You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

- Oscar Wilde

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. 

- Scott Adams

Boo of Moo: How to Unmask Writing Fears

© Cynthia Morgan

Boo of Moo: How to Unmask Writing Fears
by Nan Lundeen

Ways in which I avoid writing:

Check email.
Water plants.
Check air pressure in tires.
Hunt for lost socks.

Fear of facing the blank page delights in disguise. The Mask of Procrastination loves to do its dirty business in my subconscious. I intend to write first thing, yet when I’m paying attention, I recognize a few troubling warning signs. Why am I ironing, cleaning the refrigerator, or snoozing for five more minutes?

As if every day were Halloween, writers may glimpse a few masks that hide the fear of writing floating about in subterranean lairs. Writers, being creative sorts, can come up with a mob of them.

In addition to procrastination, you may notice:

Self-Doubt Mask – Who do you think you are? There’s nothing new under the sun. There’s nothing you can write about that hasn’t been written before by better writers.

White Rabbit Mask - I’m late, I’m late for a very important date! Arrive at work early to jump-start climbing mountains of tasks, and hurry, hurry, hurry all day and all evening. No time to say hello, blank page.

Mr. Excuse Mask – This writer rationalizes away writing time as if it were a commodity to be bartered, making elaborate excuses. I would write now if I could, but I can’t because . . .

Flawless Mask – I produce perfect manuscripts. Maybe I’d better wait to share this poem-story-novel in case I missed a mistake. I’ll just polish it again.

Shine the powerful tool of awareness on them and their true identities under the masks can be uncovered. I’ll share a trick to reveal them in a moment, but first, boo of what?

Boo of Moo comes from a chapter in my handbook, The Moo of Writing: How to Milk Your Potential. The chapter looks at ways we writers unknowingly impede ourselves.

Moo of Writing is a process centered on the writer as a ruminant, digging down into the subconscious to pull out—voila!—creativity. It's also meant to conjure mu, a Zen koan whereby you find your work by getting out of your own way.

The dairy cow symbolizes the process because while she stands in the meadow peacefully chewing her cud and swishing her tail, she produces five gallons of milk every day. She’s relaxed, and she’s productive.

I don’t think she’s beset by the Boo of Moo.

But the human ruminant—gnawing on his virtual pencil and sensing something is not quite right—faces a formidable opponent that rings his doorbell most days dressed in the mask of the moment.

What lies beneath?

Consider how closely writing is tied to your identity. When I’m producing, I feel centered and grounded. I know who I am. Conversely, when I question my worth as a writer, a pall settles over me, and placing words on a page seems futile. Fear of unworthy writing threatens my raison d'être, a heavy burden to place on words.

Living in the Information Age, peace seldom settles lightly beside us. We have become a society of scurriers. I’m late, I’m late for a very important date! Hence, the popularity of quick-fix escapes such as beer, movies, whodunnit novels (my personal favorite—just one more chapter, one more chapter), the elsewhere of smartphones. We have kids to raise, livings to earn, appointments to keep and toenails to clip. Writing deadlines challenge us. It’s easy to morph those into stress. The White Rabbit Mask usurps focus.

If a desire to escape butts you relentlessly on the backside, take stock. Something is amiss. Try some quiet time to meditate, ground yourself and restore balance.

Rationalization is a tricky mask. When I find myself in a logic labyrinth, rationalization is the culprit. To recognize it, I must step off the path and observe my thoughts. For instance, I have no time to write tomorrow because I must do this and this and this. What? Wake up earlier? That would be unhealthy. I need my sleep. Can you spare 10 minutes? Stupid! What can I possibly accomplish in 10 minutes? I must get into the flow.

Rationalization, especially when played with the topic of time, can leave you trudging on a circular path forever lured by the carrot, I could write this except for . . .

Perfectionism kills even the desire to write because it forever leaves us tilting at windmills of illusion.

