Some people have notebooks they fill with quotes, ones from celebrities, political figures, other writers, even their moms. I’m not one of those people. While I might be momentarily inspired by something I read or hear, it is not lasting. Going back to the same words of encouragement do nothing for me.
I generally find inspiration from new situations and new experiences. Or barring that from favorite books. A notebook filled with “you can do it” only makes me feel worse when I continuously fail. (more…)
The Mad Thinker is a Marvel Comics character created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee back in the day.
Inspiration is a tricky thing to describe. Kind of like trying to capture scents with a mason jar underwater.
I mean to say that one never knows when something will strike the flint and and an idea will erupt into flaming life. It’s part and parcel of being a writer that one must keep records of lots of things.
Of course one runs across so many things in the Age of the Internets. It used to be that I’d just write stuff down as I came across it when I read something else. It all starts, as these things do, in the beginning. The formative years, when we begin to realize that being an astronaut or a fireman isn’t going to be what we really want to do, is when we find something that really connects the dots. One of the first things I wrote down came from Chris Claremont, the writer of Uncanny X-Men:
“What you do not comprehend is that we are dying from the moment of birth, indeed, from the instant of conception. Creation bears within itself the seeds of its own destruction.
Our lives are finite things. We live our allotted span and are no more. Regardless of what we may do, how hard we try, the best we can hope for is a brief delay of the inevitable. It is sad. Even cruel. But it is our most fundamental reality to be faced and accepted.”
–Colossus, Uncanny X-Men 165 (vol. 1)
That really affected the teenaged me. It was a point of view I hadn’t considered before. It’s something that I have referred to often despite being one of the most overwrought pieces of comic book writing ever. It’s a moment between two people and the feelings are genuine and there are true things said. It’s a philosophy.
It affected me enough to want to be a writer and to, as often as I can, tell the truth as I see it.
As I’ve become more and more a storyteller, I have collected quotes about writing that mean a lot, that keep me moving forward. The Cult of Done has been one of the biggest, most influential pieces, too. I blog about it a lot.
DONE IS THE ENGINE OF MORE.
— Bre Pettis
But then there’s the curmudgeon Harlan Ellison who might sue anyone who quotes him. Still, this bit, from an interview conducted during the release of Dreams With Sharp Teeth (which you should watch often) over at Comic Book Resources, gave me a quote that gets me through every single day:
“You can either seek the approbation of the monkeys or you can continue to produce your art at the level at which you do it best.”
— Harlan Ellison
Since I’ve got a bum ring finger as I type this, I’m going to wrap up with my favorite quote about writing and the process of writing:
Yeah. So moving from the philosophy of Claremont’s most human character to the foul-mouthed-but-sensitive Wendig, the things that inspire me to write are pretty varied. I have a quote for just about any occasion, should I need something to pull me through a tough spot of writing.
Of course every spot of writing is tough. All those scraps of paper tacked to the bulletin board over my desk are there to distract me from the hard work and at the same time remind me that it’s hard work.
Dreams slip from my mind upon waking like dry sand through my fingers, leaving only the memory that they had been there. I wake with the memory that my sleep was filled with fascinating dreams but I have never been able to recall the details. Any attempts I make only succeed to chase them further from my mind. To this date, I can only vividly recall two dreams and both of them nightmares from my childhood. Dreams that left me screaming as I woke, too terrified to sleep.
I have woken knowing I have dreamed that dream before. Yet still I have no recollection of what the dream itself was. My mind lives a dual life in my sleep, one that I will never recall.
I’m slowly learning to accept this, though I find that I frequently will attempt to force myself back into sleep in hopes of continuing the dream I was having. Because even though I do not know what it was that I dreamed, I remember that I enjoyed it. That I wanted to experience it again. Perhaps I live in hopes that if I manage to complete the dream, that will be the one that I remember upon waking. (more…)
For this week’s exploration [0] let us delve into my little used fiction writing side and talk about my flash fiction piece published on this very site just a few weeks ago.
