Tag Archives: inspiration

A Room Of Your Own: Write one sentence

The end of a school brings a flood of emotion. Woo-hoo! Summer-time–Cooking outside–Sleeping in–Reading whatever I want.I’ve started three lists of all the marvelous ways I’m going to spend my summer time this year. (Yes, writing is on it.) But everything must be graded before that last day and you need to check out with EVERYONE and they sign your paper saying that you don’t have any overdue library books and everything that you were supposed to check in is checked in and the asset number on everything you want to check out has been properly documented. You may or may not know what classes you are teaching next year and either situation gets your mind reeling.

After school today, I found it hard enough to string words together into sentences, let alone muster the energy and inspiration to sit down to write. I took the dog for a run, a measly two and a half miles (cut down during the run from four). I dragged my body along, conscious of every step.

It was on this run that I conceived the idea for this blog.

When you can do no more, just write one sentence. Then, write one more. And one more. And one more. Until you have a page. Maybe more?

I have wasted so much time living under the myth that sitting down to write constitutes a major commitment of time and energy. When I’m feeling tired or vulnerable, thinking this way makes it virtually impossible to write.

On these days, I tell myself that I must only write one sentence today. I tell myself this one sentence at a time.

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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

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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.

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Dear Imagination Tree,

Half way into a ten mile run, half way up a doozy of a hill, you shifted my perspective the instant my brain received the sight of you. Trudging up that hill, by breath, by cadence, by will, I felt your influence before I understood its meaning.

You are like the sight of a rainbow caused by sunlight through a window prism, like stumbling upon a hopscotch board with time and inclination to spare, like the urge to turn a cartwheel just to make sure I still can. I saw you and longed to play under your branches, to let imagination trump sensibility, to pause mid-hill to play.

Imagination Tree, you remind me to:

skip rocks

splash in puddles

smile when I run

and, most of all,

to write what pleases me.

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Dear Paper and Pen,

Dear Pen and Paper,

I bought a manual typewriter from a junk shop downtown Aberdeen and typed my first short story on it. I was eighteen. I didn’t own a computer until college. My son was just learning to walk and he spoke only in the roundest sounds and brightest gestures. Before then, I composed in notebooks. I never went anywhere without a notebook in my hand or backpack. I often had several notebooks going a once.

Finding time to write then felt the most impossible it ever has, enrolled in eighteen credits as I was, tied as I was to my first responsibility–parenthood.

In ten years, I composed fifteen or so short stories on the computer and filled twice as many –more–notebooks with a disorganized collection of journal entries, quotes pulled from other writers, poems, and story ideas. On my computer now, I have hundreds of poems, more than fifty short stories, and four full-length novels in various stages of development. But, pen and paper, I always start with you. When I’m stuck, I fall back on your forgiving blank page, nothing like the cold white of the computer screen, cursor flashing.

Pen and paper, with you, I can write anywhere and recline while I write, and there is something about the hand’s grip, the way ink loops and scratches across the page with my whim or intent, something about the way I can scrawl out lines or words and draw arrows to move pieces of prose around on the page.

Pen and paper, I prefer you for starting anything and when I’m stuck. You are my choice for letters and love notes. Among all the remedies prescribed for writing emergencies–the software, the apps, the social networks–you emerge as that simple solution people sometimes talk about.

Love,

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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.

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Dear Adulthood,

Why did I not hold you off a while longer?

I used to skip classes to spend hours penning ideas into notebooks–black coffee, toasted bagel to fuel my inspiration. I would stare out windows, at lovers walking down the street, and at old ladies on their raincoats on the transit bus that I took home for one shiny quarter. I would write and listen to music and daydream for hours.

“What will you do?” They asked.

“I’ll write,” I answered.

“What if your writing isn’t any good?” They replied.

“I’ll write better,” I stood my ground.

“Will you go to college?” They added.

“Why?” I asked.

Impassioned, impertinent, rebellious, alone against the world: Ah, that was me!

Eight years college. Twelve years high school teacher. Fourteen years wife. I learned to sacrifice writing for dollars and gold stars.

What if I let the house go? What if I stopped putting things back in their place? Started coming to work unprepared?

What if I got fired? If all I had to do was pen these lines?

I tell myself–being adult as I am–I don’t deserve to write at all until I’ve done my duty.

