Tools and Writer's Block

This past Monday, on the Creative Penn podcast, Joanna Penn talked about her recent experience using dictation. She said she had a very productive day using this tool, and then the next time, she had a difficult time. For me, it's always helpful to be reminded that even very successful writers have good and bad days. And then she elaborated. She said that on the day where she produced a lot of content, she was working on a scene that she had already thought about quite a bit. On the day when it was challenging, she was working on a moment in a place where she had never been, a place she couldn't speak of off the top of her head, a place where she needed to research and look at things. It got me thinking about different tools and what I use when. Hopefully, this will be helpful to you, too.

1. When I'm scared, I cluster. If you're not aware of clustering or know it by a different name, that means I write words and phrases all over the page. I circle each “cluster” of words and I connect them to different clusters on the page. It's a great way for me to imagine a moment. I can add in physical details, sensory details. I can ask myself questions. I often have inspirational moments working this way, things about character and story that I hadn't considered before.

2. Sometimes in the middle of clustering, I find myself writing full sentences in paragraphs. I often don't know immediately that I've shifted to that mode. When I discover I am, I roll with it.

3. I generally type after I've clustered or I've written linearly by hand in a notebook. And I don't always write linearly by hand in a notebook. Sometimes I go from the cluster straight to typing. But if I start to type, and I look at the blank screen and have the willies, I will return to the notebook, and I will write based on my clusters linearly by hand.

4. Some days I know I need to type. The words are coming up fast and furious, and I can't write them down fast enough.

5. I also type when I've tried clustering and writing linearly, and I'm having a lot of critical voices in my head, and I feel like I'm just digging myself into a hole. I type then to get the words out. That happened this morning. Here I am, writing.

6. In this process, I'm accompanied by music. It's an incredible comfort to me. It gives me something to listen to other than the critical voices in my head. But it has to be a certain kind of music. I listen to jazz, instrumentals and classic vocalists—Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Etta James. That's the type of music that works for me.

As the reader, you might say,”She seems awfully scared.” You know, at this moment, I feel that's true. But it's part of the process. I'm currently working on early chapters in a new book. I'll write about that more in another post. But I do feel that this strategy of listening to yourself and using various tools at different times combats what is commonly known as “writer's block.” When it seems you can't write or the critical voices and the fear feel overwhelming, try another way, even if only for five minutes. You'll build muscle. You'll collect memories that you can then use in the future. “I didn't think I could do it then, but I figured out a way, and I wrote.” And, someday in the future, I would like to try dictation. I think that could be a powerful tool, and I am curious to see how that would fit into my current strategies. I would love to hear how you approach writing. I feel we can always learn from each other.

Kate and the Horses on Sale

My second novel,Kate and the Horses, is on sale in the Kindle store for 99 cents through Thursday, August 23, 2018, at 8:30 a.m. PST.

But what's it about? Awkwardness.  Loneliness. Thrift stores. Horses. Black Beauty. Spumoni. Ella Fitzgerald. Odd socks. Camp games. Trail rides. The Sound of Music.

Intrigued? Give it a try.

https://www.amazon.com/Kate-Horses-Wendy-Ledger/dp/1974677834

Instagram and the Visual Way of Life

Last week, I started an account on Instagram, and then I had an immediate dilemma. It's so visual!

Maybe you looked at those sentences and blinked, read them over, thought, “What?” Let me try to explain. I'm an auditory-kinesthetic person. I do my best when I'm hearing things. Music has always been extremely important to me. I sometimes have trouble in social situations, especially groups, because I'm very sensitive to energy in the room. I know that sounds New Age weird. Let me just tell that if I went to a party, and a day later, you asked me to describe what people were wearing at that event, I probably wouldn't know. However, I could tell you what people said, and I could give you my take on the dynamics in the different interactions in the room.

I think that I was born with this predisposition, but I also believe that I didn't help myself when I was young. In third grade, I was diagnosed as nearsighted. The first time I wore glasses to school, the boy seated in front of me, turned around and said, “You look like a librarian!” That's when I decided I would rather look the right way rather than be able to see. Writing that down feels so horrifying now, but that is what I believed.

I would so love to go back in time and listen to that boy's voice now. Was he, as I thought at the time, truly appalled at my looks with my new frames? Was it just a clumsy way to try to connect? Regardless of his intent, I wish I could have said “Thank you” and really mean it. I wish I could have taken that as a sign and pursued work as a librarian in my adult years. I think I might have enjoyed it. Of course, I would still be writing books on the side. But I would also be an advocate for books all day long. That sounds like that might have been a terrific thing to do.

In some parts of the school day, I could get by with not wearing my glasses. But in math class, the teacher wrote the homework problems on the board, and I couldn't read them. I would have to ask someone if I could copy their paper later on. No one ever said, “You were in the class. Why don't you have it?” They were fine with it, but it put an additional stress on me. I was also the type of kid who wanted to get her homework done and in on time. The math teacher would often explain concepts by working on a problem on the board. I missed a lot and spent a lot of time trying to figure things out by myself, told myself I hated math, and still refused to wear my glasses.

Then contact lenses became commonplace, and that solved my problems for a while. It turned out that I had sensitive eyes, and in my adult years, I returned to glasses, but this time I was happy to do it. I'm an introvert. As I mentioned above, I sometimes have a hard time in social situations. They can feel overwhelming, but now I can hide behind my glasses.

