Tag Archives: inspiration

Poems: Kernels of Art

May 28, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

I absolutely love the flexibility of poems; they’re like jars of emotion, containing poignant reveries, painful wounds, and powerful joys. But beyond this humble art form’s ability to adapt to any emotional range, it can also inspire the other forms of art (both performance and exhibition) to their highest expressions. Surprisingly, poetry can touch all other forms of art in the following ways:

What Poems Can Do

They can become songs by simply attaching a fitting melody and chord progression to the words
They can spark photography, paintings, or drawings; the imagery in a poem can lead a visual artist to create what he or she has “seen” in her mind from the poet’s words
They can imply a dance rhythm with word choice and stressed beats; a simple recitation can be done as a rhythm piece alongside interpretive movement
They can create a theatrical scene in the reader’s mind; the pathos in a poem can be expressed again through dialogue, or if the poem is itself a dialogue or monologue, it can be directly translated to the stage
They can inspire a longer work of fiction or non-fiction; a simple ten-line poem can create a character strong enough to warrant more writing about

I love this about poetry–it creates a sort of network between art forms. It’s fluid, malleable, and yet strong enough to support just about anything you put into it, which makes it both approachable for newbies and versatile for experienced creators.

So, have you ever tried your hand at poetry? If you haven’t, now is a great time to try!

Saturday with the Spark

Journals in Verse: My Personal Poetry

May 21, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

I’ve been writing poetry since I was a very little girl. Some of my earliest verses were composed on a summer vacation when I was about 7 years old, studying the motion of the waves against the beach as doubtless so many other poets before me had done. I was inspired by the fluid rocking motion of the water, and how it left the beach looking swept and clean, so I jotted down a little poem about it.

What I Used to Think Poetry was About

Poetry indeed served as a welcome diversion from other subjects like math and science, but I didn’t do a whole lot of it during elementary school. From what I learned in school, you simply had to write poetry in a very specific way for it to be considered “art.” I toyed with the idea of becoming a poet when I was older, but I certainly didn’t have the patience to sit there and rhyme ending words, or to make each line be the same length with the same beats as its predecessors. It seemed like a lot of work–and it ended up sounding a lot less inspired and beautiful–when I tried it, at least.

Poetry: Not Merely Meter and Rhyme

But the hangups I had about “appropriate” poetry style all but evaporated in middle school. I began to need a way to talk about the despair and anger I was feeling, without writing too directly about it and getting angry all over again. So I just wrote, breaking my poetry’s lines wherever it felt “right” to break them, choosing words only for their biggest emotional impact.

This poetry, in a real sense, became my journal entries. As I worked with fitting my emotions into a small space of verse, my feelings and problems became concentrated and yet refined. Other people could relate to what I had written, but it didn’t hurt me quite so bad to read it as it had hurt while I was writing it all out. It was quite like getting a splinter out of my finger and showing the sliver of wood to other people–it was painful poetry, but it was good because it was so raw.

I wrote this type of self-discovering poetry all throughout high school and well into college, and even some into graduate school. Much of that poetry probably shouldn’t really be shown to anybody now, since my style has evolved as I have grown up (not to mention my mindset). But the art form served its purpose–each poem helped me stay in control of my emotions, storing them in a paper jar, like storing fruit by canning it. And, I can reopen the jars at any time and re-experience my life at that moment.

Poetry as An Old Faithful Friend

As my life has become brighter, especially with the advent of my current relationship and my continued work on my novel and my music, I find myself less likely to lean on poetry’s shoulder, writing mainly life-observing poems rather than inward-looking poems (though I can still wring the tears out of a piece of paper if I’m in a mood to do so!). I use poetry now as an occasional journal entry, a way to immortalize a moment rather than a way to work out a problem. But I know that I can always write out my problem in verse; just like a faithful old journal, the art form of the poem waits for me to write.

How to Start Writing Poetry for Yourself

Though I’m sure the poetry purists out there are probably recoiling in horror from this post, I still recommend approaching poetry as an art form you can USE rather than as an art form you have to produce “just so.” If you let others’ guidelines for writing poetry become rigid rules, you can actually stifle your own creativity before it ever has a real chance.