In Moo of Writing, I suggest an exercise to help writers identify masks and uncover fears:

• Gather drawing tools such as, crayons, pencils, markers, colored pencils, scrap paper, or sketch paper. If you're comfortable with a drawing program on your tablet or computer, use it. Relax. Visualize yourself in safe space. Invite your mask into your vision. Without thinking, sketch it. Again, without thinking, write its name. You have named your fear, and when you name it, you own it.

When I did this, I drew a long, red rectangle-shaped face. Two black horizontal slits slashing across the page became eyes. The nose was a red, backwards comma. I interpreted the down-turned partial black arc mouth as aborted self-expression. “Hopeless” popped into my mind. Hopeless because? A moment’s thought and I had it: The mask showed me that I'd been letting rejections get me down. When I peeked beneath the mask, fear said, “What's the use? The path ahead is strewn with rejections.”

• Write an affirmation to resolve your fear. Make it short, specific, and use the present tense. Examples: I acknowledge my fear of ________and move forward. Or, I write even when I feel fearful. Or, fear, I recognize you behind that mask of ________. I enjoy writing.

Affirmations are powerful tools that help you overcome fears you have dragged into the light. I wrote, I choose hope and placed it on my nightstand. "Hopeless" hangs in my writing room as a reminder that if I value my work, that value may be mirrored back to me by editors and readers. Poor “Hopeless” actually amuses me now, he's so pitiful.

The Boo of Moo concept has been helpful to me. I hope it is to you. May you happily wander about in creative pastures wearing unmatched socks, sketching fears in your notebooks.

Please excuse me now, my computer screen needs dusting.

Find more about Moo of Writing and hear free Moo meditations at www.nanlundeen.com.

Also, find Nan at facebook.com/nanlundeenauthor and @nanlundeen.

Nan Lundeen’s Moo of Writing: How to Milk Your Potential, (CreateSpace, 2015), was a finalist in Indie Excellence and Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her columns on writing have appeared in Writing Magazine, U.K., SC Writers Workshop’s Quill and The Paddock Review. She facilitates writing workshops. A retired award-winning journalist, she’s published three books of poems. Her poetry has appeared in Atlanta Review, Connecticut River Review, Steam Ticket: A Third Coast Review, Illuminations, Yemassee, The Petigru Review, and others. She blogs at patheos.com/blogs/naturespath. She holds a  master’s in communications from Western Michigan University.

Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live. 

– Mae Jemison

A Writer's Treat: The Retreat by Jami Gray

The Write Way Café welcomes Jami Gray. Author of Beg for Mercy, Book 2 in her Fate's Virtues series, she offers tips for taking a break.

Ah, the scent of wood smoke and rain tells me another year is gearing up for the fall and it’s time for a well-earned break. You know the kind, the type you use to reward yourself for surviving another round of new projects, writer conferences, pitch sessions, the merry-go-round of queries, new releases, and the never-ending whirlwind of life in general.

My reward of choice is the Writer Retreat. A chance to go off alone or with other like-minded individuals and spend uninterrupted days of living in my head.  This year I get to disappear to a cabin north of my desert dwelling where the dust is filtered out by the green things known as trees and I’ll hole up with my writing partners. We’ll disappear into our laptops, rising only to refuel with caffeine and/or actual food, then sink back under the creative waves. I can’t wait!

I make it a habit to take time each year to devote purely to my writing, and it’s never easy.  Last year was a wash because my schedule just couldn’t support me ghosting. Trying to find the time is your first challenge, and before you clear that hurdle, the second one is nipping on your heels, how to pay for it. Most writers hold a day job, because it’s the one that pays for the nifty roof overhead, so doing a retreat is…well…a treat.

While I’m not the guru of retreats, I can share a few ideas to help spark your own. There are tons of options out there: train rides across the U.S., cruises, themed hotels, retreats in exotic locales, or just getting away all by yourself. Whatever route you choose, I urge you to take one each year. Trust me, your creativity will love you for it.

