Karinwritesdangerously

“Faith is always an adventure.” Elsie Chamberlain

“Faith is the centerpiece of a connected life. It allows us to live by the grace of invisible strands. It is a belief in a wisdom superior to our own. Faith becomes a teacher in the absence of fact.” Terry Tempest Williams 

Faith: it’s an uncharted territory when it comes to our writing. But consider for a moment some of the many ways it’s defined in my trusty Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary: 1) allegiance to duty or a person: loyalty; 2) fidelity to one’s promises; 3) sincerity of intentions; 4) firm belief in something for which there is no proof. 

Pondering these many meanings of faith, I’m struck by how important it is for us to have faith in our work and the sincerity of our intentions in pursuing that work. Every day, as we turn to the page, we encounter obstacles, internal and external, that can make us question the value of what we write and our faith in our ability to say what we want to say. 

We may find that our mind is sluggish, our energy is low, and that our spirits are flagging — any or all of these can shake our faith in our ability to go on. we may find ourselves coping with rejection or confusing feedback that seems to muddy the waters instead of giving us clarity. Or like me, some of us may be struggling with a rough revision that seems to be falling apart instead of coming together.

Any one of these obstacles can test our faith in what we’re trying to accomplish on the page. And if a few of them hit us all at once — well, that can be really tough. And since there’s no solid assurance — no proof — that any of our efforts will actually bear fruit, what is there to fall back on? What can we really rely on? 

Here’s the answer I’ve come up with: Faith in our ability to be faithful to our work. What does being faithful mean? It means being Loyal, constant, staunch, steadfast, resolute. 

So the next time we hit a road bump — and there’s surely one ahead — let’s hold fast to the sincere intentions we set for ourselves when we first started whatever project we’re working on. Let’s be faithful to those intentions. Let’s be faithful scribes—and write on.

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“We do not write to be understood. We write in order to understand.” C.S. Lewis

What wisdom there is in these words! While many of us do, in fact, write to be understood—to share who we are and what we know—in the end, all good writing is a voyage of discovery. One of the greatest gifts writing gives us—and our readers—is the gift of getting to the heart of things, of understanding.

When you think about it, writing is more than just explaining or describing. As Dinty Moore says so well in “The Mindful Writer,“ 

“To write requires learning, discovering, examining, interrogating. Writing is the process of putting down words, then stepping back, considering those words, trying to understand them.

“What have you written? What does it say? What does it fail to say? Do you even agree with what you have written?”

So often, our writing surprises us, doesn’t it? Once we set something down on paper, we see that it’s not set in stone. It may be true or not true. It may be only half true and need to be added to. Writing is above all else, an act of discovery:

We discover that our first idea needs changing or fine-tuning.

We discover that our characters are not who we think they are.

We discover that an idea doesn’t really reflect where we are now.

We discover that there’s much more to say and understand.

Wonderful isn’t it? To think that our words take us to hidden and exciting places in our own minds? That they free us to explore and grow and change—and to share what we’ve learned with readers?

In the end, I think writing dangerously is more expansive than our friend C.S. Lewis suggests. I believe that often we write to be understood and to understand. How about you? Write on!

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These I’ve Loved

These I’ve loved since I was little:
Wood to build with or to whittle,
Wind in the grass and falling rain,
First leaves along an April lane,
Yellow flowers, cloudy weather,
River-bottom smell, old leather,
Fields newly ploughed, young corn
in rows,
Back-country roads and cawing crows,
Stone walls with stiles going over,
Daisies, Queen Anne’s lace, and clover,
Night tunes of crickets, frog songs, too,
Starched cotton cloth, the color blue,
Bells that ring from white church steeple,
Friendly dogs and friendly people.

Elizabeth-Ellen Long

“The best advice for a budding writer is to ignore all advice.”

