Flash Fiction Chronicles

“Writers write.”  Who said that? Flannery O’Connor or Stephen King? I can’t remember, but the veracity of the statement cannot be challenged. No words on paper: no tome.

The better question might be, “How do writers manage to write in REAL LIFE?” How do they come up with a steady stream of sentences, paragraphs, story beats? Maybe some are born with enough talent and drive to block out the temptations of the Friday morning Sudoku, but for most of us, the world is full of enticements, obligations, distractions, and bicyclists smashing into trashcans, pounding on doors to harass owners about city-dictated trashcan placement. These intrusions challenge our ability to meet writing goals, but retaining focus, an outlined plan to commit to writing, helps us remain in office chairs, fingers flitting over keys, heads hunched toward screens.

But how can I ignore husband, kids, friends? Don’t I need to exercise, shop for healthy food? Stay up on the election news?  Do I have to skip Project Runway, American Idol, Without A Trace?

It’s a balance, and focusing on that balance leads to symbiotic interplay between the two. In other words, pay off.

Family? Friends? We have to have them. Can’t really live–or write–without them and all those obnoxious, needy, freeway-jamming, gum-chewing, rude and crude other people too. They are our characters, and the subsequent drama of their–and our–tangled relationships provide us with themes and plots. So letting people muddy up our lives? Gotta happen.

Then there’s the issue of health, exercise, brushing teeth, and that no sugar rule. And the need to refill Julia Cameron’s proverbial well with sunny days of rebelling against routine and late nights devoted to deep substantial reading. Plots build themselves on early morning walks, scene by scene, block by block. “To Build a Fire” gave birth to my story “Richie’s Last Shot” and The Red Tent to “Honeymoon at the Oasis Hotel.” Are these distractions or assets? Both.

As for the news, election or not, jury duty, the media, the Lakers, pop culture, and the biggest distraction: TV? Acts of living can shatter anyone’s focus, but while they confuse us, they provide us with insights, while they frustrate us, they bring us understanding, while they subject us to banality and routine, they teach us the rhythm of patterns. These lessons, in turn, gift us with material from which we pull universal truths, the heart of good writing.

Awareness of how REAL LIFE devours both our time and our passion is all-important. The solution is deciding to do something about it–Plan. Follow through. Rejoice. And accept the idea that spending time in the act of writing is a blessing.

I used to believe that “having talent” meant writers were born, not made, and were compelled to write day and night. With no effort on their part, they could separate themselves from what other people wanted them to do and instead, blissfully compose epic novels. That certainly wasn’t me. I had tasks to do at home, sometimes a job, demands of family, obligations to others. Since I was overwhelmed by RL, I wrote sporadically, fitfully, so I couldn’t have been “born to write.” I took this logic another step: “Not born to write” must mean I have no talent. I let this idea defeat me. Since I struggled to overcome distractions to writing, I must not have been born to write. If I was, I would let nothing stand in my way.

I don’t believe this anymore. People who want to write eventually figure out some way to navigate the obstacles. They will find a balance. Writing is a choice. And choice demand action–and focus.  After all, writers write.

Post originally published at Gay Degani’s Words in Place blog on Wednesday, March 05, 2008. Gay is the editor of EDF’s Flash Fiction Chronicles. She has stories forthcoming in Paradigm, Every Day Fiction,  The Battered Suitcase, and 10Flash.

Here is a catalogue of posts from this past week.

Nine Tips on Writing Flash Fiction by Sean Lovelace

2.

Find a story, a sparkle. A boy-crazed ruse. I mean essence. There are many ways. Here’s one of my little tricks (feel free to try this yourself, or use in the classroom): I drink a pint of schnapps (to open the doors of perception) and go people-watching at the world’s largest daycare/rehab center, Wal-Mart. Observe the ill and obese, the trodden and tired and pissed off and screaming and slouchy. Straight out of Bobbie Anne Mason, or maybe Chekhov (a fine flash fiction writer in his day).  More…

 WHITHER DO I GO NOW WITH MY FLASHES IN THE PAN by Rumjhum Biswas

These days I write more flash fiction than I used to. Some have found homes. But that is not the only good thing that I have gained. Writing flash fiction has, I have discovered, helped to make the prose in my longer pieces sharper. The tendency to meander is getting reigned in. I am not there yet, but I do have a sense of direction now. Taut writing acts like a tightly pulled bowstring; the arrows, or rather ideas in the case of stories, fly faster and truer.  More…

 

The Many Voices of Flash by Bill Ward

…flash rewards experimentation in voice.

