Author Archives: lizshine74

About lizshine74

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.

An interpretation of A Doll’s House by Ibsen

Read it.
Thought-provoking.

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Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time:
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Dorothy Allison on The Bluest Eye

In The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate The Books That Matter Most To Them, Dorothy Allison explains how The Bluest Eye taught her the power of words:
“The Bluest Eye made it plain. The world could be different if truth was told in such gorgeous and stark ways.
I want to do that, I thought. Not, I can do that. I could not imagine a world in which I could put voice to all the things I thought and remembered and imagined about being poor and hated and used and denied. But oh Lord, if I could, if I could make a story that would touch someone else’s heart the way this one touched mine. If I could repay a tenth of what I owed this storyteller, this brave and wonderful woman on the page, I would give anything.
I would give anything—and will. This is a debt that passes to the reader—to take up the reader—to take the story up and remake the world. It changed me utterly It changes me still. It remade my life.”
What books have had similar impacts on you? I’m thinking about this while I read this book. For me there have been many short and long, fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose. Among them are A Wrinkle In Time, Even Covwgirls Get the Blues, Leaves of Grass, the poetry of e.e. cummings, The Golden Notebook, “The Story of An Hour”, “The Art of Losing”, The Boxcar Children mysteries, James and the Giant Peach and more. You?

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Lopate: An Interview On Literary Nonfiction

Here’s a great interview with Philip Lopate on literary non-fiction. Note what he has to say about our infamous James Frey. Also, what he says about “reflective nonfiction” , which I think is very wise and so necessary in a world where writers are so concerned with “the market”: “You could finesse a certain amount of technique, scenes, and dialogue, but it’s hard to finesse having or not having an interesting mind. I try to read writers who are better than I am, or who have deeper minds than I do because I need to learn.”
I read Lopate’s book Being With Children when I was studying to be a teacher. It was cool to stumble upon him again and to find in his interview unexpected wisdom in the middle of my day, this time on writing, reading and living, “One issue is the limits of our sympathy, and that we can’t always sympathize with people in need or in trouble. We wrestle with our solipsistic condition, and most people fall into a kind of self-absorption. We know that we should be open more to others, but we’re very self-pre-occupied. But, if we become friends with our minds, we will be less harsh on ourselves for not being perfect, for not being saints. We’re not saints, for the most part.
One of the things that literature does—and here I’m not just talking about essays, but about Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, the great novels of the nineteenth century—is it allows us to be more understanding about human frailty, about error, tragic flaws, and therefore, makes us more forgiving, and more self-forgiving. That’s a kind of wisdom.”
Amen.

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Short Stories

Like many writers, my first completed works of fiction were short stories. Immediately upon finishing my first short story, I fell in love with the form. Why? Because it allowed me in one sitting to express something vital that needed expressing–in the case of my first story, something about finding purpose in life. It was like a poem, only not a poem, different, more story, while still leaving much for the reader’s mind to ponder. For many years, I wrote only short stories and poetry, knowing that some day I wanted to write something longer, but that for now, I had some vital ideas that I needed to get out, in one sitting. I’m really stretching the truth when I say “in one sitting”. Though the initial story usually comes that way, I’ve been tinkering with one story in particular for fifteen years and others for varying lengths of time. I have a collection of thirteen stories now that I am editing and compiling into a yet unnamed collection (though I have a few possibilities).
I did eventually try my hand at “novels” and that seems to be where I spend a lot of my writing time now.
For the next month or two I’ll be focusing on this story collection, sidetracking to other projects only when I need a diversion, so I’ll probably blog some about the project. I’m also finally going to finish the book The Art of the Short Story, which I’ve read about half of so far.
Last night I tinkered around with what the order of the stories should be and came up with the concept for an opening story. It will be good to “finish” the collection. Though all the stories are fictional, they’re all quite a bit closer to my own experiences as woman and as a human being than the longer works of fiction I have in the works. I feel like I’m tying it all up, you know, so I can put it away and get on to other things for good.

