"The Purposeful Writer: Creative Writing Meets the Golden Circle" by Soramimi Hanarejima (guest post)

I'm delighted to welcome Soramimi Hanarejima back to the blog. Soramimi is intensely interested in the how, why, and what of creativity. His first post, "Where Creativity Meets Productivity," explored the How: natural tendencies, rhythms, and habits that writers can foster to maximize productivity during our writing time. In this post, he explores the advantages to articulating our Why for writing.

The Purposeful Writer: Creative Writing Meets the Golden Circle

by Soramimi Hanarejima

It can feel like as writers we go where inspiration and curiosity lead us, to the vistas craft can take us. Purpose, then, could seem transcendent or irrelevant. Yet a sense of purpose, whether majestic or mundane, can be essential to a writer as a way to focus on producing more meaningful work. But how do we go about identifying and enacting purpose in our creative work?

When it comes to leading a purposeful life and pursuing meaningful endeavors, Simon Sinek’s Start With Why is full of insightful and actionable perspectives that can structure how we approach our work. Central to this book is The Golden Circle, a framework that aligns and integrates motivation, action and outcomes—the Why, How and What:

• Why we do the activities we feel are meaningful.
• How we act upon that motivation. 
• What we we ultimately produce, the outcome of enacting the motivation. 

Here’s how The Golden Circle might look when applied to creative writing:
Clarity of Why: Why do you write? What deep purpose drives you to tell stories?
Discipline of How: How do you act upon that purpose? How do you strive to accomplish this vital calling?
Consistency of What: How do you maintain a high level of quality in what you are creating as a writer?

The last blog post I wrote for Sione focused on the Discipline of How, and this one addresses the Clarity of Why.

The writing process: The hardest part

Pen & ink by Cara Christine Hubbell

One of my coaching clients is in the process of revising her manuscript in response to developmental feedback on her beta draft. This, for me, is the most challenging phase of the writing process for two reasons:

1. I have to switch back and forth between my analytical brain and my creative brain.
I don't know what it's like for you, but for me, this is SO HARD. While the creator's job is to provide a fertile ground, sunlight, and water to nourish all seeds, the editor's job is to spray weed killer on the plants that don't belong. Having both sides come out at once is like watering a plant and spraying weed killer on it at the same time. Very confusing.

2. It's time to let go of the original vision.
This is the hardest part of all, the part where I have to shed all my hopes and dreams and expectations for the story and look at it through a totally different lens, one that allows me to see (with help from my beta readers, of course) not what I hoped or intended to accomplish but what is actually there.

Writing uphill

I had a deadline, but the stories wouldn't come.

Getting to butt-in-chair in itself was a challenge because I had so many other things going on. And every time I sat down to work on the stories it was like trying to squeeze water out of a rock. On a good day, I could write several paragraphs *about* the story - who the characters were, what I wanted to the story to do, what I thought the narrative arc should look like - but very little of the story itself. Writing these stories was taking a ton of effort, and to show for all that effort I had maybe a few sentences. It made getting to butt-in-chair even harder.

Being an indie author has its perks: I moved the deadline. But they still wouldn't come. Feeling discouraged, feeling like a failure, I moved the deadline again. And again. Still next to nothing. A flash of dialogue or scene here and there; I'd get excited, sit down to write more, but nothing more would come.

Guest post: Where Creativity Meets Productivity by Soramimi Hanarejima

Today I'm thrilled to bring you a guest post by Soramimi Hanarejima, who writes amazing short speculative fiction that takes abstract concepts and gives them physical form (e.g. the man who goes on a city-wide search for his creativity) and blends the mental and emotional aspects of human experience. His first collection of short stories has been accepted for publication by Montag Press Collective.

Over the past several months, Soramimi and I have been sending each other reading recommendations and resources to enhance creativity, and that's where the idea for this blog post - and two more that will be coming in the next few months - came from. Soramimi is intensely interested in the how, why, and what of creativity. This first post addresses the how, the coming posts the why and the what.