That’s why I’m not suggesting any specific rules or regulations. Rhyme if you want to, make it rhythmical if you want to, but feel free to explore the edges of the art form, too; discover the line where speech becomes poetry, where words become art. Write what you really feel and think, and worry about refining it later, if it even needs refining. The world may not need another perfectly measured and rhymed work of art–but it does need your thoughts.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Sheltering Branches

May 17, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

I love the thick green of forest leaves in late spring and summer. Somehow, it feels as though the very air is thicker with life than it is in the barren, cold winter; birds hop along branches, and squirrels scurry up tree trunks to hide in the foliage. The delicate beauty of each thin leaf combines with its brethren to make a soft silhouette of shade on the grass, promising rest and relaxation.

Maybe it’s my inner hippie coming out, but forests have always felt sheltering to me. It surprised me to learn, while I was studying for my English major in college, that in literature, forests have often been used as the sites for sorcery and evil being afoot, such as in Young Goodman Brown. I guess it’s because my house is planted square in the middle of a large forest that I’ve always viewed forests as places of rest and safety. The screen of leaves, tree branches, and trunks fully obscures my home from the road, generally keeping us safe from robbers and trespassers. Sinuous branches arching over parts of the driveway and house may present a slight danger during ice storms, but for much of the year, they provide welcome respite for all sorts of little animals (and tired humans returning from shopping trips!).

I’m the kind of person who will drive down the road, sight a particularly beautifully-shaped tree, and stop and take a picture of it; I’ll do the same for lovely vistas of foliage allowing just hints of sunlight to pierce through to the ground. What I love most is that trees and forests aren’t just beautiful, but useful–when I’m taking refuge from the sun under a pretty tree, it feels sometimes like I’m being watched over and protected. Other people seem to think the same thing, albeit unconsciously; when looking for a parking spot in the summer, the spots with trees shading them are usually taken first!

Even though trees might besmirch our cars with their sap, overly shade our front lawns, or even threaten our houses when they die and begin to lean, I still think they provide a restful counterpoint to human life. You can’t just stop and watch a tree grow, and yet they are in constant cycles of growth, as their rings tell us. They are perpetually still and yet vibrantly alive in the same moment, like a person in meditation. We spend our days rushing around for sustenance and shelter and comfort; they derive their sustenance and comfort from the ground underneath, and provide us with a little of the same.

Photos belong to: IPadWalls.com & The.Rain.Man’s photostream.

Saturday with the Spark

A Twist in the Web: Complex Subplots in Simple Storylines

May 14, 2011 Robin 2 Comments

In the last few sessions of writing my novel, I’ve found a cool little subplot that I wanted to work with more in the storyline. It is a much more complex and dark subplot than the larger story it’s couched in, but I’m finding it to be surprisingly interesting and driving.

Why This Works: It’s a Little Shock of Mystery

Overall, my novel up to this point has been fairly straightforward, focused on one character and that character’s impressions and perceptions of the world. The lightness and relative simplicity of this larger storyline seems to set off this little shadowy gem of a subplot quite well–the smaller subplot is more other-focused, more about the wider world around the main character, like a glimpse out a window.

I somewhat planned this and somewhat didn’t–I knew that this subplot’s initiating event would happen, and I wanted the story to be more other-focused at that moment, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to achieve that until I began to write it. Then this subplot began to emerge from my fingers, seeping into my keyboard and into the Microsoft Word file, and I began to marvel at what was being created. It was a sudden touch of mystery in an otherwise fantasy/Christian-fiction story, and it just WORKS. 😀

The great part about this is that it helps break up any monotony that might have formed for readers thus far. And there are a few more complex subplots to be written as well before this first novel of mine ends. It certainly is a twist in the story’s web, but it makes a very neat little pattern all its own, and I like it!

How to Introduce a Twist in Your Own Stories

No matter what size your story is, you can give your readers the same interesting turn in a story’s plot without having to make the whole story “suspense/mystery.” Here’s a couple of tips:

Place your twist in the middle of a particularly peaceful scene or section of the story, giving your plot a bit more texture (like the surprise of crunchy peanut butter in a PB&J sandwich).
Whatever you decide to write as your “twist,” reveal it slowly–don’t give all the information to the reader at once. I find that writing my “twist” subplot works best if I intersperse mentions of it in between other, lighter parts of my novel, giving my readers time to wonder about what’s really going on.
Try writing your “twist” subplot from the perspective of a new character, or maybe one of your minor characters you haven’t developed much yet. (You may not end up including this in your story, but it will be good background information and will force you to view this subplot with a different character’s perspective!)