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Literary Period: Romanticism +

Yesterday, I made a list of topics–all related to writing–that I’d like to cover in this blog. I was amazed at how long the list was–and inspired. As a result of this, I hope to post something for writers to muse over every day.
Today, Let’s get some historical perspective. 🙂 Paul Brians, WSU professor, wrote a rich little essay on the Romatic period of art and literature. He concludes with this assertion: “Looking back over the list of characteristics discussed above one can readily see that despite the fact that Romanticism was not nearly as coherent a movement as the Enlightenment, and lacked the sort of programmatic aims the latter professed, it was even more successful in changing history–changing the definition of what it means to be human.” Click here to read the whole darn thang.
Looking for an inventive way to fit reading one of the works mentioned by Brians into your already ridiculous reading schedule? Check out Librivox. You can download many of the works mentioned on audio and listen to them while walking the dog or cleaning the kitchen.

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Healthy Competition?

I recently added a 6 AM cycle class to my workout schedule. Wow! Has it shaken up my routine? Oh yeah. Just this one morning of waking up just a little earlier and rushing out the door instead of shuffling about in my bathrobe drinking coffee and playing Scrabble online is making all the difference for me creatively.
At first, I was put off a bit by the instructor who teaches this cycle class. His tendency not to enunciate clearly annoyed me. He’s grown on me though and just like the Russian Anthropology professor I had in college, I’m coming to understand his language. What I like about him is that he uses tons of imagery cues. He takes us on rides through the Sahara, downtown Olympia, up and around snowy mountains. He must love poetry, I think, because how else could he so shamelessly tell us—at the end of our workout today—that we were tulips and that the sweat running down our arms was dew on bright petals.
When I walked in to class this morning, the instructor, Steve, had all the bikes circled and facing the windows where the sun would rise. The music choice throughout the hour long class included such hits as Genesis “Land of Confusion” and Aerosmith and Run DMC singing “Walk this Way”. Can you imagine that? It was awesome. At one point, I laughed out loud. I think it was when Steven Tyler first interjected, screaming, “walk this way”.
Now here I am coming to the point. Steve did something different today. He numbered us of into two groups—1s and 2s—and encouraged throughout the workout some healthy competition between the two groups as we sprinted and climbed. This made me think about writing and all the ways that competition keeps me productive and motivated and all the ways that it cripples my work. So what is it that people mean when they talk about “healthy competition”? Here’s what I think:
1. Competition must help ALL participants. Checking in with your writing mates from time to time to make sure that word count challenges, contests, and other competitive motivators that you are using in your writing practice are working for everyone and are working for YOU. If not, do something differently.
2. Competition is like the gooiest chocolate brownies. A square here and there keeps nurtures us. Too much throws us off balance. We lose sight of the big picture—the one story that compels us to write.
3. It’s all an illusion. Ever seen the Matrix? Competitions designed to get you writing are elaborate hoaxes that participants agree to perpetuate for the mutual benefit of all. What does this mean? Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t throw your hands in the air and bemoan your failure. Mark little strides and small accomplishments and celebrate them. The only person you are really in competition with is yourself. The rest is just a game.
How can you use a little competition to get your pen moving?

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Field’s End Writer’s Conference 2008

I attended the Field’s End Writer’s Conference this past Saturday and though I’m still processing it all, I came away with SO much more than what I paid for. Really, though at the end of the day I was tired and, frankly, grumpy, I woke up this morning with ideas for revising my novel clamoring for attention and with fresh ideas about keeping my practice alive and productive.
The conference ran from 8:30 to 6 PM at the Kiana Lodge. There was an Opening Address (Stephanie Kallos), a Keynote Speaker (Roy Blount Jr.), a Closing Speaker (Timothy Egan), and three breakout sessions. The shore was right outside the window and the smell from the bay a few strides away, which seemed to me a perfect setting for reflections on the process of writing. The food was good, particularly the coleslaw served with lunch. No mayo. The way it ought to be.
Breakout I:
Jennifer Louden explained her process of “Writing Naked”. She was overflowing with ideas to inspire us, to get us writing more and more often. There were ideas that I hadn’t heard before, or at least had not heard in that way. She explained “shadow comforts” and “time monsters” and offered tips to avoid these traps. She encouraged us to lower our standards—yes, lower—and preached, “It matters, but it’s not precious.”
Some ideas for stepping up my practice that I came away with is to make a commitment to write for at least ½ hour everyday (she says even five minutes will do), to make a couple of mix CDs just that long to write to, and to write about writing in my morning pages. Those are just the nuggets that I pulled from what was an inspired, organized lecture. I also bought a writing hat to wear to let my family know when I’m writing and would rather not be bothered, but that was not something she said directly, just something that came to me while I was listening to her.
Breakout II:
This lecture balanced out the upbeat you-can-do-it tone of “Writing Naked”. Alice Acheson described how to create a pre-publishing platform and provided some very useful handouts. Her main point was to communicate that the author ought to take an active, leadership role in their own promotion. She came to us with loads of experience and expertise, and I will pull the packet of stuff she provided out again when I’m ready. One tip she offered that I will absolutely begin immediately, is to start a marketing folder for any piece you are hoping to market NOW, the minute you write the first word.
Breakout III:
For this Page One workshop, I submitted one page of my novel At The Pump. As many pages as we had time for were read aloud by actor Ron Milton and critiqued on the spot by Alice Acheson and Laura Kalpakian. I would have felt better at the end of the day if my page (which did get read) had received glowing reviews. It did not. Not at all. But in the end, it helped me to see a change I’d made for the wrong reasons and helped me to see the path before me clearly. I’m going back to my original opening. It also helped me to unravel some knots I’d been picking at in the plot. There’s nothing like fear of drowning to wake up the creative spirit. After the critique, I was faced with two options: let the project die or resuscitate it. There might have been a third option—flip Laura and Alice the finger—if I hadn’t agreed with their critique, but they were right and I knew it.
Sunday, I printed my latest draft and put a paper clip on each chapter, then made some notes about what I wanted to add or change. This evening (Monday), I’ll lay out those chapters, and begin my third revision.

