kindle

Routine – the nemesis of creativity?

/ Caron Allan

I recently read somewhere that routine hinders the creative process. To really be creative, I read, we need to let go of organisation, routine and any kind of rigid preconceptions or framework, and allow ourselves freedom to explore in any direction and form that appeals to us.

I couldn’t disagree more strongly. If you think that routine is a hindrance and obstacle to being truly creative, I’d like to invite you to reconsider.

I suggest that it is routine that brings freedom and that freedom is often to be found within boundaries, not outside of them. Because parameters do one great thing for us, yes, even us creative types. They give us a sense of security. And if you feel secure, you can relax and have the freedom to be creative.

All art is created within boundaries. Or a framework of conventions, if you prefer to call it that. Mozart created wonderful music. Yes, undeniably, he was incredibly creative and had a flair for genius. But… Musical composition is, in many ways, one of the most rigidly ‘controlled’ art forms in that very deeply-held conventions dictate the agreed (not necessarily explicitly agreed) common elements that must be adhered to, in order to create any form of music. Sonatas have a specific set of rules, if you like. All sonatas have common elements that make them what they are. Similarly, concertos, arias, opuses and symphonies all have elements which dictate how they are created and underpin the very stylistic identity of a given piece of music.

Now I’m tempted to take a long detour at this point and show that this is exactly the same as the genre conventions in writing, that genres have their own conventions and that you can subvert or uphold these as you desire, but I won’t, as I’ve already waffled quite a bit, and I want to keep this blog-post fairly to-the-point.

Obviously we can all have an off-day. But you know when you are recharging and when you are simply wasting time or letting things slide.

Sometimes, I’ll admit, I do just go with the flow, letting words pour onto the page. There’s nothing actually wrong with that, but it doesn’t make for good reading, it rarely fits neatly into a novel, and I am a novelist, so that is what I need to write. Unfocussed, meandering writing, sometimes called ‘automatic writing’, is great fun, very cathartic and can help you to improve your writing overall. But for everyday ‘work’ writing, you need focus, not indulgence.

Within a framework, we have the freedom to be creative. Routine can be just such a framework. I’m actually not a very organised person with regard to my writing. But I have discovered that an established routine is my friend when it comes to cracking on with my WIP and meeting deadlines.

Why?

If you are organised, you can relax and focus on the job in hand. You make the most of your time, you crack on, (hopefully/usually) and have something concrete to show for it, so productivity is improved and you feel good about what you’ve achieved. Which makes it more likely you’ll do it again tomorrow. In addition, good output leads to increased experience, increased confidence and also positivity, and as many writers know, these are commodities that can be hard to come by.

Planned routine is anticipated, your subconscious inner writer is actually hard at work long before you sit down at your desk. You know what is expected, and what your intentions are. You’re prepared, in the zone. This means you ‘hit the ground running’ and are ready to go immediately with no need for warming up or getting yourself in the mood.

As I’ve said already, routine, planned writing leads to increased output and measurable results. You see the word count piling up and you see that you are moving towards your deadline or goal. This gives you the impetus you need to write through the tough sections of your book, those tricky little scenes and the mid-book blues, even through the ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’ sulks.

For me, one of the main advantages to this type of organised approach to work is that I remain ‘current’ with my WIP. I literally don’t lose the plot. By that I mean I don’t lose track of characters and plot strands and the atmosphere of the book the way I do when I’m here and there and all over the place writing whatever takes my fancy. The resulting draft is more seamless, the scenes transition more smoothly, and small details are less likely to be overlooked. I’m totally immersed in my story.

They say it takes six weeks to develop a new routine: three weeks to break old habits, and another three to establish new ones. Give yourself six weeks, starting today. Who knows, by the time we reach the New Year, you may be firmly in the Routine is my Friend camp.

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eReaders – this is what I use mine for…

/ Caron Allan / 8 Comments

I got my first eReader around 12 years ago. It only lasted a couple of years and then needed replacing. But the one I have now, I’ve had since then, almost ten years. The poor thing should be in a retirement home for bewildered gadgets by now.

What do I use it for?

I play games: An eReader is great for playing games on but still looking busy. You’re playing truant really but everyone leaves you alone in case you’re doing something important. What games do I play? Nothing modern – no ‘call of’ anything or ‘squid’ something… I keep it simple.

