Transitions - again

 A must read

"With this on my kindle I can refer to it wherever and whenever I choose. I would especially recomend the section on the Neutral Zone, the period between awareness that old habits don't work any more and new ones need to be formed. Why I mention this specifically, is because this is the phase that makes us most uncomfortable. We prefer to avoid the feeling of uselessness that it may evoke, but it is in fact acceptance of this 'emptiness' and choosing to undergo it fully, that will enrich us most in the long run. Going into the neutral zone and listening to all the messages it brings, is essential in the transition from old to new. "

The Shift - from ambition to meaning

buy the DVD

A film about the spiritual teachings of Wayne Dyer.

Starts with enchanting music played on the piano, and the words, spoken by Wayne Dyer “thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning”. 

The film then goes on to explain and illustrate this beautiful quotation.

Wayne Dyer, himself a successful writer of self-improvement books such as Pulling your Own Strings, and The Sky’s the Limit while in the morning of his life, felt his own shift into the afternoon of life and his calling to become a more spiritual writer and teacher. The result is the well-known, The Power of Intention and Change your Thoughts, Change your Life – Living the Wisdom of the Tao. His latest, The Shift, Taking your Life from Ambition to Meaning is the basis for the film.

The structure of the film is simplistic, easy to follow and thus appealing to a wider audience.  In brief, a film making team come to a beautiful seaside retreat to film Wayne Dyer as he speaks about The Shift. This interview is punctuated with secondary storylines, two or three individuals, couples and families who are also staying at the retreat and who, coincidentally illustrate Dyer’s theories. 

If you can get past this uncomfortable set up, then what Dyer tells us, and how this is illustrated in the secondary scenes is actually really inspiring, more so because of its almost childlike simplicity. 

In his studies, Dyer has discovered, both in men and women, that the morning of life is filled with striving to achieve external goals, ambitions, the need for recognition, monetary reward, social standing, though exactly how these goals are chased differs significantly between men and women. Then, as we approach the afternoon of life, these goals are replaced with more intrinsic ambitions. Internal satisfaction, deeper meaning to life, spirituality and self-realisation become the new drivers. Suffering is caused when we try to live the afternoon of life with the same program we applied to life’s morning. 

The characters in the second layer of the film, illustrate the different forms this transition can take. A mother who relinquishes some of her nurturing tasks to create space for her own creativity. The film maker who, having been fired from his job at a commercial network, has a light bulb moment and knows he has to make more inspirational films and the company executive, who takes a step back from his corporate ambitions and chooses for family. 

But, the most significant personal shift comes from another character entirely, and if you want to see who and how, then you will have to watch the film!

As I mentioned earlier, this is not a film filled with deep, intellectually challenging metaphors and symbols. It is designed to reach everyone. Wayne Dyer’s presence throughout the film, his gentle tone, and succinct way of explaining his discoveries were pleasant to listen to and for me at least, the lessons sank in. 

Moving On

In the last few posts I have been commenting on the books I have read that have inspired my life, as much as my writing, after having written a lot on my own writing process. The process was written mostly around the birth and growth of my novel, The Cloths of Heaven.
Another novel that I loved writing, and one that was an even more intense emotional journey (if that is possible) is Trash Fire. I hope you enjoy the excerpt included here. It is also one that was written after I had analysed the process and written about it in my previous posts. So, it was also a case of practising what I preached!