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A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

Emelita and I have this standing date every three weeks. Every third Sunday, she attends my yoga class and then we meet at Border’s Books to read as much of one book as we can in one sitting. We take turns picking the book. We take turns ordering tea by the pot. Last Sunday, it was her turn to pick. She picked Christopher Moore‘s A Dirty Job.
Wow! I feel the way I did when I was eleven and read the first of L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time series, or at sixteen when I read my first Robbin’s novel, Still Life With Woodpecker. I read all the time, always more than one book at a time, but only occasionally do I fall this hard, I’ve-got-to-read-everything-this-person-has-in-print hard.
So, I’ve finished A Dirty Job, a book with craft about a junk dealer who loses his wife after the birth of their first child and that gets seriously zany from there. It’s a story about reconciling the beauty of the world with the inevitability, sometimes seeming cruelty, of death. Charlie Asher, our hero, discovers that having the courage to face death despite risk is how to live victorious over death, something that few souls accomplish, and certainly not in one lifetime. The opening line of the novel sets the reader up for chapter after chapter of killer opening lines: “Charlie Asher walked the earth like an ant walks on the surface of water, as if the slightest misstep might send him plummeting through the surface to be sucked to the depths below.”
I’m reading Bloodsucking Fiends next so that in three weeks, Emelita and I can read You Suck at our iheartreading ceremony. (That’s the only book by Moore she hasn’t already read. )

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An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen

I read An Enemy of the People via DailyLit.com. This is a site where you subscribe to a book and receive a bite-sized chunk of reading each day. This play arrived each day over 44 days. Though I wondered if reading in this method would hold my attention, it did. A snippet of literature in the middle of the day that did not require a long-term commitment and offered just enough to ponder.
The play itself was transparent and apparently a revenge play written by Ibsen in response to the public’s rejection of another of his plays for it’s supposed smuttiness. However, it was well worth the read for its ironic wit and for the “liberal-minded, high-minded” doctor’s impressive rhetoric.

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The Faith of A Writer by Joyce Carol Oates

Just finished reading The Faith of A Writer by Joyce Carol Oates. I read this little book on writing over a long period of time. I’d get caught up in other interests and set it aside for weeks, then pick it up again and read for a half hour, then set it down again. What I like most about this book is that it isn’t just about her experience as a writer, but about our experience as writers. Oates is well-read and informed about the lives of “important” authors of the literary canon and she is adept at literary analysis. Her book is filled not only with her own personal reflection on her life as a writer, but with reflections on the lives and work of other writers. She does this all to get at the important questions of the HOW and WHY of writing. Here are some of my favorite excerpts from the book with my comments.

