Liz Shine wrote and read her way out of small-minded, small-town doom. We’re not talking about riches here. We’re talking about how a practice like writing can save a person. How it can give hope, shape identity, and ignite purpose. She hopes to write stories and poems that move readers the way certain works have made all the difference to her.
She lives in Olympia, WA in the USA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She has published in Shark Reef, Dual Coast, and Blue Crow Magazine. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.
The original form of this blog started in 2007 or so. It began and in many ways still is a way of asserting myself as a person who writes. More accurately, a person who deserves to write. And do you know what? Being a person who deserves to write had been one of the boldest assertions I’ve ever made. To do this work, I’ve had to contend with all of the following:
my tendency to take care of the needs of others above myself
insecurity
self-doubt
the need to earn money to support my family
fear
laziness
indecision
impatience
exhaustion
And this is just a starter list. I used to post here more often. That’s because I hadn’t yet figured out what I was writing. I had a just barely 50,000 word novel I’d busted out in November 2005 (NaNoWriMo), notebooks full of poems, and a few half-baked short stories.
Now, what time I have to write (Precious little! When can I retire?!), I spend chipping away at one of the three projects I’ve got in the works: two novels and a short story collection. I also work as an editor and designer for people self-publishing their book (Red Dress Press). Oh, and I teach high school English.
So, I post to this blog less these days, always trying for once a week and falling short. But this blog is forever with me, and I am always sending out wishes for flow to all of you out there endeavoring to tell your story through art in spite of all the distractions (internal and external).
Here are some things that lately are helping me Make Time:
consistent writing schedule
no phone, no email until after writing is done
nurturing supportive relationships
letting go of relationships that drain me/ leave me feeling small
I’m here, writing with you. I’ve been here writing with you since I first picked up a pen at fifteen and wrote the most untutored, beautiful-in-retrospect poem. I wrote that poem as an assertion of what had to be asserted first. I want to live. I’ll find a way.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
Let’s talk for a minute about zines. Being at the forefront of the Riot Grrrl movement, Olympia has a rich history of zines. In fact, there is still an annual Zine Fest here. I love the idea of guerilla publishing on the cheap and then distributing your work for free because you want to get your message out, which is the original intent of zines. Kind of like blogging without the internet or computers. Kind of. I mean the collage and handwriting aspect can’t be replicated by a computer which makes everything so polished and tidy. There is a special place in my heart for this brave and anti-capitalist form of self-publishing.
A few years back, some friends and I got together to make zines. I made a zine trying to articulate the core ideas behind how we Make Time for art in spite of everything. Basically, what this blog is all about. You can print and download the zine here.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
I come from a long tradition of writers whose creativity seems to depend on movement. Long walks clear my mind, creating space for the seeds of stories to grow unchoked by the weeds of surface worry. Running cuts through my self-doubt and overthinking. Yoga feeds my intuition and cultivates mindfulness and self-acceptance. These are key qualities of mind to induce states of flow. I lean particularly on lessons learned in yoga while in revision mode. Hiking and/or backpacking cultivate the resilience to trust in the messy process. In late July, I backpacked around Mount St. Helen’s, along the Lowitt Trail, with two friends. The trail offered several physical and mental challenges, plus some nuggets of wisdom that I carried home with me to use when I returned to the page. Let me try to break them down here in a few key aphorisms.
In this moment, there is peace.
