creativity » creative.mother.thinking

NaNo-ing along

Nov 152007

I know I have been quiet over the last week or so. That’s because I’m a bit busy here. Though I’m contemplating not finishing NaNoWriMo on a daily basis I have been struggling to write on and on. It seems that I really am teaching more this year than last year because my afternoons are packed. Which means that all writing that hasn’t been done by lunch has to be done in the evenings. Urgh. I have been falling behind during the week slow and steady, last Thursday a did a whopping 3,000 words, and was on top of my game for about 20 hours when I decided not to write on Friday because I was just so tired and drained. On Saturday we went to a town near the Alps to spend a day practicing awareness, and while that was a very good thing to do it didn’t help the word count that much. I had planned to write on the train, and did so at 7.30 in the morning but on our way home – not so much.

Then a 3,000 words day on Sunday again, okay days on Monday and Tuesday, and then I decided that taking a guitar lesson was more important than writing on Wednesday… So if only I can write about 4,000 words today I’m good again.

You might ask why taking guitar lessons may be more important than meeting my NaNo-goal for the day, well, I have a new student. A student who is learning electrical guitar, and has been doing so for half a year already. So now I am practicing like mad to catch up with the things she already knows how to play, while teaching her the things I know how to play, and she doesn’t. Fun.

And it is, fun, I mean. Imagine playing distorted power chords over an amp. While I tend to be a little nervous about the sheer amount of noise I generate, after a while, when I manage to let go of the fear of my neighbors getting angry with me, it’s quite liberating. I’m literally rocking, and I haven’t felt like this since I quit playing drum set fifteen years ago.

So now you know why I haven’t been visiting your blogs much.

On top of all that I am not that content with my story. I find that I like making imaginary people, and I love making up their imaginary lives, I only don’t like to make up stories. Stories don’t work like real life, you have to have tension and conflict, people and situations have to change, otherwise why bother. Only while I see several possibilities to insert conflict or drama into my story I have been very reluctant to do so. I think I’m okay with this. Nobody has to read it anyway. But that means that writing stories probably isn’t the best thing for me to do. But I leave contemplating that for after I have completed my “novel”. For now I leave you with the beginning of my novel:

She thought about leaving. Right now. Never to come back. Maybe pack a bag, take her credit card, toothbrush, laptop computer, a few clothes, and leave. Walk to the train station, or better yet, take a train to the airport. Take a flight somewhere, anywhere and start over again.

These thoughts were always most appealing to her in moments like these when she slowly walked her son to kindergarten, her thoughts drowning in his incessant talking about robots. His hand in hers, his feet dragging. She felt like she had to carry him the whole way. As if he was leaning back on purpose. As if she were an ox pulling a plow through ankle high water on a rice field. Already she was looking forward to her tiny sliver of freedom. On her way back she would be able to put on her earphones and listen to some music.

If somebody had told her ten years ago that she would live a like this some day, she would have laughed hysterically. A life as bland as this, as routine and boring as this and still she’d answer every „How do you do?“ with „Fine!“? Incredible.

This is only midlife crisis, she thought. It will pass. I have a good life now. But not very exciting, a small voice in the back of her had chimed in. Who wants exciting? Only peace breeds art. Peace maybe but not boredom.

She hadn’t felt bored for decades. She thought she couldn’t feel that bored anymore. Then she had a child. Not that she didn’t want to keep it. Not that she didn’t love her son dearly. But there were so many boring things in her life now. At least she didn’t have to change diapers any longer but the sheer ennui of bringing a fiver year old to dress or undress, brush his teeth, and drink his water sometimes threatened to drown her.

„You have to find the serenity in everyday tasks.“, her friend said. „When you scrub the toilet with awareness it stops being boring.“
„I don’t mind scrubbing toilets.“

That earned her a bland look from Jasmine.

„What I do mind is spending time with the person I love more than life itself and feeling so bored that I wish to drop dead this instant.“
„Well, every marriage has its ups and downs but I didn’t think Justin were that boring.“
„I’m not talking about Justin. I’m talking about Leo. Five year olds aren’t exactly the epitome of intellectual stimulation.“
„But he is such a delightful little boy.“
„Yes, he is.“ For about twenty minutes at a time.

Iris realized that this conversation was futile. Maybe she better talked about this with other mothers. Having a best friend who was childless did add a little friction to their relationship. How could she explain to Iris how much energy she needed to put into this little person day after day? How could she explain that she didn’t find Jasmin’s quest for the perfect man the most important thing in the world anymore? That despite everything she said to the contrary she didn’t really believe she would find him?

I have to talk to other mothers. Somewhere out there I’ll find a friend. I will.

I had written this post in the morning, and as of now I actually managed to write about 4,000 words. So I’m on track again. Thanks to spirit helpers or angels who helped me and also to my dear husband who spent about 90 minutes cooking lunch on the wood stove. All of a sudden I’m feeling much lighter …

NaNoWriMo the second

creativity, NaNoWriMo, projects 8 Responses »

Nov 022007

It’s that month again. National Novel Writing Month.

And I will be participating. I already did it last year, and so I have a feeling that it is do-able. I’m a hopeless optimist and so I’m convinced that of course this year I will be very disciplined, I will write 2,000 words every day without fail, in the morning.

