The Dragons of Creative Writing

I've compiled my blog posts into one book now, The Dragons of Creative Writing!  I'm excited by this new book, as it details my thoughts on how to change the writer, and thus change his writing.  It does not go through all the boring details that you've heard hundreds of times before about how to improve your writing, but rather, how to improve yourself, which will, in the end, make you a much better writer.

So join me, if you will, on a journey that explores the alchemy of a writer.  You'll be glad you did.

A Little Irresponsibility is Good for the Soul

I have so many deadlines for publishing magazines and other people's books, that my own writing has been getting pushed aside lately, so I sat down and cranked this out for my upcoming novel "The White Death."  Five minutes of writing and I felt like I'd taken a week's vacation.  I think I'll ignore a few deadlines and write some more.  The deadlines will still be there in the morning.

*****

“I’m being followed,”  said Kirk.  “So I need you to get something to someone for me.  You got to help me, Charlene.”

He was breathing hard.  Out of shape as always.  Served him right climbing up her fire escape at two in the morning.  He stood near the window silhouetted in the nightlight’s soft glow like a mugger in a dimly lit alley.

“You can’t keep breaking into my place,” said Charlene.  “You scared me half to death.”

“Sorry.”

“I get a boyfriend someday and you might get shot.  You ever think of that?  And where’d you get that raggedy-ass jacket?”

“In a dumpster,” said Kirk.

One arm held a typing paper sized box to his chest.  The other held the bottom of his coat tight over his stomach like he was about to throw up.

“You’re wearing something from a dumpster?”

With his silvered sunglasses and leather hat, he looked like a park ranger on dope when he nodded his agreement.  He was the only man she knew with eyes so sensitive he wore sunglasses at night.  And she wasn’t sure how Kirk managed a coherent thought, but he did seem to know when to nod even when sloshed.

“You like it?”

Quarter inch of stubble on him looked like fuzz on a turkey’s neck in the dim light.

“You have to go in the other room while I get dressed,” she said.

“I thought I was in the other room.”

“Go,” she said.

Blankets held clutched in front of her breasts, she pointed toward the living room.

“You got beer?”

“Kirk, get out and close the door behind you so I can get dressed,” she repeated.

“Don’t turn the lights on, okay?”

“Go.”

The Werewolf Principle- Part Five of Five, Returning to Reality and the Truth About Writer's Block

What's going through your mind?

Action, romance dialogue.  Danger, mystery, intrigue. Love, lust, larceny.

Wait- you're really just sitting in front of a keyboard, aren't you?  You've transformed.  You've immersed.  You've lost track of reality.  You were writing.  The fire alarm could have gone off, smoke could filter into your room and you'd cough and gag while your eyes started to burn, but you'd stay there so you could finish that scene, wouldn't you?  Just a few more lines and you'll be done...

Returning to reality after immersive writing is the problem.

It's the same problem a werewolf is faced with when it returns to humanity.

The argument is that we can, in one sense, be nothing other than what we are.  That there are different sides or "faces" to us.  Returning war veterans know this all too well.  Is a soldier that kills their enemy the same person they were before they lifted their weapon or when they return to home and work next to you in the office?

They have the same body, the same face and the same brain.

Or do they?

Consider someone who has had a near-death experience on the operating table.  They, too, have the same body, the same face and the same brain.

Or do they?

In one sense, they have.  In that physical, evidentiary sense, they are the same person.

But their experience has changed them.  They have done or seen something which radically changed their identity.  Our sense of identity is not so easy to categorize.  We are in a way not yet scientifically validatable, different people after such experiences.

To enter the imaginary world of our own fiction (the same occurs to a lesser degree when we are immersed as readers), we must change ourselves.  The gate-keeper between the world of imagination and reality will not allow us to step through from this world into the world of creative fiction as we are, we must transform to be admitted.  When we return, we, too, our changed.

We change our consciousness to write.  We must change back in order to return.

In the late 18th and 19th centuries, enterprising paranormal investigators pursued the art of astral projection. They claimed in their journals that their consciousness actually left their body and was able to travel through walls, journey around the world and see things and situations no one had ever seen before.  Kind of like what writers go through every day.

When astral projectors returned to their body, they felt a snapping sensation and usually heard an audible click.  If only it was so easy for writers.

Sometimes we return and we feel like we've just woken up after a long sleep.  Sometimes we jump up from our chairs energized by that last scene where we just finished saving humanity.  If someone else sees us, they surely know we've been in virtual reality trance or sometimes think we've lost our mind.

If you think of it, though, this return is the evidence that we've been "gone." That we transformed and are just returning to who we were before we immersed in our writing.  It's easy for others to see.

