Inspiration Knocks

“Creativity is a scavenger hunt. It’s your obligation to pay attention to clues, to the thing that gives you that little tweak. The muses or fairies – they’re trying to get your attention.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

When I read Liz Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, I was going through a similar life transition and deeply resonated with the book, as did millions of others. Since then, I have been intrigued to see her interest in creativity become a passion, and I have learned a lot from her. (See her amazing TED talk.)

The quote above, from the October Oprah magazine article about Gilbert and her new novel, The Signature of All Things, is a great reminder to be aware as writers.

Prompts from the universe, your muse, fairies – whatever you want to call them – are real. But hearing them requires slowing down and listening, being receptive to the creative gifts that come to us. Several times I’ve had powerful experiences like this.

More than 20 years ago I wrote a scene in a creative writing class. I really liked it, but didn’t have a clue where to take it. So I put it away and only very occasionally looked at it. I just didn’t know how it would fit into a larger story.

Then, about three years ago, I was in a dream state in the early morning, barely awake, and the story came to me. I watched the entire novel unfold in my mind’s eye. The scene I had written was clearly a prologue, and I knew the entire narrative from that beginning. I woke up and went to my desk and wrote a brief synopsis and a chapter outline. I’ve been working on the novel ever since.

More recently, I needed to work out a problem with a new nonfiction book idea. Once again, the solution – vivid and detailed – came to me in an early morning dream state.
These moments of revelation, bursts of creative genius, happen all the time, perhaps in small ways we might not necessarily recognize as divinely inspired. But I know they are.

From the perfect word suddenly popping into one’s head, to the discovery of a title for that article or book that had remained elusive.

The muse exists. It works. But you have to let it in, be receptive, invite it to inhabit your creative space. Meditation works, so does journaling. I do both. Listening to music, walking on the beach or through the woods also is effective. Any immersion in Nature will invite your muse to visit. Thoreau went to Walden Pond. Wordsworth walked the English Lake District and gazed upon fields of daffodils.

Muses don’t like to be rushed and they don’t come on command. But with a little openness and invitation, they will come.

Review - City of Mirrors by Melodie Johnson Howe

Melodie Johnson Howe’s latest novel, the detective thriller City of Mirrors, is a fun romp through Los Angeles with an unlikely heroine, the aging starlet Diana Poole.

When the novel opens, Poole is mourning the loss of her screenwriter husband and the even more recent death of her movie star mother. Poole is forced to go back to work and lands a part in a movie. But things begin to go seriously awry when Poole agrees to visit the young star of the film and discovers her body in a dumpster behind her apartment. Poole turns detective, and the more she uncovers, the more things don’t add up, but bodies do.

This is Johnson Howe’s second Diana Poole mystery (the first was Shooting Hollywood, 2012), and its considerable twists and turns will both amaze and delight readers.

Poole is a wonderfully complex character, and Johnson Howe has masterfully captured the angst of an aging actress who’s suddenly alone. She worries about how she’ll support herself without her husband, and frets that the one job she’s been able to land will somehow disappear (it does). Coming to terms with her contentious and tenuous relationship with her narcissistic late mother is an underlying theme that will resonate with anyone who has struggled with an overbearing parent.

Despite her very real fears, Poole is a fearless and smart detective, and Johnson Howe’s brilliant plot keeps Poole – and readers – guessing until the final page. If you love mysteries, this one belongs on your books-to-read list.

A Great Week at the Summer Writing Institute

This is a short video of photos taken by Nancy A. Shobe at the inaugural Summer Writing Institute at Antioch University in Santa Barbara. Thank you, Nancy!

Social Media for Fiction Writers

My latest Authorlink.com column discusses specific social media techniques for fiction writers. Check it out:

http://www.authorlink.com/articles/item/1012

Fifty Shades of Grey - God Save Us From Men Like This

My book club, mostly women with kids in high school and college, picked Fifty Shades of Grey for this month’s book. It was with a wink and a nudge, based on the titillating reviews we’d heard about this “instant” soft-porn international bestseller. I read it, and I have to say it is the most disturbing book I’ve read in a long time.

Much has been said about its lack of literary quality, and I agree the writing is mediocre at best. What I found unsettling, though, is author E. L. James’ unveiling of a manipulation, the slow descent of a young, but insecure, woman into an abusive relationship.

When the book opens, we encounter Anastasia Steele, a soon-to-be-college-graduate who is conscripted to interview the CEO of Grey Enterprises because her college roommate, the editor of the campus newspaper, gets sick on the eve of the interview. Of course there is instant attraction between Miss Steele and the accomplished Mr. Grey, who, despite his enormous success, is only a few years older than she.

