The Ray Bradbury Routine

Ray Bradbury – The more you write, the more you want to write.

The Ray Bradbury Routine – 1000 words a day - “Everyday for 2 hours, I begin a new short story, sometimes finishing it, or write an essay or poem. This routine has continued for sixty five years.”
1 - Write Daily - if you don't write daily, what would happen is that the world would catch up with  and try to sicken you. If you did not write everyday, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy, or both.
2 - Gently lie and prove the lie true ...everything is finally a promise... what seems a lie is a ramshackle need, wishing to be born...
3 - Formula - Find a character, like yourself, who will want something or not want something, with all her heart. Give her running orders. Shoot her off. Then follow as fast as you can go. The character, in her great love, or hate, will rush you through to the end of the story."
4 - Write quick. In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth dead falling or tiger-trapping
5 - Write at least thousand words a day everyday; discover the treats and tricks that come with word association; put down brief notes and descriptions of loves and hates.

6 - make lists of titles, put down long lists of nouns. Run through those lists, pick a noun and then sit down to write a long prose poem-essay-story on it.

Rest in Peace Ray and Thank you for all the inspiration!

EY

Writing Inspirations and Prompts

Now that I'm tipping my toes back into blogging semi-regularly, I've been thinking about what I want the content to be. I can't see myself getting back to my old blogging style of writing a blog a day of just stream of consciousness, like I did in the past. So as it sits for this blog, I am going through all the crazy notes I have and pulling out the pieces that have inspired me and we'll see how it goes from there.

Writing Prayer
Why not say a prayer, it can't hurt. And Marianne Williamson is always guaranteed to have some good words:
Dear God,
Deliver me to my writing. Deliver me to my passion. Deliver me to my brilliance. Deliver me to my intelligence. Deliver me to my depth. Deliver me to my nobility. Deliver me to my beauty. Deliver me to my power to heal. Deliver me to You.
Amen.
-Marianne Williamson

Movie Quote from Finding Forrester

Sit. Go ahead.

Write. No thinking. That comes later. You write your first draft...with your heart. You rewrite with your head.

The first key to writing is...to write. Not to think.

Take someone else’s writing and start typing it (like "A Season of Faith's Perfection.".)

Sometimes the simple rhythm of typing gets us from page one to page two.

When you begin to feel your own words, start typing them.

Punch the keys for God's sake!

Blog Inspiration – Katey Schultz

I've been following Katey for several years. She always provides me with inspiration, top notch writing and a good look at how hard it is to be a full-time writer.

Writing/Art hybrid - Do a contour drawing of anything you see. Then freewrite over it whatever scene you have been stuck on or anything you may want to write. I really love doing this.

Read Katey's description of the class she taught this to

And Philip Hartigan whom she learned it from.

EY

Dream!

Saw this on Facebook today.

What Matters Most

I received two emails today about writing and fear. This one from Manage Your Writing and another one about a writer who has been feeling shy about promoting his e-course.

Boy oh boy, us human creatures, we can plague ourselves with all sorts of fears can't we?


I'm starting to keep a list of what gets me to write. I realized lately that although I can't stand it when someone repeats him or herself in conversation, that repetition gets me going in writing. In my Blue Metropolis piece that I wrote on the EY Page about going to my old homes, "This is the place where," got me going and I've been writing more in my journal using that as my jumping off point.

And today in writing about how I beat myself up, also on the EY Page , I also found that writing, "What matters most is," helped me to get going.

I know that writing practice is what keeps me sane and gets me out of my fear. That is what Writing by Kaizen is about. Practice today even if it's crap. Practice today even if I don't learn anything. Practice today, get the words on paper, with practice I find out what's inside, what needs to come out, what matters most...

What Matters Most

What matters most is that I take it easier on myself.
I can work on my writing daily but I don’t have to be super focused all of the time
I can goof off a little
I can go to bed early when I feel tired
I can have a glass of wine
I’ve berated myself enough in this lifetime
Berating myself never motivates me to accomplish more
It stops me
Feet stuck in quicksand
Mind overwhelmed in chaotic nervous thoughts

What matters most is that I learn to love my life exactly how it is
Right now
Yes I could afford to lose a few pounds
But spending my thoughts on how I’ve failed only makes me feel like I’m a lost cause
Might as well eat more cake

What matters most is that I have the space that I need for myself
I need to have moments of silence to hear my own voice inside my head
That voice gives me the answers I need when I have questions
But she’s so soft spoken
She can get lost in the noise of other people’s unsolicited opinions
No matter the attention getting cries from others, I need to make time for myself
I can’t survive and thrive without it.