No matter how hard I try to avoid it through careful preparation, I always seem to pack heavy. This was a topic discussed often on the trail as other hikers seemingly sped by us with comparatively petite backpacks. We asked each other: What would you leave behind to have a lighter pack? Answers were–not much. So, our packs were heavy. Except for the first overcast morning, the sun shone fiercely. We spent four days and three nights on the trail. At times the trail seemed to be a mere scratch on a cliffside, the ground just shifting sands underfoot. We trekked up and down many rock gullies. Three of these were so steep that they required ropes to navigate the trail. In a couple of places, the trail seemed to disappear before our eyes as we walked across boulder fields that stretched on and on into the distance. We scrambled our way from trail marker to trail marker, following the dusty footprints or cairns left behind by hikers before us. So much of the trail was exposed that you could see the routes ahead for miles. But here’s the thing: there is a lot of discomfort that comes with thinking about those miles ahead. Just as there is discomfort in thinking of how much further you need to go on your journey to finish your book, or to publication. For the most part, worrying too much about the future makes everything harder. During rest stops, I would pull out my map and think about the road ahead, but when we got to walking again, I tried to stay in the moment. I literally counted the number one to myself over and over to myself at times as a reminder. In this moment, there is a three-headed tigerlily proudly lit by the sun. In this moment, the lavender lupine carpet spreads out along the base of the hills and along the trails. In this moment, I can turn and see any of three mountains and feel a rewarding breeze at the top of a hill.
In writing, there is the ritual of the warmup. I feed and walk my two dogs, do a moving meditation, and prepare the sacred coffee. There is the feel of the keyboard under your fingertips, the sound they make when you get going. The pause of thinking, too. There is the moment of the story unfolding in your imagination. The stall when you get to a sticky part. The breakthrough. It’s counterproductive to the work in these moments to think too much about the miles ahead. Doing so has been known to sabotage an entire writing session. If I’m honest? It’s enough to do in a whole week of them.
Turn up your senses.
The mind wants to worry about the future (or to rehash the past). On the trail, this becomes strikingly tedious. There is so much more joy to be had in turning up the senses. Notice the bright red miniature strawberries along the trail. Then bend over to pick and eat one. Identify plants and trees. Take in the panorama of trees, sky, and earth. Listen for birds, the sound of flowing water, the voices of other hikers approaching, who might have intel on upcoming water sources.
The days were long. The water sources were sparse. Our bodies were more tired and sore each day. Our feet hurt, then blistered. But what do I really remember when I look back on all that? The moments, when I had my senses turned up to the volume of awe. Every night we sat under an open sky, trying to name all the constellations we could remember knowing. That is the sort of thing we need to do as writers: turn up our senses in the spirit of constructing our stories so that the places, characters, and scenes come alive in our imaginations.
Take care of others.
I know some people who like to hike alone. I’m not one of those people. When we stopped for water, we stood in a line so we could remove each other’s water bottles from the sides of our packs. At one point, my shoe was untied, and my friend said, here, put your foot up on my knee so I can tie it for you. We told each other stories. We pointed out what we saw along the way. We all paused when one of us needed a break. We shared snacks, sunblock, and moleskin. The end of every day was spent sitting in our camp chairs, sharing a meal, and laughing. Well, except for the night when we were too tired and possibly dehydrated to eat. But even that night, we laughed.
It can be the same way in writing. You certainly can go it alone, and I suppose that’s a quicker way to dig into the deep dark shadows of your soul if that is what you are after. As for me, I am looking to connect to others through my writing and along my journey. This means cultivating friendships with other writers, taking time to read other people’s work and give feedback, offering encouragement, writing a blog to inspire other writers, being a part of a writing group or community, and reading and reviewing other writers’ work. It’s taken me some time to see that this part is at least as important as the writing itself.
I’m taking August off from actively writing forward with my novel, focusing on rest and renewal. I’m gathering all the strength and commitment I will need to get back to my desk at 4 AM on school day mornings through the coming school year. I’m proud of myself for writing through June and July, and also for having the sense to take August off. It hasn’t even been two weeks, and I already feel the benefit of the pause. When I return to my characters again in September, I will be more present for them because I took the rest I needed to. The need for a rest may also have been inspired by the incredible effort it took to make my way all the way around Mount St. Helen’s in four days. And you bet your ass you would have heard the three of us singing that familiar refrain “She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes” when we got there.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
I was about to ask, when you see someone knitting a pair of socks, do you ask them whether they’ve sold any socks yet?