The thing with the mountain lion? Totally happened to some friends of mine. Every part of that story was stolen from somewhere else [1]. Mountain lion? Stolen. Location? Stolen. Early 1900s Girl Scout troop? The story was written on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Girl Scouts; you couldn’t trip over a verb that week without landing face first in some retrospective or other [2]. Plucky girl heroines? My library has a complete collection of Lucy Maude Montgomery. Even the assignment was based on theft; steal a photo from Flickr and write a story about it.
That photo was f-ing awesome, by the way. Period dress? Sabre? Pirate hat? To someone who has worked renaissance festivals for 20+ years, that was practically a homecoming.
From the photo I got the character of Jane, from Ms. Montgomery and Ms. Low [3] I got her plucky self reliance and adventurous spirit, and I developed a backstory based loosely on something I had once heard about William Allen White’s daughter [4].
However, I had no story.
Zip. Zilch. Nada. Character and situation, yes. Actual plot, no. In desperation and with a deadline looming [5] I pilfered the story of the mountain lion from a friend. Bam! Beginning, middle, end, and it clocked in right around 997 words.
For some reason, as a kid I developed the idea that creativity meant making things up from nothing, developing something complete and unique [6]. The term “remixing” had yet to be invented. If I made something by following a pattern and was praised for it, I felt like an impostor. The creativity belonged to the pattern designer, not to me. As a grownup I’ve learned about how to adapt what went before into what is coming into being, but it still feels like craftsmanship, not creativity.
But as a grownup I’ve also learned that life is about getting over myself.
[0] Sounds better than “random babbling,” doesn’t it?
[1] Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
[2] Supposedly cookie sales are better business training than you can get in some well-reputed B-schools.
[3] Founder of the Girl Scouts. Try to keep up.
[4] At an age when most girls of her era were putting their hair up and becoming young ladies, she insisted on wearing plaits, because the younger she looked the more she could get away with.
[5] Deadlines are my muse.
[6] Which is almost impossible, of course, and almost nobody does it that way, and when they try it is largely inaccessible to the audience. But as a kid, everything in the world looks unique.
Mark Twain. Despite what you may have heard, he didn't always dress like Colonel Sanders.
Over the years, I’ve collected a number of great quotes from writers teaching the craft. One of my favorites, from Mark Twain, comes in handy now and again:
“I never write ‘metropolis’ for seven cents, because I can get the same money for ‘city.’ I never write ‘policeman,’ because I can get the same price for ‘cop.’”
For a writer being paid by the word, it’s a good economic argument. We should be more judicious with our vocabulary choices, avoiding a ten-dollar word when a shorter one will do.
Writing isn’t just about conveying an emotion or telling a story. For some, the lucky ones, it’s a business. We make our daily bread based on the words we write, and it’s difficult to give them away for free.
There is something truly inspirational about a hardware store.
Wander down the aisles of any good hardware store and marvel at the vast array of objects, each specifically designed to solve a particular problem and yet infinitely repurposable. What makes this particular 7 mm bolt different than that one? What problem was the designer trying to solve? Which grease-infused wrench monkey decided that what the world needed was a screw with a five-sided slot, and why? What can be built with a 60-degree angle bracket? A 45-degree one? A 120-degree one [0]? Hardware is inspiration given form.
In a really good hardware store, you’re allowed to wander freely, unmolested by salesguys [1], muttering to yourself, picking up objects, stuffing your basket full, and making it halfway to the checkout before turning around, putting everything back where you found it, and starting all over again. They understand the process of creative problem solving, and set up their stores accordingly [2].
Any time I’m stuck, a trip to a hardware store goes a long way towards unstuck.
[0] Trick question, of course. The correct answer is “flux capacitor.”
[1] Really good hardware store managers understand that not all who wander are lost.
[2] Really good office supply stores do the same thing.
