If I didn’t have to do it perfectly I would
1. Take singing lessons.
2. Drive. (you should be glad I don’t)
3. Write a story.
4. Take pictures.
5. Learn to play the drums.
6. Reboot.
7. Make a movie.
8. Take acting lessons.
9. Take a trip.
10. Write poetry.
In Story Engineering, Larry Brooks writes, “A concept, it could be said,…is something that asks a question. The answer to the question is your story.” The best concept questions are “what if” questions.
A concept should be compelling. At least to you. Why do you want to write? Is it to exercise your writerly skills, or because you have a story you are dying to tell?
Homework: Write your story idea in the form of a “what if” question. What follow-up questions does it inspire? This can be the launchpad for an outline.
My jewelry business is called Wabisabi Brooklyn, and “wabi-sabi,” loosely translated, means “the beauty of imperfection. It is also about contrasts: sweet/salty, rough/smooth, ugly/beautiful.
As a window into creativity, I find wabi-sabi to be much more inviting than a striving for perfection. It’s the crack in the teapot that you mend with molten gold, creating something more beautiful than when it was in tact.
I just recently heard of the concept of ring sour, “Ring sour horses tend to be show horses or lesson horses that have burned out. A ring sour horse associates being ridden in the arena, or ring, with an unpleasant experience.”
Um, yeah – I can relate.
I really like Elizabeth Gilbert’s take on creativity as an active listening to your muse.
Money.
To paraphrase Homer Simpson on beer: The cause of and solution to all of my problems.
Money makes me feel anxious. And money makes me feel safe. And money makes me resent the things I do for it.
This past summer my husband quit his day job and begun to work full time on the web design business he started with a friend last year. I could not help but feel that the four years I had put into building my own small business had been misspent. (Sometimes I make pretty things out of money.) Upon further reflection, I realized that I lacked his enthusiasm for my side project, that doing what it would take to make my business my sole income source would involve scaling up production to a level that would make me hate it.
And so – hiatus from the side project. Refocus. Recalibration. Renewal.
Add to the mix an impending birthday to underscore my feelings of needing a legacy project, and you have the makings for a search. So far it has lead me here and here and here. And I will be doing this.
In short, I am still assembling the bits and it remains to be seen what they will add up to.
Story Engineering, by Larry Brooks, is a different kind of book about writing. Brooks steers clear of the usual vagueness that plagues books on writing, taking instead the path more often travelled by screenwriting books.
He lists six core competencies that any writer needs to master – concept, character, theme, story structure, scene execution, and writing voice – and devotes a section of the book to an exploration of each.
Brooks devotes the eighth and final section to the story development process.
I have always struggled with plot and conflict in my writing, and I like the idea of a more architectural take on the process.
Over the next few months I will chronicle my progress through the book. In the meantime, here is a homework assignment.
I am never satisfied. I am insatiable. I am a bottomless pit. I am a black hole.
I always want more. I always want better. I always want.
I am restless. I have wanderlust. I disagree. I have to run.
I am implacable. I come on too strong. I do not back down. I am willful.
I am stubborn. I am jealous. I am mean. I suffer envy.
I want what you have. I don’t like to share. I wear myself out.
It’s easy to play the “if only I didn’t have to worry about money,” card when facing a creative block. I do it all the time. In reality, I most often face these blocks when I have tried to be too virtuous, working too hard for too long without a break. And without taking time out for what I might consider luxurious.
I really relate to these lines from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way:
“When we put a stopper on our capacity for joy by anorectically (sic) declining the small gifts of life, we turn aside the larger gifts as well…Those of us who have stymied the work flow completely will find ourselves in lives that feel barren and devoid of interest no matter how many meaningless things we have filled them with.”
I try to make time for what I find luxurious: browsing in a shop, indulging in a trashy magazine while soaking in the tub, lunch out at a favorite not too pricy restaurant, and the occasional professional manicure or, most luxurious of all, a massage.
Now I think I need to go do up my nails in a fancy way.
Ten things I would love to but am not allowed to do:
1. Take a spontaneous trip to the west coast.
2. Take a real sabbatical.
3. Drive.
4. Act like an asker.
5. Go dancing.
6. Say what I mean all the time.
7. Ignore unhelpful critics.
8. Roller-skate.
9. Have dinner parties whenever I want.
10. Relax.
MaryAnne LoVerme 