I wanted to illustrate my point. Then, I remembered Etsy and realized that even that analogy no longer works. If you’re a writer and brave and smart enough to call yourself a writer, you probably have encountered this question or some variation of it: Have you published any books? A recent version of that question I was asked recently: Did you self-publish your book? Because heaven forbid that you did not pass through the proper gatekeepers. Certainly, unless you have the right amount of luck, persistence through pain (rejection), and proper appeal to the target market, you can’t really call yourself a writer. Maybe, just maybe, if you work your social media connections and grab yourself a Patreon account, with enough followers, you will be worthy of your assumed title:
Writer.
What I’m writing to say to you is that you are an insidious lie of the worst kind. Worth does not come from marketability or earning potential. Worth isn’t earned.
Worth is inherent and the subscription is free lifetime access for all. You are clipping the wings of too many fledglings with the insidious way you creep into our thoughts, cloud our dreams, and dominate the conversations.
Writers might be asked far more interesting questions if it weren’t for your strangle-hold on the imaginations of the masses. For instance, Writing seems really hard. How do you do it? Or How do you decide what to write about? Or What do you hope people take away from reading your book?
I get why so many people are caught in your deception. For some it’s a matter of putting food on the table. That’s one nice thing about being a writer with a day job. Making time is more difficult, for sure, but at least I can write and write and write and not worry a damn about how much money it brings in.
I am writing this open letter in case anyone needs a reminder today about the things that actually make you a writer. The fact that you sit down regularly to write, for starters. The fact that you are constantly trying to get better at your craft through reading and conversations with other writers and readers. The fact that you believe in the power of words and stories to change the world.
As for you, dear subject. You are a liar. A dirty liar.
With a hearty flip of the bird,
Liz
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From here on out, I’m writing my posts in letter form. Sometimes I’ll write to you, dear readers, sometimes, I will write to others or even objects or subjects. This is a coming together of an old project from the past and a desire to get back to this space where I write about writing for two purposes: to invigorate my own work and to inspire you in your own story-making, whatever form that takes.
I’m a writer, but I also love taking pictures and doing collage. I hope to feature more of that work here in the future. The underlying assumption of this blog is that making time to construct our stories through our art leads to a more purposeful life, a better world.
foreward
I am, as usual for the past seventeen years, at work on a novel. I wrote my first novel in 2005 for NaNoWriMo. I will be forever grateful for that challenge for giving me the impetus to believe that I could write an entire book. I’d been writing short stories and poems for fifteen years at that point. I write slowly, without excess, so it is still a bit of a shock when I write my way to the end of a book. I’ve written a number now, though aside from the one I self-published, they’re all in the proverbial drawer for now. I’m okay with that. You aren’t going to find much focus here on how you need to contort yourself to get published. You will find loads on how to get yourself to your writing space and do the work, how to do that work in a way that makes you proud of what you’ve done. You will also find some posts about the mind/body connection in this work. Movement has long been a conduit for me to story-making. I’ve got a book about this simmering on the back burner and my autobiographical novella certainly started that conversation.
The search engines prefer that I include subheadings throughout my posts, so I’ve decided to embed some single words throughout that add up to a message to you for each post. The words will add up to the title of the post. Because–why not?
During my day job, I’m a high school teacher. There are so many reasons to look forward to summer, so believe me, I am not complaining. However, when it comes to creative work, summer is often not the idyllic writing retreat people assume it must be. During the school year, I get up at 4 am to get my writing in before my day starts. This tight structure actually helps me focus and put in the work. Summer can be a bit more loosy-goosy, so I’m working on an approach this year that might keep me moving forward while also honoring the play and rest that summer is meant to be. I’ll keep you posted on what I come up with for that.
For now, I am writing my way to the end of the school year as I have been all year. Up at 4 to write on weekdays. Saturday I fit in a couple hours of writing time when I can. That “when I can” hasn’t worked out consistently, so I’m strategizing about that. Though it took me a long while to admit it, I do better writing in the morning.
to your reply,
Sundays sometimes are critique group meetings, but not always. It’s a tightly constructed plan to make time, with loads of grace built in, because we are people, not machines, and there will be times when your energy and momentum ebbs and when it flows for all sorts of human reasons, and it’s best to be the wave, not fight it. If you are a writer looking for an online writing network for accountability, critique groups, workshops, and the like and are willing to pay a small fee for that space,Inked Voicesis a lovely place for that.
