Happy New Year!

Creative Resolutions for 2007

No, this isn't going to be a worksheet for outlining resolutions. There are so many lists out there already that I'd be woefully reinventing the wheel if I did that. And heck, it's 6:30 AM where I live and I haven't yet had my morning cup.

This is simply my list of creative resolutions. While I am primarily a writer (see my Writing Resolutions here), my creative tools also include a digital camera and various drawing implements, and my creative life stretches into my family and home life as well through landscape design, culinary arts, the invention of new board games, interior decorating, etc. All this to say that my list reflects a more general view of my creative life.

It makes sense to apply one's resolutions across the spectrum of an entire creative life, after all. Strengths in one area usually mean strengths across the spectrum; the same, of course, can be said about one's weaknesses. And thinking more broadly, the personal resolutions we commonly share—to lose weight, to save money, to be happy—are just as applicable to our own creative lives.

Now, while similar in their intention, Creative Resolutions are not the same as Creative Resuscitations. Creative Resuscitations are those tools I can reach for when I'm hitting a wall with a particular project or feeling a general creative malaise, whereas Creative Resolutions are goal-directed and reflect the observed strengths and weaknesses of my own creative life.

So 'nuff said. Here are mine, posted publicly because putting it out there makes success far more likely (that's a pop psych thing).

1. Refuse new projects that don't further my current goals. Both a strength and a weakness for me.
Strength: I am good at saying no and meaning it.
Weakness: I love to help others but it becomes an excuse not to work on my own stuff.

2. Eat smart, exercise daily and leave the house every day. Quality of health improves quality of creativity!
Strength: I eat pretty well already.
Weakness: I don't exercise enough and, with so much work revolving around the VO, I rarely get out and stretch the old bones.

3. Continue the daily schedule (work, family life, personal life) I started last fall but drop all aspects of creative working at night (save classes and social events like readings).
Strength: I do well with structure and my ability to predict how long things take has improved immensely.
Weakness: I forget that some pockets of open time should stay that way (a holdover from early motherhood).

4. Acknowledge that June, July, August, September, November and December are crazy months and lighten up my schedules and goals then to reflect my lifestyle.
Strength: I did this last year and it helped a lot physically, mentally and intellectually.

5. Have more fun! Creative burnout is no fun at all.
Strength: I've got a great family and friends to support this goal!

6. Work harder at keeping the household organized so that it doesn't cripple my own productivity.
Strength: I'm more organized than most.
Weakness: See Resolution Number One.

7. Read more.
Strength: I've got a Borgesian library to meet this goal!
Weakness: I relegate reading so much to the end of the day or "after everything else gets done" that I often don't do it at all.

8. Manage my media time.
Strength: I've got my email and blog checks down to 1 hour a day total.
Weakness: We just got a new PlayStation 2 and it's just so darn fun!

H A P P Y N E W Y E A R !

2007 toolkit for resuscitating the creative life!

I hereby declare my creative resuscitations for 2007

Not to be confused with resolutions, creative resuscitations are a toolkit I set up for myself to aid in getting through those rough patches when my creative life is either lacking in energy or interrupted so constantly by the worries of the real world that I can't seem to reclaim it.

I update these regularly because I believe there is power in reinvention, personal reflection and self-assessment. Speaking them out loud (or here in a blog) lends additional power and focus to these activities, which do the job of supporting my creative intent. You may want to draw up your own list and put it in your calendar or other place where reminders can be delivered as a way to keep you on top of your own creative game.

For me, 2007 is shaping up to be a developmental year. My occupational interests are in development or transition. My writing interests and plans are moving beyond the generation of new material into more focused submission planning, an expansion of my writing categories and a specific focus on the development of multiple book-length projects. This will be the year that I buck up and get the work done, thereby moving beyond established patterns in my current creative life. (I'd be more specific than this but I get a little superstitious.)

I've discovered that I find benefit, increasingly, in structure. Not only in planning out new manuscripts, but in structuring my time and energy expenditures. This is necessary to discuss for anyone who has to juggle their creative life (me=writing) with their personal life (me=family, health concerns) and their work life (me=small, home-based service business).

