Writing Is Strange and Scary

Writers who struggle are everywhere. Here's a knitting writer in Toronto who has as much trouble with her fourth book as her first. [Interesting that this has not made her want to quit!] Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, author of At Knits' End and Knitting Rules! and affectionately known as the Yarn Harlot, titled her recent post Easy as Pie:

Book writing is strange and scary. You can't tell how long you're going to have to do it, what time you're going to finish, if it's going to be alright when you do finish, or if you're going to spend 3 hours dragging 500 words out of your brain only to look at them, realize 467 of them are complete crap and hit the delete key as you sob for the 14th time because you're going to need to find a way to carve another 3 hours out of your responsibilities as a mother, probably so that you can write more complete drivel that no-one would ever like to read, knowing the whole time that your deadline is running out while you ponder that you've made an enormous mistake and really should go to work in a factory, where at least you can tell if you're getting something done and no-one tells you your punctuation is crap and it doesn't matter if you're not funny. The more I write, the more I worry. Will this work? How will it work? Are we out of orange juice? Is that a complete sentence? Am I procrastinating? Do I suck? Where's my knitting?

Stephanie doesn't pull any punches about how hard she finds writing, and I appreciate her honesty. The more I read about the writing life, the more I realize that I'm looking for myself in other writers. Trying to find people who have the same joys or woes so I can say, Ah, yes, that's me, I must be a writer, I must be on the path.

From the Stage to the Page

You're in for a treat today: an article from Florida writer Stacy Barton, who describes how she uses her extensive experience in the world of theatre to make her fiction come to life. Stacy recently started blogging at the art of story.

Article: From the Stage to the Page

Rest Period

As an editor myself, I'm not sure whether "self-editing" actually exists. By nature, editing seems to require such distance and objectivity that it's best done by a second party. However, we don't always have the luxury of working with skilled professionals, and sometimes have to make do with ourselves.

There are ways for an author to approximate distance. One is by letting a manuscript sit for a while, until you are less attached to the words you slaved over, the hours you invested. That's what I'm doing right now. Last week I printed out the first draft of my novel (hooray) and now I'm letting it age.

Dorothy Bryant, in Writing a Novel, suggests a six-week layoff:

... six weeks or more in which you don't write in it, read it, or if possible even think about it. One reason for this layoff is that you need to get distance from it. You must get out, clean up some space for your critic to work. You should aim to get so far away from it that when you look at it again, it will seem almost as if you are reading the work of someone else.

I've had that uncanny experience--reading a section and thinking, hey, that's pretty good, and having absolutely no memory of writing the words. I find that happens even more often when I've written the draft really quickly.

Bryant has another reason for taking a break, besides objectivity:

The second reason for a layoff is that physically and spiritually you are empty, exhausted. Before you can get back to the work of rewriting your infant book, you need a period of recovery. If you start rewriting too soon, you'll be going on your nerves and may end up in post partum depression and disorientation, of little use to yourself or your book. You need some pampering, rest, freedom. You need a change.

Even though I have read Bryant's advice, I'm not very good at practicing it. I showed up in my office on Monday, expecting myself to get down to work as usual (although not on the novel), and I couldn't do it. Anxiety, procrastination, they showed up in spades. I underestimated the mental and energetic fatigue of reaching this milestone. After all, I was only writing for an hour a day, tops. I know I have lots more work to do on the manuscript. And I feel like I don't have a lot of time left, with our adoption underway.

But after two completely unproductive days, I think I'm getting the message. I need to take my recovery seriously. I need to schedule some "guilt-free play," as Neil Fiore describes in his book The Now Habit:

Guilt-free play is based on the seeming paradox that in order to do productive, high-quality work on important projects, you must stop putting off living and engage wholeheartedly in recreation and relaxation. That's right, you can be more productive if you play more! And as you put the strategy of guilt-free play to use, you'll learn to play more and complete more work.

This strategy seems so contradictory. How will I get more done if I take more time off? I don't deserve it! I haven't worked hard enough up until now! My to-do list is demonstrating exponential growth! I won't be able to relax!

Fiore says that is a very dangerous voice to listen to. Down that path lies burnout and depression. Instead, listen to the voice that says, If I take time to play, it will "recharge [my] batteries, creating renewed motivation, creativity, and energy for all the other areas of [my] life. Knowing that work will not deprive [me] of enjoying the good things of life, [I] can more easily tackle a large task without the fear of having it rule [my] life."

In work with my therapist some years ago, I came up with a phrase to describe my task in healing: I wanted to take extravagant care of myself. Somewhere along the way, I forgot to do that. Now's the time to start again, so that when rest period is over, I can bring a happy, healthy, energized writer to that manuscript.

Limitation as a Creative Tool

Today, a guest post from Martin Spernau:

The blank page is a nemesis for many writers. The hardest part of many creative processes seems to be the simple act of getting started. What to write? What to write about? Where to begin? It feels as if all inspiration suddenly drains away. The dreaded writer's block. No idea, no words.

