Disconnect and Feel Your Creativity

In today’s A to Z challenge, “D” is for Disconnect.

Writers are involved in social networking, including this blog challenge, to gain connections. We uphold the concept of connectedness to improve our lives. We anticipate networking will help us gain more knowledge, send our own messages to a larger audience, reach or validate our personal goals.

We may reach some or all of those goals, but also very likely we will gain increased stress and demands on our limited time.

For writers, stress and more work equate to less creativity. 

Unfortunately, most of us at one point fear taking time to disconnect from our continual stream of networking. We fear we will: miss out on the next big idea; be left out; become unpopular; not discover a great path to get our writing to readers; not build a large enough platform to suit a potential publisher/agent; not sell our books. We each hear these voices chasing us back onto the treadmill. 

We lose valuable time maintaining our connections on social media sites. But, much more importantly, in the time leftover, our brains do not immediately let go and relax into free-flowing creative thought. So while our primary love is channeling imagination to paper, networking, intended to let our creative voices sing, can easily over-stimulate and destroy our art.

I’ve been guilty. I found myself with time to write, a great outline in front of me I was excited about, but couldn’t connect one idea to the next with any three-dimensional style. Not writer’s block…more like writer’s inertia or writer's barricade, which I couldn’t hurdle until I disconnected.

Where did I write this post? Scribbled longhand at the beach. No internet at all. Only a cell phone in case my elderly mother had an emergency. I wrote page after page and visualized dozens of amazing plot developments. 

Sand brushes off my notebook much easier than my mind relaxes after a run on the networking treadmill.

(On Thursday, I’ll post some pictures of the beach I'm at—Fort DeSoto for “F” day.)

Disconnect. How do you do it? Or how should you do it?

Which social media do you open first?

(I almost added “in the morning” to the above question, but I may have a few readers outside the publishing world who do not network while they do most everything else.) 

I confess to being a Tweet-aholic! Virtually every morning I open my Tweetdeck, followed by two email accounts, Facebook, then peek at a handful of Yahoo loops, Linked In, Ning groups, and Goodreads groups. I can’t say when it happened, but somewhere in the past year I found, for the time I had available, the short reads of Twitter give me many more connections, more instruction, more helpful information, and more breaking news. An important plus over FB is that with fewer graphics, it feeds faster. Shorter posts allow me to read more and scroll less. Time efficient. Also, the concise 140 characters, which once frustrated me, keeps my mind from being as cluttered with excess baggage. If I want to know more, I can choose whether to click on the available link.

Recently I’ve discovered a terrific new organizational tool which makes my link surfing, from any media source, even easier. I always run onto a couple great blog posts I want to spend more time with on the one or two days each week I dedicate more time to social media. Instapaper.com allows me to save the link with one click. Simply sign up for a free account and drag the “Read Later” icon into your bookmarks. When you come onto that post to save, click on the “Read Later” in your favorites. One click—really that easy. Instapaper.com also offers the ability to create files to sort those links.

Some people enjoy networking more than others. But, if we intend to get other things done, devices that make networking quicker are a plus. If my Tweetdeck doesn’t operate, it’s not a good day. Being able to use one screen to glance across the last few minutes to hour of posts in a dozen friend categories or key word searches is something FB cannot match.

Do you use any apps of services that speed your networking? Please share.

And…which social media do you open first (in the morning)?

How do I form a good ending for my novel?

As I brought a recent work-in-progress to closure, I gave some extra thought to what makes a good ending. I’m a plotter and plan the basic action of the ending before I begin writing, but there is always an element I cannot grasp until the characters take shape, grow, and interact with each other. The emotional atmosphere of the ending is what I cannot perceive until well into the book. As I reach near the midpoint, I start running through this checklist to help me craft an ending that captures the correct nuances.

•  Tie up all the loose ends.

I make a list of all the issues which need to be resolved in the main plot and subplots. The core questions posed to the main characters at the opening must be answered, coming full circle. Don’t slam on the brakes immediately after the momentum of action is at its height. Take time to address them all or the ending will feel rushed and the reader left unsatisfied.

• Resolve dilemmas with the most important last.

This builds tension to that final moment, withholding what the reader most wants to know. I purposely bring closure to subplots first, ranking them least important to most, before I address resolution of main conflicts.

• Converge all major internal and external conflicts together.

Once the subplot conflicts are out of the way, orchestrating a big firework show at the end to resolve the big issues makes a powerful and memorable ending. Have you ever read a novel and a month later couldn’t remember its ending? Sadly, I have and felt cheated.

• Leave the reader in suspense right up to the final moments.

I like endings with a twist, an unexpected element a reader cannot guess until the very last couple of sentences.

• If the book is part of a series, what needs to remain dangling that will make the reader yearn for the next volume?

This is tricky, since it cannot be one of the core questions posed to the main characters in the beginning of the book. Those must be resolved in this volume for the reader to feel satisfied. At this point, the main characters are allowed a breath, without immediate danger on their heels. They are at a point where there is time for them to rest and dwell upon discoveries made along their journeys, bits of information which can build into a new set of problems later.

• The final note of resolution and release needs to have a touch of lyricism.

We use care to select our words and sentences to hook the reader in the opening. A well-crafted ending leaves a lingering impression, to satisfy and draw the reader back for more of our writings.

What elements are most essential in your ending? Do you clearly know your ending early in your writing process, or pose several when you reach the climax?