Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

inspiration

In search of inspiration

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Some days are more inspiring than others. I find myself sitting at my computer with several tasks to do.

  • write monthly blog post
  • post to Facebook, reply, repost, respond
  • get lost on Twitter, reply, retweet, comment, post
  • write 1,000 to 3,000 words to current book
  • review edit back from the editor
  • redraft book back from beta readers
  • outline: next book in current series, new series, previous series, new idea
  • approve cover layout/changes, final
  • come up with idea for a cover (I once told my cover artist I had no ideas for the cover I was booking with her, and ten minutes later, I emailed her and said, “I have the whole series’ covers figured out.”)
  • create ads
  • write monthly newsletter

It’s a never ending search for inspiration that is worth writing and (please God make it so) worth reading. I look at every action in the course of the day as a possible relevant topic

A dog with slippage is not a happy dog.
  • trim the dogs foot hair (otherwise she is constantly fighting slippage on the wood and linoleum floors)
  • trim dogs toenails
  • sort mail
  • clean kitchen
  • fold clothes
  • be a passenger in the car
  • shower
  • dry hair
  • put on makeup
  • treadmill, free weights, stair steps, walk

I rarely get a zone-out moment to myself. Sometimes my brain demands I cease all efforts to create. So I grade homework, essays, etc. It really doesn’t replenish the creative stores. Actual time to just vegetate does not exist in my world.

Wisteria, right?

What would I do if I could?

  • sit on a porch and listen to the rain fall
  • walk up and down the pathway in our backyard along the carport and admire the wisteria blooming
  • cloud staring (I wouldn’t even look for shapes, just stare.)
  • put on nail polish and take my sweet perfectionist time at it
  • learn how to whistle
  • learn how to play my ocarina
  • learn how to tie all sorts of knots
  • make that t-shirt quilt (my husband then would stop asking what I’m planning for that stack of clothes building up in our daughter’s abandoned bedroom.)
  • sand my face with my micro-abrasion tool
  • dust the entire house
  • try different eye makeup styles (there are tenth graders whose eye-shadow looks ten times better than mine. I’ve been asked if I even wear makeup.)
  • read all the writing-related books I have
  • read more fiction
  • complain (I don’t even have time to complain. Big moment here. I think I just complained. I need more practice. I’m not sure that’s an actual valid complaint.)
  • vacuum the entire house, even the walls and ceiling. (You know when you have a baby, and someone gives you the plaque that says its okay not to clean the dishes, dust, fold clothes, etc., because you have a baby. Authors just plug writing into the baby slot — have a book to write.)

Back to inspiration.

I’m big on questioning. Whatever the “mindless” activity I’m involved in, questioning has always been my go-to “slide into what to write next” approach. I just keep asking questions until the character or narrator or my “planning” brain starts answering.

You’ve caught yourself doing it, I’m sure.

A question comes to mind because someone said something, others answered, and you didn’t get your chance. So you self-question. “When did you graduate high school? Have you ever broken a bone? Where did you meet your spouse/special someone? If you could be any age, what would it be?

And there you are telling your story even if nobody is listening. The only difference for me is I’m listening and at some point, I say, “Hold that thought,” and sit down at the computer and write.

We gather the music of words to create a story

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A few days ago I went to a band camp concert. My daughter was one of the players. As I sat there listening to the rising and falling notes, flutes coming in as clarinets drop away, background drums rolling in crescendo and tubas filling the brief spaces in between, my heart racing and relaxing with each movement, I realized that a good book is much the same.

The opening lines just like the first notes played introduce the vision: science fiction with electronic tones, romance flutes of the first attracting glance, Bronte storms in the kettle drums, piano-keyed mysteries or an oboe lilt of a cobra rising from the basket of an Agatha Christi novel. Each rise in the action another movement to thrill the reader.

The middle movements fill us with ideas, emotions, connecting us as a group to a single vision.  And the final notes, whether sudden and thrashing or softly fading away, give us a sense of closure and completeness.

Writers, like conductors, construct a story with the instruments at hand. We have our characters, imagery, setting, rising action, inciting event, climax, pacing and conclusion just as they have their woodwinds, keys, capriccio, adagio, brass, cymbals and the like. We create an experience, one the reader/listener wishes to experience again and again.

Sitting there caught up in the music of the moment, a part of me felt the desire to race from the auditorium and compose my own worded score, to put into words the images that floated before my eyes in response to the pull the music gave to my imagination. But the other part of me wished to remain to listen as my daughter and her fellow musicians crafted musical stories in my head.

