Daily Writing - The Word

I am huge fan of Janet Fitch. Her novel, White Oleander is one of my favorite books of all time. I was thrilled when I found out she had a blog and even more excited to discover she posts her writing there from writing exercises.

Quite regularly, she posts short-short stories, as part of a semi-weekly series of short short stories base on a writing exercise, The Word. "Inspired by a simply word, chosen at random, write a two-page double-spaced story, using the Word at least once."

You can read Fitch's stories for inspiration and follow along with The Word prompts to write your own. Or, create your own prompt using a word that comes up in your day write from that.

Daily Writing - A follow up to Writing Down the Bones

After (re)reading Writing Down the Bones I have been making an effort to write every day.
I keep a notebook with me and try to fit in ten minutes each day of free writing.

It can be trying to take the time for ourselves to write daily. There seems to not be much time or opportunity for inner-reflection in today's world, but I think it is critical not only for me as a writer but for me as a person to stop and slow down for a few minutes each day, to think, to write.

In my attempts at daily writing, several times I've found myself at a loss, wondering what do I write about? Natalie Goldberg offers several suggestions in her book and I wanted to highlight a few of them here for other writers looking for inspiration:

• Read her chapter, "A list of Topics for Writing Practice." Goldberg dedicates an entire chapter to topics. A few include, "Begin with 'I remember...' and "What is your first memory?" She suggests creating your own list of topics to keep handy whenever you are in need of some quick inspiration.
• Goldberg suggests getting together with friends and telling stories. She says, talk is the exercise ground for writing. "Make a list of the stories you have told over and over. That's a lot of writing to be done." Read her chapter on story circles.
• "Whatever's in front of you." Write about your home town, the house you grew up in, the house you're living in now. Go out into the streets and write what is there.
• Read her chapters, "Spontaneous Writing Booths" and "Writing Marathons." and "Blue Lipstick and a Cigarette Hanging out of your Mouth."
• When in doubt, write about food. Goldberg says, "If you find you are having trouble writing and nothing seems real, just write about food. It is solid and is the one thing we all can remember about our day."

Writing Down the Bones - Natalie Goldberg

Whenever I face a writing roadblock, I turn to my bookshelf for help. This time, to try to overcome my self-doubt, I went to my bookshelf and pulled down Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. There are a lot of things I can share about this book, but I will focus on the things that were most helpful for me.

Goldberg emphasizes writing as a practice, one that we should live out daily. She attunes daily writing to a runner who warms up before a race: just as a runner must stretch and warm the muscles, the writer must stretch and warm up the voice. It's part of what Goldberg calls "composting." She says,  "Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds and old steak bones of our minds come nitrogen, heat and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories." Writing down our observations, thoughts and memories is what leads us to our poems our short stories, our settings, our characters. Not all of what we write will be good or useable but that's why its practice. Write about everything, write whatever moves you to put pen to paper. This is one bit of inspiration I am trying to incorporate into my writing life.

Another great takeaway from Writing Down the Bones is the importance of detail. Details breathe life into our stories. Goldberg says to be specific: "Give things the dignity of their names." Details bring us into the present, into the moment. Plus, she adds, "Tossing in the color of the sky at the right moment lets the piece breathe a little more." She goes on to say, "It is important to say the names of who we are, the places we have lived, and to write the details of our lives. ...We have lived; our moments are important. This is what it is to be a writer: to be the carrier of details that make up history, to care about the orange booths in the coffee shop in Owatonna."

The short chapters in Writing Down the Bones can be read sequentially or not, as they all stand alone so that you can open to any chapter and read it if you wish.

If you are feeling stuck, unsure of yourself or uninspired, open to any chapter that is of interest to you. You are sure to find inspiration within this book's pages.

"If I were cut out to be writer, writing wouldn't be so hard. It would just come naturally."

I wrote those words in my journal back in high school. At that time, I was struggling with writing and deciding what major to choose in college. I knew I loved writing, English was my best subject in school. But I wasn't sure if there was a career in it for me. (That's still to be determined.)

 

Back then, I think I had an image in my mind of a writer. I imagined all well-known or published authors must write full-time and couldn't fathom that a writer wouldn't be able to support himself on writing alone after having a book published. I imagined a writer might wake up at one's leisure each morning, sit down at the desk and write beautiful prose for a few hours, break for lunch, then effortlessly write some more. Each day would continue in the same manner until a novel was written and completed. At which point the writer would pop it into an envelope, send it to their agent then sit back and wait for inspiration to strike again.

 

I can look back now at those words in my journal and laugh. I now know that writing isn't easy. In fact, if you're not terrified of it at least part of the time then you're probably not doing it right.

 

In her book Writing Down the Bones, (more on that later) Natalie Goldberg says, "If every time you sat down, you expected something great, writing would always be a great disappointment. Plus that expectation would also keep you from writing."

