Category Archives: Ace Jordyn

What Color Should an Introvert Wear?

Ace Jordyn Living Deliberately Networking Self-Awareness The Writing Life Work-Life Balance No Comments

unnamedCrowds wear me out. As do conventions and even large meetings. At first, I thought I was an introvert but that didn’t always make sense because I like people and I like conventions. But they tired me out and so I searched for coping strategies. How could I even enjoy myself, let alone talk to anyone, especially agents and publishers, if I wasn’t on my game?

I embarked on a journey to find the perfect wardrobe- inside and out. Outside was easy – some interesting jewelry, clothes with a unique flare. Inside I needed to know if I was an introvert trying to maneuver in an extrovert world. Despite doing the research and planning for events, I found I still wore out easily and I began to suspect that it may not be about whether I was an introvert or an extrovert. How could it be? I’ve spoken in front of hundreds of people, given workshops and have been a guest speaker only to now find myself dreading crowds. I was getting tired everywhere, all the time – at meetings, critique groups, writing retreats and workshops. What was going on?

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) – that was the diagnosis. It crept slowly into my life stretching like a shadow on a lazy summer day, creeping until it melded with the dusk. It eroded my energy, my confidence and my ability to fully participate in events and conferences. Worse yet, it decreased my productivity because I tired easily. My greatest fear now wasn’t what color I should wear, it was about whether I’d have enough energy to maintain a productive and fulfilling writing life.

There is no known cause and there is no cure. One of the current theories is that the mitochondria (our cells’ power plants) aren’t functioning optimally. I’ve learned coping strategies to manage the symptoms and to reduce ‘flare ups’. Writing goals have been adjusted and are being met. I’ve learned to limit activities and to be more strategic about interactions. I’m managing it so it doesn’t manage me. It’s not perfect and I do suffer from over-exertion but I sometimes choose to do things knowing there will be consequences.

When it comes to my writing life now, to being at conferences or at workshops, I know what I need to do to function. Part of it is understanding that over stimulation is tiring, that there is only so much I can do and participate in and then I must rest. It’s manageable and if I’m careful with my energy, I can be as productive and outgoing as I want to be. As for what color to wear? It really doesn’t matter anymore. I know my limitations and whether I wear brighter colors or quieter ones, my confidence is back because I’m in control and I can pick my moments.

My apologies to fellow CFS sufferers because I don’t mean to minimize the effects of CFS or to imply that there’s a simple solution. This blog isn’t about coping strategies, management and symptoms. It’s about letting people know that sometimes when you feel like life is overwhelming and that you don’t have enough energy to do the things you want to or to even enjoy them, sometimes it’s important to step back and take stock. Ask those questions about physical and mental health, consider if you’re taking on too much, examine expectations – take charge so you can choose the colors you want to wear on any day so you can achieve your goals in your writing life.

Stillness – How Shall I Write Thee?

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Reflection Self-Awareness 1 Comment

Good fiction is life with all the boring bits taken out, not with all the hardship taken out.
Caro Clarke

Those ‘boring bits’ in life can be the most meaningful times yet it’s almost impossible to incorporate them into a story and hold a reader’s attention.

As writers, we are tasked to evoke emotion, to bring meaning through theme, to explore economic, political and social environments. Writing books and blogs tell us we need to delve deep into our characters to understand what formed his value systems, what motivates him and what he fears. Doing this creates characters in conflict and provenance for change.

In real life, change can come from moments of contemplation. During those moments we reflect, digest, and come to understand ourselves. It can be our impetus to change. Most often, I have found the deeper meaning in my life during the ‘boring bits’ like meditating or paying full attention to what I am doing like washing dishes or going for a walk. So how as a writer can I add these ‘boring bits’ in a meaningful way to my genre fiction? Where are those moments of stillness and contemplation in a novel, wherein a character takes time to contemplate and understand and is then compelled to act or change? How can we write it and still move the story along?

The act of reading requires active participation of the reader to turn pages or flick them across a screen. Interpretation, thought and emotion abound, thus the mind is never really still. There must be some way to bring a sense of stillness or contemplation to the page. How do we capture that moment when one contemplates a wonder of nature – a soaring bird, a beaver with a branch in its mouth, silently swimming past your still canoe, a gecko sunning itself or a cotton ball cloud morphing into a unicorn?

English Romantic Era writer William Wordsworth (1770-1850) captured such contemplations in poems and so masterfully conveyed his feelings that the reader is transported to the moment. Wordsworth’s simple moments became a contemplation of his life thereby revealing his emotions and what he values. His poem, To the Cuckoo is an excellent example of this:

TO THE CUCKOO
O blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessèd Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place;
That is fit home for Thee!

Although writing styles and language have changed, perhaps we can still learn something from writers like Wordsworth. Stillness begets contemplation which begets understanding of character or a change in thought. This can be a call to action or a justification not to act.

So maybe, just maybe, there is a way to capture stillness or contemplation in a way so that it isn’t a ‘boring bit’ or elusive like the butterfly.

How do you capture stillness or contemplation in your stories?

The Patience of Writing an Onion

Ace Jordyn Character Craft & Skills Editing First Drafts Rewriting Self-Awareness The Writing Process 2 Comments

Writing a good onion, I mean story, takes time and I don’t just mean the time to think and type the first draft. Becoming and being a writer is an evolution, a process, and we need to be patient with ourselves as we learn the craft and apply it. But what does being patient mean and how can we apply it in a meaningful way? Here are three areas where I’ve learned to apply patience:

Creating the story
One day, I heard one writer critique a story. “Sheila is a patient writer,” he said. I was dumbfounded. What did he mean? I read Sheila’s piece and then looked more carefully at the author’s I liked. Slowly, I figure it out and my writing improved immensely.

