advice

This mid-challenge Burst comes to you from one of my deep sources of inspiration, Ming-Zhu Hii. Way back in the early days of theater blogging, we found each other and connected through our blogs. We've even collaborated long distance. Ming continually inspires my work and my creative practice and I hope her wisdom and enthusiasm will add a spark to yours.

I almost never get inspiration out of the blue. As I type this, I’m trying to remember a time when I was struck at absolute random, and somewhat disappointingly I’m coming up empty. Almost all the inspiration I’ve received to work - to write, make theatre, initiate a project - has come from a combination of two things:

1. A trigger, or provocation - usually in the form of someone else’s work, but it could be anything from a random conversation topic overheard in a cafe, to a social issue that I’ve become irrationally obsessed about.

2. Me being ready.

Number two of course, is where the juice is.

Triggers are everywhere. The potential to be inspired is inherent in every moment of every day - in each experience that the closing-on-seven-billion of us have without a second thought.

But no artist - either seasoned or newbie - has the instrument to recognise, indeed to translate these experiences into the muse-touched creative thrall that we call inspiration without first being ready.

And so it’s crunch-time. Readiness comes from practice. You knew that even before you read it here. In fact, you’re in the middle of NaPlWriMo. You know all about practice. It’s when you haul your ass out of bed every morning, sit down at the keyboard or page and write until either your hands or brain bleeds. Or both. But hopefully neither.

Practice doesn’t always take this shape of course. The deeper you go into your work, the longer you stick at this thing of being an artist, the more broadly practice will define itself to you. Of course you will still write. And you’ll probably still write every day. But you’ll notice yourself practicing in other ways, too.

In fact, you’ll notice yourself noticing. Observing. Both yourself and the world. You’ll notice yourself becoming more mindful. Aware. Awake.

Texture will grow in significance to you - the texture of food on your tongue, keys beneath your fingertips, the texture of a moment between two people. The texture of a poem landing on new ears.

You’ll also begin to cultivate a fine intuition for rhythm. An innate understanding of the percussive timing of nature. You’ll predict small things with surprising accuracy.

And then there will be your dreams. Both waking and sleeping. Your subconscious meanderings will take on a stranger, but often wiser tone. You’ll be gifted with queer twists of narrative and elegant insight that seems to have come from somewhere far beyond your mortal imagination.

Which will lead you back to your work. Your writing. And of course - your inspiration.

When you begin any kind of creative project, the will to keep pressing onwards is tenuous to say the best, when the beast you’re trying to shape from seeming nothingness is as nebulous as shapes in the morning mist and as willfully errant as a tween high on sherbet and red cordial.

But persist you must. Because this is how work is made. You must show up - each day - and write. When your muse is on vacation in Tahiti and sunning herself oblivious to your efforts, when each word you clunkily pound out feels like a superfluous blight on the screen-of-your-computer-slash-face-of-the-planet, stick in there and sweat it out.

Show up. Write. Practice. Do it daily. Get through the gauche clunking. Show up. Write. Practice. Suffer the ennui with a smile on your lips. Show up. Write. Practice. Cultivate readiness. When you cultivate readiness every day, inspiration will be everywhere.

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Ming-Zhu Hii is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and serial entrepreneur. She is the director of 3 microenterprises, the co-artistic director of an independent art production company, and a vegan foodie. She writes about the creative process at the Public Studio.

You can find her here:
http://www.thepublicstudio.net
mzh@thepublicstudio.net

Right now for me it's about the pages. And I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't having a battle with the side of my brain that wants to exercise aesthetic, impose strucuture and qenerally question everything I'm writing and measure it against what I really want this play to be. I feel like I'm walking through the jungle with a machete, trying to find the play. The great leveler is time. There is no time for second guessing or third guessing or doubting whether this crazy, haphazard structure I'm building/imagining is going to work. I only know this: it interests me. I want to see it. I know it is there, inside me and I will get it out.

Leagal made a good point yesterday in the Forums. This isn't about perfection, it's about pages. And there is freedom in that while there's tyranny in perfection. It's easy to get paralyzed by integrity. Be kind to yourself, give yourself the benefit of the doubt. When you write fast you are listening to impulses and capturing first thoughts and impressions. Embrace it and go for broke every time you come to the page. Do it in small bursts. Set the timer for five minutes and write, get it as much as you can out there on the page. Do not save anything for later.

