Taking Myself "Back to School"

I've so enjoyed reading my fellow TeachingAuthors' posts about the various ways they continue to school themselves in the craft of writing. Bobby kicked us off by discussing a new book on craft she's studying while also re-reading a favorite classic. Esther shared about being inspired by a new collection of essays from fellow teacher Sharon Darrow. Mary Ann also turns to books for her re-education, not only craft books but new fiction, too. In contrast, Carla's ongoing education comes from talking to and working with other writers.

So what can I add to this discussion? Well, this fall, I went "back to school" by attending the SCBWI-Wisconsin 2018 Fall Retreat and Conference held in Green Lake, WI. I was invited to attend the conference as a presenter on a panel discussing "The Truth of Creating: Rejections, Waiting, Perseverance and Inner Critics." You can see the panel participants in the photo below.

Left to right: me (Carmela Martino), E.M. Kokie, Deanna Singh, Stef Wade,
Joanna Hinsey, and moderator Michelle Houts

But being a presenter didn't keep me from being a student, too. While I don't recall learning anything specifically about the craft of writing, I came away with insights into more productive ways to approach my writing process. For example, one of the breakout sessions I attended was "Come to the Page as You Are … Wired," presented by Genevieve Artel, a creativity coach. I reflected on the impact of what I learned from Genevieve in my latest Creativity Newsletter. If you're not a subscriber, below is the gist of what I said:

In the presentation, Genevieve talked about how understanding our personality type can help us improve our creative life. She notes in the session description:

". . .  every individual is uniquely wired with cognitive preferences, flow states, and strengths. Many of the frustrations we experience on our journey are the result of a perceived set of practices that go against our intrinsic nature." 

I rode to and from the conference with fellow Illinois author Cathy Velasco, who attended Genevieve's session, too. We were both intrigued by the presentation, and Cathy later sent me a link to this piece on The Myers-Briggs Types of 101 Famous Authors. (If you aren't familiar with Myers-Briggs, the article includes a brief explanation at the beginning.) There are lots of online quizzes to determine your Myers-Briggs type, but I've found the results to be inconsistent. That's why Genevieve recommends working with someone like her who's specifically trained to do personality profiles.

However, I have received a consistent result from all the quizzes I've taken regarding one of the Myers-Briggs traits: Introversion vs. Extraversion. The definitions of these words in Myers-Briggs terminology don't exactly match our everyday usage. (Which is why I'm using the Myers-Briggs spelling for Extravert and Extraversion.) For example, I am definitely an Introvert as defined by Myers-Briggs. That doesn't mean I dislike being in groups or public speaking. The fact is, I enjoy teaching and presenting. But I can only be "out in the world" for so long before I start to feel drained. To put this in Myers-Briggs terms, I draw energy from being alone rather than from being around others.

Even though I've known this about myself for a long time, I never thought about what my introversion means to my writing habits. Inspired by Genevieve's talk, I spent some time researching the topic and found a terrific website called Write with Personality by Andrea J. Wenger. On the site, Wegner provides helpful strategies for writers based on their Myers-Briggs personality type. For example, in this post, she emphasizes the importance of what she calls "Playing to Your Strengths." The post links to other articles on the site specifically for either introverted or extraverted writers. Wenger also notes:

"The 'right' techniques are the ones that work well for you, even if they don’t work at all for your coworker or critique partner."

At the SCBWI-Wisconsin conference, Genevieve shared an important tip for Introverts like me: we need to recognize our need to be alone and give ourselves permission to do so. But as Wegner points out here, too much alone time can cause introverted writers to "lose sight of their audience." She provides ideas for how to avoid that problem. Conversely, if you're an Extravert, it may help you to know this tidbit from Wegner; ". . . there are more extraverts in the U.S. population, but more introverts among writing instructors. If you’re an extravert, the natural writing process of introverts may not work well for you at all." I'm glad that even though I'm one of those introverted writing instructors, I always tell my students there is no one right approach to writing--you have to find what works for you.

I'm so glad I attended the Wisconsin retreat, and I look forward to continuing my education at future events. The next will be the ACFW Chicago one-day Write to Success Conference on Saturday, November 3, in Schaumburg, IL, which will feature topics of interest to both beginning writers and published authors. In addition to expanding my own education, I'll be presenting on the subject of "Turning Life into Fiction." If you're in the Chicago area, I invite you to join us. Even if you can't attend the conference, you're welcome to browse the free Book Expo that will follow!

