Creative Sparks: 10 Random Words

 

Many years ago when I was in high school, I was very fortunate to have had some really great teachers. One of my favorite was Mrs. Crownover who taught Honors English. I believe she had a strong creative writing background as it seemed like we wrote something each and every day.


Because we wrote so much, sometimes writer's block would plant its stubborn feet in my brain and refuse to move. Some days I felt like I couldn't think of a single syllable to put down on paper, much less a sentence, paragraph, or an entire story.


On one of those dreadful idea-blocked days, Mrs. Crownover gave me a wonderful idea to help get the creative juices working and supplant the writer's block.


Her suggestion was to take the dictionary and pick 10 random words. By random I mean, close your eyes, open the dictionary to a random page, and blindly put your finger down somewhere on the page. Whatever word was closest to your finger, that was your selected word. After selecting 10 random words, the assignment was to make a sentence, short story or story idea using those words or variations of the words.


I can tell you that this technique worked wonderfully for me and helped to improve my vocabulary as an added bonus.


The reason I am sharing this trick with you is that I have been a little unmotivated over the last couple of weeks. Although my novel writing is coming along steadily, I have not been able to think of anything of value to post here. I follow several other author's blogs and some of them come up with such wonderfully thought provoking and inspiring posts that I have felt that anything that I would produce would be sub-par to those of so many excellent writers. Then I remembered this little trick from Mrs. Crownover and decided I would try it. (Okay, really it couldn't hurt since I have barely posted anything in the last month!)


Here are the 10 random words that I selected:

1. superior
2. comfort
3. curtness
4. downtrodden
5. picaresque
6. insatiable
7. renewal
8. minion
9. decipher
10. flourishing

I totally had to look up #5!!


picaresque - (1) of or relating to rogues or rascals; (2) a type of prose fiction which was widely read throughout Europe in the 16th - 18th centuries, and deals with the episodic adventures of a roguish protagonist who is usually from the lower classes of society. (The "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies and Johnny Depp immediately sprang to mind.)


It is really amazing the way my brain immediately reacted to this exercise. Of course, whose brain could fail to react to daydreams about Johnny Depp? I found myself immediately trying to come up with ways to connect the words together and relate them all to pirates. Slowly I could feel my brain kicking into gear one cog at a time. Here is the draft of what I came up with:

After four grueling months at sea, Captain Black's first mate had grown accustomed to his superior's curt replies and maniacal rants, but the ship's crew members were tired and hungry and had been way too long without the feel of a woman's soft curves underneath them. It was all McNally could do to prevent Black's downtrodden minions from mutinying. They needed to find land soon as supplies were running low and the ominous black sky that hung low on the horizon silently promised rough seas ahead.

McNally tried to remember how Black had roped him into leaving the tranquility and gentle comforts of his home and family. He hated to admit that it had been his own insatiable appetite for glory and gold that had renewed his wanderlust after Black had played on his greed by tempting him with the deciphered treasure map.

Captain Black's shouts at the crew to batten down the hatches brought him back to the present just in time to feel a large wave crash into the side of the vessel. He jumped up from his chair with a flourish and ran on deck to check on the crew only to be met with the sting of small ice pellets pounding down over his face blinding him, piercing into his exposed flesh. He wiped his face as best he could with his water-soaked sleeve. His vision cleared just long enough to see a thirty-foot rogue wave engulf the ship and everyone on it. His arms reached out in front of him grabbing for anything solid with which to brace himself. Just as his fingers neared the deck railing, his rigid body was swept up by mother's nature hand and tossed into the freezing water below.

He struggled to keep his head afloat but the current was too strong and the waves too high. Suddenly a burning pain shot through his skull and nausea threatened to overtake him as he smelled the pungent odor of fresh blood. Something had struck him in the head. Dizziness and blackness overcame him and he could no longer will his limbs to keep him afloat. He felt himself  spiraling downward as the salty water filled his mouth and nose and he struggled to breath. His last conscious thought was one of regret because he knew at that moment that he would never again get the chance to regale his boys with picaresque tales of life on the high seas with the infamous Captain Black. 

As you can see, this exercise got those creative juices flowing and my writer's block disappeared. I went on to write five more posts for next week. 

I invite you to try this exercise and let me know how it works for you.

