Chris McMahen, author

What is the most common time in the creative process (whether it’s writing a novel, designing a new building, choreographing a dance, painting a picture, developing a movie, etc. etc.) when creativity stalls?

When does the creative block most commonly rear its ugly head?

For me as a writer, it was always within the first few moments of sitting down to write.  I face a blank page.  Yesterday, I finished Chapter 5, and now, I am faced with the vast expanse of white territory I know will be called Chapter 6.  I may even have an outline and theoretically know what’s going to unfold in the plot.  Yet . . . Yet . . . the specific words just don’t seem to roll out like they should.

The solution?  I must thank Ernest Hemmingway.  Hemmingway’s Hack has to be the most valuable writing tip I have ever heard.  I use it to the extreme, and it seems to work. (Touch wood!)

Here’s what Hemmingway said about the problem of finishing off writing one day, then resuming your writing the next:

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.

I like to take Hemmingway’s Hack to the extreme.  When I stop at the end of a writing session, I don’t just stop when I am “going good.”  I also stop in the middle of a sentence.  Here’s an example:

I came to a screeching halt at the *****

I know that tomorrow, I’m going to write the words “edge of a cliff.”  But by simply stopping here, I know that when I put pen to paper tomorrow (or finger to keyboard), I’ll write, “edge of a cliff,” and I’m off!  It’s like fire starter for my next session of writing.  The simple act of finishing that sentence gets the creative juices flowing.

So, the next time you’re working on a project and won’t finish it in one go: 

1.  stop when things are going well.

2.   stop in the middle of a sentence, brush stroke, or whatever is the currency of your creative endeavour.

3.   stop when you know what your next move will be.

In my last blog post, I wrote about the importance of young writers having the opportunity to share their stories with their peers– Show and Tell with their writing. 

But hold on a minute . . . After a few times of having kids read their stories to their peers, things can get pretty old.  Things can get downright . . . ZZZZZZ.

Last week, I had such a situation– a group of kids who were sharing their stories to an unenthusiastic audience.  It was time to think on my feet.  Although I didn’t have all of the resources to implement the following five strategies, I’ve used some in the past to pretty good effect.  One, I must admit, is completely untried . . . but I just know it’ll work!

Here are five strategies for enlivening the sharing event.  

1.  Before each student reads, have them choose three words from their story.  The group will come up with a group sound effect whenever that word is read.  Lots of fun, moderate chaos will ensue.

2.  While the student is reading their story, give the audience a tally list with the five senses words listed:  hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, seeing.  Every time the reader uses a descriptive word or phrase that draws upon one of these senses, give it a check mark.  At the end, tally up how many times each sense was used in a description– the mark of excellent writing.

3.  While one student reads their story, have one or two others act out the story wordlessly, in a sort of mime interpretation of the events.  Once again, moderate chaos will ensue, but it’s worth it.

4.  As a student reads, have them STOP just before the ending.  Have the rest of the audience predict how the story will end.  This is a great way to discuss effective endings (and ineffective ones.)

I am constantly dogged, fascinated and bewildered by the question, “What motivates students to write?”  There is likely no all-encompassing answer, but it’s still worthwhile to wade into the swamp of possibilities.  

One aspect of writing which I’ve explored regarding motivation is that of the writer’s audience.    When writers write, their work is consciously and unconsciously influenced by their audience.  (Just like I’m experiencing this very second . . .)  Writer’s Block is often a symptom of sitting at your desk with that imaginary editor peering over your shoulder and commenting on every word that comes out of your creaking keyboard.

In the traditional classroom setting, the intended audience is the teacher who will evaluate the writing and often give a grade.  This select audience of one does prove motivating for some young writers.  But what about the others?  What about those reluctant writers who don’t respond to the carrot of good grades, or a gold star on their paper, or a pat on the proverbial back from their teacher?

It’s time to look at considering a writer’s audience in the school setting to motivate students who are unmotivated in writing “school assignments.”

One strategy I’ve had some success with is providing a time after the writing assignment for students to “perform” their writing for their peers.  This may be just reading it to the class or having someone else read it aloud.  Show and Tell with words.  Sounds simple?  It can be.

The key is to provide a safe environment for peer sharing.  By safe, I mean that it should be a positive environment where individual differences of writing style are embraced and free of judgement besides the usual encouragement. This isn’t news to good teachers who infuse the atmosphere of their classrooms with positivity.

