Tag Archives: short stories

August 27, 2011

Your Displacement or Mine?

By suehealy

Writing is the only thing in the world that makes me want to do housework.

So, what’s your favourite displacement activity?

 

Weird, huh? I hate housework, I love writing, so how come every time I’m part way through some writing I suddenly get the urge to do the washing up, tidy, iron, arrange my bookshelves? It’s because my brain is searching for a ‘displacement activity’ apparently.

‘Displacement activity’ is a posh phrase writers have for all the stuff you do that is not the stuff you are SUPPOSED to be doing. Avoidance is probably a more readily understood term, but doesn’t sound half as writerly. What happens is a little ‘displacement monkey’ in your mind distracts you from the task at hand, by urging you to ‘make another cup of tea/check the TV guide/your bank account/ebay/post on this blog : ) rather than crack on with that piece of dialogue you’re trying to get down. Displacement activities can sabotage your writing, they say – though I’m not wholly convinced. I think they sometimes happen for a reason. Perhaps what you’re working on needs time to settle, or percolate in your mind and after you’ve bought those gloves on ebay, it will all come together. However, I admit, I think I’d get a lot more writing done if I didn’t have an Internet connection in my office…

I know a few writers who keep their displacement activity on hand – as another creative hobby and they believe one such activity complements and feeds the other. So, they may start painting and then half way through THAT activity they’ll turn back to their writing as a displacement activity for their painting and so on…

Apart from this blog and the Internet, my favourite displacement activity is taking long walks, which can’t be so bad. What’s yours?

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August 27, 2011

Good MORNING! Good Writing!

By suehealy

There is a theory that the brain is more creative in the morning, especially in your waking moments. For this reason, many writers keep their notepad by their beds and make sure that the very first thing they do when they open their eyes each morning, is write. The resultant notes are called “morning pages”. I’v e only very recently become a fan of this morning exercise but I’m finding it fruitful. I don’t believe it would have worked for me ten years ago when I didn’t ‘do’ mornings, at all, ever. Now, I’m 41. I do mornings and I do them well.

 

Anyway, enough about my aging. Morning pages might contain what a writer remembers of their dreams or perhaps the writer will simply jot down the very first words that come to mind that day. Some writers say that this exercise helps them ‘slip’ more easily into what writers’ call the “writing rapture” when a writer feels ideas are pouring into their mind. When writers write in the morning, so the theory goes, they are closer to their sleeping state and the mind is more imaginative and/or receptive to ideas.

 

Having said that, there are plenty of writers who write late at night – for the same reason that they say the closer to sleep they are, the more creative their ideas. Then there are other writers who find their most productive hours are in the middle of the day (the Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling is a good example. She wrote her first book in a busy Edinburgh café).

 

Different times of the day work for different people and it is really of no consequence whether you are a morning, day or night writer. What is important is that you write and that you find your ideal writing time. Experiment. Find what works for you and then set an hour aside each day at that time and write.

 

Likewise, writers have very personal tastes regarding an environment conducive to writing. There are those who like music or TV buzz in the background and those who can only write in silence. Find whatever works for you.

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August 20, 2011

Your Plot’s a Joke!

By suehealy

Fishing for plot ideas? Did you hear the one about the man….

Jokes! Jokes are a great source of plot ideas. An established writer gave me this tip years ago and yesterday I did a class with the crims on the concept.

Jokes, you see, are plots in miniature. Stories sealed up and ready to go. You’ve got your beginning, middle, end, your conflict, your characters – flaws and all. All you’ve got to do is flesh it out. Expland on it. Change gender and setting if possible. And no, it doesn’t have to be funny because many jokes (indeed, stories) need an element of tragedy to make comedy (and vice vearsa) and you can just crank up the aspect you want to emphasize.

Here’s a joke that’s given me an idea for a short story:

“It was Ryan’s funeral and the pallbearers were carrying the casket out from the church. When they bumped into a pillar, one of them heard a moan from inside the coffin. They opened the lid and found Ryan alive. He lived for another ten years before he properly died. Another funeral was held for him and, as the pallbearers were carrying out the coffin, Mrs Ryan shouted “Now, watch out for that pillar!”

OK, it’s the way ya tell ’em… But the point is that they don’t have to be the funniest jokes – just so long as there is a story in there, a universal truth with which your readers will react and engage. Wordplay/puns won’t work so well, go for the story…

Here’s another one you can chew on for a story idea (my ‘students’ liked this one):

The defendant knew he didn’t have a prayer of beating the murder rap, so he bribed one of the jurors to find him guilty of manslaughter. The jury was out for days before they finally returned a verdict of manslaughter. Afterward the defendant asked, ‘How come it took you so long?’ the juror said, ‘All the others wanted to acquit’.

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August 16, 2011

On a Roll, Baby

By suehealy

I’m on a roll – roostered again this morning. My new story is taking shape and it is the first really new piece of work I’ve crafted in months and months. I’ve been working on the novel (not sure what is happening with that at the moment, rather a sore subject) and editing stories but I haven’t really written any new material in aaaaages… and now I have. This roostering rocks! And I’ve become a morning person in my middle age and I believe this is all too normal : )

I’ve got new characters in my head and new setting to disappear into when I hit the keyboard – the question is where to send it. Am busy compiling a list of new competitions and will post when ready. Thinking of sending the (half abandoned) novel into the Mylexia comp…

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August 15, 2011

I’m a Rooster.

By suehealy

Gittin' ideas on a Croatian isle...

I’m finally a rooster,I’m a rooster – and no, that is not Chinese astrology (where I’m  dog, woof woof), it’s getting up at the crack of dawn type rooster person.

This morning, I got up at 6pm and I sat down and wrote uninterrupted for an hour before heading to work. You may now applaud.

I am not a morning person. Like Bart Simpson, I was blissfully unaware that there was a six o’clock in the morning too, at least the only times I’d ever stumbled upon it were at the end of long stumbling nights… And when people spoke of ‘morning pages’ I scoffed – not for me, I said, I’m rather more the Keith Richards close to the witching hour kind of artist, innit.

There was the occasional,well intentioned morning when I set my alarm clock – but nothing came of it. And all the better, I mused, as I’m awful before the first caffine injection of the day and still carry a warning sign up to two hours afterwards…

So.. what happened? Age, a job, life I guess – and mostly because these evenings I’ve been promising myself that I’d spend writing,  I’ve been too tired post work to do anything more than answer a few emails and edit a few stories (if I’m lucky). The result is that the first half of this year has been remarkably unproductive. And there i was, on my Croatian isle, kicking back on Krk for a few days with my Croatian buddy Marina when I started to think aobut how I was going to get the writing done… and it came to me in one fell divine flash swoop ‘Get thee up early” …

And so, a week on, I set my alarm for six this morning. Woke and sat at my laptop and wrote 1,000 words of a story – sketched out the plot of an idea that had been buzzing around my head for a couple of weeks. Now its on paper and I’ll visit it again tomorrow morning  at 6pm and expand.  And I’ll have it in some sort of shape so I can edit it at the weekend and then start on another idea I have next week.

Moreover, I was so pleased with my little achievement – I was buzzing for the rest of the day.

Lets hope I can keep this up!

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