Inspiration #28: Sticking With Something

Sometimes sticking with something is much harder than it sounds.  I have a lot of trouble sticking with things, and that can put me in a rut.  But I stuck with these 28 days of blog posts, and look!  I have a lot of new material to expand on in future months.  Hopefully you've enjoyed this little window into my life as well.

Maybe entirely coincidentally, I've managed to stick with a few other things lately, too.  I've played the piano every single day for the past nine days (if I get to 21 it's a bona fide habit, right?).  I've spent the past week being pretty dedicated to sorting through, cleaning out, and generally minimizing stuff around the house.  This may not sound like much, but I often have a lot of trouble moving past the "I should really..." stage, where I spend a day or two on something and never pick it up again.  When I manage to keep up with a pursuit long enough to see the positive results of my efforts, it opens my eyes to a whole new world.  I'm discovering that I actually can play the piano.  I filled the trunk of my car with stuff to take to the thrift store today, and my living space is beginning to look and feel different (better).  I am creating spaces where I feel good about living and working.

Last but not least, four months after National Novel Writing Month began, I'm still writing a novel.  My attention span, combined with my sometimes-crippling perfectionism, make personal investment kind of hard to get out of me sometimes.  But somehow I've kept it going, and I'm connecting the pathways in my brain that know sustained effort can bring really gratifying results.

Hopefully this trend will continue and some months from now I'll be sending my manuscript away in the mail, playing the piano and singing at the same time (far harder than it looks!), and living in a comfortable and uncluttered house.  Wouldn't that be nice?

Inspiration #27: Reading Other People's Writing

No matter what kind of artist you are, it's important to look at other people's work.  This is what our college professors tell us, right?  "You can't create art in a vacuum."  I guess it's true, since I feel absolutely great when I spend time in a moving photography exhibit, listen to someone sing a song, or read a particularly engaging book. It all gives my mind something to chew on.

Today I finally made the four-block trek to pay my $6 library fine so I could once again request inter-library loans (a favorite pastime of mine).  While I was there I visited the fiction section and ran my fingers over the spines, pulling out books that caught my eye.  I made a point of visiting the young adult section, since I'm currently writing a novel with a teenage protagonist and could use a little reference material.  A thick novel called Absolute Brightness won me over with the flamboyant stripes on its jacket and mentioning of Spring Awakening on the back.

First let me tell you: I read the entire 472 pages after returning home from lunch today.  When I began the book I found the prose a little sparse, but I kept reading.  I started taking issue with the way gays and "theater geeks" were being portrayed, but I kept reading so I could at least write a proper review at the end.

But as the plot unfolded, things changed for the protagonist and, consequently, for me.  I cried a bunch toward the middle of the book.  I read the author's bio and found out he's actually an LGBT activist.  Then I realized I'd been seeing through his main character's eyes the whole time -- and no, I don't just mean it was written in first person.  I only put on my writer's hat for a short moment while I wondered how he was going to get us on her side when she was so snarky at the outset.  The rest of the time, I was experiencing everything as she was, prejudices and all.

While I do see how one might find the book a bit preachy and the message too obvious, that might be part of the "young adult" in young adult fiction.  However, I'm very glad to have read it even just for the study of a young person who goes from self-centered and judgmental to compassionate and grounded.  That's exactly what I'm trying to do with my main character, and it's just invaluable to experience how other authors treat that transformation.

I will say, though, that much reading can really make a person's eyes feel puffy!

Inspiration #26: Not Setting an Alarm

Most of the time I'd list setting an alarm and waking up early on a Saturday to write as an inspiration.  However, there's a certain point you reach after working too many long days, inexplicably finding yourself in front of the piano at 11:45 p.m. several nights in a row, and finally ending your Friday evening fast asleep on your friends' couch, that your body just needs to rest.  So instead of pushing myself even further, as I generally want to do, I'm going to take just one day to sleep in and let myself recover from the week.  Wish me luck!

