Simple but not easy

We have a tradition on this blog of not reviewing books -- and I am all in favor of it. So this isn't a review, just a story about the effect this book had on me.

All my life I've dawdled in the morning -- no matter what time I get up. I can be up at 6 and still happily doing I don't even know what by ten or even noon.

When I worked in other people's offices jobs,  everyone showed up pretty late and worked until midnight or so. One boss insisted on everyone being there at nine. From nine to noon, I just sat in front of my computer -- not out of defiance (though I wouldn't put that past me), but because my brain was a blank.

Yet I am not a procrastinator -- at least when it comes to work for other people. I have never in my life missed a deadline. When I get one, I count backwards from the due date, make a schedule, and stick to it.

But when it comes to my own writing, I DO procrastinate. I know I do my best writing first thing in the morning. So why do I waste that precious time dawdling, drinking tea, writing emails?? On the occasional mornings when I get to work as soon as I get up, I'm always amazed at how carefree I feel for the rest of the day: nothing to feel guilty about, no nagging feeling that I should be writing--I've WRITTEN! And on some of these days, after I do the other things I have to do, I write more.

Recently I decided to try to stop the morning dawdling and read the first part of this (up until he started talking about changing businesses):

The ideas that helped me are, first, what a habit is. According to him, it has a trigger or stimulus (eg--see chocolate bar on shelf), a behavior (eat chocolate) and an immediate reward (easy to see in the case of chocolate, less so in the case of, say, wasting a morning dawdling). And the way to change the habit is to use the same stimulus, get a reward--BUT CHANGE THE BEHAVIOR. This is simple to say, not easy to do.

One of my freelance clients, who is a neuroscientist, said the author got the reward part wrong --that Duhigg defines it too superficially and too narrowly; it's really your sense of purpose, not the superficial reward, that drives your behavior. If your purpose is important to you and you see how the behavior affects it, you have a much better chance of changing the behavior. And if that purpose includes a larger good--benefits to other people -- your chances are even better.

But back to HABIT: If you perform the new behavior often enough, and get the reward consistently, you will create a craving for the new behavior; and at that point, you have a new habit. People who run or do some other kind of intense exercise  experience this all the time. But you have to believe in your purpose and practice the new behavior often enough (a MINIMUM of three times a week, and every day is better) to create a craving for it. Otherwise, when you get stressed out, you will fall back into your old ways.

The other idea that helped me a lot was what the author called "a keystone habit," a habit that supports all the rest of your behavior (like the keystone in an arch).

For me, it was hard to figure out how to start--I have no clue what the reward of dawdling is. I have such an irregular schedule that it was hard to find a trigger for it, or a keystone habit.

But I finally thought of one: I always, always drink tea soon after waking up. I'm addicted to it. What if I didn't allow myself to have had my first cup until I was sitting at my computer WRITING?

The first week went really well. The rewards are huge -- but I will wait until I've passed the real test -- sticking to it for, say, a month -- to report back on what they are.

Frankly: writers' conferences and retreats

My impression of writers' conferences and retreats is pretty negative. I think of competitive people sucking up and looking down -- and feeling like I'm in 7th grade, NOT as part of the in-crowd. But Alvina's post yesterday got me thinking. Maybe I am being way too negative, maybe it would be fun to go to one, and useful, too.


As you may have guessed from my last post (and like everyone else, I apologize for not posting more lately), I'm living on a small Scottish island. I am writing, every day except Sunday, but I want this book to be good so much that I'm clutching. The word comes from a pitcher on This American Life who said no matter what he did, he couldn't get the ball near the batter and the harder he tried the worse it got. They say in baseball that you can't think and hit or pitch at the same time, and maybe the same goes for writing.


A retreat or writers conference where I could do some exercises and get some tutoring on how to get out of my own way, and have some laughs with the other attendees in the evenings and MAYBE have someone read my work without having a meltdown (that is me I'm worried about melting down, not them) -- might be just the thing. 