One thing that can break this deadlock is often overlooked. It is called Limitation.

What's that? you say. Limiting myself? I don't have anything to start with! I am limited already!

Here I would like to disagree. You may perceive the blank page as a void, a nothingness that needs to be filled. But I believe the opposite is true. A blank page is a vast open space. Everything is possible. The whole universe, the real one and also a multitude of fictional ones, sleeps in a blank page. The opportunities are so vast that our problem is not one of lack but of overabundance. We could write about anything at all. So where do we start? What do we pick?

Here's where voluntary self-limitation can help. Given an overwhelming number of possibilities, we let chance choose for us. We roll dice on a list of concepts, draw a Tarot card, choose some images from magazines at random, or pick three words by flipping through a novel or dictionary.

How does this random technique work, and why? First, the actual method matters little. The idea is to collect a limited number of ideas (what I call seeds). These seeds can be single words, images on a card, or objects in our surroundings. It doesn’t matter whether these things are related to each other.

Then we take these seeds and try to connect them, by creating a story that incorporates all of them. Working with things not normally connected can be a great boost to creativity, and makes for interesting reading later. Tinkering around with these seeds will likely lead to some kind of inspiration, and might even open the floodgates of creativity. If not, at least we got started into the writing and thinking process.

What happens in this limitation process? Given a number of concepts, words, and objects without context, our mind will try to supply that context. Our mind is very good at storytelling. Putting things into context is the basic act of storytelling. And where there is no story or context supplied, our mind will make one up. But we first need to supply something for the mind to wrap around, which is what we’re doing with our random draw of seeds.

So the next time you find yourself staring at a blank page, try giving your mind something to wrap around. Limit the choices and watch the magic happen.

I will be writing more about actual things you can try in this space soon. Stay tuned!

Han Nolan: The Long Journey

At the Festival of Faith and Writing, young adult writer Han Nolan told the riveting tale behind her novel When We Were Saints. Her theme was that we learn the most lessons during struggle, and that each book is a new path, even if our skill in craft carries over.

Nolan had a contract for a book due in two and a half years. She had just finished her book Born Blue, and was tired of her voice. She felt she had said it all, and needed a major departure from her previous work. She went hiking in Greece with her husband and some friends, and was taken in by the landscape and friendly people. Finding a book that offered a study of a Greek mountain village, she said to her friend, also a writer, "I think I'd like to write about Greece in my next book!" The friend replied, "You should write what you know. I don't see how you could write about Greece." And the idea disappeared.

Back at home, nothing grabbed her. Then the publisher called, saying they now needed the book in two years, not two and a half. Nolan, indignant over her friend's comment, reflected that she had written about many things (the Holocaust, drug use, a man who melts) that she had never experienced! Writing what you know, she decided, had more to do with writing about the human condition, the heart, its emotions and losses.

So Nolan embarked on a book about Greece. She did lots of research, and came up with a first chapter that had a very different voice. She thought she was out of the transition period, and none too soon, since she had one more year to finish the book.

Then everything fell apart.

Her daughter was working on a carrier in the Navy, that was called into bombing service after September 11, 2001. Nolan walked around in a daze--forget writing! The only things she could manage to do during this time were to 1) pray, 2) meditate, 3) journal, 4) run, and 5) walk. So she decided to put the Greece book away and work on something easier, anxious that she was running out of time. Normally it took her two years to write a book, and she was down to one! When she worked, she felt like she had never written before.

Around Christmas she had some ideas about a grandfather dying, pointing to his bad son and saying, "You have always been a saint!" So she started researching the medieval period, and cathedrals. Then she picked up the Greek book again and finished fifty pages of it.

The National Book Award organization called and wanted her to chair the Young People's Literature panel in 2002. Why not? she thought, it might pull me out of my depression. (She was also teaching in a graduate program at this time.) But reading entries for the NBA only made things worse. She was sick of books written in the first person, sick of angry teenagres or parents who couldn't cope. But when she read great books, she became self-conscious about what her books lacked. She couldn't enter into her own stories and characters--analyzing writing while writing was death to her writing.

After the NBA award ceremony (she said she didn't remember a word of her speech, but here it is on the Internet) she re-read the fifty pages of the Greek novel, which she finished before the summer. They were terrible.

[Are you getting tired yet? This story was a marathon narrative! We were all feeling Nolan's struggle and frustration. And speaking of marathons . . .]

Nolan was training for a marathon. Out for a run with her husband, he stopped to take his pulse, and discovered his heart was out of rhythm. He ended up in intensive care.

So, forget Greece. Nolan had to write her way to centre. The search for truth in writing was like a search for God. But she wrestled with writing a blatantly religious book that would be based on her idea about the grandfather's dying words, "You are a saint!" She grew up in church but didn't talk about God outside of church. They were private about God outside of the family. Praying aloud in her writer's group was like walking around naked. She didn't want to write about God.

But when you're writing about what you're scared of, that's where you need to be, Nolan told us.