Well, yes, I find that funny too. My husband? Not so much. You have to remember that I didn’t only do NaNoWriMo last year but also FAWM (February Album Writing Month), and Script Frenzy. And while I do have a note from Script Frenzy that entitles me to an open-ended sabbatical from all housework, really, that would be a little too much to ask of my husband. Especially since he teaches much more students than me, and does more housework too. (And has a blog or two and music to make.)

So, there has been a bit of a debate going on whether it is a good thing for me to write a novel in a month again. I was all committed though I start to regret it already. I have had great plans of writing thousands of words in the first few days and so far I have been struggling to write anything. See, that is so typical of me. Instead of being proud that I wrote 3,790 words of my new novel, I’m disappointed because I had wanted to write 6,000 words until today. Which was a bit of a silly plan because while we have vacation again there also is no kindergarten. No kindergarten means less productivity. Add to that my attempt to do housework, and a major procrastination tendency… And you end up with enough words to write 50,000 in November but not enough to be ahead.

Also I’m not caring about my characters much. This year I’m writing about a 40-year-old mother in midlife crisis. There are definite resemblances to me but she isn’t me. Not at all. I decided that after last years drama with aliens and psychics and teleportation, and my screen play about evil witches killing off female drummers, this year I’d write something real. Maybe even with feelings. Who knows.

Of course I had planned to prepare myself. Last year I prepared food in advance, I bought all Christmas presents, the only thing I didn’t do was an outline or any character planning. I meant to but I never did. Well, this year I prepared nothing since all that preparation last year only mad October more stressful but didn’t help much for November.

The only thing I definitely wanted to do this year was thinking about my novel in advance. Maybe even outlining it. But I couldn’t. I wrote to Sofia about it:

For my next book, I will be making an outline and Susanne , a toytown writer, doesn’t know if she could use an outline… but the thing is she uses an outline for everything else why not her writing. she uses one everyday and her writing should not be any different. For each thing she sews and knits there is a pattern and even though she may not follow it, the pattern allows her to see where she is going.

That made me think (I know it doesn’t take much for that). She is right. I’m using outlines and patterns and such all the time. Even in music I play songs that already exist. But there is a difference, at least for me: knitting and sewing and cooking all start with a vision of the finished product. I see that in my mind and then I think about how to create it. Writing to me is more like musical improvisation. I just start singing somewhere and see where it takes me. I repeat things, I do something new, it shapes itself as I do it. I’m not much interested right now in telling a story I already know. And my reluctance to outline has to do with the structure of NaNoWriMo too.

You’re not supposed to write parts of the novel before November. The whole thing has to be written in those 30 days. Otherwise it would be cheating. If I were to start writing about my characters or an outline or something, I’d end up writing parts of the novel before starting. So I need to write about the characters and the novel to find out about them and, well, there you are.

Of course that’s quite exciting. I don’t know anything about my story yet. Well, not much. The only thing that I’m ding this time around is end the writing day by starting a new chapter and writing a synopsis of it on top. Like, “Chapter two, in which Iris gets a new job and makes a list.” That is my starting point for the next day.

Oh, and this year I’m writing in English. Which means that I have to have my browser open all the time to look up words. Ahem. Very productive. But still I’m afraid I won’t be able to comment and read as much as usual. Those 2,000 words a day have to come out of somewhere.

Are any of you doing NaNo too? Or NaBloPoMo? National shoe-whatever? Naknitalong (there is something called NaKniSweMo on ravelry, but I am not on ravelry so I can’t tell you about it)? National drawing? Or are you level-headed like my husband and don’t partake in silly competitions?

Art and creativity are pivotal

creativity 10 Responses »

Oct 312007

Well, I know most people don’t think so. I encounter this daily when people dismiss my work and central focus of my life as a “hobby”. Something nice to be done on weekends when the children are in bed. Something that certainly is less important than exercise, or cleaning, or “real work”, or money, or people, or – let’s say – washing the car. Music lessons are the first thing to be dropped when a student’s grades are slipping. Not soccer practice.

It seems that our society deems art to be something like embroidery on a rain coat. It might be pretty to look at, but it isn’t necessary, and maybe it impedes its function. Art is what gets added when everything else is finished like the icing on a cake.

I believe that this notion is utterly wrong. I believe that art is central to human existence.

Just for the sake of this post let’s forget about any distinction between craft and art. The line is hard to draw anyway. When we don’t draw it for now, we can say that there always has been art. For as long as we can say anything about human beings. Cave paintings, decorations on pottery, carved bones, embellishments on everyday objects all tell a story of mankind’s quest for beauty and for something to transcend everyday life.

I know that art isn’t all about beauty and that creativity doesn’t equal art but while creativity might be capable of many things it is always art’s source. To me it’s what connects us to the universe, and God, and the Buddha nature of everything, but that’s only me. To the parents of my students music, which is a form of art, is often a means to an end, a way to better grades, a way to conquer ADD, or a way of making use of the piano that clutters the living room.

The point I’m trying to make here is that not only would life be poorer without art but that art is more than embellishment, that one may or may not have, but that it belongs to the core of things that make humans human. Granted, water, food, clothing, and shelter are all more important than art. But the next thing on the list would be social contact, love and friends and such. And this would bring stories, and songs, and dancing with it, and the next thing you know people are making pots just to look at them, embellish their clothes, and paint the walls of their houses.

