I love blogs.  Big fan.  To the point that I actually have several blogs myself.  But loving too many blogs too much can bring more ‘noise’ than expected.  This made me trim down on my subscriptions and evaluate the items on my feed reader.  Of course, this action also led to a new article I wrote for Web Worker Daily entitled “Fine-tune Your RSS Subscriptions“.  Here’s an excerpt from that post:

“…I refer to an ancient Sumerian saying goes “Get it only when you need it.” Okay, maybe I made that one up, but it’s a rule that applies to kitchenware, packing, and yes, even RSS feeds.  If your reason for buying fondue forks is “You’ll never know when we’ll have a fondue party”, then odds are these forks will gather dust for several months until you need to use them - if ever that actually happens.

The same goes for RSS feeds.  “You’ll never know when they’ll post something I can use…” is a very flimsy reason for subscribing to something - and I know this from experience.  If there’s particular information you need, then that’s the time you go out and look for it, rather than hoarding useless feeds in the hopes that something useful might come up.”

Anyway, if that sounds familiar, head on to that article to read the full version and share your thoughts.  I’d like to hear how other people reduce the noise from their feed readers (yes, even if you’re going to say “By unsubscribing from your boring blog!”)

Last week I wrote about this exercise that one of my writing teachers taught me.  Basically, the idea is this: get a small notepad and write at least 3 interesting/odd/quirky/strange/fascinating things in it each day.  These could be things you see on the street, or things you imagine or think about.

The thing is, I don’t want to be a hypocritical phantom advice-giver who doesn’t walk the walk (we have enough of those, according to Deceiver), so I said I’d do the exercise and share some of my results.  Here they are:

• As I was walking at night in a busy street, I noticed how the homeless seem to blend with the background and appear to be inanimate objects - until they move.  What looks like a lamp post or a pile of trans bags from the corner of your eye is actually a human being.
• I’ve lived in the same house for 25 years, but never realized that the handlebar on the front door was uneven.  My partner has only lived here for a little over a year, and yet she’s noticed.
• Three men in long, white, hooded cloaks were unloading boxes behind a grocery store.
• I keep mistaking my bunched up white blanket for my cat.
• The three women depicted in the packaging of “Happy Needles” (a company that sells, uhm, needles) are now illustrated in Japanese manga style.  They used to be in 50’s Americana style.

These are only 5 things from a week of notes, but I actually wrote 3 items each day.  Wouldn’t want to go against my own advice and add to your noise now, would I?

Until next week,

Celine

In one of my Creative Writing classes in college, my professor gave us a simple exercise that we had to do throughout the semester.  She told us to get a small notebook or tickler and write at least 3 interesting or odd things each day.  These things could be made up, or they could be something we actually encounter.

Here are some tips to make the most out of this exercise:

• Use all your senses. This allows you to be more aware of your environment and more receptive to the changes that occur.  By being aware of your senses, you get a better chance of writing down observations that you would normally miss.
• Make time for it. You’re probably busy.  If that’s the case, when you get home, don’t spend 30 minutes watching yet-another-Seinfeld-rerun.  Work on this exercise instead.  You can do it in the bathroom, if that’s all the free time you have.
• Use the simplest, fugliest notebook you can find. You don’t have to rummage about your neighbor’s garbage can, but don’t buy a $20 leather-bound notepad either.  Keep it simple.  Pretty writing pads will just intimidate you.
• Don’t take it too seriously. My main problem with the exercise when I first tried it was that I took it too seriously and pressured myself into making a phenomenal list each day.  Don’t think about your notes ending up as The Greatest Novel of All Time.  It’s just a notebook.  So make notes.

If you don’t have your notebook handy when something pops into your head, just use the tools around you.  Write in an old coffeeshop receipt you found in your pocket.  Tweet about it.  Type it into your phone as a text message and archive it.  Just use whatever tools you can find, because sometimes when you lose the idea or the thought, it’s really gone.  Irretrievable.  You do not want that to happen.

Give this exercise a shot if you find yourself in some kind of mental block.  Don’t worry, I’ll do it with you.  I’m going to start on it this week and report back on what happens.

Until next time,

Celine

Image by Mateusz Atroszko from sxc.hu

“…a writer works alone, indoors, in a room, on a chair, with the door shut.  Any young person who wonders what his or her chances are of becoming a writer ought to assess their ability to deal with solitude and, figuratively speaking, an entire working life thrashing around in inspissated darkness.  It has been said that writing is a rat race in which you never get to meet the other rats.”
Paul Theroux, Fresh Air Fiend

I’ve been re-reading Paul Theroux’s “Fresh Air Fiend”, an essay he wrote which was included in a collection of the same name.  The quote above is from the first paragraph of that essay, and it struck me as an accurate observation about the act of writing.

I do work alone, indoors, in a room, on a chair.  If my office had a door, I’d shut it.  For now, I settle for closing my curtain dividers.  Some writers take this to the extreme.  John Cheever worked in a windowless basement room.  Raymond Carver preferred to work inside his car.  (source)

Doing creative work alone, especially during the first stages, has its advantages.

• Concentration. In his book “On Writing”, Stephen King talked about writing your first draft with the door shut.  First of all, you won’t be open to the random whims of the world around you, whether it’s your family, the household pet, or your outgoing friends.  Shutting your door gives you the time and space to do your work without distractions.
• Purity. Working alone often means that the voice you will hear the loudest is your own.  Giving volume to your own voice gives your work purity and uniqueness, untainted by what you think others might prefer to hear.  This makes the act of shutting one’s door symbolic as well.  You don’t just shut a physical door, but you temporarily close your mind off to potential criticism and praise of your work.  Right now, it’s the work itself that matters.
• Seriousness. The fact that you are giving your work its own closed space shows that you take it seriously.  You are not to be disturbed, just like the big shot CEO who won’t take phone calls during certain hours of the day.

Sometimes, however, too much solitude can be detrimental to the work.  As writers or artists, we often need fresh perspectives and insights.  We can’t get these if we’re in a room by ourselves most of the time.

Also, we need other random and unexpected things to stimulate creativity.  Unless we go about redecorating and rearranging our work rooms every week, our work space becomes an all too familiar habit and we start overlooking the details.  Even then, I doubt that most of us have the time and energy to devote to redecorating regularly.

So how do we do our work well without suffocating ourselves indoors?  Where do we get the stimuli that will help us generate new ideas? The obvious answer, of course, is to head outside.

This is why it comes no surprise that in his essay, Theroux talks about how kayaking is necessary activity for him as a writer. Near the end of the essay, he writes “If passion implies escape …then passion is the right word for how I feel about setting off in a small boat…. I give thanks for this little craft, because without it, a career of writing would be like a life sentence in solitary confinement.  So it was writing that forced me to become a fresh air fiend, and that madness, that passion, has enlightened me, as the greatest passions ought to.”

While I can’t exactly set off in a small boat whenever I want, I have my own activities that balance out the quiet solitude of writing indoors.  One of my favorite of these activities is carpentry, which I’ve already discussed in a previous blog post.  I also take long walks after work, and if so inclined, I do a bit of gardening.  These activities give me the much needed mental rest and fresh air that allow me to come back to my work with a different - and hopefully wiser - perspective.

Do you work better alone?  Do you have any outdoor activities that balance this out?  How do these activities affect your work?

Image by Joe Zlomek from sxc.hu