Posted in Epiphanies and musings, How-to, tagged Motivation on 26 July 2010| Leave a Comment »
I don’t know about you, but I struggle with the notion of writing during my non corporate-work time. And the primary reason I’m not getting down with the writing each week isn’t the dearth of inspiration (we covered why that’s immaterial), nor is it even laziness.
It’s simply the fact that I have issues giving myself the permission to pursue this.
Because this is So Much Fun. It feels like an indulgence. To most of us perhaps, it’s a hobby – not a job – and therefore feels like it should be relegated to the bottom of the pile after we’ve done the ironing and made love to the husband and solved world hunger.
Doesn’t help that it comes as a paradox; the moment we class writing as a second job, we suck the fun right out of it. And we want the fun. This is our mental health management programme. It’s no coincidence that I get nuts and creative right when I am about to embark on work that’s either really going to hurt the brain or bruise the body. It’s the right brain, screaming for an outlet to counteract the activities of the left.
Is my theory anyway. I didn’t write a PhD on this, so don’t quote me.
So we get guilty. We get guilty about the “responsible” stuff we should be doing when we’re writing, and we get guilty about our dismal word count when we’ve decided to vacuum the house. And when we’re doing neither (like, say, blogging instead of cleaning OR getting to our word count), we desperately want to split ourselves in eight and do EVERYTHING in a desperate panic to be productive.
Well guess what. If we are going to take writing seriously, then we need to slap a project management schedule on it and treat it like work. Fun work. But something that needs to take priority.
And yes. We are entitled to treat our writing seriously, even if the cynical voice in our heads is snorting in derision. sssnnnnnyyyxxxx
So I’ve done this for myself. In a bid to build new good habits, I got myself some pretty stationery and started writing down my personal habit-changing goals. In fact, they’re plastered on my fridge right now. One of them is that I’ll work on the book twice a week. I’ve offset the time taken by drastically cutting back my television watching and letting go of the housework a little (dirt builds immunity), AND I’ve attached a reward for myself if I meet my target each week.
Feels like double-dipping, doesn’t it. FIGHT THE URGE! You are entitled to reward yourself for working two jobs!
My reward? I get to rent or buy a new rom-com online and brand it as “research”. And I’ll iron the backlog of clothes while I’m watching, which therefore gives me another reward for clearing the backlog…
You get the idea.
Give yourself the permission to write. Make it important to YOU. Find time efficiencies through other activities. Incentivise, incentivise, incentivise.
Now go forth and feel good about your super-fun second job.
Posted in Epiphanies and musings on 26 July 2010| Leave a Comment »
My first reaction, when I heard all about the great Famous Five rewrite to “unBrit” them (almost), involved much spluttering of the “kids nowadays bah humbug” variety.
Seriously. As someone on radio this morning, representing some children’s literature council whose name escapes me, said, “It’s like changing Shakespeare.”
And indeed. It seems the publishers have quite missed the point.
I mean, I grew up on Enid Blyton. My first book was “The Naughtiest Girl in School”, starring the very blonde and blue-eyed Elizabeth Allen who wanted to be released from the hell of boarding school during half term by Behaving Very Badly. I was six. The fact that I can still rattle off the plot summary some decades later (ahem) without resorting to a Google search, is saying something.
The fact that I’m Chinese in race and was born and bred in an Asian country until adulthood, is saying something even more.
Who CARES if I – Chinese by birth and breeding, with sooty jet-black hair and almond eyes – couldn’t understand what “being sent to Coventry” meant, or what a Blighter really was. The fact remains that I was transported to another world so wholly unconnected to me otherwise. Isn’t that the point of reading? So you can escape someplace? In fact, I’m still learning about unfamiliar territory. I came to Australia having to learn that a tanty was a tantrum, and that if you’re prone to sulking, you’re a sooky-la-la…
Which is, in fact, who the publishers are afraid of.
Seriously, if we are going to coddle children so that they can find Enid Blyton palatable, what chance in the world do we have of making Shakespeare fun? Or C.S. Lewis understandable? You think the Famous Five was tough? Do you know how twisted-weird Alice in Wonderland was? And let’s not forget that the Narnia chronicles were written as an elegant allegory for Christ and the new kingdom. But they were filled with stiff upper lip children prone to saying “Oh Golly” rather than “Oh no”.
And then there’s us, the aspiring lot. What does that say about the legacy that we want to leave behind? Are we to be edited and pruned one day (on the off-chance that we get famous and sell 500 million copies worldwide) because our choice of words don’t extend beyond certain cultural boundaries, or times and spaces? Who’s to say that this won’t be a barrier now with publishing houses? “Sorry – can’t put this in the book. Can you please do a find-replace every time the word “swotter” pops up, because no one says it anymore…”
There are extensions to this theme, of course. Should we erase the mention of Golliwogs, because they are now culturally-sensitive icons? Won’t we be at risk of offending an entire generation of African Americans? How about words like “queer” and “gay” that have now completely changed their meanings? Are we to completely whitewash our children’s books to attend to social mores, only to have to whitewash them again when the books of this generation no longer have relevance with the readers of tomorrow?
HAVING SAID THAT, there might be a refutation to this rant. The Bible, translated into goodness knows how many languages around the world, one day got completely Americanised with the release of The Message. And don’t even get me started on lolcat. (“Cheezburgrz 4 teh kittehs dat sez shhhhh!, Ceiling Cat is liek “u mai kittehs.”) And let’s not forget that most Christians regard scripture as sacred text. The difference? Achieving accessibilityand understanding were key. The words therein, the concepts and precepts are meant to be timeless and ageless and perpetual and relevant.
I’m not sure Enid Blyton quite falls in that category. I think Enid Blyton’s books are classics. They capture the essence of a time and place.
But I think I understand the publishers’ desire to reach out to children who cannot or will not understand her books. Even if I don’t completely agree with them.
Coming up blank 