We all try to be so utilitarian. So we have to find reasons why making art is good for us. And by being good for us we mean that ultimately it will help us make money. I won’t go much into the notion that money is a real thing instead of a contract, but it all comes down to justifications like, “When our kindergardeners spend a lot of time preparing and then acting in the school play it will help them get better grades in school which will help them to go to college and then make more money when they grow up.”

What I’d love to see is a time when people will be able to justify their pursuit of art by saying, “This is what human beings do. It makes us happy. In making us happy it makes all the people around us a bit happier too and that is good for society.”

End of sermon. But well, I had to write something dear to my heart as the first post on the new blog. Thank you for coming to my new place. I hope you like it. And if you would like the posts to have more space for better reading you could click on the left of the very, very, very small grey buttons on the top of the post. This will make the sidebars go away.

And do me a favor. Please enjoy some art today. Look at a painting, or a photograph, listen to music, whatever. Better yet, paint something, sing, play your guitar, take a picture. Yes, I mean you. I know you can do it.

How can one learn to enjoy the process?

changing habits, creativity, self-help 12 Responses »

Sep 242007

I had one of those epiphanies a couple of months ago about the creative process. Or life maybe.

I always thought that if you are a real artist you enjoy the whole process of making art from start to finish. I thought for example that real musicians (unlike me) enjoy practicing. Maybe not every single minute of it but seven out of their eight hours a day of it for sure. I have to force myself to play. And every day I have to do it again.

I have heard that it takes 27 days to form a habit. Haha, really funny that. I have had practiced daily for months or years without it becoming a habit.

But back to that epiphany: Lisa Liam wrote somewhere in her blog that she dislikes cutting out the pieces for sewing. And she loves sewing so much that she has made it into her profession. I had thought it was only me! Disliking the cutting, swearing all through the sewing and leaving the almost finished piece for months without sewing on the buttons. Or dreading blocking and sewing the knitting together so much that I’d rather stop knitting the sweater with half a sleeve unfinished.

Or having to kick myself to practice by setting a kitchen timer and saying, “You won’t leave this keyboard until the bell rings. No, no daydreaming. Play. – I can hear that you’re not really working. Get back. Do your scales.” And it’s even a little harder with making music because you’re never finished. It’s just like being an athlete in training.

Or never writing anything but the beginning of a story. Only signing up for NaNoWriMo made me finish a first draft. I recently spoke to a fellow NaNo-participant about signing up for the next one (I’m still undecided, but this time I’ll tell my husband first.), and he said, “The hardest part is starting to write for the day. Once you have written a few sentences it just keeps going.”
Ha! As if! With every writing project apart from writing blog posts I had to force myself to write every single paragraph. Not that I didn’t have periods of free flowing prose where all I had to do was typing fast enough to keep up but once I reached my quota for the day I couldn’t get away from writing fast enough.

So for me doing something that fills me with joy isn’t necessarily about doing things that are fun or pleasurable. The question is why I keep on doing these things even though I find them tedious and hard? There comes Robert Heinlein to mind who said that he felt awful when writing but even more awful when not. (That’s somewhere in his biography which I can’t access now because it’s in the room my son is sleeping in.) I always compare this to climbing a mountain (or going for a walk) versus plopping down in front of TV all day.

The difference is how you feel about life and yourself at the end of the day. The climb or the walk makes you feel strong, confident, happy, and tired in a good way. Sitting on a couch watching TV all day might be pleasurable but at the end of the day you feel sluggish, drowsy, and unsatisfied.

Still, even knowing this, I’d like to change my perspective in a way that I could just enjoy the walk, or the process without feeling bad most of the way. That’s why I made “effortlessness” my word of the year. And I don’t think this is all about being blocked, or my inner critic giving me a hard time. Maybe this is about me thinking that life should somehow be easier. Maybe it’s time to grow up. Without becoming all dead serious and dividing my days into tiny little slices, into a sequence of to-dos. I tried that and while I got a lot of things done it never was enough and I managed to squeeze the joy out of life.

So, do you have any ideas? Are you good about enjoying the process? Did you learn that somehow, or were you always like that?

Meh, Knitting, and Meh Knitting

creativity, knitting 7 Responses »

Sep 132007

Originally I wanted to write a “what I did this summer”-post but yesterday held a big knitting disappointment for me. Which made me realize that this only was the last straw on top of a dozen or so other disappointments. None of them major and all together enough to make me feel very – meh.

My husband has already written about our not so joyful summer break. I didn’t know that you could get almost depressed because your computer is broken, but there you are, this is modern life. In fact it was his computer that broke, and got fixed, and was still broken, and got fixed, and was still broken. I’m about to bring it home again tonight, so keep your fingers crossed. Maybe it will be really fixed this time. (And thank God for extra apple care security plan. Hurray!)