MOVING ON
Madeline led her out to the car. Have you ever been in the heart of Connemara before? She asked.
Julie shook her head. Only to Clifden, but then everybody has been to Clifden.
You’ll love our farm. Utterly isolated, but with the advantage of electricity, and good sanitation. We grow our own vegetables, of course, and never eat meat. Bread we bake, though we do buy the flour from the health food store in town.
And Julie did love it. She loved the smell of the peat and the dew in the early morning, fresh and vitalising. She loved the sight of the mauve mist over the black velvet mountains. She loved the feel of the damp, cold grass beneath her naked feet. And when she listened carefully she could hear the bleating sheep on a distant valley and the trickle of the mountain stream. Peace at last.
She helped in the vegetable garden, plucking the weeds from between the onion shoots. She hoed the thick, compacted soil loose so new crops could be planted. She harvested the beans and carrots, the food they would eat in the evenings.
She thought of her own garden, back home. Hers and only hers. The only gardening Dick did was mowing the lawn and then only on the sunniest of days. And because the mowing was his task he had purchased a motor mower for himself. He had wanted to buy one that he could sit on, and steer, so that all he had to do was take care that he drove in a straight line, and gulp beer from a can.
He didn’t. He feared he might look a fool for the neighbours who still pushed their hand mowers and raked the grass into neat piles afterwards. Instead he bought a Flymo with a grass collector and generally took no longer than fifteen minutes to trim their suburban patch of grass. When he was finished he lounged under the parasol in his cushioned recliner and read the paper while drops of perspiration dribbled down his neck and under his white cotton shirt.
And while Dick recovered from his exertion, Julie weeded and thinned and fertilised her vegetable patch at the back of the garden where the sun shone its finest and the hedgerows gave protection from the west wind. She planned to replace the hedgerows next season with some gooseberry bushes that would serve the same purpose but be much more practical. She fancied cultivating a strawberry patch too, and eventually a small vine to creep along the fence that separated her garden from the one next door, on the sunny side of course.
A shadow fell over her. Julie looked up to see Madeline blocking out the sun. She smiled.
You seem to know what you’re doing, Madeline remarked.
I learned it from my mother, Julie said. It’s still a hobby of mine.
The garden, its produce, her grubby hands and nails blackened with soil, all transported her back to when her mother lived, and chattered and tended her vegetables. Past mingled with present. Mother returned to Julie’s mind and heart."
(C) Geraldine Nesbitt 2010

Take time to think and you take time to live

I haven’t done much writing lately. I have done a lot of thinking. I have been thinking, and observing and analyzing. We live in a world of over-stimulation and sometimes you need to slow down and let everything sink in; permeate your consciousness so that you can make sense of it all.
It has been a long time since I had the opportunity to take a dynamic retreat. I had forgotten how meaningful it can be.
Prolonged periods of apparent aimlessness are unfortunately frowned upon for the most part and seen as having no value. Yet these are probably the most effective ointments for the soul and for the creative spirit.
The world today is extremely fast-paced and its people rush about barely keeping up. We all run around chasing our tails, being busy, filling our schedules and thinking that somehow these are all signs of a successful life. The one sure result of all this tail chasing is an overwhelming fatigue which we fight off, forever avoiding the crucial question: are we satisfied? Heaven forbid we should slow down and take the time to smell the roses!
It is usually due to illness or some personal crisis that forces a change of pace. And I have to admit that in my case it was no different. A knee operation brought me to a physical stand (sit) still and stopped me in my tracks. This involuntary slow down changed me on several levels. No one was more surprised than I at the effect it had on me.
After the initial fear and restlessness subsided I began to appreciate the time spent by myself. A temporary return to work only further underlined the value of the time out and I had to face up to the fact that my old life just didn’t fit any more.
So, I have been on a prolonged retreat for the last couple of months and allowing my thoughts and my feelings to catch up with each other. The connection between these two is the one that comes under the most strain when we live lives fraught with stress and activity. It feels good to be reconnected. It is certainly intense. Ideas spring to mind unexpectedly and spontaneously. There is room for intuition to guide my choices and my interactions with others.
More importantly I am experiencing my true feelings again and I know that I am in the midst of an important process, one that will enrich my life.
Enduring the process and not running away from it, is certainly going to improve the writing that is as yet still in the pipeline. It will bring a new level of courage and authenticity to anything I have to say. There will be clarity and conviction because I have taken the time to figure stuff out and the writing will be worthy and genuine.
So, I may not have been writing much lately, my schedule is much less filled than it has been in years, solitude is a daily companion. I even have a pair of slippers and have the time to actually wear them around the house!
It has been and continues to be a fruitful, fertile period in my life. One that is helping me grow and as a person and as a writer.
Stay tuned, who knows what is in store for us!