One of the ways I employ structure to stay on top of these three aspects of my life is through the assignment of categories. Assigning a category to each of my various projects helps me to keep them all straight in my own mind. But I don't rely on my mind alone. I keep a log. If you've ever worked in a client-based corporate environment, you might recall the term "billable hours." That's more or less how I've broken down my workdays and, by logging these "billable hours," I've drafted for myself a fairly accurate portrayal of the way I spend time, energy and resources. (If you're concerned you waste too much time on the wrong things, you might wish to adopt this strategy as a way to identify the shape of your productivity. Write me for details.)

Applying the concept of "billable hours" to my creative resuscitations leaves me with the basic trinity of Body, Mind and Soul. I like things simple and basic. The purpose of these resuscitations, after all, is to simplify. Rather than load each of these categories with various specific tasks, I've kept to the top few actions for each category which best reflect the solutions that have served me well in the past. Take a look:

Body

1. Daily exercise. Not whenever I feel like it exercise. Daily. Yoga. Walking. Biking. Pilates. Classes. Deep Tissue Massage and Chiro, as necessary (not pleasurable but necessary)
2. Water. 8+ glasses daily. Hot or iced herbal tea counts. Everything else nonwater doesn't.
3. Breathing. It's amazing how little oxygen one takes in sitting at the keyboard. If you've ever noted how much you yawn all day, take heed. You're not yawning because you're bored.

Mind

1. Mind games. These seem to help. Sudoku. Crosswords. Jigsaws. Board
   games.
2. Media management. For me, media = playstation, television, movies, podcasts, email, surfing, blogs. When life gets full, put these on a strict regimen. Here is the priority schematic: health/family first, writing, reading and work life second, media for work third, media for all other purposes only when there's time.
3. Read writing magazines. They do pile up. Take a copy to the local barista's and settle in.

Soul

1. Get outdoors. I spend way too much time with a pane of glass separating me from the Green world. It could mean a short hike, gardening, beachcombing. Whatever it is, make sure it's as close to Nature as I can get for the time allotted.
2. Play. Take a day off from work every 2 weeks. Do something impractical on that day. Have fun. Laugh. Smile.
3. Travel. Look for opportunities to get out of the office. Have laptop, will travel. Go to the city. Go to a cemetery. Go to a scenic viewpoint. Go to a bakery. Go to the vacation place. Go to a conference or a workshop.

See? Basic. But how many times do we need to remind ourselves of these unfortunate imbalances in our lives? That's what Creative Resuscitations are about.

Go make your own, and let me know in a few months how it all spins out for you.

Coming up soon: my creative resolutions,
and why they're different than resuscitations

Writer's Emergency Kit

Check out this week's Writer's Rainbow writing prompt:

Emergency Kit
This weekend's continued power outage in the greater Puget Sound area reminds us we should be prepared to abandon our plugged-in world at any time. Here's my Writer's Emergency Kit. Print it out and post it near your computer so you can find it when disaster strikes. There are no excuses not to write, not even power outages!

TOOLS

Booklight w/replacement batteries/bulbs.
Preferred paper.
Pens/pencils.
Lap blanket/pillow.
Warm hat/scarf/fingerless gloves.
Candles w/matches.
Prescription eyewear.
Thermos.
Instant coffee/tea/soups.
Small camp stove/propane/kettle/French press?

LOGISTICS

1. With advance warning, boil water for thermos for "instant hot" later for reliable fuel for that first dark day. Refill using camp gear. (RWC: Wanna be trés chic? Use a French press for your java, drink Starbuck's in the dark. At least you'll suffer in style.)

2. Write when it's dark, using your booklight.

3. Write when it's light, by a light window, if possible. Or, use your booklight.

4. Write when it's cold. That's what the warm goodies are for in the Tools list! What else are you going to do? Stoke a fire, maybe.

5. Write by hand. Spend your laptop battery if you must. Longer power outages will prevail over tech, so think analog, folks.

6. Enjoy your modem-free vacation!

7. Read your work out loud by firelight for entertainment. It might just sound better than you thought!

8. Read anything. Enjoy life without electronic media.

9. Talk to your neighbors, to strangers, to your family and friends. They are your primary source for ideas, after all.

10. Listen to the sounds you don't hear in your plugged-in life.

11. Take walks. It'll generate body heat and take you from the dark hull of your house for fresh air. Always good for writers.