So back to the knitting. Some of you may recall the brown cardigan I have been knitting for a while. In fact I ordered the yarn on Valentine’s day (this year that is) and since then I have been knitting away, unraveling whole pieces of it from time to time, but steadily making progress. This is how the cardigan looked yesterday at noon:

Only half a sleeve left to knit. This is how the cardigan looks now:

See, even the camera has a blurry eye… And then I remembered why I haven’t knit anything besides scarfs and socks for years. The problem is that for about twenty years knitting my gauge was always way too lose. Every thing I knitted ended up to be too big. Then I had enough of this and I taught myself to knit more tight. Since then every single thing I knitted ended up too small. I forgot all about this when I started knitting that cardigan. I thought if I did everything right there wouldn’t be a problem. Until about two months ago I held one of the finished sleeves to my arm out of sheer curiosity. It was, well, about three sizes too small, but we all know that you can block it and then it will turn out right, won’t it? Right?

It was about that time that my sister asked me for leftover yarn. She wanted to knit for charity. I didn’t know there was such a thing in Germany. I had heard about such things in the US but never here. Then, on the other hand, it isn’t as if I were knowing vast amounts of people who like to knit. There’s my mother, my sister and my aunt and that’s that. Of course I immediately started knitting for that on my own. Knitting for preemies. Stricken für Frühchen. For hospitals.

So I laid my cardigan aside and made these:

Yes, those are three socks. I still have to knit another one because then I started reading knitting blogs like this one and then I had to start knitting jaywalker socks for my husband immediately. I knitted the first sock on our way to Paris and back, finished it only to find that the fit was terrible, revisited the pattern, found out that it was a very bad idea to knit the heel differently on a whim because it left me with a foot that was much too wide. Then I unraveled it. And since there was another mistake early on I had to unravel the whole thing and start over again. I just finished it for the second time.

You know I thought I was a quite experienced knitter. I can do all the techniques. Only now I am feeling a little low. I would be a nice change to knit something that would go right the first time and then actually fit.

I won’t give up though. I took me about four months to almost finish that cardigan the first time around. Well, January is a nice cold month. No problem. But first I’ll knit the second of my husband’s socks. And the second teeny tiny baby sock.

I still have a huge stash that begs to be turned into baby socks, hats, and blankets. And three sewing patterns. And fabric for a dress. (Since I have just gained about 2 kilos (4,5 lbs) and it’s a summer dress I’ll leave that and the matching bag for next spring. I’ll probably finish my husband’s bag first and then buy some new fabric to make myself a bagpack tote following Liesl’s pattern.)

So I made. a. plan: First I’ll knit the second of my husband’s socks. Then the second baby sock. Then I’ll start knitting the cardigan again. (Which size? Which needle size? Do I do a sample piece before to see the gauge if it never turns out that way anyway? Do I just start somewhere and then measure once I’m a few inches in? AARGH!)

The Wind

creativity, music, projects 14 Responses »

Jun 262007

I already told you that my husband has become a blogger too. Over at psychedelic zen guitar he pairs gorgeous photos with breath-taking guitar improvisations. Recently he started collaborating with Elspeth Duncan who blogs at now is wow. They have teamed up three times so far. Their first collaboration doesn’t really have a name yet. If you want you can choose one since it’s still showing at a blog near you. Interestingly the video and music were created independently of one another. But they match perfectly nonetheless.

The second one, “magic” started life as a piece of music my husband had recorded. Then Elspeth did the video. (And it is filmed with the iSight camera of a macbook. Which goes to show that you don’t need much equipment for being creative. See. I told you so.)

With the third project they turned the process around. It’s called wind:

Here is what Elspeth wrote about the process of making it:

Collaborative music/video/spoken word project between Trinidad and Germany. The video was created first in Trinidad and edited with ‘silence’ as the soundtrack. Without seeing the video, Susanne (in Germany) was asked to say something in English about the wind – 20 seconds in length. This narrative was added to the video which was then sent to Gary in Germany who viewed the video and composed the music. The music was then sent back to me to edit into the video.

What is interesting is that Susanne had no idea that the location of shooting (Temple in the Sea, Trinidad) is a sacred site where Hindu people are also cremated outdoors on a large open-air pyre. Her words, about the wind taking bits and pieces of her to the sea, reflect what happens when ‘bits’ (smoke, ashes) of the cremated person are carried on the wind to the sea around the Temple.

Video – Elspeth Duncan
Voice – Susanne Fritzsche
Music – Gary Winter

Location: Temple in the Sea, Waterloo, Carapichaima, Trinidad, W.I.

This is what everybody keeps talking about. You start a blog and suddenly you are doing a creative project with somebody halfway around the world.

(For those of you interested, my script stands at 17,200 words. Four more days and 2,800 words to go. Normal blogging will hopefully be resumed soon.)

How to be creative when you don’t have the time (part 3)

creativity, self-help 14 Responses »

Jun 162007

It’s been a while but I didn’t forget. In the first two installments of this series I wrote about finding the time, and finding resources. I promised to write about physical space but since then I have come to think that that isn’t exactly thrilling. So I’ll write about that briefly and then go on to talk about finding the space for creativity in your mind. And then, maybe, there might be a last post about inspiration.