By giving them a few moments to share their writing, this shifts the audience from the lone teacher to the broader audience of peers.  The young writer has their writing validated.  In essence, they are writing for a broader audience.

Although taking forty-five minutes out of the day to have young writers share their work may seem like a large chunk of time, I regard this time as incredibly valuable when it comes to the writing process.  Over time, the motivation to write grows– students know that what they write matters for they are writing for an authentic audience of peers.

Here is a fascinating article that explores ideas relating to my latest rant:

Can you make a game out of creative writing? 

Today, I had the privilege of working with a group of gifted young middle school writers.  To begin the day of writing activities, we played a paper version of an online game currently in development called COW.

It’s a fluency writing game in which the young writers have to write a piece of fiction on any topic.  They wrote their stories on sheets of paper with blanks for each word they wrote.  Every thirty-six words, (as marked on their sheet) they ran up to the front of the room and chose a random word card.  Their challenge was to continue the narrative and incorporate that word into their story.

Some of them randomly chose some very intriguing combinations of words to work with.  My favourites included:  

Saudi Arabia and tsunami, 

extra-terrestrial and asparagus

hippopotamus and bluejeans

Thanks to the incredible creativity, thoughtfulness, and wicked sense of humour of the group, some amazingly entertaining stories emerged.  

The game served to rev up the young writers for the day, as we went on to a couple of other activities which produced some pretty astonishing pieces of writing.

Thanks to everyone for making it an exhilarating day of mind-bending creativity.

I was watching Ali Carr-Chellman's  fascinating TED Talk on how to re-engage boys in schools.  My ears naturally perked up when she brought up the topic of writing.  

She brings up an issue which I continually deal with when I teach writing to students– topics of interest to students and how willing we are as teachers to accept this as part of their writing.

I've often found that one of the most effective ways to get hesitant boy writers going is to ask them to write something which is a take-off on a video game they play.  Sure, it's not high literature, but at least they are putting words to paper and actually writing a narrative.  

MOST IMPORTANTLY, they are engaged with their writing.  They're actually excited about developing a storyline using familiar characters and settings.  Like all good writers, they are "writing what they know."  

Another point she makes is how teachers often force a genre of writing which is of little interest to many boys, such as personal writing or poetry.  

I disagree with her about the poetry part.  I'm lucky to work with an amazing teacher of poetry (http://silkeyardley.wordpress.com/) who inspires students to write poetry on a wide variety of topics important to them.  Some of the poems are considered "edgy" for elementary school students, yet the students are passionate about their writing.

I've definitely found Carr-Chellman's comments about personal writing to be true, however.  When I've assigned this type of writing, there's just something missing– fire in the eyes of many writers.  My sense is that this genre of writing holds greater appeal to older writers.

Which brings me to the point of the subtle censorship of writing in schools.  When I react to students' writing, I always dance along a fine line between:

a. what the young writer really wants to write about and

b. what is generally considered acceptable by a teacher's or school's standards.  

This pertains particularly to violence.

This is a very tricky issue, and I think there's no simple answer here.  But I do think we, as teachers, have to be mindful of that delicate balance between what we censor as teachers and what our students find passionate to write about.

When I look down at a piece of writing a student is madly scribbling (which involves repeated explosions, references to Minecraft, appearance of droves of zombies, and impending world annihilation) I take a breath and weigh the pros and cons of how I'm going to react to this.  Before a knee-jerk reaction, I try to gain some perspective, and begin that delicate walk along the tightrope of compromise.

This is yet another example of what makes teaching so demanding and, at the same time, fascinating.

Here's the TED Talk . . . 

The strap.  The Gestetner mimeograph.  16 mm film.  The VHS tape.  The chalkboard.  The floppy disk.  The written word?

Thanks to Snapchat, Youtube, smartphones, and Skype, is the written word on the way out?  Will it be cast aside in that storage room at the back of the school until someone stumbles over it in a few years, dusts it off, and donates it to the local museum?

Yes, of course, there is plenty of texting going on.  And Tweeting.  So, maybe the word isn’t entirely on the way out.  But what of the paragraph?  Or even the complete sentence?  Is the cryptic use of words to be the norm?  Will the term paper become the term Haiku?

Well, before we gently usher the longer forms of word use out to the proverbial retirement home of obsolescence, let’s take a look at another doomed medium– the radio.