See details here.

I'm also looking forward to attending the Windy City RWA retreat Feb. 22-23, 2019 in Naperville, IL. James Scott Bell will be presenting a full-day workshop on "Writing a Novel They Can’t Put Down." Registration is now open if you'd like to join us.

Don't forget to check out this week's Poetry Friday round-up hosted by former TeachingAuthor Laura Purdie Salas at Writing the World for Kids.

And remember to always Write with Joy!
Carmela

Two Things My Students Have Taught Me

Happy Poetry Friday! My link to this week's roundup is at the end of this post.

With Labor Day behind us and a new school year started, I'm kicking off a TeachingAuthors series on "something I learned from my students (or from teaching)." Today I share not one, but two things my students have taught me.

1. Writing is Hard!

This lesson came from an adult student and I've quoted it in other blog posts. For so many years, I thought my writing struggles were due to my own inadequacies, not the demands of the craft. Now I realize this is an important lesson for two main reasons:

• It's true. Writing IS hard. We can get stalled in so many ways, from figuring out what happens next in the plot to trying to decide how our main character looks/talks/walks to researching what flowers would be blooming during the time and place of the story. But "hard" doesn't mean "impossible." If we're persistent, we can succeed. 
• Admitting this truth helps me let go of self-criticism. When I take longer than planned to finish a project, it's not because I'm stupid or lazy or a bad writer. It's simply because writing is work.

In researching what other writers have to say on the subject, I came across an article in Psychology Today by Dennis Palumbo, an author and former screenwriter who happens to also be a psychotherapist. In "Breaking News: Writing is Hard!" Palumbo says:

"the reality is that telling a good story with intelligence, emotional truth and narrative complexity is hard. Really, really hard."

The fact that writing is hard work is what leads many of us to procrastinate. As Jeff Goins says in his article "Writing Is Hard (Or Is It?)":

The difficulty of writing has nothing to do with pen and paper, monitor and keyboard. It has to do with heart and soul and the mind behind the words.

That’s the real hard part of writing, the part that will experience all kinds of internal resistance: convincing yourself that no excuse is good enough to not write.

I've discussed here before, though, how the best way to eliminate excuses is to focus on the joy of the process. Which brings me to the second lesson I've learned from my students.

2. Writing is Fun!

This phrase has been uttered numerous times by the young writers in my summer writing camps. And it's one of the reasons I keep teaching those camps--I need to keep hearing it! How are young writers able to focus on the fun? I think it's because they're simply trying to tell a story for their own enjoyment. They aren't burdened by needing to please anyone else.

So, there's the paradox: Writing IS hard, but it can be fun, too.

This image came up when I searched Pixabay for "Children Writing" 😊

My students have taught me that we can choose to focus on the joy of the process. And, as I've written before, that's the real key to productivity. I even created an image to help remind me:

I'm so glad to be the one kicking off this topic because the reminder to focus on joy comes at the perfect time for me. Just this week, I recommitted to making time for some "fun" writing (as opposed to the freelance work I do to pay the bills). I can hardly wait to get back to it.

Don't forget, this week's Poetry Friday roundup is at Matt Forrest's Radio, Rhythm, & Rhyme.

And when you go back to the hard work of writing, remember to:

Write with JOY!

Carmela

4 Ways I Boost My Creativity

Happy Poetry Friday! See the link at the end of this post to this week's round-up.

I'm not sharing a poem today. Instead, I'm continuing our current discussion on creativity. As Jill said in Monday's post: "Creativity is tough to define and tougher still to write about." I agree!

I did find a satisfactory basic definition at OxfordDictionaries:

"Creativity: The use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work."

But there are so many facets to creativity that it's hard to encapsulate the concept in one sentence. That's why I loved how Jill shared so many great quotations on the topic in her post. I'd like to add another quote to the list:

“Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.”

--E.B. White

I came across this E. B. White quote in a book I read recently: Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind, (Amazon Publishing) edited by Jocelyn K. Glei of 99u. The book is a compilation of quotes, interviews, and essays from experts in productivity and creativity. Interestingly, the tips often overlap with those in the article Jill linked to: "The Psychology of Writing and the Cognitive Science of the Perfect Daily Routine" by Maria Popova.