Saturday with the Spark

Happy Little (Sketched) Tree

May 7, 2011 Robin 3 Comments

With apologies to Bob Ross for the title of this post, this week I thought I’d showcase a recent sketch of mine that I scanned into the computer:

Number #2 pencil on computer printer paper. Awright.

The tree is mostly composed of simple leaf and branch shapes (similar to a crape myrtle tree). Not the most original thing in the world, perhaps, but this picture works for me on several levels:

It’s mine–I didn’t have to borrow artwork from someone else like usual
I didn’t have to worry about every leaf and twig being in EXACTLY the right place, because it looks better as an imperfect form anyway
The sketch ended up pretty much how I wanted it, for just about the first time in my life

P.S.: Why This Isn’t a Color Picture

This picture isn’t colored in, because usually when I start trying to color my pictures by hand, I end up with something that looks worse than kindergarten. Crayons are too heavy and waxy, colored pencils are too light (takes too long to build up enough color), and markers are too permanent. (And we just won’t talk about the tragedy of my painting skills here. XD) Not to mention that “staying in the lines” is just about impossible for me and my impatient hands.

I did try to color this picture using Photoshop’s Paint Bucket too, but I found it much too hard to color in with a laptop mouse! I couldn’t stand the thought of having to click a hundred thousand times so precisely to fill in all those little leaves, so I quit after a few pointless minutes of accidentally filling the whole canvas with green. Sad.

Pencil + Paper = Fun

My difficulties with coloring is why I enjoy the impromptu ease of a simple pencil sketch. You don’t have to have any special tools–just about any kind of paper except notebook paper and any kind of pencil will do. You can also do this sketch anywhere; out in the wilderness, at your desk while avoiding homework, in bed watching TV. I also really love the ability to do subtle shading with a pencil, which is easier to control than a charcoal stick (for me). Plus, if when I screw up, there’s a handy little eraser.

This is my first pencil sketch in a long time, and I’m hoping it won’t be my last! Let me know what you think about this first attempt after a long, LONG time of staying away from visual art!

Thursday in the Zone

How Robin’s Getting Her (HeroClix) Groove Back

May 5, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

“Game fatigue” is not a new phenomenon, but I’ve found that it occurs more often in collectible games like HeroClix. As the game evolves with new expansions, new figures, etc., the old standby figures get pushed aside or simply outclassed by the new hot stuff.

HeroClix is definitely no exception to that rule, and it’s one reason I virtually quit playing Clix tournaments for a while. But I’m starting to get back into it…and for more of that story, read on!

Before: No Groove Left

As a largely Casual Clix player, I just wanted to PLAY the game–to play my favorite pieces, which I could combine into many game-winning teams. My teams, made up of little figures with lots of support powers, might not win in 50-minute rounds, but give me about an hour and a half and I could outlast most any opponent. I had more fun when my games with an opponent were a back-and-forth tug-of-war, never knowing until the last few turns who would come out on top–thus, I favored longer games and lots of backup.

Unfortunately, my slower, defensive swarm style didn’t translate well into tournament play. I kept getting beaten by kids running huge, overpowered figures broken out in special powers, or people running almost unbeatable “gimmick” teams. And to add insult to injury, it seemed that tournament/competitive play was all that my new gaming shop friends wanted to do. But they could afford all the new pieces, and I couldn’t…and honestly, I didn’t WANT to resort to buying and playing overpowered figures just to “survive.” Tournaments were simply NOT what I wanted to be involved in, but it seemed to be the only game in town (pun intended).

So I kept trying to play in the tournaments, just to try to keep my hand in the game and to connect with friends, but I only ended up getting angrier and angrier over my losses. I felt outmatched, and soon the game was little more than a frustration engine.

