On the nature of talking....

A friend asked me what I've learned from the blog entry challenge this week. As a word of warning, this may get ramblier than other posts, but rambling can be a good thing; I'm writing this entry in Write or Die's web app so that i can't fall into the trap of self editing myself into oblivion. See, right there, the two instances of "self" in the same sentence. I would go back and get rid of that but Very Bad Things will happen here if I don't so that will come into play later.

Back to the original question. I didn't know how to take that at first. I didn't set out to make this a teaching tool, but hey, unexpected opportunities. What I'd say I recognized the most is that I am a talker. Talking and thinking are linked for me. If I can talk about it, then it's real and I can do it.

So, my friend asked, does talking about writing translate to writing and finishing stories? For me, yes. It does. Think about having the best racehorse in the world. Now don't feed him. What's going to happen? How is he going to run? Not very far or long after missing enough meals and the running he can do isn't going to be up to the usual standard. Kind of the same thing here.

While there are awesome writers who will go from initial idea to finished first or second draft before they breathe a word to anybody, I am not one of them. Everybody has their own right way to work, and for me, that involves talking. My friend did ask if the talking works if nobody replies; this is after I mentioned that blog entries seem to count as talking to my writer-brain so that there will likely be more entries in the future. (Since I also seem to do very well with accountability - if I tell the internet, then I have to do it- there will also likely be more challenges in the future. It can be a thing.

Best of all is sitting down with another writer, one on one, and talking about writing. Talk about their stuff, talk about my stuff, some back and forth, give and take and I'm good to go. Give me a beverage of choice, often some form of black tea with milk and sweetener in this autumnal weather, perhaps a nibble or two, and let me run, because I'm fed. So if that can be something learned, then there's that. It works for me, and it doesn't have to work for anybody else, because we all have our own best ways to go about this business of making the voices in our heads pay rent.

Is it a magic pill that will make everything all betters all at once? No. I don't think there is such a thing. It's a process. It is difficult for a talker to work when there isn't someone else to talk to/with; it can be done, theoretically, but it's a whale of a lot harder and will take a lot longer, and our talker is going to be worse for wear by the time it's done.

Already over my projected length for this entry, but in short, it's a process. For me, talking works, and I can talk here, so I will. You have been warned.

What have you learned about your own process over the years?

Extroverted Writer Links

Useful links on writing, extroversion and overcoming self-sabotage:

Five Signs You May Be Sabotaging Your Own Writing Career: Guilty of all five at one time or another in the past year.

What's Your Writing Personality?: Introvert? Extrovert? Mixed?

7 Ways for Extroverts to Increase Their Writing Productivity: good tips on making inherent personality traits work for, not against the writing.

http://susannahfriiswrites.com/2012/02/07/ten-reasons-why-extrovert-writers-are-doing-it-tough/: I can't admit to #10, but the others do sound familiar.

The Problem of the Extroverted Writer: Holmes and Watson help an extroverted writer figure out his most perplexing predicament.

The Challenges of Being a Writer and an Extrovert: YATopia offers some excellent suggestions.

About.com on Extroverts: Really good definition, easy and accessible.

The "Silent Treatment" vs. the Talking Machine: Understanding Introverts and Extroverts: Introvert and extrovert styles of processing thoughts and feelings.

Ten Myths About Extroverts: This Truth About Sushi blog entry tackles some generalizations.

So. Writing. I do that.

So. Writing. I do that. Secret tip #2: “So. X.” works along the same lines as “here’s the thing.” That’s a good thing because it always helps to have a backup. Which is pretty much the whole point of doing these morning pages. The brain has to do something, and it doesn’t matter much what the starting gun sounds like, as long as it sounds.

Right now, it sounds like looking at a big blank white wall. Which is normal for the start of a writing day. Some days are great; the characters pull the writer out of bed, march her (or him) to the computer or crack open the notebook and they’re off and running. This is not one of those days. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad day. It only means it’s a day. Butt in chair and fingers on keyboard, same as usual.

The worst time-waster, for me, isn’t Facebook (even with SimCity Social) but doubt. Don’t ask me when the doubt monster (DM for short, as we’re that well acquainted) posed as a pizza delivery person and barged in to take up residence. I’m guessing DM used that particular disguise because, really, what writer is ever going to not open the door for a pizza? At any rate, it did, and while, as with any writer, there’s the obligatory trial and error of finding the right weapon to hit DM where it counts, most days the best way out is through.

So. Writing. There are days when any writer will do anything but write. That’s because writing can be scary. It’s at once intensely personal and meant to be shared. Kind of funny that way, but that’s how it goes. For someone who is both a writer and an extrovert, it can be a delicate balance. Still working on that, since I’m pretty sure I’m going to be both for the rest of my life.