I don't believe there really is such a thing as a "perfect daily routine." We are each unique, and what works to activate one person's creativity might stifle someone else's. Also, I often have to adapt my routine to fit what's currently going on in my life. However, I've found 4 specific suggestions in Manage Your Day-to-Day that are really helping me resist "the great and small distractions":

1. Great Work Before Everything Else: 
"Do your most meaningful creative work at the beginning of your day, and leave 'reactive work'—like responding to e-mail or other messages—for later."
I recently made a rule for myself: No email before 10 a.m. It's been amazing to me how much this one simple rule has helped. Now instead of getting lost in email for an hour or more at the start of my day, I get lost in my current work-in-progress. Yay! I also have a second, related rule: check email no more than three times per day. This has really helped me be more focused and efficient when I do check email.

2. Jump-Start Your Creativity: 
"Establish 'associative triggers'—such as listening to the same music or arranging your desk in a certain way—that tell your mind it’s time to get down to work."
I call my "associative triggers" my "writing rituals" and I shared them last March when we did a series of posts about our writing routines.

3. Feel the Frequency:
"Commit to working on your project at consistent intervals—ideally every day—to build creative muscle and momentum over time."
In the post on my writing rituals, I talked about how I was in the middle of a "100-day, one hundred words a day (OHWAD) writing challenge." That worked at the time because I was writing a first draft. Now that I'm revising, I've modified it to a "100-day, fifteen minutes a day (FMAD)" challenge. I've committed to work at least 15 minutes/day, six days a week for 100 days. (I don't count my days off in the total.) I deliberately chose a very doable goal--15 minutes--that I could accomplish even when I have a day filled with other commitments. The challenge is working well for me so far: I began revising Chapter One on Day 1. Today is Day 27, and I'm now up to working on Chapter Eight.

4. Make Progress Visible:
"Make your daily achievements visible by saving iterations, posting milestones, or keeping a daily journal."
On Day 1 of my FMAD challenge I created a table in a Word document called Revision Log. In that document, I note such statistics as my start time, time spent, starting page and chapter, ending page and chapter, starting word count, and ending word count. Looking at my log now, I can see that my writing sessions have ranged from 20 minutes to over 2 hours. Without doing the math, I'd guess that I average about an hour a day. (If I wanted to get really fancy, I could put the stats into a spreadsheet and let it calculate my productivity rate.) For me, this log is a great psychological boost because I often fall into the trap of thinking my writing isn't going anywhere when in fact I am making slow, but steady, progress.

These are just four of the suggestions in Manage Your Day-to-Day that have helped me. Even if none of these ideas appeal to you, I hope that my sharing them here will nudge you into thinking about how to support your own creativity. Are you already happy with your routine/process? If so, we'd love to know what works for you. Please tell us via the comments.

I'll leave you with one last quote, from Jonah Lehrer's Wall Street Journal article "How To Be Creative:" 

"But creativity is not magic, and there's no such thing as a creative type. Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It's a skill. Anyone can learn to be creative and to get better at it."

Lehrer's article ends with "10 Quick Creativity Hacks" you may be interested in checking out. And for ten tips on how to write more regularly, see "How to Create the Habit of Writing" by Leo Babauta at Write to Done.

Reminder: Today's the last day to enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of Barbara Krasner’s picture book biography Goldie Takes a Stand  (Kar-Ben Publishing)!


Now you can head over to be inspired by all the Poetry Friday poems. This week's round-up is at former TeachingAuthor Laura Salas's blog. One of the links there is to a post at  Today's Little Ditty in which Michelle Heidenrich Barnes shares a fun little poem by our own April Halprin Wayland!

Happy writing!
Carmela

Tools of the Trade

(Carmela here. I had to post this on behalf of Esther. Read on and you'll understand why.)

Fortunately, when it comes to the act of physically writing, I have MANY tools at my disposal.

For example, and gratefully, my iPhone.

Should my laptop refuse to reboot due to a software problem and require a 4-day repair visit to my local Best Buy's Geek Squad the Sunday before my Monday TeachingAuthors post is due, no problemo!

I simply create an email addressing the topic, request my TA administrator Carmela post it for me, along with an evidentiary photo, and remain grateful for the many and varied Tools of my Trade...as well as for Carmela. ☺️

Esther's laptop on Geek Squad counter

So, here are a few of the salient points I fully intended to post in the traditional manner via my laptop had it successfully rebooted this morning:

(1) To date my writing tools have included #2 pencils, pens of all sorts, manual and electric typewriters, a word processor, stack and laptop computers and one trusty iPhone.

