Defining writers and writing

This question was posed to me on Facebook the other day and I thought I’d start off 2011 by posting it to you:

“Writing is not for people who…”

Of course this is subjective and there is no right or wrong answer. This is an open-ended question — my favourite kind. You can have a lot of fun with open-ended questions because they don’t pin you down into an either/or answer. You can simply explore… YOU.

I’m wondering what you might recognize about yourself as a writer after you have answered this. Perhaps you don’t even consider yourself to be a writer. Your thoughts (and I’m sure there will be many) will tell you a lot about what is important to you about writing and what challenges writing offers you.

Not only your answer will tell you something; the attitude behind the answer holds so much more. Notice how you feel about this question. Is there resistance? Thoughtfulness? Sarcasm? Humour? Joyfulness?

Do you like the answer you received? Or do you not? And perhaps even… what story have you made up and do you really believe it?

And finally, what do you think about this?:

“Writing is for people who…”

What is the difference in how this question is posed?

Let’s talk….

Photo Credit: Flo-ry

The dance forward

Spider veins clawed under the tip of her beige dress with fuchsia ribbons. Beauty and wisdom danced.

The audience sat in silence as her feet traced shapes in ash with not one mistake, she’d learned to adjust her dance to any situation. And, today’s dance held deep importance.

With traditional Indian melodies ringing into the crowd, each symbolic sentence matched the beating of her heart and followed traces of her feet. The yellow curls on her body made from a turmeric paste marked this celebration of her daughter’s entry into menarche. Hear the pounding beat of womanhood.

* * * * * * * *

Thanks to Jane at Jane Be Nimble for submitting this 9-word creative writing challenge.

Jane, you’ve created a powerful, yet gentle image with these nine simple words, and have captured the essence of this ritual. I can imagine watching her dance — “… each symbolic sentence matched the beating of her heart and followed traces of her feet” — beautiful. And, the word turmeric fell into step seamlessly. :-)

Photo Credit: Brendan Lally

Creative writing challenges

A handful of additional 9-word challenges appeared a few weeks ago in the comment section of this blog. I felt they were too good to hide there and have decided to share them as blog posts. Over the next while I’ll post any that I have.

I’ve bolded the 9 words in the first story; noting that each writer has kept their version to a maximum of 100 words. New ones are welcome too, if anyone feels inspired. Email your submission to me at davina <at> shadesofcrimson <dot> com

Spider Man

The beige theatre fire-curtain rose. The bell was ringing; she knew Alfa man may be a mistake but her turmeric-coloured, thread-spangled dress (a match for her svelte figure) should entice him into her web – shouldn’t it? He was a Romeo though. Could she adjust to his way of life, live under that sentence of ‘what next’, ‘who next’ or even ‘where next’? The audience waited. The show proved glorious; what now as they left together? He jumped into his sparkling polished black Spider and roared off – now she knew what next … darkness, no firmament.

Written by Hilary from Positive Letters

Photo credit: The Car Spy

b

Someone Hand Me A Spider

The audience was seated; the judges ready. This year’s contestants were an even match. Without so much as a sentence spoken, the ringing of the bell signaled the start. Soon the competition was in full swing, but contestant number one’s rice was an unappealing beige against the bright blue bowl. Make no mistake, it was time to adjust the seasoning. Tension mounted as the cook paused momentarily… “Ah yes, turmeric. That’s perfect!” Now he turned to the pot of bubbling oil where his delicate crab puffs were frying and shouted, “Can someone hand me a spider?”

Written by Linda of From Roses to Rainbows

Photo credit: Jonathan Cohen

Thanks Hilary and Linda.

Hilary, her thread-spangled dress and her svelte figure were too good for Spider Man. This is a great dramatic piece with the contrast between the glorious show and Spider leaving at the end. You did a wonderful job with the imagery here — “should entice him into her web”. Love it.

Linda, this reminds me of one of those reality cooking shows; “Iron Chef”, for example. There’s an element of urgency and suspense here. I’m left at the end with the image of a spider being fried along with those crab puffs. Very entertaining read.

Was anyone surprised there weren’t any pictures of a spider used in this post? LOL.

Writing madness

“This is my first book.” I smiled at the man behind the counter as he placed the freshly printed manuscript into a bag. He smiled back, shyly. There was a tiny gleam of admiration in his eyes and I felt 10 feet tall. I wanted to hug everybody; couldn’t seem to wipe the sappy grin off my face.