12. In cold weather (<40°F), put fridge items in a cooler outside. A writer still needs to eat.

13. Pretend you are Thoreau and make good with what you got.

14. Don't start your generator. Be the generator.

Storm update

Big Storm at the home front. Yesterday, we "evacuated" to our vacation home.

It's been 4 days and counting. Writing you this from a third party connection;

sorry, no dispatches until I get back. Stay tuned!

Putting our asses in chairs for the sake of Story

I'm wrapping up Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir and have to say that I'm swift getting over any leftover snobbishness I might have picked up in literary circles, creative writing courses and book discussion groups. King is a master, hands down. The rest of you folks who disagree can just plain get over yourselves.

What I haven't abandoned is the perpetual spiel of advice I give about writing, which King echoes in his book.

The story simply has to be good, whatever else it is

(This is true for poems, as well).

Forget genre for a second. Forget commercial appeal. Forget rules and attitudes and the quotes of second-hand geniuses. (There aren't any first-generation geniuses out there, in case you hadn't noticed, with the except of a select few who have devoted their lives to particles completely indiscernible to the naked eye.)

I repeat: It's all about the story and your ability to make it the best it can be.

It's not about who you know, or what kind of coffee mug you drink out of, or your yogi lifestyle, or the letters that follow after your name on a business card. It's about sitting down in a place reserved for writing and doing the hard work every day.

King's memoir is one part, well, memoir, and one part common sense. A great amalgamation of theory and practice written personably and with no apologies. His many references to Strunk & White alone make it a worthy addition to any serious writer's shelf. (Don't know what Strunk & White is? Get thee to a good English Composition 101 class!)

I've reacted strongly to so many things he's discussed in his memoir that I'll be writing Dear Mr. King a letter in the new year. I think everyone should do this. After all, the Golden Rule doth apply, n'est-ce pas? Wouldn't you, as a writer, want someone to write to you with their response to your work?

Now, clearly, I get it that King has experienced no shortage in fan letters. But he does read them and might even write back. After all, that's what writers are all about, is it not? You can't blame him for avoiding the nut jobs out there (once bitten, twice shy and all that), but he's still going to engage his fans. It's just the way the guy is.

***

Some pledges to my readers before I head off the blog circuit for some holiday respite:

1. I've almost finished drafting a new list of Creative Resuscitations, so you'll be seeing these soon.
2. I'm also almost done with my Writing Resolutions for 2007. Stay tuned!

Also, don't forget to check out the holiday specials at Writer's Rainbow, as well as my call for input regarding the needs of writers who live further off the grid than most (i.e., stay-home parents, folks living in remote locations, the housebound handicapped, etc.). I'm busy developing programs for 2007 (including special services, online workshops and new live workshop subjects). The more ideas I get from all of you, the better I can develop services to meet your needs!

RWC goes on holiday Wed Dec 19 and returns Wed Jan 3.

Forests and trees, industrialized version

Imagine you go to visit your old stomping grounds and are about to step onto the local city bus. Except this bus is not the ordinary variety you're used to stepping onto. This bus is a HanJin freight container of the variety used to ship millions of different products from overseas. The right and left sides of the freight container have been stripped away, seats installed inside the "box," and wheels affixed beneath.

It's being pulled by a tractor driven by your friend, one who never left your shared hometown. He seems not to see how the relative safety of the ride should really have been called into question a long time ago. The HanJin freight container bus is almost full to capacity with riders all complimenting themselves on their eco-friendly choice to use mass transit (however eco-friendly pulling a freight box all day behind a gas-burning tractor might be).

So you get on, skeptical but willing to check out this new ride. Maybe there's some sort of groovy technology at work here you're not aware of.

The tractor/freight box combo gets moving across a winding road, then descends a hill, and what you predicted comes true: the HanJin freight container bus loses its stability and tips over, throwing all of its riders out onto the hard ground. Unbelievably, no one is trapped or injured or killed in the accident. Aside from a few bumps and bruises, mussed hair-dos and torn pantyhose, folks collect themselves as my friend rights the tipped trailer (for a smallish fellow, he certainly can call up superhuman strength when he needs to).

You look at the entire scene in disbelief as your friend reclaims the wheel and the rest of the passengers climb back on, heedless to the fact that they will probably be sent flying from the HanJin freight container bus at least one more time before making it to their intended destinations.