(2) Thinking on this topic, examining my modus operandi when writing creatively, I surprisingly realized my multi-sensory learning style that enables me to READ must also be executed when I WRITE!

Note: Picture here the Five Senses Chart I'd planned to share.

Using my penmanship that combines both printing and cursive, because my 6th grade teacher Miss Peterson allowed us to choose and I couldn't decide, I write by hand in notebooks, on legal pads, on sticky notes, on napkins, on match books and menus and torn newspaper items when I am rolling out and exploring a story idea.

When I'm ready to roll everything up, though, and begin an actual story draft?
I'm seated at my laptop, ready to keyboard.

(3) In my Google search to learn more about multi-sensory learners, one link led to another and there I was learning all about BIC Fight for Your Write -www.bicfightforyourwrite.com.
BIC is on a mission to save handwriting.
Clicking on the Facts page at this website, I read that handwriting engages 14 different abilities, one if which is Inner Expressive Language.
No surprise there, at least for me.
Long live the Writer's Notebook!
Visit the website to learn more and maybe even sign the petition.

Hopefully my laptop and I will be back in business by Friday.
(Siddharta  promised.)
Meanwhile, I have my iPhone ....and should that require service, my Seven-year Pen.

Happy Writing, no matter your chosen tool!

Esther Hershenhorn
P.S.
Don't forget to enter our Book Giveaway!

P.S.S. from Carmela: I couldn't resist leaving in Esther's signature line from her email, just as she sent it:

iPhone compozed - sry 4 eny typoze=

Poetry Friday and Writing Longhand Vs Keyboarding

Happy Poetry Friday! Y'all are going to start to think that I only read poetry by J. Patrick Lewis. That is not true, though he is so versatile and prolific that I could share new poems here every time I post, and you would still enjoy a terrific variety, a great education in the art of poetry. I recently received a review copy of his forthcoming Everything Is a Poem: The Best of J. Patrick Lewis (Creative Editions, 2014). That's right. Pat is a rock star, and he has a greatest hits album!

I devoured this book start to finish, and I adore it. It collects some of his poems from the 1980s up to 2010. The topic categories include Animals, People, Reading (yes!), Sports (eh--only because I'm not a sports fan), Riddles and Epitaphs, Mother Nature(always my favorite), Places, and A Mix. The forms cover a huge range, from free verse to rhyming to specific poetic forms. If you're a fan of Lewis' work (and if not, why not?), do not miss this collection.

It was tough choosing just one to share, as there are around 60 poems here. But this is one of my very favorites:

What a Day

Out of dark's rougher neighborhoods,
Morning stumbles,
none too
bright,
recalling now
the thief,
Night,
who stole her work
of art--
Light.

--J. Patrick Lewis, all rights reserved

Here I am reading this poem:




Now, on to the question of longhand vs. keyboarding, the conversation Carmela started earlier this week. I come down firmly on the side of keyboarding. I do my morning pages that way (sorry, Julia Cameron), I do my nonfiction this way, and I do my poetry this way. At least, I prefer to. I do sometimes write longhand, usually when I'm on the road and don't have a keyboard handy. (Even then, I often carry a portable keyboard that works with my iPhone and is amazing!)

I feel stilted and uncomfortable writing in longhand. My hand can't keep up with my brain, and I can feel the ideas and phrases slipping away faster than I can record them. It's like being trapped in a cave where all this treasure is quickly draining down a hole in the floor, and I only have a tiny spoon to try to grab diamonds before they disappear. So, give me a keyboard any day!

One thing I don't mind doing at all in longhand is brainstorming. If I'm coming up with ideas or just playing around with thoughts on an existing piece, I'll happily make lists and charts and such. For example, when I was first working on poems for a night collection that will come out from Wordsong, I filled a little notebook with thoughts and possibilities.

 

 

And, recently, while doing revisions, I had a typed version with me that I made notes on while riding in a car or when I only had five minutes to work. That's when longhand works best for me, when I'm sporadically jotting notes. Write a few words. Put down the paper and go back to what I was actually supposed to be doing. Oops--new thought--grab that paper.

I will say that when I did Riddle-Ku on my blog for National Poetry Month, I wrote 95% of those while riding in a car along Lake Superior in February. I had a little mini-notebook just for that project, and every time I sat down in that seat and picked up my notebook, the poems started pouring out. For very short poems, I don't mind writing longhand. But...if I'd had my keyboard in the car with me and if my phone's battery lasted longer, I'd probably have been typing:>)

You don't have to write longhand OR by keyboard to go enjoy some more poetry! Poet and teacher Heidi Mordhorst at Juicy Little Universe has today's Poetry Friday Roundup--so don't miss it!

