It can be hard to put words on the page at the best of time. The inner critic can rear its head, bringing on self-doubt and uncertainty, which leads to a feeling that many people call writer’s block.
However, these are not the best of times. Many folks have been shut in at home due to shelter-in-place orders, which might seem an ideal situation to increase productivity and get writing done. Instead, increased feelings of stress, uncertainty, and depression can make it harder to be creative, compounding the problem.
My own writing process has been hit or miss over the past few weeks, with stretches of no writing being marked with sudden bursts of creativity. Since I’ve been dealing with my own ambiguous feelings towards being creative, I thought I’d share a few tools or methods I use to address the feeling of being blocked when it comes up.
Not all of these ideas are going to work for everyone, so feel free to use or discard them as you see fit.
I mentioned last week that I had participated Cito.FAME.Us Women’s History Month open mic, in which the amazing folk duo Q&A, performed some gorgeous originals.
I made a video of one of their songs and have posted it with their permission. So, here are Quynh and Alice, are being quintessentially awesome.
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And don’t forget to comment here to win a free poetry book!
This past couple of weeks have been of the beat-my-head-up-against-a-wall variety, particularly in regard to accomplishing the mountainous tasks that had piled up at my day job. So, I figured it would be nice to be able to share a few of the things that have made me smile lately (above and beyond my niece and nephew, that is, who always make me smile no matter what’s happening).
1. I’ve just learned that Ursula K. Le Guin is the 2014 recipient of the Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. I have read a handful of books by her and have loved each and every one, though I have a particular soft spot for the Earthsea series.
2. The Beyoncelogues – Actress Nina Millin takes Beyonce songs and performs them as dramatic monologues. The results are utterly fantastic. I particularly like her rendition of “Single Ladies,” but the whole five part series is great.
Seeing Millin perform and bring new depth to these songs is deeply inspiring to me. I love seeing popular works redefined in inventive ways and seeing her perform makes me want to try to write a short film script, or even a feature film script, for Millin to star in.
5. Running with Zombies is a 5K fun run in San Jose, in which the zombies don’t chase the survivors, but run alongside them. It’s kind of like a zombie walk, but with running instead. And, while I tend to prefer walkers instead of runners at the cinema, I’m happy to say that my sister and I will be shifting into zombie mode this October in order to join the run – zombie make up, torn clothes, and all. I’m so excited!
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Note that I avoided putting my recent download of Minecraft Pocket Edition on this list, because it’s not so much making me smile as it’s consuming my life. If this no sleeping, no eating thing keeps up I might be more of a zombie than I expected by the time the fun run roles around.
While I love National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and will be participating again this year, it isn’t for everybody. But the idea of challenging oneself to stretch personal boundaries of what you think is possible is a great thing. So, I thought I’d share a few different challenges that you could do this November instead of trying to pound out 50,000 word of a novel.
National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) — Challenge yourself to write one blog post every day this month, which I discovered through The Daily Post. It seems like a simple enough challenge, but since I’ve never posted 30 days straight in my life, I’m sure it would be tougher than I think. I’m planning to go a head and try this (today makes day one!), since I’ll be posting word updates and such anyway this month.
November PAD (Poem-A-Day) Chapbook Challenge — Found at Writer’s Digest, this challenge asks writes to take the prompts posted and writes a poem a day for the month of November, THEN to take those poems and turn them into a chapbook in December, which can then be submitted to the associated chapbook contest. Very cool.
Submission Bonanza! — The blogger at Lighting Droplets came up with a personal challenge to send out 30 submissions in 31 days (they did it in the month of July), but it could be done in November, too. The idea is to rack up rejections (and hopefully an acceptance or two). This sounds like an awesome challenge and one I’ll be trying at a later date.
The 30 Day Vlog Challenge— This is for Youtube and involves creating a new vlog post (at least 1 minute long) everyday for 30 days. I need to do something like this to get back into the habit of vlogging, but it will probably be a while.
I’m sure there are dozens of other such challenges out there, and if you know of any that I should add to the list, please let me know in the comments.
Edited to Add:
National Comic Drawing Month (NaCoDrawMo) — Draw one strip or one page of a longer manga/webcomic every day for a month. Submitted by ingridsykora.
I don’t have much time to write a new post today (as I ought to), so I’m going to do a throwback with my “Three Things I Own and Don’t Know Why’ video, which you can watch below or by following this link.
For non-video watchers, these three things are:
1. A Multitude of Computer Cords (and I don’t know what they go to)
2. Clothes That No Longer Fit Me
3. A Whatchamacallit
Technical this is supposed to be a Five Things Friday post, so I guess I’ll add:
4. This video was uploaded in August 2009 (so long ago!), so I don’t actually own all these things anymore. The cords have been dispersed to family members and some (not all) of the clothes have finally been donated. The whatchamacallit was finally given away just last week, so I am free of that strangeness, too.
5. I still own a ton of things I don’t know what to do with from craft supplies I have a feeling I’ll never get around to using to old cell phones (like the flip variety) that I’m sure I should be tossed. I think there will always be something or another that I own for strange and unclear reasons.
What about you? What do you own that you don’t know why?
In other news…, have a happy Labor Day weekend! I hope you get to relax and eat good food and do fun things!
