Danika Dinsmore

Storyteller

weekend workout

Weekend Writing Workout – Fragments

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portrait collage by Ofer Wolberger

During my office Inner Sanctum of Awesomeness renovation, I’ve been unearthing some old material.

Yesterday I ran across several sets of “fragment poems” I had written almost 20 years ago.

One set was based on pictures I cut out of a magazine. One was cut ups from a dream journal. One was (I kid you not) based on things I read about cows.

*YOUR WEEKEND WORKOUT: come up with a fragment series!

You can make fragment cut ups from books, magazines, and journals. You can write fragments as a ritual (i.e. write one every time you open the refrigerator or every time you look in the mirror all weekend.). You can take titles of pictures or books or films or songs and write fragments using only the words from those titles.

The only rule is that they must be “fragments.” Fragments are disembodied ideas and phrases. They are not attached to any beginning or end. I write them primarily on gut instinct, something about the words/phrases sticks out. There is no narrative – but the mind tends to fill in the gaps with meaning (even if there was no intended meaning, just interesting sounds).

My favourite way to write fragments is to pull lines from multiple sources and intuitively arrange/collage them into a series.

The fragment series below is a “collated narrative” – which is when you spontaneously collage several sources at once, usually using different senses. In this case I was listening to a radio interview while I pulled out lines from a journal and a newspaper article. When putting it together, a sense of rightness and meaning emerged.

Reading Lessons

“I really believe you’d find _______ in growing corn” (racism)

I

We embraced
so immediately like a
one-trick pony
implicates racism

II

You have been lying, forging it
all for me

III

I want you to help me
I want to go backwards

IV

sure on this side of the fence you are
in charge
sure I murder the majority

V

Through the code a path
against belligerence
perhaps there is another side

VI

You are trained
I am wide

VII

Denied contempt
uttering excited utterings
isolated
they beat you

VIII

If you knocked
would you move me?

IX

In filling this place
I come across novelty
a movement in the sphere

X

Compare this:
“That’s not the point”
and
“That has nothing to do with it”

XI

I could make
some gesture
with this hand

XII

Attributed to the killing (verb):
noiselessly extended can’t
stand to sit still
you’re an escapist

XIII

I mean let me ask you something –
is murder where you draw the line?

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

*I used to post Weekend Writing Workouts regularly on my original Accidental Novelist blog but have gotten out of the habit. I’m going to get back into the habit, but haven’t decided if they will be poetry or prose based. Or a combination.

Screenplay – the s(t)uck (ii)

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So, I had a streak of things happen that could be considered sucky. My short film was declined from its 3rd festival, our team didn’t get the NSI drama prize (we were short-listed, but didn’t win), and I got two rejection letters.

Taken one at a time, I could easily shrug them off and move on. However, this was in the space of a week when I was already feeling pretty wobbly about the quit-your-full-time-job-and-become-a-full-time-writer thing.

The producer for our NSI project wrote the director and myself to say “Congratulations!” and I thought, Oh, no, she misread the letter NSI sent to us. She thinks we’ve won.

But no, she was congratulating us on being short-listed out of 200 applicants. Yeah, but isn’t that suckier? To be so close and then not chosen in the end. At least that was my attitude yesterday; today’s a new day. (and the semi-colon is my favourite form of punctuation)

The thing is I have a choice. I can choose to feel sorry for myself, or I can choose to take another step forward. Which one serves my purpose? Sometimes I DO actually choose to be down for a day. The difference is I make it a conscious choice. I say, you know what? I feel like staying in my pajamas all day eating popcorn and being sad. I just experience it, have a good time, and move on. In the end, it connects me with my humanness, which always inspires me, ultimately, to create.

Don’t pile guilt on top of being sad and pitiful, you’ll hurt your brain. Celebrate the mess that you are. I laugh when I cry all the time. (Baby has learned not to freak out when this happens.)

And as my badass friend Lisa says, The alternative is not an option. What, I’m going to go back to my SSJ (soul-sucking job)?

So today, I move forward. One thing is enough. One idea, one lightbulb, one connection…

PRE-WRITING EXERCISES PT II

1) Set your first meeting with one of your “team members”. Decide and commit to your regular basis check-in, whether it’s by phone or in person. I think in person is better. Tell them what you’re working on.

2) Get a timer. I use an old Pillsbury Doughboy Kitchen Timer. It’s sole purpose is to time writing exercises. My students tease me, but I think they secretly covet it. I am a big fan of timed writing.

3) As many days as you can this week, do the following exercise. Commit to those days. Pick something doable for your schedule. Pick 3 days and if you do more you’re a star. I’ve decided to do it every morning for 7 days straight simply because I need to be that hard core with myself right now to get back into the flow.

