WHY WRITERS NEED A NOTEBOOK.

Almost anything can spark an idea, but as many writers know – if you don’t write down that idea while it’s fresh in your mind, it can easily have taken wing by the time you reach home. Today many of us use electronic devices of some kind or another to write, but one important tool which shouldn’t be neglected is the humble notebook.

A notebook can be any size, although one small enough to carry around in a pocket or bag is useful. I have half a dozen because at one point I kept leaving my notebook at home. (I can tell you exactly how long it takes to race from my favourite coffee hangout to the nearest stationary shop.) Some writers like to indulge themselves and invest in the luxury end of the market and there is a certain gratification in opening a notebook whose cover is an ornately designed piece of art, but currently a 50p notebook suits me fine. So whenever I go out these days, I always check that I’ve packed those two essential items, my trusty notebook and a couple of pens – don’t rely on one, it can run out.

Developing the habit of jotting down observations and descriptions of people and places in your notebook is worthwhile cultivating. A good exercise to practice when you’re outside – the garden, the park, the beach, wherever – is to spend about ten minutes or so writing down what you see, hear and smell.  Notice any actions taking place, the different shades and shapes of objects; are there clouds in the sky, what does the air feel like on your skin (this may be easier in seasons where the weather is not too inclement)? Try to create a written snapshot of what you see. Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation, think like an impressionist painter, it’s all about the moment.

Another use for a notebook is as a diary. Diaries can be a way to explore your emotions and develop a deeper awareness of your internal monologue because when you write, you take much from your own life experience. Both Virginia Woolf and Somerset Maugham kept notebooks which they found invaluable for different reasons.  Maugham because he intended to use what he wrote as a resource for later use, and Woolf often recorded observations about her own writing process.

Notebooks are also good for morning writing, another practice advocated for improving your writing. The theory is that by writing as soon as you wake you are still in contact with that part of your mind which dreams and are able to access your subconscious more easily. Morning writing is freewriting without clustering or a prompt. (This practice needs discipline – groping for a notebook on a dark winter’s morning and simply trying to function without coffee didn’t work for me – but I still do my best writing when I’ve made it downstairs to the warm kitchen - after that coffee!)

The news, wherever you get it from, radio, tv, twitter – even a newspaper, is an endless source of ideas. A story needs tension and conflict and you’ll find plenty in any newcast. You can use your notebook to jot down and collect ideas for later development and, even if you never expand or use much of what you put down, the act of observing and noting down items which interest you are grist for the mill of your writer’s imagination. 

A notebook is for you to use how you wish: freewriting, diary, morning writing, character sketches, beginnings and expansions of ideas, planning the chain of events for your novel – anything and everything. I know that for me, over time, my notebook has become an invaluable tool in my writing journey.

Writing Update.

I’m wondering whether to reduce from two blogs a week to one. Writing the novel and posting a blog twice a week has worked well so far, although everything takes longer than I imagine as research and the gear shift my internal editor makes when I hit the ‘Preview’ button can mean a lot of tweaking . You’ll note the use of the word ‘imagine’ as opposed to 'planning’. Planning isn’t a word I use for time management as this is a skill which I need to acquire because social media interactions also eat up time in the day. I definitely feel the need to ease up and figure out what works best.

My thanks to Paula Grapf for posting a link to a great article where the recommended time for social media was half an hour in the morning and again in the evening, and to  BV Bharati for her post on 'Followers and +'s' which is sharp and funny. 

Today’s Haiku:

SLEEP

siren dreams entice

heavy sleep weights my eyelids –

a losing battle

Useful links:

The generous Adrianna Joleigh is hosting my writer's surgery, so if you have any writing queries, please send them to Teagan K’s Writing Surgery at: writerssurgery@gmail.com

http://bit.ly/11dD1zQ  

Check out Adrianna’s great website at: adriannajoleigh.blogspot.com/        

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri/how-social-media-may-be-k_b_3442145.htm

http://howtowriteagreatnovel.blogspot.in/2013/06/like-community-of-bloggers-lets-make.html

Reading Recommendations:

http://amzn.to/18SbSaG  Gold Dragon Haiku  - my first attempt at publishing poetry!

Join me on Twitter at: teagankearney@modhaiku

To all story lovers out there, good reading, and to those of you who write, good writing.

WHY ASPIRING WRITERS SHOULD TAKE A CREATIVE WRITING COURSE.

A.M. Homes, winner of this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction with her novel, May We Be Forgiven, completed her Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop; Joe Dunthorpe (Submarine, Wild Abandon) won the Society of Authors' Encore award and studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia; Anne Enright, Booker prize winner and author of The Gathering is another ex-graduate of the University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing Course; S. J. Watson wrote a novel, which later became his best selling novel Before I Go to Sleep, during the  six months of 2009 on the Faber Academy's inaugural Writing a Novel course. 

I think you get the picture. Of course, it’s unrealistic to think that by taking a course you will automatically arrive at a point of genius, or that it’s impossible to write a book without taking a course because there is plenty of evidence that demonstrates this can be done.

