Category: Inspiration and Philosophy

Willpower Won’t Power Emotional Writing

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: pick that shovel]Emotional writing connects with readers. But you’re not going to produce it simply by trying harder or longer. You can’t will yourself to an emotional outpouring. I’d like to chat more about ways to increase the amperage in our writing, but I’d like to be sure you understand that “trying harder” isn’t one of them.

Here’s your homework: read any or all of these fine articles on the limitations of willpower, and understand that this is how your brain is wired, not some failure on your part. While these articles are, in general, talking about persistence, problem-solving, and self-control, the principles affect your efforts to produce emotionally evocative prose.

… more … “Willpower Won’t Power Emotional Writing”

300

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Popped in to write today’s post and looked at the count under “Published Posts” — 300 posts, over a period of 3 1/2 years.

[image: 300″ width=”220″ height=”136″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-4234]Writers rarely pause to celebrate. Finish one, start the next. Draft done? Get editing! Social media sorted? Plan live events!

There’s loads of brain science research behind the power of small wins.

Tomorrow, I’ll give you that post about the failure of willpower.

Today, I’m celebrating 300 articles that help people I care deeply about, authors, you, do what refills their souls.

Your Unconscious is Not a Terrorist. You Are Allowed to Negotiate.

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Preservation of life is your unconscious mind’s primary function. Beyond breath and hunger it uses another tool to keep you alive: alertness to danger.

Because your unconscious is an ethereal non-physical entity, non-physical threats weigh the same as the physical. Whether the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of an oncoming train or a painful memory, the instinctive response is avoidance. Run from danger; that’s what your unconscious does. Most of the time, it’s a good bodyguard.

You’ve seen it in a movie or TV show: protected VIP convinces overzealous bodyguard to allow some latitude, provided safeguards are in place. Sure, kid, you can go to the zoo, but we’ll have a tracking device in your shoe and men in black at every gate.

Your unconscious is a bodyguard trying to protect you, not a terrorist trying to take you down.

[image: a conversation with your unconscious]

What if you could negotiate some free time, give your bodyguard the morning off so you could write from your heart, pouring it all out, wheat and chaff together, spilling some of that internal truth onto the page? What if, for a little while, you made your unconscious feel safe, so it would stay out of the way while you go on a hot date with a great scene for your novel?

You can. Here’s how. … more … “Your Unconscious is Not a Terrorist. You Are Allowed to Negotiate.”

Macabre Dance with Your Unconscious

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Have you ever done something, or thought something, you’re ashamed of?

Uncomfortable as it is, dredge up that memory. We’ll be using it for today’s exercise.

The purpose of our experiment is to demonstrate the effect on our conscious when we try to write something our unconscious doesn’t want written.

Find a place you feel safe. Sit by the fire, if you can, or if that’s not possible, have a shredder under your desk. You’ll want access to methods of rapid complete destruction.

Are you sitting uncomfortably? Good. Let’s begin.

[image: this is where the wicked writing goes]

… more … “Macabre Dance with Your Unconscious”

Where Art Comes From When You Don’t Know Where It Comes From

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: fear needles us]Sometimes art is ground out one step at a time. I’ve done that, and even produced things I’m proud of that way.

Sometimes, art spurts out like mustard from the sun-stricken picnic table. When this happens to me, it always produces something I love.

Once we have the basic skills, writing is a combination of persistence and getting out of your own way. More precisely, getting your conscious, the prefrontal cortex which usually drives the bus; er, your brain, out of the way of your unconscious, including the limbic system where your emotions live, the amygdala where your fears live, and other scary medical terms where other important truths hide out.

To be sure, it is the job of our conscious mind to navigate, to step in when unconsciousness won’t do.

For a writer, that stage is editing, not writing. … more … “Where Art Comes From When You Don’t Know Where It Comes From”

Does Your Writing Come From You or Through You?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: The Hillside]I’ll state right up front that while I believe all art is a divine gift I do not believe in a literal Muse who is responsible for my (or your) art.

But sometimes, it certainly feels like what I create is coming, not from me but through me.

In those moments what arrives in my fingers is closer to the truths I feel than when I’m using my head, obviously and overtly making stuff up.

I once spent a week carefully crafting a complex 7-minute long Arabic trance instrumental. It’s all kinds of fun, and the Little One still loves to listen to it.

Most folks pay little or no attention to it. It has no real depth, no emotional tug.

On the other end of the spectrum is my song The Hillside which, once I realize what these three repeating chords meant, these dead simple chords anyone could play, the song flowed in minutes, all but one word which was supplied by Best Beloved. … more … “Does Your Writing Come From You or Through You?”

That Don’t Make NO Sense

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

I could probably title every post I ever write with a quote from O Brother, Where Art Thou?

When Pete says the above to Everett, his reply is one of the foundations of art: “It’s a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.”

[image: chess: logic and art and art and logic]

During the final proofreading of A Long, Hard Look James discovered a logical anomaly. Since that’s part of his job, he done good. Next book he proofs, I expect no less.

I’m leaving it the way it is. Here’s why: … more … “That Don’t Make NO Sense”

Mixing Up My Art

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Many artists don’t confine themselves to a single medium. You may know that besides writing nine non-fiction books and working on my second, third, fourth, and fifth mysteries all at once (whew!) I’m also a songwriter.

Writing songs with lyrics that don’t rhyme, or lyrics that don’t make any sense; writing songs with short lines, long lines; story songs, message songs, love songs, pain songs — I’m far more confident playing with words in my fiction than I was before I invested 10 years learning the craft of songwriting.

[image: tunehenge]

… more … “Mixing Up My Art”

Who’s Your Mentor?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Joel D CanfieldI was born precisely 9 months after Raymond Chandler died.

Perhaps there was only room for one of us at a time.

Perhaps that’s a stretch.

His books are what made me want to write. It took me ages to get a bunch of business books under my belt and develop the courage to try mysteries.
[image: Raymond Chandler]
I am particularly proud of my latest effort, A Long, Hard Look. It has been compared to Chandler, though once again, modesty (fear?) forces me to wonder if it’s a stretch.

I call what I write “Chandleresque cozies.” … more … “Who’s Your Mentor?”

Why Do You Write?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: A Long, Hard Look – a Chandleresque cozy]Pressfield nails it again. Today’s post is about finding why, about asking yourself why you write, what you expect to happen.

And it’s about letting go of the stuff you simply cannot control.

He suggests asking yourself these questions:

  • Was this a worthy effort?
  • Did it call upon you to give more than you believed you had in you?
  • Did you conduct yourself honorably in the enterprise?
  • Did you give it all you had?
  • Did you succeed according to your own standards, the measures that only you know and only you can define?

I intend to market A Long, Hard Look as well as I can.

I intend to accept whatever level of commercial success it achieves, because I can answer “yes” to those 5 questions, and that’s what matters.