The Breaking Point

Something had to give. I was taking it all too seriously, and I couldn’t seem to stop being angry about the game long enough to have fun. After all, I couldn’t exactly hang out with my friends when I felt ready to throw my hard-earned Clix pieces across the room. So, I finally quit the tournaments, and almost completely quit playing HeroClix casually as well. I got away from it, put aside my pieces I’d worked so hard to collect for myself, and just came to the gaming shop to use the Internet for a couple of months.

I was a lot happier in the short-term (probably a good move for my blood pressure), but after a few months, I was ready to try again. I wasn’t about to step foot back into the tournaments, but I did know what kind of game I wanted–a casual game, the type I had first learned to love back when my boyfriend taught me how to play. (In all the hubbub of quitting HeroClix, I had also temporarily lost that link with him, too, which hurt more than I realized!)

A New Game, a New Outlook

So, one day, I just asked my boyfriend if we could have a true casual game–not a crazy overpowered game full of new figures and special powers, but just a good ol’ classic HeroClix game. He agreed–he wanted to see me have fun, too, and we were both hopeful that I could start afresh.

That first casual game led to a second, and then a third a few days later. He never pushed me about it, but suggested it as something we could possibly do rather than something I absolutely HAD to do. I was starting to enjoy it again, even though I knew he was building less powerful teams to match mine. It was not ideal, but it was better than being shut away from the game entirely.

I began to share possible strategies with him again, and we even began to talk about the metagame, discussing how I could possibly make my old favorites playable amid newer figures. It wasn’t just that I wanted to save money by not buying a ton of new figures; I also wanted to be able to beat the “hot new figures” with my favorite old standards, showing other players that you don’t always have to play overpowered stuff to win.

And, once I started playing some Casual games at the shop again, the craziest thing happened…suddenly, some people became interested in the Casual Clix scene again. They wanted to know more about using support powers, or using figures with no special powers. And best of all, they wanted to play me in one-on-one games outside the tournaments, or even group games. Little by little, the change I had so wanted to see was finally happening–and it had started with me!

Success, a Little at a Time

So this, finally, is how I got my HeroClix groove back:

Combining older figures with newer to update teams without having to buy all new pieces
Playing strictly casual games rather than trying to win in tournaments
Being open to playing casual games rather than just using the Internet at the shop
Being willing to learn about new figures and not just relying on old ones

This new approach to Clix is much less competitive, and thus less likely to aggravate my competitive tendencies. It’s also better for building community between all my gaming friends–now, we’re no longer just playing tournaments, but we’re also just enjoying the pieces we have and building teams out of the ones we love to play the most. It might not be as “hardcore,” but then again, I’ve seen what a “hardcore” mentality does to players like me. I much prefer this new outlook on Clix.

Summary

If you’re suffering from “tournament fatigue,” or even “Clix fatigue,” then how about trying something completely different–how about a casual game? Don’t laugh…you might just find yourself getting your HeroClix groove back, too!

Saturday with the Spark

Confront the Giant in Song

April 30, 2011 Robin 2 Comments

As a piano/vocal songwriter from the age of 12, I’ve written songs about the things I see in life that make me happy or catch my interest. But more often, my songs are about things that bother me; expressing my sadness or frustration in song has been one of the key ways I vented. I am definitely not alone in that, either, since many songwriters use music to talk about important social and political issues. Writing music about problems–confronting our problematic “giants” within the context of a melody–seems to be human nature.

Why Write Songs About Problems? Because It Helps

Songs are a great way to work out problems, as I found out at an early age. I could sing and bang the piano keys about my problems more readily than I could even talk to somebody about what was going on. Through music, I could put it more eloquently…and I found out through performances that other people identified with what I was singing about, even if it was sad.

Within a song, somehow, it seems easier to deliver a message that people will readily listen to. Even if the message is controversial, it seems less so when wrapped in melody and rhyme. And often, such a song can be the instigator of positive change, as it raises awareness about the problem–one such song is Jesus, Friend of Sinners by Casting Crowns, available through the video below:

The “Problem Song” Writing Process

In the act of writing a song about a problem, it forces me to condense my message and really “get to the bottom” of what I’m trying to talk about. It makes me dig around in my conscious and subconscious mind–why does this problem bug me so much? Once I start trying to explain my point of view as if speaking to someone else, I finally find the little nugget of truth hiding underneath the layers of my own thoughts, and that truth becomes the basis of my song. Then I write about how I see that truth, how that truth affects me, and the song begins to emerge.

