Fire Up Your Brain

Here is a little creation story to fire up your brain.

Long ago, at the beginning of time, the Creator held a council with all of the animals he made.  He promised to give each animal a tail the next day.  The first animal to come to him would have his first choice of tail.  All the animals were excited, but none was more excited than Coyote.  He wanted to be the first to get a tail.  So Coyote built a fire and tried hard to stay awake all night.  But after many hours he fell sound asleep. At the first light of day the other animals awoke and went to the Creator to choose a tail.  Each one picked the tail he liked best.  Red squirrel chose a bushy tail.  Beaver chose a flat tail.  Rabbit chose a short, fluffy tail.  Every creature had a wonderful tail.  At last Coyote woke up and race as fast as he could to the Creator.  There was one beautiful tail left, and the Creator gave it to Coyote.  But Coyote was angry about sleeping late. He was angry that he didn't get to choose from among all of the tails.  He was so angry that he dragged his new beautiful tail through the coals of his fire, burning the hairs off of it.  And that is why Coyote has a skinny, ugly tail to this very day.  (Yurok folk tale)

I recently attended a conference in Telluride, CO.  It was called the Risk and Reward Conference. This was a high energy, thinking outside the box, the future is wide open kind of a conference.  I learned many techniques for generating ideas for my job as a librarian.  Of course they will help fire up your brain for all kinds of creative work.  I know they will help me as a writer, too.  If you are trying to do something creative and find that you are a little stuck, maybe these ideas will help you.

The Long List - Give yourself a short time limit, say 15 minutes, to list as many ideas about your question as you can.  You will probably come up with 10 or so right away but keep going.  Then they will become far-fetched, even silly or illegal.  Keep going. Try to get to 100 ideas.  Some of these will be gems you can work with.  Most of the good ones will be at number 80 or later.

Role Storming - We tend to filter our own ideas, immediately dismissing them as stupid.  This stifles creativity.  So instead, pretend you are someone else.  While in character, brain storm away!  No idea is stupid because hey, it's Yoda's idea, not your own.  You will be surprised at the unusual and really good ideas that will come out of your brain while you are not you.

The Opposite- Take a problem and think of a normal solution to it.  Now think of the compete opposite to that solution.  Would that work?  Why might it be even better?  You may come up with a very "outside the box" idea that will start you on a whole new adventure as a writer or artist.

These techniques can help you get past the block and get you creating again.  One idea leads to another, and you find yourself tweaking and combining ideas until something clicks for you.  The idea you choose will probably be quite different from the one you first came up with.

So now it is your turn to fire up your brain. Share your story! Please add a comment on this post to let me know if you used one of these creative techniques for your project.

Role Models

           “Alice,” ventured Phoebe.  “Do you think they mean to eat us?”

            Alice took in a deep, but filtered, breath and let it out slowly.  “Phoebe, I cannot say for certain, but I believe if they meant to eat us they’d have done it right away.”  She hoped with all her heart that it was true.  

            This is a scene from Parted Clouds, my novel for young readers. My characters, Alice and Phoebe, are in great danger at this point in the story. They rely on each other to keep their hope alive that Jack will come and rescue them and all will be well in the end.
             Alice had to take a deep, filtered breath.  As a writer, I used my own experience in this scene. I understand the need to take in a deep breath at a scary moment.  A filtered breath, filtering out discouragement, doubt, maybe even common sense.  Breathing in hope.  Hope is the belief that circumstances will get better even though there is no evidence to back it up. Hope keeps Alice and Phoebe from giving up, and helps them keep their wits about them.  Because they have hope they can imagine a future where everything is OK.
           There have been times in my life when I was breathing in all the wrong things. Fear, discouragement, doubt and an active imagination presented a future to me where everything was a mess.  When I decided that I wanted a different future I learned to take a filtered breath and allow myself to breathe in some hope.
            Emily Dickensen uses a bird as a metaphor for hope in her poem "Hope Is the Thing with Feathers".  The bird continues to sing even though it doesn't know the words and it is stuck in a raging storm that could smash it at any moment.  Sometimes we all feel like we are stuck in a raging storm. It takes courage to have hope. 
           Stories give us role models who show us how to respond to the storms we face.  Often without even realizing it, we emulate the best that we see in others, whether they are people we know or they are characters from books.  Stories help us become the best we can be. 

Making Things Fit

          "For Tom, the world was a very big place and everything in it was too big for him. At twelve years old Tom was only as tall as his father’s thumb. It was not likely that he would grow any taller. He couldn’t be sure, since he had no one to compare himself to.  He was unique, original, rare, the one and only.  He was a miniature human, complete in every detail."

          This is the opening of a story I am working on.  It has me thinking about how we relate to our world.  Things don't always fit.  We have to make them fit. We have resources and we organize them to accomplish things that we want to make happen.  Collectively, we have come a long way in the past century. We have learned to travel at high speeds, send messages across the world instantly, and heat a cup of soup without any fire.  It's a bit amazing. Personally, I am learning to use my time and resources better so I can write.

           My character, Tom, has to adapt his surroundings to meet his needs.  He re-purposes, engineers, crafts, and creates.  He discovers new uses for things.  If things are too big, he makes them fit. Every day is a challenge and an opportunity.

           It has been fun for me to see the kinds of things Tom comes up with as the story progresses.    That is the amazing process of writing.  I am using words, thoughts, images and ideas that I find in my world. None of them are new.  None of them really fit at first.  I have to tweak them.  I am re-purposing, crafting and creating a new story. 

What Is a Hero?

A hero is someone who takes a risk to help someone else.   He may risk getting hurt, losing friends, or losing something he wants.  A hero sees a need and makes a decision to do something about it without expecting anything for himself.  He might not want to at first.  He might be afraid.  He isn't perfect but that is OK.  A regular person with bad habits or weaknesses can be a hero when he takes action to help someone else.

I read a story about a boy who started a backpack drive to help kids who lost everything in a natural disaster in another part of the world.  He realized most of his friends had an old backpack they could spare, so he organized the drive.  He encouraged people to fill the backpack with things a child might need such as clothes, soap and toothbrushes.  The community pulled together and they made a difference.

In Parted Clouds, my novel for young readers, a boy takes a risk to help his cousins.  He goes into the wilderness with a search party to try to find them.  He is separated from the search party, and even though he has no survial experience, he finds a way to keep going until he succeeds.  He makes a few mistakes.  He gets cold and hungry.  But he never gives up.

Have you seen a hero in action?  Have you taken a risk yourself to help someone else? 

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What Really Matters

I believe in the power of story to get to the heart of what really matters.

Every day I see lives change for the better through stories.  We share stories about our day at the dinner table.  We love to tell our friends our stories.  Why do we do that?  It is because a story helps us feel what someone else has felt.  We like heroes!  We like adventures!  We like knowing that our choices matter.  That is the power of story.

So in this blog I write about personal experiences, stories I have read and stories I am writing.  I hope you will share your stories with me, too.  That's the heart of what really matters.