Category Archives: creativity

books books books

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Just finished …

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling |We’re not in Hogwarts anymore, Toto.  This is Rowling’s first book after the Harry Potter series, and it is absolutely nothing like them, which I’m sure was her point.  I mean, how do you compete with one of the most popular children’s series ever?  You avoid the competition and write an adult novel instead, I guess.  The Casual Vacancy was hard for me to get into at first– I felt that Rowling was trying to shock me just because she could.  Also, I couldn’t tell what the story was about for quite a while.  It is a book about smalltown politics– both literal politics and also the inner workings of a town that is all interconnected and where people often say and do things that are different from what they think or believe.  The book is very well-written, but very raw, real, gritty, and sad.  Very, very sad.  While I will re-read the Potter series for the rest of my life, I think one time through of this book will be enough for me, period.

Map of Time by Felix J. Palma | I had heard this book likened to The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, one of my favorite books I read this whole year.  But it just wasn’t true, and I’m not sure at all where the comparison came from.  Map of Time started off fascinating– telling the story of a man in love with one of the Whitechapel prostitutes in the time of Jack the Ripper.  (I have researched Jack the Ripper in both high school and college, so this was particularly interesting to me to hear about the incidents from the other angle!)  The premise seemed interesting, and I was starting to care about the characters … and then suddenly, I felt duped and we were onto the second story of three in the book, and the person I thought had been the protagonist had to climb down off the stage.  It was just such a strange format, and it didn’t work for me.  In the end, the book was too shallow for me, and I never felt like I really got to know the characters.  Palma tries to trick his readers multiple times throughout the book, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.  In most books, I am thrilled when I discover a twist, but Palma’s just disappointed me.

Gorgon in the Gully by Melina Marchetta | As I just posted recently, I think everyone should read Marchetta’s books.  Unlike her usual writing for teens, this book is for younger readers.  It still appealed to me because 1) Everything she writes is marvelous and 2) It is about Danny, the younger brother of Jonah Griggs (of Jellicoe Road).  It is a delightful little story about pulling together a group of friends from various groups.  I think it would be the perfect read for a middle schooler!  It inspired me to re-read

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta | Masterful.  Just masterful.  And so absolutely original.  A book centered around the territory wars between the boarding school kids, the town kids, and the cadets in the visiting military school– but really, that’s just the venue for the story.  The real story is one of love and friendship and generations.  This is such an incredible book, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.  If you read it, you will fall in love.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni | So, this is obviously not the usual type of book I review on my blog, but it was quite fascinating.  It is a “leadership fable” about a team that needs to work together better and how the CEO makes it happen.  I read it in two days!  The majority of the book is a story about this fictional company/team, but then the last part of the book goes into non-fiction details of how to put this into effect at your workplace.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis | Yes, the whole series.  Yes, again.  Yes, just as incredible as the last time through.

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson | This was only my second time reading this story, and somehow I forgot how magnificent it was.  The writing is absolutely stunning, which is not surprising, since the author has two MFAs– one in poetry and one in writing for children and young adults.  It is the story of Lenny Walker, whose older sister/best friend Bailey died suddenly about a month before the book starts.  She is trying to navigate her grief all while falling in love for the first time, and it is just so good and sad and good.  If you have a sister, you’ll probably shed a couple tears.  This book will break your heart.

Currently reading …

Reached by Ally Condie | The third book of the Matched series, and again … my opinion is still out.  I liked Matched but was not very into Crossed.  We’ll see if Reached can win me back!

I did just get Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta on audiobook, and I am so pumped to listen/re-read that one!!  I have so many books that I want to read, and I just keep amassing books (I just bought a new bookcase that is back in my apartment waiting to be assembled after my writing retreat) and am not able to get through them as fast as I’d like (especially since I spend a lot of time re-reading favorites, which I know some people can’t understand).  I guess that’s the problem when you love reading but you LOVE writing.

Questions for today: what are you reading right now?  Do you like to re-read?  If you’re a writer, do you, like me, find a hard time balancing reading and writing?

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writing retreat this week!

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On Saturday, I drove about three hours to a small town in Minnesota (pop. 1,200) to retreat from friends, family, work, distractions, responsibility, chain restaurants for the week so that I can focus on my novel.  I have so been looking forward to this!  And now that I am here, I am even more excited.