Self-discovery and expression collide and combine once I finally sit down to the keyboard (either to type or to play). As I write the words, sometimes I find myself adding the melody with it; as I hum the melody, sometimes I find myself adding the words where they best fit. Either way, I am changing the word choice and rhythms to flow better together. This is a highly instinctive process of addition, deletion, and rapid editing until I find the “right” way the song is supposed to work, how it’s supposed to deliver its message.

Once I feel that the song is done “right,” I perform it for myself, in many rehearsals. Generally, the way I know that a song is good enough is if it either raises the hairs on my arms, or it makes me cry. (Yay for built-in quality control!)

Performance

The most challenging part of the whole “problem song” process, for me, is the first performance of the song for anybody. I am challenged to deliver my message as if I am a keynote speaker, and in a way, I am. I need to keep their interest, sing clearly, and express the nugget of truth with emotion and description, to help someone else understand how much this means to me. My song should go out to the audience and travel straight from their ears to their hearts, giving them the message in a way that makes them think without being hostile to the idea in my music.

How Can You Confront Your Own Giants with a Song?

I find that writing a bullet list, outline, or even just random notes about things that concern you is a great starting point toward writing your own songs (or poems, if you aren’t musically inclined). Amid the detritus that you will inevitably produce (as everyone does), there will likely be a phrase or sentence you write that will point you in the direction of your own nugget of truth.

From there, try to dig into it, to completely explain that nugget of truth as you see it. Your own poem or song will emerge from your pen or your keyboard–and you just might be surprised at what you’ve come up with!

Saturday with the Spark

Joining My Voice With Others

April 9, 2011 Robin 3 Comments

Choirs have been a major part of my life since childhood, and I have loved every rehearsal and performance of it. Even though performing with any group, be it a dance troupe, an acting company, a band, or a large choir, is a commitment that takes dedication, it has helped anchor my life in many ways. The interdependency of a performance group is one reason I love choir–you become a family of sorts, understanding how each other operates, helping each other learn, working together for the common goal of producing beautiful music.

And yet, I would have never known my future interest in choir if I hadn’t taken a risk in 7th grade…and I wouldn’t have known just how important it was to me until I couldn’t be in a choir for a while.

My Personal Experience in School Choirs

Though I sang with my elementary school choir in 5th grade, I never really thought I had much of a singing voice until 7th grade, when I joined the choir “just to see if I liked it.” If I didn’t like choir, I reasoned, I could always go to band the next year.

I started out the year singing as I had always done: very softly, because I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right. But my choir teacher kept urging us to “sing from the diaphragm”–take deeper breaths and somehow push a louder sound out. I couldn’t wrap my head around what she wanted, so for a few weeks I continued singing very, very softly.

Finally, one morning she was fairly exasperated with us because we weren’t really trying much that day–most of the class wasn’t paying much attention. Right in the middle of her instructions on how to produce bigger sound, a knock came at the door, breaking her concentration. “All right, I’m going to say this one more time,” she said quickly, as she went toward the door. “Take a deep breath–don’t move your shoulders–tighten your stomach, and produce the sound!” Then she opened the door and talked to whoever was outside.

In the 30 seconds it took for her to talk to the person, understanding suddenly flashed in my head. Tighten the stomach? OH! THAT’S what I was supposed to do! I thought, “Well, is that all? Heck, I can do that.” When she came back into the room and took up her position at the music stand again, I was ready to sing, with my deep breath and tightened tummy.

From the expression on her face as we sang through one or two measures, she was not ready for the explosion of sound that came from the alto section. She motioned for us to stop singing, and in this shocked voice, she whispered, “Who was THAT?” It felt like every finger in the alto section pointed to me, and I wasn’t sure if her reaction was a good thing or a bad thing at first. 😀 But the big smile that dawned on her face let me know I had done at least something right.

From that day, I became one of the strongest altos in the section, and I never did make it to band. Finally, after nearly seven years of feeling like I had no place at school and that I would never do anything of consequence, I had found a place for myself, a place to be useful to other people. Many of the other altos were, like me before, still too shy to sing, so I produced tons of sound…which, I found out later, helped some of the other girls become more comfortable with the idea of singing with every rehearsal. The rest of seventh and eighth grade passed in this way–and, by the end of eighth grade, most of the altos I sang with had found their confidence as well. We thus had a strong corps of ladies ready to move on into high school choir.

