Tag: Writing

The Writing Life

My Version of the Truth

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I’ve been haunted by the word truth.

It first caught my attention when I saw an email from She Writes (a social media website for women writers) about my first Goddard advisor, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto. The blurb about her post “A Radical Act” included the following quote: “We women writers need to tell the truth about our lives.  It’s not a hobby or an indulgent luxury that we sit down to our desks and write. It is a service, a path-showing, a community we create for others.”

I didn’t click on the link even though I had been questioning rather or not I was being honest in my writing. I first began to ponder the idea when Reikko was my advisor at Goddard College. Her comments on my work helped me to realize I can be a writing prude. I’m uncomfortable writing about certain topics. Whenever I got too close to the certain truths, I back off.

Reikko’s memoir, Hiroshima in the Morning, received a lot of press because it chronicled her decision to leave her family to pursue her career as a writer. I remember watching her interview on The Today Show and thinking I could never be that honest.

Apparently God had a message for me. The next day I went to a writer’s conference, put on by the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Women Writers Group, called “Getting in Touch with the Source”. The keynote speaker, Pearl Cleage (the author of What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, an Oprah Book Club selection), started her talk by saying, “Seek the truth and speak the truth.”

I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. I had to admit that I neither sought the truth nor wrote the truth.

Take a look at a scene from Something’s Gotta Give. I see my writing sort of like Jack Nicholson’s character. I write a version of the truth.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxZu0NiUxns&feature=related]

Unfortunately, just like Diane Keaton’s character remarks, truth doesn’t have versions. We either aren’t honest or we water things down. And that doesn’t make very interesting or good writing.

As writer’s we have to risk losing ourselves. That may mean diving into uncomfortable topics or deep emotional wells. Remember the next five minutes of the movie after Diane Keaton leaves Jack Nicholson where she sobs continually as she finishes her play? She was writing from truth.

Writing from truth is hard. We have to leave our comfort zone. We risk exposing our inner thoughts and fears. It leads us to places we’d rather forget. It confronts us with facts we’d rather ignore. But as Reikko said in her post, “We women writers need to tell the truth about our lives.” Honest writing empowers us as writers and gives courage to our readers. And I believe that’s why God gave us the desire to write.

I went back and read Reikko’s post. She hoped her decision to tell the truth about her motherhood would open a dialogue. But the media tried to shut her down. She stood by her truth, and as a result, she received email from several women who shared her struggle. Her words gave them a voice.

Who needs your words?

Books

Hemingway Lesson Part II – Replenish your creative well

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I love the scene from The Shining when Shelley Duvall goes into Jack Nicolson’s office and finds a stack of paper with “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” typed repeatedly for hundreds of pages. When I first saw it, back the 80’s, it really creeped me out. But now whenever I find myself in front of a blank computer screen with absolutely nothing to write about, it suddenly makes sense (well, sort of). It’s almost impossible to write when your creativity well is empty. That’s where we can take another lesson from Hemingway. Work hard, then replenished your well:

When I was writing, it was necessary for me to read after I had written. If you kept thinking about it, you would lose the thing that you were writing before you could go on with it the next day. It was necessary to get exercise, to be tired in the body, and it was very good to make love with whom you loved. That was better than anything. But afterwards, when you were empty, it was necessary to read in order not to think or worry about your work until you could do it again (25).

We sometimes make ourselves into “dull boys” by not doing activities that refresh us. My free time is often filled with checking email, Facebook, Twitter or surfing the Internet. And if I’m honest, it’s all pretty draining. Exercise, on the other hand, is not only beneficial for our health, but also does wonders for our creativity. It clears the mind by transferring the focus from our brains to our bodies. When I’m exercising, I have a hard time maintaining a train of thought. I get lost in the activity because my endorphins have kicked in or I’m in too much pain to think about anything else. Either way, I come back to my writing recharged.

I also find it helpful to spend quality time with the people I love. Being with my husband is the best. Enough said.