Where Creativity Meets Productivity

by Soramimi Hanarejima

You have now begun to walk in the open space of the page. The journey becomes an elaborate series of gambles, and there is no forward progression as such; there is shaping and reconfiguring, stepping backing, inking in and beginning over.—David Morley

Creative writing can be messy. There can be countless ideas, aspirations, doubts and dizzying decisions to be made regarding plot development, tone, the psychology of characters and much more. Research beckons, the urge to outline flares up or gets suppressed, scenes spring to mind, scuffles between spontaneity and structure erupt. There are so many facets of craft to grapple with.

Then again, writing is on some level about getting work done, about creating a product. So while I love discussions about craft and activities that hone our literary sensibilities, the resources that have been most valuable to me recently are books, podcasts and talks that deal with the pragmatics of being productive as a creative individual, of carving out time and space and practices to fill that time and space in the service of accomplishing meaningful work. Here are my favorites, the ones that keep me coming back for their effective frameworks and processes.

Writing group alternatives

The other day I received a message on Facebook from a writer who lives in rural England and wants to improve her craft. She asked if I know of any online writing groups she can join. I don't know of any specific online critique groups looking for new members, but I do have several ideas for how she (and you!) might find sources of feedback, community, support, and/or encouragement. Here's what I told her:

1) Bookworks is an interesting site that offers a variety of services, including the ability to post 2,000-word excerpts of your WIP for peer review. I don't have personal experience with that feature, so I don't know about the quality of the feedback or how many people are engaged in it, but it might be worth checking out. There is a membership fee for some of the site's features, but the Work-in-Progress feature is part of the free Core membership plan.

2) The ROW80 community is active and supportive. Most people only use it to post updates on their writing goals, but I have seen people post - and get comments on - short excerpts from their WIPs. This community is more about encouragement than critique, so the feedback might not be as constructive as you need. That said, this is another free option and a great way to connect with other writers and get some support for remaining accountable to your goals.

The writing process in charts & graphs

Every so often on Facebook I see someone else's clever depiction of the writing process. For example this one:

Or this one:

Priorities

Sometimes you have to choose. For example, when you're trying to finish up the next-to-last draft of the novel you've been working on for two years and it's going much slower than you anticipated and you're late getting it to your copy editor...

 ...do you take time out to write another blog post, or do you let the blogging slide for the week and devote all your mental and creative energy to finishing the damn book? This past week I chose the latter.

Hence, it has been two weeks since my last ROW80 Update
"A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life."

Writers' tools: Character interviews

What?
A character interview is pretty much what you might imagine: a creative exercise in which you ask your character questions and "listen" for and record their answers. It's an exercise in letting go of what you *think* you know about your characters and story and letting your subconscious mind (which, at least in my case, is WAY more creative and awesome than my conscious mind) do the talking.

Why?
There are SO MANY REASONS you'd want to do character interviews, dear fiction writers. By which I mean there are at least seven.

1. Create conflict. You can use character interviews while you're brainstorming/plotting to help you get to know them and the conflicts they have - both within themselves and with each other. This can lead to clearer thinking around: (a) what your characters want and how they need to develop over the course of your story in order to get it, (b) how they might react in certain situations because of their triggers, and (c) what kinds of challenges will create productive conflict in the book that helps them grow as well as moves the plot along.

Starting where you are

The other day I was watching the season 1 finale of of Project Runway: All Stars (a fashion design reality show and one of my many guilty pleasures), in which Mondo has the fashion designer equivalent of writer's block at the absolute worst possible moment: he has only four days to design and make a collection for the runway show that will end the competition and decide the winner.

But there he sits (or rather paces) in his studio, hating all the fabrics he's bought and repeating to the cameras, "I'm just not feeling it." He spends the entire first day that way, at some point finally giving into his apathy and fatigue and deciding he's not going to agonize over it anymore. He's not feeling it, and he's going to give himself a day off, despite the fact that he's under a serious time crunch already.

