I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
Halloween is a powerful holiday. We can literally walk around in someone else’s shoes for a night. I love the idea of giving up practicality for the evening and fully investing in our wackiest, most creative ideas. It’s an excuse to indulge in personal reinvention. Dress up, eat candy, dance around, and have fun!
Yesterday I placed the next piece of the puzzle in the great re-engineering of my life—I bought a car. And not just a car, but my dream car. I had to decide between a MINI Cooper and a Honda Accord. I’ve wanted a MINI from the time I first saw them over a decade ago.
Thank goodness my sister, Weez, went with me yesterday. We test drove both cars and I was going to go for the practical Accord, even though it was slightly more expensive than the MINI. My sister wouldn’t have it. “The MINI is your dream car. If you aren’t going to go for your dream now, then when?” I bought the MINI. And I love it.
This lesson applies to everything we do. Now is the time for every dream. Today and every day, take your best shot.
“Come quickly, I am drinking the stars.” ~ Dom Perignon right after he created Champaign. Quote from The Fault in Our Stars.
This quote explains exactly how we should feel whenever we create something whether we write, paint, tinker, or bake. We should be delighted by the process and the end product. Once our creations make us feel like we are drinking the stars, we know we’ve found everything we’ve been looking for—happiness, success, wonder. Creation isn’t a luxury; it’s a vital force of human existence. It’s the meaning of life and it gives life meaning. It protects us from oblivion. Have courage. Create.
Too often we make choices—what career to have, where to live, or what to make for dinner—based upon what we think other people will like. Next time you make something, anything, make it for you. Make what delights you, what makes you happy, what fills you up. Who cares if it’s good? Who cares if anyone else likes it? If we aren’t entertaining ourselves then what’s the point? Create for you.
Writers spend a lot of time writing, and they also need to *really* live to infuse life and authenticity into their writing. Writing is theater; it’s a one person show and the writer plays all the parts. To help me get into character, I practice method writing. Like method acting, I imagine how the characters in my writing would act when they experience events in my every day life. I read the news with their eyes. I consider how they’d make the decisions that I face. As an author, I live life many times over; it’s like skipping ahead in a choose your own adventure story to see which ending I like best. Despite deadlines, all writers need a life. Your characters will thank you for it, and so will your readers.
Every once in a while, usually in the middle of the night, I question everything I’m doing. “This is insane to try to be a full-time writer given my business background and education,” I think. It is insane, and it’s also necessary. I have to do this or for the rest of my life I’ll wonder what I could have done if I had just had the guts to try. The future doesn’t make any promises to anyone. It doesn’t owe us anything. It won’t work for us, nor against us. It’s going to just be, and what we do with it is entirely up to us. If you really want something, the time to go for it is now.
Toni Morrison taught me two priceless lessons: I can always make time to write and never give up. As a single mom with 2 kids, Morrison wrote her first novel, The Bluest Eye, in 15-minute increments each day. That’s all the free time she had. It took her 5 years to write it. She kept writing despite her novel’s low sales. 3 years later, her next novel was nominated for the American Book Award. Her following novels received mixed reviews, but she remained determined. In 1987, 17 years after publishing her first novel, she won the Pulitzer. If you have a dream project, work on it bit by bit. Don’t let critics sap the joy you get from your work. Morrison followed her passion. You can, too.
The original U.S. Constitution is filled with flaws: typos, changed words, carets with additions, notes in the margins. It’s all there for us to see, encased in thick glass in D.C.’s National Archives. It has an underground where it will retreat should the nation come under attack. The Founding Fathers had no idea how to create a democracy. They wrote a draft document, and a rough one at that, but they went for it full throttle. They didn’t get it perfect, but they got it right enough to keep going. We revere a draft.
If the Founding Fathers can let go of perfectionism, then so can you and I. With National Novel Writing Month, I’m doing just that. I’m cooking up some plans to give everyone everywhere access to my first draft in a variety of formats in real-time. I want feedback to bring Emerson Page to life and make her story an inspiring beacon to encourage all people to courageously and compassionately create. I’m working on the details of my sharing plans and will have them solidified next week. Let’s do this together!
