ink – Page 5 – Deborah Makarios

June 15, 2013

Talent vs. Character

Which is more important, effort or success?

If asked, I would say effort, but apparently I don’t really believe it. As the saying goes, you believe not what you say you believe, or even what you think you believe, but what you act as though you believe. If your money isn’t there, it doesn’t matter where your mouth is.

The first two weeks of my finish-the-first-draft-by-the-end-of-the-year regime went well.
I wrote more than I expected on the Monday evenings and was thus under no pressure on Wednesday and Friday mornings.
I sailed over my word count target with relatively little effort (besides a savagely aching hand, of which more another time).

I was pleased with myself and my achievement.

This week was different.
I think my fear of the unknown – in this case the unknown Thing That Happens Next – slowed me down on Monday evening – I struggled and sulked and tried to keep writing something, anything. I ended up with just over 1,400 words – 1,000 fewer than the Monday before.

And then on Wednesday when I should have been chipping off another 400 words, Life Happened (in a good way for once) and I didn’t write a word.

So there I was on Thursday with 1,100 words to go (although my shonky late-night arithmetic convinced me it was only 900, which looking back was probably a mercy). I was expecting to arrive home late and tired on Friday, and due to be out most of Saturday (happens every six weeks or so). Opportunities to write were limited.

The chances of making my target were not good, which made me feel depressed, which made me feel even less up to writing.
So what did I do once I’d picked myself up out of my sad little heap on the floor?
I used the half hour I still had left to write.

When I didn’t know what to write next, I kept going, one sentence after another, inventing word by word and not stopping to worry about whether the words were worth writing.
When I ran out of ink, I filled my pen with the new purple ink and kept going.
When the purple ink turned out to be more magenta than amethyst (horror!), I kept going.

Possibly like this, depending on your screen. (And your eyes.)

[Incidentally, thanks to the wonders that are Wikipedia, I can now identify the colour as somewhere between Fandango (this made me feel better) and Flirt (this didn’t).]

I only managed 400-odd words, but I’d kept going.
I managed another 300-odd on Friday morning.

The mathematically astute among you will realise that this still left me a few hundred short, but there was still some time. And if Life Happened again and I didn’t get there, well, at least I’d know I tried.

Last chance: Saturday night. The evening stretched out before me. I had my chance. And I didn’t feel like taking it. Like a nervous horse, I had to bring myself up to the fence I don’t know how many times before I lurched over.

I sat down, I picked up the pen, and I finished it. 425 words – over the line.

Looking back, I feel I should be more pleased with myself for what I accomplished this week than the two weeks before, and yet I’m not, really. Could it be that deep down I still believe it’s more important to succeed than to endeavour?

Is character of so little account with me that I believe achievement without effort to be of more value than making less headway in adverse conditions?

To do something well without effort argues a natural ability, which is beyond my control. To do somewhat less well with effort argues perseverance, which is a matter of character, and not innate.

So maybe this week I’m not a better writer on the face of things. But I am a better person, and I hope that will work its way into my writing.

As Calvin Coolidge said: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.”
(I am tempted to think that if he had lived to see modern reality TV, he would have added that here the reverse is true: nothing is more common than successful people without talent.)

Whether or not success comes to me is beyond my control. Whether or not I persist is not. So here’s to one more week knocked off – and to the twenty-eight still to come.

April 27, 2013October 19, 2017

Writing In Flow

:Keys to Enhanced Creativity
by Susan K Perry, Ph.D.

This book is based on the thesis which earned her that Ph.D. – hence the 8 page Appendix, 10 pages of biographical information on the writers who provided her research material (including Diana Gabaldon, Sue Grafton and Ursula K. LeGuin), 19 pages of notes and 12 pages of bibliographical references.

That said, it’s by no means a dry tome – Perry is primarily a writer, after all – and it holds the interest, whether you approach it from the academic level (what an intriguing phenomenon, I wonder how it works) or the personal (do others experience this the way I do and what can I pick up from them?

The “flow” referred to is that experience of losing awareness of the world around you, when the words just pour out of you, and time stops.

The ‘sweet spot’, ‘the zone’ – whatever you call it, that’s what we’re talking about here. In great detail. Too much to cover here, so you’ll just have to read it yourself if you’re curious.

Chapters cover what flow is. How it happens. What it feels like. The keys to getting into flow – have a reason to write (“Don’t coerce yourself. Find your motivation.”), think like a writer, loosen up, focus in, balance among opposites. Writer’s block – the complete opposite of flow. And my personal favourite, Specific Techniques for Luring Flow.

These include: specific rituals or routines around writing, specific writing tools, time and space, music/silence/meditation, re-reading what you’ve written so far/reading others’ work to spark your creativity/stopping in the middle of something, eating/drinking/fasting, walking or jotting or knitting or doing physical work or tiring yourself out or climbing a tree or (like Colette), picking fleas off your cat.

