Tag: Story Help

The Writer’s Retreat

May 21, 2012April 27, 2020by Ashley OkimotoLeave a comment

Those of you who know me (and know my writing style) probably know that I am slightly obsessed with the ocean. It’s almost borderline unhealthy, considering how often it shows up in my writing. The funny thing is, I can’t exactly put my finger on what about it provides me with so much inspiration. Maybe it was my San Diego upbringing, my love of all things blue, or my surfboard toting father. Who knows where it came from, all I can say is I truly love everything about it (except Sea World…I hate Sea World with an unbridled passion). In fact, I probably have about four pending, half written stories about the ocean in my draft folder right now waiting to make their way onto the blog.

I may live mere blocks from the Los Angeles shoreline, but I was jumping up and down (literally) when the opportunity to spend a weekend in Laguna Beach crossed my desk. Three days and two nights in an oceanfront resort with nothing but my thoughts, my half finished novel and the sound of crashing waves to lull me to sleep. A finer opportunity there is not, my friends. There is nothing more relaxing than the sound of crashing waves, the sight of the setting sun and the smell of salt in the air. My fingers are itching to type just thinking about it.

Morning coffee served with a side of inspiration, please! Lucky for me, that’s exactly what I received this past weekend at my self-proclaimed writer’s retreat at the Pacific Edge Hotel, in Laguna Beach.

It was the perfect place to relax, alone with my thoughts and my laptop – ready to tackle the half finished novel that has been haunting me for the past year and a half. Every few weeks, I find myself pulling out the trusty hard copy of my novel that I keep next to my bed (lest I find myself in the throws of total inspiration in the middle of the night). I never get very far, to be honest. My inspiration has been lackluster (at best) as of late, but rather than dwelling on how I am lacking in inspiration these days, I thought I would make a list of things that have inspired me most.

The Ocean…duh.

Music: Every note, every word. A heartbreaking chord or a breathtaking lyric, music so aptly defines the human condition. It expresses emotion, but it also keeps time for us (literally and metaphorically, I guess). It documents our history and tells a story that is simply inexpressible in any other format. My friends make fun of me because I love to listen to sad music. Trust me, it’s not because I’m depressed. It’s because I am so deeply humbled and awed by the raw power and creativity behind a piece that can move me emotionally in just three minutes and forty seconds. I can only hope that one day, people will relate to my work the way I have related to the many musicians who have inspired me along the way.

People Watching: An amazing professor once told me that every writer is kind of crazy. I fully relate. What other profession requires that you put yourself into the mind of multiple characters at the same time? When else do you have occasion to fully immerse yourself in someone else’s life? The stories we tell may stem from our creativity, or our own personal experience, but the characters we portray come from the world we see. I love sitting at a cafe and just watching people. Yes, I will admit I even listen in on conversations from time to time. It’s too easy and way too much fun. Plus, over the years I’ve learned a lot of very valuable lessons on how different people react in different situations. I like to believe I’ve even learned how some minds think, process and feel. We’re all different. Put ten people into one situation and you will probably have ten different outcomes (or at the very least ten different versions of what happened). It’s why eye witness accounts are so unreliable. It’s why stories pack such a punch. We are all different, but we’re all striving for a shared human existence and experience. We just want to relate to one another.

In the car: It’s another one I can’t explain. I get all of my best ideas when I’m on the freeway, most likely because I have so much time to think.

That’s the thing about inspiration… it can be a total ass. It’ll show up when you least expect it and will almost never answer your strained and desperate calls.

*For more pictures from my fabulous weekend getaway, follow me on Instagram at @ashalafaly.

Workshop in Dialogue

March 2, 2012April 27, 2020by Ashley Okimoto1 Comment

I know I may instantly regret saying this, but I miss grad school. Crazy, right? I don’t miss the late nights, the endless homework assignments, the studying until I drove myself into an insane, slightly neurotic state (from which I have still not totally recovered more than a year later). I don’t miss the constant presentations and the anxiety they brought on and I don’t miss weekends filled with homework (or the dread of having to do ALL of my homework Sunday night because I avoided it all weekend). I do, however, miss spending so much time with the amazing friends I made (p.s. – to those of you out there reading this, let’s hang out soon) and I miss the writing it forced me to do.

Sometimes it’s insanely hard for me to stay motivated when there’s not a solid deadline looming in the background. The fear of a bad grade could always snap me into focus as well. I won’t lie, I’m a super over-achiever when it comes to graded work. My writing partner and I have been working on multiple scripts for multiple years and haven’t had much success in finishing or polishing them, most likely due to our lack of a solid deadline (we were both great in churning out beautiful scripts on tight deadlines during undergrad). To be honest, I produced fun pieces during my master’s program that I forgot I even wrote. Below is an example. I can tell you one thing – I know I wrote it during a summer session Dialogue Workshop. It was probably the second, maybe third assignment that term. I can even remember the prompt: “Write a dialogue between two characters in which they are both describing an object in front of them. You (as the author) should know what the object actually is. Your characters should not know what the object is. Do not reveal the object identity to the reader.”

And…write.