If you are short on dictionaries, there is also a random word generator tool that you can use.

What ways do you use to alleviate the dreaded writer's block?

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

I thought I would take just a moment today to wish my mom, Wanda, a very happy Mother's Day. Wednesday is also her birthday so I wish her warm birthday wishes as well.

I feel so very thankful to have been blessed with such a beautiful, supportive and caring mother. I feel equally as thankful to also have been blessed with the miracle of being a mom myself to such a loving and thoughtful son.

I am so fortunate to have these two wonderful people in my life and I cherish each and every day that we get to spend together. I love you both dearly.

Integrate Passion Into Your Characters To Make Them More Memorable

In a recent interview with writer and movie director, Luc Besson, when asked where his ideas come from, he responded how he is inspired by ordinary people who live their lives with passion. 

"You need to have all your senses open. You need to keep yourself in life, real life… [or] you become disconnected and you have nothing to say.

I have so much more fun with my boulanger [baker]. When I go at 6am for my croissants, the guy’s so passionate about his croissants. “Oh, you must try this one, because this morning I changed the butter!” The guy’s passionate.

Watching old people in the park, talking about their lives. That's where it comes from, from food and talking.

I sat on the plane over her with a guy who studied cancerous molecules. He talked for eight hours about it, and I was amazed - the science, and how they separate the molecules, you know? That's where it comes from. It's fed from all these people who come from life."

Besson's description is a perfect example of what readers are looking for in a good novel. Readers want to be inspired and moved by the story that they are reading. They want to love or love to hate the characters they read about. The best way a writer can accomplish this is by infusing the kind of passion that Besson speaks of into each of our characters. Give each of the characters something to be passionate about and clearly verbalize that passion and how it motivates the character to take action, whether that action is good or bad. This allows the reader to feel that connection with the characters and makes them want to continue reading to see how the character develops because of that passion. This passion is what makes the character stand out in the reader's mind and makes them memorable.

Besson also commented on his own passions and motivations for film-making.

"You must be in love to make a film. You must be in love [with the stories and the characters]. So long as I'm not in love, I don't make one!"

I think Besson is really on to something here. If we are not in love with and passionate about our own stories and characters, how can we expect readers to be? So write from the heart, from your heart and from the heart of your characters. Think about what makes them tick, what motivates them and their actions and then translate that emotion onto the pages to make memorable characters and stories that readers will fall in love with.

Rechelle's Diary: 4/15/11 - Staying On Course vs. Going With The Flow

I think the hardest thing about pursuing my career as an author is staying on course with a single manuscript. Putting everything I have into a single creative project has never been something that has been very easy for me. That is why when I decided to pursue a career as a published author, I began with not one, but two projects to complete for publication. The first is a paranormal/fantasy romance and the second is a romantic intrigue novel.

Although I am committed to finishing both of my current manuscripts because they are both great stories, I find that my mind is constantly bombarded with other new and equally exciting story ideas? I have almost filled a journal with new ideas in the last couple of weeks and am several chapters into a new historical erotic romance. I have notes for multiple genres including: paranormal romance, romantic intrigue, contemporary romance, crime drama, and fantasy.

I have never before felt such a creative frenzy within myself. I have heard of the all too common problem of writer's block, but is there a term that describes idea overload? Should I really focus on staying the course and forcing myself to work only on the original two manuscripts when my creative juices are flowing so freely? What if I lose all those wonderful ideas that have been funneling themselves to me so abundantly?

Is it possible that I will only create ideas for stories and never complete a finished manuscript if I am unable to reign in my wandering mind;or should I simply give thanks for this burst of creative energy, follow these ideas where they lead, go with the flow, and perhaps be led to something even better? For now I am choosing the later and hoping that I will be rewarded greatly down the road with a bookshelf full of published books with my name on the cover.

Overcoming Hidden Fears

Image Source: 37signals.com

F-E-A-R.
Just reading those four little letters can bring up a strong emotional response deep within. Fear plays an important role in our everyday lives, and can be a positive or negative. Fear can keep us safe by preventing us from doing things that are dangerous such as jumping off a cliff; but fear can also hinder us from achieving our dreams and living up to our true potential.                                

