Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

process

When I have trouble getting the words out

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What some might call a mild form of the infamous writer’s block.  I have never suffered from the extreme form.  I do have times when a scene I have in mind isn’t working, but I don’t call that writer’s block.  It is more a case of not having worked out the details or I am expecting something from my character that really isn’t what he or she would do, or maybe not how that character would do it.

On Goodreads recently a writer was looking for advice on how to overcome her writer’s block.  I made some suggestions but they were based on my practices to improve my effort when I felt I was failing to produce something worthwhile.  It has never been a case of not being able to put words on the page, which does sound awful, something I do not want to face.

So these are the things I do when my writing is not up to snuff.

  • I go read someone I think is a great writer and hope his or her ability will rub off or inspire my own (my writer’s muse frequently is named Heinlein.  I can’t tell you how many times I have read Door into Summer).
  • I lay my self down on the couch, close my eyes and imagine my character in the scene I am working on.  I put in all the details: lighting, decor, emotion, what happened just before, what is going to happen after.  Soon there will be dialogue of either the character talking to me or to some other character. At some point, I find something I simply must start writing, and I am off the couch.
  • Sometimes, convinced I am just tired, I will go to lie down and that will last all of two minutes.  Counter to my intentions, I suddenly have plenty to write.
  • I tell my self to just write anything, summarize what I wanted to cover, write a scene that is needed, dredge up an old hurt my character has, anything, good or bad.  At some point I am warmed up enough that I have something to write worth writing.  I never expect perfection.  I always tell myself, “Hey, you are going to redraft it anyway.”
  • When there are times that I cannot write, but I really want to, I record it on the memo app on my phone. Then when I am actually able to write and can’t think of the wording, I listen to the recording which always has some key line that I can leap off of, and then I write. 
  • A writer once told me (YA and children’s novelist Joan Oppenheimer) never leave your writing finished. Always leave yourself at a point where you know where the plot is going next or what the next issue is, whatever. Make a quick note to yourself about what is next.  Then when I come back, there is my reminder. I don’t have to stare at a blank sheet, something is already waiting for me.
  • I review the scenes I know are coming up and see if one seems ready to be written now.  I’ll write it and later fill in the missing space that I was having trouble with.  I have the start and now the end point, so filling in the middle won’t be so difficult.

Focus on the details of living

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Well, Christmas is here, so enjoy your time with family and friends.  Soak it all in.  Bits of it will foster your writing, and all of it will grow your relationship with family.  So I hope you haven’t been hanging out on the internet reading this blog and my prompt yesterday (for if you had then you would have noticed I was late in posting my writing prompt, too busy soaking in the family).

Advice: A Writer Needs Feedback

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Every writer knows that the only way to get that book, story, poem, etc., done is to write. We also know that the only way to improve is to get feedback, honest, no holds barred feedback.  I teach creative writing, and I tell my new students every year that I will be considerate but honest.  They will know what the strengths were in the piece as much as where growth is occurring and where it is needed.  Every writer needs this and for some, like myself, it is hard to come by.

I am a teacher, and since I want my students focusing on what I am teaching them and not on me, I don’t advertise that I am a indie writer.  I have told only a couple people in my family and just one friend.  I know they’ll keep my writing activities secret.  But where does that leave me for feedback: well in a very limited space.  I have become friends with several writers, and those connections has been helpful because they know what I mean when I say tell me everything so I can get better.  They want honest feedback from me, and I want the same from them.  And it has been worth any uncomfortable feeling I might get from seeing the flaws pointed out in what I thought was a pretty thorough job (repeated numerous times)at line and context editing.  I grow as a writer each time they supply feedback and each time I give feedback.  It would have taken me years of personal distance to be able to give that kind of critique myself.  I don’t want to imagine waiting five years to be able to look at my own work with the necessary distance and increased knowledge in editing, drafting, plotting, etc. needed to actually see what needs to be improved.  That’s five years of embarrassment of having my work out there that I would get all in one fell swoop that could have been avoided by getting straight feedback from another writer or a professional editor when the work was “finished.”

So sure a writer writes, but a WRITER GETS FEEDBACK is even more important.  I published my first book with minimal feedback (those two family members).  It wasn’t long before I had a nagging feeling that perhaps I had overlooked aspects of the story or not edited as well as I thought (even an English teacher needs an editor, nobody can look at their own work without bias, certainly not after reading it one hundred times).  So I took it off publication, sent it to a writer friend (she sent me hers as well) and we traded feedback.  I am still working on it and hope by Christmas to have it back published again.

All this post really is saying is writers need feedback.

Tuesday prompt: #46 2012

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What’s upstairs?  Take your reader up those stairs, barefoot.  Let them feel every creak, rough edge, small nail poking up.  Make each step an adventure in itself.  Then show them what is on the second floor (or third floor, or in the attic).  But make is a slow trip where every word is ultimately connected to the object or place you will take them to. 

non-linear plot imbedded in linear plot: not intending to confuse the reader

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As I have mentioned before, I am working on a revision of the first novel in my Students of Jump. One of the changes I am making is running the two timelines (1979 & 2275) adjacent to each other. I am in the middle of a decision.  Should both run chronologically or should one (the 1979 timeline) run chronological, while the future timeline runs non-linear, different scenes appearing based on a commonality.  I like how a feature in common brings in a future event that the earlier time event is a result of.  At the same time, I worry about my reader getting confused because the events in the future do not run consecutively.  Maybe I can explain it like this:

Basic linear plot: Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, gets girl, looses girl, gets girl back, they live happily ever after. (Let this be the chronological 1979 timeline.)

Non-linear plot:  Boy loses car keys, Boy needs to take car downtown, Boy cartwheels over sleeping dog, boy grabs keys off counter, boy must find another way to get to town, boy buys new car, Boy needs new pair of pants.  (non-consecutive 2275 and happens both in the future and before the 1979 events would occur.)

With one linear and one non-linear, they might look like this.

Boy loses car keys,  Boy meets girl, boy needs to take car downtown, boy falls for girl, boy cartwheels over sleeping dog, boy gets girl, boy grabs keys off counter, boy loses girl , boy must find another way to get to town, boy gets girl back, boy buys new car, they live happily ever after, boy needs new pair of pants.

In order to get the girl, the boy must need a pair of pants and must lose his keys, but these events do not occur in the same time period. One entirely precedes the other.

Is this confusing?  Would it make for a confusing novel?  You see my dilemma.  I won’t know the answer until I put it completely together.  Revise that, it is currently in this form.  It is me that is confused.

Also note, these are not the actual plots of my novel.  Hmmm.

Tuesday prompt: #39 2012

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Write about a dream, but not just any dream.  Pick one of those that kept sliding into odd, even unrelated scenes that as the dreamer you just accepted.  Explore the strangeness of this dream following all its remembered impressions, actions and reactions. 

Write the twisty dream.

If you don’t recall all the details, let your mind slide around what you do remember and pull at it until you have seized everything you can from the dream. 

If you are one of those who don’t remember your dreams, imagine an image and carry into some foggy focus, let it slip into another image and then another as you track each flight of fancy. 

The one thing I ask that you do different with your dream is create a string of connections that holds each event to the next, smooth out the quirky, extra-stair-steps startle effect of the twisting dream.  Let take on a sort of logic of its own that may not have been there when you actually dreamed it.