Inspiration #25: Dredging

Almost a year ago, I came up with a big idea for a new photo project.  The subject matter was much more personal and far less pragmatic than my previous photo work, which I'd generally describe as a little quiet and intellectual.  It also tried to take on portraiture, which had never really been an interest or a skill of mine before.

Tackling a personally tough project at the same time as a new style can be a little daunting, and sure enough my lack of that special Avedon-esque touch in my portraits gave me just the excuse I needed to shelve the whole thing.

A week or two ago I got into a conversation that dredged it up again, and today new ideas finally broke free and got me scribbling out notes at the office so I didn't lose my train of thought.  When I got home I wrote for two pages in my notebook about audience, medium, process, and narrative.  The project has gotten big again, but this time I'm feeling really engaged in figuring out how I want to make it happen.

Sometimes an idea seems really good, but it's just not ready.  Did I mention I first came up with the idea for the novel I'm writing now 13 years ago?  Sometimes we realize those ideas weren't so great after all, but sometimes they speak to us in a new and different way when we pull them off the shelf and wipe away the dust.  Hopefully that's what happening now, and I guess time will tell.

Inspiration #24: Let's Stay Together

I couldn't think of an adequate title for this one, so I decided to go the foolproof "reference a favorite song" route.

We're (hopefully!) inspired by our partners in a lot of different ways.  They can feel like our opposite, our twin, or maybe equal parts of both, but they're always there to provide a steady stream of companionship and support.  I had an interesting conversation the other day about how our partners' critique can affect domestic bliss and creative inspiration, but that's another post for another day.  Just suffice it to say, the kind of support I'm talking about is in the pictures below, not necessarily in lengthy analyses of prose or brush strokes.

My husband and I can both be pretty intense about our own personal projects, and sometimes it's important to remember to make time to spend time together as friends enjoying a little down time.  He can forget to eat, I can forget to laugh at jokes...check out these little sticky notes I found during another cleaning spree:

Practical:



Adorable:



Honestly, not sure what was going on here.  Maybe I was forgetting to laugh again?

Inspiration #23: Company

I've been one lonely lady in an empty house for the past few days, but there are a couple things that keep me company.  Playing the piano until the little muscles in my fingers are all sore can be very therapeutic.

Inspiration #22: Purging

I'm the kind of person who can see a pile of stuff that needs to be sorted through, shove it in a corner, and not touch it for two years.  Don't even try to imagine what happened when my parents brought a van full of my childhood possessions to my house and dumped them in the basement.  (Okay, fine, I'll admit it: I haven't really gone down to the basement to do anything but laundry for nearly a year and a half).

On the flip side, we learned all the way back on Inspiration #6 (wow, is this over yet?) that I need a clean, quiet, uncluttered work space.  Also, I secretly pine for a more minimalist life (Inspiration #12).  These are the things I feel I need to be most productive and most creative.

For the past few days I've been possessed by a strong desire to purge these clutter piles from my life, surround myself with smooth, uninterrupted surfaces.  As painful as the purging process can be, I also find it one of the most fulfilling chores I do around the house.  Today I felt extra rewarded by finding a total of $115 in gift cards to Target and Amazon.

Rewards like this are nice, especially when the path to my inspiring, clean, uncluttered work and living space is littered with things like random place cards from my wedding.  Or even better, a screw that, as of December 2, 2007, we can rest assured will never be usable again.  Wonderful.

Inspiration #21: Photo Walks

It's been a long time since I went on a walk with my camera, but today I decided the weather was just too nice not to.  My sister and I went for a stroll up through Roland Park and even saw some budding trees!

Inspiration #20: Entertaining Friends & Family

As much as I love to set my weekends aside for writing, cleaning, and resting, I forget how much I love to arrange special dinner gatherings from time to time.  My dad and sister are in town this weekend, so I invited a couple of friends over to fill out the table and enjoy some food and games with us.  We enjoyed a big tray of lasagna, delicious garlic bread, wine, and a caramel chocolate tart with hazelnuts and espresso for dessert.  Assembling a group of people and cooking for them makes me feel wonderful.  Plus, it's always fun to try a fancy recipe and get out the nice silverware!