So she was struggling to write in third person (the story wouldn't work in first person), and had no inspiration. Anxiety was making the screen of imagining smaller and smaller, until she felt she had no screen, but was writing blind. She wrote from 5 am to 5 pm. One weekend, she set aside Saturday and Sunday to make a big push on the novel. She finished forty pages on Saturday--on Sunday, her daughter became ill.

Whether you have to write a book or not, life just keeps happening! Nolan learned to her chagrin.

She could get no extension from her publisher (in fact, the publisher wanted the book even earlier!) She was down to a few weeks. Finally, she finished the book, put on some music in the living room, and began her dance of joy. As she danced, she realized that the ending was all wrong, and went back to rewrite the last fifty pages. Again, finished! More music, more dancing . . . the ending was still wrong. She rewrote the last fifty pages again. This time, she did not do the dance of joy!

Nolan ended with what she learned from all this struggle:

• "I was the one who had been torturing myself, because of my thoughts and beliefs about myself."
• When she froze, frightened in panic, her imagination closed down. On her next book, which she was able to write with pure joy in three months, she no longer felt like she was looking through a pinhole.
• Thinking that her style wasn't good, or that she needed a new one, caused problems. She needed to accept herself, and not try to force a transition.
• Her belief that her stories took two years to write caused needless anxiety. In the end, she was able to write the book in three months. She had all the time she needed. And what was left out (all her early false starts) were just as important as what went in.
• She could have postponed the delivery date with her publisher.
• She can write without inspiration, not knowing what word would come next. Worrying and thinking didn't help writer's block--only writing helped.
• Take a leap of faith--God meets us in midair. Trust, don't panic.
• Sometimes we have to learn something over again.

I hope you found some encouraging words in that harrowing story! I'm so glad Nolan shared it with us.

Writing Against the Odds, Part 3

The third speaker was Leslie Leyland Fields, who lives and writes in Alaska. Her latest book is called Surprise Child: Finding Hope in Unexpected Pregnancy.

Leyland Fields first spoke about the obstacle of work. She works with her family as a commercial fisher. So, she asks, how can she write when work claims so much of her? She spoke of having to be "here" with her work while she longed to be "over there" with her writing. But she found that when she lived to write, she was wasting her life. She needed to live to live, and then write to more fully live, not to escape and record her life.

"Either life is holy with meaning or it doesn't mean a damn thing." (I think that's a Frederick Buechner quotation.)

Her second obstacle to writing was love. It takes a lot of time to love a husband, and six children, and a mother-in-law with Alzheimers. Love empties us into needs that are never filled or silenced. The quiet writing life she dreamed of was gone, dead. Instead she had a noisy, riotous writing life, more desperate, bloodier, with no time to pretend.

But how can love be an obstacle to writing, she then asked? What will you write if your passions are not lived in you first? Leyland Fields realized she needed to write "here," in her life, where she was standing, not from an empty life. Yes, you'll be tired, you'll write while others watch a movie, you'll write in planes and hotels, you'll forget how to relax. But write from within the life you've been given, if you dare.

What a great challenge.

Writing Against the Odds, Part 2

The second speaker on "writing against the odds" was Tom Montgomery-Fate, currently the Henry Luce Foundation Artist in Residence at Chicago Theological Seminary.

His latest book is Steady and Trembling: Art, Faith, and Family in an Uncertain World. [I have ordered a copy, and I'll update this post with some quotations once it arrives.] From the book description: "How does one learn to be creative rather than only productive, to search for meaning rather than marketability, to belong to nature rather than control it, to live in awe rather than on autopilot? From his home in a Chicago suburb, Tom Montgomery-Fate, the father of three children, demonstrates how one might weave a family and a faith into something that is both creative and sustaining, into the art of daily life."

Montgomery-Fate opened by saying that writers need two things that don't usually go together: patience and passion. He said that both words come from the same root word, pati, meaning "to suffer." In other words, he said, suffering is a requirement for writing, not an obstacle.

I'm not sure whether I agree with that, but I'm keeping an open mind. I suppose it depends on how you define suffering. Later on I'll have a story from Han Nolan that involved a lot of unnecessary, self-inflicted suffering.

Writing Against the Odds, Part I

My first session at the Festival of Faith and Writing was tailor-made for Wrestling the Angel. The panel addressed "Writing Against the Odds -- Some of us have to carve out time and energy for writing amid demanding jobs, busy families, abundant noise, and lack of space. How do we overcome the practical and intangible obstacles to the writing task?" Each of the three authors described the obstacles, costs, and advantages of writing aginst the odds.

The first speaker was Debra Rienstra, professor at Calvin College, and mother of three. Rienstra wrote her first book, Great with Child, during the months before and after her third child's birth:

This book was written mostly in a corner of my bedroom in snatches of time, mostly between ten and eleven at night, over the course of three years. Many nights all I could do was slump over the keyboard for fifteen minutes after the kids were in bed and tap out a few sentence fragments. What you read in this book is all true, but please realize there has been lots of revision. The original drafts were truly horrible.

