Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Shyne Like A Star Virtual Dance Party - 01/05
Jamie is organzing a virtual dance party. I'm in desparate need for some creative activicites and this came on time. I'm all in and I I urge fellow bloggers to participate. It will be great fun! Check out details here.
More Work ...
Synchronicity is happening again! Just after I posted below for a minute, I checked out Jamie Ridler's blog and found out her Wed Wishcasting is about "what do you wish to read".
Last Thursday I received the goodies I ordered from Amazon. Among them were three books on creativity written by Eric Maisel.
For me, learning to nurture and protect my creativity is as important as practicing writing. Creativity is like the raw energy which I use to fuel my writing passion. No stories could be written without the strong urges to create.
The first one I picked up to read is called "The Creativity Book: A Year’s Worth of Inspiration and Guidance." It consists of 52 weeks of reading and exercises. I just finished Week 1’s reading and I almost regret to get this book. The 1st exercise is to write 2500-words autobiography. It is as if I don’t have enough of writing projects, here comes another one. There is no set time to finish this short autobiography, the only thing Maisel require is that I commit to do it. Alright, that I could accept because it means I could write it next month or maybe next year.
I moved onto the next exercise which is to name five obstacles which prevent me from realizing my creative potential. This is like asking me to write down my fears in relation to my writing. My respond to this exercise:
"Hang on, Mr Maisel, do you know how much energy I spend to suppress my fear so that I could write a story and you want me to open the can of worms?"
Right now I’m asking myself if I had made a huge mistake but my gut feel is telling me another story. My gut reminds me that ultimately everything comes down to Time and Patience.
So, I’m releasing the demons and Mr. Maisel, it’s better be good …
Last Thursday I received the goodies I ordered from Amazon. Among them were three books on creativity written by Eric Maisel.
For me, learning to nurture and protect my creativity is as important as practicing writing. Creativity is like the raw energy which I use to fuel my writing passion. No stories could be written without the strong urges to create.
The first one I picked up to read is called "The Creativity Book: A Year’s Worth of Inspiration and Guidance." It consists of 52 weeks of reading and exercises. I just finished Week 1’s reading and I almost regret to get this book. The 1st exercise is to write 2500-words autobiography. It is as if I don’t have enough of writing projects, here comes another one. There is no set time to finish this short autobiography, the only thing Maisel require is that I commit to do it. Alright, that I could accept because it means I could write it next month or maybe next year.
I moved onto the next exercise which is to name five obstacles which prevent me from realizing my creative potential. This is like asking me to write down my fears in relation to my writing. My respond to this exercise:
"Hang on, Mr Maisel, do you know how much energy I spend to suppress my fear so that I could write a story and you want me to open the can of worms?"
Right now I’m asking myself if I had made a huge mistake but my gut feel is telling me another story. My gut reminds me that ultimately everything comes down to Time and Patience.
So, I’m releasing the demons and Mr. Maisel, it’s better be good …
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
TRUST
I had an epiphany from driving to work this morning. I always say it is synchronicity at work to allow me a glimpse of Life.
As usual, I turned on the radio to FM Classics. Today we had a primary school orchestra playing live music for the listeners. The orchestra played the theme song of the movie "ET" which always touched my heart. I looked up to the clear sky and almost gasped. The blue was so bright that I felt like it was the first blue I’ve ever seen. A realization came to me - I’ve been so engrossed in writings that I forgot about Life.
My ears picked up another piece of music from the radio programme. It was a song sung in an Asian language. I believed it was of Vietnam origin. The melody flowed like chanting. My car stopped at a red light and I looked out of the window. Last night’s heavy rain had left glistening water sitting in the cracks of the blue stone slaps alongside the road. The sun had turned the water into golden color and they shivered with every coming car. A voice welled up in my mind, it said: you do your work and we’ll take care of the rest. My chest tightened. My eyes were almost blurred with tears.
For more than a week now, I had violent dreams. When I say violent, I didn’t mean it in the physical sense. I’m referring to the intense emotions I had after I woke up. I never remember the exact dreams, but I always feel anxious, frustrated and exhausted. Something was crawling out.