Hemingway emphasizes the importance of reading by making it the bookend for all of his activities. Writers know that it’s essential to read. I would argue the benefits of reading reach far beyond writers. It stimulates thinking and expands the mind. It can also be entertaining. Far too often I treat reading as an extension of my work rather than using it to replenish my creative well. Everything I read is either instructional or spiritual. Even when I pick up a novel I study it for craft rather just enjoy it. My daughter once told me all the novels I read are depressing. So she picked out something fun for me to read. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the light-heartedness of her selection. I think that is exactly what Hemingway was saying. Reading should transport us to another place to let our mind rest. When we’re resting, our mind does its best work.

Just like we have to commit ourselves to our work, we also have to regularly replenishing our well. So my challenge for you this week is to do something fun. Spend the weekend replenishing your creative well. Remember, “all work and no play makes {insert your name} a dull boy/girl”.

Books

Lessons by Hemingway Part I

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I’ve had a really hard time writing my blog this week. The problem started Monday morning. After forty minutes of writing my morning pages, I dashed off to the airport to pick up my son. I took him home and then ran a few errands. By one o’clock, I was on the opposite end of town at my husband’s company golf outing. He was short-staffed and asked me to help out. I spent two hours watching golfers attempt to make a hole in one for a trip to Myrtle Beach. Not the greatest use of my time, in spite of the beautiful weather. By the time I made it back home the only thing I wanted to do was veg-out on the sofa. Quite ironic considering my morning pages had been about Hemingway’s strong commitment to his work. Over and over again in A Movable Feast Hemingway talks about completing his work before he did anything else:

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day (12).

Then too I never knew when I would be through working. . . (44).

In the spring mornings I would work early while my wife still slept (49).

At first I thought of course he was committed to his work, he was Ernest Hemingway. But when he lived in Paris, he hadn’t made a name for himself. He was training to become writer. He barely had enough money to support himself and his family. The success came after the commitment.

It reminds me of what the Bible says about faith:

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen: it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1 NLT).

If I want writing to become my vocation, I have to behave as if it already is. That means when it is time to write I can’t be sucked into the black hole of family responsibility. When I taught at the college, my class time was sacred. I would have never gone to pick someone up from the airport or volunteered to help out at a golf outing. In fact, I taught even when I wasn’t feeling well. But I don’t treat my writing time the same way. I don’t think of it as “work.” I get caught up in the idea that “work” is only significant if there is a paycheck attached to it.

Like Hemingway, we must commit wholeheartedly to cultivating our craft regardless of compensation or return. We write not to be paid but because we have something to say. This brings us back to the idea of establishing a writing time and sticking to it. It takes discipline and steadfastness in spite of all that life throws at you.

Re-reading A Movable Feast has made me see the value in honoring my writing time as if it were a paying job. So here is my challenge to you. Commit to a specific writing time  next week. Take a hint from Hemingway and don’t stop until you have something done.

Are you in?

Books

Hemingway – A Moveable Feast

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Lately I’ve been obsessed with reading novels that fictionalize famous authors. I read The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare (about Shakespeare’s wife) and Becoming Jane Eyre (about the inner life of Charlotte Bronte). Part of the obsession is my love of history. I would have been a history major had it not been for Professor Tennyson’s Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation Europe class freshman year. The other part comes from a curiosity as to how contemporary writers fictionalize famous authors from other time periods. I just finished writing a novel about a woman in 1928 who has a correspondence with Langston Hughes. Reading similar novels gives me insight as to how I might improve my own novel.

I just recently finished reading The Paris Wife , by Paula McLain. McLain (fellow University of Michigan alum) writes about Ernest Hemingway’s time in Paris during the early 1920s from the perspective of his first wife, Hadley. Throughout the novel there are references to Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast.  So much so  I felt the need to re-read Hemingway’s novel.

I’m not a Hemingway fan. I tend to prefer stories written about women. His subjects are too manly, and well chauvinistic for my taste. And yet I love his style. The short declarative sentences and precise word choice really turns me on (as a writer). Prior to going back to grad school, I read one of his novels at least once a year for medicinal purposes.  When I read his work, I write better.  A Moveable Feast is by far my favorite. I loved the idea of moving around the world feasting on experiences to feed your writing so much that I modeled a class around the concept when I taught writing at North Central College in Naperville, IL. Every morning, for two weeks, we meet in a different coffee shop or cafe around town. We did various writing exercises and shared our work with one another. It was amazing how much the environment enriched everyone’s writing, including my own. I can only imagine what would happen if I could spend time in Paris, experiencing the culture, drinking wine in the cafes and writing. But unfortunately that isn’t realistic for my life. I’m a wife and mother whose sophomore in high school needs to be picked up at 3:40 whether or not I’ve written my “one true sentence” for the day.

