Tag Archives: art

housing development

Why I don’t like story outlines

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I lived in Colorado Springs for a few months when I first arrived in Colorado. I didn’t know anyone when I arrived. I had orchestrated my place to live through email and Skype, and had a few names of friends of friends that I could contact. But I was On My Own.

housing development

like a giant cornfield… image courtesy of GeekPhilosopher.com

I arrived a little over two weeks prior to the Super Bowl. Despite being a total newcomer to the area, I found myself partaking in the festive American ritual of The Party, courtesy of one of these friends of friends. It was located in the far-flung northeastern corner of the Springs, north of the Air Force Base, in one of the many housing developments that characterize most of the Springs’ residential arrangement.

For those who have never been, Colorado Springs roads are characterized by quite a few large, north-south routes on either side of I-25, and only a few good connections east-west, topography creating a bit of a road building challenge which results in bottlenecks. There is a compact downtown, and a small historic district called Old Colorado City (which was once a separate town), but most of the rest of it looks like a template for Suburbia.

Heading out to the party, making my awkward west-east connections, I drove past housing developments and strip malls. These followed a steady rhythm internally as well as externally. Neighborhoods often had limited entry and exit points via main roads; the web of streets within the neighborhood featured houses that were in many ways very similar to each other; sometimes there was a walking path nearby; sometimes there was a park in the area; in order to visit this park (if applicable) or any kind of store, residents needed to get in the car and drive to a parking lot or one of the strip malls or store groupings concentrated around a big-box mega-center such as Target. Each neighborhood functioned as an entirely discrete unit, which, however, was strangely isolated from practical things like corner stores, gas stations, and parks.

My Super Bowl party hosts lived in a development situated on a bit of a rise. Coming in from the main road, I was granted a vista to the west, where the sun was slowly setting, glinting over a sea of roofs which looked, from this distance, like the interchangeable pieces of a Monopoly set. Indeed, despite the red twinkle indicating storefronts for various malls, it looked like one enormous, homogeneous neighborhood. I was reminded of the overhead shots during the opening credits of the series Weeds.

It got me thinking. About planning and an adherence to logic and order. About variations on a theme (think music, the visual arts), and what makes some variations more pleasing than others. About organic growth (not like in your garden), and checklists.

I don’t want to get into a discussion on the relative merits and drawbacks of planned living communities, since that’s not the focus of this blog, but I do see a connection between this type of reliance on planning in the physical world of infrastructure, and in fact within companies, and planned art.

Almost everyone that has set out to tell (write) a story, whether short or long, at one point probably considers the question: would it be wise/profitable/advantageous/required/etc to have an outline, a sort of blueprint, so that I have a basic idea of where I’m going and can make sense of the act of getting there?

And in fact there can be many pros. The more complex the subject is, or the greater the number of characters, or the longer the story is, the more helpful it can be to have a kind of cheat sheet for organizing our thoughts. But in my experience, the difficulty is then in keeping this cheat sheet in its proper place. Because it can become very tyrannical. No, so-and-so is supposed to be here at this particular time, and he has to feel this way about this, otherwise we’ll lose the whole plot…

And then it seems to be inevitable that just a little farther down the road, the story gets really hard. It’s like a three-year-old in the supermarket, throwing a tantrum.  It doesn’t like anything I’m suggesting, the characters are in a torpor (“Hey, you tell me where we’re going!”), and, despite the fact that there’s a Plan in place, nothing makes any sense anymore.

Know the feeling?

Every time I try to plan something, it doesn’t work out. The story withers on the vine and calcifies. I can water it as much as I want; it’s not going to bloom. But the outline was so logical! It was meant to help me out. What’s going on here?

Good stories, in my experience, have a life of their own (this is what I mean by organic). The problem with outlines is that they often act like the bait on a spring-loaded trap, which when I reach for it, drops an iron cage over the lush garden of the story with a sign mounted on it: Caution! Agenda at Work! And then I can’t get at any of the plants. I can’t prune what needs pruning, and uproot the weeds. And I sure can’t plant anything new.

I think in the Springs they were mostly overtaken by the growth in the population and the need to provide housing. I surmise there was an army of planners requiring X type of services for Y number of people, and that there was a budget. But I couldn’t help regretting the loss of an actual neighborhood. With a corner store that I can walk to, to buy a sandwich and a newspaper.

That’s the dangerous thing about having story outline, in my view. It becomes the budget; it becomes a checklist of requirements. Blueprints are great for many things. But they don’t leave a lot of room for new stuff.