Learning to play an instrument is as essential as learning to write. Not all of us will be great musicians any more than all of us can be best selling writers. But all of us need to experience the attempt to make music, write poetry, paint a picture, sculpt a figure, or crochet an afghan. From each experience we gain much and, on occasion, find beauty to inspire others and be inspired.

What inspires you? 

#music
#writing
#inspiration

Creativity: the art of the accidental inspiration

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Rules of Magic

A couple of years ago, a fellow blogger and I discussed writing guest posts for each other. She writes in the combined fantasy/urban legend genre and hoped I could write a post about magic or how place contributes to a story.

I decided to do it on how every story has rules, and how rules of magic effect story development?  I thought I would come up with a set of rules of magic and show how these rules would govern the flow of the story.  Great idea, huh?

So I begin asking myself a set of questions:

  1. Who is allowed to use the magic?
  2. How is the magic performed?
  3. Is there an age requirement or limit?
  4. When is one eligible to perform magic?
  5. How is one recognized as a performer of magic?
  6. What makes one especially good at magic and therefore a respected provider of magic?
  7. What/who determines quality, strength and usage?
  8. Are there social rules governing its use?
  9. How does economics play into its use?
  10. How does social standing play into it use?
  11. How does one learn or is it innate?
  12. Can one be employed as a magic provider?
  13. Are there any personal costs to performing magic?

My post never was sent to my friend because in the process of answering the questions so that I could show how they would govern a story, I ended up with a great idea for a short story. A case of accidental inspiration.

Perhaps these questions could generate a story for someone else.

What unexpected inspiration led to a story, novel, poem or what-have-you idea?

#magic
#inspiration
#creativity

Creativity: generating with What If? and Why?

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What if she was real a moment ago?

It is the What Ifs that writers bring into reality. What if kids had to fight  to the death to earn a position in society? What if everybody was altered to fit into one of five personality types?  Questions and possibilities are what we build our stories on.

Questions make us search for answers, for back stories, for the first domino to fall and the last. And that search creates stories. This is nothing a writer does not know. But it is another way to dive into the creative moment.

  1. Who is the woman who lives in a cave in the earth caring for mushroom gardens and why is she there?
  2. Beneath the fallen roof which leaned precariously against crumbling rock walls, lay a child, clean, unmarked, sleeping peacefully. Who put him there, for whom does he wait, and why does he rest so well, so safely?
  3. When the man crouched down to look into the toddler’s eyes, he backed up recklessly and lost his footing, yet still he scrambled away from her, his gaze never leaving her face. Why?
  4. A snuff box lid, engraved with delicate swirls about a blue cabochon, is canted against a plain, smooth gold container. Who does the box belong to?  Why is it here, open, empty?
  5. The house slumps in the dark shadows of a long night. Occasionally, a ghostly glow moves behind the windows as though someone is using their cell phone for a light. What do they search for and why the lack of electricity?
  6. Over there, among the autumn-pruned rose bushes, something glints like a butterfly’s wings. Only it is a brightness almost too glaring for one’s eyes to stay focused on. What is it?
  7. The mud reveals the outline of footprints, pressed to impart only the front portion of the foot.  Whoever stood here wore heavily shod shoes with a deep tread as if they were cut from tires and reshaped to be the sole of some large man’s shoe. Who stepped here uninvited, unwelcome, on tiptoe?
  8. What if a teacup arrived in the mail without any indication who sent it. Who could it be from?
  9. What if over night every single person found that when they closed their eyes, they could still see what was before them.
  10. Today the phone rang and when it was answered the person on the other end said, “Finally. I have been trying for an hour to reach you.  I must talk to you about the absolute worst day I have ever had.  Sit down and just let me talk. You don’t have to say a word. I just want you to listen.” The voice is unfamiliar.
  11. Dr. Who’s tardis showed up in your kitchen blocking the doorway to any other part of your house.
  12. The young woman reached for her water bottle and took a sip. Not water. She sipped again just to be sure. It made her think of pineapples. 
  13.  

Alright, those are mine. You come up with the last one and write about it.

Creativity: inspiration thru anticipation

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Overwhelmed by stuff, use anticipation to inspire.

Creativity is best when the appetite is wet.

I have already said that teaching encroaches on my writing time.  Remember the movie The Thing? That is the life of the English teacher: pursued by an engulfing pile of stuff.  The teaching thing just eats everything up.  So I need every trick in the book to take advantage of my writing opportunities.  My most often used technique is anticipation.