Nonetheless, there is still much we can learn as writers from Hemingway’s memoir.  For example when I read: “After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love . . .” (6), I suddenly understand why I have been unable to look at my manuscript. So much went into crafting it. I have nothing else to give.  And yet I miss the constant interaction. I doubt I would have ever connected that experience to making love, but Hemingway did. And his directness enables me to understand my craft. It helps me to be a more confident writer.

So the next few post will be dedicated to lessons we can learn from Hemingway, the writer.

Until next time . . .

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Reconsider and Alter in Light of Further Evidence

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Saturday afternoon I received a text message from a friend who wanted to know how to subscribe to my blog. I had a few subscribers so it never occurred to me there was a problem. I pulled up the blog in order to give her instructions, but I couldn’t figure how to do it. I discovered the theme I selected wasn’t enabled for side widgets. I saw the warning when I first set up the blog, but I didn’t know what a widget was or that it had any relevance to my particular blog.

I figured one of the two engineers I live with would be able to fix it. My son, a junior at Michigan State in electrical engineering, took a quick look, concluded it was easy fix if I knew how to write code (which I don’t), and then went off to lunch with his brother. My husband, a civil engineer, proceeded to search for another way to solve the problem. (He doesn’t know how to write code either.) As I watched him try various settings, it occurred to me that if I was willing to revise the whole blog, I could alleviate the problem. Simple enough, right? No, not really.

I face revision with a sense of dread. I don’t like pulling things apart and venturing into the unknown. I don’t want to give up control. It reminds me too much of life. Just when you think you’ve got it all together, something happens that forces you to examine your life and make changes.

Last year’s move from Chicago to Atlanta was a big revision for me. I thought I knew where my life was headed. I had returned to graduate school to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. My reasoning for the degree was to be able to teach Creative Writing instead of Composition. Though in my heart, I really wanted my writing to move from avocation to a vocation. I thought I was on the right track.

The move threw me into unknown territory. I had to change the way I lived my life. I didn’t have a community of friends to depend on or a job to fill my time. And let me tell you, I had some really difficult moments. I cried daily. But in the midst of it all I also wrote. And more importantly I learned to depend more heavily on the Lord.

. . .refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. (Zechariah 13:9 ESV)

It was only through the revision of my life that I was able to become what I truly wanted to be — a writer. Revision is a reality of life. We don’t revise because we got something wrong. We revise because we have new information that requires us to make alterations. Revision expands our thinking and broadens our possibilities. In short, not only does it makes us better writers, it makes us better people.
So how do we get through revision as a confident writer? First, we honesty evaluate our writing. Is there a clear vision for the work? If not, then we have to spend some time clarifying our thoughts. I do this by free-writing in my journal. Essentially I write about the writing. What is the piece trying to say? Do the ideas work together? Does it communicate the intended message?

Another important step in the revision process is openness to the opinions of others. If my friend hadn’t questioned my blog, I wouldn’t have known there was a problem. I can’t help but wonder how many other people tried to subscribe and gave up. We have to give the reader enough information. You can’t expect them to spend time or patience trying to figure things out. This is true whether you are writing a business proposal or novel.

It helps to have another set of eyes read your work. I highly recommend joining a writer’s group. The process of reading and discussing one another’s work will make you a better writer. You develop an eye for what works and what doesn’t work. There is one caveat, though. You have to be the master of your own work. Don’t take the suggestions of others as law. Use it as a sounding board to test your own thoughts.

We can’t avoid revision in writing anymore than we can in life. Things change and we have to change with them. I hope the revisions I made to my blog makes it easier to subscribe and comment. If not, let me know. I’ll make another revision.

Until next time,

The Confident Writer.