There were a few blessed twenty-four-hour periods here and there when I did actually go away and write at my parents -in-law's great little house on the lake. And in the last stages of revision, especially during the last month of the process, I was able to work full days in my office or in the library.

But even with those more consolidated periods, this is a book rescued from fragments--fragments of time, energy, and space that mothers of young children stitch together to accomplish anything. As T. S. Eliot said, "These fragments I have shored against my ruins." He was speaking of vast cultural movements. I'm just thinking of sleep deprivation. Anyway, if this book wound up with any coherence at all, it is a miracle.

Obstacles

Rienstra described her first obstacle as lack of silence, both literal and figurative. She once read Jane Kenyon's poetry book Otherwise in one sitting (a practice she recommends for poetry) and was left with the impression that here was a woman who had silence. And Rienstra was jealous! She described the noise in her house and head, of students, work, children, husband.

Her solution was to make the most of whatever silence she got. No warm-up, just sit down and write. Books written in fragments this way are different, she said, but not inferior.

The second obstacle was having no steady work pattern. Each day is different. She tries to tell her writing classes that the best practice is to write every day at the same time ... but she can't finish the sentence without laughing at her own foolishness.

So in response to an evolving schedule, Rienstra continues to adapt. As she mentioned, Great with Child was written between 10 and 11 at night. She described the writing of this period as very raw and precious, partly because there was no editor in her head--the editor had gone to sleep! I could certainly relate to this experience with my 5 am writing sessions.

She also said that she doesn't do any household chores while her kids are at school. Dishes go unwashed, the house remains untidy, while she gets down to work.

Costs

The first cost Rienstra listed was a phantom one. She said that time away from her kids might seem to be a cost, but not for her. She spends quite a bit of time with them, and her husband does much of the child care, so she doesn't feel guilty when she's writing.

The cost she does pay is in frustration when she's not writing, but has to do other things. And her only reponse is to cry and get crabby! But she finds it a good engine for motivating her to work. She never gets tired of writing because she never gets enough of it.

She also counts the cost of thinking that she could create better work if she only had more time.

Advantages

So what could possibly be good about facing such challenges to find writing time? Rienstra appreciates not having to put all of the value of her life on writing. If things aren't going well, she can comfort herself that at least she's a mom, and has a job. There is less pressure for success on her writing.

And finally, she has a rich life. She has three major endeavours (family, job, and writing) that enrich each other. What would she write about without these things in her life?

So whatever eccentricities, blatant inconsistencies, contradictions, errors, and foolishness you find here, let them stand as the appropriate literary representation of a state of mind a little frayed around the edges. What literary style best captures the life of an expectant or new mother? Until recently, no one has known. New mothers, especially, have rarely written. They still don't do it very often. It's just too hard. One must be really quite nutty or desperate to try it.

In my case, I would probably have gotten nuttier if I hadn't. There was an element here of avoiding ruin. I went to the writing place--in my mind, I mean, as the actual physical location varied--because I desperately needed a place of retreat. While writing is definitely work, it is also release, and that leads to a kind of peace.

I was sorry to learn that Great with Child is out of print, but you can find excerpts at her website. (Luckily my sister happened to have a copy!) And you can check out the Rienstra family exploits at their blog, RONdezvous.

The Blog: Writing in its own Right?

Guelph blogger Sue Richards has an article about blogging in the Globe and Mail today (I don't know how long the link will work, but I've quoted the most relevent excerpts).

In keeping with my post last week about reaching one's audience, Richards describes how a computer-phobe like herself got into blogging:

As a budding writer I knew the single most important way for a writer's bud to bloom was to write; more specifically, write for an audience. Historically, a writer and her audience met if a publisher saw the need to connect the two. Writers got rejected for myriad reasons and audiences remained ignorant of the plethora of ideas available.

I figured this equation out fairly early and from a safe distance. I lived with a writer and watched him struggle with letters of rejection and edits that cut his prose to the quick. When it eventually became clear to me that I was a writer, I took on the role of publisher as well. It's true that rejection can be seen as a moral-fibre-strengthening tool. But then, so can acceptance. Throw in the fact that my views were rarely reflected in the mainstream media, I instinctively knew that unless I self-published, my moral fibre-building would get a workout and my message might not be heard. This was when I took serious notice of blogs.

Instant, uncensored access to one's audience is a great incentive for bloggers. Getting comments on my posts motivates me to keep writing, and sparks new ideas. It's in keeping with Paul Graham's credo of "always produce." There's nothing like the thought of hungry readers to keep me posting daily.

Sue goes on to describe her routine:

Today, I write three blogs on a daily basis. Each morning, I log onto my e-mail to check for my readers' comments patiently waiting for moderation. Then I look at my traffic and link statistics to see who's been by. Finally, I pick a blog, open my "Administration Dock" and start writing.

