Creative Writing Pick-Me-Ups

All artists go through a period of creative block every once in a while, whether it is paintings they produce, or prose. What can be more frustrating than having a goal or deadline to meet, only to find yourself slipping into a routine of getting nothing done? Inspiration is a fickle thing, and so you have to grab it when it comes and then wrangle with it to stay, like some kind of wild, frenzied animal that wants feeding at the strangest of hours and then takes off the minute the front door is left ajar.
Left stunned from the inspiration beast’s great escape, what you need is a restorative, or a writing pick-me-up! Here are some of the things that help me when I’ve been left feeling beaten down after a battle with the beast. Perhaps you can also give them a go when creativity has gone out the window.

New Books - Ellie Morris

Take a break

This may seem like it defeats the purpose of trying to get back into a creative writing flow, but sometimes you just need to let go for a while. There’s no use in trying to force things, as it will only frustrate you further. Don’t feel bad about it, but pick up some of your other hobbies instead. It should be something relatively easy and enjoyable. I recently got back into photography and drawing, for example.

Find something new

Shuffle through some different playlists on Spotify and find a new song that you like, go through random articles on Wikipedia until you discover something worth perusal, start a new hobby which has been on your mind for a while now, take a trip out of town and go sightseeing, buy a new book, watch a film in a different genre… You might just find something that can join the missing links between plot point A and character B, or an idea for a new story. It’s unlikely that you can gather enough information for new ideas or motivation when you’re sitting still, watching the cursor blink on the screen, and doing the same old things every time.

Read lots

Lots and lots and lots, whenever or wherever you can. Unwind with old favourites which you have found interesting and inspiring before and explore new genres. If you’re finding fantasy or historical fiction old hat, dig up a classic novel to check out at the library or buy something from a relatively new author whose work you haven’t seen yet. Take a chance, for a balance of new and old can get you on an even keel again. Just keep reading, keep learning, keep persevering.

Read about writing, too

I’m sure you’ll always find new hints and tips! Search for creative writing blogs to follow and drop by the bookstore to look through novels written on the subject. Everybody has at least some room for improvement, and it’s important to recognise that and take steps to see how other people keep up their motivation and reach success. As a side note, I’m re-reading Stephen King’s “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”, and even in this guide he lists lots of further references, meaning that I’ll be drowning in new improvement books to buy (my bank account doesn’t like it, but yay, I guess).
In the case of blogs, other people’s passion for writing can get you excited and ready to write again, too. Bouncing ideas back and forth with a writer friend will make the whole novel-writing journey easier!

Make mood boards

Gather pretty pictures and slam them down on a page. Write around those pictures. Just scribble, scrawl, doodle, draw, and fling paint around like you’re some kind of modern artist in an awful funk. If mum asks about the acid green paint on the ceiling, just say that it’s all for a good cause. But what does the green paint mean? Something about the colour green is calling you, and it must mean something. Write it down. Write anything down. And get messy with the glue. Afterwards, take a step back and try to figure out the bigger picture. How do those colours and things relate to your current piece? How are any of them connected to the current scene? Do they string together at all? Is it an environment, a person or an emotion? Can it lead to new things? Or is your room just in good need of a tidy right now?

Set a goal

Try for 500 words, even if you know they will turn out to be nonsense. Just get something down on the blank page. Don’t mull it over too much, but let it be a stream of consciousness uninterrupted by doubts or extravagant goals. Make a cup of tea or coffee before starting, get comfy, and then reward yourself with a small sweet treat afterwards. Next time, make the goal slightly bigger, until you’re back into your usual routine.

Change of scene

Take your laptop to a local café and camp out for the day. Make sure to take headphones and plenty of money for caffeinated drinks, and find a quiet corner to spread out notebooks, documents, and battle plans. If you don’t fancy spending any money, bring a notebook along to a park or garden and sit with nature, taking notes on what you see. Think about your story without actually having it there to intimidate you; this can offer a new perspective, as more often than not the finer, minute details are forgotten and the story is back to its original outlines, which is what drew you in to write the story in the first place. Just sitting somewhere other than at your desk (or wherever else you spend day after day for the task) can make things more interesting.

♕

I hope somebody will find at least one point in this list helpful. Please let me know in the comments if you have any more ideas!

ℰllie

Maxime: So What's It all About?

