free printable: "there is nothing to writing. all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed"

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in honor of the halloween festivities, here is one of my favorite quotes from ernest hemingway. enjoy. 

free printable: "if plan 'a' fails, remember you have 25 letters left"

it's that time again! free printable time! i'm trying to do one every week, and i had time to stock up this afternoon...so check back next week for another!

i like this quote for writers and non-writers alike. it is just another way of saying that at first ye don't succeed, try, try again... or as the late aailyah would say "dust ya self off and try again".  deep.

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as writers, we make mistakes (a lot). and once you actually finish a manuscript and see how far you've come, you'll be fine with them. you'll be delighted to have worked through the bumps and the walls you hit. but while you're in it...not so much.

but you'll be fine. i swear it!

happy monday!

yoga for writers

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this post is not novel. it’s probably been suggested by many, but i don’t care. it’s a personal opinion (as are all my posts i guess), but i feel strongly enough about it to mention to you. 

i am a writing machine. my brain works constantly, day and night, night and day. i have notebooks strewn about my house, an on-going “notes” section in my phone, post-its stuck to my desk, in my purse, etc. 

i decided i needed to do something to combat those constant brain marathons. 

a year and a half ago, i was stressed out. i hated working out (i missed high school old sport of dancing every week for hours), but i needed something in my life to de-stress and make my insides feel good again. i broke down and found a groupon for the local hot yoga studio, deciding that i would give it a month. 

i went, almost died, but i felt good. and i took my friend (the owner) nora’s class so i got to ogle at her newly fit body post-pregnancy. she honestly didn’t look like she even had HAD a baby (and apparently she gained 70 pounds). so even though i died a little that first class, i felt 100% committed to giving it another try. i mean, if that was the outcome…bring. it. on. 

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ok, so now, i am an avid attendee. i go at 5am at least three times a week. i started at the 12 pm class. then i went down to 9:30 am. then i started going at 6 am. and now 5am. my parents are still in shock since i am the absolute worst waker-upper in the world (or at least i used to be). i wake up at 4:30 and am back at my house by 6:15 or so, up and energized and ready to tackle the day. 

if you are thinking that you could never ever ever...i didn't think so either (about myself, not you). 

so here's my spiel: if you are like me, writing when you're not even writing, taking on the regular world, loving hard, thinking harder, worrying, moving from the minute you wake up at the crack of dawn till the moment your head fit the pillow...you need something like yoga. it doesn't have to be yoga, although i highly recommend it because you get a two-pher. (work out and meditation) 

just find something that calms you down a couple times a week:  a place you don't have the option to keep your cell phone by your side, a place you aren't allowed a watch or clock, a place you're not allowed to chat with your neighbor, a place you can't control the music. i fully believe that meditations/meditation-based workouts have something to do with your lack of choice. if you don't get to make everything perfect, you learn to let go, you learn to go with the flow*. 



*and trust me, your ideas start flowing, too. i can't tell you how many ideas i've had for not only this blog but a character, an entire title even, while i was in yoga. it always happens at the end of the practice, when i am spent and calm and happy i came to the class. boom, ideas. and boom, you can skip to your phone (quietly) to type it in your notes section!

things to take to your first yoga class: comfy, tighter fitting clothes, a hand towel, a big water jug (try to drink a lot before you go in though so you don't need it during), a yoga mat, a beach towel or yoga towel if you have one, and for me...my inhaler :)  oh, and a change of clothes and a towel to dry off your body after a quick, refreshing shower post-class.

just try it for a week. see how you feel. it, like writing, is a discipline. and let's be honest, it's not like writing is keeping our bodies "fit"! we must supplement! (says the chick writer with tennis elbow strictly from writing too much.) 

cheers!