The thing about extroverted writers (see what I did there?) is that we need the energy of others around us to get our own motors running. I can stare at the blank page for hours, go around and around in my own mind, but put me across the table from another writer and I can blabber out pages worth. Which brings to mind an interesting experiment; would it work to try speaking the day’s work into a recording device? Not sure on that one, since I’m a wuss about hearing my own voice in a recording. I’ve heard that’s pretty common, and it’s because we can’t hear our own voices within our heads the same way they sound to others, and the how-it-sounds-to-others is how we hear it on a recording.

That’s it for me today. What’s your favorite weapon when fighting DM?

Here's The Thing....

Here’s the thing about making a challenge to oneself and putting it on the internet; it takes away the anonymity of weaseling out. Which, I will have to admit, I was tempted to do. Let’s face it; sometimes, writing is scary. I’ve described it to writing friends as sticking an ice cream scoop in the writer’s gut, grabbing an generous portion, plopping it on a plate and offering it to strangers.

That’s moi, by the way, for today’s picture, photo taken in a church reception hall bathroom and then fiddled with in Photobucket. Because I do those sorts of things. Click to embiggen.

So, anyway, writing. Secret tip #1 – I can make myself go from nothing to write about to being able to get something down by starting with “here’s the thing…” I don’t know why that works, but it does. Not the most useful thing when writing on an actual historical romance manuscript, but when it comes to freewriting, “here’s the thing” does it every time. Don’t ask me where I got that turn of phrase from. We writerly sorts are master eavesdroppers and that’s where I’m assuming it came from. Somebody used it in public and then it stuck in my mind forever. Thanks for the inadvertently useful trick, dear stranger, whoever you are.

The thing about the thing is that it fits in with something said by the facilitator of a writer’s group I attended years ago. In that group, we wrote to timed prompts, and were to keep the pen moving during that time. It didn’t matter what we put on the page. The goal was to get something down. Anything. We didn’t have to share if we didn’t want to, and we didn’t have to use the prompt, but we were to keep the pen on the page. As the facilitator said, the process begets the content.

There’s only so long one can write “I have no idea what I’m writing” or the like before some exasperated character will push themselves to the front of the writer’s consciousness and decide their story is more important than counting the number of lines left on the page, or venting one’s spleen about whatever real life annoyance has one’s knickers in a bunch. Sometimes, though, there has to be that bloodletting first, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Same thing as clearing the junk off the floor before attempting to dance on it. Only way to do it is to do it.

Two more days to complete my week. Got a question about writing, reading or the romance genre in general? Shoot it at me in comments and I might blab about it in days to come. Now go be fabulous.

Workings of a Writing Mind

Freewriting today to get the pump primed, our illustration courtesy of Gunther from my Sims 3 game. Pretty accurate for the writing life, I'd say. Though this is the day of the week when I generally meet with writer friends, life happens, and thus it’s me and me and me.

Which is fine. That’s how writing goes, isn’t it? One writer (two or more if we’re talking a collaboration, but we aren’t at the moment, so move along, nothing to see here) with butt in chair and fingers on keyboard. While it’s important to keep in contact with those of our own kind (especially for those of us who are extroverts, but that’s for another post), writers are not people who talk about writing, without actually doing the work. Writers are people who write. We tell stories. We interpret what’s unfolding in our heads and put it in a form that allows others to enter these worlds of our own creation and get to know the characters who inhabit them.

This morning, I told the woman behind the counter at my local Panera that I have crossed the bar into fall and my usual beverage is now hot tea rather than iced. I wore my fleece vest, a knit hat and matching mitts while on my once-again-customary morning walk with a neighbor. My brain gave me the signal that it’s time for fresh tunes on my mp3 player. Since my brain gave me that signal immediately prior to the device asking me to reformat it, I’m going to consider that confirmation that I’m on the right track.

When I was but a wee princess, my mother used to tell me that the more I did, the more I would want to do, and that holds true with writing as well. I’ve called these random babblings ‘morning pages’ if I want to be writerly, ‘priming the pump’ or ‘freewriting’ most of the time, and if I’m angry/upset/stabby/etc, ‘bloodletting.’ It’s that whole bodies in motion tend to stay in motion sort of thing. We like motion.

Which is why, today, you get this. I am giving myself a challenge. One page of freewriting every weekday morning this week, posted here. That’s the goal. If I tell the interwebs I’m doing it, then I have to follow through. Pictures may be present, but do not count toward page count. Happy Dance Friday will likely count toward fulfilling this challenge, unless faithful readers like you want a double post with extra rambling.

What goes through your head before you get down to business for the day?