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Setting Your Writing Goals

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Starting a new writing project can be challenging. You have to decide what you want to accomplish and how to pace yourself. In other words, you have to set some writing goals. Knowing where you want to go helps to determine how to get there. Kind of like plugging in a destination into your GPS.

Far too often I plunge into my work without setting any goals. I just start writing. But so or later I come to a point where I’m not making any progress. That’s when I usually go back and clarify my aim for the piece. Setting writing goals enables you to focus your creativity. It’s time consuming, but makes writing a lot easier.

So the first step is to clarify your vision. I usually journal for fifteen to twenty minutes about what I want to accomplish. I ask myself a basic question — what are you trying to say with this piece? I play with a lot of different ideas without worrying about whether any of it makes sense, kind of like a brainstorming session. Then I go back through what I wrote and underline the phrases and sentences that excite me. I take those highlighted sections and look for a theme. Then I journal about those specific ideas until I have clarified my vision enough to start writing. Sometimes this takes a few days or even weeks. But it’s worth the effort. Whenever you get stuck, those journal entries can help you to refocus.

Once you have a firm idea of what you want to do, then it’s time to establish a deadline to complete the work. If we leave our writing too open-ended, it will never get done. Deadlines helps us to plan our time so we know how to pace ourselves. Word of caution — too much time and you may lose enthusiasm for the project. Too little time and you may feel frustrated and overwhelmed.

But even with deadlines it’s hard to get the work done unless you decide how much work you want to get done in each writing session. I have two friends who write together every Wednesday night for three hours. Another writer friend sets page limits. I vacillate between setting time limits and word targets. I use the time limits to make sure I keep my behind in the chair writing and the word target when I’m under a deadline. Either way, once I reach my daily goal, I give myself permission to stop writing and do something else. Some days I write well beyond my daily target. And other days I struggle. (I’ll share what to do on those days in another post.)

Your writing time will become more productive once you set a goal. You will also see where you need to set limits in the rest of your life. I find that when I have set writing goals I know when I need to say no to friends and family in order to finish my work. They also show me when I need say no to myself, especially when it comes to my guilty pleasure — Facebook.

I spend way more time than I care to admit scrolling through my Newsfeed. I’m always one click away from getting lost in cute pictures, funny videos, and interesting articles. When we first moved to Georgia, it was my only connection to the outside world. I didn’t know anyone other than my family. But now I have local friends, but unfortunately I’m addicted. I even volunteered to administer a Facebook Page for a friend’s business. But that’s a whole different subject for another post. It suffices to say the time I spend surfing would be better spent writing. Take inventory of how your spending your time. Is there some activity you need to limit to create more time for your writing?

Settings goals is also includes rewarding yourself. When you celebrate milestones along the way, it motivates you to keep going. It could be as simple as a little treat (chocolate and a glass of wine work for me) or a big gift (like a massage).

Don’t just read this post,though. Take some time to set your own writing goals. Check out my post on questions to consider when setting writing. Share your answers with someone. It adds another level of accountability. I know there are a lot of people who don’t want anyone to know they write. I’m here to support your efforts and will be glad to hold you accountable. So feel free to share your goals with me. Post them here or send me an email. I’d love to hear what you’re doing.

Until next time,

The Confident Writer

Books

Thoughts on My Wife’s Affair by Nancy Woodruff

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As a writer, it is difficult for me to read a novel without questioning the author’s choices. I wondered why Nancy Woodruff wrote My Wife’s Affair from the husband’s perspective. It seemed gimmicky. But the passage: “Writing is a solitary craft. We are always on the outside, looking in, looking longingly but never belonging, and maybe that’s why we become writers, committing ourselves to a sort of sanctioned life gazing into others’ brightly lit picture windows while standing in our own perpetual dusk” (114), suggest Woodruff isn’t writing from the perspective of a man as much as from the perspective of a writer. She contrasts Peter’s isolation as writer with Georgie’s extroverted life as an actress wife. Peter watches. He is an observer. Events happen around him. So it is natural that her affair would be experienced from outside the “brightly lit picture window.” Woodruff uses both forms of art – writing and acting – to examine the choices an artist must make. Georgie risk it all. Peter gave up. In the end, they both lose.