For years I would write and then edit...and edit...and edit...and edit some more, trying to create that perfect story. What I ended up doing was nothing more than sitting still and spinning my wheels, never completing a single manuscript. In frustration, I would stop writing. I made tons of excuses for myself and my failure to produce viable manuscripts. I told myself that perhaps I just wasn't ready because I was still maturing and growing as a writer, or perhaps I needed to gain more experience in life and love before I could master the art of writing about these things. What I have come to realize is that these internal monologues that I had with myself were really based on deep seated subconscious fears that I hadn't even realized I had.

Why Am I Not Taking Steps To Achieve My Goal?
I knew deep down that there was more to my failure to complete a manuscript. My imagination was constantly swarming with ideas and I had always dreamed of becoming a published author, so it just didn't make sense that I was having so much trouble achieving that goal.

It wasn't until I began looking within my soul and asking myself some tough questions that decades of hidden subconscious fears began to slowly reveal themselves.

• Why could I not complete a manuscript?
• Why would I rather edit previous pages than produce new ones?
• How could I find time to watch television, read, and play computer games, but not find time to write?
• Why did I spend so much time researching and so little time writing?

In the past, I blamed the incomplete manuscripts and constant editing on perfectionist tendencies. I convinced myself that I just wanted my stories to be the best they could possibly be. However, what I began to realize is that I really was afraid to finish a manuscript. There it was. Fear had reared its ugly head and I was afraid! But afraid of what?

What Am I Really Afraid Of?

Figuring out what really was keeping me from writing and finishing my stories was not an easy process. My conscious mind quickly discounted my initial answers to the above questions in an effort to keep me where I was. I was subconsciously trying to protect myself from the thing I was really afraid of without realizing it. 

So, I decided to externalize the dialogue in written form so I could hopefully get to the bottom of my issues and effectively deal with my fears once and for all, and become that successful published author I had always dreamed of. Basically, I needed to know what was keeping me from achieving my dream. 

I began by asking myself simple "why" questions in an attempt to get to the heart of what was really behind my problem:

Q: Why can I not complete a manuscript?

A: Because I spend so much time editing what I have already written.

Q: Why do I spend so much time editing what I have already written?

A: Because I want my story to be the best I can create.

Q: Why do I want my story to be the best I can create?

A: Because I want an editor to like it enough to publish it.

Q: Why do I want an editor to like it enough to publish it?

A: Because I want to become a successful best-selling author. 

This answer reiterated my lifelong dream. I had always thought that just knowing what my dream was would be enough. However, since I still hadn't achieved it, and was doing very little to pursue it, I decided to dig a little deeper:

Q: Why do I want to become a successful best-selling author?

A: So I can work and pay the bills doing something I love. 

Here I realized that my dreams went a little deeper. What I really want is to be able to be financially secure enough to provide for myself and my family while by doing something that I love and enjoy. Becoming a successful author is simply my preferred method of achieving that true goal. 

While this was great progress, I still needed to figure out why I wasn't taking action towards that goal. So I kept asking more questions:

Q: Why do I want to work and pay the bills doing something I love?

A: Because I really do not enjoy what I am doing now! 

Q: What would you enjoy doing? 

A: Writing novels that tell great stories that touch people's hearts and souls.

This answer really got to the heart of my dream and is the real reason why I wanted to use writing as the method for achieving my goal. With each set of questions, I was getting closer to discovering the fears that were keeping me from actively pursuing my dream so I could deal with them:

Q: Why aren't you writing novels and telling great stories that touch people's hearts and souls?

A: Because I'm afraid I am not a good enough writer.

Aha! Finally, my hidden fears were actually showing themselves. I knew I needed to keep going until all my fears were out in the open:

Q: What else are you afraid of?

A: That I will spend all time and effort writing a story and then nobody will want to publish it or read it.

Q: What else are you afraid of?

A: That people won't like my writing and won't buy my books.

Q: What else?

A: That I will not make enough money to pay my bills.

Q: Anything else?

A: That even if I get one book published, there is no guarantee that I will get subsequent ones published.

Examine Your Fears & Beliefs To Test Your Reality:

WOW! I had no idea that all of this dialogue was going on somewhere in my subconscious. All of these hidden fears were the root of my writing issues. Some sounded rational, but others didn't. I knew that if I could work through these fears that were now out in the open, then I could really begin to actively pursue my dream of becoming a successful published author. So, I decided to look even deeper within and examine my unconscious beliefs that caused these fears to manifest in my life by continuing a written dialogue with myself:

Fear 1: I am not a good enough writer.