Your friend waves for you to get back on the bus. All you can do is stand there and frown and ask yourself, Aren't these people paying attention?

Okay, so this was the content of a recent dream I captured during a day-nap when my back was especially crampy and I'd had only 4 hours of sleep the night before (long story involving 3.5 pounds of bittersweet chocolate and a fab recipe from Orangette which included the word "gluey" in its directions).

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the relative lucidity of the POV character in the midst of such a ridiculous situation. I have a lot of dreams like this, where people aren't paying attention to the things that are happening to them right before their very eyes.

But is this situation really so very ridiculous? I don't know. It doesn't take a genius to pick up the absurdity of everyday events in our world via the daily news (in whatever form you desire it: print, electronic or televised) or the fact that we (in this case, I'll generalize: all Americans) seem to lack the kind of perspective necessary to see reality clearly.

Why can't we see the forest for the trees? And what is this fog we're walking around in?

No answers from me today, but if you want to chime in and offer some, I won't ignore you.

Create what you love and the money will follow?

Creative economy

"According to Richard Florida in his book The Rise of the Creative Class, over 38 million Americans make their living in a creative or related field. The creative class is rapidly becoming the driving force in our economy. If our society is to thrive, we need to nurture creativity in our emerging workforce. It's no wonder that professor Jonathan Feinstein's class on "Creativity in Business" is one of the most popular classes at the Yale School of Management. According to Feinstein, successful companies like Best Buy are now recruiting potential managers who actively pursue their "outside" interests in music or art."

—from John Dillon, co-host and co-producer of Art of the Song Creativity Radio, in an article for Creativity Portal

Now this is something to get excited about. Or is it?

One has to wonder: do the folks at Best Buy really value the "outside" interests of their managers, or is it just another way to efficiently (strip-)mine the creative energy of their employees?

People who are creative are generally also quite generous with their creativity; having discovered this, might the real aim of corporate decision-makers be to take advantage of creative thinkers, who are more likely to be more productive (read cost efficient) than their non-creative counterparts?

I'm always a little skeptical when Big Business shows an interest in creativity, if only because people who lead creative lives are also likely to be more intellectual. Isn't that precisely what Big Business doesn't want among its ranks: free-thinking worker bees questioning the goals of their hive bosses? American Intellectualism isn't exactly in vogue these days, anyway, just ask some of its strongest proponents.

Now, it makes all the sense in the world to me that Big Business should, in fact, give more credence to the Creative Class. Creative people are better problem-solvers, think outside the box, function more flexibly in chaotic circumstances (heck, we thrive on chaos!) and are willing to do more work off the clock to meet deadlines. Yes, that's right. Despite the old stereotype of the drunken or druggy artist who sleeps all day and plays all night, I'm going to contend here that creatives are notably driven by a work ethic that comes, not from social pressure, but from an interior desire to achieve the closure of their chosen projects.

Big Business sees this as a terrific benefit overall, and as well they should. People who are productive for the sheer satisfaction of being productive are any corporation's wet dream.

But in a culture which does not seem to value its noncommercial artists, will Big Business's desire to milk the implicit productivity of the Creative Class include a wholesale jump in their wages? I doubt it.

You see, creatives have set for themselves one dangerous precedent. In the land of Creative Writing, that precedent is Publish or Perish. Notice that, of the two P words I just used, there's nothing there about Payment?

It used to be that poets and writers could earn a living wage off their work. It was real work, not something done in the lurid shadows of one's homespace with hopes that the end product would be seen and adored, eventually, by the Outside World.

Since those halcyon days, the competition for publication has made it standard fare for writers to make little or no money at all on their short work. It was good enough to simply find your name in print.

For book-length work, the reality has gone from bidding wars between publishing houses to anybody's guess why some books get six-digit advances (but do not have the sales to support that investment) while other, excellent books are bypassed entirely by major publishers because they aren't commercial enough (forget the fact they are brilliantly written and may end up taking the rest of the world by storm even if their homey US readers never see the end product). Books are no longer intellectual properties or works of literary art; they are, instead, equivalent to pallets of toilet paper at your local Costco—so much paper for sale.*

In the end, it means creative writers aren't really being paid well or fairly for any of the work they do, no matter how valuable it really is to the American cultural landscape.