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(i thought this little child from a boulder, co studio was the perfect way to end) 

writer quotes & free printables: "bad decisions make great stories"

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let me ask you a question: do you own a journal?

if no, you should totally get one (especially if you want to be a writer.)

if you nodded yes, thumb through one of them...don't necessarily read them or you'll get super depressed. but just notice how many bad decisions you wrote about. how many bad days you wrote about. it will astound you. it will astound you how much you did wrong, but also how much you bounced back. it will actually make you feel accomplished and strong and confident.

but my point here is the quote above, which is printable by the way :) you can make your crap decisions into golden stories. so journal your crap now...

i suggest a paperblank or something like it. hardbacks are good for writing on both sides.

enjoy!

studying: john gardner's on becoming a novelist

i read this a while ago. and this post has been a draft for who knows how long. but i'm ready to reread my notes on this wonderful book. 

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in a recent post, i wrote about the idea that you might not be able to just write. you might have another job...and if you didn't read to the bottom. THAT. IS. OK.  even john gardner thinks so:

"it is far more satisfying to write well than simply to write well enough to be get published."                           -john gardner

john gardner is a big advocate of authenticity, discipline, and dedication to fine workmanship, which he describes as "art that avoids cheap and easy effects, takes no shortcuts, struggles never to lie even about the most trifling matters (such as which object, precisely, an angry man might pick up to throw at his kitchen wall, or whether a given character would say 'you aren't' or the faintly more assertive 'you're not')."

wow. right? the poetry in that alone makes me want to get every little detail right, to impress mr. gardner, may he rest in peace. 

something else john gardner talks about in his aptly titled book is becoming a novelist. and that's what we're doing, right? becoming a novelist. here's what he says about it... 

"the whole world seems to conspire against the young novelist." yes it does. and he goes on to say "writing teachers and books about writing, not to mention friends, relatives, and professional writers are quick to point out the terrible odds (thereby increasing them) against anyone's (ever, anywhere) becoming a successful writer."

and he said that actually, that discouragement is the least of it. that writing a novel is hardest on you, the writer, because of how much time it takes and how much it tests your  psyche beyond endurance. 

can i get an amen? 

gardner even talks about the toll it takes on the writer's spouse, who grows "sulky and embarrassed" after the amount of time that passes without any movement. 

(mase? if that's you, it's ok. thanks for supporting me all the while) :) 

another point, closely related to the fine workmanship quoted above is the language. i wrote down three long paragraphs from the book about his issue with writers and their intense need keep writing words, words without reason, words for the sole purpose of sounding smart. here's a small portion of how he feels about it:

"the writer who cares more about words than a story (characters, action, setting, atmosphere) is likely to create a vivid and continuous dream; he gets in his own way; in his poetic drunkenness, he can't tell the cart-and it's cargo-from the horse". 

he says that a writer can probably get away with it once, but that the reader won't be back anytime soon. the reader "tires" of it soon-and the author. (not what you want!)

so the point is that while words are important, it's not just about words, how many we can cram into one description. it's about words, yes. but the perfect ones. the ones carefully chosen, no more, no less. 

this goes right alongside what he said about that precise object an angry dude picked up. or the exact dialect. "details are the lifeblood of fiction," he writes. see? it's all about which details, not how many you can add. that way, you can put the reader right in the heart of the scene, capture his/her attention and keep it until that last page.  

i don't know about your early eduction (or late even), but i remember countless english lessons on theme and symbols and stuff like that. here's what mr. g has to say about theme:

"theme is like the floors and structural supports in an old fine mansion, indispensable but not, as a general rule, what takes the reader's breath away. more often than not, theme, or meaning, is the statement the architecture and decor make about the inhabitants."

that description really helped me. i won't go further into it (shocking, i know) because it might not work for you. :) but it did for me!

and the last (but not least) little nugget of amazingness i'll give is about the checks and balances while writing. john gardner writes about a few items that will impair the fiction you're writing, the world you're attempting to create:

1. unfairly manipulating the characters

2. laying on too much symbolism

3. breaking in on the action to preach

4. pumping up the style even more visible than the characters

*he also says that "to notice such faults is to begin to correct them".  thank goodness. i'm correcting a lot then. 

there is so much more in the book...i highly recommend it. on becoming a novelist is a timeless book, and it is a must for a new novelist, if nothing else but to show you that you are not alone in your fears and doubts. those feelings are not new. not in the slightest.