Q: Who said you weren't a good enough writer?

A: Nobody has said that.

Q: What has been said about your writing?

A: That it is good and that I should write for a living.

Q: Do you think you are a good writer?

A: Yes, I think I am.

Q: Do you think that you can write great stories that touch people's hearts and souls?

A: Yes, I really think I can.

So it seems that Fear 1 is not really strong enough to be preventing action because in actuality I believe that I am a good writer and can write great stories.  Let's look at the next fear:

Fear 2: I will spend a lot of time and effort writing a story and nobody will want to publish it or read it.

Q: Why do you think that nobody will want to publish or read your novel?

A: There are so many writers out there trying to get published and so many query letters and manuscripts for an editor to sort through that getting published seems like a crap shoot. Then, if you are lucky enough to get published, there is so much other competition out there.

Q: So you are really more worried about an editor actually getting and reading your manuscript than you are about it getting published, and you are also worried about competing for buyers/readers?

A: I think so. I've never written a query letter before and am worried that I may not write an effective query thus editors will reject it and never get to read the actual manuscript, thus it will not get published. Also I am afraid that if I do get published, then I have to compete with thousands of other authors for shelf space and book promotion.  

Q: Don't you think that worrying about query letters and getting published is a bit premature since you actually haven't completed a manuscript yet?

A: Yes and no. I don't want to put in the required time and energy into producing a great story if it doesn't have a good chance to become published.

Q: You know that there are more publishing options than a traditional publisher and lots of authors are self publishing today using an e-book platform?

A: I guess if I can't get my work traditionally published then I could self publish or publish in e-book format. 

Q: You know that there is going to be competition for buyers in any field?

A: I know and that is what scares me. I'm not sure what steps I could take to promote and market myself and my books, and how to make myself and my books stand out. 

Q: What are some things you could do to learn about marketing and promotion?

A: I could get some books on these topics and take some online classes through RWA and other author organizations. I could also research and interview other successful authors who have well defined platforms and apply those ideas and concepts to develop my own platform. 

By addressing these fears and questioning their validity, I was able to look at my own beliefs and put things in perspective. As I continued this dialogue process, not only did I discover that some of these fears were totally irrational, but I also was able to provide reasonable solutions that made the dream of becoming a successful published author more possible. 

Fear 3: People won't like my writing or buy my books.

Q: We already addressed these issues above. Is there anything else concerning these issues that needs to be addressed?

A: No, I think this fear has been addressed and is no longer a concern. Also fear 5 (not getting subsequent manuscripts published) falls under this as well and no longer needs to be addressed.

By looking at these hidden fears, I was able to realize that three of the five fears were really just different aspects of the same issue and that by addressing one aspect, the others took care of themselves.

Fear 4: I will not make enough money writing to pay my bills.

Q: Is any job or salary really guaranteed, especially in the current economy?

A: No, I guess not.

Q: What can you do until writing does pay the bills?

A: I could write part-time and keep my current job until I can afford to quit. 

Q: Is paying the bills the only reason you are writing?

A: No. I want to write because I love to create great stories that touch people's hearts and souls.

Q: Do you want to write whether or not you get paid for it?

A: I do. I want to get all of these ideas inside my head onto paper so I can share them with others. Getting paid for them would be a fabulous bonus!

Getting Your Breakthrough:

Talk about a wake up call! Something that should have seemed so evident had been keeping me stuck all of these years. My dream was really not to become a successful best-selling author, but rather to create great stories that touch people on a deeply emotional level. I simply wanted to write for the simple pleasure of writing. Getting paid for it would be a bonus not an absolute necessity. 

I knew when I answered that last question that I my entire perception of my writing changed. I no longer needed to worry about any of the above hidden fears because I now realized that I wanted to write no matter what. However, I knew that if any of the issues that had caused me to start this introspective process popped back up, I now knew where they stemmed from and how to address them so they would no longer interfere with my writing. Additionally, I had come up with solutions to issues that could arise in the future such as publishing, marketing and book promotion. 

Goodbye hidden fears. I have to go write now:)