What you “do” if the first thing we ask a person we’ve just met.

I’m a teacher.

I’m a mother.

More meekly, I’m a writer.

When I tell people that they want to know if I’ve been published and whether I’ve written any books.

Adulthood,

These responsibilities are endless.

What if I refused? Made unreasonable demands? Used my charm to get my way?

Would you tell me to be more mature?

What if I stopped cooking dinner? What if I really wrote every day? Really put in the time and let the muse take me even if it meant I wasn’t pulling my weight, wasn’t being my best in every way? Meant I missed appointments and forgot to pay my bills?

What if I lost track of time?

Adulthood,

You tell me I must care, I must serve. I must work hard even if the reward is merely the satisfaction of having done my best work. I should put others before myself. I should volunteer more. Exercise more. Keep my house cleaner. Be a better parent. Stay in touch with old friends and make new ones if I can. Organize all the clutter. Be generous to my lover. Have a solution for every problem.

You make it so hard to write, sometimes.

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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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The Power of Play

At risk of sounding like the worst of self-help gurus, I’m going to sound off about the power of play in nurturing (yes, I said nurturing) a consistently productive creative practice. And at risk of insulting the dead, I’m calling for an end to the tortured, self-loathing writer. I’ll begin by telling the story that inspired me to write this.
Despite all my prayers that my son and only child would not struggle with the reticence and hyperconsciousness that I struggled with and that his father struggled with even more and despite the fact that at home he is opinionated and animated (and I mean animated like a cartoon character), he assures me, he is “shy”. Assures isn’t the word—he insists he is shy. So, I try not to dwell on it, not to smother him with encouragement, but to encourage him–damn it–encourage him. Though he was leery about playing basketball for his middle school because of the public spectacle of the competition, he loves to play. He was worried about being on the student news station they show every morning in home room. He was just worried that he’d be too shy to succeed. I acknowledged his feelings and made him try. Now, if he was that shy, there would have been no pushing him. It was to my relief that he reluctantly conceded the point.
How happy was I when he returned from his first practice red-cheeked and smiling? So happy! I knew he would sail through the first three weeks—only practice—and prayed that come time for his first game, camaraderie would trump “shy”. That didn’t exactly happen. The first three games weren’t painful, but I could tell from his reports that he was holding back on the court.
Now, here’s where I get to the point. Friday after the third game, his coach set up a practice based solely on play. He came home elated—chattering about kids laughing so hard they couldn’t dribble.
“You know how I’m usually so shy when I dribble?”
“Uh-huh.” I said.
“Well, today I wasn’t…and he was laughing so hard he couldn’t shoot…and I played so hard.”
“Uh-huh.” I said.
“The point guard said I should be point guard…he said I should be on varsity.”
“Uh-huh.” I said, thinking Yes! Yes! Yes!
And, what do you know? The next game he scored three points and said, “Now that everyone knows I can dribble, the expect me to…”
Yes! Yes! Yes!
I am overjoyed that he is conquering his self-diagnosed shyness, and every day when he comes home, this pattern of growth continues. Yes! Yes! Yes!
What does this have to do with writing? In order to push forward in producing work in spite of all the obstacles we face, there is this too often untapped resource—play. Here are some ways to not take yourself too seriously and so write more and feel better about it:
1. Put on your favorite dance tune. For me that’s Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love”. Let loose.
2. Get outside and play first, then write. A tuned-in walk about town? Frisbee? Fetch with the dog?
3. Give yourself permission to write the worst lines. Do it on purpose. Write the sappiest, most trite, worst stuff you’ve ever written. Read it aloud.
4. Bite, poke, or otherwise harass a friend on facebook.
5. Brig a whoopee cushion to your writer’s group.
6. Kick your feet while you write, or engage in playful fidgeting of your choice.
7. Wear a funny hat while you write.
8. Write upside down (intentionally left up to your interpretation).
9. Doodle in the margins.
10. Fill a page with writing. Then, fold it into a paper airplane and send it sailing.

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Make Time.

Liz Shine: Author, Editor.

Tag Archives: inspiration

A Room Of Your Own: Write one sentence

A Room Of Your Own: Commit To One Work

Dear Imagination Tree,

Dear Paper and Pen,

A Room Of Your Own: Pick A Fight

Dear Adulthood,

A Room of Your Own

The Power of Play