Normally such an adventure requires I ban together with my critique partners. We locate desirable shelter, generally a cabin hours from the desert sun, hopefully with enough beds so we aren’t flipping a coin for the futon. We utilize Vacation Rentals by Owner (aka VRBO) and keep our requirements basic: beds, electricity, and a functioning kitchen and bathrooms. If there’s no internet, all the better, then no one is tempted to sneak online. We plan on three days and then all bring various foodstuff, enough so we have one big meal together each day, the rest of the time we forage. Coffee is a must, and so is chocolate, but the rest is up for discussion. Significant others are banished. Phones are put on silent. For all intents and purposes, we no longer exist for the world at large.

It’s a beatific existence and many words are conquered. Late night conversations create unforgettable memories and for those three blessed days, we live the life of a WRITER. Once we return from our creative mountain, our creativity is back in session and ideas are bouncing all over the place.

Then there are the solo retreats, where the stars align and suddenly you have a day or two at your disposal. I wish I could tell you that staying home works, but I’ve found it never does. Too many “to-do” things lurk in the corners waiting to pounce. Slipping away to a hotel, or if you’re the intrepid type, hiking out to a secluded corner of nature, works well. The further away you get, the less likely those in your life are to hunt you down with pesky questions. 

Regardless if you retreat group-style or solo, the whole point is to get away from the daily pressures of deadlines, word counts, family obligations, school commitments, job pressures, and whatever else has piled on top of you in the last few months, so you can take a moment to recapture the excitement and joy of writing. 

Burn out doesn’t discriminate, and writers suffer from it all too often.  It’s easy to say, “I can’t”. Trust me, I get it. There’s always something coming up for payment, a commitment you can’t get out of, or the fact you’re feeling guilty for not spending time with the kids (even though they barely look up from their computers/phones). Yet, I’m begging you, if you get a chance, even if it’s just a few hours, take it and run. I promise it will be worth it in the end.

BEG FOR MERCY, Fate’s Vultures #2, coming February 2018

     Choosing a side has never been so dangerous…
     The world didn't end in fire and explosions, instead it collapsed slowly, like falling dominoes, an intensifying panic of disease, food shortages, wild weather and collapsing economies, until what remained of humanity battles for survival in a harsh new reality.
     An assassin by trade, a loner by nature, Mercy is sent to infiltrate the Cartels and unmask the identity of their new silent partner. Instead, she discovers a darker plan threatening to crumble the entire Southwest and ends up with a hefty bounty on her head. Still, she’s determined to stop the impending attack at any costs, even if it means partnering up with a member of the notorious Fate’s Vultures.
     After enduring a brutal, blood soaked lesson on the savagery of civilization’s scavengers, Havoc is well acquainted with the consequences of battling predators. But as a member of the nomadic band of arbitrators known as Fate’s Vultures, he’s determined to cement the necessary allies to oust the biggest threat looming on the horizon. When an enigmatic woman crosses his path, her secrets and troubling loyalty light the fuse on an unexpected craving and his insatiable curiosity.
     In order to trap a common foe and derail an impending threat, Havoc and Mercy must turn the tables to hunt a predator. Can an assassin and a mercenary find their balance on the thin line of loyalty, or will it snap under the weight of their wary hearts?

Jami Gray is the coffee addicted, music junkie, Queen Nerd of her personal Geek Squad, Alpha Mom of the Fur Minxes, and award winning author of the Urban Fantasy series, The Kyn Kronicles, the Paranormal Romantic Suspense series, PSY-IV Teams, and her latest Romantic Suspense series, Fate’s Vultures. She writes to soothe the voices in her head. 

Her upcoming release: BEG FOR MERCY is the second in her Fate’s Vultures series and hits shelves in February 2018. Catch up with LYING IN RUINS, available wherever ebooks are sold.

If you want to hunt her down, she can be found lurking around the following cyber locations:

Website     Facebook    Twitter      Goodreads     Google+     Amazon Author Page

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. 

- Edward de Bono

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.