I made it from the freshman Glee Club to the highest-level Chamber Choir in tenth grade, as one of only three ladies to be promoted immediately from Glee Club to Chamber Choir that year. Three successful years of Chamber Choir followed, under the direction of our high school choir teacher, who worked with us just as hard to shape our sound. (Some days I was worried he was going to have a stroke in front of us, he worked so hard!) But I did learn how to produce the tall vowels and enunciated sounds he consistently looked for in performance and rehearsals.

I carried this experience and knowledge into my college career, with one year of singing with the Women’s Glee Club and three years of singing with the Women’s Choir. My knowledge of choral music and my ability to adapt to different song styles grew as I sang in college, and by the time I’d graduated with my undergrad degree, I had sung in at least 13 different languages, traveled to sing in New York and England, and met a number of wonderful musicians who enriched me just by singing beside them.

The Break from Choir

Unfortunately, when I got into my graduate degree program, I had to largely quit choir to pay more attention to my studies in Middle-Grades Education. Other than my church choir, which I got to sing with only on Sundays I came home from college (and even then, not as often as I liked), I was out of the organized singing groups I had been used to singing with for nearly 10 years.

This break from choir, oddly enough, helped me realize what I loved about singing, and what I missed about it. I missed the camaraderie formed by trying to learn songs together (and often missing notes, lol); I loved performing with my fellow altos, keeping our line strong and helping the other three parts to stay on target. Though I did get to sing on occasion, I missed the constancy of rehearsals more than once a week, learning many different pieces, building up to a huge performance. I honestly felt lost without a group to perform with, and I think it contributed to my sinking heart and low state of mind.

A Joyous Return

But a serendipitous meeting with an old choir buddy (at Walmart, of all places) let me know of a new opportunity–the local Choral Society, a group of all levels of singers, was looking for altos. That was the impetus for me to attend a rehearsal, which led me to join up within the week. It was an electric experience after having been out of regular choir for so long. I snapped back into place like a long-lost puzzle piece, and I haven’t even entertained the idea of dropping out since.

My Current Choir Experience

I’m now involved in Choral Society as well as my church choir, and both choirs fulfill me musically, but in different ways. Church choir is a time for me to praise God for the ability to sing and the ability to make music; it’s not so much about the technical perfection of the music, but about the feelings and meanings that propel that music along. Choral Society, by contrast, is a time for me to sing with other choral musicians who enjoy rehearsing and learning challenging and lovely music–striving for technical perfection is part of the enjoyment (even if you don’t quite get there in one rehearsal, LOL!).

I enjoy singing with others much more than singing alone, though singing alone is cool; there’s just something about hearing your voice meld with others’, hearing it build in intensity, hearing it recede and return like audible ocean waves. It’s almost an animal in and of itself, moving, growing, and changing moment by moment…it’s awesome. It may not be a powerful soloist’s career, but for me, it’s a powerful experience. I’m so glad I took the chance to “see whether I liked choir”–it led to a lifelong love.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Momentary Meditations

April 5, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

There are blessed moments I encounter–moments of living neither in the past or future, but in the massive and yet ephemeral present. Being aware of each second clicking by, the cool freshness of the air being drawn into my nose. Taking time to truly feel the grass blades tickling my flip-flop-clad feet, and to smell the light sweet scent of azaleas and wildflowers in the front yard. Sensing the mobile curvature of my spine as I hunch above a keyboard or stretch back against the computer chair. Knowing how the smooth plastic computer keys will give way just enough under my fingers to produce a letter on the screen.

It’s an odd, electric kind of feeling, as if a shade has been drawn up from over my eyes and I’m finally seeing life as it is. In these few seconds, thought and intellect give way to feeling and instinct, just for a little while. I can appreciate the visual beauty and symmetry of tree branches and buildings around me, pause to hear random harmonies of birdsong and traffic, weaving together like the woodwind and brass sections of a giant unseen orchestra. Touch and smell become many times more important; suddenly, I am aware of how soft and lovely the shirt I’m wearing feels against my skin, and realize that the breeze is blowing a faint wonderful scent of food cooking from a restaurant down the street.

