Please be advised that despite the lovely writing in “Waitresses,” our editors felt that it was not quite right for us at this time.

We hope you will continue to send us your work. We look forward to reading it.

I stand advised.

All righty, then.

• Permission
• The state of the page
• Notes from the spiralbound
• From Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel
• Elemental

In related news: No news, actually, on the story that I sent out eight weeks back. That is, the manuscript is still

under consideration

Which is better than

rejected

So in the meantime, we’ll just try to get something done.

• Elemental
• Wordless
• Notes from the spiralbound
• Scrivener
• Permission

Not much to say about it, except that I’ll have better news to report on this front next week.

Well. That’s about it for this entry, I guess.

• Notes from the spiralbound
• Elemental
• The state of the page
• Permission
• All (still) quiet on the writing front

So! Not producing as much as I’d like to regarding the long-term writing project (which I guess I should just go ahead and call a novel). I recognize that this is because I’m in an early research mode which dictates more processing than output, but I still feel kind of itchy about it. On the other hand, the research is actually going well; I’m learning a lot about things I know little about. The most positive aspect of the research so far is the realization that my initial notions regarding the novel aren’t wholly and laughably off-base. You have no idea what a relief that is.

Anyway, the research will go on for a while.

As for other stuff: currently shopping a story around and feeling fairly good about it. At any rate, it’s good to have it out in the world, trying to earn its keep.

Another project is trying to get my attention, as though I was capable of managing more than one writing project at a time. That’s funny, sort of.

More to come.

• Scrivener
• Permission
• Defining creativity
• Wordless
• The latest rejection notice

I yield the floor to Mr. Rutledge. Substitute “writers” for “designers” or “narrative” for “design” as you see fit.

Creativity has nothing at all to do with self-expression or flamboyancy. Aside from the simple ability to create things, the most important feature of creativity is a highly developed perception filter that is somewhat less common than we’re led to believe. Despite what we were taught in school, we don’t all possess significant creativity, and fewer of us still have any skill at employing it. True, anyone can make something, and anyone can make something up. In this mundane sense, everyone is creative. But this basic truth belies the design-relevant definition of creativity, and ignores the fact that each one of us has different creative abilities.

Creativity is technical and analytical, not expressive (as in self-expression). It is a filter through which perception and output pass, not a receptor or an infusion (as in the case of inspiration). Creativity may require or be enhanced by inspiration, but the two are distinct forces. (These facts are vital in discriminating between appropriate and inappropriate descriptions and applications of creativity.)

Creativity is an inborn capacity for thinking differently than most, seeing differently, and making connections and perceiving relationships others miss. But most importantly, it is the ability to then extrapolate contextually useful ways of employing that data: to create something that meets a specific challenge. By this definition, creativity is merely a tool; it does not convey skill. For a dedicated few, though, this inborn capacity is then further augmented by certain disciplines, including:

• ongoing curiosity,
• the desire and habit of looking more deeply into things than others care to,
• the habit of comparing stimulus with result, and
• a habit for qualitative discrimination.

It is primarily these disciplines that set top creative professionals apart from those who are merely gifted. It is also these disciplines that help shape a designer’s intuitive senses, which are vital to design craft, processes, and overall success. Being merely creatively gifted is no qualification for design expertise, and the idea that creativity is a magic bullet that anyone or any designer may employ to positive effect is a vacuous notion.

Some may view this declaration as having a rather anti-egalitarian flavor, and they’d be right. I remember reading somewhere, though, that art is not a democracy.

Anyway, the concept of applied creativity is something to mull over. I may have more to say on it later.

• Scrivener
• The state of the page
• Permission
• Notes from the spiralbound
• From Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

Now that you have decided to begin your novel, you may congratulate yourself. You have not been asked or groomed to write a novel. You have not gone to novel-writing school, nor taken a standard curriculum of preparatory courses. Chances are, no one wants you to write your novel - if they say they do, they are just meaning that you should get it over with or get on with it. The people you know actually dread reading the novel you are about to write - they don’t want to read about themselves, they don’t want to be bored, and they fear embarrassment for everyone. You are, therefore, free.

