Trusting the process and not giving up.

 I recently went away for a week's retreat and was helped, as a beginner, to paint my first icon, in this case not a celebrity or a button on a computer,  but a religious painting from the Christian Orthodox tradition, painted, or 'written' in a particular way, which is specifically created to be prayed with. Painting or 'writing' an icon involves following a traditional process. There are set prayers to be said before starting to paint, set materials used, there is an order to the painting, and set colours associated with the Sacred subject chosen, but there is also a recognisable form and order in the way to paint it - day one I was taught to transfer the image on to a white prepared board, then prepared the board to add gold leaf, and each day following there were set tasks - adding the double halo, the lettering, painting the garments, the skin, etc.  

It was a wonderful week for me, and I felt great peace, but there were also really difficult parts, because I had never been through that process before. It started off very well - by the end of the first day I had a face traced on the canvas, and I had applied the gold leaf, but as the week went on I felt it descended into chaos and I felt really embarrassed and, at times, despairing. It was really hard to keep going, but our tutor was very gentle and kept saying 'just add another layer' and assured me it would be fine. At the end of the week the icon would be blessed, for us to bring home to pray with,  but only if it was finished, so I was desperate not to mess it up.

I took photos of every stage of the process, and sent them to my friend, an artist, every day, to show her how I was getting on, and I even sent her photos of the work when I felt it was going wrong.  Yesterday I met up with her, and she told me, that as an experienced painter and teacher, she never at any stage felt that I was messing it up. She recognised what was happening as essential to the process. 

Even though writing an icon does not seem to leave room for creativity as such, each finished icon is subtly different, because of the individual iconographer, so I think there is some parallel with our work as writers for children. The whole experience reminded me that there is always a stage when we are embarking on a creative project when everything is shiny and new - we have traced the outline and even have gold leaf shining. But to get to the end, we have at some point to descend into chaos, lose our way, before what we have created becomes clear. I think that applies whether we are writing an icon, or a children's book, whether we are religious or not, but there is always something amazing about trusting the process, not giving up, and getting to the end! 

I won't share all the photos, but here are some examples of stages along the way:

Towards the beginning, feeling positive about how it was going, the halo shining, the image clear.

But as the week went by it got more worrying, and harder to trust in the process...but then the final icon emerged, and it did get blessed, and I do now pray with it every day!

So don't give up, if you are at that worrying middle bit! 

                                                        

Brainstorming Myself by Claire Fayers

 While I wait for editing to start on my new book, I've been brainstorming new ideas. As all authors know, this is a tricky and serious business.

First, make sure you have gathered all your equipment together. 

I like using coloured gel pens because it makes the business of writing feel less serious.

Now, make yourself a cup of tea and leave it to go cold on the edge of your desk. It'll save you time later. (Seriously, I have a friend who'd forget his tea and then knock it over so often that we took to asking, 'Do you want tea or shall I just pour a cold one on the carpet for you?')

Are all your pets, children, husbands, wives, partners and sundry distractions locked away? If not, do it now. You can't risk anything interrupting the flow of genius from your marvellous brain. I'm a big fan of noise-cancelling headphones which signal to the world that I Must Not Be Disturbed. A ball of wool in each ear may also work, or strap a pair of miniature sheep to your head. You may look ridiculous but we must all make sacrifices for our art.

Oh, and TURN OFF THE INTERNET! THE INTERNET IS A TIME-SUCKING MONSTER THAT EATS AUTHORS' BRAINS FOR BREAKFAST.

Ready?

Take your favourite pen in your favourite hand, open your notebook, take a deep breath (you know what another word for breathing in is, don't you? Inspiration), and fill the blank page with all the ideas that are suddenly and miraculously teeming in your mind.

OK, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. 

I'm surprised how many people thing that this is basically how writers get their ideas - we stare at a blank page until words appear. It would be nice if it worked. But stories are like pearls: they don't just appear fully formed. They need something to cling to. 

Turning back to my blank page, I tried prompt words. 

This random word generator is useful. (The Internet does have its uses after all.)

Or you can try an entire random plot generator. This one really is a time-sucking monster and you can lose whole days to it so approach with caution.

Finally, I turned to an exercise that Kelly McKain shared at the Folly Farm retreat this year.

