Take Note: I’m Addicted

Do you have a notebook? I do! It has all sorts of papers falling out of it and is covered with doodles.  Inside are random pages of story ideas, bits of dialogue, various character names (both used and unused), random quotes I’ve overheard. I’m sure you get the idea.

It isn’t the first notebook I’ve had, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.  In truth, I’m a notebook addict.

Tonight, while jotting down some notes on what I wanted to write tomorrow, I thought a lot about my notebook and how its an artform of its own.  That’s when I decided to take a picture of my notebook- stay tuned for that image; its too dark to get a good picture now.

In the meantime, I thought you might all enjoy peeking into the creative lives of some other notebook addicts.  So, feed your voyueristic tendencies and check out these notebooks from Flickr’s Notebook-addict group (yes…I joined!)

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The Swiss Family Robinson Stole My Scene

I write the most at night.  I love writing at night for many reasons, but one of the most important ones is that the hours after dark seem to be the only time my mind is fresh and active.  In the mornings, I’m groggy and more concerned with getting coffee into my system than with being creative.  By about 2 p.m. it seems to finally kick in, and I feel ready to write.  I usually get an hour or so of work in, but then it happens: the afternoon slump.

Florida is hot. Heat takes a lot out of a person- and if, like me, you live in a house with poor insulation, your air conditioner will be breaking its heart just to keep you at a cool-ish 80 degrees.  So just about the time I’m really mentally ready to tackle plot points and character flaws, I find my energy has fled the building. All I really want is a nap.

I know that I’m not the only one who suffers from this particular problem- my husband, who unlike me works outside the home, says that at about 3 p.m. every day it becomes an epic battle for him to keep himself from curling up in a corner somewhere and snoozing the afternoon away.  And there are even commercials about it:

Today I worked with a frenzy.  I got in 3,000 words before the slump hit. I fought it with all my might, keeping the pace until I’d finished the scene.  Then I started on the next one.  Here’s what I got:

“At the diner.”

All I can say is….

Curse you, Swiss Family Robinson!

And so I’ll finish it tonight, when the sun has finally gone to sleep and left me alone with my thoughts, my Parrot Bay and my laptop.

Free Your Mind

FreeMind Software Screenshot

I should be in bed; its late and the morning will be here all too soon. Yet I can’t seem to pull away from FreeMind, an amazing opensource mind mapping program.  I’ve been working diligently on a novel and have a general plot, but have been finding it difficult to transition from the broader picture to the individual scenes and chapters.  Thanks to this completely addictive program, I now have a beautiful mind map showing each major plot event.

The central thought of the map is the resolution of the story.  Each POV character has a line coming off that resolution that works backwards towards the begining of their own story line. By working in this odd, reverse manner, I’ve looked at my plot from a completely different perspective.  I’ve found and repaired several holes, realized that one character needed additional interactions and generally lost myself creating a wonderful visual image of my story.

As a rather visual individual, this really is like eye candy.  If you’re visual like I am, I highly recommend you check out FreeMind.

So, since I’m staying up so late, who is going to make us all coffee in the morning?

Writing What You Know

Time and again I’ve heard it- the catchphrase for the writing world (no, not that one; the one where high school teachers and college professors live)- write what you know.  I remember being young, maybe ten, and responding, “But what I know is boring.”  The teacher laughed and said,”You’ve got plenty of time to have grand experiences.  Try writing about the everyday life that you lead and make it interesting.”

Back then I thought she was nuts (she quite posisbly was, but that has become irrelevant to the story now) yet these days I can’t help wondering if she was right. Writing about the everyday is the hard work to me. I find that I start and stop, never quite finding the right voice.  Its a problem that haunts me.

I’m up early today because I woke from a rather unpleasant dream. I was on stage, reading from the book I am currently working on, when my voice began to crack and squeak.  Soon it was gone completely and I was left standing on the stage, an angry audience staring me down as I was unable to communicate.

Talk about a nightmare.

So today I am spending my time, yet again, crafting a scene that is a glimpse into someone’s everyday life.  If my screaming gets too loud, just knock on the monitor and I’ll quiet down.

Writer’s Block

One of the hardest things for me to do is get focused on writing. Not only do I have to contend with all the ‘noise’ of the world- everything from the internet (blast you, Fark!) to the television- but also with the commotion that is typically filling my head.

Random thoughts spin on various levels, stories and ideas that are as unrelated as ice cream and candles. Then I stop to take a picture.

The phone rings, the dog wants out, the phone is ringing again. And then I read a Douglas Adams quote and laugh:

“Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a piece of blank paper until your forehead bleeds”

Amen, I think. Then I think about all the things I have to do, the articles I need to write. Again an Adams quote comes to mind:

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

And still the writers block. Wasting time, I look up more Adams quotes- I’d like to find the one about the penguins; who doesn’t love penguins? I find one that makes me nod my head in agreement:

The more I think about our species the more I think we just do stuff and make up explanations later when asked. But it’s not true that I would rather write than read. I would rather read than write. To be honest I would rather hang upside down in a bucket than write.

I get a cup of coffee. Is 7 am too early to be worrying about these things? I’m still looking for the quote about penguins, when I find this:

“He hoped and prayed that there wasn’t an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn’t an afterlife.”

I’ve always particularly liked that quote, but it still isn’t the one about the penguins, so I keep looking. There, I’ve found it over on Wikiquote. Its exactly how I feel this morning, this quote from Douglas Adams’ The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul:

“It was a couple of days before Kate Schechter became aware of any of these things, or indeed of anything at all in the outside world.

She passed the time quietly in a world of her own in which she was surrounded as far as the eye could see with old cabin trunks full of past memories in which she rummaged with great curiosity, and sometimes bewilderment. Or, at least, about a tenth of the cabin trunks were full of vivid, and often painful or uncomfortable memories of her past life; the other nine-tenths were full of penguins, which surprised her.

Insofar as she recognised at all that she was dreaming, she realised that she must be exploring her own subconscious mind. She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was very clear what the other nine-tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins.”

And now I understand the problem. I can’t write right now because the penguins in my head are partying a bit too loud.