Writing With The Door Open

The open door!

Ok, in the last post I talked about writing with the door closed – bliss, painless, no judgement from anyone – not even your inner critique, if you’re very lucky.

With the door closed, your work is not open to an onslaught of the judgment from your critiques. But in the second draft, you are preparing to show your manuscript to whomever will be critiquing it, therefore the second draft needs to be written with the door open.

The magnificent book, “On Writing” by Stephen King, describes writing the first draft with the door closed and the second with the door open brilliantly. If you haven’t read that book I highly recommend you do. In an ideal world it should be compulsory for anyone putting pen to paper or finger to keypad to study that Stephen's book.

Opening that door can be a painful process. Opening the door means that you, the author, are open to criticism. Opening that door means many great lines will be slaughtered by the delete button. Lines that you thought were brilliant in the first draft suddenly wither beneath the scrutiny of the second draft.

And if they don’t disappear with the help of the delete button, you can be sure that they will after you receive some critiquing process.

At the end of the day, if you are serious about being published, then you are going to have to write the second draft with the door open and know that in time you must hand your baby over to the critiques, no matter who they are.

It is said that to write a book one must have determination for the First draft. An eye for detail in the 2nd. True creativity in the 3rd. Ability to distance yourself in the 4th. And last, but by no means least – a bloody thick skin for the 5th.

And that’s if you’re lucky enough to get there in just 5 drafts.

To conclude then – there comes a time one must open the door and just let go.

With a smile

Ita x

Writing With The Door Cloosed.

Stephan King, in his amazing book “On Writing” said that we must write first with the door closed before writing with the door open.

As a writer battling with Dyslexia, I would like to elaborate on that a little more.

For now, I will focus on writing with the door closed and cover writing with the door open in the next post.

What the great King of writing is referring to keeping ones writing clear from the opinion of others when it is not developed enough for even your closest friends to cast an eye upon. Unless you are a very-polished writer - the first drafts are usually little more than a creative scribble of the story outline. Remember - the first drafts are just the seeds of what will eventually be a great novel.

It would be ludicrous to take a friend out into the garden and say, “look at the fantastic seed I’ve sown that will be a magnificent oak tree in a few years,” and yet, without realizing it, that’s exactly what we do with our book if we produce it for the opinions of others during early drafts.

The first draft is for creativity and creativity only. And the first draft is definitely NOT the place for the intellectual left side of the brain to throw in it’s sixpence worth.

This is where I ran into trouble. I allowed the intellectual left side of the brain to edit every word the creative side was trying to relay, as I was writing it. I combed over every line, every paragraph, constantly looking for mistakes. I now realized I did this because of my neurosis over being dyslexic.

Can you imagine the dilemma – the conversation – the craziness of it as right brain and left-brain both tried simultaneously to control of the work at hand?

I was paralyzing my creative flow by being obsessed that there would be mistakes that I would not spot.

This led me to realize that it’s not just other people we need to keep the door shut on while working our first drafts – it’s also our critical mind we needs to be shut out.

How can do we do this?

I now have the following little statement carved on timber and placed where I can see it at all times.

“First Draft: Don’t get it right - Get it written!”

This helps me focus on allowing the creative energy flow and leave the critical intellectual side of the brain until the editing drafts, which is where it belongs.

With a smile
Ita x

So You Think You Have Nothing To Write About!

So You Think You Have Nothing To Write About – Think Again!




I hate negativity, I really do, and I make no apologies for avoiding negative people like the plague. When I see the black cloud descending, I leg-it!
But as much as I hate negativity in other people, I absolutely loath it in myself. And, as a writer, I found that negativity – the daemon it is – has the audacity to voice its unwanted opinions about my chosen profession from time to time.

On one particular occasion, the detrimental whispers were suggesting that I had nothing to write about. Imagine – me – the mouth of the south with nothing to say! I think not!
But it serves to prove just how powerful the voice of negativity can be when it gets a hold. Indeed, if you give the infernal wagon an inch and it will run a 26mile marathon on you. Within seconds, I had an appalling list of detrimental thoughts throwing in their sixpence worth:

What was I going to write about? Who was I to think I had anything worth saying to anyone? What had I done in my life that was worth talking about? Where were my ideas for articles, books, columns, going to come from?
And it went on, and on, and on. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, then fear rose its ugly head to say hello – plunging me into a downward spiral of misery and despair.

It stopped me dead in my tracks, but thankfully, I had experience with the said daemon.

I have learned that when negative carp starts I need to devise a plan, and rapidly, otherwise I end up in the YO-OH-ME mode. Yo-oh-me leaves me, all alone in my canoe, (metaphorically speaking) the weight of the world firmly planted on my shoulders as I row down the Amazon through a dense fog singing yo-oh-me, yo-oh-me: its haunting echo lasting longer than my image as I disappear into the mist with no hope of ever returning.

I went for a walk to rid myself of the despondency that was settling in.

20 minutes later - eureka – I would write a list, a HUGE list of things that had happened to me in my life. Draw from the University of Life was my plan. Excitement replaced negativity as I realized writing down endless things I had experienced in my life would have a double whammy. One, it was going to kick the notion that I was ever going to run out of things to write about firmly in the butt, and two, I could use it when I was editing. Yes, I said editing, I'll explain in a minute.

