“One hasn’t become a writer until one has distilled writing into a habit, and that habit has been forced into an obsession.”

Niyi Osundare

Image: SusanNYC

I was recently introduced to the idea of doodling in an art class as a way to connect with the right side of the brain. As I’m sure you know, the left side of our brain is the analytical side and the right is the more dreamy, creative side.

Writing calls on both parts in different ways but the right plays a huge part in allowing you access to the world of your characters and being able to evoke that world for the reader.

You have probably noticed that the longer you stay away from your work, the harder it becomes to merge yourself back into that imaginary world. But doodling can help get you back there and you can feel the effect quite quickly.

Before you start writing (just after you’ve finished procrastinating) grab a piece of paper and lose yourself in some dreamy doodling thinking about nothing in particular. As the world around you starts to recede, allow yourself to drift into your imaginary world and – without interruption – move across to your writing. Give it a try.

Doodles by Stargardener

If you are working on your first novel you can’t fail to be impressed at the standard of Kathryn Stockett‘s work and by the dazzling success of her first novel.

‘The Help’ is interesting and inspiring from a number of perspectives. Firstly the ambitious approach of telling the story in three distinctly different voices two of which are black maids. So, not only does she need to create three complex characters but to emulate the distinctive speech and idiom of those characters.

On top of that she has done an amazing job in creating a web of secondary characters all of whom are connected to and driving the main plot. The time and place are also cleverly evoked within the context of the story.

I’m often heard moaning about books being exceptionally long, some of which really need a massive edit! But ‘The Help’ isn’t one of them, I found it so readable that I powered through the 522 pages in about four days – and I’d already seen the movie.

I am always suspicious about new kinds of software or ‘fool-proof’ techniques to get writers to write but this little trick is simple and free.

Basically you download this one page from ‘The Writer’s Store’ print it out and every day that you actually WRITE ie. work on your novel or screenplay or whatever (Facebook/email/text doesn’t qualify!) you get to put a big stinkin’ red cross on your calendar.

It is strangely compelling. I started on the 1st of January (okay it’s only five days) but there is a real resistance about allowing a day to pass without adding a link to the chain – so far so good!

BTW: The Writer’s Store is a great resource (mainly aimed at screenwriters) either online or drop if you’re in LA – I’ve also attended some of their industry specific courses which they run onsite.

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy

2. Submissive to everything, open, listening

3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house

4. Be in love with yr life

5. Something that you feel will find its own form

6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

7. Blow as deep as you want to blow

8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

9. The unspeakable visions of the individual

10. No time for poetry but exactly what is

11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest

12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time

15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

19. Accept loss forever

20. Believe in the holy contour of life

21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better

23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

29. You’re a Genius all the time

30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

As ever,
Jack [Kerouac]

[Jack Kerouac. "Belief & Technique For Modern Prose: List of Essentials" from a 1958 letter to Don Allen, in Heaven & Other Poems, Grey Fox Press, 1958, 1977, 1983.]

An excellent example of how plot drives character development, this one will have you discussing the main protagonist  (played by Ryan Gosling)  and his decisions long after you leave the cinema.

For non-US audiences, there is always that slight crisis of confidence with movies that centre around US politics as to whether we will get it. This movie does a great job with dialogue that clarifies and underlines key issues without obvious exposition or characters explaining things to characters who would already know stuff  or resorting to sloppy ‘As I’ve told you before…’ techniques.

Once you grasp the scenario, the story takes off and every scene provides some unexpected twist that tightens the direction and pushes the main character to his limit.

Script and direction package that definitely confirms Mr Clooney is not just a pretty face.

Have been relishing Carla Coulson’s latest feast of images and anecdotes in her latest book ‘Paris Tango’. She has captured the essence of Paris through interviews with fascinating Parisians under the headings of photography, The Marais, Moulin Rouge, artists, gardens, perfume, Haute Couture, dogs, Parisians and dance – clever idea and beautifully executed.