EY


a few hours after I posted this post:
And as I'm trolling for potential Liebster nominees I come across this entry on Fear and Writing. Yup it's the theme of the day!

Liebster Blog Award

My EY Page Blog was nominated for an Award by the lovely Bonnie Vesely at Just Venture Coaching

The Liebster, from what I understand, is a way to highlight bloggers with less than 200 followers. It is a pay it forward award and the responsibilities are as follows:

1. Thank the one who nominated you by linking back.
2. Nominate five blogs with fewer than 200 followers.
3. Let your nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites.
4. Add the award image to your site.

One of my goals for 2012 was to find myself a writing community. Thanks to Robert Lee Brewer's April Platform Challenge I've become a part of an active online writing community that we call "MNINB Platform Challengers."

It's been a little overwhelming on the social media front. Because of the challenge, I now have a Twitter account and a Facebook page. I never thought I'd ever have a Twitter account, turns out I like Twitter. Who knew? I've got a whole lot of new blogs that I've subscribed to from the MNINB group and I'm working BIGTIME on time management. ha-ha! All this activity keeps my mind on the writing so what more can I ask for?

As an aside, I love that Robert's Blog is called, "My Name is Not Bob" because the EY Page stands for, "Shelley with an EY." How many people out there have pet peeves about their names? :)

EY

Blue Metropolis continued - April 2012

Blue Met – Part 2

When I’m at these events I either write notes that can help me to write, nuggets that inspire me that I may use to get me going at some point – the next event was just nuggets

Newfoundland Writers
Mark Callanan, Mary Dalton, Kathleen Winter
Mark Callanan was in a coma for quite some time and when he woke up his brother pretended it was 2 years later.
“jerking like a dreaming dog hunting rabbits” Mark Callanan
“Having the face blown off you – Kathleen Winter


The Montreal X Factor
Was a discussion of how Montreal has been the place for music over different time periods. For Jazz, Rock, Electronic…

“If you wanted to do it, you had to build it yourself”
Write Fast – What’s the story, reason, cause & effect, Where the story begins.”


Writers in Peril – Ahdaf Soueif
Yes, I loved her so much that I went to see her twice.
“Creativity & the ability to see beyond the difficulties and create”
Book, “In the Eye of the Sun” her best know book
Book, “A Map of Love,” shortlisted for the Booker.

Our revolution looks just like us. It had a sense of humour. It was creative, artistic, frilled with a resourcefulness, making use of whatever your environment had to use. She talked about the transit that has been in the middle of being built for the last 10 years and how the people in the square made bathrooms out of it and people lined up to use them. That they always made room for older Egyptians. The sense of camaraderie in the middle of a revolution. The importance that the whole world was watching.
What would you imagine a revolution to look like? It doesn’t look like that.
It was a demonstration of how we wanted to be. Being and doing our best.


Ray Robertson – Writer Happiness
I have to admit that I only went to Ray Robertson’s event because depression was mentioned in the description. I have watched him on TV in interviews from The Humber Writing School and I’d never connected with him because I found him to be a quote-aholic. I always found that too distracting. “I’d think, I know you’re smart, so tell me what you think”
Well, I was pleasantly surprised. Ray Robertson is funny as hell. The excerpts he read from his book of essays, “Why, Not?” were engaging and of my generation so I had similar memories or it brought on my own memories. This book is going to get me to write.
I wished that he would talk a bit more about depression but that can always be dicey.

He also made me think about what I do believe, In the end we just have to write what needs to be written. You hear that essays don’t sell or poetry collections don’t sell or short story collections don’t sell and there is always a writer that proves that wrong. We need to write what needs to be written by us.
Gems and quotes that inspired me:
Being born – “our kicking and screaming arrival”
You have a plan and you discover as you write the book what it’s about
Ray used to play “air piano” when he was a kid.

He reminded me of when I was in my early 20’s living on my own and spending my entire paycheque on records. I’d save just enough money for food and the rest went on records. It was a passion that was more important than food or a social life.

He talked about valuing language and what words can do. No matter what, you can’t help but have your ideas come in when you are writing. And when you experience something, you need the right words to describe it, “I didn’t have the whole experience because I didn’t have the words.”