There is a retreat for writers in Scotland, above, where no one seems to take themselves too seriously (the bio of one staffer described her as making a huge change in her life "in a mad fit")....and someone who attended one of the workshops described her experiences as "magical." A friend of mine in America went to a workshop on the writing process at  Kripalu (the teacher didn't read anything they wrote, just talked them through sitting down and getting it done) -- three months later, she's still getting up at 5.00 a.m. (two hours before her children) to write. I know a lot of it will be the luck of the draw -- who the teachers are, how they like me and my work, what the group dynamics are -- but maybe it's worth the risk?


What do you think? Have any of you attended a conference as a writer/student (not one of the teachers) and had good experiences? Feel free to answer anonymously if the answer is no!


As a first step, I am definitely going to a one-day workshop at the Scottish Story Telling Center (for 1/20th the cost of a weeklong retreat). They have lots of classes to choose from  -- I'm going to the one on fairies in Scottish legend, literature, and song, that has everyone singing as well as listening to talks and practicing their own story telling. No way can I take myself singing seriously! And it will be fun to go back to Edinburgh, which I have finally learned to pronounce. Here they say Edinburra.

Proof! Reading fiction makes you smarter!

I've argued sometimes with friends who think novel-reading is a waste of time that reading makes you more empathetic. People who can't imagine how someone else feels on their own, or in a social situation, CAN when they read a novel, in which all the clues are laid out for them.

Now there is scientific proof that this is so! In fact, some social scientists have gone father and said that reading fiction makes you smarter.

readingfiction makes you smarter (STAR)

reading fiction hones social skills (SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND)

Also too (as Sara Palin would say), great artists have great insight -- even Freud said that his theories had been known to "great artists" for hundreds of years. Do you remember the scene in Emma in which Mr.Woodhouse keeps telling his son-in-law what his, Mr. Woodhouses's, doctor thinks the son-in-law should have done -- until finally Mr.Knightley loses his temper?

Jane Austen then says that Mr.Woodhouse had been "unconsciously attributing his own feelings" to the doctor.

Though it's true that Jane Austen also once described somebody reading "the sort of novel that makes people think reading novels is a waste of time."

So maybe it has to be a good book for the magic (or science) to work?

from the BRG archives: good influences

When their children got in trouble, parents often said that the parties involved were a “bad influence” on each other. As one friend of mine put in our teenage years, laughing:
“Meanwhile the kids are having a great time.”

It still feels strange – but nice – to have friends who are fun and a GOOD influence. The Blue Rose Girls are both. When we spend the weekend together, we get to talk about children’s books as much as we want; and we inspire and reinforce each other as artists. The only bad thing we do is eat too many cupcakes. We talk about careers and jobs and other practical things and give each other the kind of advice that really helps (instead of the kind that makes you feel like a bad person).

But we’re a good influence in other ways, too: I’m getting to work earlier as a result of the visit (one hazard of being a freelancer is wasting time, especially in the morning. Too often I dawdle mine away). But this week – so far! – I haven’t. I’ve gone for a bike ride first thing, partly because of the BRGs. It was cold when they arrived, and hot by the time we decided to go for a bike ride – so instead of wearing their blue jeans, Anna borrowed a pair of shorts, and Grace decided to wear her pajama bottoms (they were flowered and looked MUCH nicer than the black spandex most people around here wear for biking).

On Monday morning, I decided to go for a bike ride first thing and accomplished this partly by wearing my pajamas (I did pull a fleece on over the top). Perhaps parents would not count this as being a good influence on each other, but I do – and maybe part of being a good influence is that we reinforce each other in being who we really are.


