Manage Yourself Past Writer's Block

Let's be honest - I hate time management.  I hate the thought of planning out my days, of regimenting my writing.  I prefer the idea of inspiration, like breaking the rules and ignoring your muse. But there are days when even that doesn't work. That's where time management comes in.  And the acronym CREATE (Chunk, Read, Eat, Associate, Time, and Endeavor).

Yes, you can manage your time.  But it might get messy.  Not like this picture, which is disturbingly optimistic in it's portrayal of personal control.  (Original image courtesy of Stuart Mills on FreeDigitalPhotos.net.)

Revision: Realizing the Full Potential of the Story

Revising a short story can be both challenging and rewarding. In a way, you have a lot more control once you've completed the first draft - our goal is to make the most of that control in order to refine the story.  Here's a look at how my approach to revision has changed over time.

Journal Your Inner Character

For fiction writers, the journal is a complicated subject. Moments spent documenting one's own life can be viewed as a selfish joy, a way of procrastinating on "serious" work for publication. It can also serve as a portal to the inner self, a way of examining the human experience. From established authors, I have heard both sides. I once knew a poet who felt that spending hours and hours on a journal was a waste of time. Another author once wrote that journaling detracted from the creative energy she needed for her fiction. On the flip side, a very literary couple I know keeps dream journals. They write down all they can remember from their dreams. They've said that at first, it's hard to remember much, but the more you access these memories and write them down the more accessible they become. It's as if you can train the mind to remember those elusive thoughts which are normally relegated to the dustbin of waking.

I'm afraid I've never tried a dream journal, and the journals that I have kept of life have never been as regular or as thorough as I would like. Before I took writing seriously, journaling was an occasional aside to myself, usually a way to gripe on paper about the girls (or lack of girls) in my life. As I became a better student of writing, it annoyed me that my journal entries were so vacuous. Occasionally I made attempts to go "in-depth" with a particular subject - a family concern, for instance, or a memory that I very much wanted to cherish dozens of years in the future.

Unfortunately, desire plays a strange game with motivation. Generally, I've found that a truly vivid memory tends to burn itself into my consciousness, and the "lesser" memories tend to drift under the surface of my waking thoughts. This sounds normal enough, at least until I go back and read the journal entries. A particularly telling article was an essay I once for the one journalism class I took. "Why I Write," it was titled - even now, I can't remember having written it. I can tell it must have been late at night, though, and under a deadline - it has the sound and feel of a journal entry. The entire article revolves around the girl I "loved" at the time, a friend of mine who lived five states away and who I mostly knew through e-mail. "Why I Write," it was titled, as if her distance and our e-mails would be enough to explain why I put fingers to keyboard every day. But reading this essay again last week, I discovered a depth of feeling that I had forgotten regarding this friend. It's been years now since she and I last talked or e-mailed - we barely knew each other. But for a few months my junior year, she was the headline of my life, the front-page story of the day, the reason I looked forward to waking up and the reason I never wanted to go to sleep.

Am I proud of my journal entries? Not particularly. Are they honest? Sure. Do they reveal the inner depths of my character? Most days I hope not. But these brief records of life - of my personal life - reveal the richness of the human experience. They rest like slow-release time capsules, waiting for those brief moments when I have a chance to leaf through and read about the person I once was, the person I've always been. The details are always so mundane that I forgot them, but they were pivotal enough to write.

So now, as I contemplate another night of typing fiction or typing a journal entry, I have to reflect on what journal entries have actually done for my writing. I like to think that I am a creative writer, that the thoughts I put on the page are unique and uniquely mine. But the source of these thoughts is unclear. Are they subconscious meanderings, the deep waves hidden far beneath the surface? Or are they the steady breeze of the ocean air sending laughter like ripples across the bay? I have my guesses, and so do the psychologists, but no one truly knows the source of great writing. No one can bottle it, there is no formula, and selling your soul works only until the director calls "cut!"

So when you reach a point in your fiction writing that you cannot write more, a moment when you don’t know what your protagonist should do or think, it might be time for a journal entry. The words might not seem important, and you might never share them, but those words are your life. They are the front-page story of your day. And if you want to write stirring fiction, the kind of work that truly explores that hidden continent the human mind, then what better foreign correspondent will you find than your journal?

