Sometimes, inspiration can come from places we least expect. The sound of the cicada buzzing outside. The news article you read today. The color of the coat on the woman you passed at the grocery store.
Inspiration can come from anywhere if we pay attention.
Award-winning writer Jenny Offill has a great method to remember these inspiring things and use them to guide her writing.
Jenny’s Inspiration Jar
Whenever Jenny comes across something inspiring – be it something she reads, something she sees, just something the really resonates with her – she writes it down on a piece of paper and puts it in a jar.
And so the jar becomes full of these little ideas, inspirations from things that stood out to her. When Jenny sits down to write, instead of facing an intimidating blank page, she just reaches into the jar and pulls out a slip of paper, and then she has something to work with. She can either insert that idea into something she’s already writing, or she can use it as a prompt to get her going.
Object Diary
Jenny’s jar is similar to what I do with my Object Diary. Just like Jenny, I write down things that speak to me. If I overhear something bizarre or cool, see a sign or a plant that catches my eye, or if I just keep thinking about Alaska, for instance, and I don’t know why… I simply write all these things down in a notebook and, over time, themes emerge and they become a sort of organic soil to pull things from my subconscious and use as ingredients in my current projects.
I might have forgotten that I kept thinking about Alaska, but if I consult my journal later when I’m writing, stuck on what should happen next—I think, oh my gosh, this character is either going to go to Alaska, getting in a fight about Alaska or having to call a relative they are estranged from who lives in Alaska—it could go anywhere!
How fun would it be to have this inspiration jar like Jenny? I am so excited to turn my Object Diary, which is on paper, into something that resembles a still life—this vase of divine ideas.
I’d love to hear if you want to join me in trying out an inspiration jar. And I’m giving full credit to Jenny for giving us the idea. So, try it out and let me know how it goes!
Whether we’re writing fiction, non-fiction, poetry, articles, or blogs, the goal is for our writing to be so riveting that the reader takes the offering that we are giving them in the form of our story or our content, and remember it long after their eyes lift from the page.
Have you ever noticed how one person can write about a topic and you are so bored that you want to throw the book down and go watch TV? And yet another author could write about the exact same subject and you are immersed and completely engrossed.
What makes one better than the other? I always love looking behind the curtain and understanding what authors do to create this experience.
The power of unexpected language
One of the things that I’ve noticed over and over again is that the authors who keep us riveted are using language in a way that is unexpected. There’s an element of surprise, which is delightful to our minds. These authors are willing to write the things that most people are afraid to say, and being able to reveal the not-so-pretty truth of what someone’s thinking is a comfort to those who have similar thoughts that aren’t viewed as acceptable in polite society. There’s an element of disclosure, deep candor and honesty in successful writing.
The idea of surprising with language involves using interesting metaphors or similes or taking a unique stance in looking at something. You can make anything incredibly compelling when you say it in an unexpected way and you reveal some sort of truth.
Try using your words to represent and be the subtext for deeper tensions and unsaid emotions.
Case study: legos and rosaries
“The Souvenir Museum,” a collection of short stories by Elizabeth McCracken, is one of my favorite books I have read this year. In one story the author writes about a boy and his Legos, which is a very domestic scene that could be considered kind of bland, yet she does it in such a way that it serves to build his character. The boy had visited the Legoland Billund Resort, the original Legoland park in Denmark, and he was disappointed. She writes:
“He did not dream in Lego. Not anymore. But sometimes he still raked his hand through the bins of it beneath his bed as a kind of rosary to remind himself that the world, like Lego, was solid and mutable both.”
There is the simile that he raked his hand through the Legos like a rosary. “Raking” is an unusual verb to describe something you do with your hands. McCracken is revealing character: He was passionate about this toy and the creativity that it unlocked, but now he’s in transition between being a little kid and a bigger kid. However, he still finds some comfort in the Legos, like one might in holding a rosary.
This is an amazing example of the delight of a simile or metaphor when used as an unexpected juxtaposition.
This week I challenge you to write about something mundane: filling a glass of water or a bush. Approach it as McCracken did with the boy and the Legos, and use one unusual verb to describe a character interacting with the object, and then come up with a simile or metaphor that is unexpected to reveal something deeper about the character in relation to that object.
