Worth the wait

lizshine74by lizshine74

In On writing.

    I’m not entirely sure yet what this story has to do with writing, but I know that it does have to do with writing in a big way.
    There are many little and big actions that renew my commitment to write every day.
      • Running/Walking
      • Yoga/Meditation
      • Getting right to it and seeing progress (as opposed to the days where I sit down to write and waste most/all of the time checking email or social media)
      • Reading great writing
      • Attending lectures/talks/readings

It’s this last one that is the main subject of this blog entry. Last Friday, I went to the Barboza Lounge in Seattle to listen to John Darnielle read from and talk about his new and first novel Wolf in White Van. John Darnielle is known for his part in the musical group The Mountain Goats, but is making his debut as a writer. I went with my husband who is a long time fan of Darnielle’s music. I hadn’t read the book in advance and I don’t know Darnielle’s music so I wondered whether I would enjoy the talk.

What Darnielle read from his book made me want to buy it and what he said about writing made me actually take out my bank card and hand it over to the man in black holding a mini iPad with one of those magic squares that have come to replace the cash register.

The stage was set up in the usual SAL style, two deep, broad-armed black leather chairs not quite facing each other. The best seats were crossed-legged on a concrete dance floor. Chris (husband) and I sat shoulder to shoulder, waiting out the thirty minutes until the show started, drinking IPA out of plastic pint glasses. All around us people sat on their cellphones, sometimes couples sitting together staring at their tiny screens, scrolling. The more I looked around the sadder I felt for how unaccustomed we’ve become as a culture with periods of waiting.

Paul Constant (Stranger Books Editor) interviewed Darnielle. As soon as Darnielle started to speak, doubt that I would enjoy the talk and sadness from watching the tech-crazed crowd turned to enthusiasm. I don’t remember everything he said about writing and in a way the particulars don’t matter. Darnielle did not hesitate and he answered every question with authority. That he loved making stories that people might be moved by was uncontestable. We listened, rapt, until the audience question part came and people started asking questions that had more to do with themselves than anything he had said in the last 45 minutes. Were they even listening?

Writing and reading contain so many periods of waiting and that is part of what I love about both. The chance to spend an evening with a good writer willing to share his own methods for navigating those periods almost always pays in droves of inspiration.

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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

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA. 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 is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.