Why…
...must ideas pop into my head at the least opportune of times? There are few times when it just isn't possible to whip out your notebook and start scrawling but I seem to find them all... Bah!
On Music
I've got to write an essay. Rather I should say I am writing an essay. It's still in the planning stages and the first draft will be written this weekend. It's due on December 10th and time is kind of pressing... It always is these days.
So... Music! The essay is on my influences, books, writers etc. that have had an affect on my writing practice. When I think about it a lot my influences are just as much comics and movies as they are novels. It's okay to put that stuff in. I asked. But what about that other massive influence in my life: Music? There's rarely a waking moment when I'm not listening to music in one form or another. It affects my mood, it's a comfort and a companion. It's something I absolutely could not live without. But does it count as an influence on my writing practice?
I think it is and should. As I write this I'm listening to Nympthetamine by Cradle of Filth. It's cheesy metal. I can't describe it. The band can't really either. It's epic, it's silly, it's pretentious, it's pretty ridiculous. But it puts me in mind of gothic fantasy. I know that sounds obvious since that's one of the genres they're intruding on but it really puts it in mind. When I imagine that kind of setting this kind of music helps. Mainly because that kind of setting doesn't really work for me if the writer is taking themselves entirely seriously...
The point is this. When I'm writing I have to be listening to music. Unlike a lot of people, who find it distracts them, I find it focuses my thoughts in a particular direction... and I have music for pretty much every direction I could require. So I'd say music is a massive influence on my writing practice. But how to describe that? How to write about that in an essay? Did I just do it? Is this kind of writing suitable? I guess time will tell. The only thing I know for sure is that I can't let this essay be handed in without mentioning In Flames, Misery Loves Co., Queen and a whole host of other bands...
...except I can't. The essay is 3000 words. So I'll have to limit myself to a few. And that's an entirely new issue... Which few?
People Watching
Okay I'm sure you know this but people watching is the single most entertaining sport on the planet. Sitting in a cafe and watching people is the closest you're going to come to knowing 99.9% of them. You can make this even more useful and fun by taking a friend with you. Rather than just playing voyeur you can bounce off each other and come up with some ideas you'd never have come up with on your own. The fact it's become a game makes you much less self-conscious about staring in the first place. Just remember to write down what you observe.
Things we saw this weekend...
- Two people who clearly got on really well. He leaned in when asking her what kind of coffee she wanted. They shared carrying the shopping bags. They constantly made eye contact and smiled at each other.
- A family of three (mother, father and son) who went out of their way to make conversation. The woman's body language was open to her son and closed to the father who was hunched over the table desperately trying to listen in.
- A couple on the rocks. She leaned forward, he leaned back. He never smiled at her. He flirted with the waitress. They used a lot of aggressive hand gestures when talking.
- A family who have gone out of their way to dress and style their kids as "tv trendy". The children looked really uncomfortable in their get up. The wife did her best to send her husband and kids away while she had coffee with her friends.
Other people are ready made characters!
On Focus
I tried a different way of working last night. I usually write in the living room, perched on the edge of the settee, hunched over my laptop. I'm doing it right now. It's not particularly comfortable but this is the room I spend most of my time in because it's the warmest and the most comfortable. What that actually means is it's not a place where I can easily find discipline. There are my books, the TV, the internet to distract me. It's easy to slack off. So I made a change.
I took my laptop down to a small desk area in the basement part of my flat. There's no TV down there, it's colder, it's darker and there's too many walls for my wireless to get through. I sat down in a proper (read: good enough) office chair, turned on the music, made a list of things I wanted to get done and worked for two and a half hours straight. I edited two short scripts and wrote up two story ideas (one as pseudo prose and the other purely as notes). My mind skipped across a couple of other ideas in the middle of other pieces and I got a few more hand-written notes made.
So... For all people may talk about their special writing places, how nice they are, how comfortable they feel, how they feel inspired just by being in a particular room. I'm calling bullshit. You don't need to surround yourself with nice things to write. You just need a chair with good lumbar support, a good pair of noise cancelling headphones and to remove from your immediate vicinity those distractions you always find so tempting. Passion, dedication and discipline help too but that goes without saying. You've already got those.
Session Two
I'm now adding even more to my current workload. The class this evening was about keeping a journal of your writing. Not just that though. A journal in which you track how your writing develops, how you feel about it, what you read, what you write, when etc. I find the whole idea quite overwhelming. But we'll see... I guess the touchy-feely stuff can go in here and my notes on my stories can go in Scrivener...
How do I feel about my writing right now? I feel I want to do some. I feel like I've got a few solid ideas but I also feel like I've not given other ideas enough attention. I guess once I feel strongly enough about one of them I'll get on with it. After editing other people's work over the weekend I feel like I'm getting more of a handle on the whole thing. But I still need to really throw myself into one of my own ideas in order to feel good about my own stuff.
What next? Write up lecture notes. Copy story ideas somewhere sensible. Read script writing book. Write more prose. Write prose as script.
Onward with the reading! The zen stuff is all done. Next up we have Writing Short Films by Linda J. Cowgill.
Book: Writing Down The Bones
So I finally managed to get some books from the library for this MA. Luckily a lot of them were available from work too. The first one I'm reading is called Writing Down The Bones and it's written by a "writing tutor" called Natalie Goldberg. I'm always a little suspicious of books by people who haven't had anything significant published.
Then I started reading it. I guess it's okay. There's some good advice in there about writing from the heart and not worrying about quality on your first pass. The problem is it's interspersed with crazy amounts of faux (it has to be...) Zen Buddhism quotes. I just find it impossible to believe that this woman's Zen mentor or whatever they're called said all this shit about writing. It's almost laughable to read advice about writing written in a quasi-spiritual-preachy way.
(Not a real quote but fairly representative) "When you write. You write. When you don't write. You don't write. But love yourself." Wow... my life changed...
So if you can tolerate that kind of rubbish then this book is great because there's some really nice bits of advice in there and it's very much a fuzzy, furry, friendly keep-your-spirits-up kind of book that'll make you all warm inside and have you believing that your turds can indeed be polished to a shine... rather than a sickly, glistening smear...
Addendum: So far On Writing by Stephen King and Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande are both much better books.
Top Ten Albums
In no particular order... Also there's only three for now...
Misery Loves Company - Your Vision Was Never Mine To Share
In Flames - Reroute to Remain
Goldfinger - Stomping Ground
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Inspiration Hits
Ideas change shape. The more you work with them the more they become these slippery, shifting things. This is a good and bad thing because you need to shoe horn your ideas into specific slots in order to turn them into stories. Often your mind will run so far with an idea that it no longer fits into the place you'd set aside for it. Sometimes an idea will run so far that you need to clip it's wings, maybe tear off a lump of flesh or two, just... you know... to keep it in line? Sometimes... sometimes... when you cut an idea down to size it will suddenly fit perfectly into a place you hadn't planned for it. That just happened. I'm happier... for now...