Opportunities Knocked

It’s been a while since I’ve given good time to writing, but it really is my favorite passion. No matter how many leadership roles I’ve had, no matter how many math classes I’ve taken, no matter how many electives I’ve indulged in–nothing brings me back to myself like writing does. I often compare words to blood, the act of writing itself like bleeding–blood-letting, if you will, that cathartic process of expelling the bad humors while holding onto the good.

This week I’m continuing my series of writing exercises and wrapping up the chapter on what makes a story. The exercise is simple: Look back at opportunities not taken. I guess often we look at the choices we’ve made that lead somewhere, but forget the choices that did the opposite–those choices that led nowhere. In stories, however, it’s those choices that make something happen that we follow to the end. If we can identify those choices that cause the story to stop, we can focus on writing about those choices that take us places.

When the Pawn Takes the Queen

Have you ever had a moment when suddenly everything became clear? I’m made to think of days when you look out the window and you can count every leaf on every tree because, for some way you can’t discern, the sun has decided to shine on every one of them–and you don’t know why, but you count those leaves, each and every one of them, and for days, nothing is the same. You know these leaves intimately, you know these trees. And then the clouds roll in, the dawn turns to dusk, and somehow all that clarity is clouded curiosity.

Alas, the epiphany. It comes. It goes.

In writing, there’s a trend–so my textbook would like to insist–for new writers to rely too heavily on epiphanies to develop characters and move plots along. I’m almost certain I’ve fallen for this at times, but I can’t seem to recall any concrete examples in some of my stories. I’m generally opposed to sudden changes in anything, and epiphanies seem too easy sometimes for me to even want to use them very much.

No matter, this exercise was all about them.

The Rooms of My Heart

Read the fine print! Don’t sweat the small stuff! Contradictions abound–and there’s no shortage of such when it comes to defining the perfect balance of details in writing, and whether or not those details matter. (After all, if we don’t sweat the small stuff, we won’t read the fine print, will we?)

This chapter that we’re working on is all about crafting exact scenes using concrete and sensory details. What does it matter? Why should I bother? If it isn’t obvious, then read on. You’ll be sure to be surprised.

Indices of Identity

It began with a desire to write better: I enrolled in Creative Writing I. It was more fun than I had imagined possible, and I learned a tremendous amount about screenwriting and poetry, but it didn’t satisfy my want to write stories better.

This semester, Creative Writing II. And not only are we doing multiple workshops a week, we’ve got a great company textbook–that’s hardly a textbook at all. It’s called Method and Madness by Alice LaPlante and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite books on writing–and I’ve read a bit on the topic, and I’ve written a lot, so I consider my opinion rather versed on the subject.

This last chapter was all about the details–bringing the abstract into the concrete, making every little thing as sensory as possible to build a world within which our readers can lose themselves.

Now that I’ve got a prompt to work with, I’m going to spend the next few weeks taking a break from my typical stories and instead playing with some writing exercises. Hopefully they’ll prove as entertaining to read as they are to write, and hopefully you’ll be able to witness my growth as a writer just as I am. For me, there’s few things more incredible than watching someone grow before my very eyes, and perhaps you’ll be able to feel this same way watching me.

So where do I begin? Right at the beginning: An index of identity.

Imaginary Teammates

Tomorrow begins NaNoWriMo and this is an exceptional year for me: Not only is it my sixth consecutive year competing, it’s also my third and my last year as Municipal Liaison (or regional coordinator) of the North Carolina Triad region (formerly the Greensboro region). I have so many exciting things I want to get done, and one of them is continuing to build upon our sense of community. I know I’ll be leaving next year for Raleigh to finish my bachelor’s degree at NC State, but I want to leave our region thriving and strong.

One way I hope to accomplish this is through encouraging my fellow Wrimos to embrace their own inner potential–and my intent is to do this while teaching them how to unlock their characters’ hidden potential. This all sounds bright and lovely, and if I can tangibly create what I envision in my mind, this is going to be an incredible and stupendous year for our region and our writers.

Luckily for me, this year follows a lot of leadership development on my part, and although it’s hard to imagine how leadership training coincides with stronger writing, once the connection is clear, it’s an amazing revelation. See, leadership is all about interaction and direction–and what’s a story but a collection of character interaction and plot direction? A good character is a good leader, or if not, can be properly distinguished from one–and when the author can tell the difference, the possibilities expand exponentially and even endlessly.

This then is merely the first of hopefully many lessons, a short piece expanded upon from a recent email I sent out to my region. Nonetheless, the advice is worthwhile for any writer or any leader, and I hope no matter which you are, or even if you’re neither, you can find some worth in the words that follow.

“Editorials” and Other Poems

Last week my creative writing class moved from screenwriting to poetry–and now I’m rolling in the poems and have finally amassed a number of reasonably good enough ones to share here! I’m quite incredibly excited by this, I’ve felt these pages have been rather empty of art lately, and I’ve been eager to add something here for a while.

Today I also completed my screenplay–a forbidden romance with a philosophical slant entitled “Sinners and Sine Waves”–and after I’ve edited it sufficiently, I’ll begin posting it serially for a few weeks. But in the mean time, please enjoy some word-wrought poetry!

The Scenic Route

Once in my lifetime I attempted screenwriting, but it was no pleasure of mine. I tolerated it. I might have minimally enjoyed it. But I did not love it and I vowed never to force myself to do it again.

Yet it’s the nature of my personal vows and the irony of the universe that if I say “never,” it returns “how soon.” So can you guess what the first topic is in my creative writing class. Yep, screenwriting.

Since I am now obligated to write a screenplay, if not many of them, I am determined to not only do it well, but to enjoy it marginally, and heaven forbid, maybe even love it! Since the formatting and style of screenwriting and fiction are so drastically different (a divide that I believe hinders my ability to love it more wholly), I’m going to adapt various scenes from my stories to the screen as a way of bringing together what I love with something I would like to love more.

It is as in learning: To master anything, you must associate it with something that you already know.

For Hearts and Soles

Sometimes we love another. Sometimes we love being alone. Here are a few poems I’ve written over the years that speak from my heart of being in love, and loving being the sole of my own relationships.

Back to Basics

One thing I like about this new PostADay blog that WordPress has is that, when I feel like I should post a new post, but can’t really think of anything to write, they’ve got the solution all ready! So today (or really it was a few days ago, but that’s not the point), they said to talk about why you started blogging. I don’t think I’ve spoken about it before necessarily, but it’s a good topic. After all, I’m still sort of celebrating a year of blogging, so it fits, doesn’t it?

It sort of goes a little deeper than that, though.

Another Thursday, Another Thank You

Today was Thursday, wasn’t it?

Honestly, it slipped my mind. It always happens like this: I get so accustomed to the day-to-day of the school year that, when it abruptly ends about this time, I forget what day it is. Every day feels like Saturday, or Friday afternoon, or some Sundays… You get the picture. There are two things I notoriously admit to lacking: The first is depth perception. The second is a sense of time.

Neither of which has anything to do with anything being thankful. In fact, I almost don’t feel much to be thankful for today–to put it lightly, I’ve been in one of those moods. Yesterday I went to the used book store, hoping to find one movie I really wanted…and instead, they had almost nothing I wanted to buy. I was very disappointed. I finished watching the entire first season of my favorite TV show on Tuesday. I spent most of today cleaning. And every guy I start to talk to, either ends up not talking, or becoming friends with no hope of becoming more than that.

It’s depressing, the encroaching New Year. I’ll probably speak of that some other time.

Today I need something to be thankful for.

I choose… silence.