It’s interesting–and sometimes tragic–what life does to creativity. Pictures have been going through my mind this morning of when I was young. Very young, pre-teens. If I didn’t have a book in my hands, I had a sketch pad or any blank piece of paper so that I could draw, sometimes out of my imagination but often trying to capture figures and forms from the book of paintings I had. My other constant was a pad and paper, or a notebook, or whatever I could find, so that I could write stories.

I remember one story in particular because I showed it to my mom and though her face blanched a little, she praised it like she did all my work. I grew up in Hollywood in the midst of the hippie generation and free love and all that and though I didn’t talk a lot, I listened closely to my older brother’s friends and to various adults and, of course, to other children. So my story was filled with sex (as far as I understood it at the time — I was about 9 or 10) and free love, and people sharing partners, men partnering with men and women with women, then sometimes switching off and all sorts of fun things. I had no idea at the time what gay, lesbian or bisexual was, but as my brother was gay and many of his friends also, it was just a natural part of life and relationships to me.

(I think, sometimes, people think I’m a bit of a prude because I rarely enter into the conversations about sex and sexuality and orgasms and all that. But it’s not prudishness, mostly; it’s boredom. Not only was I surrounded by peace and love and sexual freedom and all that during most of my childhood, for part of the time I attended a “free school”, Summerhill, where pretty much anything went, everyone talked about everything and any questions you had were answered, even if you never asked them.

Every generation “discovers” sex, but the generation before me not only discovered it, they never shut up about it. I was bored to tears with the topic by the time I hit my mid teens. Now, if it’s not happening to me, I simply don’t care.)

Anyway, I don’t have the story anymore and I’m pretty sure I’d die laughing if I read it today, but my mom… she just read it and smiled and told me I did a wonderful job. She never discouraged any of my art or creativity, or that of my brother. I don’t know what happened that I came to the conclusion that creating, in those ways, was not only a waste of time, but that I wasn’t any good at it. I don’t recall anyone actually telling me that, so I must have been the one to tell myself. Which is not surprising–I’m really good at discouraging myself.

But still, the creative instinct had to go somewhere. Once I got online it came out in the building of sites and communities. I loved it, and always had so many ideas of what to do. I wanted to build the perfect sites, and have them do this and that and the other thing. Even when one was done, I’d want to add this, or change that, or have this happen — why can’t this happen, and that do this instead?

In other words, I’m pretty sure I drove a number of people working with me absolutely batty. I love new ideas, but I don’t like to stick with them all the time. I like to put them out there and move on to the next new idea. Great if I had a lot of money or investors and people who wanted to do something but don’t know what to do. Not so great if you are me and my one friend who is willing to help me implement things (poor thing, she’s gotten the brunt of my “why don’t we do this!?” stuff.)

But… now that I have rediscovered writing, and have decided that, yes, I can write fiction, I realized something. This, I think, is what I have been looking for, and have been missing all this time. I am creating a world right now and having so much fun. And if I decide that this part of the world needs this, and doesn’t really need that anymore, it’s simply a matter of getting rid of one thing and writing another. I can let my imagination soar, change things on a whim, come up with new ideas every day and write them in and do all sorts of things all by myself.

I’m going to write about that (in non-scribbling form) and also about some of the things a wonderful commenter, Ivan, has been saying in the comments to this post. So much to think about, and I am so encouraged now.

I’ve long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist’s Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in “long hand”, typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It’s about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day. Unlike many of the other exercises in that book, I found that this one actually worked and was really really useful.

It’s a good idea and a fun site. I started doing it again and was on a 13 day streak of writing over 750 per day – then something happened and I couldn’t (or simply did not want to, maybe) write for three or four days. And, I think like the last time I started and stopped, it was because it really wasn’t working for me.

Apparently I have very little brain to dump in the mornings, so most of what I was doing was getting anything in there at all so that I could meet the word count. I tried writing at different times of the day to see if would be more effective, say, at night when it would be supposed that my brain would be a little more crowded. No go! That word count was still in the back of my mind and I would keep looking to see how far I had gotten.

Worst thing about it is, it really hasn’t freed up anything in my mind so that I can write elsewhere. Like here. It just takes up the little time I have for personal writing before I get into the weeds of drudgery writing. So, while I like the idea of the site, and even like participating, I think it’s just not for me at this point in time. I have decided, in fact, (again, I think) that I will just inflict my morning scribbles, disconnected thoughts and story ideas on everyone, instead writing them down on a private, disconnected site. It’s not as if I write anything really private–I have for years been of the belief that nothing you put online is really private. And in recent years that’s pretty much been borne out, I believe, with all the privacy violations of Facebook, Google, so on. I rarely write anything online, no matter how private the space, that I would not mind shouted from the rooftops.

Anyway, just to let you know that anything tagged “scribbles” can safely be ignored by both of my readers, because they will be just disconnected, unedited (as if I edit anything else, either, lol) thoughts and scribbles.

So, this morning I kept scribbling and in the process came up with something to write about in a non-scribbling fashion. It came about because up above somewhere I’d written “at this point in time”, and I remembered that I always get dinged for that by grammar software. So I got to thinking about lazy language, and habits and all that, and that led to thinking about people I know who use language well. And I scribbled up some thoughts about all that.