3. Finding physical space

Most creative things don’ need that much space. Again, writing is a winner, sit down anywhere with notebook and pen, and voilà, instant creativity. For music space isn’t the issue unless you want to play drum set or grand piano. Sculpting is harder but then, if you stick with your play-doh…

When I was sewing my grocery bag a student came early. My whole teaching room was full, with the fabric and the sewing machine and the ironing board. And she said that she loved sewing too, but that one really needed time for this, and a place where one can leave it all. She had a veery longing gaze in her eyes.

Of course everyone of us would like to have a crafts room but then it is possible to do it flylady-style too. She has a rolling suitcase for every project. She pulls everything out when she works on it and when she is finished for the day she puts everything back. Which is exactly what I should have done that day. I plan to empty one of the wooden boxes I have around the house and use that as my “current-sewing-project-in-progress”-box. I’ll put it under the box with all the flutes and the xylophone in it.

(And this was the point where I had written this whole post from beginning to finish while my son was first sitting in the bathtub and then later while I was waiting for him to fall asleep, and I was very good, saving it every other paragraph, and happily typing away on my palm and then it said “unexpected error” and all the rest of it is gone. Very frustrating. Sigh. But no, I won’t give up. So here’s the recreation of the rest. Who knows maybe it’ll be a little shorter.)

So, let’s talk about the big issue:

4. Finding the space in your mind

For most of us this may be the biggest obstacle of all. Our minds are full to the brim with little things and little people. Especially the little people can make the task of finding mind space really challenging. Our minds are constantly cluttered with things to do, things not to forget, places to go, people we met, things we talked about, thinks we read about, … So here are a few tips to help:

Find a little time for yourself in the morning:
Every morning I get up half an hour early to do 9 1/2 minutes of sitting meditation. You might ask, “Why does it take 30 minutes to do 10 minutes of meditation?” Well, I’m not very fast in the morning. But when I am, I also write a little in my journal. I have written about meditation elsewhere, and it really helps to clear the mind, but if you don’t want to, anything helps. Get up a little early and write into a journal, or sit down with your cup of coffee and look out of the window, or take a short walk. Just take a little time alone to hear yourself think, feel yourself before the day starts. (And if you have a child that senses when you get up, either leave it with your partner (if you can), or try to make this time as peaceful as possible with the child.)

Find a little time for yourself in the evening:
Again, just sitting down, turning off TV, radio, or mindless chatter helps. Taking a look out of the window, maybe a little walk. I like to sit down in the evenings and write into my gratitude journal. Mad Hatter sits down and blogs (Um, or not, I just read her blog and she is on blog-vacation.). Either way, taking a step back helps to clear the mind.

Find a little time for yourself during the day
Take the peace and quiet wherever you find it. Do the dishes and let your mind wander, hang up laundry with your baby in a sling, put your child in the stroller and go for a walk, sit down at the kitchen table while the children play in the next room, use the tiny scraps of time that you have, put your thinking and your creativity in the nooks and crannies of your day, and you will see that all those scraps together might result in a big, colorful quilt of thinking and creativity.

Start with clearing the physical space
You can also start with de-cluttering. Nothing refreshens the mind better than a little cleaning or de-cluttering. Only be careful not to stop there. Housework never ends. Just let your hands do the work and feel your thoughts lighten.

Move
One of the best things for me to get out of a rut, get my mind working again, think something over, or solve a problem is a walk. All exercise is good for this. (Well, up to a certain point.) But especially good are those that have a rhythm to it and don’t require thinking. Like walking, running or riding a bike. Or maybe yoga. (Okay, not rhythmic and un-thinking as such, but it helps. I know it.)

If you want to find more mind space it also helps to turn off TV, radio, and also – gasp – the computer. All those things can be very stimulating too. But there has to be a little extra space for ideas, and dreams. So you can go and be creative.

And when you have done all that, or maybe only some of that, all you need is a notepad and pen so you can write down your ideas. And then, some other time, you make something out of those ideas. But first you have to have that space in your mind. Which exactly is the reason why we all get such good ideas in the shower or while driving. There even are waterproof notepads for that but in my experience if the idea is really that good you’ll probably still know it, once you’re dry and dressed.

So now that we have cleared our minds and started thinking, it becomes easier. Remember when you fell in love and couldn’t think about anything else but that person? That’s how it feels when you start a new creative project. And then life comes in the way, and procrastination. Of which I will write another day. The only thing that we still need for being creative is inspiration. That will be the conclusion of the creativity-series.

Script Frenzy and other projects

creativity, life, projects 25 Responses »

Jun 022007

I promise to write the next installment of “How to be creative when you don’t have the time” soon. Seriously. As soon as I have finished reading all of the hundreds of blogs I like to read and as soon as I have written my script.

“What?”, you say. Or maybe “WHAT?” What is she doing now? Well, when she read that there would be a NaNoWriMo-like event in June called Script Frenzy she, that is to say I, decided to use that as a chance to complete the movie script I had started writing in 1992. Back then I chose to finish my master’s thesis and continue writing a script afterwards. And then it never happened. And I really don’t know why it should since I’m not that much into film and won’t submit it anywhere. It’s just that it was a good idea and I’d like to see how it turns out.

Which is quite optimistic considering that I still haven’t had the heart to read the novel I wrote in November. I printed it out, though, and re-read page one. Then I thought to myself, “This is really crappy.”, labeled a new file with “NANOWRIMO-NOVEL”, put the manuscript in there and decided to read it in August. 2007. Maybe. If I have the time.