Loved this quote from an interview with Monsieur Lesage – the designer behind many of Paris’ best known designers.

“Inspiration comes by accident. One must be awake to everything – to perfume, to sunlight on a window, to winter leaves falling. Every occasion offers an opportunity to adapt and to create.”

This Synonym Finder has been my cherished companion for many years. It’s looking very worn around the edges but still has the goods when it comes to finding exactly the right word for whatever it is I’m trying to express.

I know there is a modern habit of just flicking up to the Thesaurus on Word, it’s easy and quick but writing well is not about speed and convenience. It’s about consideration and spending however much time it takes to identify exactly what you want to convey in the least number of words  – by using just the right one.

Highly recommended – have fun!

You’ve been slaving away on your novel for X number of years with no idea if it will ever get into a slush pile – let alone crawl out of one and into a publisher’s warm loving embrace.

Then one day you find yourself stuck in an elevator/at a dinner party with your dream publisher.

Do you admit to working on a manuscript – you betcha! What? You want her to tease/torture it out of you?

Will she want you to pitch to her  – probably not, but it’s your baby and now is your moment. And you should have your elevator pitch ready, rehearsed and perfected for this moment.

It is complex to create a short pitch but it should sound fresh and simple, as though it has just dawned on you. It’s a SHORT paragraph that describes your story and makes it sound at best RIVETING and at the very least interesting.

In reality it takes time to develop – maybe weeks or months. It needs to encapsulate the story, the premise and theme. Try reading the blurbs on the backs of books that have similar genre stories to yours. Develop a rough draft and try it out on friends. If their little faces crumple with bewilderment and they ask a stack of unexpected questions, you have missed the mark. You want them to be curious not confused.

One way to play with it on the page is looking at how loglines are developed for movies, basically the equation of:

protagonist + antagonist + setting + situation + conflict = essence of your story.

ScriptShadow recently ran a competition for loglines -  gives you a good idea of how it works.

As I tell every class I ever run – it is most unlikely that a publisher will come to your house and wrestle your manuscript off you (despite your protestations of humility). You will have to seek out the publisher and, if need be, you may need to hustle.

A great elevator pitch could be the key to the door, behind which there may (or may not) be fame or riches but who knows?!

Anna Funder’s award-winning debut book ‘Stasiland’ is a fascinating read offering a unique insight into the machinations of the Stasi and those who resisted them within the walls of the former East Germany.

Her much anticipated novel ‘All That I Am’ also has a German theme. Set in present day and in pre-war Europe, it traces the stories of a clique of German left-wing dissidents who risk their lives in their attempts to open the eyes of the world, or at least their own country-men, to the insidious brutality of the budding Nazi regime.

Cleverly structured, the stories interweave past and present through Ruth, now elderly and infirm, who looks back on events from her home in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. Her memories have been reignited by the autobiographical musings of the long dead revolutionary playwright, Ernest Toller, whose notebooks have now fallen into her hands.

We follow the group of dissident friends as they flee to London, where they still constrained from communicating the horror stories that reach them from their homeland for fear that the British government will revoke their visas and they will come to the attention of the Gestapo operations active within Britain.

Funder’s writing is strong and purposeful, her research both deep and wide. Based on real events and people, her novel illustrates the struggles those courageous ‘revolutionaries’ who predicted all that was to come and were shunned by a society in denial. These people lived in desperate times, fighting a battle without resources or power, facing constant danger and fear of betrayal. It would be years before history proved to them to be heroic standard-bearers of truth.

It’s a complicated structure for a writer to work with (essentially a story within a story) but deceptively easy to read. I saw Anna Funder speak recently at the University of NSW and she made it clear it is not an approach she would recommend as it ‘almost did her head in’ – I believe it. You only need to read her (or hear her speak) to get that she has both high intellect and emotional intelligence in spades. She should be enormously proud of two exceptional books to her credit.