For 'Nocturne des Anges' being the blog of an author, I don't seem to write much about what I'm actually writing book-wise, on here. I might have made some vague statements here and there since October last year, about who Maxime is and what his story is about, but I haven't exactly expanded on anything publicly. Heck, on my blog and social media I simply end up blabbing about how much I adore him as my latest writing companion, and that he's very lovable to me, and is my current ticket to running around 1960's Paris and the darker parts of my mind...

It seems a bit silly to be so quiet on a subject that I'm passionate about, and that, in my opinion, should be expressed as a means of gaining interest.

A point that I saw on a blog post for maximising creativity offered an interesting idea: write a pitch or artist statement explaining why your project is so important. The idea was to read it through every day and remind yourself why you're passionate about it, and want to meet the goal - more of a personal motivator than something professional to hand in to an editor or publisher, I expect. I already know that the story is important to me, and that I'm going to see it through to the end, but I thought writing an informal statement and posting it here would be a good way of expressing the story and message to others, too. 

Medal from Rock n Rose, I'm planning some Maxime-related photography soon...

“Maxime” is set in 1960’s France, and is a mixture of historical, romantic, drama, and LGBT fictional genres. 

Synopsis: 

Maxime de Faye is a child-star, trapped in an adult’s world. Twelve and naive, he falls into a nest of vipers when his beauty, vivacity, and natural talent captures the interest of a director, giving him the opportunity to begin his dream cinema career in Paris. First came the excitement of his impending fame and fortune, but he is soon knocked flat on his back, to the mercy of the city and all those that would surround and tower over him, when he realises that his role brings about more than just the ordinary admiration and applause that he craved in the beginning… 

Despite being disgusted by and afraid of the older men that would not hesitate to prey on him in his new and unusual environment, Maxime finds himself very attracted to and curious about his co-star, Leopold Ronis, an older boy of eighteen years. In turn, his puppy love is requited by Ronis, who despite keeping the boy out of harm’s way and ensuring that the relationship between them on set is chaste, secretly lusts after him just as much as the other men in their circle. 

Maxime’s films and performance may be otherworldly, but reality can be jarring in the head space of young teenage boy who is overworked, bombarded with the responsibility of an adult three times his age, and forced to smile despite feeling lonely in a world filled with countless names and faces. 

Only the support and love of his younger sister, Leone, and boyfriend, Leopold, manages to drag him from deep despair and broken confidence, and Maxime realises that dreams and ambitions can be outgrown.

♕

If my character Aika was a reflection of the emotions I felt at the age of fourteen, and Carrie/Cherry (both from the "When the Summer Ends"/"Mansions of Glass" duology) was built upon the type of person I wanted to meet and become friends with, Maxime feels more like a son to me; we are not very like each other - as the Myer-Briggs test clearly illustrated, in a previous post -  yet I feel very protective of him.

He starts off as around the same age as my previous protagonists, but this type of bold and passionate  (yet tortured) character is different to what I've written before, and is what makes me excited to continue with his story. 

Max almost writes himself in a way, as he runs from scene to scene (both literally and figuratively, as he is an actor), yelling "come on, come on!" despite his initial trepidation, and it's hard to keep up with him. As a result, I'm up at all hours scribbling down ideas, and flinging plot points at him, and in turn, he flings ideas back at me, saying "I'd like this to happen, I have to have some good times, too," or "what about this? It's very likely". As I said, he tends to write himself, and is very eager to do so.

Medal from Rock n Rose, I'm planning some Maxime-related photography soon...

 

Due to just wanting to write, write, write in order to keep up, rather than blog, and constantly thinking of what will happen next in his adventures in minute detail, I had been rather worried about writing a pitch, or summary of sorts, just in case some things should change. See, Maxime is an impulsive kind of beast, and as I'm learning new things about him and his life story every day, when I thought I knew it all, I wanted to see how it goes before committing to certain things... As I get new ideas every day, it seems like a very big project, and is almost overwhelming at times. 

I also kept things pretty secret because of shyness, too; I always worry that people will laugh at my ideas, or think that I'm too dark and sinister or controversial in my content. 

Talking to my close friend, who is also a writer, really helped to solidify things that I was worried about, however, and now that things are very clear about the story, I'm trying to get over the nerves of gathering everything together and putting my ideas out there to other people.