With the script I was quite good yesterday, I sat down in the kitchen with my laptop, without wireless, and wrote 1,125 words. This time there won’t be UFOs but witchcraft. And drumming women. And ethnologists. Of course it’s set in Germany. Oh, and it’s supposed to be a thriller. Right now it feels quite boring to me but then I have yet to write something outside this blog that holds my interest. I suspect that this is the same phenomenon as with my late dissertation. In the end I found it completely boring because I had spent so much time with those same ideas. Each time I told somebody about it though they seemed to be genuinely interested. On the other hand maybe I have a distinctly boring writing style when writing fiction (or dissertations). I’ll have to think about this some more because I’m never bored with the short, short pieces of fiction I write as a homework for my writer’s group. I don’t think they’re well written either but then I can’t expect that much when I always write them on the train on my way to the meeting. (That’s about 20 minutes of time.)

So while I don’t like to work under pressure I do quite well with time constraints. Deadlines. And I’ll be writing another 1,000 words on that script today. Somehow.

The only thing that can hinder me will be very sunny and dry weather during the next week. Because then I will be painting the porch, balcony and some windows. I don’t mind the painting that much but I really dislike having to work on a ladder and, um, there I had to go and look up a word, what I meant to say was “Schwingschleifer”. Probably a sander. Anyway, it’s one of those electrical thingies to grind paint from wood. It doesn’t seem to be heavy until you have wielded it for hours at improbable angles. And then you have to get your sandpaper and try to sand all the nooks and crannies. Afterwards you stand in the heat, wield your paintbrush inhaling paint fumes… I’m so looking forward to this. Not. So that’s project #1. Apart from the script.
(Here I have to add that though this reads as if I were painting and sanding the porch single-handedly, in real life – which is much less dramatic than blog-life – my poor and long-suffering husband will be the one doing most of the work while I will meekly wave a tiny paintbrush around and say, “I’m hot. I’m tired. I don’t want to do this. I have to have a break. Shall I bring you something from the kitchen?” Then I’ll vanish inside to emerge about an hour later saying, “Wow. You sure did a good job. Can I help?” (Yes, I know that I’m prone to exaggeration, thank you.)

Project #2 I won’t have to do myself. We’re getting a wood stove for our son’s room. Yesterday somebody re-opened the chimney and made everything ready and on Monday the stove will be installed. You might ask why we install a stove in our son’s bedroom. Well, this once was our living room and it will be again sometime in this century. And it already had a chimney which was sealed up when we installed the new gas heating.

Project #3 is a project in waiting. After sewing my grocery bag some weeks ago I got bitten by the bag sewing bug and so I’m planning to sew a bag for my yoga mat using the free Amy Butler sewing pattern. This will be the test to see if I should ask for a new sewing machine for my birthday. Will my renewed enthusiasm for crafting continue or not? So far I have visited two fabrics stores and then decided to use some leftover fabric from curtains for the exterior bag and bought some cheap fabric for the lining.

fabric on yoga mat
(in real life the fabrics match because the red is brown-ish and not pink-ish)

Of course I do need a bag for my yoga mat which travels all the way from the right side of my computer desk to the front side of my computer desk about once a week. But it will be nice to install a hook on the wall and have it hung up instead of falling over every time I need a book or an exercise DVD from one of the lower bookshelves. And one really doesn’t need a big reason for a new bag anyway.

Project #4 has been an ongoing project for some time now, I’m knitting a woolen cardigan. This I do because I couldn’t find something pretty, or even wooly at all, and it makes my almost daily “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” sessions seem more productive. Also I found that my tolerance for family gatherings and such vastly improves when I can take my knitting with me.

chocolate-y cardigan
(yes, I’m worried that it looks so small too)

One could say that the watching of all episodes of “Buffy” in chronological order might be a project too. So far I have less than ten episodes to watch. And then I’ll start to watch all of “Angel” in chronological order. Which will take another six months at least.

To close this rambling post I’ll point you towards the just post roundtable again. You have until June, 7th to nominate post or submit one of your own. If you don’t know anything about it just click on the button below.

How to be creative when you don’t have the time (part 2)

creativity, self-help 10 Responses »

May 222007

First thank you for your comments on part 1 of this which mostly dealt with the question of “how to find the time”. Of course all that made me think about the time issue some more. And on the question of “What is creativity anyway?”. But though I’ll definitely come back to that I’ll continue with how to find resources and space today. (The problem with this series might be to find a way to stop writing it since it is basically the main theme of my blog anyway. Or the main theme of my life.) So, back on schedule.

2. Find resources

Different creative endeavors call for different kinds of resources, of course. As I gave you the advice to grab any minute you could get, when you try to find the time of course now I won’t tell you that you need a big studio, a pristine workplace and only the best tools to get started. So, here are a couple of ideas:

For the aspiring writer: get a notebook and pen. This is one of the things that I really love about writing. It is low cost, clean, easy and quiet. And you can do it anywhere. While you can look for the perfect pen forever you also can use what you have on hand. It is good to have a fast writing pen, but you don’t really need to. While I love my new, shiny, flowery Waterman fountain pen, I have used ordinary pencils for ages. (And when you want to have a new, shiny fountain pen like I do, do what I did: first select one that isn’t too expensive, second ask your parents to give it to you as a Christmas present.).

