012

On the Seriousness of Reading

New Year. We all love the sound of a fresh leaf turning. Maybe you’ve already made a resolution to make more space and time for your writing. I know the feeling, because I’ve made that same resolution I don’t know how many times.

But you’ve got it wrong.

There is only one resolution you can make that will make you want to write more, and will help you be a better writer.

Read More.

Maybe you got a Kindle for Christmas, or a bundle of book tokens, or, if you’re really lucky, a stack of new books handpicked by someone who knows you really well. Don’t wait. Dive in and start reading.

If you didn’t get something new, or don’t have something unread on your shelves waiting for your attention, then pick up something you love and start reading it again.

Just read.

Read as a reader, and read as a writer.

Take pleasure in the way stories unfold, in the pace and heft of the prose. Take note of how much you already know ten pages in. That’s about 3000 words of writing: how much does your first 3000 say? Delight in great descriptions, and delight more in figuring out how you would have said something better.

Engage with the words, get lost in the rhythms. Remember why you love the written word.

If you’re stuck for something to read next, or want to try something new, go for a browse in a bookshop, check out Goodreads, or ask someone you trust. (Remember, trusting someone’s book reading habits is not exactly the same as liking them, but it is a pretty good indicator of whether you’ll get on.)

Take a couple from my bedside table, if you like:


Freedom
I wanted to read this when it first came out, because I adored the Corrections. I seem to have both a trade paperback and a kindle edition. I’ll probably read the Kindle because there are a lot of words.


The Penguin Book of Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings
Likewise I have a paperback and the kindle edition. My husband bought me the paperback for Christmas without knowing I’d already bought it for Kindle. Smart fella.

If you’re writing, then reading is technically doing work. It’s legitimate, and absolutely not optional.

And remember, if you’re going to try writing something big, then the thing you enjoy reading the most is probably the kind of thing you should be writing. If you have shelves full of science fiction then chances are you’re not going to be able to sustain writing an historical romance. Writing a novel is a long business, and when your stamina fails, as it inevitably will on some days, you’ll need passion to carry you through to the next day.

Reading is the key. Whenever you feel blocked, and crazy, and want to give up, just read instead. You’ll find your way back, I promise.

Filed Under: Food for Thought 2 Comments