His opinion from watching the adults when he was a child was that most jobs are degrading and soul crushing. So, what are we going to do with freedom? We have this opportunity, what are going to do with it?

“I became a novelist because I don’t play well with others. I’m highly selective of what I bother to do”

The e.e cumming quote, “I am through you so I, ” was mentioned when talking about love. Basically the best relationships, “help me be who I want to be.”
He said that there is a myth of unending orgasmic happiness when we’re in love and then we have to ask ourselves – “Why am I not happy? How much are you willing to sacrifice?”

All good books are about why we are here.

His writing schedule:
He writes 4 to 5 days a week for 3 hrs
It’s the daily commitment
He reads poetry/ prose when he feel out of sorts with his writing. He will take breaks and simply read. “When I feel like I’m not writing with the commitment to language, I take a break and read poetry & prose”

Final Event – Becoming a Writer
Tamara Faithburger
Mentioned reading Geroge Batailles – Story of the Eye as inspiring her to write.
In her late 20’s she became a writer.
She wrote diaries, experimental and got a job writing xxx story writing. . Having a job writing taught her how to write as work. She currently teaches yoga because it gives her a flexible schedule.
She writes whenever she can through out the day.
Her opinion is to establish writing contacts based on the people you know. Let it be more organic. And in promoting your work – say yes to everything.

Joshua Knelman: “Hot Art”
His Background – 4 years Concordia university in Creative Writing program & minor in English Lit.
He did an internship at Saturday Night as a fact checker for articles and said it was good for getting comfortable with talking to all sorts of people from Prime ministers to prostitutes and in between.
It was an organic 7 natural process in getting his agent, the agent called him based on his original article about art theft and asked him if he had enough to write a book, which he did.

Nicole Lundrigan – “Glass Boys”
She was called an “academic playgirl” by a professor because she was interested in so many things. She has a serious heavy science background.
She only started writing because she needed something to do as a stay-at home mom to feel like she still had a job outside of the house.
She started writing articles. She wrote a junior reader text book
“Never thinking about the reader kept me honest.”
She does a lot of writing/thinking in her head and writes in snippets, a little bit everyday. 500 words at the least
She wrote what interests her got publishers interested and then approached an agent who had a similar writer.
“you’ve gotta be different when approaching agents”
“assume that everything that you write online can be read by everyone”

Writing Regimen:
Reading is part of my writing work. Deadlines are really good. you need to show up at the studio
500 words a day, I delete more than I write. But write everyday
Has weeks of discipline

The following notes are just a mish mash of the three of them writing:
Read your work out loud
Themes – isolation & disconnect
Young female sexuality

Screen writing is really good money
You need good writing friends who can support you
You need a great editor

Confidence depends on the day

Sex writing taught Tamara Faithburger – voice, language, you have to write as real as possible, as urgent as possible. “I want you to not put the writing down”

Nicole said – “Writing is an acceptable form of Self abuse”

Set it up so you have something to work on the next day.
“I always want to do better than the last thing I’ve done. I try to outdo myself.”
Pretend that a writer you respect is reading your book.

Blue Met

Blue Metropolis Website

Blue Metropolis - Reality TV

Reality TV made me a Better Writer – Jeffrey Oliver

Jeffrey Oliver wrote his novel – Failure to thrive with these steps he learned from working in Reality TV
The rule: “It is what it is” You’ve got to get it done on time. Sort of like doing Nanowrimo, you've got to just sit down and write and not worry about anything else until it's time to worry.
Aspire for genius but go for a damn good read. "I’m just a guy who likes to tell funny stories, and that’s okay."
Care deeply about your characters – Create a story of their life. The edit is a major part of the creative process

Adopting Habits of Reality TV: Here are the Steps
1- The Pitch
Quick, snappy
A good pitch keeps you honest. You have to stick to that pitch. Stick to what you’re book is about.
Have the answer to, “what’s your book about?”

2- Schedule & Budget
Apparently it took Jane Austen 16 years to write Pride & Prejudice

Write fast! What will happen in each episode? Make a very tight schedule
Every day of writing or planning: If you go over schedule in Reality TV it’s money!
Create a penalty – write a cheque to some charity every time you don’t write.
Story beats are scheduled
Story beats = scenes
You’ve got to let your characters do what they want
Be disciplined about your time.