 However, ‘voice’ can mean many things. There is an author’s voice, his style, which mostly means the way he uses words; his quirks of diction, syntax, and punctuation, and really almost anything else about his work that lends it a recognizable quality. This is essentially unconscious and hard to change or embellish — which is reason enough not to worry all that much about it.  More…

Some notions about flash fiction by K. C. Ball

Since last June, I’ve written fifty pieces of flash fiction, about one a week. Some I’m still polishing. Some I have retired; I call them dead soldiers. Twenty four have been accepted for publication, most of which have appeared in print.

And here are some notions about flash I have developed over the past year; no hard and fast rules or standards, just notions that work for me:

• Keep character count low; no more than three. The story feels crowded if there are more.
• Don’t give any character a name or description unless you want readers to pay attention to the character. Readers have different expectations after being introduced to Millie Roberts, the red-head at the register, than to the check-out clerk. And it’s fewer words.  More…

 Talent and Skill by Gay Degani

I think it was Robert McKee (the writing coach whose book STORY is an excellent resource) who said that all we can do is to “take out our little bit of talent,” push it around every day, apply our hard-earned skills and hopefully, that will result in something worthwhile. I’m sure I don’t have that quote exactly right, but you get the gist. It takes both talent and skill to become good at anything and skill takes patience.  More…

I am not a patient person. Never have been. And when in the past (a rolling, long-ago past) I couldn’t master something immediately, I assumed I had no talent and no skills and I gave up.

No talent. No skills.

These are two distinct attributes. Having talent is terrific and it certainly makes following your passion rewarding, but talent is only half the formula.

Having skill is absolutely necessary (watch American Idol if you don’t believe me). But getting these skills isn’t an immediate process. And if you’re talking about becoming an expert at anything, you’re talking YEARS of practice. That’s where patience comes in.

I think it was Robert McKee (the writing coach whose book STORY is an excellent resource) who said that all we can do is to “take out our little bit of talent,” push it around every day, apply our hard-earned skills and hopefully, that will result in something worthwhile. I’m sure I don’t have that quote exactly right, but you get the gist. It takes both talent and skill to become good at anything and skill takes patience.

Last night when I went to bed I was miserable. Things at the end of my current work-in-progress were not working out. The whole thing felt stupid and, heaven forbid, CORNY. In the old days, I would have felt doomed. I would have thought of quitting. I would believe to the depths of my being that my writing sucked. And I sucked.

But this morning, I remembered I have developed a skill-set to help me solve the problems in my story. Hmmmm. Imagine that!

I read about two or three pages in the middle, did a little editing, and suddenly I knew how to solve the story problem at the end. My mind was asking questions that only an “expert” would know to ask.

I moved away from the computer and started to scribble notes of what exactly had to happen for the whole story to make sense. I was so shocked at how easy it was, I started doubting it would work. But I typing the notes, I’m sure it does work. And it isn’t corny. Maybe a little corny, but I still have time to fix that. Wow, it’s working!!!

I’m not saying here that what I do is brilliant or even interesting to anyone else. But it is to me. To see that I will allow myself to make mistakes, to go on tangents, to think I suck, and then get back to work. To take out my “little bit of talent” and my years of practice, and actually be able to have answers, know what comes next, delight myself with a surprising ending, that for me, is success. And when I discover the NEXT problem, I will have skills to solve that too.

This idea of having patience–and I suppose, FAITH IN THE WRITING PROCESS–is a gift to me. A gift I’ve given myself over the years by focusing on learning the skills I need to do what I want, and letting my little bit of talent take care of itself.

I’ve gone off and expanded this topic at my blog, Words in Place.  To read more, click here.

Gay Degani has been published in two mystery anthologies, in THEMA Literary Journal and on-line at Every Day Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, Tattoo Highway, and Salt River Review. “Spring Melt” was a finalist for The 2^nd Annual Micro Fiction Award and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  “Monsoon” was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s 2007 Fiction Open and “Wounded Moon” was short-listed for the 2008 Fish Short Story Prize.  Gay is the editor of EDF’s Flash Fiction Chronicles. She blogs at Words In Place.