Writers Ask

lizshine74by lizshine74

In On writing.

A few excerpts from Writers Ask Issue 40:

Ann Patchett on having a plan:
“I love the story E.L. Doctorow tells. He didn’t have an idea for a book, so he started writing about the wall and then about the window and the garden, and the next thing he knew, he had written Ragtime. Never in a million years would that happen to me. If I don’t know where I’m going when I sit down, I don’t get anywhere.”

Liz’s reaction: It’s happened both ways for me. I like to stay open to both–and more–possibilities.

Susuan Orlean on multi-tasking: “I hate working on more than one thing at a time. I find it really tough.”

Liz’s reaction: Not me! It’s how I roll, man. If I get stuck on one thing, I shift to another for a while, then back when I’m ready.

Charles Baxter on first drafts: “Writing a first draft is the experience of not knowing how to do something and persisting at it until it begins to feel right.”

Liz’s reaction: Sounds about right to me. The story is vague until you get to that point. Vauge, but compelling.

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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.