Tony Dyer Writes

A new project, a new deadline. 2nd November 2009 a TV script to the BBC. A warmup for Nanowrimo 2009. I’ll have a serious go this year. Do I say that every year? Probably.

Do I have something to say? Sometimes. Do I have stories to tell? Undoubtedly. Could I survive without writing? Once I would have said yes but now I find it difficult to be dogmatic about a lot of things.
That doesn’t mean that I have no views on issues. I see less black and white distinctions and have a more polychromatic view on life’s progress. In lots of ways that makes life richer and more varied. More possibilities, more options. That’s got to be beneficial to me.

This is a grand bunch of people, who meet every Thursday of the year except if the Thursday happens to be Christmas, Boxing, or New Year’s day. They’ve been going for about eight years. The first few years they were called The Cumbernauld Theatre Writers but after a difference in views gave up their association with the theatre. They are now called the Frontier Writers Group and their web site can be accessed by going to http://frontierwrtiers.com/.

The title says it all.

I’m supposed to be doing script frenzy and a radio play for an Open University Creative Writing course that I’m in the process of completing and I’m stuck. Out of ideas and motivation. Deadlines loom and they usually do the trick but not this time.
I’ve sent off for a book ( my usual means of advice ) called The War of Art which comes highly recommended. I hope it comes soon and I hope it can help.

It’s a real temptation for me to play with a computer. I don’t mean games, but incessant tweaking and distraction of checking email, RSS feeds, podcasts, and a couple of my favourite sites. It can be an hour before I settle down to any productive work. I’m trying to break that habit. I must break this habit.

I’m finding it very easy to spend a lot of time preparing to write. Reading books, listening to podcasts, anything but real prep for my plays.
How about a bit of plotting and outlining?
That involves my in thinking. Maybe I should listen to that insightful aphorism… If you keep doing the same thing you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got… So for the first time in many a year I be starting my outlines and plotting for this years Script Frenzy.

I first did The Artist’s Way back in 1998 and again in 2000. I bought Walking in This World in 2003. I never did anything with it until this weekend when I dug it out and got all fired up again about revitalizing my writing practice and my creativity. It’s built upon The Artist’s Way using morning pages and artist’s dates. It introduces an additional tool to one’s armoury, the weekly walk.

I’m now doing week 1 of the 12 week programme.

I’m also a bit overweight, a lot in fact, a side effect of giving up smoking 15 years ago so I’m also looking at Julia Cameron’s The Writing Diet which looks compatible with Walking in the World.

It’s a case of I have to change aspects of my life and I want to write and share the joy of writing with others. Is writing for therapeutic effect incompatible with writing for communication? A resounding NO.

I believe that authentic story telling is driven by deeply held view’s and feelings that the writer or storyteller needs to get out of themselves and wants to share with others and in doing so, the shared experience resonates between them. That’s when you know good writing.

It’s beyond spelling and grammar. The use of language should be transparent; it should not get in the way of the meaning through poor grammar or spelling that irk some people, or use of dialect that becomes a chore to read, or using vocabulary that’s out of place, or showy language just to prove you’ve a great command of the language.

Let it be what it needs to be, to get the thought into the mind of another soul, to be understood, to be felt, to be identified with.

Guildenstern Words. Words. They’re all we have to go on.
– Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead.

And how true that is for me. I do enjoy various sensory experiences, watching a video or observing a painting or having a dance, but I think in words and enjoy speaking and listening and reading and writing more than my other sensory channels.
It’s through words that a lot of my understanding has developed and my day job is totally dependant on the use of literate communications.
But, it’s not me that I communicate but the ideas and views of others and that has left me jaded and wanting to do more to explore my own views on life.
Firstly about ten years ago I came on Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.
It is a useful book for any kind of artist but I think it’s a great motivator for the aspiring writer. The great tool it gives you is the idea of morning pages. Yes it’s been put forward by many other writers before Ms. Cameron, but I discovered her first.
Morning pages are three pages you hand write as soon as you get up in the morning and before you do anything else like listen to the radio or watch TV or make your breakfast or even just a cup of tea. You trying to use the quiet time when you first get up to bridge between the conscious world and the subconscious world and to let those thoughts come out on the page. What troubles you no matter how petty or how often the same thought comes up you just put down the words one after another. That’s writing; putting one word down after another on the page.
You don’t write these pages to be read. You can read them but distance is needed, weeks, months, or years. They may produce usable snips, but that’s not why you do them. You write every day and you can call yourself a writer.
Don’t worry about the size of these pages. I find that it takes me thirty minutes to fill three pages regardless of the page size. Just write without stopping, judging, or analysing the writing. It’s the process that’s important in this exercise, not the product.
I’ve been doing, on and off, morning pages for almost ten years, producing millions of words. When I let my morning pages lapse I find writing harder at other time. The catharsis that comes from doing morning pages helps me be a more productive writer.
It might work for you