Maybe we should think about how to control this necessary change.  I't's more important than you think.  We might consider how to consciously initiate and end it, instead of pretending we don't know what's going on.

Why?

Because it is the secret to beating writer's block.  Writer's block occurs when you can't transform.  That's all it is, plain and simple.  We take our immersive transformations into writers for grant, and because of this attitude we never study the phenomena closely enough to master it.

Writer's block is the inability to immerse, to transform into the creative state.  It afflicts us because we assume that we can change whenever we want to, but this naivete is our undoing as writers.

Study the werewolf principles, learn the techniques to control the transformation, and you'll never, ever experience writer's block.

The Werewolf Principle- Part Four of Five, The Controlled Transformation

Subtitle:  Esoteric points regarding the Werewolf Principle for Writers, as Taught to Me by My Alchemy Teacher


I have studied alchemy for many years, and the entire discipline is built around the concept of "controlled transformation."  Oddly enough, my alchemy teacher was also my finest writing instructor.

In alchemy we have a concept equivalent to that eastern idea of the Yin/Yang integrated dichotomy, and it is known as the Law of Contraries.  As in the case of the Yin/Yang, there are many practical applications that evolve from the concept.  Perhaps the most important for the writer is the idea that polarization (or difference) creates motion, and without a writer's thoughts being in motion, no story will be forthcoming.

In the physical world, we know that if we heat air for a hot air balloon, the hot air balloon will rise because the gas density of hot air is lighter than that of the surrounding cold air.  Difference is initiated to create motion.

But what has this to do with writing?

It was my teacher's contention that whenever a writer immerses in an aspect of his or her personality that they are creating tension between their waking mind personality and the emphasized aspect.  This tension rises because of the struggle for dominance.  The emotional and mental energy thus created is what we use to write fiction.

In the long run, the waking consciousness of a writer will emerge victorious, for no one can stay immersed in the mental state of a writer for too long and stay sane.  By the same token, no gifted writer can focus only on the every day waking world and stay sane either.

Why is this?

I was taught that it is because gifted writers were born between two worlds.

In my early days as a student of the creative sciences, I found little use for such concepts.

Practical, practical.

Prove it, prove it.

Where's the peer reviewed study?

If it's true, why isn't it on television?

You get the picture.

Now, I think that we should spend less time on themes, character arc and the rest and concentrate on how to achieve controlled transformation elucidated in the werewolf principle.  We should pay more attention to the effect that the lunar cycles have on our writing spirit and less on writing work shops.

Why?

Because writers do transform when they write.  Are you a writer?  Examine yourself if you say yes.  You may have the same body, sit in the same chair and type on the same keyboard you always have, but when you are at your creative best, the people who know you will wonder if it was really you that wrote what you did.

Writer who do not control the transformation of their personality when they write, really have, by extension, little control of their story.

What I was taught was that to elevate their writing, writers must study themselves as much and more as they study the basic mechanics of writing.  Good tools, she told me, are useless without a good workman.

The question is, how do you control the transformation?

The Werewolf Principle- Man or Beast?, Part Three of Five

The guy in the middle is the writer.

His name is Elmo.

He wants to write an action adventure novel, or a paranormal romance, or... maybe eve a western.  Possibly a suspense/ thriller.

The problem is, Elmo's kind of geeky.  His life is average.  He plays online games a lot and hangs out on Facebook because in-person crowds make him nervous.  Girls don't think he's cute, but he'd like a hot date.

His dog likes him, and he saved the neighbor's cat from being run over by heroically dashing out into the street, grabbing it up and diving for the grass but landing on the pavement instead.

The cat freaked, and scratched Elmo's arms and back.  Elmo broke his right big toe trying to run away.

Do you think Elmo, as Elmo, will make a strong narrator?

Does he need to change his personality to be a strong narrator?

Is anyone going to want to read what Elmo writes if he's writing using his real identity?  He can't make life work in his favor.  Do you really think that makes him qualified to be a strong writer?

You and I can be supportive and tell him it's the power of his desires and his imagination that will make his fiction both dramatic and compelling.

But Elmo wouldn't believe us.

Elmo's praying for that full-blown full-moon transformation to become someone people will want to listen to.

So he's thinking- nice guy or evil wild man?

Which way to go?  Who would be the better writer?

We really and truly are someone different when we write successfully, but the question is the same as every werewolf has faced throughout the centuries- can we control who or what we become when the full moon of writing illuminates the inner recesses of our minds and hearts?

The Werewolf Principle, Part Two of Five- The Electric Air

The full moon is coming.

The highway leading to your creative world comes alive with crackling energy.

You pace, you grow irritable.

You don't want to be around other people.

You want them to stay away so you can write.

The full moon is coming and there is creative electricity in the air you breathe.

You're about to change from that nice person everyone knows into a rather frightening individual.  You're going quit thinking about writing and actually write.

Writers are different than most people.  Beneath our outward humanity, we create dark mysteries, brutal crimes, brooding killers and futuristic worlds where the judicial systems are manned by automatons and humanity itself is on the run.  And fantasy, well, that's a very dangerous world to explore.  All this before we take on the current rage "50 Shades of Gray."

How many times over the years have you wondered what kind of person created the suspense thriller you've been reading?  The paranormal romance?  The sword and sorcery novel that's been keeping you up nights?  Or how about that erotic masterpiece you read when no one else is paying attention?

Would you know the writer if you stood next to them in a checkout line?

They look like everyone else.  Did you really think Stephanie Meyer or Tom Clancy or Stephen King or H.K. Rowling looked different than you and I?

But they are different.  They, too, like you are linked to the waxing and waning of the moon.  They, too, become different people when they write. Is the fact that they are more successful to you in any way linked to the fact that they actually allow themselves to slipper deeper into that new identity?  That they allow themselves to be more completely transformed?  And are you not completely letting go of the reins of your day-to-day identity when you write?

Answer me this, but think about it first:  Are you really the same person when you're writing?  Don't get defensive.  The things you make your characters say- they're not really coming from you.  You wouldn't say those things and mean them.  It's just a story.

I think we do transform on those nights when we really write with power.  I think we become different people.  It's a curse of course, which is something we very much share with werewolves.  And we can't help it, we love the power flowing through us when we write.

How about you- do you become a different person when you write?

The Werewolf Principle- Part One of Five

Writers rarely listen to werewolves, and it's our loss.

While it's true that this may be in some degree be blamed on the rather limited range of sounds they are capable of producing (they howl well and are not bad snarlers), it's also a fact that when the full moon rises resplendent above the dark clouds to grace the the evening sky like the queen of the night that she is, writers hide behind their computers.

Embarrassing, isn't it? 

Granted no one wants to step out on a night where their neighbors may or may not be transformed into hideous were-beasts, but no one ever did or ever should assume that being a writer is safe.

In fact, being a writer is dangerous work.

And, like the werewolf, writers live out their lives under a gypsy curse.

But if it doesn't show up on Google, you probably never heard about it.  I'll explain later in this short series why we were cursed, which gypsy cursed us and all the details of how the general public can protect themselves from were-writers.

We all know how to break a were-writer.  It's not silver bullets.  You know better than that.

You want to know how to stop a were-writer?  Just don't respond to any their requests for you to "like" their newest release.  Nothing weakens a writer more than no one responding to their latest effort.  It's like pounding a stake through their heart while they're in a garlic sauna.

It's the in between magical strictures that we need to pay attention to.  Like this one:

Writers look like everyone else.  Sometimes not as good.

How were you supposed to know that the 73 year old woman with hair in her ears has been writing the lusty, bawdy, rowdy adventure-fantasy you've been loving your whole life?  Gag, as the late Janice Joplin said, is just another word for nothing left to puke.

See that scrawny little guy walking down the aisle at work, the one who looks like he's been beaten like a rented mule.  Bench presses less than the average two liter diet drink.  Sounds like a cricket on coke when he talks.  Yep he's the one.  He writes science fiction that can bend your mind.  He has dreams more muscular than an Olympic wrestler.

What happens to the old lady and and the scrawny little guy to make them write like that?

Metaphorical full moon, that's what.

When the conditions are right, they let their inner animal free and then.... look out!!


They're beyond human.  They're were-writers.  They turn into writing animals.

It's an ugly scene, as though all their pent-up sexuality, their need to dominate and every creative ambition they've ever repressed gets covered with wild hair and they literally snarl their way through their manuscript.

But not every night.  Only the nights when the conditions are right.

And wouldn't you like to know how to tell when the conditions are right?

Facebook and the Regulan Plan

Regulans are new to US politics.  

In fact, on their planet they don't have politicians.  Quintelex, having just thrown his hat in the ring for the 2012 presidential race, is anxious to be just like any other earth candidate.  So he brought his three key advisers (pictured above) from his home planet of Regula to help get his campaign off the ground.

Their first task was to hire Democratic and Republican operatives to teach Quintelex how to be sarcastic, angry, condescending, and, most important, to lie.

Unfortunately, Regulans are genetically incapable of lying.  President Obama and contender Mitt Romney will be forced to carry that burden alone.  Both seem up to the job, according to the most recent computer analysis conducted by a team of Regulan Tarot Readers.

Since training Quintelex in lying and smear campaigns was ruled out of the question, this allowed Candidate Quintelex's three advisers to concentrate on developing a plan to save the US economy (which will soon have a credit rating lower than most lemonade stands) and restore a sense of fairness and understanding to the American people.  Quintelex was clear in his telepathic instructions- do not develop a plan like either the Democrats or the Republicans.  Neither of these parties is much to write home about- particularly when you live 135 million light years away.

Instead, Quintelex demanded a scientific plan based around what Americans actually do.  Once the Regulan computers figured out what Americans actually do versus what they say they'll do, Quintelex felt discovering a realistic solution would be simple.

And it was.

Today he unveiled the new Regulan Facebook Plan.

If elected president of the United States this year, he will immediately implement this comprehensive plan.  Congressional approval will not be necessary since they will be replaced with Facebook Likes and the new Facebook Don't Likes.

Yes, under the Regulan Plan, Facebook will replace American politics.

No longer will there be such a thing as illegal immigration or legal residency.  Only those people with a sufficient number of likes will be allowed to stay in the country and this could change at any moment based on their Facebook status.

Income will be completely fluid as well, and will be distributed according to the number of Facebook likes an individual has achieved.  Poor people could become wealthy overnight if enough people like them.  Wealthy people could become overnight paupers seeing their income distributed to more popular individuals.

Justin Bieber will, of course, be excluded.


A peculiar aspect of the Regulan Facebook Plan is that plants, animals and imaginary characters would have the same rights as people if they received enough Facebook likes.  The reasoning behind this aspect of the plan was really a nod to American culture.  Quintelex felt that if corporations are considered citizens, trees should be, too.


Some in the media protested that trees should not have citizenship and due process- they're not human.  Then again, neither is Quintelex.

Initial reaction to the Regulan plan was mixed.

Most of his audience were too busy texting to hear him anyway.

Third Party Candidate Enters Presidential Race

Finally a candidate has come forward who can deal with the illegal alien issue.  

More than that, Quintelex (which is only a facsimile pronunciation of his name) is variable bi-gender, thus allowing this new entrant to help the American people to at last rise above gender issues.  On his home planet (somewhere in the fourth knot of string theory)  neither same sex nor opposite sex marriage is possible for obvious reasons.

As a writer, I find Quintelex and his candidacy very interesting.

Unfortunately, the "birther" issue has raised its ugly head.  Quintelex was born during an overnight stop in Kansas in 1892 during the Crop Circle Festival.  No state in the Union knows how to celebrate crop circles like Kansas.  As Donald Trump pointed out yesterday, "Where's the proof?  If he/she is from Regula or Hawaii, it's no matter to me, but he can't run without proof of citizenship."  Mitt Romney has already called for Quintelex to "self-deport" and Barack Obama drove home the point that "You can't keep people out with a border fence when they come from the sky."

Trump hammered home his case.  "If he/she is a legal citizen, where's his/her Facebook page?"

As I writer, I find this really interesting.

Quintelex has a real chance of getting on the ballots come November if the age issue doesn't sink the feisty Regulan's candidacy.  At age 120 earth years, Quintelex would be the oldest US president in the history of the United States.  Efforts by the candidate to date  to explain that 120 years is the Regulan equivalent of 18, have not been able to quiet voter concerns, particularly since Miley Cyrus announced her support of the candidate.

But this newest entrant into the US political fray has one thing going for him that beats Mitt Romney's hair and Barack Obama's singing voice- he can't speak.

Regulans have no vocal cords whatsoever.

Think of it.

A presidential candidate who can't talk.  A presidential candidate we won't have to listen to.

Wow.

This reporter is impressed.

We Found Your Writing Desk

Don't deny it.

It's right there beneath the bike.  It's pinned beneath either the front or the back wheel.  It's kind of hard to tell which.

Or it could be your grandmother.

But I digress.

Some writers are organized and others are not.

I use Microsoft Outlook and turn my characters into Microsoft Contacts.  Then I organize the plot sequence in Microsoft Calender.  And no, this isn't an advertisement for Microsoft.  I'm just saying this is how I do it.

Writer Janrae Frank is an organizational genius.  She uses Scrivener.  It's amazing.  But I'm a creature of habit. and stubborn, too.  So I'm still using Outlook

How  do you organize?

Forget the evidence shown in the picture.

Help the rest of us out.

Tell me how you really organize your stories, your characters, your plot, your timelines and your writing projects.

Going Backward to Meet the Future

All smart people know that you must go backward to move forward.

No one really knows why.

It's enough to acknowledge it.

Art Bell and his successor George Noorey (of Coast to Coast A.M. fame) are both fascinated by time travel.  As a sophisticate of the Inner Lodge of Wowness, I confess that Time Travel is cool stuff.  Shadow People are a major yawn next to Time Travel.  Rod creatures and Chupacabras don't even compare.