3- Casting
You have to know what you want
People who are extreme in their passion or at an extreme moment in their life.
Story core – asking people the story of their life
Know your characters
Difference to the classic coming of age story – find something new, what is unique, what no one has written of before

4- Scripting the Beats (Google beat sheets for more info)
You set out the beats and whatever happens happens
In a half hour reality show there is a 4 act structure
In an hour long show there is a 6 act structure
Set up what’s going to happen immediately,
3 acts – beat every scene
The story is most important, the act structure you hammer out.
Beats first – structure next
Just pound it out then it’s in the edit that you do it all.
1st draft – just let you characters speak and at the end then you get into the structural beats in the edit.
Characters are most important, let them do what they want to do.

A woman asked a question whether Jeffrey was saying beats or beads?
Beads on a necklace
Beats – drum beats, the music, the rhythm.
It's beats but Jeffrey did like the idea of beads on a necklace.

5- Location Scouting and Location Research
Here’s our story and here’s the location we want to shoot
In TV locations fall out all the time
Choose the location and invent the truth of it

6- The Shoot
The actual writing
Run & gun shooting – the camera people never put down their camera, you better keep shooting everything happens.
On the fly interviews – something weird happened that we didn’t expect to happen so we interview the characters about it.
We’ll fix it in the edit
Chisel, find the story
Pick ups in reality TV – when they make the characters reenact what they did when the camera didn’t pick up originally.
We write a lot more than we end up using

7- The Edit
The thing you love the most often is what you have to delete.
Who are you writing for?
Chisel, cut right to the action
Most important part of the story
Writing is rewriting
Justify your words, your paragraph, your story
Cut more

8- Delivery
Deliver on time, promotional material
Book promotion – twitter, Facebook, blog etc
Time, courage, energy
Be resourceful – social media, entrepreneurial
MFA program – create your own MFA program

Motivation – here’s what I have to accomplish in 2 months
I can’t be a proper happy person unless I accomplish this dream of writing
I need to have an emotional plan and a practical plan

The character will take over and you’ll have new beats. Editing takes as much time as writing
Put your novel away for a bit before you edit.

It was an interesting idea and Jeffrey was a pretty funny, entertaining guy. I bought his book Failure to Thrive. Haven't started to read it yet. I'm currently reading Ray Robertson's, Why Not?

EY

Blue Metropolis - April 2012

Blue Metropolis – April 2012

I made the decision to commit to enjoying my life more now that I am no longer in constant physical pain and the first thing that popped up, once I made the commitment, was an email from Blue Metropolis. So I bought a VIP pass and a couple other tickets that weren’t included in the pass and I made plans to go to Montreal for a week.
It was a fun trip of eating, writerly events, family, time with my childhood best-friend and being a tourist in the city of my birth. I went to 4 of the places that I’d lived when I was a child, places where traumatic things happened. It was a freeing experience to go back to those places and see that I am an adult, that I survived all of that grief and face my own strength. And if the energy of my little self is still there in another dimension, I told her that she will be okay, there will be a lot of crying but she will survive it all.



It was funny because I made plans to see people in the mornings or for lunch knowing that in the afternoons and evenings I’d be busy with the festival. A couple people tried their darndest to get me to change my plans for them and miss out on the festival. I wasn’t having it. I went primarily for my writing and for the first time in my life, I made my writing a priority and if you couldn’t work around my schedule, you didn’t see me.



Everyone was so friendly in Montreal. As an English speaking Montrealer, there can be rudeness over the language issue but it really seems like the language issue is becoming less of an issue. French people speak English really well and English people speak French really well. It was heart warming. And made me think that it’s time to go back to French and speak it well myself. Really, Montreal is an international city, people should speak both languages. It can only be a positive. I’m happy that things have changed. I won't wait another 5 years before I go back again.