Inspiration #19: Friday

Enough said.

Inspiration #18: Making Sure Your Day Job is Fun

I worked 10 hours today, only to come home, make dinner, and spend until midnight straightening up around the house.  Not a lot of fun, and certainly no time to sit down at the piano or work on my novel.  But on a normal day, it's important for an ambitious soul like me to make sure my day job isn't sucking the creative life out of my bones.  Lucky for me, I enjoy the work I do.  Even luckier, I have some friends at the office who make me laugh on a regular basis.

Because everyone knows that when you're in the midst of a hard day, baffled by your own monthly report, and/or wondering how you're going to meet your deadlines, spending five minutes pretending you're on a reality TV show can be exactly what you need to keep going.  That leads to better work, yes, but also to a mood that's much healthier to carry home.

Inspiration #17: Song

Sometimes practicing your best version of Boxcar Racer's Letters to God is all you need to make the day seem great, right?  If I had someone to accompany me I might consider posting a video just for fun -- maybe later in the month, if I decide not to be shy.

Inspiration #16: Synchronicity

I've taken quite a few personality surveys that ask if I enjoy having a wide circle of acquaintances to hit the town with vs. few close friends I can really open up to.  It's true, I'm a very particular person when it comes to friends. My best friends are few but very near to my heart.  One of the great things about them, though, is how sometimes I really feel like we're thinking the same thoughts.  We fill up inboxes, mailboxes, and chat logs.  I've been called anti-social and overly introverted, but that's far from the truth.  These people are one of the pillars that make my life a special place, and I'm always looking for that synchronicity that shows me the connection goes both ways.

Inspiration #15: Return of the Cook-and-Write Maneuver

Inspiration #14: ...This Guy

Yesterday when I wrote about people doing unexpected (and unexpectedly awesome) remakes of popular songs, I thought I might have to share this.  It's from a recent episode of American Idol and might just outdo Paula Abdul's original for me.  I love watching people take risks and pull them off, which is exactly what Andrew Garcia does really well here.

Inspiration #13: YouTube

Throughout most of my grade school career I planned rather intently on getting a performing arts degree.  When I was in ninth grade, I even printed out the application packet for Berklee College of Music so I could practice filling it out, see what they were looking for, and make sure I was prepared when I had to apply for real in a few years.  I read about life in Boston and decided it sounded like the kind of city I'd like to attend school in.

When I found myself in an empty auditorium I would stand on the stage and imagine myself performing in front of thousands of people.  It felt like the one thing I needed in all the world -- not in the way that every 12-year-old wants to be a rock star, but in the way we fine arts people really feel intensely about our craft.  It's our need to create.

How or why that life plan got derailed isn't important here, but I've spent some time in my life since then reconciling my dreams with the reality.  I never went to Berklee, and I'm certainly not performing now.  I do marketing and fundraising for a cool non-profit in Baltimore -- I love it, but one could certainly define it as a "day job" given my background.

But there's something that exists now that we never even dreamed of when I was in high school: social media.  Thinking about my "team sports" post from a few days ago, I feel like all is not lost in terms of being able to share that kind of thing.  I don't need to play in the Philadelphia Orchestra as a career to feel like I've gone down the right path in life.  Like I said, I really do like my job.  I'm working on writing a novel.  I'm doing things that genuinely make me happy.  And if I could be just a little bit like this girl, doing 180 degree reinterpretations of songs and looking unbearably cute and happy, I think that'd be just fine by me.

Inspiration #12: Minimalism

We must first identify what's most important to us, what we're passionate about, what we want to spend our time on. And then we must focus on those things first.

But the distractions. They get in the way of this focusing, no?

-- mnmlist

Sometimes I think I work best with lots of distractions, when multi-tasking and/or facing a lot of demands.  We all went back to work today, and quite ironically that's when I finally felt productive and motivated and ready to work hard on my manuscript.  My life routine helps me focus, helps me prioritize important work -- because I have to.  Too much down time makes me listless, unmotivated.