The idea is you start writing - anything at all, just get your pen moving - then throw in a question. Who is writing this?

Keep writing, and repeat the question every so often. Who is writing this? If you want, you can vary it with What I really want to say is?

The exercise led to some interesting results when we tried it at Folly Farm. Sitting alone at home, it seemed like a pointless question. Who is writing this? Well, me, obviously, and I don't know what I want to say - if I knew, I wouldn't have to be brainstorming. Then, while my third cup of tea cooled on my desk and my cats clamoured to be let in and out, a thought struck. 

What if, our happiest, our most authentic, our best writing, comes out of who we are? 

If that is true, the 'Who am I?' exercise takes on a whole new importance. When I'm starting to look for new ideas, I can start with myself - the person I am now, not the hopeful, unpublished writer from ten years ago or even the more experienced and cynical writer from last year. Who do I want to be this time round? What do I want to say? Suddenly, I'm looking forward to finding out.

So that's the story of how I went looking for ideas and found myself. I'm not sure I've found my next big idea yet, but I'm having fun looking for it. 

In the meantime, here are a few more brainstorming exercises I've found useful.

1. Choose an interesting memory. Why is it interesting? Try changing the setting, the emotional tone, some of the characters. Narrate the memory from a different viewpoint.
2. Think of a place you visited a long time ago. What emotions do you associate with it? Describe the scene from the viewpoint of a character feeling the opposite emotion.
3. Make a list of the things that make you feel happy/excited. And then a list of all the things that annoy you. Use the lists to invent a few characters.

Creative Disruption - Lari Don

This week and last, I've been trying to write with workmen in the house. And it’s not gone very well. I haven’t written any of my current novel. I’m even struggling to concentrate on blog posts and emails.

I’ve escaped to cafes and libraries, and I've done some useful reading and research. But I haven’t done much writing, even in my favourite library.

I've also done a little bit of thinking about disruption, and its effect on creativity.

I don’t need peace and quiet to write (I once wrote a fight scene in a library that was hosting a Bookbug nursery rhyme session.) I don’t need comfort or space (I wrote my most recent picture book in a cold spider-infested shed.)

But I do need clear head-space and a clear stretch of time ahead of me. So sudden crashes (wait, what was THAT? Should I go up and see?) or irregular queries about tiling and plastering, keep knocking me out of my creative zone. And I suspect that coping with disruption of my domestic routine uses up most of the energy that I should really be directing towards my story.

So, I didn’t get much writing done this week. 

Which reminded me of a novel that I abandoned five years ago. I had written about a dozen chapters, when the story suddenly ground to a halt. I couldn’t see any further, I couldn’t work out what to write next. I didn’t even know what questions to ask of my characters… That story fell apart in the year I moved house twice. And I've never been sure if the idea wasn’t strong enough, or if the constant domestic disruption pulled me out of the story so often that eventually I couldn't find my way back in.

But now I’m fairly sure it was the house moves, not the idea. So perhaps, sometime, I might revisit that story.

And this current disruption hasn’t been all bad. When I was walking around central Edinburgh last week, to get away from the plaster dust, I had a bright shiny idea for a new picture book!

So: disruption, is it good or bad for creativity?

My experience suggests that for me, disruption doesn’t help with steady creation of an ongoing project, but it might provoke new ideas…

I wonder what other writers feel disrupts their creative process, and what supports it?

Lari Don is the award-winning author of more than 20 books for all ages, including fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales, a teen thriller and novellas for reluctant readers. 

Lari’s website 

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What Writers Can Learn From Science - Claire Fayers

I’m excited to be writing my first guest post for ABBA today. Thank you for having me.

I don’t know how many of you saw the recent article by Meg Rosoff in the Guardian. What Richard Dawkins could learn from Goldilocks and the Three Bears in which she laments the division between imagination and science.

I read the article on holiday in France, coincidentally on the same day I visited Leonardo da Vinci’s house in Amboise.

The whole place is quite fascinating to look around, with a reconstruction of da Vinci’s studio and giant models of some of his most famous inventions scattered around the garden to play with.