I can’t for the life of me remember actually writing this. It’s so funny how that works. There are pieces from grad school that I wrote that I practically have memorized. Pieces from high school that I can almost remember word for word. But this, something I wrote less than two years ago, doesn’t even warrant a small register in my memory. In the end, it’s actually kind of fun not remembering. I can discover new things to read on my laptop without having to buy something. The best part of this piece is – I can’t remember what the “object” is. Feel free to take a look and if you can figure out what I was describing…well you’d be my hero.

“It’s pretty heavy,” Martin said.
“Heavy and awkward,” said Julie.
“Awkward?”
“You can’t use it for anything.”
“You could use it as a doorstop.”
“A doorstop?”
“It’s heavy enough.”
“It’s too colorful to be a doorstop.”
“Doorstops can’t be colorful?”
“It’s not a doorstop. Look at all the eyes.”
“There are a lot of eyes.”
“Exactly.”
“Sad eyes,” he said.
“Sad eyes?” She asked.
“Very sad.”
“I think they look kind of happy.”
“Sad and empty.”
“Sad and empty?”
“Shallow even.”
“Explain.”
“Look at this one; it’s all grey and depressing,” he said
“Again, I would like to show you the colorful ones over here,” she said.
“And color equals happy?”
“Naturally.”
“What’s with you and colors today?”
“What is with you and doorstops?”
“Doorstop was a legitimate option.”
“Can you be serious for two seconds?”
“I am being serious.”
“You are not,” Julie said.
“I’m deadly,” said Martin.
“Excuse me?”
“Deadly serious.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“You’re just jealous.”
“Of what?”
“My genius.”
“Because doorstop was such a brilliant idea?”
“Obviously.”
“Can we stop talking about the doorstop, please?”
“You’re the one that keeps bringing it up.”

Writer’s Block

January 6, 2012April 27, 2020by Ashley OkimotoLeave a comment

Great. Five days into 2012 and I’m sick. And not just suffer through it sick, but go home from work and take the longest nap of my life sick. Okay so maybe it wasn’t the longest nap of my life, but you get where I’m going with this, right? Basically my head feels like it’s about to explode, my throat is swelling shut and exercising my creative side seems almost as hard as running a marathon. On the flip side, I promised myself I would write creatively once a day in 2012 so instead of working on my novel or screenplay (that makes way too much sense and procrastination is my secret key to success) I’m trying my hand at discussing writer’s block.

No matter what way you look at it, writer’s block absolutely blows. For me, it manifests in a strangely physical way. My fingers start to hurt. I sit in front of my blank computer screen, wanting nothing more than to start typing, but when no words start to flow, my fingers physically begin to ache. Not cool. Eventually my head begins to hurt and I start thinking that if I don’t clean my closet out in this exact moment, I might actually explode (see – procrastination rears its ugly head again). I will say this – my apartment is never cleaner than on the days I have intense writer’s block.

Even this randomly rambling post is an attempt to feel just a tad bit better about the fact that I’ve been completely stuck on the same paragraph in a chapter of my novel for the past three days. Chores are helpful, but I find that writing is the best way to overcome writer’s block. Even if the writing is just a little sub-par (editing, re-editing and editing again later is a girl’s best friend).

We all know the adage – getting started is often the most difficult part. So for those of you who may be interested in pushing yourself just a little harder or want to hurl yourself over the mountain of nerves staring you down and making you feel like you can’t put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard?) to start the writing process, I have put together a short list of guides who have helped me over the years:

Imitation is the Most Sincere Form of Flattery:

Sometimes finding that jumping off point can be awful. If your mind is as blank as your computer screen, where do you pull the inspiration for a new piece? I’ve found that trying to imitate another author’s style can be helpful. It will also help you decide what you do and don’t like about your own writing. Is this author’s style similar to your own or completely opposite? If it’s similar – great! Be inspired and write away! If it’s dissimilar, push yourself to try to write something in that style anyway. What can it hurt? By the end of the exercise you’ll either have something totally unique and completely outside of your comfort zone or a new view on your own style of writing. I suggest starting small. Work with short fiction or poetry that can be confined to a page – two pages at the absolute max! Read another author’s work and then play with the style, the themes, the characters. How would you have written the piece? Can you imagine continuing the story using the same characters? Can you write on a completely different subject using the same style or rhyme scheme. Try some of the following for help –

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton UP, 1993.

Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories. W.W. Norton & Co., 1992.

You Have Time for This: Contemporary American Short-Short Stories. Oologan, 2007.

Exercise Prompts:

Self-explanatory, right? If you’re looking for a good book of exercises to start with – check out:

The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction. Writer’s Digest Books, 2005.

Read:

The most obvious, but I think it can never be said enough. Looking for inspiration? Read as much as you possibly can! When I come across a phrase or sentence that moves me it absolutely motivates me to write on my own. I can’t stress enough the importance of reading as much as you possibly can to help influence and drive you in your own writing endeavors.

So here I am – one post further into my goal for 2012 and no closer to moving past that paragraph of my novel that’s been haunting me for days. Alas, I do not fret, my friends. Another 2012 goal is to finish the novel by the end of the year and as great as I am with procrastinating, I’m even better under a solid deadline.