This is my favorite time of year… new beginnings, “back to school,” focused, powerful energy to HARVEST our visions! I love this time because there’s so much space for creativity and focus, and I try to tap into it every year.
As you all know, I’m writing a new book, and in doing so, I’ve discovered something that I want you to try for yourself… A little thing I’m calling the immersion method, and honestly, it’s not anything new to any of us, but it’s new to me in terms of writing creative nonfiction.
Immersion Method
When I write, I always set goals for myself. This time around, though, I made the bold decision to finish my next manuscript by year’s end. Typically, I give myself six months to a year to complete a manuscript, depending on what genre I’m following, so this is a pretty tall order.
But I decided that this time would be different, so to accomplish this, I’ve set an ambitious schedule to compose a chapter every week and a half. And the good news is that I’m already over that overwhelming moment when the task at hand feels insurmountable!
I started by doing the everyday things that I teach. I took out my schedule, carved out the time, and swapped some things around to dedicate time to writing.
And I also booked plenty of family time and social time because I didn’t want to feel deprived and potentially ruin relationships in the process.
At the same time, I’m also running a business, so I thought hard about what will get me to a finished manuscript? I started envisioning it, and ultimately, what came to mind was this immersion method.
The Specifics
I decided to experiment with dictation software to maximize my writing productivity – and for me, it’s been an experience like no other.
I considered how I already scheduled my writing time (double my usual pace, remember?), but what about “writing” using a dictation app called Otter as I go throughout the day?
So, I gave it a try, and I was astounded at how much content I could generate in only three days!
I thought immersing myself in the drafting phase would raise my productivity, but I didn’t expect it to quadruple!
It’s all about finding ways to make your creativity flow, to make it start to churn and make waves until you can’t think of anything else but completing your daily writing goal. The trick is to align those writing goals with your project’s outline, whatever it may be. That way, I know exactly what I will be working on before I get the creative juices flowing.
Time will tell whether or not I stick to the immersion method, but for now, it’s bringing my writing pace to a new level.
I talk more about this in the video below – check it out to see if you’d like to give it a try.
My hope is that this method will, at the least, inspire you to double or triple your writing productivity too!
What do you want to accomplish this year? This week is all about actively achieving your goals, and in particular, how the decision-making process is crucial to your success.
“Our decisions entirely shape our destiny.” – Tony Robbins
If you look back on your life, I am sure that you can recall the most defining moments – those moments in which you decided to finally leave a relationship or a job that was no longer serving you. It’s likely that those decisions were preceded by months or years of obsessing over what to do before finally pulling the trigger.
In the same way, you must make the decision to write today, or to invest in whatever it takes to move closer towards your goals, whether that is taking a class, booking an appointment with a coach, or pursuing a partnership that will help propel your writing career forward.
Take some time today to think about what decisions you can make this week that will determine the course of your life’s destiny.
The outcome of your next goal or desire entirely depends on the decisions that you make.
Challenge
Set three minutes on a timer and journal: Which decisions can I make this week that are in alignment with the outcome I want to create? For example, completing your book by the holidays, getting a piece published in a journal that you admire, or even booking a TEDx Talk. What is the very next decision you need to make in order to make your goal a reality?
When making a decision, consider it from the hot/cold perspective: Am I getting closer to my goal (hotter), or farther away (colder)? Commit to making ‘hot,’ powerful decisions this week. The great thing about decisions is that it doesn’t matter how we feel about them. We can still think we suck and we’re not good enough. But if you make the decision and follow through with the action, you CAN finish that book or contact that person to book an event.
Do you ever read something that sparks you up, waking you to insights and lessons on the craft of writing? That’s how I feel having started reading Elizabeth McCracken’s fabulous short story collection, The Souvenir Museum. An award-winning alumnus of the Iowa Writers Workshop, McCracken knows what she’s doing, and The Souvenir Museum is truly a master class in dialogue, character development, setting, plot, metaphor – it’s exquisite work.
Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/mmWqrsjZ4Lw
Studying Setting
If you’re looking for something to study the craft, it doesn’t have to be this book. We all have different styles. But read something that’s the best of the genre you write, and keep your focus on one particular craft element.