STEP ONE – Set timer for 5 minutes
Using the start line I want to tell this story because… start your timer and finish the sentence. Keep writing the phrase and finishing each sentence (like a list) until a scene “jump starts” your muse. Then dive in and spontaneously riff from there and avoid punctuation from then on. Keep these sentences long. Keep that pen moving the whole time, if you fumble and stall, write I want to tell this story because… and keep going)

EXAMPLE:

I want to tell this story because I need to do it for myself right now. I want to tell this story because I have so many ideas I need to pick one. I want to tell this story because I think everyone can relate to Chelle how she has given up on herself because we’re always doing that and they don’t stand up for their creative selves. And even though Chelle is staying true to her art she’s not staying true to her own success and we shouldn’t have to give up on anything to be the Truth of who we are…etc.

STEP TWO – Set timer for 7 minutes
When your timer goes off, go the the MIDDLE of that piece of writing and pull out a sentence. Set your timer for SEVEN minutes. Use the line you just pulled from your own writing as your start line. If you get stuck, just write I want to tell this story because… and go from there. You can always go back to listing / short sentences. Remember not to stop or edit. Just keep writing.

You can do more long sentences or, as in the example below, I use the “chaining” method taught to me by the infamous Jack and Bob, in which the last word of a sentence is repeated as the first word in the next sentence. You can try that for fun and see how it goes. Some people really like where it takes their writing.

EXAMPLE

Poop or get off the pot has become my new motto and it’s got to become Chelle’s. Chelle’s daughter Violet says, “mom, sometimes you just gotta poop or get off the pot.” Pot like the one Chelle attaches to the back of their van so she can plant a sunflower. Sunflowers are her favourite flower and she misses her gardening. Gardening is the only reason she thinks it might be nice to have a home. Home for her seed collection and for the twins’ pet rat… etc.

Step Three – Set your timer for 10 minutes
Repeat the above process: go to the middle, pick that line, write. THIS TIME set your timer for TEN minutes. It is important that the time grows longer as you go to get deeper into the work. If your writing time is limited, try 3-5-7 minutes instead.

This exercise is very good at getting you unstuck, I’m telling you. I was resisting any kind of writing on The Van Goes and when I did this exercise I had 3 pieces of new information about my story. That’s exciting.

Additional startlines (for Step One) to keep you busy:

This is a story about… (always an effective one)
In this story, my protagonist learns to/that…
My protagonist’s deepest wound is…
My protagonist’s greatest fear is that…
My protagonist’s most treasured possession is…

4) This is also a good time to do any research you might need to do for your character and story. I need to research different types of camper vans, sizes and styles,  and what one can fit inside. I also need to research names for the Van Gogh kids and decide whether I want to name them after artists or if that would be too much.

Have fun with it! I’m not sure how often I’ll post chapters of the screenplay saga, at least once a week.

Screenplay: the exorcism (i)

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Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

~Kahlil Gibran

I turned 40 last year and decided it was time to get my poop in a group. Pull it out, as they say in Australia.

I had allowed my life to get kidnapped by work that wasn’t serving my passion and purpose. It was depleting my energy and spirit. I desperately needed to get back to my creative writing and the daily habit of it… I had to extract myself from my 7 days-per-week job. But then what? I hadn’t written anything new in a year (other than a few poems). I was frozen. I thought I had forgotten how to start something new or edit anything old.

Years of personal development have convinced me that I’m the only thing standing in my way… yet I still stand in my way. (well, duh, eating popcorn for dinner isn’t good for me, but if left to my own devices, that’s what I’d do)

What I failed to realize was that even though I was standing in my own way, it didn’t mean I couldn’t ask for help in pushing myself out of the way. I didn’t have to do it alone. It’s so easy to “suffer” through it all alone, because then I can be right. I can be a victim of circumstance and say See? This is the reason I can’t succeed… I’m stuck at this job and I don’t have any time because… blah, blah, blah.

I needed a little cosmic bitch-slapping.

So I started asking for help. Major help.

I read Pronoia, A New Earth, Love Made Visible, works by Pema Chodron and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and Anne of Green Gables. I cast soul cards and recorded dreams, I enlisted my friends, had psychic surgery and bio energy sessions, called the entities, angels, ancestors, and avatars. The big guns… Buddha, Krishna, Christ, Gaia (and Madam Pele when I was in Hawaii)… and a tonne of small furry animals as well.

One of my human helpers was the amazing Alanna Fero, who literally wrote the book on how to do what you love to do: Love Made Visible. I was armed, energized, and ready to dive in head first. Alanna helped me successfully resign from my soul-eating job and transition into something that better supported my writing life and my sanity.

…and still I resisted doing the thing I professed to love to do the most.

One day I was telling her all about how I had gone from one job to the other and it was still a bit crazy and although this job was way better than the old one and I was so grateful and now I had less stress and more time to work on the house and blah and blah but I just couldn’t focus on my writing right now except little blog posts and maybe I can start next month…

She said, There are 11,000 reasons why it can’t be done and none of them are true.

Darn. That’s what happens when you enlist helpers to really help you. They don’t let you get away with anything.

If anyone had said that to a much younger me, I would have gotten self-righteous and indignant. Now I know what real support, love, and compassion look like. One of my favourite lines from a lecture by Allen Ginsberg is I never learned so much as when I shut up and listened.