He pursues her, but has something in mind outside of what most of us would consider a “normal” relationship. He wants to abuse her, take her into his Red Room of Pain and do all kinds of unspeakable things to her. He proposes this as a business arrangement. She would sign a contract. He would become the “dominant” and she would be the “submissive.” He tells her she would have control to the extent that she can declare certain acts “hard” or “soft” stops, like red and yellow lights.

Already this is a set-up of such bizarre circumstances that I wondered how the author would pull this off. But despite the awful prose, she manages to evoke the slow seduction, the infinitesimal movement toward complete psychological manipulation that occurs when a twisted man makes a women believe he is doing it all for her.

When Grey first proposes the “contract” that will give him permission to abuse her, she thinks, naturally, “No way!”

He tells her part of the deal, under the contract, is he will never sleep with her through the night, she is forbidden to look him in the eyes, and she can’t touch him. Then he sleeps with her, twice. Lets her touch him. Leads her to believe that she is more to him than his previous “submissives,” whom he freely acknowledges.

James does a skillful job of showing this young woman’s descent into delusion, believing Mr. Grey’s seductive web of lies, despite all evidence to the contrary.

That Anastasia seems to know this on some level, that she questions herself while still falling under his influence and ultimately agrees to his degradations, is depressing and revolting. Why would a young woman do those things? That is the overarching question, and there is no adequate answer in Fifty Shades. Too many women find themselves in abusive relationships because they believe a man can give them something they can't give themselves, that he can somehow fill a need she can’t seem to fill on her own.

“Saturday Night Live” did a very funny skit about the book, implying that women the world over were reading the book for its (actually, limited) sex scenes. But Fifty Shades of Grey is more stomach-turning than titillating. As the mother of a 20-year-old young woman, I worry about the message she and others will take away from the cultural response to this book. It’s hard enough for young women to navigate the roiling waters of romantic relationships, let alone having to wonder if being sexually active might include acceptance of physical abuse.

Fifty Shades of Grey is a twisted tale of seduction, wherein a smart young woman confuses Grey’s sadistic yearnings for some semblance of love. It’s all wrong. And, sadly, a story that probably would be familiar to legions of abused women.

Wish I could get my money back.

Social Media Matters

In January, I wrote a blog post offering twelve steps toward building a platform in 2012, and promised to write a specific blog about each step throughout the year. Today, I want to focus on why writers should embrace social media. There are two important reasons : first, it builds a fan (or customer) base and, second, it allows you to interact with readers, which also strengthens your customer base.

Engaging in social media need not take a lot of time. If you plan carefully, you can execute a strong social media strategy in less than 90 minutes a day. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn might seem the most obvious social networks to begin with, but there are a number of writing and book sites that could provide as much or more exposure if you plan accordingly.

If you write fiction or nonfiction books, I recommend you have both Facebook and Twitter accounts, and use them to provide “news you can use” type updates and tweets. The rule is everything you post should provide some kind of value, so endless postings asking people to buy your book is a no-no. In fact, it’s likely to lose you more followers than you gain.

It’s okay to promote your book or some other service occasionally, but you’re better off providing useful information and a link that drives readers back to your own website where you offer your books for sale. The softer sell is always preferred. A good rule of thumb is 10 percent promotion/90 percent information.

But I also like to post helpful writing and publishing information on sites like www.shewrites.com, www.redroom.com, www.fictionaut.com, www.goodreads.com and www.waenetwork.com (Writers, Agents & Editors) to help drive traffic back to my website. Comment on others’ posts and comments, and always provide a link back to your own site.

I usually spend about 30 minutes in the morning looking through Twitter posts and re-tweeting those I think will be helpful to writers. I also look through all my e-newsletters to see if there is industry news or information I can post to my Writing & Publishing group on Facebook (you can join here). I do the same at mid-day and again in the late afternoon or evening. I don’t always have time to do this, but I make it an intention every day.

Whenever I post a new blog entry, I post it to Twitter, which automatically posts it to Facebook and LinkedIn (this is a simple linking process on Facebook and LinkedIn; just do a search for “linking to (whatever site you want to link to).” If you use a software program like www.Hootsuite.com, which has a nominal monthly fee, you can schedule a day’s worth of Twitter posts (some experts suggest 15-20 tweets a day; I probably manage five or six) all at once and forget about it the rest of the day. I also like using www.Tweetdeck.com, which is free, because you have more flexibility in commenting on and retweeting other people’s posts.

Join writing groups on LinkedIn, and follow agents and editors on Twitter. If you blog, make sure you post a link to it on all the writing and book sites I mentioned above (keeping in mind the 10-90 rule).

Remember, in today’s publishing world, it’s all about exposure: how many “followers,” how many “connections” and how many “friends” you have. That is especially true if you are self-publishing. Yes, I know, it’s annoying and so high school. It’s also one of the best ways to build a platform and get noticed. So get cracking. And let me know how it goes.