The Importance of Space

To start off this new year, I welcome my first ever guest blogger, fellow author Kate Bitters. I've been reading her debut novel Elmer Left. and thoroughly enjoying it. Being something of an old man myself, I could relate....

Here is some advice from Kate about a problem many writers face: space. 

The beginning of last month was chaos.  Boxes everywhere, an overly big (and accident prone) moving truck, piles of clothes and shoes on the floor, a huge gap in my room where a bed should have been...

Moving is tough.  Any kind of environmental change is tough.  When we are surrounded by disorder and newness, it is easy to lose ourselves in the offending space.  It is easy to become discouraged.  Earlier this month, I remember sitting next to a mound of clothing, sorting through it sock-by-sock, and thinking, "Good grief, when did I accumulate so many tank tops?"

But these steps are necessary--the sorting, the putting away, the ordering of toiletries, the creation of a system.  Without these steps, things get shoved aside for later and continue to linger in the backs of our minds.

The very root of Feng Shui (and if you don't buy into any other part of the concept, buy into this...) is the creation of order and the removal of clutter.  The idea is that human beings function best in a clean, ordered, and uncomplicated environment.  Our bodies relax; our minds are put at ease; we are free to concentrate on things outside of our space--higher purposes.  Like writing.

Unfortunately, my writing took a blow this past November (ironic, since it is national novel-writing month).  I had trouble focusing in my new space.  I struggled to carve out an area in which I could write and work and concentrate.  But eventually, it did happen.  I built a desk; I bought a chair; I found homes for all my dishes, sweaters, hair products.  The beast with walls and floors and ceiling began to feel less like a container and more like a home.

My Office

I found my mind relaxing, and then it went beyond relaxation: it started to think creatively again.  I started to see the world in colors and textures, instead of in a Sin City-type black and white (slightly evil, extremely jarring).  My mind was back; my motivation was back.  Words began to flow.  And I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of space.  It might seem like an insignificant factor in our daily productivity and creativity, but our surroundings can have an eerie kind of power over us.  Don't let it take the reins.  It is up to you to tame your space, make it your own, and make it work for you.

Happy organizing ;)

Kate Bitters is a novelist, editor, and ghost writer.  She is putting the finishing touches on her second novel, Ten Thousand Lines, and working on a third.  She resides in the magical and frosty city of Minneapolis, MN.

Website: www.katebitters.com

Blog: http://fightforthewrite.blogspot.com/ 

Twitter: @katebitters

Meanwhile, in a blog far, far away, Kate will be hosting my piece about the names we give story characters: fightforthewrite.blogspot.com. I shall return here forthwith.


---------------------------------------------------------------------
(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

How much is your happiness worth?

Believe me, I understand. A blog post devoted to, shall we say, "advertising" is not the most attractive place to spend a few minutes while wasting some time at work or school. (Neither is writing such a blog.) However, it needed to be done. The book is out, available within some time zones and under the more favorable stars. I simply wish for my wonderful friends, followers, and [dare I say] fans to know of its existence. That's enough.

I love to write. [Let me start again:] I love to write what I choose to write. I don't mean professional documents (as I occasionally do now) nor academic essays and research papers (as I did not too long ago), or any other obligations of the literary sort. No, I mean fiction writing. The world of make-believe. I suppose that love comes from a long-standing disappointment with the status quo. Of course, it's not all utopia and unicorns in what I write, either, but at least the chaos, the misery, the betrayal and backstabbing are of my choosing.

And so I wile away my days (this past summer was a great pile of such days!--ooo, did I make a rhyme?) at the keyboard of life, type type typing the days into the molds I have created for them. And they (the days made of words which are symbols that represent the meanings of life) go on to form the walls and roofs and patios of Lego-like worlds in primary colors. That's how it is done. Waxing poetic on a Monday morning is winning, isn't it?

Long story short--if you've read this far--I love to write stories about people in odd situations and I love seeing how they get out of those situations. I'm the kind of writer who does not outline, does not plan ahead (not in any more detailed sense than a general story arc), and so as I write the story unfolds to me just as it will unfold to the reader. I like being surprised as much as readers are (I guess). Often I don't like what my characters have planned, what they try to do or get away with, and just as often they don't find my plans for them to be very appealing. Such is the conflicts between the real and the fictional.

Long story even shorter: I love to create these stories and more than anything else (anything but writing them) is my delight at readers experiencing these stories and enjoying them. That's my greatest thrill: to have a readers say (or post, comment, etc.) what they took from the story about, say, the human condition, or what he/she liked about these stories. I'll even take a "didn't like" comment with a half-grin. We can't get it all right all the time, eh?

So the bottom line is that I let people know when and where something is available so they may get as much enjoyment reading (indeed "experiencing"!) what I have created as I have gotten in creating it. I expect us both to be pleased.

And then there is the matter of money. Some people write to make money. I have not yet found a list of those people. Instead, I think most writers write for love of writing, as I do. But there is the need for food, printer ink, books for research, etc. that requires us to beg for some kind of compensation just to keep up the brain cells for the next round of creation. Starving artists do not actually create very good art; their minds are starved.

And as for paperback books, even set at the lowest possible price that, say, Amazon.com will allow, my take is only about one or two dollars per book, hardly a king's ransom. The ebooks for Kindle actually provide a slightly better percentage to the author. However, many readers prefer the touch, the feel, of woodchips in their hands. I do; call me old fashioned. Either way, it all begins with the quirky spark of gray matter inside an artist's brain, something which is truly priceless. How can one put a price sticker on an idea, even a fictional story about people who do not exist and therefore serve no purpose in life, contribute nothing to society, and ultimately are forgotten? Difficult to calculate. Even so....

I'd do it anyway (write), as I stated above, because I love to create new worlds and odd situations and see how it all plays out. If I share that entertainment with someone, isn't it fair I get something back in exchange? A "thank you" is a good start. An obsessive urge to possess the next creation of mine is also good. A meal ticket for the school cafeteria of your choice is often an acceptable donation. It's up to you. What is your happiness worth?

Mine is worth $1.29--give or take a few pennies.


And if you do not mind any little pluggettes, please allow me to mention some entertainments are available for you....

THE DREAM LAND Trilogy 

(Book I in paperback, or ebook; 

Book II as ebook , paperback coming soon; 

Book III coming soon as ebook then paperback)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
(C) Copyright 2010-2013 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.