Tips from Tops Thursday - just keep swimming

Tip - Just keep swimming

Top - Dory from Finding Nemo

How it Works in My Life - I am reduced to nothing today. I really am. I have no wisdom - it has all fallen into a hole. Then I remember Dory - the goofy fish with the memory problem - she sings out with the voice of Ellen D. 'just keep swimming, just keep swimming'.  Today I will make that my mantra. I will swim through several sessions with clients, swim through meeting Arlo for another session of the Gospel according to Saint John (this would be a Buddhist reading the bible to an atheist), a session with my own therapist and then back home to look at this screen and try, lord try, to finish the stupid query package.

Dory: Hey there, Mr. Grumpy Gills. When life gets you down do you wanna know what you've gotta do?
Marlin: No I don't wanna know.
Dory: [singing] Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.
Marlin: Dory, no singing.
Dory: [continuing] Ha, ha, ha, ha, ho. I love to swim. When you want to swim you want to swim.
Marlin: Now I'm stuck with that song... Now it's in my head.
Dory: Sorry.

Tips from Tops Thursdays - where's the juice?

As those who read my Tuesday writing post know - I'm stuck in query hell - trying to form a one-page synopsis that doesn't make the book sound like a bad soap opera (are there good soap operas). I decided, for today's tip, to not go the regular route. Sometimes we might just need more than technical advice or even the wonderful inspiration of writers like Anne Lamott or Stephen King.
I decided I would go to the first Buddhist teacher whose books I have devoured over the years - Chogyam Trungpa.  Trungpa was a meditation master, scholar, artist and founder of Shambhala. He died before I met him but I have been lucky to be very touched by his teachings and the world he created here in the west for Buddhists.
A book written by him that I tend to keep close by is Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior (no - not the worrier though that might work too).
Today I go to Chapter Four - Fear and Fearlessness to see what he has to say:

Tip -

Acknowledging fear is not a cause for depression or discouragement. Because we possess such fear, we also are potentially entitled to experience fearlessness. True fearlessness is not the reduction of fear; but going beyond fear.
Going beyond fear begins when we examine our fear: our anxiety, nervousness, concern, and restlessness. If we look into our fear, if we look beneath its veneer, the first thing we find is sadness, beneath the nervousness. Nervousness is cranking up, vibrating, all the time. When we slow down, when we relax with our fear, we find sadness, which is calm and gentle. Sadness hits you in your heart, and your body produces a tear. Before you cry, there is a feeling in your chest and then, after that, you produce tears in your eyes. You are about to produce rain or a waterfall in your eyes and you feel sad and lonely, and perhaps romantic at the same time. That is the first tip of fearlessness, and the firs sign of real warriorship.  You might thing that, when you experience fearlessness, you will hear the opening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or see a great explosion in the sky, but it doesn't happen that way. In the Shambhala tradition, discovering fearlessness comes from working with the softness of the human heart.

Top - Choygam Trungpa

How I might work with the tip:

This reminds me of the speed at which aggression can overcome me and drive me. I think I am trying to just do what I said I was going to do - get my query packages out and enjoy the long summer of waiting for rejection and maybe acceptance - but instead I've made it hard and cruel. I hate my synopsis - I think it stinks. I'm a lousy writer - who ever thought I could write was stupid - and so on.  This weekend I am going to pull out all my synopses and have a gentle look at them. I'm going to sit with some folks that love me and tell them the story. I'm going to make lots of tea and take time for walks. I've had a very busy while lately - lots of clients - not much fun at home - worry about this and that. I'm going to gentle up and find my warrior's heart.

Tips from Tops Thursday - is your beginning sound?

Tip -

The best pulp-fiction writers hone beginnings and endings to their sharpest edge. Surprise and wit, among other things, are in their aresenal.  ....Many writers do not find the first sentence to their book until they edit, because only then, on reading their draft, do they discover that the beginning is hiding on page 3 or 4.  We need to think harder about not just the first words of a book or story, but of a chapter, section, or even paragraph that we are writing. Beginnings occur all through our work, again and again. To edit is, in part, to check if each beginning is sound, or if you've allowed in throwaways.