It seems somehow right that my mate, Mike, is highly visual. He's a photographer. How things look is important to him. He sees when colors are wrong or things are crooked. He loves having a beautiful home. Often he has to tell me when he has changed something, even something as evident as a red-and-white checked tablecloth. Otherwise I might not notice it for weeks.

It has been challenging as a writer. I was in a writing group one time, and the leader said, “Close your eyes.” She said, “We're going to go around the room. Keep your eyes closed. When it's your turn, describe this room.” I had been in that group six month. I had to say things like, “We're sitting on carpet,” while the person next to me each time described something in the room in great detail. It's humbling. I now try to go into rooms and list things in my head and consciously notice things. It's also been embarrassing with people because I often don't remember faces. I do my best. When they come up to me and call me by name, I hope that if stall, tap dance, listen to their voice for a while, I can come up with a context and be able to identify them. It's not anything personal. It has happened with people that I've known and loved for years. It really is not you; it's me.

So lately I'm finding that social media has helped me with this issue. When I ventured into Pinterest, I had a revelation. Collecting images is comforting. I marveled at how satisfying it felt to gather them up and present them as a way to “talk” about my interests and my passions. It's made me look at things more.

This week, starting Instagram, I felt momentarily panicked. Here I have to create images. People just do this on the fly. At first I thought Mike would have to take all my pictures. But then I got into it. And now I'm starting to say to him, “This is something I should put on Instagram.” I'm beginning to recognize the importance of visual moments. (It helps that Instagram has captions. I really like that I can write captions.)

Anyway, if you would like to follow me on Instagram, I'm there as Wendy Ledger Author. I'll follow you back and look forward to seeing what you're doing there, too.

Proofreading

I'm currently at this phase of the process with The Loudest Meow, and I thought I would share some thoughts with you about this stage in book production:

1. Make Sure You're Ready: You should move on to proofreading after your book has been thoroughly edited. When you get to this point, you should be thinking about typos and repetitive words and missing words and absent periods. It should be that level of error at this stage.

2. Get Help: On my first book, I thought I could be my own proofreader. How hard could it be? It turned that I had to learn the same lesson that I learned from beta readers and from editors. At certain points, you have to let go of your book and allow another pair of eyes to review it and report back to you. For whatever reason, you just can't see the mistakes any more. And then when it's your turn to reclaim your book, you read the suggestions, and the errors look as bright as day. How could you have missed them? But you do. You need that outside assistance.

3. Review and Let It Sit: After you have received the manuscript back from your proofreader and have gone through the suggestions, you need to let the manuscript sit, even if it's just for a day or two.This time, I didn't pick up The Loudest Meow again for five days. This is hard for me to do. Letting it sit feels like I am doing nothing, but I actually am doing something very important for myself. I'm exercising my patience muscle. I'm practicing faith. I am someone who likes to move quickly through life. I'm afraid that, if I slow down, I will never accomplish anything. I have had to reframe “Let It Sit” as an action item that I need to do. I think it's important in order to look at it with fresh eyes again when you return to it for the final time.

4. Read It Aloud: I just went through this step today, and I was amazed by how much I still caught. I find reading aloud is a great way to find repetitious words and to hear inherent clunkiness. I believe this is a really important step to do.

5. Spellcheck Again: I didn't want to do it. My prideful voice said, “This is overkill. I caught everything.” I didn't. I'm so glad I followed through.

6. Smile at the Illusion of Perfection: You do your best. Every time you write a book, you can work on your process to make it more effective. After it's published and you pick up your book, you might see a word that you wish you had changed. Then you have to assess the importance of the error. If you're an indy writer, you can always take your book down and republish, or you can decide that you can live with it. In some ways, proofreading is never done.

The Lipman Cure

I can't remember this ever happening to me as a kid, but as an adult, there are times when I just don't want to read. Sometimes it's because I've fallen in love with a TV show. Recently, I started watching This is Us on Hulu. I don't know why I resisted it so long. People had told me that I would really love this story, and when I did start watching it, I found out they were right. So that is part of the reason why there are times when I don't pick up a book. I'm only halfway through Season 1!

But it's not just that. I have times now when I can't seem to read, when everything sounds blah, and there are lots of starts and no finishes. That's when I turn to Elinor Lipman. (It's at least an annual event. In my reading world, December is Elinor Lipman Month. It seems necessary to read Elinor Lipman during the holiday season.)

Elinor Lipman writes novels for adults, but I would still call them coming-of-age stories. The main character often has a lot of growing up to do. There's plenty of wit and some slapstick moments. The characters are quirky and genuinely lovable. By the end of the book, I always consider reading it all over again immediately. Sometimes I do.

Last week, I reread The Pursuit of Alice Thrift. I believe this is my favorite Elinor Lipman book. I've read it at least eight times. Why do I love it so much? Well, I think I relate a lot to Alice Thrift. There's a question in the book as to whether she has Asperger's. I wonder that about myself. Alice is smart. She's hardworking. She has a knack for saying the wrong things. She gets in trouble at work because she can become overly anxious, and she has difficulty standing up for herself. She is in residency to be a surgeon—a rigorous, abusive, sexist training program that would try the soul of anyone. Alice comes in with extra challenges.

The wonder of this book is how she navigates through her obstacle course. Her realizations and gradual changes ring true. It is glorious to watch Alice come out of her shell. If you haven't read this book yet and it calls to you, let me know what you think. I have favorite scenes that I won't spoil. I found a new one this time around. I'd love to know what spoke to you.