Woodblock game – it’s similar to Tetris. The thing I really like is being able to change the background, so I can have a wintery scene with snowflakes coming gently down, or a very therapeutic green leafy scene with raindrops trickling down my screen. Love it! Great for hypnotizing me into another world where sudden ideas come out of the blue.

Spider solitaire – I think my win rate is something like 6% – I mean I’m absolutely terrible at it. But it’s great for killing time waiting for something or someone.

all these books on one eReader? Yes – but for me it’s not the same reading experience

I don’t stream anything, I don’t listen to podcasts or even music on my eReader, don’t even have social media or my emails on there. But I could…

My favourite thing about my eReader is Evernote. It’s a note-making app. I very, very rarely go out and about without at least one notebook with me. Though that is a good way to acquire new notebooks – I’m out in the big wide world (at least twice a year, just to keep my hand in) and realise I ‘need’ to buy one because I haven’t brought one with me. It’s not an option or an extravagance…honest! I sometimes need to make a note of something that has either just caught my attention or something I’ve just thought of – so on it goes to Evernote, which syncs with my computer once I return to base. Here is an eclectic array of notes I have on Evernote:

  • Rose Petals and White Lace (next Dottie book) – William gets demoted and chastised for his ‘mishandling’ of the Parfitt case which resulted in Gervase Parfitt ***************** (spoiler alert! Sorry, you’re not allowed to read that in case you haven’t read the others!)
  • Story Idea – A woman who works in a big house as a companion or governess, comes out of an upstairs room at night and bumps into a man in a mask and a cape. He smiles and bows and puts a finger to his lips, saying, ‘Shh! I’m a secret agent on a mission!’ She laughs, assumes he is a guest at the party downstairs that evening. She says something like, ‘Why sir, your secret is safe with me, I shall never betray you.’ He could then laugh and present her with a rose, ‘A token of my deep appreciation,’ or maybe (even better!) he could say ‘perhaps this rose will buy your silence.’ Anyway, he compliments her eyes or something. And after these sexy pleasantries are over, he goes back downstairs and she returns to her room. And in the morning discovers there has been a jewel robbery!!!! Or a murder????
  • Haiku – from Feb 2019 (as I said, I’ve had my eReader almost ten years btw, some of these notes go back a long way) February’s here/Green shoots promise the/end of winter’s icy hold
  • My daughter, talking in her sleep when we were on holiday, ‘That comment sounds pretty cool!’ I thought it was an odd thing to say. I asked her about it in the morning, she had no idea what it related to.
  • Exclamations of the 1930s (gleaned from Agatha Christie and Patricia Wentworth’s books of that era): ‘Oh my hat!’ ‘What the devil…?’ ‘So-and-so can go hang as far as I’m concerned’, ‘Oh my word!’ ‘That’s frightful!’ ‘Blast it!’ etc. I try to use one or two of these from time to time – they are so ‘of their era’ that I think they lend a bit of local colour.
  • Philamot: According to my Patricia Wentworth book, The Rolling Stone, a fashionable colour either late 1800s or early 1900s was Philamot (lovely word) from the French feuille morte meaning dead leaves. (a kind of beigey fawn)
  • Minette Walters’ The Ice House: I noted, “watching this again after many years, I’m struck by the similarity between the ice house in this and the Neolithic tombs of Skara Brae and other Orkney sites. What if a landed family discover their ice house is not as usual 300 or 400 years old, but three or four thousand years old…?”
  • Fab quote from TV series Endeavour: ‘Don’t let him worry you, ‘cos his sort’s nowt a pound and sh*t’s tuppence, as my old gran used to say. Northerner.’ (that was Fred Thursday talking to Morse… Love that quote, it made me spit my coffee all over myself.)
  • Standard issue firearm for British army for both world wars was the Webley mark IV revolver, taking a .38 calibre bullet. It remained in service until 1963.
  • And this one from 2014: if a person is standing when they are shot dead from the front, they always fall and land with one leg crossed over the other at the ankle – this is known as ‘dead man’s fall’. (I think I used this in Scotch Mist…)

Oh yes – I also have books on my eReader!  You were probably beginning to wonder. To date I have purchased around 700 eBooks, though my preference is for paperbacks. With eBooks I very often forget I have them on the reader. I only find out when I go to buy them, and Amazon smiles, shakes its head, and says’ You’ve already got that one, you eejit!’