And if you haven't already done so, don't forget to enter our current giveaway for a chance to win the historical middle-grade novel Odin's Promise (Crispin Press) by Sandy Brehl. See JoAnn's post for all the details.

--Laura

Writing Longhand vs Typing: Does it Make a Difference?

Which do you prefer: writing longhand with a pen (or pencil) on paper or typing on a keyboard/electronic device? This is the question I posed to our TeachingAuthors for the series of posts I'm kicking off today. As I considered my own answer, I found some interesting information on how our writing tools may affect our creativity.

I was about twelve or thirteen when I first started writing for myself (as opposed to for school assignments). Back then, the only alternative I had to writing longhand was a manual typewriter on which I could eek out maybe 10-15 words per minute. So longhand it was. I wrote poetry, journaled, and did all my school assignments in longhand. When necessary, I then transcribed my written words to the printed page via my beautiful blue Smith Corona.

cropped version of photo by mpclemens, per CC rights 

By the time I started working as a freelance writer (MANY years later), personal computers had arrived on the scene. And I'd learned to type MUCH faster. So, for the sake of efficiency, I adapted my writing process to compose directly at the keyboard (as I'm doing with this blog post), but only for the nonfiction pieces I wrote for newspapers and magazines. For my "creative" writing--journals, poetry, short stories and my first novel--I stuck with longhand.

Then came graduate school, with its requirement of forty typed pages of writing per month. Once again, I adapted. I sat pounding out fiction--first short stories, then novel chapters--directly at the keyboard. For the most part, that worked fine. But every so often, I'd get stuck. I couldn't find the right words, or the words didn't have the right rhythm, or I couldn't get the feelings to come across on the page. I'd sit staring at the blinking cursor, my fingers frozen on the keys.

That's when I'd go make another cup of tea. Or stretch. Or take a walk. Sometimes that helped. But not always.

One day, while working on Rosa, Sola, I got the idea to take up a pen and write out a question for Rosa, my main character. I asked her what she was feeling in the particular scene I was working on. Then I closed my eyes and tried to imagine I was in Rosa's shoes at that moment. I opened my eyes and wrote the answer to the question, longhand, from Rosa's point of view. I was amazed at the words that flowed from my pen. They not only gave me insight into Rosa and her feelings, but also ideas for what would happen next in the story.

From then on, whenever I got stuck, no matter what I was writing, I turned to paper and pen. And almost every time, the writing was better than what I'd struggled to generate via the keyboard.

I decided to research why for this blog post. Chris Gayomali's Mentalfloss article "4 Benefits of Writing by Hand," like most of the other articles I found, says writing longhand makes you a better writer mainly because it slows you down. I think there's more to it than that. Otherwise, I could get the same benefits if I just typed slowly. But that doesn't help me at all.

I suspected that the difference really has something to do with how the physical act of putting pen to paper affects the creative side of our brain, our "right brain." Typing, on the other hand, seems to involve more of our logical left-brain.

Researching further, I found a Paris Review interview with poet and author Ted Hughes in which he said:

In handwriting the brain is mediated by the drawing hand, in typewriting by the fingers hitting the keyboard, in dictation by the idea of a vocal style, in word processing by touching the keyboard and by the screen’s feedback. The fact seems to be that each of these methods produces a different syntactic result from the same brain. Maybe the crucial element in handwriting is that the hand is simultaneously drawing. I know I’m very conscious of hidden imagery in handwriting—a subtext of a rudimentary picture language. Perhaps that tends to enforce more cooperation from the other side of the brain. And perhaps that extra load of right brain suggestions prompts a different succession of words and ideas.

This explanation rings truer for me than the "slower is better" theory. What do you think? I'd love if you'd let us know in the comments.

But first, you may want to also read Kelly Barson's fascinating article "Writing from Both Sides of the Brain" in the Hunger Mountain journal. Just make sure to come back here when you're done!

Okay, so if you read Barson's article, you know it includes several references to Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way (Tarcher). Cameron also recommends writing longhand, at least for "Morning Pages." As it happens, I'm currently preparing to teach a new 12-week workshop on The Artist's Way at the College of DuPage that will begin at the end of the month. This Wednesday, August 13, I'll be presenting a free Lunch Break Lecture giving potential students a "taste of" the workshop. If you're in the area, I hope you'll join us. Check my website for details.