Digging Deep

It’s all too easy to want to hasten the process and just get on with the actual novel, and I am sure there are plenty of novelists who are capable of doing so, but I would strongly recommend that a novice novelist take the time to do a chapter breakdown. The chapter breakdown will serve more than one purpose. Not only will it give more clarity to your initial inspiration, but it will also be a valuable aid in letting your characters evolve. And even more importantly, by going through the mechanics of a chapter breakdown, you will be able to see if there’s enough ‘meat on the bones’ of your plot. If at this stage the plot cannot be padded out into about fifteen chapters, then there’s not enough story to grow into a novel.
Given that you do have a fifteen-chapter story, then the breakdown will be an invaluable aid in your writing of the novel-in-progress. On those dull days when you feel overwhelmed by this project the chapter breakdown will do just that – break it down into manageable parts. It will also be your guide, and keep your mind clear and your thoughts directed. It will serve as a map and hold your focus. If you have chosen a less traditional novel form, one without the constraints of chronology, geography or historical context, then using the chapter breakdown will be your structure. I don’t know whether Michael Ondaatje used a chapter breakdown when writing "The English Patient," but I do know that were I to write such a complex novel, then I would definitely take the time to map out the story in this form.
There are novelists who shy away from a chapter breakdown, believing it will take the spontaneity out of their writing, and prevent the plot from developing and the characters to unfold naturally. And certainly I would agree with this opinion, if you choose to stick to the initial chapter breakdown as though it was written in blood. But if you give yourself the freedom to change and adapt, or swap chapters around, or re-write a whole section, then no, this need not be the case. Then the advantages then outweigh the disadvantages.
And now, with the chapter breakdown completed the first hurdle to your novel presents itself in the form of the OPENING SENTENCE. I have a rather simplistic solution to this – just write whatever comes into your head in order to get the story going. You can always change it at a later stage, even when the first draft is completed. At that stage the story will have grown into its own style and tone and chances are that even if you’d struggled for weeks on that elusive first sentence, you’d want to change it now, anyway! So spare yourself the headache.
I mentioned the word momentum earlier in the article. Now that you’ve written that first word, put that first, virgin idea onto paper (or your word processor), make an appointment with yourself in the same way you would with a colleague, friend or family member, that you will sit in your writing chair at a certain time every day or week. Inspired or not, you will write something. By making this appointment you are creating momentum.
Eventually writing will become as much a part of your daily routine as brushing your teeth. The novel will inhabit your thoughts. The plot will unfold; the characters will talk to you. The novel will live, become real, tangible almost. And who cares if you fail to get it word perfect first time. Just go with the flow. Enjoy the ride. Remember that this is a first draft, and it can always be adapted and improved. A blank page is just a blank page!
When you reach a point where you miss the writing if you break that appointment, when you feel restless when not writing, when you don’t break that appointment because ‘something else’ comes up, you know you are a true writer. You know you have committed to this project.