“A book, if it’s going to have any chance of succeeding…it’s got to be vibrant, and alive, it’s got to have a beating heart, it’s got to be organic. The only way you can get that is to have one mind working on it, which is yours.” Lee Child

With more than 60 million copies available in 60 languages and 96 countries, Lee knows how to spin a yarn — and how to create a hero with enduring appeal. Here’s how he once described Jack Reacher in an interview: “He’s also the descendant of a very ancient tradition: the noble loner, the knight errant, the mysterious stranger, who has shown up in stories forever… He is a truly universal character. I think I lucked into a very fortunate position, where I’m writing the modern iteration of a character who has existed for thousands of years.”

At a talk called “Tell, Don’t Show: Why Writing Rules are Mostly Wrong,” Child offered his views on how to keep readers reading:

Forget ‘Show, Don’t Tell’: Writers are storytellers — and that’s what readers depend on us to do; they don’t care about telling or showing, they just want to be carried through a book. “There is nothing wrong with just telling the story,” “So liberate yourself from that rule.”

Ask a question: According to Child, as human beings, we are hardwired to want the answers to questions. “The way to write a thriller is to ask a question a the beginning, and answer it at the end….For me the end of a book is just as exciting as it is for a reader.” When he writes a thriller, Child doesn’t know the answer to the question it poses. He just takes it scene by scene, throwing in different obstacles as he figures out the answer along with his readers. 

Just write: Ultimately, Child says, all the writing rules people offer make crafting a book more complicated than it needs to be — and they can get in the way of reaching your readers: “My method is just to start on page one and keep going…” Write on, Lee!

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Advertising. Bloodstained. Cold-blooded. Fashionable. Hobnob. Moonbeam. New-fangled. Puking. Swagger. Worthless. Zany.
Words coined by Shakespeare

It’s been more than 450 years since Shakespeare put pen to paper. His birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23rd. In his honor, let’s ponder this little-known, but amazing, fact: The Bard is said to have invented between 1,700 and 3,000 words. No wonder he didn’t need a dictionary — he practically invented it!

Will’s not alone in the word-coining universe: George R.R. Martin, author of the incredibly popular Game of Throne series invented a whole language called Dothraki. In Dothraki, for example, “small clothes” translates into “underwear.” Bet you didn’t know that! See how much you learn reading KWD?

But I digress. Back to The Bard of Avon. Surely, our boy Will must have had tons of fun dreaming up all his freshly minted words and word combos. Just in case you want to do the same, here’s an overview of five of Wily Will’s tricky wordsmithing techniques:*

Verbing (changing nouns into verbs): When Cleopatra said, “I’ll unhair thy head!” she was verbing. When we say, parenting, shoulder the blame or table that motion, so are we.

Adjectivizing (think I just invented a new word!) — transforming verbs into adjectives. Example: After you filter water, it turns into filtered water. Barefaced, blushing and gloomy are all adjectives coined by Shakespeare.

Combining words: Clever new word combinations crop up in the media all the time and making these up has to be a blast. A few examples: Youniverse, Brangelina, tween, and authorpreneur. A variation, dubbed “portmanteaus,” refers to words that blend the sounds and meanings of two words. Blog, for example, is a shortened version of weblog (website plus log). A few more: jeggings (jeans plus leggings), screenager, and a personal favorite coined by Alex when he was four: freelax as in, “Just freelax, Mom!”

Agglutination: Whoa! Someone needs to invent a better word for this process – adding prefixes and suffixes. This results in words like: declutter and commoditize. A few gems from Shakespeare: discontent; invulnerable, metapmorphize.

Cold-blooded coining: Some words just spring from nowhere. A few Shakespeare conjured up one morning or afternoon when he was tired of writing Hamlet: addiction, lonely, and manager. Who knew?

Any words you or a friend have invented? I love to hear about them! Now that I’ve stoked your creative fires, let’s all write on!

* Kudos for an online story by Demian Farnworth called “Shakespeare’s 5 Rules for Making Up Words (to Get Attention)” from which I blushingly purloined these fashionable techniques and many of the zany examples.