Originally published September 27, 2006

from the BRG archives: fat

When I was a child and a teenager, I would read almost anything: just gulp it down and the fatter, the better (picture books were thin books, chapter books were fat books to us). Now I’m much pickier – but last week I had the flu for a few days and I read the way I read as a kid when I couldn’t go outside: I just put a big stack of fat books next to me and when I finished one, started the next. One of the books I read was Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright (Newbery winner, 1938). It opened to this:


--and my first thought was: the author must be the illustrator (she was). I kind of like the drawings in this book – they’re just so bizarre. And I also always liked Arthur Ransome’s drawings for Swallows and Amazons, which was published in the 1930s, too. They’re charming and suit the books.

I’m guessing that these authors weren’t ever professional illustrators (girls, what do you think?). And do you think authors this amateurish could get away with illustrating their own chapter books today? I hope it’s possible, even if the illustrations aren’t up to Grace’s charming drawings in the equally charming Year of the Dog, it’s just FUN to find colorful illustrations like these scattered throughout a book, especially when the author is the illustrator:

The girl on the left is described as fat -- I’ve never seen the word “fat” mentioned so often in a book as it was in Thimble Summer. People were also described as “fleshy,” as when someone says, “They are one fleshy family.” I didn’t know people were that preoccupied with weight in the 1930s – or was it just this author? Pigs were mentioned a lot, too – one is described as “unusually greedy and selfish, even for a pig.” This isn’t a criticism, I enjoyed the book; I just found this sort of thing unusual:

“Garnet watched Mrs. Hauser [the mother in the “fleshy family”] get into the car. Did she imagine it, or did she really see the Ford sink down a little on its springs, as if it sighed under a great weight.”

That made me laugh, though I was half-relieved and half-disappointed to see that this character’s daughter, also described as “fat,” was the perfectly normal-looking girl with a bob above. Fuse8 worried in her review that children, seeing this, would think that THEY were fat and be troubled; I am not. I weigh a lot more than I once did and already think I'm fat. When I saw this picture, I was reassured. I thought, "Oh, fat doesn't look so bad." Maybe it really doesn't!

Originally published November 1st, 2006

Creative or imaginative?

As some of you may remember, I write an article every week for my local PATCH.

This week, it's about an eight-year old artist. I included 11 photographs of things she's made, and her comments on them: the oil painting above was done when she was 6, the story-drawing below when she was 3. I wish I could draw and paint as well as she does, and create as effortlessly!



She is, literally, almost always making something. I wonder if being creative -- wanting to, or maybe even having to make something -- is different from being imaginative -- making things UP, but not feeling the need to give them physical form. This of course is not in the article, these pieces are about the kids themselves, not my thoughts!

I do wonder about it, though....maybe both start with an idea, but creative people need to form that idea into something physical? And those of us who are merely imaginative don't?

For me, physically forming something is easy and satisfying when it's something like cooking, super-hard when it's something like a novel. When it comes to writing, I guess I'm more imaginative than creative -- THINKING of the idea is fun, writing it over and over and over to get it right is just plain hard work!

from the BRG archives: Sometimes it's easier than you think

Last week, I sent in a ms. for a children’s book – my name won’t be on it, and I’m not getting royalties, and the publisher probably wouldn’t want me to name it here anyway. So I won’t. It’s the second book I’ve ghostwritten for this artist and publisher (and of course, but I better say it anyway, the artist is not one of the BRGs! They write their own books!).

My usual method is to procrastinate and agonize about that and (once I finally settle down) write most passages over and over – but for some reason I didn’t do that with this project. I just calmly did the research at odd moments here and there (well, maybe it wasn’t quite THAT effortless, but that’s how it seems now)….and when I was ready to write, I did. (I put that in bold because I think it’s important.) I didn’t fiddle or fuss, when I knew something I wanted to say, I poured it into my laptop or Neo. Once, I think. Maybe I wrote some parts a few times, and I did a clean up at the end, but the point is that I didn’t agonize over any of it. I thought about what was interesting in the research and then wrote it down when I was in the mood to do so. I alo told the artist the main idea I had for the fictional part of the story and she loved it – and it was fun to talk about it with her, too.

