Embracing Your "Bad" Habits

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Author: Golda Mowe

Concentrate. Focus. And you can achieve anything you want. I did affirmations, meditate, pray, write down my goals and I even used Skinner's technique of reward and punishment to try to get me going. But nothing worked. The last method backfired because I became so resentful I stopped writing for months. Next I tried visualization but it felt wrong and I didn't like being manipulated, even by myself. Since writing was such a struggle for me, about a year back I began to ask myself why I kept doing it. I realized then that I enjoy the process of writing because part of it involves research work. I love information, I collect them whenever and wherever I can. In fact, the act of writing which involves the creation of character, and the trouble I make them get themselves into are nothing more than my attempts at describing what I think are possibilities that I can envision from all the information I have collected. And there lies my problem, because if I can't find a way to work out a formula to fit into a story, I get stuck. It was fun to create non-existing data for the Snow Ear's story list, but on the other hand, it was quite a challenge too to find a story arc that is plausible for the characters. Next, I monitored when and where my creative juice is activated (when I scribble ideas into a notebook, I also take down the time, place and what I was doing). Interestingly enough, I find that I am at my most creative when I am 'waiting' for something. Waiting seems to create a vacuum in my time and forces me to be creative to keep myself occupied. So now I try to arrive early for appointments, so I can sit in a corner and write into my foolscap book. I also get a lot of ideas while watching the news, which inadvertently resulted in President Fox and his associate Rat. Reading educational or complex materials also gets my juices going because each time when I look at a graph or a trend line, I will think about all the adventures and troubles I can get my rabbit into. All this "know thyself" exercises have made me realize that I am happiest when I write on paper. I used to think that I will save more time if I type directly into my PC, but apparently my creative side doesn't agree. I have the sneaky suspicion that it resents being rationalized. So now I invest in a foolscap notebook, and jot down interesting one liners every 3rd page. These can be a quote, a formula or even a headline. The one liners are great, because whenever I feel the urge to write, but cannot think of anything to expound on, I will flip through the sheets to look for a topic I am in the mood for and start writing. The system works so well, I can sometimes do two articles in one sitting. Practice does make everything easier, because each time I do a new article, I will have to resolve a grammar, sentence structure or even presentation issues before I could finish it. So by being able to carry this big book around with me has helped since I don't have to wait to switch on my PC before I fix my issues. If you wish to try out the same method, it would be a good idea to keep a few paper clips handy so you can mark the pages you are working on. Take the clips away after you have typed the article into your PC or any other 'END' step. I even draw a star at the edge of the pages to show that I have published them in my website. Writing into the foolscap notebook turned out to be the easiest part. My biggest problem now is typing out these articles for my webpage, because once that PC is On and I start to surf the world wide web - trouble. It is a huge strain on me, because information is just a click away. Yet I cannot treat this as a bad thing since it is this very attitude that makes me want to write. Another huge weakness I have is that although I love information, I have a hard time remembering them. Maybe it's because each time I get excited about a piece of fact, I will remember something else that is similar, then another thing related to that and on and on it goes until, by the end of five minutes, I may not even remember what I just read. Extremely annoying habit, but it has helped me write quite a few stories. I felt guilty about my bad memory until I came across a documentary of Jules Verne, who kept index cards of facts and information that interested him (did I name the right author?) Anyway, I tried using the same technique. First setback: The index cards were ugly, and I didn't like the design of the boxes I came across. So I bought a sleek floppy disk box and 90 90mm memo papers then cut out a couple of drawing blocks to make cards which I labelled and used as separators. The memo papers were perfect for me, because I can also draw on them. This again, was a tremendous help because I don't have to rummage through my books anymore to find a single fact such as ones about the Bezoar Stone, which is found inside the gall-bladder of langurs as well as the intestine of porcupines in Borneo. This is the kind of information that can make or break a story, and having them on hand at the moment I need to verify them really does affect my writing mood. Whether you think you can or can't write, I truly believe that being creative is important. Because not only does it help you produce something wonderful, funny, sad or beautiful, it also helps you find solutions to your problems. Looking to the experience of others only works if you are of the same temperament, values, discipline and have the same support system. The right way would be to study your own situation carefully, and know what you have and don't have, then tailor your solutions to that. For example, when I first realized how bad my English was, I tried to learn from books and websites, but it did not work because I became obsessive about techniques and forms that other writers had used successfully for their own work. It was the most frustrating period for me. Then I began tutoring English to young children who are non-native English speakers. I learned that the best way to teach them was to let them keep their own thinking patterns, but show them how to express their sentences correctly. Teaching them, taught me. So look around you, find your stepping stone. It may be different from mine, but it gets you ahead.About the Author:

Golda Mowe is a writer from Sarawak who believes that we learn new ideas better if we approach the subject in a relaxed and open manner. She uses simple stories to explain complicated concepts.

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