This town is one of the sweetest little things ever.  You can drive from one end of it to the other in about 20 seconds since the town covers about 1.5 square miles.  I ventured out to find the grocery store and eventually located the large (and old) brown building proudly claiming to be “Dean’s Country Market.”  Inside, the far left is a gift shop and the right is the grocery store.  I was looking for some Advil, but instead I found two choices: low-dose aspirin or some kind of “non-aspirin”-labelled bottle.  Love the variety and selection!  Oh, and the taxidermy on the walls in the meat department!

grocery

For those of you who don’t know, I am not actually a Minneapolis native.  In fact, I grew up in a small town much like the one I’m retreating in now, so all of the small-town-life makes me smile and think fondly of where I grew up.  It also makes me think of Green Lake, the fictional Minnesota town where my novel takes place.  This week will be a wonderful reminder of what life is like for West, my protagonist.  It also reminds me that Silas, my character who just moved there from a large city, should probably be a little more shell-shocked.

I’m happy and snug in a tiny BRIGHT GOLD bungalow.  I am so unused to complete solitude that I keep imagining that someone is going to come over/drop by, and it’s just not true.  I honestly believe that I could stay in this house for the next seven days, and I would see no one and hear nothing but the bark of the neighbor dog and the rustle of the train on the nearby tracks.  Even though I am an introvert, I feel quite sure that I will be lonely by Saturday.  Leave me lots of blog comments this week so I don’t feel so alone!

At the same time, right now I am thrilled to be alone.  The days are stretching out before me with such a promise of productivity.  This week will be about words.  I plan to write and edit like a maniac, and when my creativity dwindles, I will read the books I brought along, and when my mind can’t process anymore, I will sleep– lovely, deep, long bouts of sleep from which I will allow myself to wake up naturally.  Who cares if I sleep till noon and then am awake till three AM?  I am all alone.

When I retreated this past summer, I was in Hudson, Wisconsin, so I had access to a Target, Dunn Bros, Perkins, and even home, since I was only 45 minutes away.  This week, if I am people-starved, I will head to the public library, the cultural center, the Eagles Cafe, or the Bake Shoppe.  The people at the cultural center (where I checked in and got the house key) are so nice that I want to just shoot the breeze with them like one of the locals.

My hope for this week is to revise as many chapters of my novel as possible.  I just finished revising chapters 1-4 based on feedback from my writing group, but– nice timing, right?– I am headed into this week to revise chapters that have not yet been critiqued.  I am hoping that I will have great intuition!

Leave an encouraging comment– I need human interaction and encouragement this week!

letting go of certainties

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I thought this picture was particularly fascinating because you can replace “creativity” with “cognitive-behavioral therapy.”    And those are two of the most important things in my life.

I always thought that certainty was the goal and that doubt was the adversary, but it was just another lie.

What do you think of this quote?

the colors

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As far as colors go, my favorite is a thick, heavy red – a deep red, a red with a spoonful of brown.  Then an olive green, sage, light-colored but strong enough that it could never be mistaken for a pastel.  Then gold – but not yellow – true gold, goldenrod, a marigold tiptoeing across the line toward a field of pumpkins.

I love muted blues that seem so rare and precious, a petrol, for instance.  That particular mix of blue, green, and gray reminds me of a picture of the Tulsa sky I saw in a book.  That blue hit me so hard it landed a line in one of my poems.

 

I love when white is washed in a watercolor, just a slight trace of the concentrate left to whisper to the otherwise blank canvas.

 

I love terrific greens that knock you senseless.  I love the purples that really are too good for you (and know it) but abide you anyway, notably the plums.

 

Navy is an old friend, a good listener.  Brown is like the sexy girl in glasses you never noticed until today.

what I call good writing

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There are essentially three reasons I will like a book:

1) The writing is beautiful.  If the writing is lyrical, or the prose almost reads as poetry, or if the writer has great diction and uses sounds to her advantage, I’m captured.  When an author does a dance with words and creates images that burst like berries on the tongue, I’m sold.

2) The plot is fascinating.  I love books that have twists and turns and surprises.  I don’t need them to be action-packed, just interesting, with interesting scenes and a great storyline.

3) The message is profound.  When the story tugs at my heart or opens up my mind to new ways of understanding something, the book touches (and sometimes changes) my life.

Some books fall under one of these categories, and it is enough to make me love it.  For example, Annie Dillard’s book For the Time Being is beautifully written (for that matter, pretty much anything she writes is!), but there is not really a plot to it, nor did its message truly change my life.  Harry Potter has a thrilling storyline that completely pulled me in, and the series also has a wonderful theme of good versus evil, but I wouldn’t say that Rowling (in those books) is a lyrical writer, although she does have her moments!  Hinds’ Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard is an allegory, and as such, the plot is pretty obvious, but the message deeply touched me and wrenched tears from me left and right.  As you know, The Chronicles of Narnia are my absolute favorite for their fun plots and the deep truths in them, but the writing is not as beautiful as some other things Jack Lewis has written.

To me, some of the best writers are those who combine all three of these elements.  Some of the best examples I have of this are The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (gorgeous writing, super fun storyline, excellent message), C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy (the writing is so masterful it makes me want to curl up inside of it, the plot is riveting, and the takeaways are tremendous), Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (literary writing at its very finest, interesting characters and storyline, an underlying message that is like a rock to stand on), and The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle (breathtaking writing, intriguing fantasy plot, message that lingers long).

Your turn.  What makes you like a book?  Are you drawn to one of these three reasons over the others?  What are your best examples of books that fit these categories?

this artsy life

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May I just say that I love living in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, which boast the nation’s second highest number of arts opportunities per capita (after New York City)?  Well, I do.

Here are my most recent adventures:

First, my friend Anna and I went to the Fitzgerald Theater, St. Paul’s oldest theater, to hear Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus, be interviewed for Minnesota Public Radio and the Star Tribune’s “Talking Volumes” event.  You may remember that I posted earlier this year about The Night Circus, which blew my mind and was one of my favorite books I read this year.  It tells the story of two magicians in a competition who end up in love.  Morgenstern was so sweet and unassuming, and she seemed legitimately surprised that so many people would show up to hear her interview.  She talked about how the book is being made into a movie, and how the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is making a Night Circus line of perfume.  Some musicians at the event had written a song called “Morgenstern’s Circus in C Minor.”  It’s like fan fiction in different media!  Absolutely loved it.  Spin-off art!

I was very encouraged to hear Morgenstern speak because she was so real and told us that The Night Circus didn’t even have a plot when she first wrote it!  It reminds me so much of the writing of Lights All Around, when, day after day, I would just sit down and write whatever was on my mind, hoping it would all eventually be “book-shaped,” Morgenstern’s word for it.

The next night, I went with Eir to the Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis to watch the musical “Next to Normal.”  A musical about bipolar disorder … I wasn’t sure how it was going to be, but it was unbelievable!  The music was beautiful, and the story was heart-breaking.  I held in my tears for the whole two hours– but barely!  To show such a deep depression through the evocative power of music just rended my heart.  And for this obsessive-compulsive girl who has fought such similar battles, it struck so close to home!  The depression, the sadness, the way it hurts the people you love, all the pills and the therapists and grasping at straws.  If you ever have the opportunity to see this musical (which has been on Broadway in the past), please do.  It may very well change you.

I love my cities.  I never believed this smalltown farm girl would say something like that, but it’s so true!

I always think of Mpls as masculine and St. Paul as feminine. Is that weird?

such a novice

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Even though I have been writing since I was a kid …

Even though I have a degree in creative writing …

Even though I have written almost every day for the last four years …

I sometimes still feel as if I have no idea what I am doing.  Once a month, I meet with a group of talented women writers who read my work and give me ideas on how to improve my work, and I leave these meetings doubting myself, wondering if I should go to grad school to learn more, if I should be reading other books than what I am, if I should throw in the towel.

I won’t.  I love writing too much to do that.  But it doesn’t mean that I don’t go home wondering if I am wasting everyone’s time with the scratches and jottings that I bring to the table every month.

My knowledge of the craft is still so limited.  My stories lack essential ingredients that I’ve known about since grade school.  My scenes go nowhere.  My characters are hard to believe.  I am thirty years old, and sometimes I feel as if I know nothing.

This is not the fault of the women in my writing group.  This is a lack of confidence in myself and in my work.

And yet, when I consider it, I know that I have grown as a writer in the years since undergrad.  I know that, draft after draft, I am improving.  I have a fierce dedication, such that I would write even if I were guaranteed to not find success.

Any ideas or encouragement for this doubtful girl today?  Please share.

creative gifts from mental illness?

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I saw this picture online last week, and I wanted to post it on my blog and see what people thought of it.

I’m trying to decide what I myself think of it, especially as an obsessive-compulsive who is also a creative writer.  Do I believe that my creativity is tied up inexorably with my mental illness?  Would I be just as creative without OCD?  Do mental illnesses perpetuate the arts or stifle them, or does it depend on the person?

Before I went through cognitive-behavioral therapy, I used to wonder if I wouldn’t be as interesting without my OCD.  I don’t devote much time to thinking about that anymore, so this picture is really bringing up those old thoughts.  While I believe that OCD/mental illnesses can draw creativity out of a person, I don’t believe that it is the wellspring of it, by any means.  In many ways, my OCD hampered my creativity.  Now that it is under control, I feel much more creative freedom.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Mine are obviously not yet sorted out!