Usually, if an author is new to me, I ‘try’ the eBook as a kind of taster. If I like it I will then – obviously – buy more of their books, but if I really love it, I will swap to paperbacks. I get a lot more out of a paperback, I seem to find it easier to immerse myself in the story whereas reading an eBook can sometimes (for me) feel like it all happens on the surface and I don’t truly ‘lose myself’ in the plot.

What about you? Do you read eBooks? Do you have a dedicated eReader or read books on your phone, tablet or desktop computer? Or are you strictly ‘real’ book all the way? Do please let me know!

I work on several different gadgets, but my own computer in my own office is my favourite!

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Book Shelter Blues

/ Caron Allan / 2 Comments

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Secondhand. Preloved. Used. Old. Whatever you call books that are not new, it amounts to the same thing: neglected; unloved; abandoned; discarded. Even the ‘amusing’ epithet of ‘preloved’ simply indicates love that has been given then withdrawn. No longer loved.

Yes, I know that many people see these places as Aladdin’s caves filled with wonder and possibility. Not so for me. For me, a secondhand (let’s call it what it is) bookshop is a bit like going to an animal shelter. My first response in both cases is always one of dismay – there are so many here! Secondly, I think, ‘how can I possibly save them all?’

I went into two such shops today.

In shop one, I was frustrated by the lack of genre categories or alphabetical ordering. I felt I had to scan the entirety of the store to be sure I didn’t miss anything vital. As it was, when I paid for my ‘finds’, or as I prefer to call them, my ‘adoptions’, I couldn’t shake the certainty that I’d missed something. But the ‘usual guy’ was on holiday and the woman standing in for Usual Guy was not versed on what was where. She laughingly told me that if Usual Guy had been there, he could have immediately told me where any of my chosen authors might be stationed. Ha ha! Oh my aching sides. Not.  They also had an overflow into an empty shop front next door – and even though I could see literally dozens of boxes heaped up, she wouldn’t let me go in there and poke about, and neither could she tell me what was there. I took my five rescue-books and left, slightly disgruntled.

The second shop was somewhat different, and yet, underneath all the glamour, exactly the same. It was squeaky clean and neat as a new pin. I see books neatly stacked on actual shelves or laid out in boxes, spines uppermost, and the boxes have labels such as ‘Romance’ and ‘Family Saga’, and also ‘Romance and Family Saga’. I stand in the doorway to get my bearings and the proprietor bustles up in a housecoat, carrying a duster.

She asks if I’m looking for anything in particular. Really all I want to do is browse. How can you tell someone that you won’t know what you want until you see it? But I fear she is not really, in spite of the location, a bookish person. I have a sense that browsing is not to be encouraged, and I drag my ‘little book of books’ out of my bag. I tell her I have quite a long list. She’s not bothered by that. She’s waiting. So, under pressure, I panic and begin to blurt out a few names.

‘Patricia Wentworth!’ I feel a bit like Harry Potter frantically trying to come up with the right spell. She gives me a sad smile, and shakes her head.

‘Not done much for a while, has she?’

‘That’s because she died in 1961.’ I explain. I could tell her the day and month, but I’m not convinced she’d be interested, so probably for the first time in my life, I just shut up.

She nods. ‘Ah.’ It appears that being dead is a major hindrance to having your book in stock at a secondhand bookshop. I’d have thought it was the perfect spot, but no. I’m a bit worried about continuing with my list, as I feel most of my favourites are a bit on the no-longer-with-us side. But she is looking at me with an air of expectation. I’m not sure she’s really helpful, I think she just wants to get back to the dusting.

‘Victoria Holt? Mary Stewart?’

That smile again. The same shake of the head. Sorry. I look at my list again and wonder if there’s any point in carrying on with this charade. I feel already know the answer, but perhaps due to some previously-unnoticed masochistic tendency, I ask anyway.

‘Ellis Peters?’

‘Nope, not him either.’

‘Her,’ I say and turn away, intensely irritated. I scan the shelves. They are packed with books by people who are dead – how come my authors aren’t here?

‘Try the clearance boxes out front.’ She suggests. I nod. Somehow even as I rummage through these boxes I know I’m wasting my time. Eventually I give up.

And as I walk away, I’m pretty sure two whole shelves of Jean Plaidys and Catherine Cooksons shouted after me, ‘Take us with you!’ and ‘come back!’ and possibly even, ‘Help!’

It’s the ones left behind that hurt the most.

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