It’s in drafts now (otherwise known as “The Black Hole”) but it is halfway done so I may finish it. It is on, as I wrote, language–one of the banes of my writerly existence–and how I view the language and very different writing styles of four literary friends of mine. I never, ever compare my writing to theirs because if I do I will just get discouraged. But I love to read their stuff and think about what makes it so compelling, so that’s what I have scribbled about.

Now to do the adult thing and write it out, set it aside, edit it, look it over, edit it again–and only then put it online. Heh.

At first I sat down and, over a few days, dashed off about 50,000 words all together, and then got stuck. I simply had no idea what the story was about (beyond the beginning), no idea where to go next, and along with all that, when I went back to do editing I instead started writing the entire thing over again. I found that annoying.

So, I figured out that I am not a “seat of the pants” writer, even though I don’t like structure much as a rule. Mind, lack of structure has me wasting time and redoing things in other parts of my life as well, but I think I am too old to change that. At least, in things other than writing my book, that is.

What I have been working on now is an outline, of sorts. Still sort of scattered, but I figure that’s okay as long as I have the main points and events in there. I know where the story needs to go, I know what’s in the middle, and I know what happens at the end. Well, what the goal is that needs to be reached, anyway. And by adding scene ideas or little notes along the way, I can also see what needs to happen in each chapter. Theoretically.

I really don’t think having an outline will constrain my imagination, though. In fact, I think it will allow it to soar in between the lines. I know in general what needs to happen, so that leaves me free to apply myself to making it happen in a cohesive, interesting way. Or changing it completely, but still keeping it within the big picture.

Another advantage is that I don’t have that much problem with imagination and thinking up things; my main problem is in the language. Working within the basic structure of the outline will save me from having to think up every part of the story as I go along, thus allowing me to focus my attention on word choice and placement and all that. This is the plan, anyway, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t work out.

If it doesn’t, though, well this is my practice book, so I’ll just try something else next.

a pretty picture from Tumblr

I’ve been reading lately (mostly on Tumblr, it must be said) how Tumblr is the newest, greatest thing and will surpass this that or the other thing. That, actually, may be true. It is so easy and it can be fun. It can also be a little annoying, particularly for introverts, I think. Or maybe just for this introvert.

It’s good that, if you have friends on there to follow and who follow you, you have an almost instant community. And the more you post or reblog, the more followers you might get and the more community–sort of–you are part of. You are rarely “alone” on Tumblr, even compared to some other social media sites. And you don’t have to have anything at all to say in order to participate, which can be a boon. People do create original content on there, or express their thoughts, or post new pictures, but much of it is reblogging what someone else has put on there.

The thing about communities, though, is that… well, there are other people in them. Sometimes lots of them, those you know, and complete strangers. A post can be reblogged by anyone at all. They can just send it through as is, or add their own thoughts, enter into the conversations and everyone has a grand old time. Or sometimes not, depending on how the conversation goes. Anyway, at times it can feel as if you are being inundated with people and all their… everything. Which, for introverts (or, again, at least for this one) can be very wearing.

Obviously the solution is to find a little balance, which most people seem to be able to do. Me, not so much when I first start something. I tend to just jump all in and neglect everything else, and then wonder when I get burned out on it so quickly.

Anyway, I’m not completely burned out on it yet–I still like to visit my friends there, and post pretty pictures, and see what great things everyone is talking about. But I also have other things I need to do, including figuring out what to do with my sites… it seems that almost all my domains are up for renewal this month, and I can’t figure out how I let that happen!

So, some future posts I have planned will be about organizing out loud (or, rather, in public on this site), and creating worlds and all sorts of other things. I have stuff to write about, now just need to see if I will do it.

It’s still in beta so it’s free for now, as long as you are willing to put up with a few bugs… and I am. I downloaded it this morning, just to try it out and to see if it was easier to work with than, say, Liquid Story Binder – and I’ve been tooling around with it ever since. Creating characters, making notes, jumping from one thing to another, which is what my mind does anyway. Next is to gather all my notes on this particular book from all the places I have them scattered and put them in there, organize some stuff, make a sort of plot outline and have it just where I can see it – and then write.

I think I like this software, lol.  If they disable the beta copies when the real thing comes out, I will probably even buy it – I think it’s only $40 or so. It doesn’t have as many features as the Mac version because it has been in production for less time, but it works for me and that’s all I care about right now.

Plus, I can smile at Mac users now without even a tinge of envy-green. Okay, well still maybe a lil’ bit, but still.

So, why don’t I have a house or a closet filled with red? I think it is because it’s a bold color. And it’s not that I cannot be bold and direct, but it is more my nature to be more subtle and somewhat subdued (appearing.) Indirect. Perhaps employing a bit of misdirection, in some adversarial situations, before moving in for the full reveal. From the cats that stalked through my life from my infancy on, I have learned the value of watching and waiting for the right time to pounce. (And, like them, I sometimes miscalculate and wind up falling, empty-handed, into an inelegant heap.)

But the thing with me and the color red. I don’t want it to blast its presence – I want it to hide in the grass and leap out to surprise me. A brief and sudden splash in a sunset; a wink from the midst of brown and gold leaves; or skipping through a profusion of colors in a painting, its strength blending in with all the other hues to make them all more powerful. This is how I like it best. A red wall leaves me cold; if I had the money I’d probably be one of those strange people who buy a white canvas painting that has one red dot, though.

So, there you go. My favorite color is red.