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Flowers, green grass, Spring sunshine bursting with Vitamin D. With all this surrounding us, sometimes it’s hard to focus on writing. And with the days getting longer and longer, I don’t know about you, but adjusting my internal time clock has been challenging. For help in revving up, I turned to my trusty stack of Woman’s World magazines to find some easy energy boosters for us all:

Eat your oatmeal: Besides being low-cal and fiber-rich, oatmeal is a great source of B6, which activates the feel-good hormone, serotonin. You can get an even bigger boost by adding nuts and berries. And here’s another trick I’ve learned: If you’re like me and enjoy having a morning smoothie for breakfast, try adding a quarter-cup of dry oatmeal to it for some slow-burning protein.

Snack on sunflower seeds: If you’re prone to midmorning or afternoon slumps, you might be tempted to grab an energy bar or a snack that’s high in sugar. A better bet: munch on sunflower seeds. They’re rich in magnesium, which fights fatigue. Other magnesium-rich foods you can snack on for quick energy: pumpkin seeds, avocados, spinach, almonds, peanuts and cashews. Another slump-buster: combine a protein and complex carb like whole-grain crackers and cheese or peanut butter. This combo can give you an energy boost that lasts for hours.

Catch up on C: One in three Americans suffer from low levels of vitamin C according to experts. Since this vitamin helps cells convert food into energy, a shortfall can lead to fatigue. Eating a serving of citrus or taking 500 mg. of C daily can boost your energy in just three weeks. Other sources of C: tomatoes, broccoli, peppers, and leafy vegetables.

Snag a snooze: There’s loads of evidence that taking a short nap in the afternoon can recharge your battery. One study found that astronauts who took a 40-minute nap improved their performance by almost 35% and their alertness by 100%. So if you work at home, you might try this easy and enjoyable energizer. 

If you have any energy boosters that work for you, I’d love to share them. Write on! 

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As writers, we all know that words matter. And when it comes to our own inner dialogue and self-talk, we can all use a boost. A can-do attitude is a powerful asset we can bring to the page. So here’s some advice from a sports expert we can tailor to our own needs:

“Athletes can use positive self-talk to combat the negative effects of negative self-talk,” according to Patrick Hammond, a coach specializing in performance psychology. “Such encouragement can come from both internal and external sources.”

Hammond suggests pinpointing exactly what motivates you, so that the self-talk messages you give yourself are primed to pack plenty of punch and feel familiar. He also notes that “trigger words” can be especially effective in bolstering positive thinking during tough moments. As he put it, “Trigger words allow coaches, fans, and the athletes themselves to communicate clear messages and trigger positive self-talk.” For maximum impact, these phrases should be short and sweet.

“Trigger words” and phrases are a tool I use all the time: They often give me a shot of energy during my writing sessions and help me when I hit a rough patch. Just to give you the idea, here are a few phrases I find helpful when I’m writing:

My words flow like honey.
A relaxed mind is a creative mind.
Ideas come to me.
Now I’m going to concentrate as hard as I can.
I have everything I need.
I have a passion for completion.
Onward, with velocity!

Feel free to experiment with any or all of these phrases and see if they work for you. Whenever I find a motivating phrase I like, I jot it down on a colored index card. I have a stack of these and sometimes thumb through them and pick out one that appeals to me in the moment. How about you? Are there “trigger” words or phrases that you find inspire your writing and help you keep going? I’d love to hear them! Write on!

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“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”

“It’s the job that’s never started that takes the longest to finish.”

“A pen is to me as a beak is to a hen.”

“Not all those who wander are lost.”
JRR Tolkein

“Not all those who wander are lost” — what an inspiring and consoling thought from that master wordsmith, JRR Tolkein! We’ve all been there: things seem to perk along and suddenly, thump! crash! crunch! thud! Everything tumbles to the ground in a muddle. 