1-2-Writing Workshops Online
About Ryan Edel

Inspiration for Creative Writing

I once asked my classmates in an online workshop about their habits for "finding inspiration." I think I asked "what do you do to get in the writing mindset." The first response I got back was "You should strike that thought from your mind." According to my classmate, no one who wants to be a writer should wait for inspiration or "the right mindset" - you have to just sit down and write. The next day, our teacher chimed in her complete agreement. Writing, as she pointed out, is a daily habit.

Unfortunately, those weren't the answers I was looking for. Mostly I wanted to start conversation, but also I was looking to get an idea of the sort of writers my classmates were. Writers come in all shapes and sizes, and the reasons for why they write reveal a great deal about their personalities. Some write for catharsis, others for the sheer joy of words on the page, a few here and there for the sadistic pleasure of writing a horrible end to people they don't like (not that any readers here would do such a thing...right?)

But most writers don't exactly know why they write. I can give ideas as to why I write, but no one reason is "the" reason. But the tricks I use for inspiration, those are facts. For a long time, I only had simple tricks. Sometimes I'd take a break and watch a movie. Usually I had a good book sitting by my computer. Every once in a while, when nothing was flowing, I'd play a video game - I don't know why, but it helps.

But then I took a freewriting workshop. For those of you unfamiliar with freewriting, it's a way to channel your unconscious thoughts directly onto the page. To freewrite, you sit down and set a timer for maybe ten or fifteen minutes (you can go for longer or shorter, if you like). During those minutes, you write. You write fast. You write the first thing that comes to mind and the next thing that comes to mind and you edit nothing. Just let it flow. Outlandish, unusual, uncomfortable - whatever the thought is, get it on paper and move on to the next one.

From freewriting, I discovered a whole new meaning for the word "inspiration." Instead of waiting on an outside stimulus to "get my mind going," I learned that the greatest stimuli come from deep within, like the deep ocean waves you never see or feel until they come rumbling to shore.

I've taken a few freewriting seminars, but the course that introduced me was a week-long Amherst Method residency taught by Pat Schneider. Pat's Amherst Method is a complete package for learning to write from within - she incorporates freewriting with guidelines to maintain an open and accepting environment for her writers to share their work. If you can, I highly recommend taking an Amherst Method workshop with one of the many certified instructors nationwide.

If you can't make it to a workshop due to time and/or distance, Pat has two very helpful books on the Amherst Method. Writing Alone and With Others and The Writer As an Artist: A New Approach to Writing Alone & with Others are both great resources for getting in touch with your inner self through the Amherst Method. Also, I have heard very good recommendations for the works of Natalie Goldberg. Her most well-known book on this subject is Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Written in 1986, this book explores Goldberg's own experiences with inspiration and how to capture it on the page - Pat Schneider recommended it to our class as a way to become immersed in the methods of freewriting.

If you have a chance, take a freewriting workshop or take a look at some of these books. And let me know what you think. What do you do for for inspiration? How do you get "in the mood" for writing? Or have you found a motivation that keeps you sitting at your writing desk every morning?

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About Ryan Edel

Learn to Write Creatively

I saw a question online about how to start creative writing. It's a very good question, but even many writers fail to take it seriously. I think this is because most non-writers fail to accept the short answer - writers must write. Usually they must write a lot. So when someone comes up and asks how to start creative writing, many writers lack the patience to really explain where to begin.

The best way to start creative writing is to find a piece of paper or a napkin and start jotting down whatever comes to mind. If you have a specific story you want to write, start writing down what it's about. If you hear a snippet of dialogue in your mind, or you see something special about your main character, definitely write that. Anything you think of can become a valuable part of your story.

Next, start writing your story. If you're on a roll, just keep going on the same piece of paper. Write for as long as you can - if you only have five minutes at lunch, that's enough to get started. As long as you come back - even if only for a few minutes each day - you can keep building the story. Making a daily habit of writing will stimulate your imagination and help you take your story in new directions. Don't wait for inspiration - often, inspiration strikes when you least expect it, and the best way to find more is to put pencil to paper and to keep going until you get there.