The next day he comes back into the workroom with the realization that the pressure from the competition has made him feel a little crazy. That's where he is at that moment - feeling a little bit insane - and that's what he decides to use as inspiration for his collection. Bam. He knocks out a cohesive and interesting collection over the next three days that [SPOILER ALERT] wins him the grand prize. And you know why? Because he didn't try to fight himself. He met himself where he was and used it.

As a writer, I find myself constantly struggling to *not* fight myself because I have so many ideas and so little available time and energy comparatively. 

ROW80 2015 Round 1 Wrap-up

This is the final week of ROW80 Round 1. Time to reflect back on my goals and report the overall progress for the round! Below you'll find my original goals in black, changes in red, and progress in blue.

Creative projects
I have SO MANY WRITING PROJECTS I want to get done this year: two novels, a collection of short stories, and 2 books of poetry. Because I still have not figured out how to clone myself, I must work within normal human parameters - for now - which means breaking it down into manageable chunks. This round I worked on a novel under my pseudonym (codename WIP1) and a collection of short speculative fiction stories under my own name (codename SF). Goals:
1) Finish drafting and editing WIP1. Beta draft of WIP1 complete, feedback received, and I'll be done with the next draft by the end of next week, at which point it goes to my line editors. Round 2 starts April 6th, so I'll still be finishing up this book.
2) Finish writing the 1st drafts of the stories for SF & begin to revise them. I finished first drafts of 3 more stories and made progress on a couple more, though they haven't reached first-draft status yet. I plan to work on one more first draft in the next round, but I'll be focusing mainly on my book of dream poems and my pseudonym's projects for the rest of the year.

A less-than-productive week

My energy has been ZAPPED this week, not only by last weekend's festivities but also by mega-allergies and a family emergency on top of all I originally had planned (i.e. editing and coaching work, business envisioning work, pseudonym's branding process, revising a novel). The result was that I spent a lot of time just trying not to feel tired and the rest of the time - and what little energy I had - doing work for clients.

The good news is that I feel like I'm snapping out of my energy-drain and have a good plan for the coming week that involves resuming my ritual of getting out of the house for 2-3 hours every morning to go write in a coffee shop or the library. I'm not exactly sure why it helps me feel more energetic and focused to do this, I only know that it does, and I haven't done it in something like three weeks. Time to rectify.

Now for this week's...

ROW80 Update

"A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life."

[Note: This update only includes the past week's tasks and the coming week's tasks. If you'd like to know how they relate to my goals for this round, you can read my 2015 Round 1 Goals post.]

Creative projects
Past week's tasks: Finish re-reading WIP1, making notes & formulating revision plan Mon-Tues; Wed-Fri begin carrying out revision plan. On Monday I decided that re-reading WIP1 would distract rather than aid me at this point in my process, so instead I formulated my revision plan and began to implement it. However, due to the aforementioned factors, I got no further on the revision for the rest of the week.
Coming week's tasks: Email line editor to see if I can have an extension; if not, rework revision plan to fit two weeks. In either case, continue WIP1 revision.

Birthday week

I am so tired. Just spent the last three days partying it up nonstop (i.e. dancing to live music, singing karaoke, floating, playing pool, eating delicious food & drinking delicious drinks) with friends and family. I danced so hard on Thursday night that I woke up the next morning with head-banger's neck and shoulders (ouch!), which continued to plague me for the next two days. One of the many perils of getting older: longer recovery time.

In related news, this year's birthday mustache was incredibly soft. It kept tickling my nose, so I eventually repurposed it as a uni-brow and then a sideburn until it lost its stick and fell off. But while it was on my upper lip it did make me look a lot like my dad did in the '70s, so...I guess that's a plus?

It's been a wonderful celebration of life, but I might need a week to recover from all the fun I had. Which of course may affect the coming week's productivity regarding my ROW80 goals.

ROW80 Update
"A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life."

Draft done, what's next?