From the print shop I walked floated to a nearby restaurant where I treated myself to a late breakfast — my favourite — bacon, eggs and home fries.

I was over the moon, sitting there proudly with my manuscript that I had inserted into a plastic binder. I almost cried once… really. I just couldn’t help myself – I’d wanted this SO much. And here it was, in my hands, against all odds as you’ll soon be reading about.

The cover had been printed in full colour (pictured above), thank you to Tibchris on Flickr.com. This is a gorgeous photograph and just what I’d been looking for.

The book looked real. It WAS real! I sat at that table waiting for my order, reading, smiling… glowing with happiness. The reading continued over breakfast and after the plate had been cleared. I barely tasted the bacon, lol.

Just let me write!

Okay, so this is not a full-length novel at 18,500 words; 80 pages double-spaced. It is my pride and joy, born over the Labour Day weekend coincidentally after three days of hard labour. Truthfully, I don’t believe the timing was a coincidence on the part of the organizers of the 3-Day Novel Contest.

As per the contest rules, the writing couldn’t start until midnight on Friday evening. Having only just found out about the contest the day before and having work to finish on Friday, I spent the evening pouring over notes on story structure and trying to come up with a plot idea. By 1 am I was in bed, feeling discouraged after having tossed out my notes.

Saturday morning I walked around my apartment in frustration; sometimes in tears. It wasn’t about wanting to win. It was about wanting to write – desperately!

Fortunately I didn’t have to work and had no family distractions. The morning was perfect; neighbours were away and all was quiet. All I could think about was that hundreds of other writers were busily typing away, crafting their stories and I still had no plot.

I put a photograph of my grandmother on the desk next to my computer and asked for help; “Come on grandma, gimme something.” After resurrecting the idea from the previous day (it wouldn’t let go of me), I finally had enough connecting points to get me to the first plot point… with a few possible scenarios for the ending. By noon, I was typing furiously.

The writing carried me close to the first plot point, magically telling me the story as I typed. It was fascinating! I have no explanation as to where the story came from. I was simply filling in the spaces between the story structure points. I anticipated writing the dialogue to be a challenge and yet, the characters did the talking for me. Thanks Jerome, Rena, Lily and Jack. :-)

By Saturday evening I had a headache but pushed through the writing, not stopping until 1 am. A hot bath on Sunday morning did nothing to relieve the headache that was lingering and getting worse. I tried to write, but couldn’t think or sit at the computer. The pain medication in my cabinet had passed the expiration date by two years. I declined and went back to bed, now fighting nausea in addition to the headache.

By 1 pm on Sunday afternoon I was knocking on my neighbour’s door to ask for aspirin. The writing commenced, though I was pretty sure that I was out of the running because I’d lost two entire mornings of writing time. I had less than 20 pages written.

Still, I wasn’t going to give up. Even if I didn’t come close to the average 100 pages, I would, come hell or high water, at least write to the end of my story by midnight on Monday; that would be winning, in my books. So, I set a goal of 60 to 70 pages and surpassed that goal by dinnertime on Monday. There was enough time to read through and correct any typos I found. By 11:57 pm Serious Undulations was finished.

Serious Undulations

I hit a few blocks in the story after the first plot point. After trying to write the ending first, I gave up and went for a walk. Then, more ideas flew at me, including the title.

I called my friend Jim a number of times, excitedly… “Listen to this!” I’d say, falling all over my words. I imagined I must have sounded like a little child, nattering away and tugging at her parent’s arm. Thanks Jim, for being my sounding board.

The whole process was Out-Of-This-World! I’m extremely grateful for having learned of this opportunity, and for the support of everyone online.

And… thanks to Betsy and her husband Pete from Passing Thru, one of the characters, a chef, cooked up a meal that I’d remembered reading about on her blog: spinach salad with bacon dressing, oven-fried walleye, wild rice stuffing with wild mushrooms. Yum!

Serious Undulations is not something I would have ever imagined myself writing. Set on Bowen Island, where I took my vacation last year, it is a sexy thriller; a story of two women, belly dancers who are caught up in conflict with their husbands and each other. Their emotional turmoil opens them up to explore their sexuality in new ways, leading them and their husbands on a path of, well… serious undulations.

