I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been planning and plotting to set up a task-based art group, that puts on community-based art projects and invites people to have a go. And thus, hack/flash is born. I won’t go on about it too much on here, but head over to the hack/flash blog, or join the Facebook group, if you’re so inclined. Our first project will take place over Easter bank holiday weekend, and it’s location-based (in Cardiff City Centre). More details soon.
Part 2 of the excellent Ten Rules for Writing Fiction article, published guardian.co.uk, Saturday 20 February 2010 00.05 GMT
I wrote about Part 1 and picked out my favourites here – again, this time, I’ve listed my favourites at the top – scroll down to read the lists in full.
Hilary Mantel – If you have a good story idea, don’t assume it must form a prose narrative. It may work better as a play, a screenplay or a poem. Be flexible.
Michael Moorcock – Carrot and stick – have protagonists pursued (by an obsession or a villain) and pursuing (idea, object, person, mystery).
Michael Morpugo – Record moments, fleeting impressions, overheard dialogue, your own sadnesses and bewilderments and joys.
Will Self - Don’t look back until you’ve written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceeding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in . . . the edit.
Will Self – Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.
Colm Tóibín – Finish everything you start.
Jeanette Winterson - Never stop when you are stuck. You may not be able to solve the problem, but turn aside and write something else. Do not stop altogether.
There’s no shortage of posts on the internet about what to do to overcome writer’s block, but I particularly like this one because it doesn’t dwell on the written word, but considers creativity in general. It’s taken from the ISO50 blog written by Scott Hanse, who is a graphic designer as well as an experimental electronica artist signed to Ghostly International.
I do not know what to write. I am sitting here staring at the screen, running sentences in my head, and turning my music on and off. Earlier I went foraging for food (in hopes of sparking some magical words), but ended up getting distracted by Arrested Development for 20 minutes. This happens just about every time I sit down to do anything. I’ll probably go play the guitar between this paragraph and the next.
Of course this is a familiar situation. Often referred to as “writer’s block”, the concept of an inspiration rut is unfortunately very familiar to every creative in any field. Sometimes ideas just don’t show up to work. Given this, we all develop strategies to combat such a scenario. Not all are foolproof, but it’s safe to say that most creative people have some battle plan for dealing with the dreaded “blank page”.
Knowing this I decided to ask some of today’s most exciting artists and creators what they do when the ideas aren’t flowing. I left the question fairly open ended and asked, What do you do to inspire your creativity when you find yourself in a rut? As expected, I was presented with an array of strategies, ranging from listening to Boards of Canada in a forest alone, to cooking up a storm (recipe provided) and waiting for the mind to clear.
What follows are 25 strategies from these creatives to spark your inspiration; hopefully you’ll find something helpful in there. I encourage you to list your favorite strategies as well in the comments. We can never have too many of these…
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(via hannahwoodstock – by Geoff Dyer, Richard Ford, David Hare, AL Kennedy, from guardian.co.uk Features Sat 20 Feb 2010 00:09 GMT)
This is taken from Part 1 of the excellent Rules for Writing Fiction article that appeared in the Graun today. It’s a massive list – this is only Part 1, I’ll do Part 2 another time – so I’ve pulled out my favourites here at the top. You can read the full list of Part 1 below.
Elmore Leonard – Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.
Margaret Atwood - There’s no free lunch. Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but essentially you’re on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.
Helen Dunmore: Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away. It’s a nice feeling, and you don’t want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need.
Helen Dunmore: A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.
Geoff Dyer: If you use a computer, constantly refine and expand your autocorrect settings. The only reason I stay loyal to my piece-of-shit computer is that I have invested so much ingenuity into building one of the great autocorrect files in literary history. Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge from a few brief keystrokes: “Niet” becomes “Nietzsche”, “phoy” becomes ”photography” and so on. Genius!
Geoff Dyer: Keep a diary. The biggest regret of my writing life is that I have never kept a journal or a diary.
Geoff Dyer: Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.
Geoff Dyer: Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it’s a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It’s only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I always have to feel that I’m bunking off from something.
Geoff Dyer: Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don’t follow it.
Richard Ford: Don’t drink and write at the same time.
Richard Ford: Don’t take any shit if you can possibly help it.
Jonathan Franzen: It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.
Esther Freud: Don’t wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key.
David Hare: If nobody will put your play on, put it on yourself.
Posted in Writing
Alexis Grant has a great post on her blog listing some great podcasts for writers. Alexis is a journalist currently writing a travel memoir, and her blog Aspiring Author is good reading for other aspiring authors.
It’s been quite hectic recently as the release date for the Gaga biography creeps closer. I’ve done a load of interviews for the Australian media (they love love *love* her over there), and tomorrow am meeting a journalist from Media Wales for a feature on Sunday’s Wales on Sunday. Busy times! The book is out on Thursday, and I’m planning a little trip to Waterstones in Cardiff centre to see my name in print in a bookshop. Crazy times!
Posted in Writing
Some like-minded friends and I are in the planning stages of setting up a collaborative art group here in Cardiff, called hack/flash. It’s pretty exciting stuff. Since taking a class in Berkeley on urban planning and the influence it has on culture, I’ve always been interested in the relationship between people and the cities they live in, and also in the idea of art as a process, a part of everyday life. Numerous movements have commented on this relationship; Lettrist Internationale, The Situationists, even the Surrealists, and more recently, various art-punk and anti-art groups and events.
While I don’t think hack/flash is going to concentrate solely on urban games (though we are planning a couple of great ones), it feels exciting to be part of something creative. There’s a lot of DIY, interactive art projects around at the moment – it feels like a movement that has started gathering momentum over the past few years.
If you’re interested in some further reading on the subject, the links below should help. I’ve listed them in the order that I discovered them in, the earliest at the top.
Posted in Writing
To listen to the show, recorded last Wednesday, go here
Posted in Writing
Pretty exciting – the Lady Gaga Biography now available at various online retailers (Amazon, The Book Depository, Play, and so on) finally has cover art showing. Behold!
Posted in Writing
