About Writing






Home 

About Us

Poetry

Screenplay Writing

About Writing

Viginettes of Australia

Articles

Skite Page

Favorite Links

Go Shopping

Contact Page

Sign Our Guest Book

Photo Page

Slide Show

Photo2 Page

Photo3 Page

Photo4 Page

Photo5 Page

Photo6 Page

  


About Writing


Nurturing Your Creative Self


We are a songwriting, screenwriting, authoring couple, We like to work together and we find that working together sharpens our writing skills.

Each of us has skills that compliments the other's skills. Though that is not why we work together. We work together because that is how we like to work. For us it is fun!

Spiro is an accomplished musician, composer, writer and poet. Cheryl is a poet, author, lyricist.

Living a creative life is what we planned to do and it is what we love doing.

Sometimes, our batteries just run flat. Creating is a giving of yourself, a using of your energy, and so we have devised some way to keep ourselves from running empty and to nurture our creative selves.

1)Read for fun. read something silly or ridiculous, Ogden Nash's poetry is just wonderful or perhaps Mad Magazine is more your style.
Read a really well written novel. Don't autopsy it Just enjoy it!
Thumb through a dictionary or thesaurus. Fijnd silly weird and wonderful words. This helps to give us back some words. Writers give words away all the time so reading gives us some back and reminds us what writing's about. Enjoyment!

2) Play. We literally mean play like a child. We go to the playground and play on the swings, the slide, anything. Kick a ball around. Playing is what life is all about, having fun, enjoying this big old world. Play "Go Fish" "snap" or "Old Maid"

3) Visit Art galleries. What a wonderful way to recharge the creative batteries to view beautiful paintings and get lost in them. Don't hurry through to see all the paintings take a seat, no seats? Sit on the floor, and just gaze at the painting, absorb it as if by osmosis. This lets us soak in some of the artists creativity, we are all artists, whether we play a guitar or write or swing a paint brush.

4) Spend time with our favourite people. Just hanging out with our very favourite people brings us back to the really important things in life, good conversation a simple meal, friendships, children and laughter.

5) listen to music. We listen to all kinds of music to recharge our batteries, music from our teens like The Eagles, Meatloaf, Dragon. Music from the classics, Mozart, Beethoven etc, contemporary music
and new young garage bands, they have such energy and drive if not the experience.

6) Share your art with another person. Spiro likes to jam with a young player, a kid who is dreaming of making it big, just let them take the lead encourage them and think about their playing, takes the pressure off your playing, returns you to that part of you that is still that kid with your first instrument. Writers could take a young person or a group of young people under wing via the local youth centre or library and teach them about writing, and visiual artists could do the same with their art. When we share our art it grows.

7) Relax, throw out for a while all the technical terms and hints and tricks and just play with your art. One way to do this is to write a story in crayon, or draw a picture in crayon. Try doing this with your less dominant hand. Try doing it with your feet.Do finger painting make a guitar out of bits and pieces and play it.

8) Try a different art form. That might be something as simple as playing an instrument that you have never learnt. Hire one, don't buy it just hire it and play it for fun. Don't read any books on it just play it.

Paint a picture, dont worry about what anyone else might think, just paint. Try cross stitch, petite point, or knitting. Cook a meal you've never cooked before. Build a model car. Make a kite and make sure you take it to the park to fly it.

9) Take your art to the streets. get a license if you need one, then go busking with your art.

If you are a poet. Recite your poetry on a street corner.

If you are a musician go busking.

If you are an artist consider doing a chalk drawing in a pedestrian mall.

If you are a novelist set up a stand at a local market to sell your book! Meet the people buying the book.


10) Go back to nature. Go and sit on a beach and watch the sun rise or set. Go bushwalking. Here in Australia there are some tracks in National parks that you can get a wheelchair along with a little help. Get in a little boat and float around on a lake. Lay on your back on the grass and watch the stars. Sit with your back against a tree, let the tree support you and feel the ground underneath you. Notice the joy of Spring's first butterfly, rain falling on parched earth, a full moon shining on the trees, a smile

11) meditation. Not the "try to do this and be sure to do that" kind of meditation that seldom works. But the "lets just sit and be who we are" kind, let things wander through our mind without giving it
any direction. If you need to scratch yourself do it, if you need to wriggle do it. Do what you need to do for yourself while you give yourself 20 minutes or so to just be you. Notice how you feel in your body, hungry? thirsty? how do your legs feel?

12) Be true to yourself. Some artists get stuck in the millwheel of using their art in a way they did not originally intend. Sit back and remember what your aspirations were for your art when you were
six or ten or twenty years old... Now look around you and see what has happened. Are you where you wanted to be? Doing what you wanted to do? Do you still want what you wanted then? If so how can you get there now?

Spiro & Cheryl

copyright 1/1/03
Spiro & Cheryl D
Spiryl Creations



Plot Development

In writing, stories, screenplays and even poems we need to have a plot. In some cases the plot develops while the story is being written, this is often the case in poetry. Some writers sit down and carefully plot the story carefully and as exactly as possible before writing a single word of the story itself.

We do a bit of each. We get an idea for a plot and play tennis with it for a while, hitting back and forth and asking questions of each other like, "Where is the conflict?" "What are the sub plots here?" "So what happens next?" and "What do you mean we kill that woman off?" "The audience will never believe that!" This stage continues from before we begin to write and continues until we finish the final draft.

Now the issues we debate can be debated by a single writer with themselves or perhaps with other writers. We are lucky to have one another to debate these points with and we have a great deal of respect for one anothers opinions so this works for us.

Starting with a single idea we find the plot and themes and characters all develop as we debate and discuss each point. The starting point of our recently finished short screenplay altered
around five times, in the end we chopped off a large section of the start of the story and then drew it to a conclusion by allowing the viewer to presume what would happen next, now in the that particular story it worked well. The story was even perhaps a little boring in the beginning and that was what we wanted, to contrast the conclusion, or rather lack there of. All of these decisions were made while we were writing the story. The plot changed dramatically several times.

For us a basic plot is just a temporary framework, and it grows and develops with the story. For others it is the solid framework and foundation of their story.

Each writer needs to find the plotting methods and devices that work best for them. We look forward to hearing from you how you plan and plot your stories.

Here are some sites which all deal with the subject of plot. We hope you find them useful.

Do copy and paste these URL's into your browser.

A simple explanation of structure, theme, and plot.
http://www.freebies4ya.com/familyfunzone/storywriting.asp

basic storywriting skills
http://www.azoz.com/ds/subjectareas/LanguageArts/la68lessons/2la68s/wr
iting/storywriting.html

story structure and plot
http://www.avalondreamtime.co.uk/writips.html#plot

what to do about lost focus
http://www.oneofus.co.uk/articles/what_to_do_about_lost_focus.htm

Plot
http://www.oneofus.co.uk/articles/plot.htm

Ten Points on Plotting
http://bricolage.bel-epa.com/resources/seminary/kilian/plotting.html

Plot Elements: Setting
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/plotting_and_editing/55887

PLot Elements: Tension
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/plotting_and_editing/42635

Basic Plot Elements
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/plotting_and_editing/42633

Alfred Hitchcock Film Techniques
http://sc.essortment.com/alfredhitchcoc_rvhd.htm

Advice on writing a novel
http://www.marketwriter.net/advice_on_novel_writing_by_crawf.htm

(c) Spiro & Cheryl D 2002



 

YOUR WEB STUFF!

This is the ideal place to design your own custom page, filled with whatever you can imagine.

 



3254