Each blog requires a slightly different voice and style. Sometimes I have a clear idea before cranking on my computer but usually, I sit with a blank page for a few minutes before my fingers start banging out my daily drone. I can whip something off in 20 minutes, or labour for a couple of hours. Either way, I average 15 posts per week.

I've been pondering whether blogging is a good use of my writing time, or whether it's just a way of avoiding my novel. Do I need to be monogamous in my devotion to fiction, or do I have room for a little blog on the side? I know one thing: I love Wrestling the Angel, and I lose track of time when I'm composing posts. I love watching how ideas and links and comments all come together in an amazing serendipity. I get a thrill knowing that people are reading and enjoying what I write. Even if it is procrastination, I've got a good thing going here.

Working with a Writing Coach

Over at my author blog, gresik.ca, I've started a series about my work with writing coach Cynthia Morris from Original Impulse.

I'm very excited about getting some coaching for my writing life. I know that it will help me make significant progress on my current novel, and also establish a writing practice that fits my rhythms. The series will run for at least four months while I have biweekly sessions with Cynthia, so be sure to check in for updates.

Cynthia has a blog called Vive la Slink, where she shares coaching advice and thoughts from her own writing experience. I liked her recent post on napping, which I've been doing more of since I started getting up at 5 am to write:

The work of writing a novel is akin to digging a trench to China – I was pooped! I could have allowed my gremlin to give me grief about it. It tried, saying, how are you going to explain this? Later that evening, after an invigorating yoga class, I did some more work on the novel. At the end of the weekend, I felt great about how I showed up, and how I took care of myself. My yoga teacher, the esteemed Richard Freeman, reiterated his encouragement to us: “Bit by bit.”

Give yourself the benefits of self-care. You’ll know the difference between shirking and allowing yourself something that nurtures you and your creative process.

Here's to some satisfying naps over the holiday weekend!

Being Able to Write

K.G. Schneider, self-described techno-librarian, writer, gadfly, and commentator-at-large, really hit a nerve when she posted "Being Able to Write: Lessons from Other Writers, New and Well-Seasoned" back in January. The comments are twice as long as the original post, and there's some good stuff there, so read all the way down to the end.

18. Claim the name, "writer." Early on in the MFA program, I was perturbed when another student, interviewing me for a class assignment on portraits, never mentioned my writing. But she had no reason to: I didn't call myself a writer anywhere, not on my blog, nor my c.v., nor anywhere else. I was too shy to claim that title, but I'm not any more. I'm a lot of things, but I'm also a writer. And, a little more every day, I'm increasingly able to write.

Beginning to Practice

Rather than thinking of my writing as a task on my to-do list, a chore to be crossed off, I'm starting to envision it as a practice like yoga or meditation. Writing every day is part of the practice, as is noticing my response to each writing session.

A friend recently gave me a copy of an article, "The Light Spills into Words" by John Tarrant, from The Best Buddhist Writing 2005. Tarrant describes how he first came to writing:

Writing actually began for me as a practice of the night, a hidden vice. As a teenager I worked for a while in a copper smelter, a minor demon in a satisfyingly vivid underworld full of fire and struggle--green flames, blue flames, golden metal, and the ringing of sledge hammers. When we weren't tending the furnace, it was good to be invisible. I used to climb up into the girders to read and write. No one looked up so I had the solitude and privacy I was hungry for. That was for me the quiet pleasant spot, suitable for meditation, that the Buddha recommended.

Later, when I came to practice meditation in a formal way, I kept it secret too, a love affair that would disintigrate if brought out into the day. A practice involves initiation and at first might need to be hidden, sealed in, like wine fermenting, seeds germinating, copper being cooked. In the dark we can operate by different, non-daylight rules, without considering what we gain or lose by our actions.

Now if someone asks me why I meditate, or write, I can give them a reason--health, transformation, the light the orange tree gives off at dawn--but the explanation is after the fact. It's like saying why you love what you love; you just do. I didn't know where this practice was leading and that seemed something important to protect. I didn't want to pretend that I did know or be tempted to explain myself even to myself.

Then last week I got Cynthia Morris's book Create Your Writer's Life, and low and behold, she also talks about writing as practice:

When we practice something, such as our spirituality or our exercise regimen, we devote ourselves to it. We commit to repeating certain acts over and over because we know that the repetition and the regularity of it strengthens our overall commitment. We may have a desired outcome in mind. We may commit to a spiritual practice or an exercise practice because it gives us peace or brings us closer to our essential self. With consistency, devotion, and passion, we experience changes on both the inner and outer levels. A writing practice is like that.

Years ago I learned to consider my writing a practice. In her book, One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers (Penguin Arkana, 1992), Gail Sher says that if writing is a practice, the only way you can fail is if you do not do it. The idea of writing as a practice eliminates notions of good or bad writing. It can help you sidestep the fears that accompany you to the blank page. A practice is something we do over and over, learning and listening as we go.

I'm probably the last writer in the world who hasn't read Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, but I believe she approaches writing in much the same way.