And then you obviously do have access to a computer. You can use that too but it isn’t as portable or easy. Books and classes and all that can help but they don’t necessarily do. In the end it all comes down to pen on paper or fingers on keyboard. Taking a class or reading a book about writing helps you think about it but, well, only doing gets things done.

For the aspiring musician: of course this is something I’m really experienced in. It’s my job to help people become musicians. But really, you don’t need a teacher. In fact you need less than you think.

The best musical instrument is your voice. Most of us have one right here. “But I can’t sing!” you say. Don’t worry, you can. Only when you have a voice that’s constantly scratchy or hoarse have it checked by a physician. For everybody else it only takes practice. How to practice? Easy. Just sing. Sing to the radio, sing in the shower, join a local choir, then sing some more, then try to sing the song you heard on the radio, fail, sing some more. If you’re singing out of tune and you hear it yourself, congratulations you have everything you need. Try listening to yourself while you sing. No, really listening. And if you don’t like the sound of your voice, sing some more and try to experiment with your sound. When it hurts or you lose your voice stop. Then try again but this time a little gentler.
The next best might be the guitar. Ask around and find somebody who has an old guitar that he doesn’t play anymore. Buy some new strings and find someone to put them on the guitar for you. Find a guitar book (the person who gave you the guitar probably has one), find someone to show you where to start with chords, play. Though I’m teaching beginning guitar students how to play chords, you really don’t need a teacher. You can learn a lot all by yourself.
Also not so hard to find: a piano or keyboard. One of your relatives might have one sitting in the living room gathering dust. You only have to move it. Nowadays a lot of people have a keyboard somewhere around that they bought for the children. Borrow it.
For the aspiring composer: get a cheap tape recorder, or if you want to get fancy use your computer. I have one with an inbuilt microphone and it comes with recording software. It even has a sort of synthesizer and loops. Julia Cameron taught herself how to write songs by singing them into a tape recorder and later picking the melodies out on a toy keyboard.

So you get my drift: borrow something or use what you already have. Don’t think that you need a grand piano, a piano teacher and a voice teacher. You don’t have to be able to write down musical notes. I once taught myself how to play the trumpet. I borrowed a trumpet and a beginner’s book. A friend showed me how to get a sound out of the instrument and then I just tried and tried and tried. Usually I waited until everybody was out of the house, but then I just made horrible farting noises until I got it.

To me that’s the main problem with making music, it makes noise. But nobody says anything about your singing in the shower. Sing in the car, no problem. And your children will get used to it. I once knew a woman who played her drums in the evening when her children w ere asleep. Those children were used to get to sleep while she banged on her drum set in the adjacent room. (I don’t think this is the best way to do it, but when it’s the only way you can do it, do it that way.)

For the aspiring artist: again, notebook and pen, or pencil. At first you don’t have to get fancy. Use crayons, use your children’s art supplies. In fact fancy art supplies might get in the way. When I expressed interest in learning how to draw my sister gave me a boy of pastel chalks. They’re lovely but I still have to use them. And you know why? First, I’m still not sure that I deserve them and second she told me you had to put some kind of finish to them when you’re done and I don’t know how. (Well, I know because she told me but I have yet to buy hair spray.) Do pastels go rancid? Maybe I should get into the spirit of this and draw something in pastels the next week.

For the aspiring sculptor: use play-doh. Or sign up for pottery class. Go outside, come back with a piece of wood. Find a pocket knife. Make something with paper-mâchè.

For the aspiring film-maker: write a script, draw sketches of what things should look like. Draw them even when you can’t draw. Borrow a video camera, make pictures, use photoshop and make a stop-motion film. Use your play-doh again. Or your children’s action figures. Whatever.

For the aspiring actor: act in front of the mirror, find acting classes, go to improvisation theater.

I think you get my drift. Start easy, start with what you already have. Don’t wait till you have the expensive single lens digital camera before you take pictures. When you find that you’re taking lots and lots of picture, save money and buy a better one. Buy it used. Like I did with my bag-sewing-project use the old sewing machine that drives you crazy. Or do it like my sister. She’d rather have no sewing machine than a bad one and so she is making her beautiful quilts by hand. And yes, sewing and taking pictures count as creative. Knitting too.

I’m sorry, this is too long again. So part three will be about finding the space for creativity. Physical space that is. I’ll deal with mental space in part, um, three or four.

(Anybody tired of this? I could throw in a short post about shoes or about how my son is driving me crazy if you want. Or a follow-up on the sugar-front or on the “no pink shoes for my son“-story.)

How to be creative when you don’t have the time (part 1)

creativity, self-help 16 Responses »

May 202007

Just do it. Time’s not the problem. Now be creative.

Well, though that’s about right, it isn’t very helpful, isn’t it?

There are two parts to this creativity thing. One is in your head and the other one is physical. For today I’d like to start with the practical aspect of it. Why, you might say, do you do that? What I really need to know is where to get ideas and how to get into the groove and such. Bear with me, just try it from the other side. It will work. And if it doesn’t I will be talking about the head stuff in another post. So in order to be creative you need three things on the physical plane: time, resources and space.