I do this work because I started when I was fifteen years old writing little poems and observations in my notebook. Who doesn’t have an identity crisis at 15?! No exception here. That’s around the time I started having panic attacks. Thank god I discovered yoga and walking. I found some relief from the intense dread I felt if I walked or emulated the yoga poses in the book I’d gotten as a gift or the second book I picked up at the used book store. I would walk home from my job at Burger King rather than take the bus, sometimes I would walk just because. It took about 8 miles to walk across Aberdeen and Hoquiam and there was something about making that distance by foot that started a seed of hope.
I still feel sometimes when I’m walking like I just want to keep walking and not stop. Like I want to skip work, or just not go home. There’s an ease and a freedom I feel that is a relief. This quote from the Lit Hub article Walking Distance by Lizzy Stewart resonates, “I think about walking a lot and I have tried to work out why it is the only way that I can clearly visualize myself. I think it makes me, an uncertain person, into a machine in forward motion, definite and capable.”
I am anxious this week because summer is so near. As much as I can’t wait for it, it disrupts the tight routine I mentioned earlier. Today, I’m going to sit down and make a summer writing plan and hope that will assuage some of this fear. In years past I’ve tried sticking to my school year schedule and it hasn’t worked out so well for me. Regardless, I’m going to sit down today and commit to something. I’ve got to. I’ll keep you posted.
Mostly, though, I look forward to the ease of summer. The Seatlle Public Library published their book bingo and I planned out what book I will read for each category. I’ve started with a re-read of A Visit From The Goon Squad, my book group’s pic for June. What are you reading this summer?
Sincerely, Liz
In summary, I am still here making time, hoping the same for you. I’m switching over the a letter format for future posts, because it just feels right. I’ll write again soon—
My light sees your light. Let’s keep making time.
Love, Liz
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Read this or put this on repeat if you want to break through resistance and trust the writing process. Better yet, write and record your own version.
*Deep inhale, long exhale
As in life, there will be uncertainty in your creative work. You may write a million words and never publish one. Your writing will be stilted, contrived, and full of writerly exposition, revealing that you don’t yet trust your reader.
Practice trust.
Let go of fear so you can stay in the flow. Let your characters guide you. Stay in the moment.
Let go of worry. Don’t follow the compulsion to explain. Follow the compulsion to show.
Let go of future-tripping about what your writing says about you as a WRITER. Let go of those existential questions.
Are you writing?
Then, you’re a writer. Trust the writing process.
The more important question is–Does it feel good to write?
In my experience, it doesn’t feel good when you let fear take the wheel. Remember why you started writing anyway. If you’re like me, you started writing so you could feel better, understand more, tell the story you’d been aching to tell.
Is this easier said than done?
For sure. Practice makes perfect, my friends.
Let’s do this thing together.
Trust the process. Let go your need to control the outcome. Let it flow.
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I am a firm believer in goals, as S.M.A.R.T as you can make them. Check out my 2022 Writing Plan document and file/make a copy for yourself while you’re at it. This document should be proof enough that I root for team have a specific plan and write it down.
And.
I believe that when you sit down to write you should kindly ask your goals to go for a walk and get some air.
When you sit down to write, you want to enter a flow. You want to be patient and stay in the moment. Future-tripping about whether you are going to meet your word count or deadline is going to hurt your writing. You will let things through that you know could be better just because you want to finish.
When you sit down to write, you need patience and presence. You need to climb into the sentence, the scene, the place and be there: hear it, see it, smell it, feel it, taste it. Then, you need to sit back, read it out loud and ask yourself–In what ways does this scene develop my story? My character? What parts of this scene does neither of those things?
Then, cut, cut, cut.
You can’t also be thinking about your word count goal or deadline. That efficiency mindset will stifle your voice. Isn’t telling stories that matter to you in your voice the reason you wake up at the crack of dawn or write during your lunch break?