Leonardo's revolving tank

With Meg Rosoff’s words in my head, I was struck more forcefully than ever that there never used to be a division between science and the arts. On the contrary, the two fed into each other as people pursued knowledge across the disciplines. The astronomer Caroline Herschel studied maths and music. Humphrey Davy, inventor of the safety lamp, wrote poetry.

Maybe it’s not so surprising. After all, science and stories often begin with the same question. What if? What if I could measure the wind? What if people could fly? What if a boy found out he was really a wizard?

Human curiosity is a powerful thing, driving us to build flying machines, to measure the world around us, to paint and write and create music.

Leonardo's flying machine

And if the first germ of an idea starts with ‘what if’, every story begins with Newton’s first law of motion:

An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Or, as I like to put it: A moving object will continue in a straight line until something happens to knock it off its course. Some say this is also true of stories. (The Accidental Pirates, book 1)

Everyone talks about the Inciting Incident, the moment when your character’s life goes dramatically off course. What force are you applying to knock them out of their everyday routine and into the new path of the story?

Then you have the second law of thermodynamics: 

In a closed system disorder (entropy) increases over time. 

I don’t pretend to understand what this means in real terms, but in the closed system of your book does your character face increasing disorder? Do things become progressively worse, the challenges harder, the plot twists more unexpected until you reach the end?

And, finally, Newton’s third law of motion, which, thankfully is much more straightforward: 

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Stories are all about action and reaction. But sometimes I fall into the trap of letting my characters react to everything rather than driving the story by their own actions. It’s helpful to pause every so often and ask whether I’ve got the right balace of action and reaction.

I love how stories follow the laws of physics. It seems to me that there is something logical about the art of storytelling and that the best stories reflect how the world works on many levels.

What’s driving your curiosity at the moment?

Testing Leonardo's helicopter design

Claire Fayers is the author of the Accidental Pirates series, combining science, magic and adventures on the high seas.

The Power of 'I Don’t Know' – Lari Don

I think I’ve worked out where stories live.

I was touring Northern Ireland last month, with the Scottish Book Trust’s Scottish Friendly Book Tour, chatting about my new Spellchasers trilogy. I met almost 1,500 fabulous friendly imaginative primary children, I shared my stories with them, and I encouraged them to come up with story ideas of their own.

In a school towards the end of the tour, one wee boy was imagining an exciting story about shapeshifters chasing each other, and I was asking open questions to prompt him. But suddenly his chase scene ground to a halt.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what happens next.”

His face fell, and I could see his confidence draining away.

“But ‘I don’t know’ is brilliant,” I said. “’I don’t know’ is how I write stories.”

He frowned at me.

I pulled out the half dozen notebooks I keep in my briefcase. “These are filled with questions I don’t know the answer to, and all my scribbled attempts to find the answer,” I said. “All my novels are answers to questions that I didn’t know the answer to when I started.

“‘I don’t know’ means that you have to find out. ‘I don’t know’ means that you have to imagine, invent, discover what happens next. And that’s what writing is!”

The wee boy started to perk up.

“’I don’t know’ is a good thing. It means you aren’t writing something obvious or predictable! ‘I don’t know’ means you’re writing something new and exciting. You might have to stop and think and play with ideas and come up with an answer to the question, but ‘I don’t know’ means you have a story worth playing with.”

The wee boy grinned, and started to think about all the possible answers to fill in his ‘I don’t know’.

And I realised that I hadn’t just been saying something positive to give confidence back to a wee boy and his shapeshifters. I had discovered a truth about my own writing. When I first discuss a novel idea with an editor, I can almost always describe the main character, their big problem, the baddie, and the first few scenes. But fairly soon after that, there’s a point where I say quite cheerfully: ‘...and I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know how they solve the problem and defeat the baddie, but I’m sure I’ll find out while I write.’ And, so far, I always have...

Those are the stories that excite me, the ones with great big ‘I don’t know’s in the middle and at the end, because I want to write them to find out.

That’s where stories live, for me, and I hope for that wee boy. Stories live inside ‘I don’t know’, and the fun is in finding them!

Lari Don is the award-winning author of more than 20 books for all ages, including fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales, a teen thriller and novellas for reluctant readers.

Lari’s website 

Lari’s own blog

Lari on Twitter

Lari on Facebook