  •  Work taking over  your life and it’s been more than a month and you haven’t written creatively in weeks? What do I do?  I start with little self talks.  “Thanksgiving is just a few more weeks away.  Keep your grading up to date. Don’t overload the kids ’cause that just comes back and bites off another chunk of your time.  Keep it steady and high quality, but keep it under control so Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break, SUMMER! will all be yours.”
  • Weekly overload? I grade everything I can Friday night, having promised that Saturday will supply a slice of time for writing.  Then I am back on the grading, planning, prepping mode come Sunday, ready for Monday. Plug in any huge “thing” you want into the spot labeled “grade.”
  • It’s getting worse instead of better? When it is an especially hard year, which the last two have been due to changes in education objectives and focus, I can go nearly an entire school year without more than ten hours of personal writing time in ten months.  So those days of summer become a mantra of anticipatory excitement. 
  • Use all non-work time that can’t be given to writing time to brainstorm time. I use the moments when I can feasibly say I can’t grade, teach, plan, prep or do anything house related or family related to brainstorm and review scenes.  That means showers, the fifteen minutes before I fall asleep, putting on makeup and doing my hair, running on the treadmill, vacuuming, etc., are for thinking about what I am going to write when I get the chance. The idea is you have everything ready to go when the time to write finally comes.  You’re excited about writing because you know exactly what you are going to do. It will practically type itself.
  • Carry the image/scene/dialogue everywhere you go. Sure this may mean you never talk in the car when your partner is driving. They get over it. My husband has. I am quiet in the car whether its twenty minutes or two hours, but my mind is not. I am revolving the scene over and over looking for telling details, foreshadowing that can be slid in, characterization, and what else can be carried by the scene other than the original idea that set it off.

Next week: how to make multitasking your creativity work for you.

So how do you deal with the overwhelming activities you do to pay your bills and such to make room for writing?  Writers who write for a living are not allowed to respond.  You may smirk off in a  corner somewhere, quietly.

#creativity
#anticipation
#writing

Creativity: the routine of it can be inspiring

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Be ready to write

Creativity is such a personal experience.  No matter who we are, we search for it. A kid wants to say something funny to his buddies, a man needs a good line to catch the woman’s attention, a painter dreams of that perfect aesthetic impression on canvas, the computer programmer must revise for simplicity, clarity, reduced expense. Let’s not forget the writer who seeks a killer plot, equally killer characters and amazing killer dialogue, not to mention variety of diction. We are all in search of the creative moment and its reliable, reproducible inspiration.

Routine has long been tauted as the writer’s key to inspiration.  You know the drill:

  • write at the same time every day
  • create a space dedicated to writing
  • set yourself  up for the muse by having little routine steps: sharpen your pencil, restack your paper square, sort through your list of ideas, sit down and make your mind quiet, whatever
  • don’t tell anyone your idea until after it is down on paper
  • always leave your writing with a sense of urgency to write the next scene, or leave notes to pick up with next time you sit down
  • don’t stop until you have 1000 words down (or however many)
  • stop after 1000 words no matter what (That will certainly leave a sense of urgency to get back to the scene, unless of course you have been telling yourself, like a bonking runner, just 167 more words and I get to stop.)

Routine certainly has is good points. You know when, where, for how long, and how you are going to write, so there are no excuses. Bang you’re off and typing, scribbling, recording, etc.

It frees you up for inspiration to fly in or roll on.

When you are in your “place,” everyone knows to leave you alone.  That does not mean they will, just that they know.

And routine has other perks as well.

  • It’s already scheduled into your day, so work, kids, spouse, laundry, Twitter have already been factored in and can be controlled and worked around.  
  • Laundry can be done at the same time, brushing your teeth and showering can be brainstorming time, and you have an excuse not to watch that mind-numbing TV show everybody is talking about.
  • And when you are done, you can tell yourself, “I wrote today,” just as others might say, “I exercised before breakfast.” Be the first to pat yourself on the back.
  • It is scheduled into your “most creative work” time because you have worked out that you write best from 5 AM to 9 AM, or 10 PM to midnight, or etc.
  • And all those inspiring million-words-a-day gurus often provide very specific routines, and it works for them, why not you?

All very well, but this post was imagined just as I was starting up my school laptop to begin lesson planning for the new year. I had to shut the lid, send it into sleep mode and restart my personal laptop and begin this post I had scheduled into my day tomorrow.  Routine, I like it best when I can break it into a million pieces and around 500 words.

What is your routine or non-routine? Do you mix and match?

See me next week when I approach creativity in capture mode.  Don’t know what that is: see me next week, maybe I’ll know then, too.
#writing
#creativity
#routine