1. Find the time

This of course seems to be the hardest task of all the three. We never have time for anything. On the other hand there seems to be enough time around for everybody and so maybe we just have to learn to spend it wisely.

So, what do you want to do? Compose a symphony? Make a film as a writer/director? Bake a cake? Write a nine novel fantasy series? Which one of those projects do you think is most likely to see daylight? The cake? I think so too. Why the cake? Well, given the right equipment, a cookbook, the ingredients and about 90 minutes of time almost everybody can make a cake.

Does that mean that every one of the other projects needs a year of sabbatical? Most people don’t get to have those and if you are a parent or a procrastinator like me then the sabbatical wouldn’t help you because even a year without your paid job would leave your life pretty full. So you’d have to break your project into nice little chunks. Instead of writing a nine novel fantasy series you better just start thinking about your fantasy world. Wow. That was easy. And when did you do that? In bed before sleep? While taking a shower? While driving? Good. That’s how it should be. In addition to that you could also sit down and make a map. Oh wait, better just make a quick sketch of a map. Write down your character’s name. Or just sit down and write. No time to sit down? Write standing. Get a little tape recorder and speak in there. Or, – why don’t you just open a text editor right now and jot down a little something? Yes, now, I’ll wait. See, you just spent 30 seconds on your novel.

For the part of creativity that consists of making things up in your head you don’t need time as such.
You only need a little room in your head to think about them. Mostly while you’re doing something else. For the actual doing, the painting, the writing, the sculpting you don’t need three weeks without work or interruption. To prove this thousands of people everywhere in the world participate in NaNoWriMo each year. That means in November (of all months) thousands of people sit down and write an average of 1,667 words a day each day on top of their jobs and other responsibilities. They move their lives around to make the time it takes to write.

That’s the sprinter’s approach to creative projects.
Find the time by forcing the creative project into your life. Use the power of the deadline. Surfing the adrenaline surge and getting more and more behind with everything else, neglecting friends and family and not sleeping enough. You can’t live like that every day of the year. Some people can’t even for a month. The good thing is that you don’t have to take it all at once.

So now I’ll introduce you to the marathon walker’s guide to creativity:
Set aside a little piece of time every day to do whatever you want to do. Write, practice scales, make a sketch. Don’t sit down and think, “I’ll do this huge phenomenal project.” it won’t work. Just say to yourself, “Only 15 minutes.” Set a timer if you must. Do it every day. Well, plan to do it every day and then be content with having it done five times a week. That’s life. But don’t plan to do it only five times a week. That won’t work. You can even plan to do it once a week but it probably won’t work either. Sunday comes around, only this Sunday you don’t have time because it’s your grandmother’s birthday and there you are, the month has gone by and you haven’t been creative.

At first I recommend making it a habit like brushing your teeth. You know there was a time when you didn’t brush your teeth. Somebody else did it for you. Nowadays I doubt you would go to sleep without brushing them. But it took a while, didn’t it? You can use all the motivational help you can get. Give yourself stickers, tell somebody and make yourself accountable, or join a group (if anybody is interested in founding “songwriters anonymous”, send me an e-mail).

You can find the time by cutting back on things like reading magazines, watching TV, or running to the grocery store for the fifth time in a week because you didn’t make a shopping list. And a lot of people find that doing the creative thing first thing in the morning helps. Only not if you want to sing. Singing is better after breakfast. Believe me. And then you can spend the rest of your day feeling happy because you already were creative.

And keep in mind that professional artists don’t have the time either.
Look at musicians: they are doing one show after the other, traveling around, doing interviews, taking care of the business side of their lives (or communicating with the people who take care of the business side). But they are writing songs anyway. It’s not like they enter the studio, shut the door, let the song writing begin and emerge a week later with a finished CD. I think they too have to squeeze it in. They write on the road, in hotel rooms, on buses, and during sound check.

It’s not like I’m the first one ever to write about this, but usually the advice goes like, “set aside an hour each day”. When you’re a parent, or a parent with a paid job, this is where they lose you. You hear “set aside and hour”, laugh hysterically and go away. So I say, “Just sit down for a minute or two.” Just start somewhere. And if you manage to do something creative then it will be better than having done nothing. And soon enough you will find yourself immersed in your creative project.

Come on. Five minutes. You do have five minutes, don’t you?

So you say, “But I can’t write an opera in five minutes!” No, you can’t but let’s do the math: 5 minutes a day, 5 times a week, that’s 25 times 52, well maybe two weeks off for vacation and Christmas, that’s 1,250 minutes a year, that’s 20 hours. If I’m really working on it I can write about 600 words per hour. So that would be 12,000 words a year. Not a novel but a short story for sure. And do you really think you would stop at five minutes? Because let’s face it if it goes smoothly you’d surely spend up to 15 minutes on your writing at one sitting. So, maybe not an opera. But a song for sure. See? Okay. I know these kind of calculations are ridiculous. But keep in mind that doing a little every day helps a lot to get results. If you doubt it go to woolgathering. A woman wanted to learn how to draw. So she bought a notebook and a pen, sat down and drew. One drawing a day. You can see how her skill evolves. And you can do it too.

For how to find resources and space, see part 2.

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