These moments of sensory feeling and glimpses of present peace are usually rare for me. Too often I live in a world of past guilt and anticipation of the future, and I’m insensitive to all this wonder going on around me. (I think we all have days like that!) Sometimes I feel like nothing more than a shell of myself, “living” without really feeling it, while my brain is somewhere else entirely, worrying, fretting or just going around and around without solving anything. Often it seems like I’m actually forcing myself to relax, and yet my brain is resisting every second of it.

Momentary meditations on the world around me, actually sensing the environment around me, actually hearing and seeing things outside my own head, manage to snap me out of the foggy dreariness I usually shuffle through, make me feel more alive. It’s often not an instinctive thing, either; I have to shift my mindset, and hush my inner monologue. (Amazing how much more life can filter into your brain when you actually let yourself experience it rather than letting your brain talk over it!)

If you’ve never had one of these random moments of clarity, it can start as simply as looking around you and really seeing everything. I hope this post can be one of those moments for you–then, you might find that a shade has lifted from your own life.

Saturday with the Spark

The Impromptu Writers’ Club

March 26, 2011 Robin 3 Comments

Are you struggling to write? Lacking inspiration? Feeling STUCK? The problem might not be writer’s block–it might be writer’s isolation. At least, this is how I started feeling after being stuck on my novel for several months. And, as you’ll see in the following article, it really took talking over the book with another person to help me get restarted on it.

How I Accidentally Started a Writers’ Club

For a while, one of my best guy friends and I had been hanging out at a local Denny’s on Sunday evenings, getting back in touch after life took us in very separate directions for a few years. It was a time for him to be away from work and away from home, a time where he could relax and we could catch up. But it slowly became less of a social thing and more focused on writing–I was working (mostly unsuccessfully) on my novel, and he wanted to hear more about it.

Once I started sharing my novel-in-progress with him, seeing what he thought of my ideas so far, I found out that he liked it, and was eager to read more. Thus, I was inspired to write more, and I found the process to be easier. (He is now one of my four beta readers, if you will–my parents and my boyfriend have also read or heard most of the novel, and they have all been wonderfully supportive.) Having this support system around me helped me start writing and keep writing–now, I had an audience to write for rather than just myself!

Inspiration is Catching!

I knew I was getting inspired from these informal brainstorming sessions, but admittedly, I didn’t expect for my guy friend to pick up the pen himself after a few months. I shouldn’t have been surprised, though–he’s been working on his own stories since he was 14 years old! I was overjoyed to see him starting to work with his old stories again, and so I encouraged him to keep working at it, to keep writing, and that I would read and help if I could. (Since I was an English major in college and did teach literature and composition for a few months in a middle school, I have a little bit of experience helping people to write.)

A Typical Writers’ Club Meeting

When we get together for our writers’ club meeting, we usually sit at our respective computers, typing away for a few minutes (or 30, LOL). Then, we switch computers, so that each of us can read what the other has written. We offer each other constructive criticism, ideas for expansion, and express interest–then we switch back, and revise as necessary.

This helps us both at the same time–we are both writer and reader, so we can easily switch back and forth between the two roles. Plus, reading each other’s work helps us both construct better-flowing stories, and the almost-instantaneous time between composition, reading, and revising makes the writing process speedier and more thorough. No more relying on my memory to figure out what to change in my story!

The Benefits So Far

This has certainly helped me make my novel much better, to have people around me who are interested in my novel and who offer their opinions on how the story is progressing. Only four people in this world besides me know what it’s about, and each of those four I would trust with my life as well as my life’s work. Plus, I’m getting and giving really good feedback; being part of the creative process in a couple of ways gives me new perspective on both of our efforts.

I never realized how much another person’s input would help me write–I have always been shy about showing my work to someone else, fearing their criticism. But in a way, doing this kind of writers’ club thing helps me brainstorm and not be so stressed about how the novel is going (or sometimes not going). Often, it’s fun to just sit there and talk out an idea over a fried cheese melt and a laptop computer; I get so much brain work done as I form the idea into words, and I also function as a sounding board for my friend’s ideas.

Have You Ever Tried a Writers’ Club?

Let me know in the comments!