Radio was given a death sentence when television became a mass media sensation.  Why has it survived?  Here’s a great article which explains how radio’s success has flown in the face of doom and gloom predictions:  http://sparksheet.com/radio-everywhere-how-audio-survived-the-digital-revolution/

So, is there hope for the written word?  The sentence?  Or even the paragraph and beyond?

Of course there is.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the written word enables precision of thought.  The written word can take a reader into the depths, through the undercurrents, and plunge them into the dark subterranean world of the human perception. 

The written word can also dissect an issue with precision.  It can present an argument or analysis built upon complex thoughts.

But here’s where my own bias shows through . . . Most of all, the act of writing can lead the writer to personal discoveries.  Journaling has long been heralded as a healthy, therapeutic method of self-analysis and problem solving.  Writing imaginative fiction can serve this purpose, as well.  As an author, when the dust settles on a new piece of work, I look back upon it and realize how the creative act has taken me to explore realms of human perception I’d never before considered.

Where, then, does the written word fit into the brave new digital world of education and the new literacy that technology demands?

It means that we should not be throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.  It means that thinking to write and writing to think should still hold a significant place within school curricula.  We should be using the tools of technology to enable and liberate students to use the written word effectively. 

The school-wide Christmas Writing Challenge (see my previous post) has really taken off.  So far, we've had letters written to Santa from Scooby Doo, Harry Potter, Junie B. Jones, Darth Vader, many pet cats, dogs, horses, and . . . my personal favourite . . . a washcloth.  Someone even wrote a letter from Arlo Billingsley, the main character in Klutzhood.

Here's a letter to Santa from one of the great bad guys of all time:

Dear Santa,

I have three requests for things you can send me.  But first, let me tell you, it’s been a very tough year. 

There was this kid named Jack.  Somehow, he got ahold of these magic beans and grew a beanstalk right up into my neighbourhood.  Then, the little rotter sneaked into my castle not once, not twice, but three times!  And each time, as I digested my meal of boiled, roasted or baked boy, I dozed off, and the little rotter stole my most valuable possessions (except for my My Little Pony collection when never gets out of the locked cupboard.)  And the last time, I tried chasing him down the beanstalk, but he chopped it down when I was only half way down!  (Lucky I was wearing my parachute.)

So, for this Christmas, please bring me a replacement hen that lays golden eggs, a magical harp and a bag of gold.  Also, please bring me a very tall ladder so I can climb back up into the clouds and return home. 

Sincerely,

Your pal,

How about a school-wide writing challenge with a Christmas theme?  That's what's happening at three schools where I'm teacher-librarian.  Here's how it goes:

A Letter to Santa . . . With a Twist

Think of an imaginary character.  It could be a character from a book or a movie.  Your character could even be someone from history, or a pet.  Your character can be just about anything or anybody as long as it’s not a real person.  Write a letter to Santa as if it was written by that character.  Sign the character’s name at the bottom of the letter.

So far, we've had letters written "by" Curious George, Junie B. Jones, Harry Potter, a whole bunch of dogs and cats, and my personal favourite . . . a dishcloth.

We've turned this activity into a sort of writing game.  We read the letter, then the audience has to use the clues to figure out who wrote that letter to Santa.

As a writer of prose fiction, textual analysis seems so cold and clinical.  Yet, read this article http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/11/hunger_games_catching_fire_a_textual_analysis_of_suzanne_collins_novels.html which does a textual analysis of the Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and the Twilight series.  

It provides some interesting insights into the prose stylings of each author.  The question is: "How can such textual analysis of writing be used to enhance one's own writing?"  A little voice in the back of my head is squeaking, that this is an area with incredible potential.  Rather than dismissing the influences of technology upon the artistic form, it is worthwhile exploring possible ways in which it could enhance it.  

Teaching young people to write is a messy business.  We ask them to express their ideas all the while juggling the conventions of spelling, grammar, and everything else that makes writing coherent.  When asked to juggle so many considerations at once, it's not surprising that the young writer may bog down, overwhelmed by the burden of wrestling writing conventions while trying to express their own ideas.  For the emergent writer, multitasking is not a good thing.

Of course, becoming competent in using written conventions is a very important goal in learning to become a writer.  Revision or editing can be viewed as the act of cleaning up the mess of a first draft.  It is most meaningful when applied to the young author's own writing.

