One Way to Come up with Descriptions

Yesterday was one of those creative days — or someone had slipped me something.

Everything looked like something else. I drove past a river and was sure I saw a grizzly bear dipping his toe in the water. It turned out to be an enormous stump, burnt orange from decay, that had no doubt been there for decades.

Up the road I thought I spotted two, 20-foot crocodiles coming down from the top of a tree. I knew it couldn't be true and didn't even stop to figure it out.

What Does it Look Like?

Now that I write this, I know why I'm seeing odd associations. I'm reading a book of short stories by Annie Proulx — one of the best writers out there in my humble opinion — and she always wow's me with her descriptions. Just the dozens of ways she described clouds in this last book has left me breathless.

It reminded me of an exercise a writing instructor gave us in college. He told us that we should constantly be looking at things and coming of associations and descriptions. For example, a branch might look like arthritic fingers or the outstretched arm of a mother to a child. He told us to do this exercise forever. He said it would be hard at first, but would get easier.

It was hard! I practice it once in a while when I'm driving. But as I've been reading these Annie Proulx stories, I've desperately wanted to get back at it and writer better descriptions.

Hallucinations

So I've been practicing, and I think my subconscious (or muse) is also in on the exercise. Even when I think I've stopped trying to come up with descriptions and have turned to something mundane like taxes, the muse is still at it — spotting grizzly bears and crocodiles.

Last night I about jumped out of my skin when I thought I spotted two eyes — 3 feet apart —staring out of the shadows of a fir tree. I didn't check it out, I just locked the door and told my muse to start making some less scary associations.

How to Find Story Solutions

Happy New Year . . . almost. As I write this there are about 15 more hours left of the year.

It's hard not to get excited when faced with all the possibilities of a new year can bring. I hope that everyone's writing careers blossoms in 2010!

I'm sure you've got parties to go to and festivities to get ready for, so I'll make this entry short. Just want to leave you with a writing tool/exercise you might try in 2010.

Ask the question

I've been troubled with a couple plot problems lately. For example, I have a story where I need something funny and romantic to happen in a large hole in the ground. I hadn't come up with anything in over two weeks, so I decided to try something I'd heard about years ago — ask the muse.

I wrote the question out and pinned it up for the muse to see. "What happens in this hole? Can you please come up with something good?" I also asked him to give it some thought as I went to bed last night.

Thank you

Woke up this morning with answer! The answer isn't fully realized — that's my job — but the foundation is there.

How do you thank my muse? Maybe I'll pin a note on the wall that says just that, "Thank you Muse!!!"

Not sure if this is of any help in you 2010 pursuits, but had to pass it along.

Happy New Year!!!

di

Five Ways to KIck Start Your Muse

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. with the answer to a story problem. For a couple weeks I'd been trying to find an answer to a structural flaw, then suddenly at 4:30 a.m., YURIKA, there it was!

Some people tell me they come up with their good ideas in the car or in the shower. The underlying theme seems to be that our muses need us to be quiet so they can present the answer.

If you're not quite ready to just wait around for your muse to jump in, I do have a few tips to speed it along:

1. Feed the Muse

Sometimes the muse is just hungry. Depending on what problem you're trying to solve, you might consider cooking a new meal, listening to music, taking a long walk. Muses aren't completely cerebral (at least mine isn't), and sometimes they're are moved by new tastes, sounds and experiences.

2. Relax & Trust Your Muse

A stressed muse, being told to perform on command, is a silent muse. Have confidence your muse is at work on your story, even while you're eating, sleeping or doing your taxes. Muses require a little faith.

3. Make a Date with Your Muse

My muse likes structure. I'll work on a story in the evening until I run into a problem that isn't easily solved. I let my muse know that it's quitting time and that we'll pick it back up at the same time tomorrow, when he has an answer. So far, he's never let me down.