When one comes to writing through academic courses, as I did, there is much less emphasis on the process than on the product. You have assignments, deadlines, evaluations, marks. There's competition and judgment. What matters is what you produce and how good it is, not how you got there.

I'd like to bring in this other element, writing for writing's sake, not for "having written."

Soundtrack

This week I came across three writers talking about the music that they write by, so I had to put them together:

Brenda Coulter:

I love creating my own playlists because even my favorite albums always seem to have two or three songs I'd just as soon skip. One of my playlists, which I call "Rainy Day Tunes," has been extremely effective in nudging me into a romance-writing mood. The list gets updated frequently, but just in case you're curious, right now the first few songs are:

Transatlanticism, Death Cab for Cutie
Secret Garden, Bruce Springsteen
Ghost,Howie Day
Passing Afternoon, Iron and Wine
Caledonia, Dougie MacLean
Colorblind, Counting Crows
Boston, Augustana
Always on my Mind, Willie Nelson

Gwenda Bond:

Anyway, I often pick out a working soundtrack when I start a new project. I choose songs that capture the feeling or theme of certain incidents or moments I think will be in the book, or sometimes it's a song that I associate with a character and what they're experiencing in the book. It helps.

Colleen Mondor:

The new book, the YA urban fantasy that sadly has no hint of a title, has not been written to a soundtrack although there are already songs that are jumping into my head. I know that the Blind Boys of Alabama will be present with "Amazing Grace", and I keep hearing "Eli's Coming" from Three Dog Night. (I'm blaming Sports Night for that one.) There's also a Tori Amos song I need to get the title of and a Beth Hart song.

I'd never thought of listening to music that put me in the mood of the characters. I fear the music of my current characters would drive me batty. I certainly don't own any inspirational Christian 80s music, although I've got a great store of Second Chapter of Acts and Sandi Patti in my head. But maybe when I'm home for Easter I'll raid my parents' CD collection.

Do you listen to music while you write, or does it just distract you?

Living Your Joy Winner

Congratulations to Martin! He's the random winner of a copy of Living Your Joy by Suzanne Falter-Barns. Thanks to everyone who commented.

The Mystique of the Lone Writer

Even as an introvert, community has always been important to me. From church and school to workplace and cohousing, I do better when I'm surrounded by a tribe that provides camaraderie and support, and that challenges me to grow.

Looking back now, I see the ways that I have brought community to my writing life as well. I wanted to do an MA in creative writing so that I could work with a thesis advisor and participate in a workshop class. I found other writers when I moved to a new city so that I could continue to do joint critiques and commiserate about the joys and pains of this life. I love going to conferences and reading biographies, so I can hear other writers' stories. I started blogging, and then recently created Wrestling the Angel so I could share my own story with the world.

I am beginning to appreciate my own need for writing community. I have been haunted by the mystique of the lonely writer in his garrett, suffering alone with his art until he finally emerges, fully formed and triumphant. He did not require help from anyone. He was a self-made genius. His writing was purer and more virtuous.

But I want to refute this myth for myself, and not label myself as weak or dependent just because I get energy and inspiration from talking to other writers. For my next step in that direction, I'm investigating the realm of writing coaches. Hey, if athletes can have them, why not artists?

It is possible to overdose on community, doing more socializing than writing. It can be another method of resisting the difficulty of the work. I believe it's a matter of finding a balance so that you feel surrounded but still reserve space and energy for yourself and your work.

Of course, there are genuine lone writers for whom isolation is essential to their craft. Alice Munro and many Canadian writers of her generation never did an MFA program, didn't have writing groups, and had to figure out the ropes of writing and publishing on their own. But if companionship on the path is something you need, go ahead and grab it.

[P.S. Here's a McSweeney's list about why writing groups just don't work for some people ...]

Living Your Joy

Another key book in helping me decide to quit my job and make more time for writing was Suzanne Falter-Barns' Living Your Joy. A sequel of sorts to Falter-Barns' earlier book, How Much Joy Can You Stand?, this "practical guide to happiness" has many inspiring suggestions for making your dream come true, whether it be creating art, starting a business, or changing careers. Chapters such as "How to Moonlight without Losing Your Mind", "Creating Your Dream Studio", and "The Fine Art of Saying No" have really useful advice for how to stop talking about someday and maybe, and actually take steps towards achieving what you want to do.

I especially like this quotation: "The common perception of the average Jane these days is that there is never enough time to tend our dreams. Our already overstuffed days are jammed to the breaking point with things we absolutely must attend to. So how are we ever going to squeeze a dream in? In truth, we do, indeed, have time for our dreams. We just can't necessarily do this dream thing comfortably, easily, and effortlessly--without any inconvenience to ourselves."

Falter-Barns' story is pretty interesting in itself. Twenty-some years ago, she was writing advertising copy in New York City. Since then she's published a novel and two self-help books. Today she's writing coursework and blog entries on how to make your creative dreams reality.

I have a copy of Living Your Joy that I'd like to give away to a Wrestling the Angel reader. Leave a comment on this post and I'll pick a lucky recipient at random!