Here are some things I do to keep my goals out of my writing time.
Mood matters.
For me right now that means I have an electric blanket on my lap. I’ve meditated, said my prayers, lit a candle. Even before that, I have a designated space where I know I will work. I have visual inspiration and affirmations posted everywhere. I have lists to keep me focused and to remember good habits. For instance, I have a post-it note with a no symbol (circle/slash) through it. Email is productivity straight up. Send it walking too.
Sit for the time.
Once you sit to write, do not get up for anything that isn’t a true emergency. So, basically unless there is a fire or you might pee your pants. I use a Pomodoro timer to keep me single focused in twenty five minute chunks. If a thought pops up screaming to be addressed now, I write it on a post-it and promise to take care of it after I write.
Connect.
Talk to other writers about your process. Listen to what works for them. Read craft books. Join a writing community or group. This will build your identity as a writer. The more you truly see yourself as a writer, the easier it will be to honor the time.
Have a schedule.
You can’t sit for time you have not scheduled.
Practice.
It may never go perfectly. You might have five minutes of flow or fifty. Doesn’t matter. Keep showing up.
I am here with you, showing up for the time. My light sees your light. We’ve got this.
Let’s Make Time, 2022.
—
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It’s important to pause, reflect, and shift routines and goals from time to time throughout the year. It can’t all come down to New Year’s intentions. And yet, there is something to be said for the potential a new year has for giving us permission to imagine our dreams coming true. Here’s a form I created to help you make those plans.
I filled out this form already and it did help me figure out where I’m headed next with my writing. As is usual this time of year, I’d gotten a little off the rails in terms of focus, plus I’d let some doubts creep in that threatened to seriously keep me from moving forward.
What will I be working on in 2022? Sending out queries for a book I wrote called It May Look Like Disaster, working on the second draft of a book called Scripts, and drafting some new short stories for a collection I started recently. That collection is tentatively titled Home Isn’t A Place. I’ve got my schedule tweaked and am ready to relaunch in full Monday 1/3. In the meantime, I’m getting organized and working like a person still on winter break, when I feel like it.
—
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I’m big into decorating for Halloween. And dressing up. For a number of years I’ve picked something that plays on a literary concept, because well, writer–English teacher–makes sense, right? One year I was Ann-Tagonist, and another year I was a meta-4, and another year I was an unreliable narrator. Not sure what this year will bring. Totally open to your ideas!
It’s as an adult that I’ve come to love Halloween and dressing up. Here’s an old post about a Halloween when I was in middle school when my shyness kept me from inhabiting my costume with confidence. That’s partly what dressing up is tied up for me now. A desire to fully inhabit my imagination without giving two fucks what others think of me. This gets better with age, for sure.
But this is a post about fear. While I have a lot less fear these days about what other people are going to think or say than I did as a young person, it’s still in there and comes out at odd times. I worked with a personal coach for three months during the heart of the pandemic who supported me on a quest to be bolder. I’m still working on it.
I fear driving fast in cars. I have panic attacks if I try to drive on the freeway, and when someone else is driving, I white-knuckle it and try to hide my nose in a book. I’m often convinced a car wreck is how I’ll die. At my worst moments when riding on the freeway, my imagination plays out the death-moment.
I fear that I have passed on too much of my fear to my son. More than anything, I want him to inhabit his power and worth and light. He’s anxious, like me, like his dad. He’s starting to find his way out of that trap. There’s nothing I want more. I pass on to him all the books, yoga poses, bits of wisdom he’ll allow me to. I tell him my stories.
I fear incompetence most of all. This one gets hard to describe. It starts way back with a sniffly, bullied kid who learned to tip-toe through life because the wrong thing said could mean a pinch, a bruise, a spanking with a belt. But I was always good at school. And I learned that if I kept my room organized and if I made lists of ways I could be better, I had a sort of control. I learned that I could achieve things. I could lose weight by lying for years that I hated chocolate and learning that if I caved and ate all the things I wanted to, I had a failsafe in the laxatives mom kept in the medicine cabinet. I learned that where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I got really good at managing my time and filling out forms and applications and doing a good job.