Top -  Susan Bell in The Artful Edit

What it Means to Me:

I am struck by this advice from Bell - especially the part reminding the reader that beginnings occur all through our work. I think I will go back and make sure I've paid attention to that. I usually (in the three books I've revised) begun much further in than my original manuscript. I try and remember that the first couple of drafts, I'm telling myself the story. Paring down the fluff at the beginning of each section is a good idea - perhaps it is like when we first turn on the engine to our old beater car - it needs to clear its throat first and so do we - but we don't need to leave it on the page.

Hope this is helpful - just go through and check all your beginnings! I'm going to. Tell me how it goes.

Taking Charge of the Story - tips from the tops

Tip:

...begin by taking charge of your story. Though even a completed first draft will rarely provide you with full mastery over your story, you have now managed to tell the story once.
...Note well: I'm suggesting you write your scenario after - not before - you finish your first draft. You were in no position to write a scenario before you'd done the first draft. You did not know the story well enough for that.

Top:

Stephen Koch in his book The Modern Library Writer's Workshop (which I confess I call 'the green book' because the title is...uh...unforgettable)

My Take on this Tip:

Having just been through a very intense revision process I feel I am more than ready to address this tip. I lived it! I didn't write a scenario, whatever that is. I wrote a synopsis based on The Hero's Journey. Now this was after many drafts, not just my first. I admit I don't know how many - I went through that sucker from the tiny details to the big picture. That's right, hot shot! Backwards and in high-heels. And I totally agree with Mr. Koch - couldn't have done it earlier. I took charge of that story. I saw which parts were meanders going nowhere, or ego-trips, or just plain mistakes - like the appendix - and had to be cut out. Once I really knew the story I could see all that wasn't it.

"Your story lies before you, fresh territory. Now you need a map." Koch, TMLWW

Now I'm going to do the same thing with The Rock Walker. Well, as soon as I get these query packages done and out for True. I feel pretty darn confident about this tip and I hope it helps anyone out there who gives it a twirl.

That's it for today's post. Hope you are all well and good. I'll be by this weekend to visit. Dust and vacuum!

Tips from the Tops - Revising help

Tip: Two check-lists to consider when revising - one of the macro-view and one of the micro-view

Top: Susan Bell in her wonderful book The Artful Edit, Norton, 2007

Beautiful, downtown Great Village may have been bustling when I was there this last weekend, but I don't think so. I was hunkered down in front of my trusty, if heavy, laptop revising True. I took along with me one book and one book only - Bell's The Artful Edit and I'm so glad I did. I am now going to list some of the items on the macro and micro views -just enough to give you a sense and also this wonderful explanation of why we can't seem to do this systematically, no matter what.

Ideally, we would first look through the macro-, then the micro-lens: view the big picture, then focus on details. But reading and writing are not systematic. In reality, a person switches from lens to lens as she reads, her eye catching a jumble of images at once. You may, when you edit, try to train the eye to see more or less in sequence. but never expect, nor wish to achieve, a rigid artificial system. Reading must remain as free as the imagination itself. If you control your reading too much, you cease to be involved in it. then what's the point?

Susan Bell, The Artful Edit.

Macro-view

1. Intention
2. Character: palpability, credibility, motive
3. Structure: rhythm, tension
(and three more)

Micro-view
1. Language
2. Repetition
3. Redundancy.
4. Clarity
(and four more)

How it Worked for Me:  Friday and most of Saturday I went into some places that I still felt weren't structurally sound and figured out what to do about it. The rest of Saturday and all of Sunday, I went through each chapter with these two lists in my mind if not in front of me like the lace knitting pattern had to be! I read the book in my breaks and as I've read it before it settled deeper into my mind. The panic I felt when I considered doing everything at once or one at a time like a bad short-order cook nearly had me nuts. The quote above released me from that. To go back to an earlier post- I read everything aloud - every damn word - and asked myself as I read, "is this in the rhythm of the work?".

here's a view from out the dining room where I worked mostly:

and here is something I just liked

Tips from the Tops- on meandering

Top: Susan Bell from her book The artful edit

Tip: To meander is as crucial as to stay the course.