It's the same across the board for folks in dance, theater, music, fine arts—any sort of endeavor which has not been approved for consumption by commercial interests. You do it as seriously as anyone who did it before you, but you have to squeeze it in around your day job and except little or no payment from it.

Think about it. If this is the precedent we have set for ourselves as creatives, why shouldn't the human resources folks at Best Buy simply comply with that trend and pay less to get more?Sure, they might hire more folks for management jobs if they have creative outside interests, but hiring is not the same as an industry-wide wage hike.

Or if it is, I'll believe it when they show me the money.

Your thoughts?

*Sara Paretsky made this rueful comparison at her keynote
address to the Whidbey Island Writers Conference 3 years ago and, while it's a
monstrous and depressing thought, it sticks with me as one of the most honest
and realistic expressions of the current depravity of publishing in
America.

Excuses, excuses

Well, if it's not one thing it's another. The holidays take the catch-all blame for stealing time away from blogging pursuits, but there's also the return of the bad back and an influx of ultra-windy days cutting short the power and taking down the modem.

Two blogs today for the price of 1!

New Year's Resolutions

Two Quotes

Quote — Good artists give other artists permission. unattributed

Thought — Yes, this thing that we all do—create—isn't exactly supported by the status quo when we're not the flavor of the month. Sure, famous artists, poets, musicians, etc., get their share of attention, compensation and permission. The rest of us hope to join them, albeit while existing on that murky cost-benefit-ratio plane that defines our otherwise invisible creative lives. No, we may not be able to compensate each other, but the best of us do grant permission and do pay attention. Not only is it noble, but it's what salvages the most discouraged among us. Keyword: ANGEL.

Quote — "A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe." Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Thought
A far more elegant way to say what I've been telling my creative mommy cohorts for the last decade or so. To paraphrase: "Stop allowing the world to define you! It' s your creative life, it's your motherhood. Do what works for you and tell the rest of the world to talk to the hand." It's possible to find joy and balance and gratification in the busy, and often materially unrewarded, life of a creative parent. The less attention paid to sociology pundits, the better! Keywords: DIFFERENT DRUMMER.

It's the morning after…

…the carnival of NaNoWriMo.

[Well, maybe not the morning after, because that would be last Friday…but the last thing I wanted to do on Friday was power up my computer, and ditto for the weekend.]

Congrats to Team Seattle for being the most productive in the world! Also, congrats to all my writing/NaNo cohorts; whether they achieved the 50k is irrelevant when compared to their heart, their creativity and their will to move forward as writers.

I'll be back to publishing regular features at RWC starting tomorrow. Today, though, I offer you a pocketful of remembrances from the November event. Consider them the ticket stubs, popcorn kernels, candy wrappers and midway dartboard prizes you find after you've left behind the toasted-grease taste of corndogs, the blur of bright lights, the smell of fried elephant ears, the off-key chimes of carousel music and the sticky ghosts of cotton candy on your fingertips.

• You know, ergonomists have discovered that sitting upright (90°) is bad for your back. Wish I'd known that before I started NaNoWriMo! Then I couldn't simply blame myself for sitting for several hours at a time…

• The following businesses helped me tremendously in achieving my 50k dream:
  
  Seattle
  The Seattle Public Library: I still find the architecture unattractive and difficult to navigate, but they have some great quiet space for plugging in.
  The Online Coffee Company (1st Ave.): Okay, so I dozed off once while writing there, but that wasn't their fault; I was just sleepy from tending a sick child all week. Yes, life does go on in the middle of a novel-writing sprint.
  The Richard Hugo House: A place with good writing juju even if the basement used to be a morgue.
  Tully's on 4th: Still trying to decide if their free wi-fi was a good thing for me in November.
  Washington State Ferries (Bainbridge to Seattle/Seattle to Bainbridge runs): It's amazing how much you can write during the 35-minute haul across the pond, as long as you don't run into anyone you know.
  Commuter Comforts (Colman Ferry Dock): Gotta love their mixed frites!
  