Retreat into Writing

I just returned from a two-day retreat at Stillpoint House of Prayer. Imagine a place where you have a bedroom suite all to yourself, complete with handknit afghan. Delicious food prepared three times a day, and meals taken in silence. Hours stretching out in front of you with only the ticking clock for company. Bliss.

I started doing writing retreats several years ago. I scoped out various retreat centres in the Ottawa area, and visited for a day or a weekend. I staged a homemade retreat while housesitting for my parents, and once I stayed at the university residence during the summer. When I was working full time, I tried to do a retreat once a month. Now once every three months seems a better schedule.

I find these mini-vacations from my life really productive and rejuvenating. I journal, read, and work on manuscripts. I plan my work for the coming weeks or months. Being away from home frees me from other thoughts and helps me focus on the work at hand. In fact, I find retreats so good for me that they sometimes feel like cheating. I'm short-cutting all of my usual obstacles. Shouldn't I instead learn to write in the midst of my daily distractions and demands? Sure, but I prefer to have both/and. I'll continue to take my writing retreats while integrating that focus into my routines at home.

You Mean, Every Day?

"People say they write every day, but I don't believe them." -- comment overhead at my last writing group meeting

Back in January, I decided that I was going to write fiction every day for at least 30 minutes, for a whole year. Unfortunately, I trailed off somewhere in February, what with blogging and work-related stuff. I didn't realize how important it was to stick to this commitment day in and day out, without making excuses about being too busy or tired.

Today I read Jack Canfield's Success Principle #35 -- 99% Is a Bitch; 100% Is a Breeze:

Successful people adhere to the "no exceptions rule" when it comes to their daily disciplines. Once you make a 100% commitment to something, there are no exceptions. It's a done deal. Nonnegotiable. Case closed! Over and out. . . . If you make the 100% commitment to exercise every day for 30 minutes, no matter what, then it is settled. You simply just do it. It doesn't matter if you are traveling, if you have a 7:00 AM television interview, if it's raining outside, if you went to bed late last night, if your schedule is full, or if you simply don't feel like it. You just do it anyway.

I really liked writing every day. It didn't always feel easy, but I was amazed at how the pages piled up, even with that small commitment. And honouring my own work first, before I embarked on other tasks for the day, kept me settled and grounded. So I want to go back to that resolution, this time with 100% commitment.

From an article called "Finishing the Book" by Rob Preece:

Write Every Day It seems like an almost impossible goal. Life has a way of throwing up distractions. Well, tough. You've got to write every day. If you write a page a day, you'll have a novel in a year (365 pages is approximately 91,000 words). If you don't make yourself write every day, you'll train yourself to become adept at finding excuses not to write. Trust me, you're already plenty good at these excuses. Rather than justify not writing, write every day. Even ten minutes can be enough to keep the juices flowing.

Writing every day means making a commitment to your writing. Anyone who plans to become a professional tennis player will play every day. They know their competitors are out on the court and are improving their game. Piano players practice every day. They know that their skills will rust if they aren't continuously honed. Writing is a labor of love, but it is a labor. Writing every day represents your commitment to success.

The inverse of writing every day is not writing on some other schedule (Note: you may choose to write every day but Sunday, for example. You must not even consider something vague like writing every "other" day. If you do, you'll soon find that every day is the other one). Instead, the inverse of writing every day is not writing at all. If you wait until inspiration hits, until your mood is just write, until your children or husband or wife is properly supportive, you'll never find enough moments to write your book. Don't make excuses, make pages.

Okay, okay. I hear you. I'm back on the wagon. Starting tomorrow.

Writer on Vacation

Are writers ever really on vacation? I'm in Florida for a week, and amidst the games of shuffleboard and trips to the beach, I can't stop thinking about my novella. I'm itchy to work on it, even when I'm touring the wildlife park or sitting in the hot tub. My husband Shawn and I are staying with his parents in their trailer, so there isn't much space to get away and work, and I'm reluctant to get up early and disturb others. So I'm stealing a few minutes here and there.

Part of me thinks I should just relax and have a good time, not worry about writing. But the thing is, I want to write! I feel better when I do, not so antsy or distracted. Writing doesn't feel like work to me right now. I haven't always been in that space, so now that I am, I want to take advantage of it.

One of my favourite writing anecdotes is about James Thurber and his wife at a party. Seeing a certain look come across his face as he was ladling punch, his wife snapped, "Damnit, Thurber, stop writing!"

A few years ago, Shawn and I took our first trip south, to Costa Rica. One day I stayed back at the resort while Shawn went on a wildlife tour. From my journal:

Four months this story has been sitting, waiting for me to come back to it. But it's stingy now, reluctant to let me in, and I'm rusty, my thoughts come slowly and seem thin. Wouldn't it be easier just to read someone else's story? Instead of write my own? Easier, yes, but sad, that this agility, this facility has slipped out of my grasp. How to bring the words back? How to prime the pump, prove again my devotion to this story?