Writers know where their characters will be on the last page of the book. That focus creates the flow of our characters’ actions and ups the ante when the many necessary conflicts and complications arise. Here’s the game of writing fiction: my character is on this side of the field and what she wants is on the other side. A million proverbial land mines lie in wait for her missteps. (And misstep she will!) She must learn to deftly navigate her way across the field to claim her prize. She needs to get help from others, build skills, and ditch her fears to fulfill her potential. By the time I type those two sweet words “The End”, she has to transform into the person who can traverse the risky landscape that stretches as far as her eyes can see in every direction. Writing fiction is an adventure.
I learned about Scrivener, a software package for writers, through National Novel Writing Month. As a sponsor of the event, Scrivener is offering a free extended trial for NaNoWriMo participants. Did you just groan? I did, at first. I’m usually wary of sponsor-offered trials, but the community around NaNoWriMo is so generous and supportive that I decided to at least give Scrivener a look. Apparently the snappy inventors of the software got inside my brain when I wasn’t looking and built me exactly what I’ve always wanted – writing software that makes me a better writer.
For writers of every feather
I’ve shied away from other writing software packages because my writing varies widely: blog posts, essays, journalism, web copy, playwriting, nonfiction books, and now a novel. Many software options cover only one or two of these options. Scrivener works for all of them.
Organization
I’m usually guilty of harboring numerous Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, photographs, scribbled notes on post-its and napkins, and a mess of links that resemble a giant blob of letters. I constantly worry that I’ll forget or miss a key lightbulb moment that I had somewhere along the way. Scrivener keeps even the most copious note takers organized and makes the mind numbing tasks of project management a joy.
Inspiration
I’m not a terribly visual person by nature. I’m one of those oddball auditory learners. However, fiction pushes me to use my words to illustrate visuals. To help me in that process, I often pin photographs, sketches, graphs, and art onto several Pinterest boards that I consult during the writing process. I’m also a big believer in the power of inspirational quotes (and incidentally so is Emerson Page, the heroine in my current novel, Where the Light Enters.) Scrivener’s split screen option makes it possible for me to open a portion of my writing on one side of the screen and have images and virtual posts that I created on the other side. Scrivener makes these visuals a constant reminder and inspiration to me without hindering the act of writing.
Research incorporation
Curious to the nth degree, the research aspect of writing gets me jazzed about a new project no matter what genre it takes. I love being an archaeologist of words and ideas. Scrivener helps me keep all of that research organized and on-hand with its research folders, easy-to-build research templates, bulletin board functionality, and synopsis creator.
Putting it all together
God bless copyeditors. I adore them. I’m so glad there are people who love that work because it drives me bonkers. I also hate that my dislike for copyediting makes life for my copyeditors more difficult. The compiler feature of Scrivener helps lessen my copyediting guilt. With a few simple clicks, Scrivener assembles all the pieces of my manuscript into a cohesive whole in a variety of formats so at least the formatting is uniform and my copyeditors can focus on editing at the word level.
Support
I hate to download software and then feel like I’m on my own to figure it out. Given all the work I’m doing to prepare for NaNoWriMo, I didn’t want software that would take weeks to learn nor a tool that would be clunky to use during the mad dash of the month-long event. Scrivener has a comprehensive set of informative and entertaining videos that show you its power to enhance your writing. The basic 10-minute video explains all of the key features any writer needs to dive into Scrivener. For those who want to use the more advanced features, there are short videos to explain each of those features. There’s even an interactive demo available to you at all times. Have specific question? Just email them. They got back to me in 24 hours with a detailed answer. Scrivener is a feature buffet: use as many or as few as you like and be a better writer for it.
Other goodies
Scrivener takes dictation and integrates with my audio recording software that I use for my voiceover work. This is perfect for getting true-to-life down on paper. Creating revisions in one document is a snap and the Scrivener dovetails well with Microsoft Word. Importing and exporting content is a snap with drag and drop. For fiction writers, it’s got a groovy name generator tool. Outliners (like me) rejoice – outline until your heart’s content with many layers of organized detail available as you build your story from the ground up.
I could go on, but just go see it for yourself. Invest 10 minutes to watch the intro video and you may discover your new perfect writing partner. I certainly did. Now if they could make my meals, do my laundry, and walk my dog during NaNoWriMo, that would be perfect!
If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo this year, may the force be with you and let’s connect to cheer each other to the finish line of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. You can find me on the NaNoWriMo platform as christanyc.
Christa Avampato 