- Edward de Bono

You can’t use up creativity.  The more you use, the more you have. 

– Maya Angelou

Embracing My Pantser Brain

Standing in the kitchen pouring my coffee one recent morning I realized I was more excited to get to work on my current WIP than to read on in the novel I was into. That moment of realization felt delightful. I'm a pantser and a writer with self-doubts. It is much more likely my inner editor would start my day reminding me I have nothing to bring to the page, and as a pantser who doesn't have an outline to consult, I might agree. That can put a damper on any possible excitement about my writing. With this new experience of anticipation, I asked myself, "Hmm…what's going on here?"

The happy truth was that I was more interested to explore the story of my hero and heroine than to read what was happening in Jim Butcher's Grave Peril, a book I was really enjoying. I was intrigued to discover how each of my characters was going to develop, what obstacles they would face, how they would survive the dangers in the story, and how they would come together in their developing relationship. I wanted to know those things, and the only way I would find out would be to sit down at my computer and write. This is how a pantser finds the answers to those kinds of unknowns. Reaching this point where interest was stronger than fear signified a milestone for me.

As a pantser and a writer with self-doubt, facing the blank page takes courage and faith that the story will unfold. As a pantser, I don't know everything about all the elements of story when I begin. That's where self-doubt can really get a grip. And that's why I've admired writers who outline, make storyboards, plot out an entire book, and know, well, to me it seems like when they write, they know everything I don't. They have a lot of structure to build from. My story reveals itself as I write. There is structure but it's loose and fluid. I do my homework, just as any writer does. That means I feed my inner pantser with thorough research and character bios. I brainstorm scene possibilities and write loose descriptions, then put them in one of three parts: beginning, middle, or end. Pretty simple structure and not a whole lot to go on day by day until the story has taken shape.

So, why not change? If writing as a pantser feeds fear, why don't I learn to become an outliner, a plotter? Rather than rely on the story to flow organically from the ethers, why not begin with a solid structure of concrete information?

The concept sounds great but it doesn't fit. That method is just not something that comes naturally. And according to award-winning author Kathleen Baldwin www.KathleenBaldwin.com, it would be counterproductive for me to attempt it, because whether a writer is a plotter or pantser is a result of how his or her brain is wired.

"God didn't make us one size fits all," said Baldwin, who has a background in psychology. In college, she participated in ground-breaking research on the science of creativity. "I have several close friends who are NYT/USA Today bestselling authors who I know for a fact are full-fledged pantsers. It's a matter of honing your craft so thoroughly that you can create dynamic, exciting plots subconsciously."

Baldwin's latest release, Diary of a Teenage Fairy Godmother, is out now, and her workshop titled The Secret Life of Pantsers has endeared her to many an author because it helped them celebrate their inner pantser, freeing their creativity. Baldwin said pantser vs. plotter is usually a matter of degrees, though some writers are heavily one or the other. But pantsers should ignore suggestions that in order to succeed at writing they need to do formal plotting.

"Everyone plots, it's just a matter of when," she said. "A pantser needs to plot on the fly so she can stay enthralled with her story. Her creative psyche requires a challenge in order to operate optimally. …A pantser must have the confidence to make mistakes as she hunts down her story. It's a great adventure for us. Wrong turns are simply part of the adventure."

Though I still think longingly of an in-depth outline as a wonderful tool for creative writing, I have embraced my pantser brain and take pleasure in learning as I go. I get all sparkly and invigorated when, as I soldier through, I discover I'm writing interesting stuff. So, regardless of the writing method – pantser or plotter, write straight through from beginning to end or edit as you go -- it's better to write with a method that suits you best. Seeking advice is a helpful means to improve skills every writer needs to tell a satisfying and well-crafted story. It's a way to gather information and see what fits. But ultimately, the surest way to write your best book is to understand your process and trust it.

So what are you? Pantser, plotter, something in between? What are your struggles? What are your joys?

This post was first posted in Savvy Authors.