I kept all of my events in the one location, the Hotel Opus, although there were events in other locations. I wanted easy schmeasy since I knew I’d be doing a lot of running around in the mornings. Apparently the festival wasn’t the normal large one that it has been in years past. It is under new management and Hotel Opus was the new location. The staff were friendly and accommodating. It’s a nice Boutique Hotel



Quebec Roots Book Launch was my first event.
Writers and photographers work with students at different schools in Quebec and help them to write about their story plus teach them that writing isn’t as simple as just writing something down. You’ve got to re-write and edit….and they are published in a Book. From what I know, they’ve been doing this with different schools for a number of years, possibly 7 years.
Students from different schools got up and read excerpts of their pieces that would be appearing in the book. A couple of the young guys, maybe grade 7, painfully read their excerpts. It was that nervous public speaking only in front of their peers and complete strangers. And they were all rewarded with a copy of the book at the end of all the readings.
I didn’t stay long but I did take the time to ask their teacher if I could speak to them for a moment and I told them to remember what they’d just done, standing up there with all their nerves and shyness and reading any way. That what they did is what you call “Walking through your fear.” The teacher thanked me for saying that and said to all of us, “They walk through their fear on a daily basis.”



Bilingual Cities - Sherry Simon and Hugh Hazelton
The Spanish person who was supposed to be a part of this event didn’t make it, sadly.
The speakers talked about Montreal in the past when St Laurent, the main, was the line of Division. West of St Lawrence was English and East of St Lawrence was French.
Cities as a whole aren’t bilingual. Bilingual suggests an equalness in the languages. The confrontation of languages creates creativity, a vibrant literary scene. There is a cultural vitality with 2 languages. A person who comes to the city with a third language has to deal with both languages and generally has to choose one over the other.
All cities are multilingual.
In the 1940’s to the 1960’s, Montreal was the place for English Canadian writing.
The role of the translator is to bridge the two cultures.



Crime Writers – “Hot Art” by Joshua Knelman
Josh is one of the founding members of “The Walrus” magazine
He started off just wanting to write an article about an art theft in Toronto and the deeper he got into his research, the more he realized that it couldn’t simply be an article.
He told funny little anecdotes like meeting up with an art thief, who called him to meet, and over lattes, the thief threatened to kill him if he ever mentioned his name in any writings. The funny part, of course, was that they were sipping lattes and the guy said it in a friendly tone like there were talking about what they saw outside the window.
Quebec has one of the best art theft divisions who investigate art theft internationally. There are not many places that have a division that can do much in the way of investigating art theft. Most of the time, if art is stolen, the prevailing thing to do is not say anything and suck it up.



Cracking the U.S. Market - Scott Esposito, Chad Post, Katia Grubisic
Fiction e-books are leading the trend, specifically – romance & science fiction
And disposable pulp fiction
The discussion was primarily about how there is a whole new range of ways to get your writing out there. It’s something people can be excited about.
If you are looking at getting an advance, you need an agent and to go the traditional route.
They talked about when reading, most don’t give a book a chance past a certain point. Advice was to write something people will be excited about, excited to read.



Louise Penny event/ reading – because she was out of town and Blue Met wanted to honour Louise, especially since she is a Montrealer and she is a crime fiction writer, which was the theme. They had actors read an excerpt from her latest book. There was an Alfred Hitchcock type who gave a bio of Louise Penny and a couple actors who read from her novel. I have to say, I’m not a big fan of readings, they are a crap shoot. Either authors are terrific readers or you want to slit your wrists listening. It was a nice change to have a reading like this.


And a quote from Louise Penny, “Be willing to make the audience suffer.”



Love under Fire - Tess Fragoulis and Felicia Mihali
Talk about women surviving in a predominantly male society. Why love is never enough. Dealing with the consequences of a disaster for years to come. Like a friend of mine who was homeless after Hurricane Katrina who is still struggling. We forget about them, once the news cameras move onto something else, the people who have survived a disaster are still struggling is silence.
After you have left home and write about it and possibly decide to go back that there is no home to go back to because everything has changed, moved forward. “Not the same kind of Greek”



Ahdaf Soueif
Her book Cairo – is 18 days of a diary about the Egyptian Revolution
She said there is an element of trepidation after the major change. The feeling that now you really have to do it right. It’s like living a miracle. The responsibility that this brings.
A sense of paralysis – how can change come about?
It’s such a relief not to have to despise yourself anymore.
In the face of the army and weapons – There’s no reason to run back, it’s better to stand your ground.
She said about the youth – they have refused to have their life stolen.
One poignant thing that Ahdaf said about her mother who passed away, that through all of this ‘revoluting’ she had the tremendous need to tell her mother. Wanting to hear her mother react and respond.

I'll put the notes from Reality TV Made me a Better Writer in a separate post, since those notes are probably the most helpful for writers.

EY