  Greater Kitsap County
  Starbuck's (Poulsbo, WA): Because off-island java joints offer one distinct benefit: anonymity!
  The Kitsap Regional Library, Bainbridge Island branch: Never actually wrote there, but they have great books on fern biology. I better turn them in before I get fined!
  Metro Market Cafe (Bainbridge Island, WA): Okay, the prune tart is to die for. Thanks for allowing me to take up table space during wonderfully busy lunch rushes!
  The Harbour House Pub (Bainbridge Island, WA): I finished my last words at the bar, surrounded by admiring bartenders and waitresses who became instant cheerleaders when they found out what I was doing. Hugs to all of you!
  
  Greater Whatcom County, WA
  The Black Drop (Bellingham, WA): On a particularly windy, stormy weekend, they let me get some words in and check my email for free. Awesome French Toast latte!
  The Blaine Public Library (Blaine, WA): Mostly quiet (except for that one very noisy librarian who could learn a thing or two from the Nancy Pearl action figure! "Umm, excuse me, but I'm woikin' here!"

• Special thanks, also, to these folks, for their support: A, M and M Sellman, for putting up with me; Nancy Canyon, for being my unofficial writing buddy; Mary Guterson, for spying on my progress and cursing me out every time I saw her at the bookstore; Bill Branley, for always recognizing me in his blogs; the Hive (you know who you are); Jen K for always asking; the Bothell Sellmans for not making too much of a thing about my early-morning writing endeavors during the Thanksgiving weekend holiday; Heather in Nova Scotia for sending me an e-card celebrating the crossing of the 50k line; all the folks in my Novel Immersion class; the Hugo House for letting me read a couple of pages from the draft at their end-of-term reading event. Hope I haven't forgotten anyone!

• 10 things I learned about myself during NaNoWriMo:
  1. I can write 50k in a month's time without freaking out too much about it.
  2. Children's writing (at the reading level of The Chronicles of Narnia) suits me.
  3. I love writing about things centered in the Pac NW. Call me a homegirl.
  4. It's okay to use "xxx" when I can't call up the name or precise word I need.
  5. I'm only good for 2 hours of writing, tops, then I begin to work with one eye open, leading to the eventual face-plant into my laptop keyboard.
  6. Yoga is velly velly good to me. Ditto, walking. Sitting? Ouch.
  7. I take a lot of pride in writing in the world's most prolific corner of the world. Seriously!
  8. If I read the most recent 2 or so pages of what I've just written before writing more, I can regain momentum lost during the break between writing sessions. No cold starts necessary.
  9. It helps to outline. Really, it does! (major breakthrough for me!)
  10. Keeping calendars…also useful. One for "what I will be writing each day" (related to story outline) and one for "how many words will I write each day" (related to productivity).

• Observations during NaNoWriMo:
  
  Hmmm, is that guy over there drinking the giant latte also working on his NaNo project?
  
  While reading Stephen King's book, On Writing: A Memoir: I owe this literary master a coffin-load of thanks. Note to self: Write him a thank you letter.
  
  The Grammar Girl podcast rocks!
  
  This novel of mine could be part of a series!…Yeah, and I might finally make a heap of money at this, if I can finish it…Wow, this is a great book! …
  …followed by…
  Maybe I should make every year's NaNo the time to write the next in this series. …Even if I don't make a lot of money at this, at least it would be a book publication… Is there really that much interest in botany among readers?…
  …followed by…
  Do I have to write a series?…No one's going to buy this, no matter how good it is… I have a lot of revision to do to make this anywhere close to what I envisioned it…
  
  If I go out in one more day of rain like we had today, I'm going to lose everything on my computer to damping-off disease.
  
  I'd really rather watch something on Tivo tonight.
  
  Should I pattern this story on The Odyssey or on Don Quixote? Or is either idea too ludicrous for words?
  
  Who are these people with word counts in the six figures halfway into NaNoWriMo? I think they're cheaters and liars!
  
  Why are my eyes so red?
  
  Why are those baristas staring at me? Do they think I'm stealing wi-fi?
  
  Writing long-hand for more than a minute or two results in excruciating pain.
  
  Ticonderoga SenseMatic pencils are the only long-hand pencil I can use. I still prefer ink.
  
  Do these sudoko puzzles and rounds of solitaire really keep my brain sharp, or are they just excuses for not writing?
  
  Mary Guterson has the coolest hair.