Category Archives: A Room Of Your Own

A Room Of Your Own: Commit To One Work

After I’d told yet another story of my struggle to decide just what I should be working on, Carrie (friend; colleague; fellow writer) put it simply:

“Everything’s back on the table.”

The truth of her words struck me hard enough to probe further.

For months now, I have been taking projects on and off the table pretty much every time I sit down to write.

Last August I graduated with my MFA in fiction. During the three years I spent working on that degree, I remained entirely dedicated to one project: an autobiographical novel titled Hallelujah.
Taking work on and off the table has long impeded the realization of my writing goals because I don’t stick with one project long enough to “finish” it. Shaken by the truth of Carrie’s words, I see now what I haven’t seen since I left the program last August. Those three years constitute an exception to my writing life since I began penning my first poems as a freshman in high school.

I often proclaim proudly: “I’ve never had writer’s block.”

It’s true! And I see now why. When the writing gets truly hard, on the third, fourth or fifth read-through–even when I’m stuck mid-story– I switch projects.

Carrie and I spoke in the afternoon. Both high school English teachers, we encourage each other on a near daily basis to make time for writing after the work day is done. It’s hard to do. We have families. School days are long. Dinner needs to be made. Dogs need to be walked. We have other hobbies too. She said, “Everything’s back on the table” in the same way she typically makes such comments, commiserating. So much of our friendship is based on reminding each other that the struggles we face daily as writers, as mothers, as women, as teachers, as lovers are entirely shared. We are not alone. As is often the case, she made the comment as much to herself as she did to me.

The comment sent me reeling and hours later when I sat down with my weekly fiction critique group, a writer I respect offered a simple

solution to the my dilemma. He told me to take all the files I wasn’t currently working on off my computer. He said put them on a disc or flash drive. He advised that if necessary I should even give the files to someone I could trust not to give them back until I finished what I had committed to work on.

Eureka!

All these years I have been buying flash drives and uploading my entire library of documents to my cloud (as that inter-space is now called). A few months ago I bought an iphone and as I searched for apps to download, I thought how cool would it be to be able to access all my Google Docs from my phone.

The fact that I had hundreds of poems, dozens of short stories, and several novel drafts at my fingertips at any given moment, comforted me.

Like some other comforts, I see now how having all that work right in front of me every time I sat down to write moored me in indecision, kept me from staying long enough in any one work. This makes sense when I think about it. Staying too long means experiencing pain (such as doubt and fear of failure) and probably writer’s block.

This morning, I deleted all but the start of one story from my Gmail Drive. I took all the other folders and files and saved them in two locations. Until I finish the first draft of novel I started about Travis (a 24 year old stuck-in-neutral romantic who pumps gas at his parents gas station in Southeastern Oregon for a living when he should be moving on to his own life journey), when I sit down to write, I have exactly one choice of files to open, the work I have committed to finish.

Buy my books here.

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

A Room Of Your Own: Don’t Hesitate

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” (The Writing Life, Annie Dillard)

Hesitation wants to stall my writing. She spends her time mulling over and over again. She thinks it matters where one begins or ends. I know her well. She pressed me to the wall at middle school dances. She conjures excuses for me and I take them like an alcoholic takes to drink.

In elementary school, I preferred to blend in. I hated situations where all the attention turned to me and avoided them as best I could. I learned to ask others questions and to defer.

Step up to the line our P.E. teacher said, stop watch in hand. One at a time. i went to the back of the line and when my turn came, by will I had induced an asthma attack that cleared me from having to perform.

“Jennifer, will you walk Liz to the office,” said pudgy Mr. E.

Hesitation has plagued me all my life, but with practice and experience I am learning to keep her in her place.

Want to know my most recent trick?

In The Faith Of A Writer , Joyce Carol Oates tell the story of a writer who writes always in a rush. He puts his coat on and goes out on errands, then comes back to write. When the urgency worked up by his errand running wears off, he goes out again, then comes back to write some more without taking off his coat.

My trick is a lot like this.

When I return home after a run, I sit down immediately to write. No shower. No tidying up the house. No talking. Only write and write to a specific goal. It works! The momentum of the run breaks through the hesitation that so often slows or even prevents the flow of words to the page.

Must be a body-mind thing. 😉

Buy my books here.

A Room of Your Own: Boundaries

Let the people you live with know when you are sitting down to write. Tell them that for an hour or two or a page or a word count or whatever your goal is to please not disturb you.

It is your fault that at first they won’t listen to you. You’ve been at their beck and call for so long that they will need you without even thinking.

And you like that they need you.

Even if they do listen to you and they leave you to write just like you asked, you will start to feel guilty about twenty minutes in and begin to wonder how they are getting on without you. You may even make an excuse for needing to talk to them.

You forgot to ask how the oral book report went.

What are some synonyms for relaxed?

Did you remember to pay the car insurance?

What do you think of a trip to the beach this weekend?

You will need to be willing to let the domestic paradise that is your household fall to pieces without you. And you know it will fall to pieces without you.

Barring blood or broken bones, you will need to ignore every crash, every whine, every hard-shut cupboard or door.

When they don’t listen to you, you have to channel another you. The you that is a writer. The you that knows that in the long term you are helping the people you love more by showing them that if you really want something, you have to be ready to put in the time and work at it.

So, tell them when you are going to write and for how long and prove to them that you mean it by staying in the room and writing your heart out until you reach that day’s goal.

Buy my books here.

A Room Of Your Own: Pick A Fight

You are a writer. Just consider it.

There is nothing that can get get you in the mood for sweeping or writing like a good fight.

I don’t care what they tell you, it’s healthy. And the make-up is oh-so-sweet, you know.

You know!

Sometimes in order to write you have to make some wrinkles, break things up, let words fly.

Come on, let it all hang out.

Buy my books here.

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?

Buy my books here.

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.

Buy my books here.

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.

Buy my books here.

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.

Buy my books here.

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.

Buy my books here.

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?

Buy my books here.

Make Time.

Liz Shine: Author, Editor.

Category Archives: A Room Of Your Own

A Room Of Your Own: Commit To One Work

A Room Of Your Own: Don’t Hesitate

A Room of Your Own: Boundaries

A Room Of Your Own: Pick A Fight

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