Tag: #WritingLife

  • Reading and Writing in the Woods

    I follow Yaddo and MacDowell on Instagram. They are both artist residency programs (Check them out here: Yaddo, and MacDowell) and, for me, there is something very aspirational about following them. I think I would like to have a two-week residency with either one. Hell, I would take two days if it was offered to me.

    Have I applied to them? No, but maybe one day.

    I’m not sure if the reason I want to be out there is to be alone in the woods to work in solitude, or it might be that I would like to believe that I would rub elbows with David Sedaris, maybe help him make a communal meal for the colony. (I would have to fight the urge to tell David that I still give Holidays on Ice as a Christmas gift to people.) It’s as if it would be a working, smart person vacation.

    I think I might have told this story before, if so, then just act like its new…

    The last three major job interviews I have had in the past two years, all three have posed the same “personality” question to me; “If you could do anything, what would you do?” We all know the gimmick of this question, and the expected answer is that you are supposed to say, this job that I’m interviewing for. I preferred to answer the question honestly, but in a non-offensive way, by saying, “I would be in a cabin in the woods, reading and writing all day.” (Out of those three interviews, I only landed the job once.) As time has gone on, I see that my answer was more honest than I wanted to be. If I keep saying it, then there is some truth there, maybe on an id level.

    So, I guess I’m setting up a second goal here. The first being earn enough money from writing to buy a computer for my family. The second is to be in the woods reading and writing all day. If Yaddo and MacDowell want to help out with that, it would be greatly appreciated.

  • Monetize This Blog!

    First of all, I have fun writing this blog. It’s a weekday writing exercise for me, and something that I can easily dedicate 30 minutes to. I have written before about why I do this, so I won’t go down that road again.

    But, this morning, I was reminded of a goal that I had set for myself; I wanted to earn enough money from writing to buy a new Mac Mini for the family to use as a hub computer. That would be about $800 to $1,000.

    Well, the update on that goal is, to be honest, I sort of forgot about it. At the same time, in six months, I have gained 100+ followers, and average 25 views/visitors a week. It took me 26 months to get 60 followers, and in that time, I averaged 2 views/visitors a week. That’s an improvement. Now, if the goal was to generate enough traffic to earn some money, those numbers just aren’t cutting it.

    I have read, and also follow, blogs that talk about how to improve traffic to earn money off your blog/writing. Most of them say pretty much the same thing, which is writing about something you are passionate about makes things easier. (Check! As I like to write about a lot of different subjects that excite me.) The next thing most of these blogs say is that you either need to be the “best” at what you blog about, or the “only” person who blogs about whatever it is you are writing about. (Check! As I am the only person who writes about me!) Then the third thing that most of the advice bloggers say is that you either need to write about a topic that is already popular/in-demand, or you need to convince people to care about your subject matter. (Ung… well… that’s the trick, isn’t it?) If you can’t answer point three, then they say to go back to step one, and start over.

    And they aren’t wrong. It’s business 101, to be honest.

    So… Do I start putting ads on my page? Expand my social media footprint? Move from the free page to the paid one? Do I want to make this a job?

  • Creative Workout

    A long time ago, I read this profile on artist Chris Ofili in The New Yorker, way back in 2014. There is a lot of great stuff in it, but for some reason, I latched on to a paragraph where it describes how the artist does a sketch in 15 minutes every morning as a sort of warm up as he starts his day painting. That resonated with me, as I thought it showed an insight into how Ofili starts his process of being creative. It doesn’t just “happen” but has to be worked up to.

    I found it similar to a story I heard about John Steinbeck and his process. Somewhere between his second divorce and third marriage, when he was raising his two sons alone, he had a process of waking early, writing in his journal and composing letters, then getting his sons ready for school. Once the boys were off, he was ready to start working, until the boys came home.

    I have been thinking about these two artist lately, about their process, and how they “get started” each day. I have been trying to write a blog at the beginning of the day, or at least when the kid is in a remote class. I have even adopted doing a sketch, with the kid most days, to allow my head to think creatively, but in a different way. I sort of think of it as getting into shape; Training myself to think creatively. Since I cannot work on a project every day, I need to stretch creative muscles routinely.

  • Process: Talking About a Story

    I fully admit that I am a superstitious/neurotic writer, and it’s annoying to everybody, especially me. I follow silly rules that have no logical basis with the belief that somehow adhering to these guidelines will guarantee success.

    Such as; I can’t reuse a character’s first name, I can’t work on fiction until I journal first, and the big one, don’t talk about details of a story until it’s finished, because if I were, then the story will never get finished. The last rule has been tricky when it comes to this blog, which leaves some of my posts so vague that they are incomprehensible.

    Last night, I broke the no talking rule with my wife. (Yes, I don’t even tell my wife about my work until it’s done.) And it needed to happen.

    The context here is that I have been working, on and off, for about a year, on a story based upon a person I used to work with, and who my wife also knows. I have told no one about this story, obviously, and this co-worker came up in conversation last night. As in, “Whatever happened to what’s their name?” We talked about the possible fate of this person, and why they were such a challenge to work with.

    And that’s when I was like, I should share this idea, and why I am curious to attempt to write a story about them. Also, I wanted feedback if it was a good idea.

    The jury is still out, as the wife pointed out everything that I knew was problematic about the story… so it needs still more work if it is ever to see the light of day.

    The bigger point here is that I still have several self imposed barriers that I need to break through. The “talking” rule is bullshit as what really does is try to protect me from any criticism. If I never share, then I can never be wrong.

    I still got a long way to go, but working on it.

  • Outlining: New Possibilities?

    I am working at staying productive for this month. I was able to blog, journal, and even got in some sketching time with the kid yesterday. It was a very creative day, more than normal for me. On the fiction front, I was able to spend a little time working on an outline for a novel that I have been kicking around for about two years.

    And working on the outline was rewarding, on a level that I didn’t know existed in me. I was working on character development, and trying to figure out how to build a foundation that these characters that they would either fight against or learn to accept. And as I worked on these characters in an outline form, a narrative theme started to reveal itself to me. The story is about three guys who form a band, and I always thought the theme was about learning follow your ambitions, even through failure. As I worked on the characters, I started to see that the theme was actually about being open to possibilities.

    Most of my good friends are following their dream, and some of them have been chasing it for twenty years, and to be honest, very few have achieved that ambition that set them out so long ago. But very few of them are angry and bitter about it. (I have met my fair share of bitter actors, so don’t get me wrong, I know that chasing a dream doesn’t equal happiness.) But what keeps my friends going? What keeps me going? Is it staying curious, and being open to new ideas and possibilities?

    I don’t know, but I want to explore it.