Yet being able to write a sentence and having a story to tell still doesn’t guarantee you the ability to write a good book that others will want to read. There is the craft aspect to writing. So here are six good reasons to commit yourself to taking a creative writing course.

1. You’ll receive a professional critique of your work from someone who is interested in seeing you make progress. Your tutor will have professional qualifications, been in the business of writing longer than you and have a wealth of experience. You’ll hear what’s working and most importantly, where you need to improve. 

2. You meet and make friends with other writers. You have the opportunity to connect with people who will give you feedback on your writing long after the course is over. You can make friends for life. 

3. A good writing course is a safe place to start showing your writing to others and gain confidence in your abilities. It is hard to put your work out into the public arena, but if you’re serious about your writing, it’s a step you have to take at some point. Most courses include peer critiques and you learn what aspects to cover when giving feedback.

4. Meeting course deadlines for assignment submission dates is a great way to develop what’s called the ‘writerly habit’. You have to write. You can’t put it off (well, yes, you can - but you paid for the course and you want to write, don’t you?) so you push yourself and get that story finished.

5. You have the opportunity to try out other forms of writing as many courses cover more than just fiction. There are often sections on life writing (biography/autobiography), poetry and some offer the chance to try your hand at play or screenwriting. I know several writers who discovered hitherto unknown abilities in areas they would never have attempted otherwise, and which they’ve continued to develop after their courses were over.

6. All those assignments and exercises you’ve done are now a resource for your future writing. After your course is finished, you can pick up and rework those stories, taking on board your tutor’s critiques and expanding them beyond the assignment word counts – which by the way is one of the quickest ways to hone your editing skills. You’d be surprised at how writing a short story of 1,000 words will eliminate any tendency towards verbosity. 

I know attending a creative writing course at university – like those mentioned at the beginning of this post - is something that most people, for reasons of time, money, location and other life commitments aren’t able to consider. But there are any many local colleges which run excellent courses, and there are online correspondence courses which you can fit into your life. 

Taking a creative writing course doesn’t guarantee you success either, but what it does do, apart from the advantages listed above, is send your subconscious the message that you’re taking this writing business seriously.

Writing Update.

My thanks to everyone who took advantage of the free promotion and downloaded my ebook Gold Dragon Haiku from Amazon, especially the members of Google+ Support a Writer community who really did support my efforts. Thank you Alana, Adrianna, Frank, Peter and everyone else who tweeted and gave support. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that your work is being read. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

I’m still waiting for my second beta reader to get back to me, which is fine as I’m not yet ready to start again. I’m enjoying editing last year’s nano effort. It’s interesting to come back to a piece of writing after seven months. Sometimes I’m pleased and I think, wow, did I really write that? And then again I come across another section and blame that one on the nano.

NEW VENTURE!!

I received an offer from the generous Adrianna Joleigh to place a link on her website to my blog. Out of the conversation which followed an idea was hatched and I’m really pleased to announce (wow, that sounded official) the launching of a new service, hosted on Adrianna’s website, to anybody who wishes to use it: 

Teagan K’s Writing Surgery.

You may well wonder what is a writing surgery? Well, the goal is to offer help and guidance by providing a place where you can ask questions – of any kind – about your own writing or writing in general and I will try to answer and help you out. If I’m unable to sort your problem, I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction. 

However, I regret this doesn’t include editing or critiquing. As a writer and blogger myself, there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to read and give critiques on others’ work.

I promise to try and answer your questions as soon as I can. Please be patient.

So, thank you again, Adrianna, and writers, send in your questions to:
writerssurgery@gmail.com

http://adriannajoleigh.com/2013/06/11/teagan-kearneys-writers-surgery-qa/

The Open University is one of the greatest online educational institutions and runs several brilliant online Creative Writing courses. There are online forums, the opportunity for face to face tutorials, and tutors who are available for phone/email contact throughout the course.

http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/a215/index.shtml

This is an interesting article featuring some of the writers mentioned above: 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jan/18/what-creative-writing-course-taught-me

Join me on Twitter at:

teagankearney@modhaiku

To all story lovers out there, good reading, and to those of you who write, good writing.

PLAY IT (OR, IN THIS CASE, WRITE IT) AGAIN...

Repetition can be used to enhance your writing as incorporating a particular image etc., works with memory enabling readers to make subtle connections throughout a story. The literary term for this kind of repetition is leit-motif defined as ‘a recurring device loosely linked with a character, setting, or event’. 

A leit-motif is something concrete, it's not abstract like theme – although it may be used to underscore the theme – it’s a detail, something small but which runs through the narrative appearing now and then creating a pattern of meaning.

The image of the green light in the distance in F. Scott’s The Great Gatsby is often quoted as a classic leit-motif, where it symbolizes his dream of being with Daisy. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck similarly uses the image of a small farm as a leit-motif but this time it is a literal dream. Often, when George and Lenny speak of the farm, other characters - with the same yearning - are drawn into the dream.

Shakespeare uses the moon as a leit-motif in Midsummer Night's Dream. Here it lets the audience know that scenes connected with the fairy world are about to appear. The bard also uses language in the form of the phrase fair is foul, and foul is fair throughout Macbeth as a leit-motif.