When this happens, it’s helpful to remember that you are not lost, but wandering — you are finding your way, only it may not be exactly the way that you expected or envisioned. I’ve done my share of wandering in the forest of words and here are a few things I’ve learned that may be helpful if you find yourself in a similar situation:

Wandering isn’t a waste: When you find that you’ve somehow fallen off the path you were on, you first reaction may be to panic and feel that you are losing momentum. But consider this: the path you were on may have been a hidebound, limited one that couldn’t supply you with what you need to discover to make your work better, truer, deeper. So don’t freeze, “freelax” as Alex used to say. Trust that something new and exciting awaits you.

Wandering can be refreshing: Sometimes, we can become almost mechanical in the way we approach a project we happen to be in when things start to fall apart. This can be a sign that we aren’t bringing as much creativity as we’re capable of to the job at hand. Being forced to halt our forward march may be showing us that we are putting too much head and not enough heart into what we’re writing. 

Wandering can be wonderful: If we can let go of the fear factor and jump into the mud puddle instead of stepping over it, we can rediscover the fun and sense of wonder that make wordsmithing such a joy. So don’t be afraid to dive in and get messy — and write on!

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Viewing the Waterfall at Mount Lu

Sunlight streaming on Incense Stone kindles violet smoke;

far off I watch the waterfall plunge to the long river,

flying waters descending straight three thousand feet,

til I think the Milky Way has tumbled from the

ninth height of Heaven.

—Li Po

« There’s nothing that leads to more wasteful expenditure of the creative energy than to depend on the verdict of others. » Thornton Wilder

Today, April 17, is the birthday of the amazing author Thornton Wilder; he was born in 1897. He is the only writer to win Pulitzers for both fiction and drama. He won three of them—for his novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and for his plays, Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth.

Here, I’ve gathered some telling comments from his collected letters. I hope you’ll mine them for the gold they may offer you!

On the mystery of the creative process:

“I distrust bringing upward to the conscious analytical level, in myself (in relation to my own works) the various processes and influences which enter my novels and plays. I have always assumed that every artist is a tireless critic–a selector, a rejector, a discriminator–but that those operations take place–as it were–“in the dark.” The practice of writing seems to me to be the gradual acquisition of ever increased experience, in the organization of such thought and material—an experience which frees him from the consciousness of “fabrication” and opens his mind more and more to the appearance of spontaneous and ‘lyric’ expression.

 “Hence, I do not look back on my works: do not re-read them. I even become ill at ease when I recall them. “Forward!” “Let’s make another.”

On where “good ideas” come from:

“You are still haunted by some notion that each good idea is a haphazard descent form the skies–yes, it is also that–but in addition to gratitude to the skies one has the legitimate expectation that all the dedicated work of one’s previous years are also there as support and incitement. This is the popular misunderstanding of the word ‘inspiration’: all work is breath from without, but it is also the reward of being ready–for years–for hundreds of previous inbreathings.”

On “failures” on the public front:

“I was contracted to A and C. Bond for a second novel: They almost turned it down because they felt it was written ‘for a small over-cultivated circle of readers,’ i.e., The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

“On tryout the manager cancelled the second week in Boston because the reviews were so bad. Our Town.

“The Lunts ‘liked’ Skin of Our Teeth but would not consider playing it because it was so defeatist. It reached New York and never was there a play ‘where so many people walked out at the end of the first act’

Merchant of Yonkers failed in New York–with not more than 100 words altered in it ran three years as The Matchmaker. Edinburgh–London–New York–to Los Angeles….

“There’s nothing that leads to more wasteful expenditure of the creative energy than to depend on the verdict of others.”

As Gertrude Stein said, …”the business of life is to create a solitude that is not a loneliness.’ 

Don’t you love it—what came to be Thornton Wilder’s biggest successes were panned by both critics and audiences. How right he is—it’s a waste of creative energy to “depend on the verdict of others.” So let’s march to the beat of our own drummers as we all write on!

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