NEXT EXTRACT FROM LIFE-WRITES:

STUCK IN THE MUD

Whenever a group of writers get together, sooner or later the subject of writer’s block will be introduced into the equation. In most cases this is an over-milked excuse for not starting or completing a typescript. As I’ve said before, a professional writer can’t afford to employ such a plea for sympathy, although they do recognise the need for regular stimulation to generate ideas.

If an idea isn’t working and there isn’t a dead-line to meet, the professional will leave it alone and do something else – read a book, do some gardening, take the dog for a walk, or attend to the pile of research material that needs filing. Even the most seasoned writer will ‘dry up’ from time to time but they don’t stop working, they turn their attention to something else for a while. Dead-lines are probably the most effective means of beating the dreaded blockage since they ‘concentrate the mind wonderfully’, wrote the late Nancy Smith when she was asked for a comment when I was compiling From An Editor’s Desk.

“If a professional writer is commissioned to write a piece by a specific date, it’s rare for them not to finish it by then. Writer’s block does exist but the main cause is probably due to lack of planning, so far as the novel is concerned, at least. It may be that the story-line isn’t strong enough and needs to be abandoned, or it may be that they should leave it for a while, and start on something else until their enthusiasm is re-kindled.”

Many of the techniques discussed in Life-Writes are designed to push both our conscious and subconscious minds to extremes, even when we’re relaxing. We soon come to realise that some of our best ideas have occurred when we’re away from the computer and not thinking about anything remotely connected with writing. An author of my acquaintance recently admitted that she had an astounding flash of creative insight while she was in the middle of cleaning out the cat’s litter tray!

Hopefully Life-Writes will provide more pleasant ways of clearing any blockage because it illustrates that there are more facets to creative writing than sitting at the key board for hours on end, churning out mere words. By taking a break from writing, and under the right conditions/atmosphere/exercises, we can often achieve far more with an hour’s relaxation than by forcing ourselves to carry on typing.

Although we need to remain focused on the job in hand, there should be plenty of time allowed for the unconscious mind to put in its own four-penny worth. Thinking side-ways means allowing those right-brain influences to come through even if we happen to be in the middle of writing something else, because those new ideas might make the piece even better.

Who said you could only have one good idea at a time?

Next extract from Life-Writes: Life’s like that!

For our next mental exercise we will choose another simple subject that can have many meanings. It would be tempting to go for ‘Love’ because Roget’s Thesaurus has something like 33 entries, while the opposite, ‘Hate’ only has nine! This means we’re going to have to work harder and delve deeper.

Firstly, we need to define what we mean by ‘hate’ because it is a word that is over-used today. We may say we ‘hate spiders’ but do we really? We may feel frightened, repulsed or nauseated by them – but hate? The dictionary definition of hate is: “Extreme dislike or aversion; detestation; to abhor or detest; enmity or ill-will; loathing”, while the on-line Wikipedia has hatred (or hate) as an intense feeling of dislike. “It may occur in a wide variety of contexts, from hatred of inanimate objects or animals, to hatred of oneself or other people, entire groups of people, people in general, existence, or everything.”

The depth of expression is largely dependant on the person making the declaration, or the circumstances under which the declaration is made. A trivial person will ‘hate’ anything and everything that they don’t like, from cabbage to an unimaginative wedding present. Someone else may actively hate racial inequality or social injustice, but on the other side of the coin in living memory we have had Holocaust that resulted from Nazi hatred of the Jews. Of the fictional variety, the character of

Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo gives us an epic tale of hatred and revenge. Very few of us would, if we were completely honest, have ever really experienced the true emotion of hatred but there are nine category listed in the Polti Theory that could be fuelled by hatred:

·         Crime pursued by vengeance

·         Vengeance taken for kindred upon kindred

·         Revolt

·         Enmity of kinsmen

·         Murderous adultery

·         Madness

·         Discovery of the dishonour of a loved one

·         Mistaken jealousy

·         Erroneous judgement

Using the same lateral thinking, what, for example, would you consider to be the greatest love story ever written? After careful consideration, my choices (and for totally different reasons) would be a toss-up between Wuthering Heights and The Lord of the Rings. In terms of romantic love, the destructive tide of passion that drives both Catherine and Heathcliffe, renders all other fictional lovers superfluous. The type of love contained within The Lord of the Rings is the bond or spark that exists between the ‘Fellowship’ and is expressed in terms of loyalty and comradeship against over-whelming odds. The actual romantic interlude pales into insignificance beside the heroic deeds of those fighting together against Mordor. On a purely personal level, both novels can still produce that gut-churning, throat-tightening feeling no matter how many times I read them, and yet neither would qualify as ‘love stories’ in the traditional sense of the word.

When we refer to ‘love’ in our own writing, we are going to use it in the context of the storyline to give the work ‘reader appeal’. We can use it in the bitter, destructive context of the television series, Mother Love, which starred Diana Rigg in the title role. Or the desperate variety of Bridget Jones’ Diary. Or the escapism of Shirley Valentine. Love does not necessarily mean ‘romance’ in Mills & Boon mould and although we might couch it in different terms, it still makes the world go round. Love and hate are highly emotive subjects, so handle with care!

Secret Step Three reveals that no matter how mundane and/or familiar a scene, there are countless different angles from which to view it. Emotions are the very life-blood of creative writing whether we are utilising them in fiction, non-fiction or poetry. Described as ‘the various phenomena of the mind’

(including anger, joy, fear, sorrow, etc), we also use them to arouse those emotions in our readers – to make them care about what they read. Emotions are also extremely complex and we can weave a tangled web of intense feeling within our writing to force our readers to suffer along with our characters, article content or poem.

Neither can emotion (or the reason behind it) be cast in stone. We can be angry – but anger is rarely generated by one single action. It has usually been compounded by numerous smaller, insignificant happenings. We need to create these multi-layers in our writing, especially when creating characters for a novel, because without them the finished piece will lack depth. There was a popular method of encouraging lateral thinking in business management training back in the 1970s called ‘mind mapping’. It was an idea-generating technique that breaks down linear thinking – thinking in straight lines – and encourages the mind to work laterally by accessing our ‘zip-files’ in the right-brain. Instead of running ideas in a straightforward top-to-bottom list, start by placing the key word in the centre of the page and circle it. As word-association triggers off other ideas, write them down and circle them, linking them to the key word and each other with connecting lines.

For this exercise we start with the key-word = fear. As the circles move outwards, we can travel a long way from that original key-word. We may find we’ve thrown in things that would never have occurred to us when using lists to flesh out a story or article. Mapping is also a useful technique for developing plots and characters and can be included in your Ideas Book when you are stuck for ideas, or don’t know where to go next.

Whenever you feel the urge to make a list of ideas, use this mapping technique instead. You may find that it can even replace doodling when you’re on the telephone.