Photo by Rick Campbell

Hooray, I did it! I finished the next draft of my pseudonym's novel (codename WIP1) on deadline! It seemed kind of touch-and-go there for a few days - I got behind schedule and then needed a day and a half to recover from my time with the Weimaraner puppy - but I pulled it off. Go, me.

So what's next? The book is with a group of beta readers for a couple of weeks. When I get their feedback, I'll give myself a week to read and think about it before I spend a week re-reading the book and making revision notes to myself. Then three weeks to make revisions, then another round of developmental feedback with line editing, then copy editing and self-publishing.

During those three weeks of revising WIP1 I plan to spend the entirety of my writing time on that project, but until then I'll continue to work on the short sf stories and resume my research on self-publish print-on-demand options.

The other major thing on my mind, as a result of New Year's reflections and some conversations with another coach/editor, is some visioning work around my coaching and editing business. More on that below in this week's...

ROW80 Update
"A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life." 

Writing retreat week

This past week was dedicated to a bi-annual "writing retreat." I don't usually go anywhere for these retreats; it's more a writing oasis I create for myself wherever I am by giving myself permission to let everything else go and making writing (and taking care of myself so I can write) my sole priority.

This particular writing retreat took place while house and dog sitting for relatives and, as predicted, my productivity was impacted by dog training (okay, yes, and seeing friends in the town I was visiting). I didn't accomplish my task, which was to finish the first draft of my pseudonym's latest novel. However, I got close, and I think I can still meet my Feb. 4 deadline. Yay!

What it will mean for this week, though, is giving myself a few more days of "writing retreat" - letting the blogging, social media, etc. go - and then devoting the end of the week to catching up on all the stuff I'd originally intended to do all week long.

Predicting productivity, adjusting to challenges

This week I've encountered a couple of challenges in my writing life that have led to lower productivity levels than I anticipated. But really it all boils down to two skills I want to strengthen: the first being my ability to anticipate challenges and set realistic expectations, and the second being my ability to adjust to unexpected challenges.

To get more concrete about it: I'm house-and-dog sitting for some relatives this week. Although I give myself a pat on the back for anticipating decreased productivity on the day of the drive from my current residence to theirs, I failed to anticipate the amount of work a partially trained, 6-month-old, HIGHLY energetic Weimaraner would take. She's basically a toddler on crack: constantly wanting attention and playtime, virtually impossible to exhaust. I'll spare you all the details since this isn't a dog blog. The point is that I failed to anticipate it, it's going to affect my productivity this coming week, and now I'm struggling with the second thing: adjusting my expectations.

Other things I (re)learned related to my writing process this week:

• Even in a stable environment, it's difficult to predict how much I'm going to be able to do. Work on WIP1 has been going more slowly than anticipated this month, and I've had to accept that my write-a-short-story-a-week schedule, while admirable, was overly ambitious. Maybe if my entire block of writing time for the week were dedicated to just one project I could meet the goals I'd set for myself, but sometimes my head just moves more slowly than at other times. It's not that I've been feeling sluggish, though that has definitely happened to me in the past. More that my brain is in some kind of intense mulling-things-over phase. So back to that whole adjusting-expectations thing.
• It's easier for me to hear and incorporate developmental feedback when I'm still in the shitty first draft stage. Once I get to a draft that feels more or less done to me, I don't want to make major changes.

New goal: get rejected

Several unexpected and exciting things happened this week, one of which was that my mom told me about this NPR story about a guy who, in order to get over his fear of rejection, makes it a goal to get rejected in some small way every day. Which got me thinking about the fact that I haven't done much (any?) submitting in the last six months, and hence have neither had my work accepted or rejected for a very long time. I think I'm going to make it a goal to get work rejected by 20 editors this year. The beauty of this goal? If I send out 20 submissions and 2 of them are accepted, I have to send out more submissions and get rejected at least twice more to meet my quota.

I have too many other things on my plate right now to dive into this goal immediately, but I'll start submitting poems (and stories?) this summer.

