The Birth of Word Orienteering by Molly MacRae

I’m a slow writer. Not only do I like to have an outline for a novel or short story, which makes me a plotter, but I’m a plodder. I’m not complaining; the process works for me so I’m reasonably happy with it. 

I’m always on the lookout for smarter or better ways to work, though, and sometimes I dream of working faster. And sometimes I just like shiny new things. 

One of those shiny new things, new to me anyway, is word sprints. Sprints are timed bursts of focused writing that help you grow your word count—twenty minutes, half an hour, an hour of mad typing without distractions = words! 

I can see the merit in this method. The times I’ve sprinted, though, I spent so much time rewriting the sprinted words that I finished the day no farther ahead. I felt anxious, too. Maybe because I’d climbed out of my comfortable rut. Or is it possible I’m not a sprinter? If something I found on the Internet is true, about why sprinting works, then I’m probably not: “What slows you down is thinking through what you’re writing.” Well, rats. For me, part of the fun of writing is thinking it through as I go. 

I’m not irredeemably in a process rut, though. Recently, as I finished the last ten chapters of a book, I tried jogging instead of sprinting. I’d jog one day and walk the next. On jogging days, I expanded my detailed outline of a chapter with quick brushstrokes, convoluted or incomplete sentences, and by leaping over details that didn’t immediately come to mind. On walking days, I revised and polished. On walking days, I looked forward to jogging the next day as a freer form of writing. On jogging days, I looked forward to walking the next day to bring the writing into focus. I loved working like that. It was successful, too, because I turned the manuscript in three days early. Ta da! 

When I was a student at Edinburgh University back in the 70s, a student group I belonged to took part in an orienteering competition. Orienteering is a sport in which participants find their way, on foot, across unfamiliar rough country, often through deep woods, navigating between checkpoints with a map and compass. Fastest group wins. We didn’t win, but can you imagine legging it as fast as you can through a Scottish woodland with only a map and compass? We definitely did not sprint. At best we jogged and climbed and leapt over things. What a blast! We had no time to take in our surroundings, though. Just go, go, go. I would have loved to return the next day to identify the ferns, mosses, bird calls, and trees we’d passed. To smell the leaf mold. To look for squirrels, rabbits, or tiny fungi. Race through one day, walk and bring into focus the next—ideal. 

Word orienteering—the name for my new writing process! On day one, I’ll take my chapter outline (my map and compass) and I’ll dash off through the woods. 

I’ll leap over stumbling points, find my way to each checkpoint, and have the mad fun of going pell-mell. The next day I’ll go back along that raucous route, at a thoughtful stroll, and enjoy recording the details I missed. 

Writers, what new writing methods have you tried? Readers, what sports do you picture your favorite authors participating in?

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drowning in Idea Debt

by Linda Rodriguez

I have been reading about “idea debt.” This is an important concept that I had never given any thought to. This concept refers to the baggage we carry in our minds of all the old ideas and ambitions we had at one time, in which we've invested great energy and thought, that keep us from doing the new important things we want to do and should do, because they're stopping our energy and thought. I first heard about it from Sarah Swett and Beth Smith, two highly regarded fiber artists whom I respect greatly. They referred me to Jessica Abel's website, https://jessicaabel.com/, where she discusses idea debt in great detail.

Abel talks about the importance of going through and listing all of these old ideas and ambitions, in which we have invested so much, and deciding which ones we will let go, just discard and no longer pour our time and energy into them. She talks about the immense amount of creative energy and excitement that was freed up when she went through this step. I think it would be a good idea for me to go through this stuff, as well.

Abel also talks about developing systems to support and bolster your creative work, systems based on your individual mind and way of doing things. She is an award-winning cartoonist and graphic novelist (editor of the Best American Comics series for six years) and art professor, who teaches people to do their creative work by using tools that she has developed to help them make their work rather than simply dream about it. She has written the book, Growing Gills: How to Find Creative Focus When You’re Drowning in Your Daily Life, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07284HSHQ?tag=jessicaabel-20. She has a blog, https://jessicaabel.com/blog/, and a podcast, https://jessicaabel.com/podcast/, as well as lots of free advice and articles on her website.

Abel asks if imagining our future work is holding us back from creating the work we should be doing right now. She tells us we are doing too much thinking and too little making. Unfortunately, she is right. The term, “idea debt,” came from Kazu Kibuishi, a name for this struggle with creative sunk costs of energy, time, and passion. Kibuishi points out that “no matter what you do, it will never be as great as it is in your mind. So you’re really setting yourself up for failure in some ways.”

As Abel points out, this huge amount of idea debt not only sets the artist up for failure on this great dream of a project, but also robs him/her of the energy, drive, and passion needed to create the project that s/he wants to create right now. As Abel explains it, “Idea debt is when you spend too much time picturing what a project is going to be like, too much time thinking about how awesome it will be to have this thing done and in the world, too much time imagining how cool you will look, how in demand you’ll be, how much money you’ll make. And way too little time actually making the thing.” Sound familiar to anyone?

According to Abel, “Avoiding idea debt is about acting before you think too much and get overwhelmed by how hard and how important your project feels.” If you're willing to ignore your fears and shortcomings and just keep on moving ahead, she says, you will eventually bridge the gap between now-you and future-you. But when you carry idea debt for too long and your life moves on, it becomes a weight hanging around your neck and keeping you from moving ahead into the projects that your creative vision of now needs you to explore. It's only too easy to become weighed down by old ideas that hold you back from creating the fresh new work that you as an artist need to be making.

We grow up. We change. We learn. One day, those old ideas that were once so exciting and fascinated are no longer useful to us. As writers, we know that ideas themselves are a dime a dozen. It's always what you invest in them and what you do with them that makes anything worthwhile. I myself have more ideas, that I've been listing in journals and notebooks for years, than I could ever develop if I live for another hundred years. According to Abel, if I kick those old ideas to the curb, I will regain huge amounts of psychic energy and imaginative drive. I think maybe it's time for me to go through those old ideas and be ruthless, weeding out everything that I've truly outgrown, anything that gives me any hint of a pause, trying to cut them down as drastically as possible. We'll see if that doesn't give me new drive and energy to focus on the projects that I want to focus on right now.

What do you think about the concept of idea debt? Are you carrying around old ideas and fantastic goals that are robbing you of energy and drive that you could use currently?

Linda Rodriguez's 11th book, Fishy Business: The Fifth Guppy Anthology (edited), was recently published. Dark Sister: Poems is her 10^th book and was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited, were published in 2017.  Every Family Doubt, her fourth mystery featuring Cherokee detective, Skeet Bannion, and Revising the Character-Driven Novel will be published in 2020. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, Every Last Secret—and earlier books of poetry—Skin Hunger and Heart's Migration—have received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Learn more about her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com