Inspiration #6: Quiet, Clean Work Space

Some creative folk can have a messy studio/workshop/whatever space.  Not me.  I have a terrible weakness for clutter, but I make sure it stays out of the room where I do most of my writing.

Last night we got thunder and lightning during a snowstorm.  Scary and amazing and eerie!  It made me extra glad for my little safe haven in the back of the house.

Inspiration #5: Friends

Tonight in Baltimore we're eagerly glancing out the window and wondering how much snow will be on the ground by morning.  Forecasts are calling for a legitimate blizzard, so all signs point to a weekend spent solidly indoors and away from the roads and sidewalks.


Today I was lucky enough to get the first 60 pages of my manuscript back with comments from a friend -- the best way to prepare for some dedicated time inside.  While this kind of peer review can be scary, it is in many ways what I've been trained to do.  Critique -- including critique of work in progress -- is part of being an artist, part of having a fine arts degree.


Skimming over my pages was without a doubt the most inspiring part of my day because the comments in the margins were exactly what I was looking for: the kind of feedback you can only get from someone who is comfortable enough to be 100% honest with you and also willing to think critically about what they're reading.  Creative people don't share works in progress with each other to hear things like "oh, it's really good, you're a really great writer/painter/photographer."  They do it to hear things  like "I don't think this character would have done this" or "your proportions are off -- see how that shoulder doesn't look like it fits with the rest of the body?"


I feel privileged to share my life with people who will provide me the kind of feedback I also love to give: feedback that you have to be ready to take constructively, feedback that makes you realize you're still a long way from the finish line but you have something excellent to work with.  Sure, there's plenty that can be hard to hear, especially when you've already invested a lot of time and energy in a project.  But it's exciting and difficult and ultimately what helps you become better at what you do.  I guess it goes back to that old cliche I hate so much: "you can't create art in a vacuum."

Inspiration #4: Home & Pictures

A while back I stumbled on a photo blog called A Walk Through Durham Township, PA.  Durham Township is right in the area where I grew up -- I guess what you'd call the next town over -- so the photos are all "pictures of home."  I hesitate on whether the photographs themselves inspire me because in a way they're just beautiful pictures.  They're technically gorgeous but don't necessarily push any artistic/conceptual boundaries.  However, I do find myself looking at them to remember what it feels like to be in a place, and I think that's important too, not just how avant-garde or postmodern something is.  I'd guess this blog won "Best American Photoblog" because it captures the spirit of some quintessentially American landscapes, and it's special to me to think I come from just that place.

The blog author seems to value copyright pretty highly so I'm not going to reproduce her images here, but I suggest you check it out at http://www.durhamtownship.com/

Inspiration #3: I Like You

Having silly little crushes on people always makes life more fun and interesting, especially when it's the kind of feeling where you just want to make them a mix CD and talk about music for hours over some Yuengling Black & Tan.

The last time I felt this way about someone I made a playlist and decided not to make it official because that person...well, they wouldn't have loved it in the way I wanted them to.  Anyway, today I was inspired again to make a playlist, sing along to it while making dinner (french onion soup with little toasts and goat cheese, since you asked), and imagine burning it to a CD with a little note attached.  And maybe I will!  If I like you, I've probably made a mix tape for you at some point -- or a mix CD in recent years, since times have certainly changed since the days of painstakingly recording mixes on my boom box.  My favorite music -- and the pieces of it I think you'll love -- is sort of how I explain the finer details of who I am.  And if I've ever really, really wanted to compile a bunch of music and throw it on a CD for you, it means I'd really like for us to get to know each other a little better, I just can't quite find my own words to say so.

Inspiration #2: Kiss Me It's Beginning to Snow

Today felt frustrating at a number of points, and for the most part I was more than happy to hole up inside with some good friends after work and catch up on a few episodes of American Idol.  Maybe the day made me more cynical than I thought, because I refused to believe we were getting a real snowfall until I stepped out the door to catch my cab home.  Then I found myself in the middle of that beautiful snowfall silence that feels like it just stops the world.

Snow inspires me for several reasons.  One, that silence seems to give my heart room to feel and my mind room to think.  I love the winter, love the cold and the snow -- it's just so invigorating!  On another more practical note, there's a distinct possibility our office will experience a snow delay or even a closure tomorrow.  I'm already closing my eyes and imagining waking up and brewing a steaming mug of coffee, wandering around in my bathrobe and PJs, sitting down to a project, squinting at the light reflecting off the snow and shining in my windows.

And lest you think my white balance is off, nighttime snowfalls really do look like this under our streetlights.

NaNoWriMo Revisited: Clip #2

It's time for another excerpt from my NaNoWriMo novel!  I've had to be a little strategic so I'm creating interest rather than giving key plot points away, which is a challenge I didn't anticipate.  Anyway, this is actually only half of the excerpt, so I'll be posting Part Two soon.  Enjoy!  And thank you Oli for picking it out!

Inspiration #1: Old College Try

Over the weekend I started to feel like I was in a little bit of a creative rut.  I think it's easy, as we're focusing on getting to and from work, cleaning the house in the aftermath of holidays and winter vacations, battling flu outbreaks, to forget to just feel inspired on a regular basis.

I used to keep sketchbooks where I'd write down random thoughts and ideas, sketch little abstract figures and designs, and glue in interesting clippings from all over.  Now I tend to keep a writer's notebook that is much more focused if not in subject matter, then certainly in content.  The pages are filled with, well, scribbly writing.  When given license to keep whatever sort of artist's diary I can, I've chosen to be a writer for now.