(BTW – If you tell your friends all the reasons it can’t be done and they nod and concur and tell you their own woes, then they are not supporting you.)

Alanna asked me how many script ideas I had. I laughed and told her, Enough for several lifetimes. She told me to pick one and start by Feb 1st.

So here I go, and you can come too. Whether you’re working on a screenplay or novel or something else entirely, the following exercises will help. This week is about pre-work to writing the thing. This is to get you ready to do the thing you profess to love to do the most. (And if you’re already one of those keeners who works on their novel every morning from 5:30 AM – 7:30 AM without fail, you may still be amused.)

Always remember the universe is on your side. Once you make a commitment to something with passion and persistence, everyone and everything will jump in to support you. That’s pronoia!

PRE-WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

1) Find a support system, a team of people who’ve got your back. You meet on a regular basis. They can be individuals, a small group, a paid professional.They hold you to your commitments and keep you on purpose.

I meet every week with two friends to go over challenges, successes, new goals, and support needed from each other. I just hooked up with another writer to meet once a month to critique and brainstorm. And I’ve got Alanna, who I’ve scheduled a total of 12 sessions with. Hiring a professional (life coach, career coach, etc) can be affective because they have no emotional attachment to you or your situation.

2) Take a long walk alone. Let your mind wander. Allow all your ideas and stories and characters and images float around in your brain. Decide on your next project before you get home. Make a mental commitment that when everything else seems more interesting and easier, you will stick with that project. Tell everyone on your team what you’re working on.

I took a walk this week and decided to work on a script of mine called The Van Goes. I call it my “Lttle Miss Sunshine.”

3) Buy a notebook and a bunch of your favoutie pens. This notebook is your brainstorming and exercise book for your story. Write the name of your story on the cover. Carry it with you everywhere. Any time you have 5 minutes (on the bus, waiting for a friend, etc), write your ideas down in it (I’ve suggested some start lines below). Do not edit, do not cross out, just write without stopping.

You can use the startlines below, write character lists (names, ages, descriptions, etc.), or write down what I call “moments.” That’s when a scene hits me and I’m not sure when it goes in the story, but I want to write it down. Scene when Chelle overhears Max getting a girl’s cell phone number and she feels like a bad mom because she can’t afford to get the family a cell phone.

4) Pull a page out of your notebook and write a letter to yourself that you will not open until you are done with your screenplay, novel, story, etc. In the letter congratulate yourself and give suggestions of how to celebrate. Tell yourself you knew you could do it, etc. If this seems cheesy, it totally is. But sometimes we forget to celebrate our successes and just keep going. Your team will also help you celebrate.

START LINES FOR STORY JOURNAL

If you find yourself stuck in front of a blank page, here are a few start lines you can try. Remember, write quickly without stopping and without editing. If you run out of things to say, write blah, blah, blah, i can’t think of anything to write about my character Susie because I’ve never known anyone like her… etc.

Also, I use conjunctions to connect ideas and use very little punctuation… keeps things flowing.

This is a story about… (forgiveness, forbidden love, jealousy, revenge…)

Before this story began, my protagonist…

When this story begins, my protagonist…

More than anything, my protagonist wants…

By the end of the story, my protagonist has learned…

What if… (always a good one, just lists when you get stuck on an answer… what if the twins find a kitten? what if Max wants a job? what if her father dies? and then when you strike something that resonates, riff on that for a while… Oh, yeah, Max not only wants a job, he wants to be emancipated and move in with this girlfriend…)

Feel free to mention the project you’ll be working on in the comments. Saying it out loud keeps you more committed to it.

Weekend Writing Workout – Trashing the Precious

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I recently quit my 24/7 job so I could focus on my writing and create more balance in my life.

Today I am cleaning and packing, contemplating what to trash, recycle, give away… Baby and I are renovating the lower portion of our home and moving downstairs. We’ve been living upstairs with a friend for over a year in a house we all bought together.

Right now it is snowing and the power is out so baby doesn’t electrocute himself while untangling some wires downstairs. I’m cleaning the upstairs bathroom by candlelight.

I only want to take downstairs what we need and/or want to bring into our new sacred space. We are creating a home, a place for us to work and play. I told Baby it would be our Zen Den of Love.

In the theme of letting go of the old and creating space for the new, I am challenging myself this weekend to let go of something precious. Throw it out, recycle it, give it away. The more precious the better.

When I moved to Vancouver from Seattle I gave away my favourite statue. A bronze and gold Buddha from Thailand. I gave it to a young kid who bought all my vinyl albums at our garage sale, including Free to be You and Me, that old childhood staple of the 70’s. Within a matter of minutes, all my records were gone and this object-reminder of my trip to Asia.

There’s something about releasing objects I’ve been holding onto. In Pronoia, Rob Brezny talks of the high he felt after tossing one of his most beloved talismans into the speeding jaguar of a woman who had just pissed him off on the freeway. He’s one up on me… I gave the kid my statue cuz I liked him.

In any case, as I clean and pack, I will ditch something precious and write that experience in my journal for my weekend workout.