Yes, ma’am.

More to come as seems appropriate.

• Permission
• Notes from the spiralbound
• The state of the page
• The latest rejection notice
• Scrivener

All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy

and then I’ll run around with an axe only to wind up frozen in the snow, which I’ll wholly deserve.

Better day tomorrow.

• St. Louis lite
• Tony Snow dies
• Batchin’ it
• Under scrutiny
• The wife is right

Fortunately, Ursula K. LeGuin is making me feel better.

Actually, I haven’t received the rejection letter/email and probably won’t. No need. The wonder that is the Interwebs allowed me to check on the status of the submission, so I was practically able to see it flatline in real time.

Time of death, sometime yesterday morning.

Moving on, then. I’ll glance at the manuscript and then send it out again. In the meantime, I have the “longer project” to occupy my time.

• Notes from the spiralbound
• Elemental
• Whose story is it, anyway?
• Where it’s at
• Lauren Rainey emails no longer blocked by Medicaid

There are several such programs out there in the wild, but I was drawn to Literature and Latte’s Scrivener (a Mac-only program) by a couple of rather positive mentions at Lifehacker, and by a love letter to the program penned by Merlin Mann of 43folders. The Mann review of the product really spoke to me:

If you write like I do (and I pray that you do not), you have a messy approach to drafting that is iterative, intuitive, and far from linear. You do a brain dump, then type a little, then research a little, then type a little more, then move a bunch of stuff around, then groan aloud, then 80% start over and so on until something is done. Yes, it would be more tidy if we all followed the mandate of our elementary school teachers and wrote perfect 5-paragraph essays straight from a completed outline. But, such is life. And Scrivener seems to get that.

I’m using the 30-day trial period to give Scrivener a spin, and so far I’m impressed. The program allows you to save a variety of resources for reference, even PDFs, audio files, and website URIs. The 98% of you who use Microsoft Word can relax, as Scrivener outputs to that program. Expect to have to devote some time to the tutorial, but it’s far from boring and well worth your attention. The acid test will come shortly as I really apply the program to the “longer project” I’m working on, but I think I’d be surprised if the $39.95 price doesn’t wind up feeling like a bargain.

Update: Purchased it a couple of weeks ago.

Windows users: As mentioned above, Scrivener is not for you. But Literature and Latte graciously provides a list of Windows-based writing programs, with descriptions and links. Alternative Mac programs are also listed.

• Ghost in the machine
• The state of the page
• Bill Gates has one week left at Microsoft
• When software works
• Who needs Google Chrome - besides Google?

I’ve been writing short fiction for some years now - a whopping three publication credits under my belt - with greater or lesser dedication depending on the availability of the muse. It has been noted that waiting on the muse is not the most productive way to get writing done, however, and I’ve tried to get back to a more disciplined approach to writing. This column is where you can expect to see occasional signal flares indicating progress, or regress, as the effort continues.

Currently: I have one story out and about, awaiting judgment in a contest at the Seattle-based litmag Glimmer Train (Portland! Portland-based!), which is perhaps my favorite literary magazine. The editors there are warm and enthusiastic about short fiction and have rejected my previously-sent manuscripts thrice (but with warm enthusiasm all the same).

And: I’m working on a longer project; that is, I’m writing a novel but am too bashful to flat-out say so, so I just call it “a longer project.” I read somewhere that it’s bad luck to talk in-depth about works in progress, so I don’t think I will. Not now, anyway.

Also: Toying with another short piece. Something I can work on when the “longer project” flags a bit. Just to keep the hand moving.

Not much more to say about any of this just now. More later, if work goes well and I’m not feeling overly shy.

• Sixteen hundred and seventy words a day
• One less bell to answer
• Looking forward: The future of Waveflux
• Latest changes at Waveflux
• Good blogs rebuild. Great blogs reload.