And if you haven't already done so, don't forget to enter our current giveaway for a chance to win the historical middle-grade novel Odin's Promise (Crispin Press) by Sandy Brehl. See JoAnn's post for all the details.

Happy writing!

Carmela

Focusing Fifteen Minutes a Day, and a Downton Abbey Poetry Reference

Today I continue our One Thing for 2014 series, in which we talk about one thing we want to do more (or less) of this year to support our writing. I'll also provide information about a contest for young writers. And at the end of today's post, in honor of Poetry Friday, I'll share a snippet from a poem I discovered in an unusual way--via this week's episode of Downton Abbey.

My One Thing for 2014:
I could really relate to what Esther said on Monday about putting other responsibilities ahead of her writing. I've been wanting to start a new novel for awhile now, but I've allowed myself to be distracted by other responsibilities, including freelance work and finding new teaching venues. I figured I needed long blocks of time to tackle something new. Then, last September, I participated in Laurie Halse Anderson's Write Fifteen Minutes a Day (WFMAD) Challenge and I discovered something important: you can get A LOT done in 15 minutes! And often, that 15 minutes magically stretches out into 30, 40, even 90 minutes. Unfortunately, I fell back into old habits during the holidays, putting off my FUN writing (as April calls it) to focus on other things again. Unlike Esther, I've been doing plenty of writing, including drafting a work-for-hire project, crafting query letters, and revising my YA historical romance (which, I'm happy to report, recently won the YA category of the Windy City RWA 2013 Four Seasons Contest). I just wasn't working on the new idea that was calling to me.

image from doctor_bob at morguefile

So my One Thing for 2014 is to Focus Fifteen Minutes a Day (FFMAD) on my new project. I've been actually setting a timer and keeping a record of my time spent. While I did miss a day this week, I am making progress. My new mantra: Slow Progress Is Better Than No Progress. And now that I've put my goal in writing for all the world to see, I hope to be even more consistent. J

So what's your One Thing for 2014? A few of our readers have been sharing theirs via the comments and emails. Perhaps if you share your intention with us, it will help you follow-through, too.

A Contest I Learned about this Week:
This week I learned about the Listen to a Life contest, sponsored by the Legacy Project. Students ages 8-18 are invited to:

"Travel through time as you interview a grandparent or grandfriend about their life experiences – you may be surprised by what you learn! Then, submit a 300-word story to send a message around the world and into the future." 

Teachers, why not encourage your students to participate? Entry deadline is March 28, and the contest is open to residents of U.S. and Canada. For details, see their How to Enter page.

A Poem for Poetry Friday, Courtesy of Downton Abbey:
I'm a big Downton Abbey fan. I have to admit that this week's episode was a real downer. (Episode 2 of Season 4.) However, one highlight was a brief reference to a Christina Rossetti poem. If you haven't seen the episode yet, you can watch it online. About 27:40 into it, Maggie Smith, in her role as the Dowager Countess of Grantham, says the last two lines of the sonnet "Remember." Not recognizing the poem, I went in search of it, and found it on the Poetry Foundation website. You can go there to read the whole poem. I'll share only the last 6 lines here.

               from Remember
              by Christina Rossetti
          . . . 
          Yet if you should forget me for a while
                   And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
                   For if the darkness and corruption leave
                   A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
          Better by far you should forget and smile
                   Than that you should remember and be sad.

Now it's time to check out all the other great poetry in today's Poetry Friday round-up over at Keri Recommends.

Happy Writing!

Carmela

Of Geese and Ganders and New Year's Resolutions...

The truth is,
I don’t need to spend hours kneading dough to think of that One Thing that would make a difference in my writing life this year.
I know it and I’ve known it throughout 2013.
I must begin each day living inside my stories.

                                                          (Morgue Files, Jim Munnelly)

There’s no getting around it.  Once I’m caffeinated, and even sometimes before, all of me writes best in the day’s early hours.
Usually at my desk, in my writing room,
or on the couch,
or in my bed,
but always, at my keyboard.
That’s my M.O.
It works because I work best first thing in the morning.

This past year, IMHO, I continued to do my best work in the a.m.