Why is time travel so cool?

It's easy enough to understand.  As Immanuel Kant or his third cousin pointed out on more than one occasion, "Oh to go back to where I could wear a hat like that and get away with it."

As a writer, I find it very interesting.

It is the key to all human relationships, I believe.  The need to go back.  The need to restore things to the way they were.  To go forward is to know that you are making a choice that could be wrong.  Ending up with someone that may not be right.

To go forward is to get old.

Grim but true.

And if it's true that fashions cycle back into popularity, think of the trouble we'll all be in before too long.

To be able to travel back into the past means that the past is still there.  That it's not gone forever, that we always have options to change what we did and start fresh.

But it's confusing, so I'm asking you, as a writer, do you use time travel in your stories?  If not, would you?

If you don't know the answer, I'll have to ask the  kid in the picture.

Imagine the answer I'll get.

Your Character Made Me Cry

Well, maybe not.

I just said that so you'd feel good.  Frankly, I think the woman in the above photo is faking it, too.

What's that?  My characters didn't make you cry either?

Ouch, that hurt!

But wait a minute- do we really have to make our readers feel emotion?  Maybe that's not as important as it used to be.

Maybe.

But let me ask you- could you do it if you had to?  Could you make your readers cry?

The Witch's Brew- The Writer and the Pirate, Part Four of Four

Pirates can't write worth a damn.

But they're always giving advice and pushing that bottle of rum at you.

Don't do it.  Don't take even a sip.

Years at sea and most of them don't have a gold doubloon to their  name.  But they go on and on about buried treasure and stormy seas.  Slapping the tavern table and spilling the rum everywhere.  Eyes darting around the room looking for danger while whispering to you about bloody battles and captured damsels.  Dead men tell no tales and skeleton fingers pointing the way.

They push their witch's brew at you.

Strong female characters.  Strong male characters.  Fatal flaws.  Characters just like the ones you've seen on   television and movies.  Just like the ones you've read about in other books.  Actually, that's where they get them.

You're almost convinced.  Pirates know their writing, don't they?  They sound like they really know what they're talking about.  They have an eye-patch over one eye and the other is lit like a lantern you can follow with confidence to the shore of writing success.

Look closer, it's actually a skeleton holding that lantern.

Pirate writers, you see, are just skeletons.  There's no meat on their bones.  There's no meat on their character's bones.  They're not real.  They're simply pirated from the stories and scripts that someone else created.  That's why we call them pirates.

They don't do what real writers do.


It's why so many characters in so many books, TV shows and movies seem alike.  

They are.

Readers are desperate for truly original characters.  They don't want Fool's Gold from pirates.


Don't be a pirate writer.

But while it's just you and me here, tell me how close the characters you create are to those you've read about and watched on either TV or the movies.

Don't be nervous, it's just the two of us talking.  Are your characters really yours?  I don't mean to say you stole them.  I just want you to examine how original they really are.  Is their dialogue something you've already ready or heard?  Their mannerisms?


Think about it.

The Witch's Brew- The Ninja and the Writer, Part Three of Four

My instructor for many years was Ninja Grandmaster Robert Law.  He is a darkly complex and dangerous man.  His teachings left an indelible impression on me and I will be indebted to him always.  He taught me all that I needed to know about writing.

One day, he asked me to clench my hands into fists and stand just close enough to a wall so that my fists touched it.

"Turn your head to the right and then turn it back to face the wall," he said.  "What do you see?"

"The wall," I said.

"Not that, you dumb-ass," he said.  "Look at your fists."

They were a quarter inch from the wall.

"Now turn your head to the left and back.  Now what do you see?"

"They're touching the wall."

"You figured out why?"

"No," I said.

"When you do, you'll know a lot more about the way a ninja thinks than you do now."

Here's the short form:  understanding body dynamics is the key to ninja techniques.

What does that mean for writers?

It means that a writer has to understand how their own mind works in order to write well.  That is the reason for years I've said  a writer should first understand the way he thinks, imagines and feels because this knowledge is critical to good writing.  Deal with the creator first and the creation will follow.

The Witch's Brew is to concentrate only on the story and ignore the writer.

It is the writer, after all, who produces the story.

Know what excites you, what makes you cry, what makes you laugh, what makes you angry.  Understand your need for justice and your need for recognition.  What drives you, what slows you down.

If you understand these things about yourself, you will have a compelling narrative voice. 

The Witch's Brew- Writers and Politics, Part One of Four

It's hard to write good fiction.


Very few of us write great fiction.

Fewer still write great fiction capable of truly transforming reader's hearts and minds.  We're afraid to try, and, really, we don't think we're up to the noble task.  So mostly we join writer's groups, live in fear of critiques and workshop, workshop, workshop.

Instead of exploring the world around us, dissecting it and imagining how to put it together again in a better way, we network with other writers, agents, editors and publishers.

We measure our success or lack thereof in number of positive Tweets, number of likes and/or comments on our Facebook page, or number of blog visitors measured by the great Bean Counter of the Internet- Google Analytics.

The thrill and exaltation of writing our first novel fades when no one much pays attention.  It turns to mortified rejection when it's first rejected by an agent.  By the sixth or seventh rejection, our writing life may be measured in terms of how many milligrams of Valium the doctor prescribes or how many glasses of wine we imbibe on any given day.

In between this Dark Night of the Soul and our first real success, many writers develop the Lemming Syndrome.  If there's an emotional cliff anywhere within miles of where they live, they feel compelled to do the Zombie Walk to it and jump off, making sure their reputations crash to the bottom with them.

The Lemming Syndrome occurs mostly when we know that we want to write, but realize we really aren't good enough yet to write something of lasting value.  That's when we commit the terrible sin of trying to teach others to write.

When as writers we have done this to the point that we realize we are as welcome in writing circles as relatives who belch fire, we panic and commit the most heinous of writing sins: we begin to blather away in public about politics.  We have drunk from the Witches' Brew.  We post political materials on Facebook.  We are enraged by the "Opposition Party."  We make fun of their candidates, deride them as "small-minded" or "dangerous" or "out of touch."  We scream slogans we'd be ashamed to hear other primates promoting.  We Twitter like there's no tomorrow.  Each election is the most "...important of our lifetime."  We not only agree, we shout it from the rooftops.  It's safer than taking a risk with our writing.

We do this because we're too lazy to write novels that will change the hearts of minds of others.  We're afraid.  It takes too much work.  It's risky.  We are not, after all, Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Harriet Beecher Stowe or John Steinbeck.  What if nobody likes our serious writing?  What if it's politically unpopular?  Better stick with genre.

The same writers who are proud to the point of stridency about hyperactive addiction to discussing endlessly the political evils of our world, do very little in the way of creating powerful fiction.  Talk is cheap.  The cost of great fiction is your heart, your soul and your mind.  You must invest everything into it.

"The Grapes of Wrath" took a toll on Steinbeck.

Are you wasting your time writing ubiquitous fiction? Is it because you no longer believe in the power of fiction to change hearts and minds?  Or is it just your own fiction you doubt?  Leave the socially powerful writing to the very talented few, you say.  Leave the heavy lifting to the strong writers.

Someday, you say, you will write a "social novel."  One that will change the world.  Or maybe just not embarrass you.

But it has to be later, you say.  It's 2012 and we have to discuss politics and talk and talk and talk.

Why not write?


What will that change?  you ask.  

If you aim low, you can never fall too far.

And you've forgotten why you write.  That's what happens when you drink the witch's brew.  You quit believing in yourself and the muscular power of the written word.

Cheer up.

There's an antidote.

Aliens Write Better Love Scenes

It's true.

Intergalacticians are famous for their hot, steamy, romantic scenes.  Before earth writers got hold of the script and changed it, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was so humid alien movie goers were issued raincoats at the doors of their favorite floating theaters.  By the time it got to earth, it was a cure for sleep apnea.

What's happened to earth writers?

Scientist bored with global warming and unable to grasp the complexities of lunar cooling are now hoping to acquire substantive federal grant money to study this issue.

"There's a fortune in figuring this out," said Dr. Itis of Buffalo Wings University.  "Our initial double blind survey on why American writers turned tepid revealed an obsession with tropes, themes and stereotypes."

This reporter likes to record details accurately, so I delved further.

"Doctor, what exactly is a double blind study?"

He looked at me incredulously.

"Why, it's where twelve blind researchers record their observations and report them to twelve more blind researchers.  All twenty four researchers then deliver the report to the supervising scientists, or, if they lose it, something of approximately the same weight."

"Aha," I said.

"American writers crank out the same stuff over and over again.  Our most recent survey revealed that they're afraid of originality.  Terrified of it, actually.  They feel there's risk involved and American writers don't like risk.  That's why aliens write better love scenes.  Many of them lack genitalia and are therefore not bound by our preconceptions."

"No genitalia?" I gasped.

"None.

"Besides the element of risk, why are American writers so afraid of originality?"

This was the moment of truth.  He actually straightened his crisp white lab coat and raised his chin before he spoke.

"They've been to so many writing workshops and group critiques they haven't had time to wonder what originality is.  The modern American writer is very busy with such activities and has little time to be creative."

I took a step closer.

"Are you certain of this doctor?"

Dr. Itis leaned toward me and whispered,  "Absolutely.  I chumped the U.S. government for $180,000 to conduct the study."

Now that, I thought, is real originality.

Real Creative Juices- Part Four of Four

What type of music do you listen to before you write?  While you write?  Charles Gramlich, PhD. could write a book about this topic.  In fact, send any questions to him!

Why?  Because music changes your body chemistry.

It's the best way to kick in your creative juices.

It changes your blood chemistry, your brain chemistry and kicks your creative mind into gear.  Some researchers believe its a dopamine thing.   The following study linked the feeling of "chills" in listeners to music that really got them going:

"... the number of "chills" the participants got was correlated with the activation specifically in the nucleus accumbens, which suggests that the intense pleasure we get from them is due to dopamine signals in this area.

"The whole things shows that music can produce a nice increase in dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. Whether that's a "high", is another question. They couldn't really quantify what kind of a signal they were getting from the dopamine, other than that they got a significant change. Drugs like cocaine produce increases in dopamine in the nucleus accumbens of up to 300% of baseline, and drugs like meth can go even higher than that. Was intense pleasure when listening to music in the same category? Probably not. But that doesn't mean it doesn't feel good.

"The whole study gives us a nice biological basis for our physical responses to music, but it also raises questions. WHY have be evolved such that music effects us this way? What is the function? Is it just enhancement of emotion? If so, how does that work? Is it familiarity with the music, knowing that a part you like is coming up? Does it have anything to do with language and the tones which we utilize in our voices for things like language?

"We don't have these answers yet, but maybe someday we will. Until then, when you're listening to some great music and get the chills, you know what's happening."

Salimpoor VN, Benovoy M, Larcher K, Dagher A, & Zatorre RJ (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature neuroscience, 14 (2), 257-262 PMID: 21217764

You can find the complete write-up on this at: http://scientopia.org/blogs/scicurious/2011/01/31/this-is-your-brain-on-music/  

But it begs the question- can the pleasurable effects of music improve our creative writing?  Can music help us be more imaginative?  I believe it is absolutely the most effective method of ramping up the production of  our creative juices.  It's not just the pleasure.  It's the beat.  The beat gets us moving, gets us feeling, switches us over to the side of our brains that works with visual imagery.

Some writers complain that music distracts them from writing.  When I write, the rest of the world disappears.  I can feel music.  I can feel my mind and my body kick into gear.  And then I'm off to that other world.  The world where my story is the measure of reality.  The world where I forget white time it is, what day and month it is.  Music can't distract from that.

Stephen King uses music to get his creative juices going.  In his book on the craft of writing, he even gives us an overview of what he listens to when he writes.  He's still the King (no pun intended) of horror and, oddly enough, what he listens to seems to contribute to that.  He doesn't listen to a lot of Frank Sinatra when he writes.

And it's true- music not only jump-starts production of our creative juices, it can influence what type of writing we produce by influencing our brains.


Consider the following excerpt from a paper by Greg Mackay:

"...a study done by physicist Dr. Harvey Bird from Fairleigh Dickinson University and neurobiologist Dr. Gervasia Schreckenberg from Georgian Court College in Lakewood, NJ. Dr. Bird is very interested in the effects of sound and music on our bodies. I subsequently got a chance to meet Dr. Bird and discuss his work and his theories. He and Dr. Schreckenberg had teamed up to study the effects of music on laboratory mice. They subjected one group of mice to incessant voodoo drum beats, one group to Strauss waltzes and one group was kept in silence. The experiment used music played at low volume so that volume was not a cause for any behavioral changes observed. Over the period of the experiment, they tested the different groups to see how well they could run through a maze to get to their food. This was a measure of their cognitive ability - their ability to remember the maze over time.

Bird and Schreckenberg found that the group that listened to the voodoo music had a very difficult time with the maze that increased over time to the point where they were totally disoriented and unable to complete the maze. The other groups had no problem learning the maze, with an edge given to the mice listening to the waltz music. Even when the mice were given a break from the music for three weeks, the group that had previously listened to the voodoo music "still could not remember how to get to their food, while the others found it quickly with no problem," said Schreckenberg. 

So don't listen to voodoo music when you want to be creative.

Matter of fact, what music do you turn on when you want to get your creative juices flowing?

Real Creative Juices- Part Three of Four

Some writers think imagination is like the wind.  It comes, it goes, and we never know for sure when it's going to do either.

It's like getting in your car and waiting for it to turn on all by itself.  You'd be late for a lot of appointments if you went about it that way, wouldn't you?

How about if you remembered to turn the key, but you never put any gas in it?  It still wouldn't start.