Context:  And I will quote her here, this is in the chapter THE BIG PICTURE - MACRO-EDITING and it is under the sub-heading of Intention:
The intercourse between intention and spontaneity shapes any creative act. We make a plan to more or less control our art, while life's vagaries continually urge us to ignore the plan and let our work respond freely to what's around it. To meander is as crucial as to stay the course. We discover, as we wander, new meanings in our work that we carry back to the narrative highway. It can be hard to know whether, at a given moment, we should stick to our plan or follow a whim. If you veer off the main route, you risk getting lost even as you make important discoveries: if you stay on track, you get where you are going but risk boring the reader with an intention too single-minded and obvious. As k yourself: Are you wandering in order to stimulate a work that's staid? Or to avoid the apparent tedium of moving straight ahead? In other words, are you being inspired or undisciplined? If it's the latter, force yourself back to the highway.

My Thoughts:  First of all - this is a delightful book. Gwen picked it up and accidentally left it here yesterday. I'll have it read in short order but I think I'll order one myself as I love the way it is written and it has bits of interviews with wonderful writers like Michael Ondaatje on the art of the edit.
Next of all - As many of you might remember, I grew up in a travelling family. My dad was in the air force so we were always on the move. When we weren't actually packing up and heading out, we'd still hit the road for holidays. Now my Dad was a shun-piker. Oh, you don't know what that is? Well, a shun-piker is a person who shuns the pike - the main road. He loved a good meander especially if we didn't have to get somewhere at a certain time. Sure sometimes we'd get lost but I don't remember ever worrying about it. We might not know where we were but we knew who we were.  And my dad is a confident, cheerful and resourceful person so we relaxed in our meandering.
I would like my readers to be able to enjoy the fact that I am a meandering shun-piker myself.  That is a rhythm I can employ in my literary fiction fully. The pace can be slow as suspense isn't nearly as important as developing a slow juicy story. In my mysteries I need to keep more to the highway or at least keep the highway in view when I meander off of it. The pace of a mystery is tighter than other fiction and needs a firmer hand. That's what I think. How about you?

my dad and my sis set out for a meander...

Tips from the Tops - having changed your attitude remain that way...

From time to time on this blog I have talked about the Paramitas and sometimes the Lojong teachings. Both are guidelines, somewhat proverbial in a way, of how to live a life of awareness. This morning when I sat on my cushion I chose a card from the Lojong slogan cards that I have - the one I turned up was 'Having changed your attitude remain that way.' 

Usually when I do Tips from the Tops it is from a top writer - today it is from a top teacher - an enlightened person who knew that if humans worked with their minds diligently and joyfully, they could wake up and free themselves from their stuck thinking. So I am going to take this slogan and work with it in terms of writing discipline.

Tip: Having changed your attitude remain that way.
Top: Lord Atisha
What this means to me:  I like it when this slogan surfaces in my life. It reminds me that I need not agonize every day, every moment about who I've decided to be and how I wish to go about being that human. With my writing practice, just like with my meditation practice, my kindness practice, my healthy body/mind practice - I can make my life difficult. How? By having to realize every day that I am a writer. By agonizing over word count, rejection letters, other people's successes and failures, my pocket-book, my personal life and on and on. When I read this slogan I remember that I chose this life. When asked what I do I reply - I am a writer. Not an author - a writer. Not a successful world-renown celebrity - a writer. And what do writer's do? They write. They keep on keeping on. Whether they are heart-broken, whether they are hungry, whether they are ecstatically in love, or burning with shame about some dopey thing they did - they bring it all to the offering table - they offer it all up to their writing.
It took me a long time to be able to change my attitude from someone who dreamed of being a writer to one who said I am a writer. It took me agonizing hours of going back and forth between thoughts of giving it up and submitting to a more practical lifestyle, one where my kids would have more cookies made by me, or bought by me, where my ego wouldn't be assaulted by red pencils, where I could settle for a very reasonable life and people would still love me and think I'm doing all right. I changed my attitude though. I proclaimed my belief in myself and I don't need to decide that every single day now. It is decided. Now that I've set my feet on this path I do not need to keep checking the map, my bag of provisions, the weather - no - I just need to walk my walk.