I eagerly arose to dig into stories, except and alas,
they were the stories of the writers I teach and coach.
Which wasn’t all bad, because, to my delight, as my teaching and coaching plate overflowed, so did my Gratitude Journal.
In 82 lifetimes I’d never come to know the fine people with whom I've worked.
My writers allow me to give everything I’ve got.  They keep me sharp.  They make me smart.
But I was so caught up living inside their stories first, investing in their characters, their plotlines, their hopes and hearts, all in the name of telling their good stories well,
sadly my Heroine sat last in line, waiting.  

She was patient at first.

But this past year, as I wrote notes and narratives and follow-up emails for and to my writers, as I shared tools and shortcuts and hard-gained wisdom, she whimpered and whispered, then heaved heavy sighs.
She scratched at my insides, poking, pinching, finally punching come Fall.
“You promised me you’d tell MY story to the World!” she scolded.  “You can’t break your promise!”

So this year, I’m keeping it.

I’ve now spent at least the first hour of the past thirteen days living inside my Heroine’s story.
I'm re-reading first drafts, re-viewing revisions, re-visiting notes and my Writer’s Journal. 
I’m creating a GPS of sorts for my final revision - singling out Turning Points, re-weaving subplots, ordering scenes, layering plotlines, reconsidering motives, short-handing themes, summarizing the story, readying my pitch.
I’m working hard, doing everything I tell my writers to do.
And THEN I go on to live inside their stories.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

                                                   (Morgue Files, emlyn)

I’ve even returned to an earlier writing practice I used with each of my books: falling asleep with my story on my mind so it’s there in the morning, waiting with the sun.

Here’s to new days and (hopefully) new ways!

Esther Hershenhorn

Beginning in the Middle

     Beginnings are easy... and hard.
     Chapter One goes so smoothly.  I should know.  I have at least a a hundred "Chapter One"s crammed lurking in my document file. Yes, sir, I can rip off a chapter one without breaking a sweat.
     Then comes Chapter Two.
     Uh-oh.  There is no Chapter Two. There is no Chapter Two because I can't think of what happens right Chapter One.
     For years, this inability to come up with a Chapter Two (let alone a middle and an end), convinced me that I really wasn't a writer. Real writers know what happens in Chapter Two.  If I could only have written a book of collected first chapters...
     Despite this discouraging notion, I kept on writing and saving first chapters. Not being able to finish something didn't prevent me from writing. Writing is a compulsion. I can't not write.
     Eventually I figured out what I was doing wrong.
     I was writing without really knowing my characters or story.  Writing a Chapter Two was like trying to introduce people you've just met.  I didn't know anything about them, so there was that awkward pause after names have been exchanged where you are expected to add a little tag, such as "Bob is a big curling fan" or "Jane is just back from kayaking the Amazon."  The blank space beneath the words "Chapter Two" is the writing equivalent of that awkward pause.
      "But," you might say, "aren't you supposed to write down an idea as soon as you get it, so you won't forget it?"
      You would be absolutely correct.  You write down the idea. Then you put in your files and leave it there for awhile.  Get to know your characters. I mean really get to know them. When you meet someone new, don't you ask a few questions before you decide whether you want to spend time with them or not?
     The same is true with a new project.  Make sure this is an idea, characters, story you want to live with for a year or longer. Yankee Girl took five solid years of writing, revision and editing. By the time I was done, I was ready to send the entire cast of characters over a cliff in a car, Thelma and Louise style. ("And then they all died.  The End.")
     I have learned that what I used to think of as "inspiration"(the kind that ran out after ten pages), is really just discovering a story "seed." Seeds need to germinate to be useful (unless, of course, they are salted sunflower or pumpkin seeds). So I quickly write down whatever brilliant notion is burning in my brain cells at the moment,. . .and then leave it for awhile.  Sometimes, characters and story grow in the back of my brain over a year. I call it "crockpot writing";  throw in some ingredients, put it on low heat, and come back at the end of the day.  Sometimes I have dinner; sometimes I have a big mess. (I am not a good cook.)
     Once I decide I have something worth working on, I make it a point to not write chapter two.  I review what I know about my characters and story. Usually, a scene, an image, a conversation, something materializes.  I don't worry about where in the story trajectory this scene comes.  I just write it down.
    This is how I learned to avoid the "Chapter Two Plot Fizzle." I write out of sequence. . .at the least in the beginning of a project.  I write whatever is on the front burners of my brain.  If there isn't anything immediately, I will revise the last page (and only the last page) I wrote. This puts me back in the groove and a new scene or something will emerge.  At some point, I begin to see where all these pieces of writing fit together, and where there are holes. Now my writing has a starting point and a destination.
    I know that writing out of sequence doesn't work for everyone, but it works for me. I wrote Yankee Girl in sequence and wound up with a 400 page first draft.  Most of what I cut was stuff I wrote fumbling around for the next plot point.
    Over the holidays I had a creative flash. Out of nowhere, a teenage boy appeared in the backseat of a car.  His parents' car.  The parents are in the front seat. I knew where he was going, why he was there and what he was thinking.  I wrote all that down.
    I won't see my teenage boy again for a year or so.  Right now, I don't even know his name. (I do, however, know his girlfriend's name.) I don't know how or even if  he will work out his problem. I'm not worried about that.  I am finishing up my current Novel Out of Sequence.
    The Boy in the Back Seat will wait for me.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