Promise

A while back I went to a lecture. Barbara Kingsolver of The Bean Trees fame was the guest speaker. Her opening remark was a general one, applicable to all her novels. She says that when she begins a new novel, she makes a promise, to herself and to the reader. The novel is successful in her eyes if she has, at its conclusion fulfilled that promise.
So, I thought that now would be a good time to ask that question and to discuss it further.
Now, as we prepare to re-read our first draft, and where necessary, edit it, I think it is of utmost importance to answer the question: Have I kept my promise in this novel? Have I come through, completed the task?
After the lecture I thought about The Cloths of Heaven, the basis for this topic, and asked that question and had to smile, because I had neatly packed the novel between a Prologue and an Epilogue, both incorporating some of the same sentences and scenes. In the Prologue I had asked the question: Was James’ Street secret to be buried forever? And in the Prologue I have uncovered the secrets, given an answer to the question, and tied up the loose ends. What was my promise then, in this novel? The promise was to give an answer to that question and I did. The circle is complete, no loose ends, and a feeling of satisfaction at the novel’s conclusion.
Making a promise when you set out, or asking that question that sparks off the novel, will give the novel its direction, will help you to filter the elements and utilise them fully. So that’s what you do first, when it comes to revising your novel. Ensure you have fulfilled your promise or answered that all-important question.
Once you have established that, you can begin reading and revising. Other elements can now be considered simultaneously with that first question. You will find that there are passages that do not add to the fulfilment of the promise or pivotal question, and at these points you need to ask yourself what they add to the novel, if anything. Maybe they are descriptive of character or place. They might add an extra dimension in perception or be useful in adding clarity to the setting. If they do none of these things, it might in fact be better for the novel as a whole to scrap them. And be ruthless. Pieces of banality will weaken a potentially strong story.
There may be passages where the pace lags, or where you seem to skim over issues. Here you can either trim down or expand. Sometimes the sequence of events needs to be reconsidered in order to maintain the suspense or to heighten the emotional power of a chapter. Sometimes even whole chapters ought to be switched around. Remember, before you decided to write fiction you were widely read, so trust your gut on these matters. When does foreshadowing (hinting at an incident in the future) add to the novel, and when does it spoil the suspense? This is an individual issue, and the answer will vary from novel to novel.
In some psychological thrillers, the victim and the murderer may be revealed in the first chapter, and the purpose of the novel will be to have the investigator discover what we already know. In other novels, the power of the novel lies in keeping the reader in the dark until the last moment, and laying clues that will have the reader constantly guessing ‘whodunnit’. Both forms are equally valid, but once the promise is made, the novel must adhere to that one route. To swap and change within the novel will in fact, break the promise to the reader, and weaken the novel. As a reader you know this, so as a writer, you will ‘feel’ it when you’ve got it right.
In The Cloths of Heaven, one of the characters dies. In my first draft I actually foreshadowed that event with a rogue sentence which simply stated ‘he died’ about two chapters before it in fact, happened. Instead of strengthening this event, I had weakened it, made it banal, and almost made the following chapters, redundant. I took out that one statement, and brought the power back into the prose.
I would recommend that when you are reading that first draft, every time you feel your energy sapping away, just put a mark in the margin, even if you don’t know what’s wrong with the paragraph or sentence or whatever. On a second or third reading, when you’ve trimmed and enhanced other, more obvious faux pas, take the time to examine these again. Chances are, it might just be a badly constructed sentence, or paragraph that is difficult to read. Simplify it. Is it too long? Then split it into two sentences. Does it add to the story or could you do without it? Then scrap it.
Sometimes it’s hard to erase a part of your creation. Sometimes there’s that one, beautiful sentence, the one you fear you may never write again. And yet, it doesn’t fit in. So you have to take it out.
In order to reduce the pain of this process, I have a reserve document, just for these sentences and paragraphs, a place where I put them out to pasture, instead of killing them off completely. I may never look at them again, but just knowing they are there, in case….., makes editing more bearable.

This one from Joel Huan, food for thought

When I was younger, I listened to my head. For one who was about to enter university, the best courses are those that give me great job prospect, so said all my classmates. So I took commerce, with major in accounting, business administration, law. But when I graduated and worked as an accountant, an ACA, I found it boring, a distaste. In my spare time, I began writing a novel, a pretty experimental project for myself, simply because I have no formal training in writing or literature. Somehow at work, my heart took over, beating with my subconscious emotions, and soon I found myself started more writing, moonlighting. My accounting profession suffered (never proceed to CA), as I didn't go for my regular ongoing courses that is required by members of that profession. I enjoyed my research and writing. Novel writing doesn't pay, but my heart was pumping, loudly, clearly. Few years later, and in trying to get an established publisher, I got rejected by all agents. Looking back, it was good, because it enabled me to keep polishing my plot, characterization. I belonged to two large critique groups (plus a few smaller ones). And I kept ploughing away. While members of my accounting profession would be doing more socials and networking to further their careers, I was alone working on my writing. Now my novel is published. It took me ten years for this novel to be born, and I thoroughly enjoy this process. Although Barnes&Noble and Amazon are selling at their sites, I'm also offering it free online, suppressing the logic of my head lol.