Sound can be used as a leit-motif. A train in the distance, or a church bell can be used to highlight separations or ceremonies such as weddings or funerals. Repeated physical movements can also be used as leit-motifs – Macbeth again – with the repeated washing of hands which links the action to the crimes committed. 

Films, of course, make great use of music as leit-motifs, after all the phrase was first applied to music; just think of the music accompanying the appearance of the shark in Jaws and you see how effective this device can be. The phrase Play it Again, Sam along with the song, acts as a leit-motif for Rick and Ilsa's love in Casablanca.

As with flashbacks and foreshadowing, this literary device needs to be used with a subtle light hand. You don’t want these connections to leap out at readers, you want the associations to form gradually in the their minds over the course of the story. 

Writing Update:

I'm enjoying editing last year's nano - working slowly but steadily. As long as I'm writing, the world makes sense to me. 

Today’s Haiku: (from Gold Dragon Haiku)

COFFEE HAIKU

Decaffeinated

soya latte small to go –

shop windows beckon

(Shameless promotion coming up...)

My poetry book Gold Dragon Haiku is available as a free Kindle ebook and you can download it from 7^th – 11^th June. I would love it if you could take advantage of this promotion, read, and if you enjoy it, post a review (and have a bit of patience while I promote it over the weekend).

Here is the link (I managed to sort the bitly thingy) where you can download my book for free from 7^th – 11^th June. http://amzn.to/18SbSaG

Join me on Twitter at:

teagankearney@modhaiku

For all story lovers out there, good reading, and for those of you who write, good writing.

THE RHYTHM OF WRITING.

The experience of writing is no less subject to rhythm than any other activity. After all, if everything on this planet, including the planet itself, moves to a rhythm, whether it’s annual, seasonal or daily, it only makes sense that creativity also possesses an innate rhythm.

It seems to me that the rhythm of writing a story, from the original concept through fusion of ideas and planning to the finishing point, is like a wave. Once the process of transferring the story from imagination to page is concluded, the writer, like the wave which has crashed on to the beach with its energy spent, has completed the cycle and starts over again.

Although my story isn’t yet finished the creative wave, fueled by my enthusiasm to write it, has crested and the energy invested will (hopefully) carry it to shore. My novel is currently with beta readers (I think of it as on vacation with friends, although a check up with x-rays, CT scans etc,. is probably more apt) and I’m missing the daily rhythm that sitting down to write gives my life.

Mmm, yes, there’s an endless list of jobs which need attention, but the thing is I don't want to stop writing. So I churned over my options. Should I write a short story? Should I work on one of several projects simmering gently away on the back burner? I really need to do some more drawing...

But I also need to breathe out. Take a step back. On the other hand, I’m aware of the pressure time exerts. So I turned to Stephen King’s On Writing to see what he advises. His recommendation is that ‘your mind and imagination.....have to recycle themselves, at least in regard to this one particular work.’ Now King is a prolific writer talking about a first draft which he’s written in months. His suggestion is to take at least six weeks and absorb yourself in another project (or life) during this time.

However, I’m a slow writer who has taken a long, long time to arrive at this point. But I understand why having a serious length of time away from a piece of work is important – you need perspective.

Decisions, decisions.

I’ve decided I’m not going to think about the book for at least two weeks. Ideally I’d like to leave it for a month - can’t afford six. I received some encouraging feedback from  my first beta reader on what works and where there’s room for improvement, so when I do return to the novel, it will be to make revisions with a fresh eye.

I think my writing rhythm is becoming clear. After a long period of immersion in one story, while it’s resting, I work on the next. When the first one arrives back, the second is put aside. This isn’t a rhythm set by any clock and it may be a rhythm which works only for me, but as long as it works, that’s what is important.

That decision sorted, what to do about the urge to write? Well, there is the blog, which is a valid form of writing but that’s a different conversation with readers. So, I dug up my efforts from last year’s nanowrimo. Of course, I’d barely read a sentence or two before the story became alive in my imagination and the urge to edit kicked in and what to occupy my writing self with was obvious.

(I’m going to plug the nanowrimo here because participating in such a creative endeavour, is not only a great way to put down a first draft, but also strengthens - and tests - your determination to write.  The discipline needed to achieve a good solid number of words a day, which may be more than your usual daily efforts, is a challenge but what a feeling of euphoria you get when you can manage it – plus you have the benefit of another potential novel.)

The question of what I’ll call my blog, now titled ‘my first novel etc.,’ when I get to the stage of a second novel is something I’ve not considered. I’ll have to change something - working on my second novel no working title yet - though that doesn’t have quite the same ring. Nonetheless, it’s a problem I’ll be very happy to face.

I’d love to know what other writers out there do when you finish a project.

Gold Dragon Haiku will be on a free promotion from 7^th June – 11^th June, so please take advantage.

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=gold+dragon+haiku

mikec@blogboy2 gives concisely listed tips for blogging at:

http://ht.ly/lENp7

Join me on Twitter at:

teagankearney@modhaiku

To all story lovers out there, good reading, and to those of you who write, good writing.