“Most of us fall in love with works of art many times during the course of our lifetimes. Give yourself up in admiration, even in adoration, of another’s art. (How Degas worshipped Monet! How Melville loved Hawthorne! And how many young yearning, brimming-with-emotion poets has Walt Whitman sired!) If you find an exciting arresting, disturbing voice or vision, immerse yourself in it. You will learn from it.” (Oates 26)
Liz’s Comment: What writers have you immersed yourself in? I’m not just talking read a book or two and thought, wow that’s good writing, but read everything you could get your hands on– shared the lines you like best with anyone who would listen, even carried those same lines around in your book bag, fingering them between thumb and index finger like a peasant rubbing a lamp in hopes that your wish will be granted. Some of the writers I’ve fallen in love with at different points in my life include: Whitman, Dostoyevsky, Richard Brautigan, Tom Robbins, Dorris Lessing, E.E. Cummings, W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, and Madeline L’Engle.

“Running! If there’s any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can’t think what it might be.” (Oates 29)
Liz’s Comment: Yes! Me too. When I come home from a good run, often the first thing I do is look for pen and paper.

“Writer’s and poets are famous for loving to be in motion. If not running, hiking; if not hiking, walking.” (Oates 30)

Liz’s Comment: Me too!

“I’m a writer absolutely mesmerized by places; much of my writing is a way of assuaging homesickness, and the settings my characters inhabit are curcial to me as the characters themselves. I couldn’t write even a very short story without vividly “seeing” what it’s characters see.” (Oates 35)

Liz’s Comment: Use this as a writing prompt. Fully sketch out or describe a place. Then set some characters in that space and see what happens.

“The writer carries himself as he would carry a precarious pyramid of eggs, in danger of failing at any moment, and shattering on the floor in an ignoble mess.” (Oates 61)

Liz’s Comment: Love this simile. ☺

“That the writer labors to discover the secret of his work is perhaps the writer’s most baffling predicament, about which he cannot easily speak: for he cannot write the fiction without becoming, beforehand, the person who must write that fiction: and he cannot be that person, without first subordinating himself to the process, the labor, of creating that fiction, which is why one becomes addicted to insomnia itself, to a perpetual sense of things about to fail, the pyramid of eggs about the tumble, the house of cards about to be blown away.” (Oates 64)

Liz’s Comment: I do feel that I must write and am happiest when I’m writing or when I’ve just completed a piece. When I go too long without having written, I fall into a kind of depression that sometimes I don’t recognize at first as the withdrawal that it is. I might have been an alcoholic like my father or a food addict like my mother if I hadn’t started writing.

“It [inspiration] can be like striking a damp match again, again, again: hoping a small flame will leap out, before the match breaks.” (Oates 76)

Liz’s Comment: Right on.

“Is there any moral to be drawn from this compendium, any general proposition? If so, it’s a simple one: Read widely, read enthusiastically, be guided by instinct and not design. For if you read, you need not become a writer; but if you hope to become a writer, you much read.” (Oates 110)

Liz’s Comment: Amen!

“The story’s theme is like a bobbin upon which the thread of the narrative, or plot, is skillfully wound. Without the bobbin, the thread would fly loose.” (Oates 120)

Liz’ Comment: Right on.

“To have a reliable opinion about oneself, one must know the subject, and perhaps that isn’t possible. We know how we feel about ourselves, but only from hour to hour; our moods change, like the intensity of light outside out windows. But to feel is not to know; and strong feelings will block knowledge. I seem to have virtually no opinion of myself. I only publish work that I believe to be the best that I can do, and beyond that I can’t judge. My life, to me, is transparent, as a glass of water, and of no more interest. And my writing, which to far too various for me to contemplate, is an elusive matter, that will reside in the minds (or as Auden more forcefully says, the guts) of others, to judge.” (Oates 136).

Liz’s Comment: This struck me as a healthy perspective, especially considering the cataloguing of tortured writers that preceded this passage. I hope that if I got to the place where I spent much time obsessing over how good I was or wasn’t, I’d quit writing all together and take up something else—like scrap booking, for instance. I tirelessly revise my work, but I do not confuse the work with the woman. This is a case where the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.

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Make Time.

Liz Shine: Author, Editor.

Author Archives: lizshine74

About lizshine74

An interpretation of A Doll’s House by Ibsen

Dorothy Allison on The Bluest Eye

Lopate: An Interview On Literary Nonfiction

Short Stories

Literary Period: Romanticism +

Healthy Competition?

Field’s End Writer’s Conference 2008

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen

The Faith of A Writer by Joyce Carol Oates