Since I’ve started STOS this year, the only tactic I used to control my fear is to avoid it and suppress it. Because I knew if I allow it to come up, even only for just a second, it would immobilised me for long. I worked out a writing schedule to pace my writing steps. And when I lax behind, my guilty conscience screamed madness in my ears. Though I told myself it was O.K. not to take The Leap this year, deep down, I resented the situation and felt miserable. All in all, I avoided all these feelings and soldier on with my writings.
This morning’s realization was born out of my avoidance to face up all my negative emotions. However, it also brought me back to a forgotten lesson I learn from Life.
"Since the day I was born, Life has provided me with everything that I needed to be who I am. All I need to do is to TRUST it and keep walking."
Writing down this does not mean that all problems are solved. I will continue to experience fear, frustration, anxiety, guilt and millions other emotions for being a person. I’m telling myself to trust Life and surrender to the fear it brings. Do not fight it any more. Let it overwhelm you. Let it bruise you. Let it tear you into pieces.
I do my work and Life will take care of the rest.
As usual, I turned on the radio to FM Classics. Today we had a primary school orchestra playing live music for the listeners. The orchestra played the theme song of the movie "ET" which always touched my heart. I looked up to the clear sky and almost gasped. The blue was so bright that I felt like it was the first blue I’ve ever seen. A realization came to me - I’ve been so engrossed in writings that I forgot about Life.
My ears picked up another piece of music from the radio programme. It was a song sung in an Asian language. I believed it was of Vietnam origin. The melody flowed like chanting. My car stopped at a red light and I looked out of the window. Last night’s heavy rain had left glistening water sitting in the cracks of the blue stone slaps alongside the road. The sun had turned the water into golden color and they shivered with every coming car. A voice welled up in my mind, it said: you do your work and we’ll take care of the rest. My chest tightened. My eyes were almost blurred with tears.
For more than a week now, I had violent dreams. When I say violent, I didn’t mean it in the physical sense. I’m referring to the intense emotions I had after I woke up. I never remember the exact dreams, but I always feel anxious, frustrated and exhausted. Something was crawling out.
Since I’ve started STOS this year, the only tactic I used to control my fear is to avoid it and suppress it. Because I knew if I allow it to come up, even only for just a second, it would immobilised me for long. I worked out a writing schedule to pace my writing steps. And when I lax behind, my guilty conscience screamed madness in my ears. Though I told myself it was O.K. not to take The Leap this year, deep down, I resented the situation and felt miserable. All in all, I avoided all these feelings and soldier on with my writings.
This morning’s realization was born out of my avoidance to face up all my negative emotions. However, it also brought me back to a forgotten lesson I learn from Life.
"Since the day I was born, Life has provided me with everything that I needed to be who I am. All I need to do is to TRUST it and keep walking."
Writing down this does not mean that all problems are solved. I will continue to experience fear, frustration, anxiety, guilt and millions other emotions for being a person. I’m telling myself to trust Life and surrender to the fear it brings. Do not fight it any more. Let it overwhelm you. Let it bruise you. Let it tear you into pieces.
I do my work and Life will take care of the rest.
Creative Every Day 2009 - The Key
Something to share with fellow writers and fellow creatives …
Before I started STOS # 2, I knew that my character carried a skeleton key with him all the time.
As I was pleased with the progress I had made during the 1st week of writing STOS # 2, I decided to take a break and went into the city to visit some of my favourite shops. That included "Spellbox". It is a small shop which focused on selling materials for Wiccan practice. I love going through their book section to read about the Wiccan ritual. They are fascinating and I always got story ideas from them. Anyway, after about half an hour of browsing, I felt thirsty and was to go for a Chai Latte when I saw a basket of keys at the cashier counter. I took one out and my story character’s name flashed across my eyes. I’m sure you know what happen next.
As the story progress, the key changed hands. It turned out that my character didn’t carry the key at all. It was his dog which found the key at the beach and gave it to my character.