First Drafts Stink So Just Do It.

     One of my big "Ah ha" moments in my never-ending quest of "learning to write," was reading Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird.  I know I have invoked Bird by Bird many times in this blog, but I can't help it.  When I am discouraged, bogged-down, or, as I mentioned in my last post, just plain "done" (as opposed to "finished") I call on Anne to get me out of whatever funk I am in.  Whatever it is, she's been there and done that a zillion times. Anne is a right-to-the-point kind of writer who isn't afraid to use four letter words and a little political rhetoric to get her ideas across. I know this bothers some people, so I mention it in recommending her book. If you skip past those occasional references, Anne is my right-hand-in-print-writing-guru.
    Anne was the one who gave me "permission" to write lousy first drafts (Anne uses a somewhat different word than lousy.) First drafts are for getting down the story, getting to know your characters and setting. When I sit down to a first draft, I don't agonize over word choices, character names or other details that don't come to mind immediately. Whatever doesn't come to mind immediately, I leave out by typing in XXXX. When I am revising, it alerts me that I know something is missing here, and hopefully, I now know what it is. If I still don't know, I leave it in until I do know. If that XXX is still around in the final draft it's usually a sign that I didn't need whatever it was in the first place.
    Unlike Jo Ann, I hate writing first drafts. Sometimes I feel like Moses wandering in the wilderness. Very often there are huge holes in my plot (like Jeanne Marie, plotting is my weakness). Right now I am going to break Esther's very sensible rule about not talking about what you are writing (the more time you spend time talking about it, the less energy you have to write it.) However, I am pushing my fiction envelope and writing a verse novel. For the record, I am not writing a verse novel because I am a poet ( I most definitely am not) or because verse novels are hot stuff right now. I just think it is the best and possibly the only way I can write this particular story, which is in three voices and so intense and occasionally gruesome, that it is too heavy to write as straight prose.
     The best thing about writing this first draft is that the verse format works really well with my particular way of writing. I don't write in sequence. I don't start with chapter one and then proceed to chapters two, three, etc. When I sit down to write, I write whatever is clearest in my mind that day. When I go back to write again, maybe I will continue with that scene, character, episode (pick one) or it sparks a chapter that I know will come before or after what I have already written. I don't worry where it will come. I just write. Backward, forwards, occasionally upside down (kidding). The only consistent thing is that whatever I think is going to be the last chapter, never is.
      When I go back for revision (the part of writing I love) I put my work into a preliminary order, sometimes shuffling chapter positions, but always discovering where there is a hole, or where I need a transition. Sometimes I find characters hanging around the edges of the story, not pulling their load. (They are fired.)
      This might not work for anyone but me. (I am ADD, and not the most organized person...at least not by organized person standards.) The point is to do what it takes to get out that first draft. This morning I've been writing a poem that I have no idea where it is going to fit in the book's trajectory. Maybe it will get the old heave ho in the final draft. But for right now, I feel pretty good about it. (I actually got the idea sitting in the skating rink parking lot last week, and wrote the notes for it on the deposit slips of my checkbook..I didn't have any paper.) I have also written on McDonald's napkins, air-sickness bags (empty ones) and of course, the writer's notebook I sometimes remember to carry with me. Right now I have two full notebooks, plus napkins, church bulletins, playbills and Wal-Mart receipts that I am transcribing into a first draft.
     I hate gathering all this stuff together (this is the first book I've ever written by hand first), but unless I want to lose some deathless piece of genius written on the back of a hockey schedule, I have to (excuse me Nike) just do it. 
    One more thing. Don't think too hard this first time around. Thinking turns into premature self-criticism which results in no drafts, first, second or final.
    Today I will remember to take my notebook to the skating rink.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman