Category Archives: On writing

A Room Of Your Own: Don’t Put The Groceries Away

It started with some wild honeysuckle on my way home from writer’s group. A deep red like I’d never seen growing right there at the edge of the parking lot. I picked one, then four more. Then, it was California poppies from the edge of someone’s yard. I felt rebellious. Did anyone see me pick them? I looked around. Then calendula, rhododendron, and some white decorative something–also from the edge of people’s lawns. When I reached my house, I added some fading forget-me-nots from my backyard. While I’m writing this blog, I am looking at the bouquet I made from them.

For the second week in a row, I didn’t bring any pages of my own to writer’s group. I didn’t have many and I’m feeling protective of the ones I have. On the walk home tonight I was listening to Stephen King’s On Writing. As always with audio books, I lost track of his narrative in parts, but I caught what he said about how a story should start inward, then move outward. Yes, I thought, this story is still inward.

When I came in the house tonight, my stomach growling, a bag of groceries I had stopped off to pick up on the way, I put the grocery bag on the counter and sat down to write. People are trying to talk to me (my son; my boyfriend) and I want to talk to them( I love talking to them), but I am mostly ignoring them so that I can write this blog. I’d rather be taking a shower–eating dinner–finding out how the evening went. I didn’t even put the groceries away and I’m not sure I’ve ever just left the groceries sitting out.

How did I get in the room tonight?

I picked a bouquet of flowers and sat it next to my writing desk.

I did not put the groceries away.

What are your tricks, writer friends?

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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

Sunday Book Review…Well, sort of…

The book I want to review is The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch, but I haven’t finished it yet. I know I want to write a review on this book because since I bought it a week ago it has never been far from sight. I carry it in my handbag when I go for walks (in case I find a nice bench to sit on, I guess). I put it on the counter when I clean the kitchen. I take it to school with me and read it whenever I ask my students to quietly read. I am likely to finish it tonight (50 pages to go!).

This Thursday, Yuknavitch is coming to Olympia as a featured reader in the Gray Skies Reading Series. I will be there and I promise you, dear blog readers (who are you out there? what are you writing now?) I’ll write this review then.

We post the Sunday Book Review in the spirit of Hart Crane: “One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones appear in the proper pattern at the right moment.” I was delighted when one of my students (senior; high school) explained to me the topic for her personal narrative on how reading challenging books has changed her. She’s going to talk about how she has a deeper appreciation of craft, how she is a better writer for reading.

Hallelujah!

Sometimes I think I should just give up writing for a year or ten and read good books. Jane Smiley did this and wrote about it in her wonderful book 13 Ways of Looking At The Novel.

I am in a book group for writers and we read one book a month together and then meet to talk about it. If I had to choose between my writing groups (the other being a critique group), I have have to pick the reading group.

Thankfully, I don’t have to choose. 🙂

I am one of those people who believes ALL the answers can be found in b0oks. I buy more books in a month than I could possibly read and blame the fact that I haven’t found all the answers mainly on the fact that I have yet to read all the books. Sometimes, feeling bad about my rate of purchase compared to my rate of consumption, I will buy a book that catches my eye for someone else rather than not buy it at all.

I don’t check books out or borrow them because I have to write in them. When I read without a pencil in my hand, I feel helpless and unprepared.

There are plenty of books I could write a review for instead of Yuknavitch’s memoir and I suppose that would have been the sensible thing to do here.

It’s Sunday. It’s your turn. You have a blog to write.

I can’t.

It has to be that one. So look for it here Thursday night. I promise to write it after the reading.

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A Room Of Your Own: Reward Yourself

Disregard the myth that the writing should be its own reward. You don’t have that kind of time. You’ve been working at writing since your teens and you have gotten a lot better over the years.

You need only crane your neck to take a good look at your twenties to to see the result of that elitism: Writing in creative bursts with heaps of I-haven’t-been-writing melancholy in between. You had more time then, but you wrote less. You wrote less because you believed writing either happened or it didn’t. When it happened, you called it inspiration. When it didn’t, you called it “writer’s block”.

As you’ve gotten closer to death, you’ve realized that perhaps writing requires more initiative than that from you. You’ve realized that setting small and large goals helps make the writing happen. You’ve realized there is no shame in setting a timer and competing for word count against your writer friends. You’ve realized that rewarding yourself with shoes or chocolate works and nobody cares how you got the writing done (exception: plagiarism).

You have to be tirelessly optimistic and willing to try anything that will keep your butt in the darn chair if you’re going to be a writer.

You’ve got to call yourself a writer and make writer friends. You’ve got to write your goals down. When you achieve a goal, you’ve got to celebrate it. Your work is a big deal. Don’t waste another day thinking that you don’t deserve any encouragement that works.

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A Room Of Your Own: Speak-Write

You’ve heard of Freedom, right? Software you can pay for that shuts off your Internet for how ever many minutes of writing time you desire?

I won’t lie. When I head about it, I was more than intrigued. As I considered downloading it over the course of several days, I slipped the news of this new software into all sorts of social conversations. Other writers. Women in my running group. Strangers also waiting for their coffee beverage of choice. Everyone thought it was an excellent idea. I did too. So, why did I hesitate?

I hesitated because I have a tendency to throw money at my problems on a whim, only to face devastation when the problems don’t actually go away. The shoe organizer I bought didn’t keep me from buying too many shoes. The self-help book I bought with On-Click-Ordering didn’t cure my tendency to behave as if my boyfriend should know how I feel, what I want, without my having to tell him. I’m not any less pissed when he doesn’t read my mind.

Hours wasted checking email and browsing people’s status updates are symptoms of a larger problem. Freedom? The idea is absurd, if you think about it. Pay money to shut off Internet you pay money for because you don’t have the self control to open your browser instead of your document? And is there a program to turn off my phone? Keep my son from walking into the room even after I’ve told him I’m writing and need to concentrate? Turn the TV down in the other room? Make the rain start? Pick up the pen for me?

The larger problem?

Most of us live in environments unconducive to flow. Our society seems hell-bent against it. In our quest to avoid boredom, we have opened ourselves to a ceaseless chatter of information and stimulation. We cannot hear ourselves think.

One very concrete trick I have for inducing flow, wherever I am?

Speak-writing.

Speaking while I write and reading the words aloud after I’ve written them. There’s something about the physical act of writing combined with the sound of the words from my mouth that enables me to find that space where I am able to write despite distractions internal or external. Sure, people look at me funny when I do this in public, but who cares? I like to think the quirk just adds to my mystery.

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A Quiet Place

The dishes are done. The cats are napping. Quiet at last. I sit down to write. Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! “What are you doing, Mommy?” my son asks between mouthfuls of cheesy puffed corn snacks.

“I’m writing.”

“I’ll bring my toys back here and play then.” Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

I stare at the blank page. Two fat crows squawk and caw back and forth to each other outside the window. My son is staging an epic battle between a cluster of shock troopers and a battalion of Middle Age knights adorned with gold fleur-de-lis. “Bam! Clang! Wham! Crash! Blam!” One of the crows flies up to the tin-covered patio roof. His feet scritch and scratch as he struts to and fro.

One of the greatest struggles I face as a writer is how to tune out the noise and find a quiet place amidst the din and clamor of daily life. Sadly, I have not discovered any magic formula. What have I learned? The more I fight the noise, the more I make excuses why I can’t write right now, the more I blame the people and things around me for my lack of creativity and productivity, the more miserable I become and the more my writing suffers.

It’s okay to write in a noisy house. If that’s all you have available to you, take a deep breath and dive in. It’s okay to tell everyone in the house you’ll be unavailable for an hour, a half hour, even fifteen minutes. If you’re interrupted by anything other than an emergency, it’s okay to half-heartedly listen and respond with auto-pilot “mhmms.”

Trust me, the noise isn’t going anywhere. From the hiss and froth of your local coffee shop, to the “he said, she said,” conversation of the teenagers in the “Quiet Study Area” of the library, to the rustle of leaves in the trees, noise is everywhere. Besides, if I’m perfectly honest, there have been times I’ve complained I couldn’t write because it was too quiet.

Forget about finding the perfect circumstances. They’re never perfect. Focus on the words. Tell the story. Stop fretting about the Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Behind you. Gnaw on it. March with it. Write.

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Sunday Book Review

I think we can agree that reading is essential. If you’re like me (and I’ll bet you are), certain books you read and the impact they had propelled you to begin writing in the first place. Then pretty soon, you found yourself copying down your favorite sentences from your favorite books or reading the same books over and over again. You may not have even known that by doing this you were becoming a writer.

When I am struggling to write, one of my internal editor’s favorite disparaging comments is, “Who do you think you are? Give it up. You’ll have more time to read all the really good writing out there.” This particular comment comes from a well-worn path made by my thoughts and actions based in the fear that I am somehow less than everyone else: less talented, less intelligent, less worthy of love.

When my collaborators and I decided that the topic for Sunday on this blog should be reviews of books and articles, I happily stepped forward to write the first review. I read often and closely. I feel helpless if I have a book to read and no pencil in hand to converse with the text in the margins. I’ve read plenty I can review. However, when it came down to deciding where to start, my confidence waned. I thought I’d write about Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg since that was the first book on writing I ever read and still the most inspiring (perhaps nothing can ever compare to a book read at sixteen that bids you to follow your heart?). I considered articles and books, including the book that I’m reading this month with my writer’s book group (The Sense of An Ending
by Julian Barnes). I considered books I have read specifically to fuel my current fiction project, a collection of stories exploring one woman’s relationship to food.

Until I sat and began to type, I remained mired in indecision. Each word typed made clearer the review I needed to write and why.

I first tried practicing yoga when I was fifteen years old. In the near quarter century that has passed since that curious, self-conscious time, my practice has whispered and roared, but there hasn’t been a time when I gave up practicing at all. I keep my mats, blankets, and props always where they can be easily taken out. I keep enough open floor space that a mat can be thrown down without having to move the furniture around. Is it coincidence that this is the same path my writing has taken? No. In fact, when I consider that question the answer is so obvious it makes my eyes water.

Yoga allows me to cut through the crap that goes through my mind and keeps me from writing. In the past year, my yoga practice has been a whisper, 10 minutes here or there, a full practice once a week, sometimes once a month. This has something to do with how much has changed in my life of late. Three years ago, I was married and teaching three yoga classes a week. Since then I have divorced, fallen in love, moved from a small apartment I shared with my teenage son to a house shared with my boyfriend and his two children too. My life is fuller and more chaotic. I am still reeling from the change, finding my way.

Yoga Mind and Body by the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre is proving a kind guide back into a roaring practice. The sequence has many of my favorite poses and takes two full-color pages per asana to show and describe. The sequence is right for beginners (which some days is where I am) and adaptable to advanced practice. Most importantly for where I am in my practice is that the book leads you asana-by-asana through a full and honest yoga practice that begins and ends with relaxation. Right now, I need to be led in this way, though at times I have practiced every day without ever opening a book on yoga at all.

Is it a coincidence that the very week after I found this book and began using it to make yoga happen, the writer’s block I had been struggling with for weeks broke and I finished one story and began another? Of course not.

For me, it’s yoga. There are many meditative practices that keep our egos in check so we can do our work and do it well. Cooking. Walking. Swimming. Breathing. Biking. Gardening. There are times when all I am doing is these things and I feel guilty because I am not writing. Were those three wordless weeks truly writer’s block? Or was I preparing myself for the writing that was bound to happen?

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Dear Indecision,

Watercolor Sketch by [email protected]

Dear Indecision,

How have I come to trust so much in the process that I haven’t written a new sentence in two weeks? I moved some around and deleted others. I made a chart and a theme collage. For a day, at least, I moved my back burner project to the front and vice versa. I felt so relieved by this new plan and relieved again when I changed my mind the next day. I spent considerable time considering whether I should edit the six interconnected stories I have written or forge ahead with the fourteen that are mere concepts on an idea map.

Indecision, you allow me to stall indefinitely, make everything but writing a priority including joining Pinterest and trying new recipes.

Last week, I sat down to write at three in the afternoon and at four fifty had ticked five less important tasks off my to-do list but hadn’t written a word. I told everyone in my family that I was staying at work late to write, so I responded to the question, “How did writing go?” upon my return without specificity and with plenty of shame.

I’ve heard some tips famed to help with all this. Butt-in-chair. Begin with a line from a famous book. Write one page and then delete that page before you begin to write for real. Stay in the room. Communicate with your family that for ___ hour(s) you really can’t be disturbed. Hell, ask for even twenty minutes at a time if that will help you build a habit.

Trouble is, I’m having some trouble lately deciding just what my process will be.

*Googles it*

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A Room of Your Own

By room, I mean that mental space where in spite of distractions that come like insects on warm evenings you triumph in your daily desire to get words on the page. I mean the opposite of the dreaded block, that space that confirms that you are in fact a writer in spite of all your doubts, because dog-gone-it, you did write today.

I’ve read at least a dozen books cover-to-cover bursting with insight on this subject. Each one, I believed, upon completion, would save my forever-in-peril writing life. In a few instances, I nearly ran my highlighter dry and inked hearts in the margins of nearly every page. Inconvenient as it may be, like most important creative pursuits, there is no fool-proof, step-by-step guide to a productive writing life. Our lives are diverse as our personalities are. We are human and prone to swings of mood and bouts of vitality and illness. Different writing projects demand different processes. Hopefully, we get better with practice. What I have come to understand about what works to get myself in the room and willing to stay there is that one must keep at it and do whatever works.

We are not just writers. We are lovers, mothers, employees, and members of communities and social worlds. If you’re like me you also have other hobbies. Yoga? Cooking? Bird-watching? Role-playing? The very same existential energy that fuels our writing, spurs us on to garden and volunteer. I do not write every day, but I do try.

Just the other day a colleague and writer friend sent me this link that profiles a woman who has created room both figuratively and literally for her art to an impressive degree. My favorite line from the article reads, “lots happens in these little spaces between work and eating and sleeping.” I often sneak writing into my day while stuck in a meeting or waiting for the oven timer to ding. I am drafting this blog entry while watching pairs of my ninth graders decide which of four love poems they prefer most for its style and message. They are preparing a 5 minute presentation on the subject. Do I have papers to grade? Could I make another tour of the room? Well, sure. But.

Following an occasional creative impulse in the midst of a work day is one of many ways I get words on the page and I like to think it doesn’t hurt students to work independently while I step into my imagination. My eyes scan the room for inspiration when I lose the thread of a sentence. I’m sure they think I’m checking their progress. I see how they get busier when my eyes land on them.

Mondays are hereby dedicated to the myriad ways we get into that room to do the writing we have to do.

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Making time to read what’s offered unsolicited…

I know it is hard enough to make a dent in the stacks of books and periodicals in your own mental queue. Add to that the book or two you are reading for school, work, or your book club and the one you’re reading more for self-improvement than pleasure. You also have at least a few periodical subscriptions piling up and you really ought to read more poetry, don’t you think?

I’m with you.

Today, though, I made an exception. A colleague of mine waltzed into my classroom carrying a two foot pile of fresh copies for his students. When I realized that the reason the whole pile nearly tipped over onto my floor was that he had printed something else–something extra–for me.

I had plenty more pressing duties today, but somehow, in between this and that, I managed to read the four NY Times articles this friend had offered unsolicited. He did not say why he printed them for me. I suppose because I am an English teacher and they were all about sentences, fiction, and books.

I read them all and enjoyed them all for their thought-provoking ideas and found among them four of five lines to use in class or just to underline and write a heart next to (what I do when I really like a sentence).

Here are the articles this history teacher who totally didn’t have the time to think of what I might read and enjoy but did anyway passed on to me:

“The Sentence As A Miniature Narrative” by Constance Hale

“My Life’s Sentences” by Jhumpa Lahiri

“Your Brain On Fiction” by Annie Murphy Paul

“The Way We Read Now” by Dwight Garner

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Tottering on the beam

Fall (September and October more specifically)is the hardest time of year to get writing done. While the change of season invites writing and reflection, the amount of things I need to do in a day widens with the start of school. Yet, the days are literally shrinking and the ungraded papers (like the leaves on my lawn) pile higher and higher. I’m not losing hope,though, not giving up. Getting up at 3 AM two days each school week is helping. Regular writing time after school on Wednesdays with my two favorite writing buddies is also a boon. Keeping my bi-weekly appointment with my critique group also urges me on. Then there is also the network of writer support I’ve built on Facebook. Hallelujah for these encouragements!

Because writing with consistency through our busy, overcrowded lives is at times impossible and, at best, difficult, but rewarding work.

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Make Time.

Liz Shine: Author, Editor.

Category Archives: On writing

A Room Of Your Own: Don’t Put The Groceries Away

Sunday Book Review…Well, sort of…

A Room Of Your Own: Reward Yourself

A Room Of Your Own: Speak-Write

A Quiet Place

Sunday Book Review

Dear Indecision,

A Room of Your Own

Making time to read what’s offered unsolicited…

Tottering on the beam