Well hello.
As you may have noticed, I’m elbows-deep in running a month-long flash fiction course over at The Forever Workshop, which has been an absolute joy from start to finish (with the coolest literary bird illustrations)!
I’ve also been in a bit of a ‘YES era’ lately: trying new shit, exploring (scary) exciting new things, taking on probably too much at once because, well, that’s what a yes era is all about, right?
It also means life is currently an uppy-downy-round-and-roundy rollercoaster of stuff — and while it’s good to be busy, I’m very much looking forward to sneaking away to a little shepherd’s hut by the river for my birthday this weekend and doing absolutely nothing for a coupla days.
But before I go off grid, here’s a quickfire post of cool shit that has made my creative brain go PING lately. Tiny little snippets of creativity that feel manageable even when things are busy AF.
Good habits.
Nice things.
Yeah.
A good habit: LOOK UP
I was out with a friend the other day and got distracted mid-conversation (sorry, buddy) by a weird-looking spiral staircase jutting out from the back of an old four-storey building. “Look at that!” I said, imagining midnight trysts and secret escapes and historical heists…
“I can tell you’re a writer,” she said.
As I maaay have mentioned before, my camera roll is full of strange pictures. My city is full of strange sights, but often I’m too busy fast-walking somewhere to actually notice them.
I have to remind myself to look up. Peer into the crannies and alleys. Pause a moment. Wander (perhaps where I shouldn’t). Because sometimes there are stories lurking there — and you can steal their souls with a quick snap of your camera.
So I hereby invite you to indulge in the very good habit of looking up. Looking around. Looking everywhere.
Here are just a few little snapshots you might miss, otherwise. And maybe they’ll inspire a tale or two:
Want to know how to turn a snapshot into a story? Take a peek one of the latest Smash Your Flash lessons over at The Forever Workshop »
A nice thing: SMOOOOOOOOTH WORDS
Look. I am a simple woman. I like a silky smooth pen. I like to write notes longhand, but my handwriting is atrocious. These pens are the only things I’ve ever found that makes my writing even vaguely legible:
However, due to a combination of a dog who likes to eat ‘inky sticks’ and a household who unabashedly steals said sacred pens from my desk rather than using one of the MANY OTHER shitty pens in the kitchen or living room, I am unfortunately in need of replacing my stash.
What’s that? An excuse to buy stationery? Happy birthday to me, I guess… bwaha.
*I am not sponsored by or affiliated with Uniball but if a representative is reading this and wants to send me a bazillion pens then please drown me in that shit.
A good habit: TALK TO YOURSELF
If you’ve ever been on a workshop with me or have just heard me talking about writing for more than five minutes then I’ve probably already given you this advice, but it is evergreen.
Stuck with your writing? Need to map out a scene or story? Overwhelmed with a bunch of ideas and can’t get any of them straight? Endlessly staring at the blank page?
Talk to yourself.
Better yet: fire up the voicenote app on your phone and record yourself talking to yourself.
Better x5: go for a walk or a drive, or do something menial and repetitive like washing up, and record yourself talking to yourself.
All my voicenotes start with: “Okay, so…” and then proceed to vent and moan about whatever creative problem I’m currently facing. Then, as if I’m talking to my future/past/inner self, I gradually talk it through. I float ideas and shoot them down. I try different angles and I have epiphanies. Sometimes I even outright dictate whole passages of prose or dialogue — from whence it came, who the fuck knows.
All I do know is it works (for me). SO much better than writing notes or sketching outlines or trying to formalise my plans on paper or a screen. Somehow, I can argue with myself far more effectively with my voice.
I think it might be partly because when I’ve written something down, my brain foolishly assumes that it must be more-or-less right, but when I say it out loud, my brain goes, “Hang on, are you sure about that? What about this, instead?” and we (the containing multitudes ‘we’) seem to come up with 10x the ideas.
It’s like when you start venting a problem to a friend and then halfway through you come up with the solution yourself, even though your poor soundboard has just sat there quietly nodding or offering the occasional validating uh huh.
Note: recording these rants is important, so you can listen to them later, write up any useful bits, jot down new ideas, or transcribe wholesale some of the genius mutterings that may have emerged. I’ve drafted entire scenes this way. Fixed unfixable drafts. Had long, in-depth conversations with my characters. Made world-changing masterplans.
Don’t ask me why or how it works. (Though I’d love to know the sciency psychology behind it.) But it has become an absolutely necessary, sometimes daily part of my writing — and general problem-solving — habit.
A nice thing: SHARING STORIES
A final nice thing (or four) for your reading pleasure.
In preparing lessons for my Smash Your Flash course I compiled a whole range of flash fiction story examples, which led me down a glorious rabbithole of browsing all my bookmarked favourites, and scouring lit mags, journals and competitions for brand new favourites.
During this process, I rather guiltily realised I don’t generally have (or make) the time to do this kind of in-depth reading as much as I should. Instead, I’ve come to rely on my social media circles, newsletter subscriptions, or other workshops to flag up and recommend great stories, but there’s something so immersive and calming about getting lost in a reading spree.
I found so many flashes — some of them years old — that I’d never come across before. I discovered writers whose work I came to love and went on a deep dive into their bibliography. I came across many publications that are publishing some seriously solid work, issue after issue.
There’s good shit out there, guys. I know we know this. I know there’s a whole lot of STUFF on the internet — both important and frivolous — that distracts us from it. But taking a minute to read and share a new story is a genuinely nice, enriching thing for your writerly soul.
For example, here are some stories from the first four lessons of Smash Your Flash that got me right in the writing guts:
A Handbook For Identifying Bird Calls by Kim McGowan
I’ve changed my ex-husband’s contact info to “Asshole,” but still when Jake calls I feel a lurch in my chest that makes me understand why apothecaries and poets once believed that emotions reside in the heart.
To Misses Delilah Who Killed My Sister by Spencer Nitkey
Bethany told me she liked girls the same day mom ran over the neighbor’s dog with the Chevy.
A List Of Places My Mother Was Old by Mahreen Sohail
My mother is old at the yogurt shop. The small storefront tucked in between two pharmacies, the inside walls painted white. A boy ladles yogurt into a polyethylene bag, hair parted to the left with clumps of gel.
When You Come Home From Nashville by Patricia Q. Bidar
I get lost three times en route to the Oakland Airport, ten minutes from home. I have waited for you through a year of your travels. The infrequent social media posts; the even rarer calls. I arrive late. My daughter, you are so small in your sundress and Doc Martens. You wear a kerchief like a girl in a fable.
Words are pretty great, huh? We should read/share more of them.
Come across any particularly nice words lately? Please reply/share them in the comments and feed my literary soul.
Ok. That’s it for now. I gotta pack. I gotta finish up my deadlines. I gotta get the heck out of here and go sit by a river and read. Busy, busy, busy ;)
Thanks for reading. Back soon. Jx