Back to School and Fresh New Starts

Although the weather is still hot and dry here, the subtle (and not so subtle) signs of autumn are all around me: the burning bush is turning red, the stores are displaying Halloween decorations, and the kids are back to school. I don't know about you, but I always equate the autumn with new beginnings, a fresh start, a chance at a new adventure. When I started each new school year with a stack of blank notebooks and sharpened pencils, I vowed to myself that this year would be different. This was the year I was going to (fill in the blank here.) Depending on the given year, it could be get better grades, be more outgoing, try out for sports, or as simple as not procrastinate. Usually by mid-October, however, the shiny new promises I made myself were as scuffed and neglected as my back-to-school shoes. Walking around in life puts a few smudges and dirt on those idealized vows.

Nonetheless, I still make new plans and search out new opportunities in the fall and this year is no different. Since I've been struggling with my present work in progress (or WIP for short), I'm tempted to jettison the tiresome task for something fresh and new. There is nothing like starting out a new work, be it a short story, novel or poem, when the fire of inspiration is on you. The words seem to fly like electricity from the brain cells through the arms to fingers, words of sheer genius madly spilling across the computer screen or notebook page. Then you hit the slump, the saggy middle, the problematic plot stopper, the self-critical editor...the mid-October blahs. What then? How do you get that "back-to-school" new beginnings promise back into your work? Do you buy a new, fancy pen and notebook? Do you look through pictures to inspire or turn to your writing manuals on plot and characterization? Sometimes. Or, do you jump ship and start a new project and just pray that the old one will come to life again in the future? Every writer has a different answer to this same dilemma.

I'll tell you what I'm doing now with the old WIP when I'm sorely tempted to fall in love with a fresh, new project instead. I'm doing something to help me become intrigued by my old characters, to re-discover and re-invent the theme that originally inspired me, and to get back to the "butt in seat, hands to keyboard" discipline that any writer needs to not only succeed but just finish a book! Not unlike bringing a horse back into work which has been laid off due to sickness or injury, I've had to start slow and review the basics. At first I took my story which had been on "stall rest" and lost all its muscle out for a ride and found it just couldn't keep up, so I went back to the barn and did a complete assessment of where the weaknesses were. Having identified two-dimensional characters, stilted scenes, plodding plot points, I fixed or eliminated these "lamenesses" by drawing up entire profiles of my main characters or by painstakingly mapping out timelines or sequences of events. Surprisingly, by doing these "fundamental exercises" I not only improved the story I had, but also became excited about it again. I gained new insights into the characters' motivations, I saw new ways to keep the suspense turned up, and I fell in love with this old WIP in the season of new beginnings. I guess those old, scuffed shoes still have a lot of miles of adventure left in them after all. What's going to inspire you this fall during the season of starting over?

Trying Too Hard

by Lisa Trovillion

I’ve recently had a few hands-on lessons in the old adage: Tell a gelding, but ask a mare. My mare, Dorrie, because of past physical problems, has been a study in patience and correctness. What do I mean by this? She is physically unable to go forward without being straight and needs a lot of help from the rider to find this straightness and maintain it. Here comes the patience part. It has been so hard for me to understand that I was a large part of her problem–why she would curl in a ball, flatten ears and not go forward? Why would she bow out in the opposite direction of our turn? Why does she drag and break to walk? What was happening? I’m not THAT bad a rider, am I? After all, my other horse goes along just fine. Learning the hard way—my personal specialty—I discovered that I was in fact shoving at her with my seat and nagging with my legs to go. Doesn’t work. I would creep forward, pinching with my thighs instead of sitting back with legs open. Makes her slow or stop. And I was not centered, but was instead dominating one side, which caused her to shift her weight and bow out. And all of this was so subtle that it took an instructor with a keen eye to detect it. That being said and acknowledging my riding faults, Dorrie is not a horse to meet you half way --or at all. You have to ask and you have to do it right. She’s like a giant, red “correctness” meter that clearly tells you when you're screwing up. And most of the time when I wasn't getting it right, it was because I was trying too hard.  Shoving, clamping, forcing, willing something to happen doesn't necessarily make it so. Same with writing. I'm in the slumping hammock depths of a novel right now that I'm afraid is not living up to its great beginning and planning surprise ending. Every word I write, I'm evaluating as junk. So now I'm shoving at the page, nagging at the sentences, and endlessly fidgeting with the wording so that the story is fed up, shut down, and pinning its ears at me. It's time to let go. Take a breath. Open and relax and just write as if no one will ever read it and I am free to tear up the pages as soon as they are written. That's the only way I'll go forward into that sought after zone of "self-carriage" where the words come, the characters speak, the creativity flows and the rhythm of the story moves with perfect cadence so that I'm just along for the ride!