In looking over my Confabulator entries from the past few weeks, I realize that food and cooking are controlling metaphors for how I write and think about writing. Food is, naturally, delicious, and preparing delectable food is a natural metaphor for all types of production,including literary. I find food to be at the center of human existence, and if there is anything more inspirational than good coffee, with cheesecake, I have no idea what it might be!
But this week we are focusing more on how other media influences our writing. You know, I love movies, and we watch the Simpsons on an infinite loop in our house, but I don’t feel like moving pictures have a major effect on my writing. The two genres that do influence me are advice columns and liturgy.
A proliferation of advice columns (many published weekly, with years of archives available for mid-week fixes) is one of the many blessings of the Internet age. I do love the folks that people trust to make narrowly useful ethical decisions for them! Dan Savage and Dear Prudie are my favorites, to be sure, but many lesser luminaries light the way as well. Once, I thought about writing a NaNo novel from the POV of an advice columnist, but thought better of it when trying to plot character development entirely through one-off letters. But often, I use the format to shape my stories. Now, what would Prudie say about this situation? How about Dan? How about an advice columnist working in this particular culture…
I am also influenced by the liturgical settings of my religious tradition. Long have I planned to write a novel whose structure is based off a church service (start with a greeting, confession, etc, and have hymns sprinkled throughout). Although I have not done this directly yet, I do come up with something else to work on every time I start contemplating it. I like to invent liturgies for the various new religions in my stories, and someday my service-inspired novel will emerge full formed from the oven and be amazing.
Geez. Another food metaphor spiced it up this time. At least I am consistent!
“Art is either plagiarism or revolution.” – Paul Gauguin
Art is a dangerous thing. It is a key that can open many doorways. However, you don’t know what will be on the other side until you have already crossed the threshold. For an artist, art unlocks perceptions and inspiration you might not have otherwise found.
I have always been a fan of using art as inspiration for my own art, especially writing. Writing is about perspectives, about being able to shift between your perspective and the perspective of sometimes imaginary people who are nothing like you. Allowing another artist’s work to move you can be a good shortcut.
Art is always an expression of self. By letting others express themselves, you can get out of your own way. I’ve found inspiration and writing material in the art of many other mediums.
I’ve never been one to wait around for ideas. There aren’t little inspiration fairies floating around my head offering to sprinkle me with creativity dust, at least not that I have seen.
If I need an idea, I go looking for it. I’ve mentioned finding inspiration in lines of poetry in a past blog. But I have also found inspiration from works of art in other mediums. My novel, Kill Creek Road, began as an idea taken from the song lyrics for “Water’s Edge” by the alternative band Seven Mary Three. The concept grew away from that initial idea, leaving it behind, but the lyrics got me through the initial planning.
A: I refuse to answer that question, on the grounds that it suggests there can be a singular answer
Q (amended): What’s your favorite book(s)?
Long A: Ahhh, now that’s more like it! See what magic can occur with the addition of two parentheses and an ‘s’?
There are many, many books that have inspired me throughout the years. I took this assignment as an opportunity to reminisce about my experiences with the stories I’ve read throughout my lifetime that have shaped my current tastes and proclivities in fiction, as well as my own style of writing. The exercise was a fun trip down memory lane, and it was surprisingly enlightening for me, as well.
I will skip over some of the required reading all children that love books will have read. Things like Tolkien’sLord of the Rings, or C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, or Madeleine L’Engel’s A Wrinkle in Time. I read them. Of course I read them. And they inspired me and affected me like they did millions of other readers. But that also means that waxing rhapsodic about these books would be an exercise in repetition that I’m loathe to pursue.
So, what are some stories that not everyone has read, that still profoundly affected me throughout my life?
Every week we’ll ask the Confabulators a question that may further illuminate the blog question or give you some further insight into our working minds. This week’s question is akin to the one that our bloggers pondered: Where Do You Get Your Ideas? People who are learning to be creative, or who want to know what makes creative people tick, ask these two questions most often. Believe it or not, Inspiration doesn’t necessarily come from Ideas. They’re separate things. Ask anyone. Or read on.