 

Don't let the expectation of greatness stop you from writing. Not everything we write is going to be good enough for publication. All writers struggle. Even nobel prize winning and best selling writers doubt themselves. What separates writers from wanna-be writers, is that writers keep writing. Despite all their self-doubts, despite their busy lives pulling them to do everything but write.

 

Stephen King said, "Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position." So write anyway. Even if you feel like all you're doing is shoveling shit, shovel on.

 

Sisters - Danielle Steel

A few months ago, I read my first Stephen King book. Danielle Steel, like Stephen King, can be found in any and every library, garage sale and bookstore - both new and used. She's written countless books since publishing her first in 1972, churning them out at the rate of several per year. According to Wikipedia she's the eighth best selling writer of all time, and is currently the bestselling author alive.

Of the dozens of books Danielle Steel has published, I'd never read any of her books. I think there's something to be learned from every book we read and I was curious to learn the secret to her success.  In a quest to read everything I can get my hands on, I decided next, I'd read Danielle Steel. I didn't realize what a challenge I was in for.

Going into it, I knew her books were characterized as formulaic with over-the-top characters. But I also knew Steel tackled tough topics and thought it'd be worth the read.

For starters, it took me a while to settle on a book I was willing to invest my time to read. After reading summaries and (terrible) reviews online, I finally settled on Sisters, a book about four sisters who come together to deal with a family tragedy.

With an open mind, I began reading hoping for a quick, entertaining read. The first thing I notice is that all of Danielle Steel's characters are flawless: "All the women in the family were knockouts." Reading about the traits of these perfect characters got tiring quickly. But after the sisters and their drastically different lives were laboriously summarized and introduced, and once I was able to keep the sisters straight- the constantly changing perspective made this somewhat difficult - I was interested in the plot and seeing where it would go next. So I plodded through, overlooking flat characters and dialogue. I felt, beneath all that, there was a good story.

But the more I came across bland descriptions - "The relationship was going really well." -  phrases that overstated the obvious - "The two sisters lived in totally different worlds." - and painful repetition: "But for the next year, they all had to be good sports and pitch in to help Annie make the transition to the enormous challenges facing her. Challenges that were huge." (Wow, you mean the challenges were both enormous and huge??) the harder it became to keep reading.

About halfway through the book, Steel's repetition became too much to bear. The final straw came when exact lines of dialogue were stated, then repeated only a few pages later. At first, I assumed it was a Kindle glitch. By the third and fourth time, I knew the mistake was not technological, but editorial. I was too frustrated to keep reading. That's when I put the book down and never picked it back up.

I was disappointed  - I hate to not finish a book. But I couldn't get past Steel's blatant disregard of the old adage in writing, "Don't tell, but show" to stay interested in the story. So my attempt to read Danielle Steel was unsuccessful. Perhaps I picked a bad book for my first Danielle Steel read. I've heard her earlier works are better, though I don't think I will ever take the time to find out.

My next quest will be to read some other modern well known authors, Dean Koontz, John Grisham and James Patterson.

Diane McCue, Eastman Kodak

A few weeks ago I met with Diane McCue, who worked her way up to become one of the highest ranking women at Eastman Kodak. Her leadership and her role in a male-dominated company are inspiring.

What I'm (Not) Writing

Two months ago, I finished the first draft of my novel. After participating in a writing marathon known as National Novel Writing Month, my creative juices were drained. I needed a break from my novel and I needed a break from writing in general. I planned to pick up my novel in a few weeks to look at it with a fresh set of eyes.

I slept in. I watched prime time television again. I cleaned the house and spent time with friends I'd neglected in the month of November. I didn't write.

And I'm still not writing. I thought I'd take some time to free write and explore other ideas - I haven't done that either. The longer I've stayed away, the harder it is to bring myself back. Fear has set in. A voice in the back of my head started telling me, "Your novel's not really any good! And when you reread it you're going to realize what a terrible writer you really are!"

I've been afraid to look back at my work - afraid that I'll see it's not as good as I thought it was while I was writing it, that it's not cut out for publication. I'm afraid that I'll get the urge to rewrite the entire thing from start to finish (while that's not entirely a bad thing, I can never complete a story because I can't seem to stop rewriting!) I'm afraid that after years of trying to tell this story and developing these characters, I'll see that it's not worth pursuing any longer.

I have a fear of the unknown - I've never made it this far in the novel-writing process. I've never completed a draft and gotten to the down and dirty editing and rewriting phase. No more writing to see where it will take me, no more aimlessly exploring characters and writing scenes or lines of dialogue I know I'll cut later. Now every word counts.

I could lock my draft up in a drawer, never to be looked at again. I could let my fear get in the way of my dream of finishing a novel and potentially getting published. Or I could push through it, start revising and grow as a writer in the process.

Nike said it best: Just Do It.