I suppose I am too much of a control freak to have ever given myself fully over to alcohol. But it became a failsafe too, a release valve at the end of the day. The first drinks I ever had taught me that when I was drunk, boys liked me. Get a few drinks in me and I would laugh and dance, and fearful me would leave my body for a while, so it was all so easy. I realize now what a trap that was. A release at the end of the day traded for more anxiety the next day, and thus more need of relief. A vicious cycle fueled by a big money industry that preys on people for profit.
I’m sober now. I’ve been sober-ish since last spring, slips along the way, but mostly soaking up resources and support to make the big move, the commitment. I didn’t start out planning to write about how I’m not drinking anymore. This is a theme-based blog post about fear. How did I get here?
Being an anxious person who has managed to live a fairly successful life means that I’ve learned a lot about how to cope with fear. I trained to run a marathon to stave off the increasing panic attacks plaguing me in my twenties. I picked up yoga at fifteen and never stopped because I realized immediately sitting on a towel in my bedroom floor trying to wrap my body and mind around pose after pose in Richard Hittleman’s book that there was something there for me. I’m all in on the movement meditations to garner what peace I can from life.
What I am not very good at is doing nothing. And that’s what alcohol gave me. An artificial stillness from care. Permission to binge-watch. Okay, so I write this, but I don’t know what to do with it. *pauses *reads it over again. Still not sure and that’s okay.
The other day I was driving to the grocery store when I got hit with a wave of panic. No rhyme or reason, just the usual way that feelings of impending doom hit you on a Sunday morning out shopping. My first instinct was to pull over and call for help. Then, I told myself, hey, you’ve got this. You know this fear and you know what to do. So, I remembered where my feet were, where my hands were, and I took some deep breaths and began to sing. Critical me questioned my song choice. Better me said go ahead and sing whatever the fuck you want. There’s a reason there are so many songs about rainbows. I got all the shopping done in the knick of time to make it to writer’s group.
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I am so close to wrapping up the first draft of the novel I am working on now. Let’s see…can I elevator pitch it yet?
Three women who were close in college are all at points in their lives when they need to take charge of their own stories and make some changes. They see each other through social media, which is a false and isolating view. Through their stories, we see how it might be possible to subvert the passage of time and bridge distance to restore friendship.
That’ll have to do for now. I haven’t even finished the damn book. My goal right now is to finish by the end of October, then spend National Novel Writing Month working on a new short story collection and submissions. I know, it’s not the program. It’s been a lot of years since I followed directions in November. My goal will be two new stories per week and six submissions. This blog update is forcing me to pin that down.
The routine
So far, fall writing has gone well for me. I’m up at 4 am, in bed by 8 pm. There are sacrifices I have to make in doing that, such as less time in the evening and just less free time in general. While the siren song of more leisure time on weekdays does call me at times, I keep reminding myself that this is a choice I am making so that I can pursue my passion. Other people sometimes say to me they don’t know how I do all the things I do, i.e. how I work as a teacher and still have time to write, take yoga classes, and go to the gym. It’s not magic. It’s a schedule, discipline, and a lot of sacrifices.
It helps that I am no longer drinking. Wine is a major time-suck, plus it mucks up your mood and energy. I’m on my second read-through of Quit Like A Woman, a book that finally spoke to me in a way that felt true to me about alcohol.
Last tidbits on how I’m making time
Sometime early pandemic, I found a new writer’s group online. That group is working well for me. It is one of times I am happy to Zoom these days. That group, guitar lessons, and an occasional “coffee date” or tarot reading with a friend.
My goal this week is 5000 wc, write two blog entries, submit three stories.
As for the blog posts, I’m hoping to shake things up a bit here. I’ve got years of posts motivating you to make time and I will keep talking about that, for sure. I’m also going to be posting more creative non-fiction this year as a themed experiment of mine. I’ve got themes lined out for every month, and I hope to post once per week. What’s the October theme? Stay tuned…
Want more inspiration?
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