Or maybe you let the air filter get gunked up with all sorts of crud.  But, you remembered to turn the key in the ignition and you also put gas in it.  It should still work okay, right?

No.

But wait, the brain is different.  It's not a car.  It's mystical.  It's not really connected to the body.  It just hangs out in a writer's head.

No.

Here's a few things to think about for those of you who want to look a little deeper into the creative process than most writers ever do.  The brain needs a lot of things, but it really uses a lot of sugar.  It needs blood flow. It really needs oxygen, too.  And sleep.

Your brain won't work right if you don't pay attention to those requirements at a bare minimum.

How creative are you when you're dead dog tired?  Remember all those stupid ideas for stories that sounded great until you re-examined them after a good night's sleep.  And ask a diabetic how their brain works when their sugar is off.  Here's two more:  try reducing the oxygen to the brain and see how you function or maybe the blood flow.  Wait, don't really do that.  Do I have to throw in my disclaimer again about don't try this at home?

Don't take me at my word.  Ask Google.  See what kind of results you get.

You're imagination is part of your brain.  Your brain is part of your body.

When writers think about ways to improve their creativity, they never think about how they treat their physical brain.  It's a very bad mistake.

And the cayenne?  It really gets the blood flowing.  Blood carries oxygen and sugar to the brain.  Your brain really likes that.  A happy brain makes it a lot easier to be creative.

Real Creative Juices- Part Two of Four

First, let's get the disclaimers out of the way.  

The part where I say, "This is what I do and why, and here are my experiences with this approach."  I'm not a doctor, so I'm not giving any of you medical advice.  I'm not asking you to try these juices.  I'm not asking your relatives or your children to try them.

Is it safe to talk yet?

No?

Okay, then I'm saying it outright.  Don't any of you try this.  You might be allergic to what's in this drink.  So don't do it.  The earth might be allergic to you drinking this.  Ask your doctor for medical advice before doing this, call the EPA and OSHA if you have any concerns it might hurt the environment and you might alert Homeland Security if you think drinking what I'm about to tell you might cause a mass panic.

We're clear on this, right?  Don't do this.  I do it.  Don't you do it.  Any of you.

What I do is take 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and dissolve it in a cup of very warm water.  

One hour before I sit down to write, I stir it up again to make sure everything is dissolved.  Then I drink it pretty much straight down.  Sometimes it takes me two or three gulps, but I like to get it over with all at once.

Then I feel the heat.  My blood starts to flow.  My brain kicks in and asks what the hell I'm doing.

So what am I doing and why am I doing it?

There's a reason for it, see if you can guess what it is.

Real Creative Juices- Part One of Four

It's not what you're thinking.

It's not sinful to taste the real secret of activating your creative juices.  You are a writer, aren't you?  You need your creative juices to flow.

Creative juices are real.  When you're in the writing zone, your biochemical balance isn't the same as someone who's tying their shoelaces.  When you're in creative mode you are physically different.  Your system is flooded with a real mix of creative juices.

It's a mental game, say the writing courses and the workshops.  It's all about theme, economy, character arc, etc.  Can't go wrong with them.  Kind of like as a writer you're a factory working assembling parts into an automobile.  Sounded great when you were surrounded by all those other students, and there was the teacher looking at you, waiting for you to nod.

But wait.


It's just you when you go home and sit down to write.


There are no machines helping you to build your story.  The other people in the class aren't there either.


You're all alone.

You sit in front of the computer.  You want to write, but your mind is kind of empty. More like completely blank.  Something doesn't feel right.  You're not in the mood.  Workshops lie- it's not just a mental game, there's a physical aspect that's as important as any trope or theme.  It's your creative juices.  If you don't attend to your personal physical chemistry and state, great writing just won't happen.

At the workshop and in all the books you've  been reading, you're supposed to come up with a theme first.  They gave you a list.  Or maybe it was a trope.  They gave you a list of those, too.

And you even received a character trait assembly kit.  Writing a really powerful story should be easy.

If only your brain would cooperate.

What if I told you that it helps to take care of your brain?  What if I told you- and I was serious- that I know six recipes to jump start your brain and help put you  into the writing zone?

Writers aren't factory workers mindlessly assembling stories.

We're creators, and we need our mind/ body chemistry to be in high creative gear.

Booze and drugs will burn out your brain.  We don't need them.  But we do need total stimulation.  We need our systems to crank up their production of creative juices.  Certain recipes will do that.  Writers aren't supposed to know.  If we did, we'd buy less books about writing and write some really good fiction.

Stick around for this series and learn with me.  It's about time your creative juices started to flow.


If we're lucky, M. Farivar, M.D or Charles Gramlich, PhD might stop by and comment on this.