Later, when you've finished your story, I recommend finding someone to share your story with. A parent, a friend, someone to give supportive advice. When you feel like you want to get more specific feedback on your stories, find a local writers' group or sign up for an online workshop. Fellow writers can provide helpful advice for how to improve your writing while also encouraging you to keep going.

The most important thing, though, is to keep writing. Even on days when you don't like what you've written or someone else doesn't like it, write some more. Every day is a new chance to develop your creative voice.

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About Ryan Edel

The Beginning Writer Workshop

I'm trying out the free-lance writing life in Raleigh while bartending on the side. Ends don't quite meet, but I feel like I'm actually living my dream for the first time. It's a great feeling, even as I put in twelve-and-fourteen hour days at my self-imposed "office."

There's a drawback to "living the dream," however. After many years of trying to convince my parents that writing is what I'm meant to do, I've had accept that they don't quite understand. I'm sure it's a common problem though. For a beginning writer - as for the beginning artist in any field - it's hard convincing your parents that starving is the right thing to do. Starting this website, to my practical mother, would be an even more foolhardy endeavor. I'm attempting to teach writing while hardly established myself. I'm applying to MFA programs, but I don't have one under my belt just yet. From the perspective of the mother who expected her son to excel in engineering, I'm throwing away both time and talent to a lost cause.

Why, then, do I write? Why endure the questions? Why not give in and find something lucrative? I've always been decent at math, and chemistry never was very hard for me (at least not until I took engineering classes - that was fun...). Why should someone who could make a living in another field want to be a writer?

The simple answer is that I can't not write. When the chemistry became to hard, I used the structures to describe my science fictional space alloy. When the differential equations were incomprehensible, I wove the squiggles into the setting of a new story. When my own life stopped making sense, I wrote out what I could. It's become an unbreakable habit - incestuous, almost. When I get tired of working on whichever novel is in progress, I'll take a break by writing a short story. Sometimes I have to pry myself away from the keyboard just to make sure I get my requisite hour of air and sunlight. Somedays I don't make it outside before dark.

Naturally, I want to share this unusual passion for words on a screen - I'm launching an online creative writing workshop. The focus will be on helping beginning writers learn the fundamentals of fiction writing while building the confidence to really experiment with their work. It feels ironic, almost. I'm barely published - my first story will see print later this year. My other stories are still in the submission stages. My first half-decent novel needs a cover-letter before so I can hunt for an agent. And yet I want to teach others.

Like any writer, I know the milestones in my work. I have a feeling of when and why I learned certain lessons at certain times. And I've made some major breakthroughs recently - the writing is beginning to "click" like it never did before.

My "sudden" progress is a combination of thousands of hours logged at the keyboard and time spent in some excellent workshops. I've learned valuable lessons from other writers and begun applying these lessons to my work. These are lessons in writing that I can pass on directly. Just as importantly, though, I've taken a few workshops that didn't help me as much. I've met writers who provided bad advice. And I can apply the lessons from these less-than-helpful seminars to provide lessons that are better structured and feedback that is targeted to the differing needs of each writer.

I have two goals in these workshops. My primary goal is to lead writing exercises that will help writers see stories from the inside out. This involves critiquing the work of others, it involves writing stories to specific prompts, it involves viewing your own writing in new ways. My second goal in is to illustrate the key guidelines for teaching creative writing. I believe that anyone who can write well can teach, but teaching creative writing is itself an art. It is a complicated process that involves both an understanding of the art and a connection with the artist. Many of the best writers and teachers, unfortunately, are not both.

I believe that much of the problem is an issue of focus – the best writers often never teach until after they’ve become successful authorities in their field, and then they have no one above them to guide them in how to run a workshop. The curriculum I'm assembling now is designed to overcome this. Starting young, I believe that beginning writers can quickly grasp the essential rules of teaching craft. By mastering these rules, a writer becomes both better with words and develops an affinity for helping other writers. And it is this bond - the ability to see and understand a human being through the words on the page - that defines a true writer.

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About Ryan Edel