Tips from the Tops

Oh yes - I remembered that I promised this feature. I've mostly done them on Sundays but I don't intend to make it a certain day - just to remember to do it once a week.
Today I did about two hours of revision. Felt good - back in my old office, clean desk, nice copy I've been working from and I use mytomatoes.com to keep me focussed. I only have about twenty pages to edit then I need to put it all in the computer. Whew! Then and that should be by the end of the week - I can send it out to my first readers PLUS the dear Tartlette. I'm so thrilled that she offered.
So I'm trying to figure out what besides New Years intentions and aspirations made today such a go-ahead day. This is what I thought:

Here is my tip from the top today.

Tip : Show Up! You have to be present to win!
Top: All of them from Mo Morrison (hi Dad!) to Anne Lamott to Stephen King say it in one form or another. Here's Stephen, "Don't wait for the muse. As I've said, he's a hardheaded guy who's not susceptible to a lot of creative fluttering. this isn't the Ouija board or the spirit-world we're talking about here, but just another job like laying pipe or driving long-haul trucks. Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you're going to be every day from nine 'til noon or seven 'til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he'll start showing up, chomping his cigar and making his magic." Stephen King. On Writing   p157

How it works in my life: Show up, sit down and start writing. If you believe in a muse that isn't a problem but don't believe your muse will show up and nudge you into work. No. He or she will show up if you do . If you don't believe in a muse then you oughta be showing up without this to remind you. Prime the pump by reading out of a favourite book or looking at an inspiring picture or imagining the letter from the publisher but start writing. Only writing improves writing. Only writing creates stories, poems, novels, memoirs - nothing else will do. Not thinking, not dreaming, not joining writer's groups or going to conventions. Sure, do all that - find your people, your tribe - you'll need that but only writing creates writing. Got it? Good. Let's write!

a completely gratuitious picture - my dear only grand-daughter Hannah.

Sunday and more tips from the tops...

I'm still not quite all here. I find that as I get older it takes me longer to get back to myself after a trip - even a short trip of five days. Oh I've cleaned the bedroom and it is all lovely and clothes are put away. I even de-furred the Hoagy beast this morning and vacuumed heaps of his fur afterwards. I've had two lovely long chats with Kerol, telling her some of the stories I heard while I was away and hearing some of hers. I made a meal last night and we had a quiet evening.

But...I haven't written anything in quite awhile. I took my honking big manuscript in a box and worked on it a bit on the way down but not on the way back. My desk is a cluttery mess and I have all sorts of annoying little tasks to attend to - like harass the tenants for rent, organize winter tires, get my health insurance cover up the garden beds with mulched leaves and lovely chicken poo shavings. And I suppose I should think about Christmas presents only I've got it down to quite a few - books for the grandchildren and stockings for the teenagers who all need money for various big projects they're involved with (trip to New York with music students for step-dot, driver's ed for step-son).  Us adults don't do much - just buy extra food - so no big deal really. We'll get a tree just before Christmas - maybe on my birthday. My birthday (a week from this Tuesday) we'll take the grand-kids and my son to my church.  We Buddhists have a secular holiday called Children's Day which usually lands on my birthday (solstice) and it is quite lovely with a little play and nice music and loads of candles. Because it is my birthday I can force my family to go so that works out well! My step-dot is going to be part of the colour-guard (flags are involved) so she'd be there anyway.

So - just about two weeks to Christmas and what else is on the go - I have clients to see - no other work - but I would like to get a fair bit done on the novel which leads us to this weeks 'tips from the tops' - let me go cruising my fave books...