Related to that, I've also semi-decided to query at least one of the books of poetry I'm putting together this year instead of trying to self-publish absolutely everything. I'm mostly in it for the experience of querying, which I'll be able to use to both empathize with and advise my coaching and editing clients, but if someone ended up accepting the book, that'd be pretty darn cool.

As for the other exciting things that happened this week? They are mentioned in my...

ROW80 Update
"A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life."
 

Guest post: How author Ruthanne Reid defines success as a writer

Science fantasy author Ruthanne Reid has three novels out - The Sundered (which is a great read, btw), The Christmas Dragon, and Strings - all with high ratings on Amazon; a fourth on the way, Notte; and a slew of short stories available on her website.

But none of that matters. Read on to find out why.

How author Ruthanne Reid Defines Success as a Writer

Contentment.

That's cheating, perhaps, to use one word, but it's true. Let me explain.

When I started this whole writing thing, I really had no idea how publishing worked. I wanted to write, find an agent, and then see my books on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, where they would inspire potential movie deals and copious amounts of fanfic.

The back of the closet

Last week I wrote about one of the major reasons I fail to get writing done, namely that I try to swallow the whole ocean in one gulp, become paralyzed by my inability to do so, and in my enthusiasm to get everything done NOW, manage to get nothing done.

Another habit I'm trying to break is shoving writing time to the back of the closet. I'm really good at getting work done for other people, but not so good at reserving time and energy to work on my own writing. Up until about a year ago, I'd consistently save writing for the end of the day and was often too drained to give it very much effort. My fix for that was to make my first block of work time each day writing time.

But last week I fell into the trap once again. I stayed up super late reading on Tuesday night, and as a result, Wednesday morning was shot. What do you think I shoved to the back of the closet? Was it blogging? Marketing work? No. It was writing. Again. 

Addicted to reading

I'll just read a few chapters and then go to sleep so I can be rested and ready to tackle my to-do list tomorrow, I said to myself at 10:30pm on Tuesday night.

The next thing I know, it's 2am and I'm 216 pages into Abbadon's Gate. I texted my brother to let him know I was hooked on the book he'd loaned me, and then I considered putting it down for the night. But I can't stop now; he's still on the alien space station! I felt a sense of responsibility to the characters at this crucial plot point, as if Holden's success with the station was contingent on my decision to continue reading at that moment. Just one more chapter...

If I hadn't fallen asleep while reading I probably would've read all night, and then all of Wednesday would've been a wash instead of just the morning. I suppose it's good that my body overrode my mind on this one.

As it was, I spent Wednesday morning sleeping instead of writing, and then I spent the rest of the week feeling like I was trying to catch up and doing a poor job of it. Despite this, I made good progress on most of my goals this week, the exception being my creative projects. (Figures.)

ROW80 update
"A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life." 

Swallowing the Atlantic

Over the last few days I've been having a conversation with another writer friend of mine about our plans for this year and all the creative projects we want to complete.  In both our cases, our heads are full of ideas; there's so much that we want to do, we're excited about doing it, and we want to DO ALL THE THINGS RIGHT NOW. It's like trying to swallow the entire Atlantic Ocean in one gulp. Not possible. Not until we figure out how to split ourselves up into multiple bodies or clone ourselves, and even that solution comes with some pretty serious undesirable consequences. (Trust me, I've spent a lot of time thinking this through.)

Anyway, the point is that, at least in my case, I start to feel overwhelmed and then become paralyzed. I put so much pressure on myself to get everything done well and quickly that I end up not doing anything at all. No bueno!

So what can one do instead of trying to swallow the whole ocean in a single gulp?

Write down your goals
The first step is to know where you're headed. What do you want to accomplish? If you're already suffering from overwhelm paralysis, it likely means you have LOTS of goals. Write them down.

While you're at it, make up some new ones. Why not? I love this part - the dreaming part, the scheming part, the part full of all kinds of possibility. I like goal-setting so much that it probably means there's something wrong with me.