However, I'd like to use this blog as my sketchbook for the month of February, including one thing every day that inspires me.  It might be a poem, a lyric, a photo from my day, a performance, a joke -- anything.

Today -- as I do many days -- I found myself admiring John Darnielle's lyrics.  He fronts a band called the Mountain Goats, who are somewhat little-known but have a pretty sizable cult following.  My husband hates the Mountain Goats.  A lot.  And I'll grant anyone the truth, that John Darnielle isn't the world's best guitarist or singer, the instrumentations on my favorite songs are pretty sparse, and in general the music may be an acquired taste.  But his lyrics are very honest and literate and descriptive in a way that I feel gets to the very core of his subject matter.  In anything I write, I hope to achieve those passages that can cut through you like a knife -- I think we all do.  Anyway, here are the words to one of my favorite songs by the Mountain Goats: Old College Try from their album Tallahassee.  I particularly love the simile at the end.

NaNoWriMo Revisited: Clips from the Real Thing

I've been getting some requests lately to share the 50,000-word novel I drafted in November, and while I'm sure everyone thinks I'm just putting them off (maybe I am), I really do want my words to be read eventually.  However, I feel like revealing your newborn projects to too wide an audience can be dangerous, hence why I've only given the manuscript to two people for feedback so far.

I do appreciate that a number of people -- including some of my lovely family and friends who read this blog -- would like to see proof this thing exists.  And I'm excited to share a few pieces, so I've asked those two aforementioned friends to give me a couple of their favorite passages.  Over the next couple weeks or so I'm going to take those excerpts, polish them up where necessary, and post them here for your consumption.

I hesitate to characterize this as a "young adult novel."  It just so happens to be about a young adult.

Click on the jump below to read it.  As always, feedback is welcome!  Thanks to Tyson for picking this one :)

Bad Poetry

Over the holidays a friend gave me a little cardboard box full of pretty little notebooks.  This sounds like a gift, but really it was just part of the reward I reaped for keeping him company while he cleaned out 10 years' worth of papers stuffed into his desk.  Occasionally he'd find something he hadn't used in several years and offer it to me.

The notebooks are unlined and pretty small -- about 1/4 of a standard sheet of paper -- so my first thought was, these are perfect for poetry!  Now, poetry always came naturally to me when I was younger, but it hasn't for at least 10 years or so.  I'm certain this event coincides with the point when I realized all the poetry I was writing was terrible.

Who knows if I still write bad poetry now, though, because I just stopped doing it.  Just about every other form of writing comes easily and reads well, so I figured I should just give up on writing poetry and lyrics.  However, receiving that box of little notebooks got me thinking: just like I give myself permission to write just about anything in my daily writing practice, maybe I should give myself permission to write bad poetry, too.  So that's what I'm doing: writing bad poetry in these little notebooks.  So far I've written about unrequited desires and fleeting fantasies and musings on the land of my birth, since most bad poetry tends to be about these things.

The thing is, a lot of good poetry is about that, too.  And if I never let myself write poetry because it's not coming out sounding perfect or right or even tolerable, I'll never come out on the other side.  Scrawling out a novel rather haphazardly seems to have been pretty well-received, so I'm going to try writing down some vaguely poetic lines in hopes of finding something good eventually.

And, to honor that sentiment, I'm putting something below the cut that I wrote in the car on the way up to Vermont the other day.  Leave something in the comments if you've ever hesitated to do something because you thought it wouldn't be good.

Breaks.

Lately I've been wondering about my creative process, wondering if breaks are a necessary gear keeping the process spinning or whether breaks are just that, a break in character.  A skip, a foible.  Between Christmas and New Year's I took an honest and true break.  Though I carried my notebook to Pennsylvania for Christmas, its pages remained largely undisturbed for the length of the trip.

But now I'm typing this with my laptop on the kitchen counter, reheating the last of the Christmas leftovers, and really telling myself -- it's over.  Break's over.

While I was home from work (lucky us, our office closes between Christmas and New Year's) I stayed up late, mostly slept late, drank champagne and played board games, spent whole days in my pajamas watching movies and playing World of Warcraft.  Occasionally I'd feel a twinge and think, "I should be working on my novel," but then I'd realize I'd let writerfriends take it away, force this break.

By Sunday, though, the last Sunday before returning to the office, I was finished.  Even on Saturday I had an inclination to start planning a zine, got out a sketchpad and some old stuff and laid in my writing room, back on the floor and eyes glued to the ceiling fan.  So much of the creative process can be laying on the floor surrounded by papers and books.

But on Sunday I was full-on done with breaks.  I twisted an incense burner out of tin foil and struck out to the basement to sort through some of the boxes down there, thinking I might find inspiration in purging, sorting, making plans for the space after I empty it of clutter.  I watched Angels in America and relished the way it put my soul through a wringer, lost myself in it as an artist and a human.  I started writing again in earnest, returned to my daily practice.  I had a significant personal revelation.

My question is, did my break pave the way for all this?  Did it prepare me to work again on my novel after I receive it back full of red pen?  Did it leave my heart open for new ideas, new inspiration, did it give me new eyes? Or was it just a delay, a hiccup, a missed opportunity to immerse myself in a project?

We have such a need to create, but I'm feeling oddly guiltless about taking some time away from "real" things, "productive" things.  Accomplishments.  I'm feeling like the past week left me open to realize even after taking so much time out for myself, I still voluntarily return to my words.  I miss them, need them.  I can take a break from them, go on vacation, and know full well I'll be more than happy to come back.