4. Talk it Out with Friends

This kind of falls under "feeding the muse", but I like to bring up issues at my writer's group. They will discuss all kinds of options, and although none of them may be avenues I will take, it does provide new ideas for my muse. He often takes off running with one of them.

5. Be Open to Anything

If you're only looking in one spot for an answer, you're limiting your muse. Open your mind. I have an "10 Different Options" exercise I sometimes use. I write down 10 different solutions to my problem to get the juices flowing again. They can be completely insane ideas — again the purpose is to get outside your self made box.

For example, if I were having a problem with the scene where one character is trying to kill another on an tropical island (where there are no guns) by drowning them, I would think up 10 other ways to kill them — hitting them on the head with a rock, throwing them off a cliff, poisoning their coconut milk, finding a poisonous snake, running them over with my jeep, paying a native to off them, etc.

I probably won't use any of these, but the different options will spark your muse.

New Breakthroughs

Hopefully these will get you mused off an running. If you want more ideas, just let me know. I LOVE breakthrough moments, and so does my muse.

di

Teleplay versus Screenplay

Feeling a little dumb today. I was working on a statement to demonstrate to the WGA that more than 50% of the final shooting script was mine. (This statement is required for them to determine if you will receive sole or shared writing credit on your script.)

It turns out that although that's what's needed for a screenplay, I had written a teleplay — a script used for a cable movie. And, it turns out that the rules for teleplays are completely different.

You Share Credit if . . .

In short, you will share credit on a teleplay if there is a substantial change in just ONE of the following:

• dramatic construction

• original & different scenes

• characterization or character relationships, or

• dialogue

How do they determine "substantial"? It's very scientific — it's whatever the panels deems substantial.

I spent yesterday bummed out. I didn't think I'd have any problem showing that overall the script was more mine than the other writers' versions. But showing that they hadn't substantially changed the dialogue? That would be close to impossible.

Getting On With It

This whole week has been a downer — trying to figure out rules, working on statements and worrying about credits and residuals. I understand that this isn't a hobby, it's a career and it's all part of the business. But talk about a piece of the career that sucks the creative forces.

Got up this morning at dawn, grabbed my journal and started writing. Spent an hour forgetting about percentages and WGA arbitrations, and writing about the pouring rain and the soggy Northwest.

I wrote about how rain washed away everything when you're young. About how much fun it was to splash in puddles and float things down overflowing ditches. And about how many stories I created running with my dogs through the valley where I grew up, hoping I'd find some treasure that had washed up in the flooding creek.

That's all it took. I'm no longer bummed. I'm ready to write. My muse was just waiting for me to get done with the paperwork and come out and play in the rain.

Hope you write some wonderful stuff today.

When My Muse Gets Scared

My muse hates to be beat up — she has a self protection mechanism. (Yes, she's a Lemur.) When I get to a point in my writing that's difficult or takes real courage, she points me toward other projects, ones that are more fun and with have less emotion invested.

Rambling of a Muse

For example, I'm on the last pages of script I really like. This means soon I'll get to face producers, agents and studio folks who are going to trash my story as it's currently written and tell me to rewrite to fit their vision, and if they don't like what I write they'll give it to someone else to rewrite — and that's if I'm lucky and they like my script.

So about now I get scared and my muse coming up with other cool projects besides marketing my script (or evening finishing the script at all), like launching a new web-based magazine with my husband and friends.

Muse is painting some pretty sweet pictures to steer us away from being potentially beat up by Hollywood.

"What's the worst that can happen?" she asks. "We can fail and lose some money? That's better than having our story rewritten and our ego smashed in the process."

Pep Talk

It'll be an ongoing battle from here on out, but I make the good argument.

"All this writing was done for a reason. It would be easier to submit a script that we didn't care about. But who wants to see that movie? We gotta get in there and not crap out." I'm on a roll.

"They may like it. They may hate it. We have no control over their responses. We just have make sure we're proud of it. Gees . . Man up!"

I think my Muse is handing me a taser.