Embracing Change and Fueling Creativity
As I paid for my coffee at the library cafe a few weeks ago, I checked the nearby sale shelf. Nearly buried among a collection of knick-knacks was a small box titled Cards to Inspire. My interest piqued, I read the fine print.: 52 cards to kick start your day and ignite your imagination. I decided it was worth the ten-dollar (sale) price to find out what gems of wisdom were hidden inside.
I pulled my first card this week.
It felt particularly appropriate, as the manuscript that landed me in the 2015 SCBWI Nevada Mentor Program, in which I was mentored by New York Times-bestselling author Veronica Rossi and paired with my co-mentee and now writing confidante, began with the main character awakening from a dream (or at least, what he believed was a dream).
Over the following nine months, I worked with Veronica to revise the manuscript, which was an incredible learning experience. One of the more challenging lessons I received, though, came from an agent who had volunteered to read the first few pages of our manuscripts. When my appointed time came, I sat down in front of the agent, eagerly awaiting her encouragement, and — I hoped — praise. But instead, the first words out of her mouth were, “Never begin your story with a dream.”
I wanted to justify my opening scene, to insist that my story was different, that this character simply had to wake up from a dream at the outset of the book….but none of these arguments would change the fact that agents and publishers shy away from books that begin with dreams, at least according to this agent. She explained that beginning with a dream, an abstract scene taking place in a character’s mind, provides no grounding for the reader to understand the story world or the character’s place in it.
After feeling stymied about making the change, I finally took a deep breath, dug in and came up with a new approach. It worked better than the original beginning and offered more insight into the main character and setting, just like the agent said it would. To succeed with my revision, I’d needed to believe I could create something fresh and more effective.
To me, the Inspire card’s message was a valuable reminder of this experience and good advice more broadly on all three points.
Dream: Hold on to your creative vision, embrace big ideas and shoot for the stars.
Breathe: Relax and take the time to absorb critiques and feedback, even when they aren’t what you want to hear.
Believe: If you are frustrated, or having a less-than-productive day, trust yourself to keep making forward motion (even small steps) toward your goal and do things that help fuel your creativity.
On a related note, I’m finding inspiration this week as well from Stephen King’s On Writing, which I am finally reading after years of good intentions. Today, I read a section that concluded with this wisdom:
It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.
King’s words are yet another reminder to fill our creative wells by reading, walking outdoors, watching movies, experiencing art and more. The better input we give ourselves, the better output we will create. And deep wells of creativity will give us the ideas and resources we need to reenvision our work when necessary.
Thanks to the Inspire cards and Stephen King for this inspiration!