This speaks to a habit I have: holding back. I tell myself, I'll save this scene for later. It's so juicy and rich, I'll use it later in the play because it will be better or more appropriate. Oh I can come up with a million rationalizations. When I find myself wanting to hoard my words that's my cue to let go. Write that scene now. Write myself over the edge into nothing. It usually turns out that there is something on the other side of the abyss. It reveals itself, paradoxically it can only reveal itself, after I've written myself into what I think will be a corner. It's good to know that I am not alone in this. This quote speaks to exactly that. It's my favorite quote about writing from my favorite book about writing from one of my favorite writers.

"Push it. Examine all things intensely and relentlessly. Probe and search each object in a piece of art. Do not leave it, do not course over it, as if it were understood, but instead follow it down until you see it in the mystery of its own specificity and strength. Giacometti’s drawings and paintings show his bewilderment and persistence. If he had not acknowledged his bewilderment, he would now have persisted. A twentieth- century master of drawing, Rico Lebrun, taught that “the draftsman must aggress; only by persistent assault will the live image capitulate and give up its secret to an unrelenting line.” Who but an artist fierce to know — not fierce to seem to know — would suppose that a live image possessed a secret? The artist is willing to give all his or her strength and life to probing with blunt instruments those same secrets no one can describe in any way but with those instruments’ faint tracks."

"Admire the world for never ending on you — as you would admire an opponent, without taking your eyes from him, or walking away."

"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."

"After Michelangelo died, someone found in his studio a piece of paper on which he had written a note to his apprentice, in the handwriting of his old age: “Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio, draw and do not waste time.” - Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

I'm working on a Bake-off exercise for tomorrow. It'll be fun and hopefully will give you some inspiration. I'll also post the times for the Hangout on Thursday.

Go Rhinos! Write it out!

Rhino Bursts* are written specifically for the community by people we deem worthy of rallying Rhinos with the magic of their words. Rhino Bursts offer inspiration, advice, and that extra bit of juice we need as we focus on getting out that first draft.

 *A burst is the sound that an adult rhino makes, though it is barely audible to human ears. A baby rhino on the other hand makes a squeak.

Our first burst is from a fellow Rhino, Colleen Hughes.

Congrats, Rhinos! We’ve made it through week one! Throughout the first week, I hope you were able to get started and learn some more about your characters or their stories along the way. And if you’re feeling lost, don’t worry! There’s still plenty of time to figure out where your characters are taking you.

I’m currently feeling a combination of excitement to keep writing and stress at the idea of keeping up this pace. But what makes this month so great is that we don’t have to face the challenge alone. The Forums really are a wonderful place. Have you done your Weekly Check-In yet? I strongly encourage you do so if you haven’t. It’s a great way to keep in touch with the community and see the progress everyone else is making. It’s also one of the ways I keep myself motivated. Knowing that there’s a group of people I’ll be telling my progress to makes me more eager to keep going. On that note, I also should mention that I love the Daily Check-Ins too and totally recommend dropping by once a day. Even if you haven’t been able to write, the community is there to support you and offer encouragement. Sometimes if I’m sitting at my computer and dreading getting started, I’ll let myself pop over to the website and check out the Daily Check-Ins to see how everyone else is doing. After that I tell myself that I can’t post anything until after I work on my play. Of course, there’s also days where the writing is just not going to happen. I still like to check in on those days because I feel like it keeps me in touch with the community, which fuels my excitement to keep going. So much of playwriting, or any type of writing, is spent alone, and I love that this month provides a welcome break from that.

So let’s take all the initial excitement we had in the first few days of Naplwrimo and carry it with us into week two! I know all too well that sometimes once the novelty of starting a new project wears off, it can be harder to stay motivated, but the community is here to make sure that doesn’t happen. We’re all going through the same struggles and the same breakthroughs. So come on over to the forums to celebrate, commiserate, or motivate. And good luck heading into week two! We can do this!

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Colleen M. Hughes is a playwright from Boston, Massachusetts. She has an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University, and her work has been developed at the College of the Holy Cross and the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. She had her debut production last spring when her ten-minute play The Mouse was featured in the Boston Theatre Marathon. Colleen is currently a New Voices Playwriting Fellow at the New Repertory Theatre. She’s been involved with NaPlWriMo since 2008 and looks forward to it every year. Check out Colleen's website here.

Albrecht Dürer

(Rhino Woodcut - 1515)