Patience in your writing means taking your time to explain things where and when they need to be explained. For example, a story which starts with a lot of back story tells of an impatient writer. Knowing when to sprinkle in the details and saving some of them for later takes patience. It also means taking the time to explain things clearly when the opportunity presents. That can be with setting, character description, with action or dialogue. If you are clearly grounded, then the reader will be as well. Take time developing that scene. Show the situation, the feelings, and focus on the important points and explain them as clearly as needed. Don’t rush it unless there’s a good reason for doing so. If you over-write, you can edit it down later. If you are patient with characters you will make them memorable. If you are patient with your story, you will ground your readers and hold their interest.

Learning new skills
You can’t learn everything from a book, a workshop, a conference or a course. The secret, I’ve learned, is to take one thing that stuck with you and apply it to your story, scene or character. That one thing is usually an aha! moment and because of that it means you’ve become aware of something you never realized before. It’s another layer in writing the perfect onion. Apply that new understanding to your work and suddenly it’s transformed in ways you couldn’t have imagined. The truth is that how-to books are long and cumbersome and workshops are intensive because they try to cover enough points so that everyone will get something from it. So, take one thing and apply it.

Deciding which hat not to wear
The first draft can never be perfect – you’ve heard this before but what does it really mean? If you strive for a perfect first draft, your story will never be written and it’s an impossible feat. It’s impossible to wear both the creative hat and the editor’s hats. Yes, plural hat for the editors.

There are three editorial hats: conceptual where the larger elements of the story such as plot and structure are examined; line by line where every sentence and word are examined for clarity, word choice and content; and copy editing for grammar, spelling and punctuation. Then there’s the creative hat. Wearing four hats? Suddenly that sounds silly, doesn’t it?

Your first draft can be augmented by some planning (outlining) and your current writing skills. As you’ll write, you’ll learn more up skills along the way which makes new works cleaner and more cohesive. But that first draft will never be a perfect finished work. Every successful writer knows that. Don’t believe me? Check out their acknowledgements pages. First readers, proof readers, editors – they’re all thanked because they’re all there for a reason. Creativity needs its own hat to weave unexpected twists and unfetter your imagination. The weight of four hats will give you a headache and ultimately, writer’s block. So be patient. Wear your creative hat and come up with an exciting, moving story. The wear each editorial hat in turn. As you wear each one, that’s a good time to apply new skills or insights about the craft. A trick is to have cheat sheets with points or questions for each of the editors.

Patience can best be described as creating an onion rather than peeling it back. Layer upon layer must be built before the story is completed to our satisfaction. So perhaps the hat analogy doesn’t really work. The creative and editing processes are about layering the story to add density to the concept, the plot, to character, to our voice and mastery of the craft. An onion grows from a small seed and layer by layer with watering and patience, it forms a solid bulb and so too grows a story.

A Happy Oddball

Ace Jordyn Self-Awareness The Writing Life No Comments

There was one thing worse in my life than suppressing a passion and that was accepting it only to discover that I was now an oddball.

Even as a child I knew I wanted to write. Sadly, there wasn’t any support for such an odd calling. I was supposed to choose a respectable and financially secure profession. I understand why my parents and community wanted that. Living on mixed farms (livestock, grain and vegetable farming) on the prairies, many parents, like my own, were second generation. Their parents (our grandparents) had emigrated from Eastern European countries which were in states of war, famine and other atrocities. Ingrained in their ideals was the need to make a better life for their children and future generations. Study hard. Graduate high school. Go to university or college and secure a good paying job. That was the mantra.

And I studied hard and went to university BUT I studied English and drama. Strike one. My first job was as a waitress and I still wanted to write. Strike two. Strike three never really came but I remained an enigma.

Despite living in a small university city, I never found the support to write that I needed. The style of writing which interested me wasn’t encouraged. In hindsight, I see that it was the literary style of writing and not genre writing that was being taught. Still feeling the oddball, I set myself on a journey to learn and understand the world and now my resume reads like a hodge-podge of job ads. I did a lot of cool things (and still do) and I’ve had many interesting experiences. Through it all, I never gave it up on my dream.

Then, a miracle happened. I moved to Calgary and this city has a very strong and active writing community. With my first novel in hand, I went to a meeting and said, “I’ve written 100,000 words and I don’t know what to do now.” The ensuing support brought tears to my eyes.

Acceptance. Support. Others who see the world as I do. Others who have the same issues and concerns. We laugh together. We help each other. We get through the tough times together. I am not a freak. I am someone with a cool talent. I can love myself now for what I like to do.

That is the gift and triumph of the writing community – it is acceptance and permission to love not only the craft but myself. The ghosts of the past now stay in the past. I love what I do and I love my writing community which spans continents. This is a phenomenal journey we are on and it is filled with many wonderful people.

There are many moments now that make me love being a writer. Every day I am grateful for my mentors and writing groups, to the wide world web for allowing our scattered community to be cohesive and most of all, I am grateful for all the wonderful people I meet on this journey. I may still be the enigma, the oddball to some, but I don’t care because I now inhabit a world where there are many more like me!