At the same time, clearing distractions is essential: setting in-game alarms to make me aware of how much time I'm spending logged into World of Warcraft, grabbing my stack of note cards, and really getting ready to work.  The only real progress I made on my editing this week has been when I disappeared to my writing room with my notes and disabled the wireless adapter on my laptop.  No Skype, no Google Talk, no Facebook, no Script Frenzy information pages, no Twitter.  It's then that I worked peacefully and diligently, focusing on the task at hand until my time was up.

 

Inspiration #11: Note Cards

Thanks to a suggestion from the internets, I've started writing down ideas on index cards and accumulating a stack for later: things I know about my characters that the reader might not (yet), questions I have about characters' feelings and actions, plot concerns, etc.  At some point I'll play around with sorting them into stacks and finding that strange order that's supposed to reveal itself.

Inspiration #10: Team Sports

I know I just wrote "team sports," but don't run away!  I was sitting at the dinner table tonight looking at my guitar in the corner when I thought -- again -- about how unfortunate it is that I don't play more.  The thing is, playing guitar is sort of like snowboarding.  You can do tons of cool stuff, it's awesome fun, and everyone likes to watch you do it well, but behind the scenes you've got to log a lot of time falling down and not doing so great.


What makes it all worth it to me, though, is being on a team.  During my life I've run three miles every day to be the best I could be on a sports team, endured intense pain playing my violin through a shoulder injury in musicals and operas and orchestra concerts, logged hundreds of hours in World of Warcraft because I like the role I can play in a group with my friends.  


People sometimes call me anti-social, but the truth is when I push myself to excel at something, it's usually because I value my role in a team.  When our high school put on a fantastic performance of Fiddler on the Roof, I needed to feel like a small part of that was because of me.  When we're in a crunch time at the office, I need to feel like my contributions are the best they can be.  I can't see someone on my team struggling with a project without asking how I can help, staying a little late, and maybe stepping a little bit outside my job description.  


Likewise, when I decided to do National Novel Writing Month in November, I made sure I told my friends all about what I was doing.  Their support kept me motivated (no one likes to bring home bad news), and when I had succeeded at this tremendous individual challenge I took the next plunge: I asked for some heavy review/editing from trusted friends who are smart, know what good writing looks like, and most importantly are able to be 100% honest with me about my manuscript.  Now that I feel like more people than just me are invested in this project and its success, failure or giving up is just not an option.  I'll work as hard as I need to to make sure I finish with something truly great.


Now I want to figure out how to bring that spirit back into music and performance.  Opportunities to perform in groups come easy in high school and college, but in the years since graduation I haven't found an engaging group of people I can be close to and make music with.  That personal connection over hours of doing something you love and refining a technical skill is really important to me, and somehow I don't feel like I'm willing to let it get away.  Some of my best friends and best loves have been forged over music. In fact, one of the first ways my husband and I bonded as friends at age 19 was over a piano in the practice rooms at Lehigh University.


The thing is, it's not like I don't have talented friends -- I do.  It's just a matter of figuring out how to bring it all together.  But that's another inspiration entirely, so maybe I'll think more about it tomorrow.

Inspiration #9: Reading Scripts

Today I spent a little time reading scripts online and learning about formatting.  As I'm slogging through my NaNoWriMo manuscript, I'm (surprisingly) looking ahead to Script Frenzy and deciding whether it's something I'd like to do in April.  I'm undecided for a few reasons, including a.) I don't know much about script writing, b.) I'll only have one hand to type with thanks to shoulder surgery, c.) I have my hands full writing this novel, and d.) I don't have any excellent ideas right now.  But at the same time, I would absolutely love to try my hand at writing a stage play.

Writers control novels very closely, engineering the reader's experience from beginning to end.  Scripts are more living documents, left open to a lot of interpretation by actors and directors so the final product is a confluence of many artists' work.  Just like I'd love to get a book published someday, I think seeing a play performed -- even in the world's smallest venue -- would be a great achievement.

The only question is, should I choose this April to start writing?