For example, in McCracken’s “Proof,” a grown son takes his father on a trip to Scotland. Really what the story is about is the son’s awareness that his dad is not always going to be there. Let’s dive into how this powerful story approaches setting.
An Excerpt From Elizabeth McCracken
“What beach this was Louis wasn’t certain. Rock and sand, a harbor town, and everywhere the sort of broken pottery he combed for as a boy in the 1940s, let his brothers fill their pockets with sticks and shells, ordinary sea glass. He knew how to look for the curbed ridge on the underside of a slice of a saucer, flip it over and find the blue flowers of Holland or China a century ago or more.”
“Once on the beach outside their summer cottage down the Cape, he found two entire clay pipes, 18th century, while his six older brothers sharked and sealed and barked in the water. Beyond them, he could see almost the ghosts of the colonists who had used the harbor as a dump, casting their broken pottery out so he could find it in his own era and put it in his own pockets. But this wasn’t the Cape or even Massachusetts. His brothers were mostly dead, that is, they were all dead, but in his head mostly, they washed up alive every now and thenand Lewis would have to ask himself, ‘Is Phillip alive? Is Julie? Is Sydney?’”
As you can see, in just one paragraph, we find out so much, from a sense of the beach setting to the character’s lifespan. Right away we see Louis reflecting on his childhood, how he was different from his brothers, how he found treasure in the midst of other people’s junk – all of this already telling you so much about this man and what the story is going to be.
You can even predict some places this story is going to go, how he’s estranged from these brothers and he’s out of his element. He’s not at the Cape, he’s not in Massachusetts where he normally lives. He’s in Europe.
Studying Craft on Your Own
Whether you choose to read Elizabeth McCracken or another author, pick something that is the best of the genre you’re writing and study it this week. Choose a paragraph and really take it in, even hand-writing it out onto paper in an exercise we call “modeling.”
Feel what the author is doing here. Study it closely. It’ll help take you to a new level in your writing.
This week, I want to share with you an experience I recently had.
So, to get you up to speed, I have a new book, and my agent is currently shopping around for publishers. If you’ve gone through the traditional publishing route, you know that it can be either be really fast or take way too long.
But today, I don’t want to speak so much about the book. Instead, my focus is on the obstacles you have to overcome when pursuing such a venture. When we first started, my agents and I were excited and raring to go. However, over time, that burst of energy, positivity, and confidence began fading.
Have you ever had such an experience? You start something you’ve been working towards for a long time with a lot of passion and enthusiasm. But then challenges arise, or you realize it won’t happen as fast as you envisioned it. In turn, your belief starts to fade, and your efforts gradually reduce.
Regardless of whether you are looking for a book deal, scheduling a speaking engagement, or launching a career in a new field, this is likely to happen. This is because there are other players involved in actualizing that vision. And, unless they are your employees, they’re likely going to approach it based on their timeline and not yours.
Now here’s the tricky part. As more time passed, I began feeling hopeless and doubtful. The idea of moving on to plan B or sending the book to more publishers became more and more appealing. And I want to share with you the little things that I did to handle it.
Look to Others for Guidance
Without clear sight of the path ahead, I sought the counsel of a friend. Having just released a bestseller recently, she reminded me of her first experience. Just like me, her first book did not receive any attention for the first six months.
Her experience is important because it gave me perspective. Often, our faith and confidence in our ability hinge on desires rather than realistic expectations. This is why it’s essential to have guidance from the people who have been on the same path before you.
More importantly, other people offer a voice of reason and positivity. Any time you feel stuck, they can help you gain some needed perspective or offer tangible solutions.
Affirmations
I also found that having affirmations can keep you in touch with your vision. Dedicate a few minutes every day to recite affirmations so that they can become ingrained in you.
Put in the Work
During my self-reflection, I also realized the importance of putting in the necessary work to achieve my vision. While I was hoping for bestseller results, I hadn’t been putting in such efforts. Since that realization, I write every day to hone my skills.
As a result, I’m now more relaxed and confident. And, this is what you should do. Write down and profess your goals, and then put in the work consistently. Have affirmations that inspire and get you in the right frame of mind. That’s what I want you to focus on this week.
In so doing, you’ll find that you’ll have more realistic expectations. But, more importantly, you’ll find that your belief in yourself will remain unwavering even if challenges come.