When I returned my landlord’s bottle of aspirin the following day, I gave him a huge hug. He looked a little surprised, lol. If it hadn’t been for his aspirin I don’t believe I would have finished in time. I told him he had played a major role in the writing of this book. Thank you, Jonn.

My downstairs neighbour read it last week and just tonight she returned the manuscript to me… with a card enclosed. On the card she’d written the following:

“What a fantastic read. I couldn’t put it down! It had everything… catchy characters, good plot, passion, drama and suspense. The way you wrote made me feel like I was right there. I was caught off guard and loved that the story is set locally.”

Results won’t be announced until January of 2011, but I feel like I’m already a winner. If this doesn’t win the contest, I’m still planning on promoting and selling this.

This has been a dream come true and this is *just* the beginning.

If you want to write… please, write! Don’t wait for someday. Do it now. Just start…

Have you ever wanted anything as badly as this? So badly that you’ve been moved to tears?

Photo Credit: TibChris

Writing Challenge #8

Linda, from Roses to Rainbows is our next victim volunteer for this creative writing challenge. I’m already hooked on this one just by looking at the photograph. I expect at any minute, to see a wooden raft float past, carrying Huck Finn. Linda’s version of these nine words seems to be the perfect read for a lazy Sunday morning. What do you think?

This is what Linda says about the challenge:

“This was yet another writing challenge that I couldn’t pass up.  I was intrigued by the challenge of taking nine unrelated words and building a story from them.  My thought process is simple.  I write down key words and phrases and let the story tell itself.  I did pretty much the same thing here with these nine words.  I wrote each word down and added words to create phrases.  It was from these phrases that I found the story.  The key phrase was fly fishing.”

* * * * * * * *

As he sat by the river, Timothy tied new lures in anticipation of a weekend of the highest magnitude – fly fishing with his brother Jerome, who’d be driving up tomorrow. Their father, a typography expert, had taught them the art when they were boys, and he would swell with pride each time one of them caught a trout. They continue to share his passion, though it’s bittersweet since his death five years ago. Finished with the lures, Timothy called his dog, Rena, to go inside, and stowed the fishing gear in the closet until tomorrow.

* * * * * * * *

Thank you Linda. This is beautiful and has a real peaceful quality about it. I can appreciate your process of choosing certain words to create phrases and let the story tell itself. It worked very well here. The story flows smoothly and quietly, with no obvious sign that you were guided to use nine specific words.

I find myself remembering long lazy summer afternoons past that were spent sitting by a river just listening to it. There is a metaphor here in the sense that you used the words to hook (or bait — pun intended) the story. I’m curious; do you or have you gone fly fishing?

The Picture
This is the Yadkin River here in NC.  There are actually places along the river good for fly fishing.

Writing Challenge #7

Raul from Alien Ghost has done a swell job at humour for his version of this creative writing challenge. Since he’s bolded the nine words I won’t be listing them this time.

Raul’s process was simple:

“What the process was like?  That was a fun challenge! I wrote several things but decided to go with this one thinking it’ll be funnier and different.”

* * * * * * * *

“Davina, you didn’t specify the typography we can use; I asked Timothy but he will fly to London today and Jerome is still in the closet. I know, with the magnitude of this challenge someone is going to swell with pride, but I don’t want to work myself to death, so decided instead to go out with Rena to have a coffee…sorry.”

* * * * * * * *

Raul has succeeded in creating something very different and funny here, don’t you agree? It makes me wonder if this is the result of some of his Toilet Wisdom. In that post he says, “To the toilet we show our real face.”

I wonder what would have happened if I had specified the type of typography? I wonder what Jerome is doing in the closet and what is in London for Timothy? But most importantly, I wonder what kind of coffee Raul and Rena enjoyed… and if Lily knew about it :-)

Thanks, Raul… this was a hoot!

Photo credit: My wife Lily and I, by Raul.

We’re nearing the end of this creative writing challenge. There are three more to post:

1. The Fishing Trip;
2. Butterflies and Glitter;
3. Timothy Hay;
plus two of mine that I will save for one post at the end.

In the meantime, if you want to practice with another set of nine words, try these:

spider, mistake, beige, ringing, sentence, adjust, match, audience, turmeric