I was just speaking to my friend, Molly, on the phone. She was asking me how the books are coming and then she said - well - you should give your draft to the Babes to read. Oh no...I said. I love the Babes - there aren't five nicer broads around but they aren't my first readers. So who is? When I finished my other book (Feckless - the shelved one) I did give it to a number of people but I remember one of my friends thought she'd line edit it and so on....that can be the kiss of death for me. I want very certain things addressed by my first readers but I don't want to hear about punctuation. I'll pay someone to look at that part (or trade my friend Gwen services for it!) I want first readers to tell me when they felt sleepy and when they couldn't put it down and to ask me about any plot holes they find so I can fill them. I want to know if they laughed and cried or cried til they laughed or laughed til they cried.  Mainly I want them to tell me if it works or not. And I am willing to listen but I definitely need to choose carefully who gets to read this. I have three people I'll give it to - one is my sister, and two are very close friends. All are women. Sweet Patootie will read it but I'd rather he did it when I'm really ready to send it out. I have our relationship to think of!

Tips from the Top: #2

Top: Anne Lamotte
Book: Bird by Bird

Tip: from the chapter - 'Someone to Read Your Draft':

"I know what a painful feeling it is when you've been working on something forever, and it feels done, and you give your story to someone you hope will validate this and that person tells you it still needs more work. You have to, at this point, question your assessment of this person's character and, if he or she is not a spouse or a lifelong friend, decide whether or not you want them in your life at all. Mostly I think an appropriate first reaction is to think that you don't. but in a little while it may strike you as a small miracle that you have someone in your life, whose taste you admire (after all, this person loves you and your work), who will tell you the truth and help you stay on the straight and narrow, or find your way back to it if you are lost."

My sense of it:  Just do it - someone has to read it sometime unless you wrote it for the shelf. Take tip #1 (feel) and check to see which folks in your life are your first readers then hand it over and wait with delight and some trepidation for their feedback. If they're mean - ditch them- but otherwise just listen and you'll know which things to change and which things to keep the same by applying tip #1 to the feedback. Hurrah!
I'm sending out mine today to my three readers (get ready guys!)

me, Jude and Don - must be Jude's birthday though the tag says it is mine...thanks Jude - I love it!

Sunday Chronicles and a new feature - Tips from the Tops

Just some catch-up and a warning - I will be gone for a week - off to visit my dad and my step-ma - what we therapists call a 'field-trip'. I'm so looking forward to just hanging about with them and shooting the breeze - no big plans - just a good old-fashioned visit - lots of tea and talk. I might check in here but it is unlikely I will post - maybe I'll pre-do my Friday Challenge and set the date thingy. Yeah, good idea.

I've been reading in my writing books which I do quite frequently. Especially now as I approach the final draft and polish of True. I find I need lots of hearing about other writers in order to get my energy up. I printed up a copy of True and will take it on my journey so I can spend a few hours a day going over it. That way I won't feel guilty about missing $type work. Weird but true. The point is that I'm reading lots about writing - mostly in books that have come along with me for many years. And I thought I'd try to inject some discipline into this blog.

So now, in addition to my Friday Challenges which of course are rarely really about writing but mostly as presented in the last couple of weeks about waking-up which is the reason I write in the first place - I will add a new feature - Tips from the Tops.

Tips from the Tops #1 -

Top - Elizabeth George
Book - Write Away
Tip - Feel! Your body will tell you when you're doing what's right for you. 
Actual quote: "I cannot force my process upon you, however. What I can do is tell you what it is, what I believe about it, and how it works for me. Your job is to discover your own process by trying this, that, or the other; whatever feels right to you over time. (Note that word feel again. Your body will tell you when you're doing what's right for you.)" p.177
My Sense of it - This tip really resonates with me and I try to keep it foremost in my mind - especially now in the revision part. The first draft is almost all visceral for me - a mad passionate dash to get something down. Now as I dress those bones in the flesh and blood of words I need to stop often and listen to my own body - is this how I wish to proceed? Is this the right sequence? Does this feel right? Feel not know. Feel blindly through the dark woods - I think I know where the path is but I need to feel my way there. And I feel it in my body both when it is right - a lightening in my chest, more space, a feeling of buoyancy - and when it is wrong - leaden, bumping up, sleepy and heavy feeling. And I need to add kindness to this process - when I stop and listen to my body I need to not get angry and agressive with myself. Not get furious because I've stumbled in the dark and gone the wrong way but just sit quietly and listen, sensing where the right path might be.

Talk to you later...