But how do you learn to clean up the mess of a first draft if there's little or nothing to clean up?  In other words, without first generating a body of text, how can we expect young writers to engage in meaningful revision of their work?

The answer?  Writing fluency.  Turn students loose on a creative writing rampage.  Free them of the constraints of conventions, so they can actually concentrate upon the joy of engaging the imagination to produce an original piece of writing.  Yes, it may be ugly, messy, maybe even barely readable.  But by turning them loose in creating a wild, untamed first draft, you have achieved some crucial goals.

1.  You have gotten young writers to gain the confidence and comfort of applying their imagination to the written word.  The more one does this, the better one gets.

2.  You have enabled young people to experience the joys of expressing themselves through the written word.  They may actually enjoy writing.

3.  You now have a volume of writing to work with.  All of those lessons on spelling, grammar, etc., will be so much more meaningful now that the young writer has a meaningful context within which to learn.

Obviously, some young people take to writing more naturally than others.  However, I've learned never to underestimate the potential for any student to gain a sense of confidence and enjoyment given the right circumstances for writing.

Necessity is the mother of invention.  Or so the saying goes.  But who is invention’s father?  Maybe the father of invention inspired such creations as the Patty-stacker, the Slap Chop, or the Flow-bee (a personal haircutting device).  None of these are necessities, yet, they are such GREAT IDEAS!  The advancement of our great civilization depends upon them!  This activity will be inspired by the father of invention.

Using Marveltown by Bruce McCall (ISBN 9780374399252)

This is such a visually stunning book that I think engagement will be pretty much instantaneous without any great buildup.  That’s my thinking, anyway.  You might have other ideas, so go ahead and use them.

After reading the story, you can do two things:  First, ask them which of the inventions was their favourite.  Why was it their favourite?  Was it useful or for the all important purposes of fun?

Now, ask them to draw up the blueprints for their own Marveltown invention which would make their town or city way more fun to live in.  OR you could get much more specific.  You could challenge them to come up with the ultimate playground inventions to make their school yard far more interesting to play in.  Each invention should be given a name.  Also, each invention should have safety considerations.  For example, a human cannon should have a large landing pad (that sort of thing to force them to think through their invention a little more thoroughly.)

The students could either write about their invention and accompany with a picture, or they could just draw it and you turn it into an oral language activity.  Have the audience members press the presenter with questions to clarify how his/her invention will be built and how it would work.  

If you were asked to create the Greatest Bookshelf in the World, which books would you select?  Here's an activity I've tried with students as young as grade four, but I think it would be fun to do this all the way up to really old adults:

A friend loaned me a book called, My Ideal Bookshelf, by Thessaly La Force and Jane Mount [ISBN: 978-0316200905]  Right away, I was hooked.  A bunch of famous and not-so-famous people describe which books would be on their ideal bookshelf.  Along with this, they talk about why these books were chosen.

As I read through this book, I knew I had to do some sort of spin-off with my students in the library.  Early in the year, I like to get to know what each student’s reading tendencies are.  An ideal bookshelf looked like the way to go.  But then, I figured there had to be more than just showing me their favourite books.  So, here’s what happened . . .

1.  I give them the blank bookshelf of six books and ask them to show me the spines of four of their favourite books.  This is pretty standard stuff.

2.  Here’s the really fun part.  The two other books on the shelf must be books they’d like to read but haven’t been written yet.  This opens up all kinds of possibilities.  The obvious ones are sequels to books they love, but there are also other avenues to explore.  If you really want to steer your students in new directions, say they can’t have a sequel to an existing book on their shelf.

3.  You can do this activity at various times of the year, if you like.  You can use seasonal themes, genres, books written by authors whose names start with the letter K, books with “Dark” in the title . . . you get the idea.

Here's a very enjoyable writing challenge you do can with students for September.  It replaces that tired, old, "WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION" topic which is kind of like using instant oatmeal on a Master Chef challenge.  Why not try this writing challenge which will stir up a sense of imagination in that soupy post-summer brain.

Write three sentences.  Each sentence will describe something you have done.  Only two of them are true.  For example:

1.     I met Michael Buble at the Vancouver Airport.

2.    I won third place in my category at the Reino-Keski Salmi Loppet.

3.    I went swimming in Kalamalka Lake in January.