The story continued to develop and the key took a swan dive into the bottom of the sea when my character went for a swim.
Right now the key remains lost and I have no idea what’s going to happen to it. I think I’ll only know about the significance of the key when I finish writing the story.
So there you go - not only characters in a story have their own minds wanting to do their own things, an object in a story could hop from place to place … maybe I should draw up a map to follow an object’s journey. Now, that's a very good story idea!
Monday, April 27, 2009
The Gap
Have you ever experienced "The Gap"?
This is what it looks like.
You came up with a story idea say a month ago. You quickly jotted down a few lines about it. You thought about it every now and then. After a while, you felt that you were ready to sit down to work on it. You finished the first paragraph and decided to stop and admire your first effort. Then you saw a gap as wide as from earth to the moon appeared in that paragraph.
From your note, the story was supposed to be about a teenage boy who wants to be a painter. Your first paragraph showed a 30+ years old man waking up dreaming of his dead brother!
So far almost every stories that I wrote I had to deal with "The Gap".
The fun part I got from "The Gap" is the many A-Ha moments when I realize why a character say or do some specific things. It’s like making new friends in the town of my choice. And then followed by the most exquisite sensation when I discover what the story is about or what I call the soul of the story. However, this all comes with a price.
Because I have no plan and pre-knowledge of the story, when I start writing, I find myself stopping almost at every sentence to ask myself what happens next. By working like this, not only I’m writing at snail pace, headache and exhaustion are the common side-effects following each writing session.
I’ve tried to do a planning or follow tightly to the initial notes. But "The Gap" always comes up and the story demands to be written differently. That’s why I seldom think about the story before and after the writing session. No matter how much I have worked out before the actual writing, it changes during the writing process.
It is one thing to trust the process and learn about what works for you. It is another trying to improve it. I’m wondering if:
- there are ways to fill up The Gap or
- I get a bridge somewhere so the crossing is much more easier or
- I just have to bite the bullet and accept that this is how I work
Can anyone give me some advice?
This is what it looks like.
You came up with a story idea say a month ago. You quickly jotted down a few lines about it. You thought about it every now and then. After a while, you felt that you were ready to sit down to work on it. You finished the first paragraph and decided to stop and admire your first effort. Then you saw a gap as wide as from earth to the moon appeared in that paragraph.
From your note, the story was supposed to be about a teenage boy who wants to be a painter. Your first paragraph showed a 30+ years old man waking up dreaming of his dead brother!
So far almost every stories that I wrote I had to deal with "The Gap".
The fun part I got from "The Gap" is the many A-Ha moments when I realize why a character say or do some specific things. It’s like making new friends in the town of my choice. And then followed by the most exquisite sensation when I discover what the story is about or what I call the soul of the story. However, this all comes with a price.
Because I have no plan and pre-knowledge of the story, when I start writing, I find myself stopping almost at every sentence to ask myself what happens next. By working like this, not only I’m writing at snail pace, headache and exhaustion are the common side-effects following each writing session.
I’ve tried to do a planning or follow tightly to the initial notes. But "The Gap" always comes up and the story demands to be written differently. That’s why I seldom think about the story before and after the writing session. No matter how much I have worked out before the actual writing, it changes during the writing process.
It is one thing to trust the process and learn about what works for you. It is another trying to improve it. I’m wondering if:
- there are ways to fill up The Gap or
- I get a bridge somewhere so the crossing is much more easier or
- I just have to bite the bullet and accept that this is how I work
Can anyone give me some advice?
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Welcome Peggy
Big welcome to Peggy - a strong, wise and loving fellow Aussie who is also a terricfic photographer and scrapbook creator. Peggy, you just become another fellow blogger who brought me closer to my dream of building an online creative community. Thanks you! :D
Welcome Sarah
Welcome Sarah to join this blog. Do check out her lovely artwork and home life at her plce. It is such great pleausre of mine that not only fellow writers find this blog worthwhile to join but all sorts of artist find this place interesing enough to join as well. One of my goals as I wrote in one of my earlier post is to join and build a creative community. I think I'm on my way ... :)
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