Along with how much I enjoy creating the world of my new protagonists, this story gives me a lot of enthusiasm and the characters are quite divergent to what I've written before, so I have a lot of high hopes for it. Sometimes that can be quite intimidating, but I'm using what I learned through re-reading When the Summer Ends and advice from my friends, family and beta readers, to better myself and hopefully achieve something really meaningful. 

I hope that my story will be as interesting for people to read as it is for me to write! 

ℰllie

Changing Plans - NaNoWriMo Plotting with "Ready, Set, Novel!"

Well, plans change. I typically can't stand changing things, especially after saying that I'm going to do one thing and then do another, but since it's nearly November and I was given a wonderful workbook on writing for my recent birthday... I think it's time to fight my ardent dislike of the unexpected, and give myself a kick in the pants, as "Ready, Set, Novel!" has inspired myself to do. Literally. There is a page entirely dedicated to getting a hefty boot in the butt, and one for a high five, too.

The land of "Roses For Margaret" is a bit of a barren wasteland right now in my addled head, and I just can't think of the direction I want to marshal Margaret and co. in. Left or right? Happy or sad? Up or down? Alive, or... dead? Just kidding, nobody will die in that novel, but even so, the idea is rather tempting sometimes (just think of Paul Sheldon in Stephen King's "Misery", who grows to dislike his main heroine after spending so much time chronicling her life).
I don't quite dislike her that much, but her fuzzy lack of direction and the amount of staring contests that I've had with my Scrivener document for the novel, has given me too much irritation to be entirely pleased with the young miss. (Yes, that's right - I'm blaming my character Margaret, and not myself. Charming, aren't I?) I suppose some novels just give the author a lot of grief and prove to be more challenging than the others; I didn't have a very linear frame for RFM, and I dipped in and out of it very infrequently over the course of three/four years, so I think it truly would be worth it to move on to other stories, and come back afresh another time, with a better battle plan.
Or bin it. Binning it sounds good right now... But as my Writer's Workbook by the NaNoWriMo authors says, sometimes you will be in love with your novel, and sometimes you'll just want to rip it to shreds - but some time you will fall back in love with it. I'm hoping that will be the case in a year or so.

But a new idea has come to me, and I think it may be a good one, as I'm already besotted with the main characters and have a good timeline planned out. I just love them so much! I had that kind of love for Aika Rowland and Carrie Knox when I started "When the Summer Ends", so it's exhilarating to get that love for my characters and thrill for writing back!
As I go through the "Ready, Set, Novel!" workbook, I get more and more excited about it each time and so many ideas come flooding in. I stayed up until half two in the morning scribbling away in the book - starting at around seven pm - and was shocked to see how late it was, as I was really engaged! As you can probably tell, writer or not, this kind of excitement for a new story is much more constructive to writing than trying to slug your way through a book you started at fifteen years old, and never quite managed to pin down the characters and plot and whip them into shape.

I can now tell my uptight self that change isn't so bad after all. Maybe, whether you are a fellow Aspie or not, you have had the same problem? It's very easy to get an idea and stick to it no matter how challenging and demotivating the plan is, as I saw with my idea last year to "get Roses For Margaret done, seeing as it's already got about 50,000 words". I didn't want to change or latch onto a new idea, as the thought of it made me very nervous and irritated with myself - but if you're in the same situation, I'd say go for it and try something new! That's how I got my passion for writing and plotting stories back! And it's a wonderful feeling that I very nearly forgot.

As for the new plot itself, I have a lot of it penned down, but I don't think I should reveal too much just yet, as things may be slightly different in a month or so, whether it is a change of name or a new viewpoint. But it's set in 1960's France, predominantly in Paris - so despite going there often, I have a fair bit to research! The basic premise is about a teenage boy wanting freedom, despite having a life that other people would dream of.

I know it's early to start NaNoWriMo now, but I was too excited to wait for planning a week at a time, that I just had to get it all out. The workbook by Chris Baty, Lindsay Grant, and Tavia Stewart-Streit is truly wonderful, I would really recommend it to anyone that wants to write a book, whether it be the first one, or the thirtieth. Not only is the content great, amusing, and thought-provoking, the layout and style is simple but effective and elegant - just perfect!
November will be a month of being chained to my laptop and writing like a slave (I say hopefully). Wish me luck!

ℰllie