Obviously, you can’t use all of these at once. (Picking fleas off a cat halfway up a tree while knitting? I think not.) But there’s plenty to play with here. Try something. See how you like it.
Try something else. Play with the combinations and wait for the tumblers to go click.

Myself, I am drawn to the rituals/routines and the specific tools.

For example, I like to drink tea while I write. Actually, I like to drink tea most of the time, but I let myself have a lump of sugar in it if I’m writing. Perry notes, “As a writer who wishes to write regularly, you need to seek out ways to complexify your day to day life so that it remains fresh and inspiring to you,” but then, she is a full-time writer – a DDJ being more or less the antithesis of fresh and inspiring, yes?

As for writing tools, I believe I have mentioned before that I write with a Faber Castell fountain pen. It’s old enough that it uses actual ink from bottles, not plastic cartridges like my modern Parker does. I thought it used an Archimedes screw to draw up ink (how awesome would that be?) but apparently it doesn’t.

There is a screw-shaped bit, but it sucks up ink in the same way an eye-dropper sucks up eyedrops – it creates a vacuum, which nature abhors and therefore obligingly fills with ink.

Which is all to say that I will need to buy a bottle of ink sooner or later. Possibly later, given how long the ink lasts. For purposes of comparison, a disposable pen (ballpoint) contains between .27 and 2mL of ink. The smallest bottle of ink I’ve seen for sale contains 30mL.

At present I am using a fine blue ink bought for me (along with an elegant blue/green glass dip pen), by a friend visiting Venice. (Clearly, this is a Good Friend.) But what shall I use when the blue is finished?
When I started writing up notes for The Black Joke, I decided to use creamy paper (I bought a ream) and sepia ink from an old calligraphy kit, (the Made in China kind – bleeds like mad).

So when I read this book, two synapses touched, there was a minor explosion, and I thought ‘I could have a different colour ink for each Work In Progress – a thematic colour, as it were.’

Hard upon that thought followed the question “I wonder what the thematic colour for Tsifira would be?” At the moment, I lean towards a sort of amethysty purple – bright enough to be light and sparkly, but dark enough to be actually readable. Preferably even by candlelight, for the winter dark comes on apace.

I shall leave you with a final thought to chew on from Susan Perry’s book: “Your own preferred way of thinking about and describing flow is as unique to you as your writer’s imagination. Learn something about your creative process by taking a moment to consider your own sense of what flow is and how you get there… If you construct your life around words, the right metaphor can be critical.”

What is your metaphor? What is your method? I’d love to know.

April 2, 2013

March: a Sense of Power

Muahahahaaaahh.
Ahem.

This chapter covers a variety of concepts, from anger to synchronicity to why people would prefer to think there is no God (“Most of us are a lot more comfortable feeling we’re not being watched too closely”).

“Anger is our friend. Not a nice friend. Not a gentle friend. But a very, very loyal friend. It will always tell us when we have been betrayed. It will always tell us when we have betrayed ourselves.”

This idea of anger as a marker of transgression or trespass also comes up in another book I have been reading of late: Boundaries – which is an example of synchronicity.

I will cheerfully admit that I did most of the work for this chapter fairly early on in the month (i.e. half way through it) and my mind has been elsewhere since.

I was surprised by some of the things which unburied themselves in the “Detective Work”.

“My favourite musical instrument is” the low whistle – which I have never held, let alone learned to play, although I once discovered someone in New Zealand who makes them.

“If I wasn’t so stingy with my artist I’d” buy her (her? my internal artist, like many children, doesn’t seem strongly gendered) some really flash stationery. Maybe some ink-bottles.

“If it didn’t sound so crazy, I’d” write a supermarket musical. What do I have to fear from crazy? One day I’ll do it.

I am haunted by the fear that if I commit to this writing life, if I let the dreamer loose, I won’t be able to keep making myself go back to work.

With the regular exercises, further surprises ensued.
I was supposed to describe 5 traits I like in myself as a child. I came up with one: my ability to pun. (Whether anyone else liked that in me as a child, I know not.)

That was a bit depressing, but I did better in the field of childhood accomplishments (e.g. started reading Agatha Christie at 6 1/2).

Habits! If only changing habits was as easy for me as it is for nuns. (Yes, that’s what I was like as a child.) Wasting time online, procrastinating, feeling guilty instead of getting on with things…
Physical habits are relatively easy to break, I think. It’s the ones in your mind that most closely ensnare you.

The lists of people I admire and want to meet (dead or alive) were confusing: great writers such as Chesterton, Lewis and Stoppard; and a rather strange mix of people including the Pimpernels (Scarlet and Tartan), Francis, Fanny Crosby and Edith Cavell.

If anyone can tell me what the common thread is there, I shall be much obliged to you.

In other news, I spent the entire long weekend (four days in New Zealand, Lord be praised!) in Not Writing. I meant to write, but I meant to do many other things, and it turns out four days is only four days long.

One thing which I did mean to do (and did) is create something for my Artist’s Date. It still needs a few finishing touches, but here’s a clue: