IWSG - (finally)... on getting stuck

this is a picture of my driveway, taken sometime in the winter of 2011. such a pretty picture. you'd never think that just around the bend to the left would be a place that scared me for a couple of winters.

we don't get a lot of snow at a time here in Butte, MT--maybe 2 - 3 inches on a good day. but some days it can be up to 6 or 8. and there are places in my driveway where we get drifting, so the snow can be 12 inches deep in some spots. and that spot around the corner is one of those.

add to that that we haven't had a snow plow up until just a few days ago and you can see where this is going.

granted, i have an SUV with 4-wheel drive, but that doesn't help when you don't know how to drive in snow because you spent most of your life in Phoenix, AZ.

so even though my husband kept telling me that i had to get up to at least 25 mph to get up my driveway, and not worry about the back end of my car sliding, i never listened to his words of wisdom, despite the fact that he could always get up the driveway.

i always approached the ascent up that particular spot with caution. slow caution. anything to avoid the sliding around. and i got stuck in that spot at least 4 times, maybe more. and since i'm not good at backing down a curved driveway without going into the ditch, and i'm not keen on digging myself out, the car would stay there until my husband got home and then he had the frigid task of getting it up the drive.

last year in March, after we had a really big snow, i decided i'd had enough of getting stuck. i wanted to learn how to get my car up my driveway every single time. i asked my husband for a driving lesson. so, with my husband in the passenger seat and me in the driver seat, i went up and down that driveway, as fast as i could make myself go, at least a dozen times without stopping.

i had the scary adrenaline rush every time (which i don't like). there was slipping. there was sliding. my husband kept saying, "embrace the slide," (which i don't like either.). but i got over my fear of the driveway.

i still have to take a few deep breaths before i floor it to get up the hill. i still get the niggling fear in the back of my mind when i get to that spot that says i'm not going to make it. i still get the adrenaline rush when the back end starts to slide a little, and it lasts all the way into the garage (i even get that rush when my boys make the drive).

but now i can laugh about it. now i can be confident that, barring a really bad snow dump, i can always get up the driveway, whether the snow is deep or the ground is icy.

a few weeks ago, i finally saw the link between my driveway experience and my writing.

time to go gun the engine.

IWSG - sometimes you just need to laugh

my son and i are writing my novel as a team. the other day, we tried and tried and tried to work on a scene, but it was like pushing my Ford Excursion uphill. painful. clunky. tiring. we finally stopped. the next day, we went at it again. it gushed out like a flash flood in the desert during monsoon season.

the difference? we found something to laugh about before we started. we found cheesy lines to laugh at during the writing. i know it's not always that simple, but sometimes that's all you need - to find something funny. to not take your writing so seriously. to get those endorphines going to free your brain. 

so, with that in mind, here are some things we laugh at quite often...

-- Calvin and Hobbes cartoons (we have 4 books of them)

-- funny videos - here are links to a few of our favorites

John Branyan - The Three Little Pigs (in Shakesperian)

Tim Hawkins - Things you don't say to your wife

Bane Cat (if you're a fan of the newest Batman series, this will make more sense)

and finally, a picture that amuses me so much i've put it on my computer screen.

for more posts to encourage you, click on the IWSG picture in my sidebar. 

now, even if you're not having writer's block, go find something to laugh about. it will make you feel better. 

IWSG - writer's block?

sometimes in your writing, you just get stuck. things won't flow. characters won't cooperate. the plot plods along like an old plow horse that's lost its will to take one more step. i think they call this writer's block. whatever it is, it can be annoying and frustrating. you want to throw the whole thing away. i speak from experience.

so what do you do? you can't stay here forever or the story goes nowhere. if you plug in "writer's block" on google or bing, i'm sure you'll get hundreds of sites to visit. it's all great advice, from writers with more experience than i have. but this is IWSG day and though i'm coming in a little late (internet restrictions, you know), i have my own bit of advice. or rather, things that work for me sometimes. (your results may vary, some restrictions apply, beautiful chaos and its subsidaries cannot be held responsible... blah, blah, blah, etc)

--i write like a first grader. sometimes we try too hard to make our words sound perfect and polished. it's hard to make the inner editor go away. but if she's there, she restricts creativity. i try to get around her by writing like i'm back in first grade. "Arathor was angry. He was really angry. He was so angry he wanted to hit someone." i can fix it later.

--i set the story aside and do something else. sometimes it takes days to get back to it. sometimes it takes weeks. that doesn't sound very encouraging, does it?

--i read something in the genre i'm writing for ideas. ok, i've never tried this one before because i've never found a fantasy novel that grabs my attention, but a couple of weeks ago, i was asking my writing friends for help with how to present a certain concept, and my writing partner/friend of many years suggested i read Brandon Sanderson's Way of Kings. wow. what a great story. it's a hugely long book, but i'm intrigued. and it's giving me more ideas than i can use. (it was also very encouraging to read that he's been working on this for ten years or so. gives me hope that i won't take that long.)

--i try out some "what if?" questions. "what if so and so does this?" i try to go outside the box and think of things in a different way. sometimes i have to do this with my husband or my writing partner.

--i explain my plot to one of my writing friends. i do this every once in a while, just to vent mostly, but for some reason, telling her my ideas gets me excited to write again. and it doesn't hurt that she says it sounds like i know what i'm doing.

--i let go of my deadlines. now not all writers can do that. there are publishing deadlines, submission deadlines, personal deadlines. deadlines squash my creativity and i'm glad i have the luxury of taking my time to get this done. that doesn't mean that i don't get antsy to have it done so i can move on, but i have to let it be what it is. my life has been up in the air for a couple of years. i'm still settling into life in semi-rural Montana. i need to be kind to myself. deadlines aren't kind to me.

--i write something else. sometimes my mind needs a break from the epic story and it's fun to write someting short.

--i do something creative that doesn't have to do with writing. i started doing art journals a few months ago. it was nice to have something finished in an hour. my paints are all in a box somewhere right now so i haven't gotten to it lately. time to find those boxes.

--i pray and try to give the story to God. he's the one who gave me my ability to write and the imagination to go with it. he's not going to come down and write this story for me, but he can calm my mind and give me clarity. he knows this story better than i do.

i feel like i rambled, but maybe one of those will help. if you want more encouragement, you can go to Alex's blog for a list of IWSG contributors.