When I was done with the ms., the artist and I went over it together (I thought if we did it together it would be easier and go faster. It did!), and amicably crossed things out– my goal had been to get rid of half. But:
“I LIKE the page about Lincoln!” she said. I said we could at least take out the fact that the statue of him in the Capitol is missing the left ear (that was its state when Lincoln died and the sculptor decided to leave it unfinished.) “I think that’s really interesting!” she said, sketching it. There were a few conversations like that, but we did take out a third of it.

I went home, rewrote a few things the next day, and the day after that, rewrote a little more and sent it off. I liked it; but had a (slight) sense of unease. It couldn’t be THAT easy, maybe it was all garbage, was I deluding myself? (etc.) But about a week later I got an email from the editor saying she loved it and thought kids would be “really excited” about it.

I’m going to remember this incident. Maybe it can always be this easy – and even if it can’t, agonizing doesn’t help! So, I have some new rules (as if I need more rules!). But these may really HELP me and I believe in the almost-magical power of writing things down or saying them out loud. This blog is both. So – although these may be incredibly obvious to others, here’s what I’ve learned.
1. Don’t wait to write until I have “enough time,” or a long stretch of uninterrupted time. That will never happen. (Until I really get into it and then no one CAN interrupt me, because I won’t hear or notice them.)
2. DO wait until I know what I want to say and am sure it’s interesting to me.
3. Don’t rewrite as I go along – just keep going and clean it up at the end.
4. Don’t worry about what other people will think of it: just please myself -- at least until the first draft is done! Don’t even worry now about what I will do then -- hey, maybe I’ll read it over and like it a lot!
5. Maybe when it’s time to take things out, get someone to sit with me the way this artist did? It made it SO much easier and more relaxed to just sit there in a café together, crossing things out and talking as we did it…

I hope I remember these things and act on them – it really boils down to trusting myself to know what I want to say and then just saying it.

Once ( a long time ago!) I made a list of things to avoid in future boyfriends and showed it to a new friend who, instead of commending me, started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“That you would have to remind yourself of stuff like this.” (I don’t remember what was on the list but I can imagine). Maybe these writing rules are equally obvious to others….but I DO have to remind myself of them – WANT to remind myself!

This is a really long post…but no one has to read these things! And I do promise to make my next one shorter. But I won’t edit and rewrite: I’ll just pick a shorter topic.

Originally published Aug. 23, 2006

from the BRG archives: That thing with feathers

Black Beauty grows old (and Ginger dies!); Mattie never is nice to Wanda Petronski, and joins the other girls in egging her on about her “hundred dresses”; Lyra causes her best friend’s death; Anne Frank goes off to a concentration camp …. but all these books still left me with a feeling of hope -- about people and possibilities. Great books do this not with platitudes or PC messages or Walt Disney happy endings, but because of the way their (very real and believable) heroes and heroines react:

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good at heart,”

or

“Yes, she must have [really liked us],” said Mattie, and she blinked away the tears that came every time she thought of Wanda standing alone in the sunny spot in that sunny spot in the schoolyard, looking stolidly over at the group of laughing girls, after she had said, ‘Sure, a hundred of them – all lined up…”

or

“The first ghost to leave the world of the dead was Roger. He took a step forward, and turned to look back at Lyra, and laughed in surprise as he found himself turning into the night, the starlight, the air, and then he was gone, leaving behind such a vivid little burst of happiness that Will was reminded of the bubbles in a glass of champagne.”

Maybe it has nothing to do with the way the characters react, maybe it’s just something the best writers show us or induce in us about the gallant human spirit. Anyway, I feel bigger-hearted and more hopeful after reading them.

“Hope is the thing with feathers –
that perches in the soul.” – Emily Dickinson

And how about that word “perches”? Pretty perfect. That some people write that well – and that some girls now still read and love her poetry – gives me hope, too.


Originally posted on Aug. 30 2006