The List - Things I can write about:
Being a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a wife, a lover, a teenager, giving birth, post natal depression, pmt, christenings, communions, conformations, debs, weddings, grief, betrayal, first day at work, playschools, primary school – to third level, football, sons, daughters, dyslexia, buying a house, building a house, decorating, housework, painting, writing, eating disorders, weight watchers, exercise, living in the country, trips to the city, holidays, faith, shopping, fear, mothers day, fathers day, flowers, my love of candles and music, etc, etc, etc.

Then I broke my list down into particular memories under each heading. I now have a folder on my laptop where I write memories and ideas for stories, and it’s growing all the time. This also helps to keep the head clear. And not only that – when I am editing, I look at each chapter and at the list to where I experienced something similar in my life – connect with the emotions I felt at the time and then rewrite from the heart. When you write from the heart it’s far more powerful!

I highly recommend everyone spend time developing a list for when negativity, or writers block, comes knocking on the door!

With a smile

Ita x

Back-Up

As writers, there are things we have to pay serious attention to outside of our writing and one of them is backup.

It’s too late when the computer crashes to start thinking about backing up your work.

Personally I use a USB pen to backup when I finish each session, and then at the end of every day I use the Click-free.

It’s idiot proof, which suits me. You simply plug it in and it gets to work. And it backs up everything from emails to software.

Honestly I kid you not – it’s plug in and go. Available worldwide. I got mine in Back To The Future in Dublin after watching a demonstration on it on Ireland AM on TV3.

I just can’t recommend it highly enough – and no, I don’t get any commission. But what I do get is peace of mind, which of course is priceless!

With a smile
Ita x

A Few Things You Don't Know About Me (Maybe!)

Following in the footsteps of Catherine Caffeinated  – a blog I torridly enjoy – here are five things you may not know about me. Catherine covered ten things in her blog but I am gong to drop in a few things from time to time so you can get to know me a bit better.

• I am so dyslexic that I am beginning to believe that when the Good Lord was putting me together He got my bits all mixed up and somehow managed to connect my retina to my rectum instead of my brain and that’s why everything I see looks like crap. Well, between words in it that shouldn't be there, and words missing that should be there - it really is crap!

• My name is Ita, and it is pronounced I-TA, and NOT E-ta! I actually hate being called Eta. Why? Simple - when I was a kid, Stuttering Johnny, as I use to call him, (but never to his face) always jeered me when I was eating. He use to say, "E-E-E-E-E-ta’s e-e-eating again." Thus,thanks to Stuttering Johnny and a few more like him, my phobis about weight started young! Oh but revenge is sweet, says the writer – even all these years later! And my daughter has just informed me that I should have stood up and told him that there are 10,000 Ita’s up in the Himalayas and that I would send them all down after him if he did't call me my right name! There really is a Tribe of 10,000 Ita’s in the Himalayas by the way. I saw a documentary about them on the TV one night and I fell around the place laughing. I had always reckoned there was only one Ita. My poor husband nearly passed out - it was all too much for him!


• It takes me so long to read the newspaper because of my dyslexia that by the time I’m done the ink has nearly faded off it. Honest, I kid you not!

• I love PMA Books. That’s Positive Mental Attitude by the way. One day on Facebook, I said that I loved PMT books. And no, I was not reading Pre-Menstrual-Tension books! It was my bloody dyslexia again. I didn’t spot it until ages after. It pops up everywhere that dyslexia!
But seriously, I really do love positive books. I use to read True Detective years ago but ended up so afraid when I had to stay in the house on my own at night that I wouldn’t turn the lights off. So I left them down and never took them up again.

• My favourite food is seafood. EVERY FOOD I SEE, that is! And I have joined Weight Watchers so many times I was nicknamed the Shape Shifter and The Accordion. And no, it wasn’t by anyone in Weight Watchers – it’s a story all unto itself, so I’ll fill you in on all that some other time.

• I am absolutely addicted to Grey’s Anatomy. My family know when it’s on that unless someone is dead I am not to be disturbed. And if someone isn’t dead when they disturb me – I have made it very clear that someone will be dead five minutes after they interrupt my viewing!


Ok,that’s it until the next time.

With a smile
Ita x

The Princess & The Frog

It's midterm brake for school children, and the weather’s to be lousy, so were off to see The Princess and The Frog tomorrow. We being, my daughter Nicole, and one of her BFFs, Róisín.
Girls day out, and as a rule, most enjoyable.

I don’t have a lot of details on it. I know it’s Disney and Oprah Winfrey does the voice over for Tiana’s Mother so that was enough to get me buying the tickets.

I admit I am looking forward to it as much as the girls. From the clips we’ve seen it’s obvious the storyline is great and the music beautiful, as always with Disney.

Isn’t it amazing that as a writer you see films as great works of writing first. For those who don’t write they see the graphics or sound effects in the film.

Ideas always seem to dawn on me when I am in the cinema with the girls. I don’t know if it’s that I am not in a position to write or that I am relaxed and watching children’s films that spark the inspiration. This time I am going prepared with a notebook and pen. Even if I only get to scribble down one-liners, it will be worth it.

I will fill you in on how it goes at a later date.

With a smile
Ita x