An Artistic Statement for Writers Part 2

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Two weeks ago, I wrote about the absence of information I was able to find about creating artistic statements for writers. This week, I’d like to offer my own thoughts on why this might be, why I think it’s important for writers to create one anyway, and ideas for scaffolding this tool.

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Artistic statements for writers are treated differently than artistic statements for visual artists. Visual artists are advised to create their artistic statement around a body of work — if not their whole oeuvre, then a distinct, thematically-linked portion. Writers are encouraged to create an artistic statement for a small, specific purpose: a particular project, or an application for a literary grant.

I agree with the usefulness of creating a unique statement for literary grant applications, but it is not the same thing as the artistic statement is for visual arts. Visual artists create artistic statements for public purposes: gallery exhibitions, portfolio preparation. Writers, if they do create artistic statements separately from individual applications, may do so from a more private desire to conceptualize a particular writing project for themselves.

While I think that’s useful, we writers are cheating ourselves if we never create an artistic statement that addresses the totality of our relationship with our art. Writing is a process of discovery — of ourselves, as well as our characters or our topics — which can only make our future writing better. I got some fascinating insights about my vision by creating my own artistic statement — although it was never meant for public consumption.

The bonus for creating a writer’s artistic statement is that we can poach that language for many other materials: personal websites, event bios, press releases, and so on.

A writer’s artistic statement is about vision. Visual artists have to drill down with words.  Writers need to get words to coalesce into something bigger.

What about you? Have you got a vision? How do you know?

Ideas for scaffolding an artistic statement for a writer: feeding the roots

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

I like Natalie Goldberg’s analogy of good writing as composting. It involves the mingling and enriching of disparate-seeming ideas over time. The first thing to do, therefore, is brainstorm.

I’ve shamelessly stolen a lot of the structure of the following from Molly Gordon. The questions about writing are my own.

Take a few minutes and think about why you write. How did you get into writing? How do you feel when work is going well? What are your favorite things about your work? Jot down short phrases that capture your thoughts. Don’t worry about making sense or connections. Use a pen. Don’t delete, cross out, or throw out that sheet of paper to start fresh (in other words: no editing!).

Next, make a list of words and phrases that communicate your feelings about your work and your values. Include words you like, words that make you feel good, words that communicate your values or fascinations. Be loose. Be happy. Be real. These are all potential compost ingredients. It’s no time to be selective.

Continue your exploration by answering these questions as simply as you can. We’re not editing yet — let it all hang out:

What is your favorite genre? Why?
Do you ever play with other genres? Why?
Do you like to begin your work from a grand idea? from a small detail? from a character/person? from place? Why?
Do you prefer to write long-hand or using a computer? Do you use a digital recorder and transcribe thoughts and notes? Why?
What do you do differently from the way you were taught? Why?
What inspires you?
What patterns emerge from your work?
What do you like best about what you do?
What do you mean when you say that a project has turned out really well?

Go back to your word list. Add new words suggested by your answers to the questions above.

Choose two key words from your list. Look them up in a dictionary. Read the definitions, and copy them, thinking about what they have in common. Look your words up in a thesaurus. Read the entries related to your words. Are there any new words that should be added to your list?

Write five sentences about your relationship to your work. Be truthful. How do you feel when your work is going well? How do you start? How do you know a piece is done?  What do you want your readers to experience?

Take as much time as you need to brainstorm. To get good dirt, you’ve got to add a lot of material and keep turning it over. If you’re patient, it’ll do all the work for you.

Can you smell it? What are some words that you love?

An Artist Statement for Writers

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Recently, I’ve started looking into grant applications for writers. Nearly all of these require an already-produced body of work, which is unsurprising. What I hadn’t thought about, but what is also quite logical, is the inclusion of an artist statement.

image courtesy of geekphilosopher.com

Most of the information that I’ve been able to find on artist statements focuses on or pertains to visual artists, such as the scaffolding/thought process that Molly Gordon puts together on her website here. I thought hers was an excellent exercise. My only quibble, if you can call it that, is my wish to find something like this tailored for writers. Molly’s outline contains questions about the medium the artist uses, or what tools, or the part color plays in the work.

Despite the fact that I am no visual artist, I went through the exercise myself, and highly recommend it. It helped me open up my mind and explore my thoughts and feelings on my art. (Personally, I have to fight a tendency to begin editing my work almost as soon as I have a sentence or two down on paper or on the screen, which immediately puts up creative blocks and walls in my work before it gets anywhere.) As I did so, I toyed with the idea of re-purposing Molly’s outline for a writer. For example, “selecting materials” pertains obviously to the visual arts: acrylic, oils, stone, textiles, etc. For a writer, it would make more sense to think about what form or genre or type of writing they are focusing on: short stories? creative nonfiction? poetry? novels? memoir? How does the kind of writing affect its structure? “Tools” may be the computer or longhand for a first draft, books as reference or inspiration, note-organizing software, and so on.

Then I thought, if something like that could help me, surely others could benefit from it also. And: surely something like this already exists.

I began searching for an online resource like Molly’s for writers, and I’m still looking. Maybe it’s a search-engine ranking thing, and the search results are keyed into visual arts; perhaps there is something way down in the search rankings that refers to writers, and if so, it’s a crying shame that it’s so well hidden.

Maybe there’s a bias towards explaining the artistic statement to non-writers, because their area of focus has nothing to do with words.

Maybe I’m just not looking in the right place. (Always possible.)

But maybe it doesn’t even matter. Why should that stop me from putting together my own  outline or suggestions for a writer’s artist statement? The fact that one novel exists doesn’t stop the lot of us from writing more. The fact that one short story got written doesn’t mean none of us can ever write another. Talk about throwing up obstacles to creativity.

In Edward Burger’s recent article about the importance of unstructured thinking, he talks about organizing our reactions to ideas into three categories: positive, negative, and interesting. The premise is that we judge an idea, and whether it is a failure, based on a previously conceived notion of what success is, despite the fact that some of the most revolutionary ideas were unintended and unforeseen consequences of something else that “failed.” For me, the artist statement definitely falls into the interesting category. I’m not sure exactly where it’s going to go, and it might end up someplace else (apologies to Yogi Berra).

So in my next post, I’ll share what I’ve come up with — a starting point, a series of ideas around the construction of an artist statement for writers. Your thoughts, and your friends’ thoughts (and the thoughts of your cats and dogs) are welcome. (Just no hairballs, please.)

In parallel with this, I am still on the hunt for resources, exercises, templates, or examples of writer’s artistic statements already available. If you have any links or suggestions, please shoot me an email through this website or leave the information in the comments. The more sources, the better. I’d like to put them together in a follow-up post or otherwise organize them under a resources page (TBD) so that they can benefit other writers.

So let’s get to it! What do you think? Got any ideas about artist statements for writers? I’d love to hear feedback from visual and other artists, too.

Oh They Could Sell It

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I looked around me.  I kept thinking I was going to make a comment to someone next to me — a friend, or my theater-mad relatives — but of course that wasn’t possible.  I had gone to the show alone.

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Part of the reason for that was I only found out about it approximately twenty-four hours before it was set to take place.  My discovery was a total accident — a concert? at the library?  It would never have occurred to me.

The description sounded like a gas: “songs with the flirt built in.”  The program featured songs from the 30s through the 50s, with lyrics crafted to duck censors and standard bearers of the appropriate.  The setlist (provided below) reveled in examples of bawdy humor and sly digs at the foibles of human relationships.  And best of all — it was free!

It was too outrageous to pass up.

I turned up at the top level of the Denver Central Library early.  Balloons were scattered festively across the floor, and paintings along the gallery walls added to the color (and artistic je ne sais quoi).  A group in period-ready dresses and heels chatted off to the side — these, I presumed correctly, were the performers.  Well — most of them.  A few fashionable ladies broke off from the group later to join us in the audience.  A phalanx of black plastic chairs filled the space that opened from the center of the main gallery, and I easily found a seat.  Had I come much later, it would have been a different story: nearly every seat was taken; of all ages and dressed in all kinds of ways — including the aforementioned ladies in costume solidarity.

The 8 female performers were decked out in a set of amazing ruffles, bodices, and gowns of every description, and the 2 male “backup” singers were resplendent in tuxedos.  All of the ladies (but none of the men) went through costume changes throughout the evening.  I don’t know where — but we were all so distracted by what was happening on “stage” that I suppose they could have swapped kit in the gallery itself and we never would have noticed.  Everybody could sing — or play.  The performance was backed by a band consisting of piano, upright bass/ukelele, and drums.  In keeping with the tenor of the show, which was arranged as one extended series of sketches holding together the musical numbers, the musicians were drawn into and became a part of the performances.

Numbers included sultry songs such as “A Man What Takes His Time,” show tunes, such as “Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys and Dolls, naughty flirts like “Always True to You,” and jazzy numbers like “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby” and “When You’re Good to Mama.”  Most of the numbers were solo spots, a few were duets or trios; some had chorus, and a big group number concluded the show: “I’m Tired.”  The audience, though, was definitely NOT tired.  My personal favorite was “If I Can’t Sell It,” a naughty way to play with the paradigm of marriage as a financial transaction between a man and a woman.  That’s right, Mae West!

It’s becoming less and less of a surprise to me, the more performances I see, of any kind, that everyone seems to have so many talents.  Once you get started, it’s contagious, I think.  Singing means dancing means acting means creating stories…

I wasn’t the only one laughing and applauding uproariously throughout the evening, and I wasn’t the only one standing for the ovation at the end, either.  A good time was had by all.

So kudos to the events programming at the library.  The library as performance space — who knew?  But it was brilliant.  And kudos to all the performers, who really threw themselves into it, purely out of joy — their work for the event was all “volunteer.”  A show absolutely worth paying for.

Have you been to any good shows lately?

Setlist for Wink! Songs with the flirt built in:
The Girl in 14G
Come Ona My House
Frim Fram Sauce
A Man What Takes His Time
I Enjoy Being a Girl
Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby
Always True to You
Adelaide’s Lament
One Hour Mama
Whatever Lola Wants
Mambo Italiano
If I Can’t Sell It
Mop Song
My Handyman
Nobody Makes a Pass at Me
When You’re Good to Mama
My Heart Belongs to Daddy
Too Old To Cut the Mustard Anymore
Love For Sale
Glitter and Be Gay
I’m Tired

Vocalists: Jennifer Adams, Marta Burton, Elizabeth Caswell-Dyer, Abbi Chapman, Dee Galloway, Ken Parks, Chuck Stevenson, Nancy Stohlman, Cora Vette, Marnie Ward
Piano: Nick Busheff
Bass and Ukelele: Mike Fitzmaurice
Drums: Ed Contreras
Written and Directed by Marta Burton

Wasted Time

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Recently, I’ve had some problems with time for my writing. It’s not that I didn’t have enough. I felt like I was wasting it.

I’ve been very busy, but most of the work was “non-writing” work. To make sure I got everything done, I was very organized with my time. I tried scheduling time to write, but it’s hard to block off a certain amount of time to “be creative.” Other than writing exercises, I had no output. The irony was that once my non-writing workload eased, and I had more time I could have spent on writing, I found I was doing many things but.

Mostly, I was reading.

And, get this: I was chiding myself for reading.

This was patently ridiculous. I’ve always been identified (and identified myself) as a bookworm. I tend to be in the midst of several books at once, and blow through enormous tomes at record speed. In this short space of free-ish time, I had been reading, and finished, one book.

I believe my non-writing productivity deserves some of the blame.

The creative life requires a gestation period. Art takes time to develop. It grows, sort of organically. We start with an idea, and need to nurture it. Natalie Goldberg, whose writing advice I adore, calls this “composting.”

The thing is, this work doesn’t actually look like anything productive from the outside. In my early days on the job as an editor for med ed materials, my boss told me that a legitimate chunk of this kind of work included sitting in a chair and staring out the window. This did not mean he wasn’t busy. It just looked like daydreaming.

The thing is, sometimes it is daydreaming. And it’s actually a good thing. See Goldberg. Also, famous writers of all stripes agree that in order to be a good writer, one needs to read.

But I was having a hard time accepting that I wasn’t writing. I called myself lazy. I had all these goals — how was I supposed to meet them if I was wasting time sitting on the couch with a book? Not always reading it, mind you.

I was getting a lot done on my non-writing list, though. And that was really the problem. It was as though I was running at top speed along a ridge, and my sudden free time was a plunge off the edge I hadn’t seen coming, because I was too busy charging ahead. I hadn’t been paying attention, and now I was in creative free fall.

My productive self was ready to produce something tangible. But I had been neglecting the intangible. I was just running — I hadn’t been composting anything.

That was what my reading brain was trying to do: find compost.

Unless we add the raw materials, nothing else will come out the other side. No tomato is ever going to grow in my plant pot if I don’t water it. Words don’t grow unless I water them with other words.

We need to be careful of the dichotomy of wasting time and productivity in the creative life. Some of the most tangibly productive things are stealing time, energy, and mental resources away from creative composting.

Sometimes the best use of our time is to sit in a chair, staring out the window.