I have given up a trip to Palo Verde and Santa Rosa -- I will not see the birds and crocodiles and monkeys. Is that enough? At breakfast this morning they asked, why didn't you go? I wanted to stay, I replied, leaving them none the wiser. But we know, si? We know I stayed for you

I did eventually finish that story, and I've never regretted the lost trip to Palo Verde. In fact, I cherish the memory of choosing writing over "vacation."

Five Rules for Writing Groups

A writing group can operate any way that its members please, but here are some best practices that I've found essential to a healthy process:

1. Give specific feedback

   Every comment, whether praise or criticism, should be backed up with supporting detail. It's not helpful to just say "I liked the story" or "I didn't care for it." Identify the elements of the story that succeed or fail for you, and why. Suggest alternate ways to handle the plot or narrative voice. In my group, we write a page of summary comments as well as doing line edits on the manuscript. This method ensures that you get a big-picture critique as well as feedback at the word and sentence level.

2. Have the author keep silent until the discussion has finished

   This guideline is crucial. A piece of writing should stand on its own, and shouldn't require commentary or explanation in order for the reader to appreciate it. When authors respond before the critique is over, they can get defensive, or can shut down the criticism because other group members sense that the author isn't open to negative feedback. Best to have the author write notes and save comments and questions for the end, once everyone else has spoken. Every time my writing groups break this rule, we always regret it. As difficult as it may be to keep quiet, I believe it's essential to getting a full and honest critique.

3. Don't be afraid to suggest significant changes

   When I first started writing in university, we would suggest a few changes here and there to a story, but the final draft would end up very similar to the workshopped version. Then I got a big wake-up call on the first night of my graduate school workshop class. A woman presented a manuscript that I was really impressed with. I had to work hard to make suggestions for revisions. But the class really dug into it, and the conclusion was that she should set aside the twenty-five pages she'd written and start over. I was devastated, and we weren't even critiquing my work! But that was the first time I really understood rewriting, and I didn't know whether I could handle it.

   But my work is much better now for having learned not to get too attached to my words, a lesson taught by my rigorous workshop members. So go ahead, don't be afraid to tell a writer to go back the drawing board and start from scratch. Perhaps a story needs to be much longer, or written from a different point-of-view. Maybe a short story is actually a novel in the making. Challenge each other to find the best story, not just the easiest one.

4. Set guidelines for how much work you will critique, and how often

   Depending on how often you meet and how many members you have, decide a reasonable workload for each session, that gives members enough time to review the work before the meeting, and that gives you enough time for discussion during the meeting. My group meets once a month, and we have a limit of two pieces per meeting (three in a pinch). We don't look at a piece more than once, unless it has been substantially rewritten. We look at story-length excerpts from longer works, such as novels. We make sure that our more prolific writers don't dominate the schedule. Keep the workload manageable and you'll get better quality feedback.

5. Have fun!

   All work and no play etc. etc. Gabfests about books and family, good food, outings to literary events, and weekend retreats can all enhance the writing group experience, as you become friends as well as colleagues. Moral support can be as important as editorial feedback.

More resources for working with a writing group:

Writing Groups Starter Kit from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Writing Group Guidelines from Writers on the Plains

Bylaws and Critique Guidelines from The 6' Ferret Writers' Group

Intro to Writing Groups

When new writers ask me for advice, one of the first things I recommend is finding or creating a group of fellow writers who can offer feedback and encouragement on each others' work. Writing can be a lonely business, and talking to others in the same boat is a great boost for confidence and motivation. Also, editing your own pieces is challenging when you're so close to the material, so getting a critique from other perspectives is invaluable.

My first writing groups were the workshop classes that I took in university. Most of the students were beginners, and we were just learning how to critique as well as write, so it really helped to have an experienced writer as our teacher, leading the class.

When I moved to a new city after finishing my master's degree, I was suddenly without a writing community. So I signed up for a local community workshop, more to meet other writers than to get help with my work. I continued to meet with several women after the workshop ended, and we have become very good friends and supporters. I always feel invigorated to do my work after I meet with them. And having a fan club cheering on your successes can't be beat.

It can be harder to join an existing, established writing group. But I have also found a group this way, a larger group with a shifting membership, where members are used to welcoming and orienting newcomers from time to time. We meet once a month and critique one or two stories, each providing written feedback as well as having a discussion of the work.

I believe it's important that writing groups have a certain amount of homogeneity. If writers are of wildly different levels of experience, beginning writers may feel discouraged, and veterans may be impatient or overly critical. If writers are working in a great variety of genres or formats, the feedback from a poet may not be applicable to a fiction writer, and mystery, romance, and realism experts may be out of their league when it comes to evaluating each others' work.

Look for local writers at workshops and writing classes, authors' association meetings, writing contest awards ceremonies, bookstores, and writing festivals. If you can't find an existing group to bring you in, start your own. And if you're having trouble finding someone nearby, there's always the Internet! You can find an online support group for any niche.

I'd love to hear your stories of how you found or formed a writing group, and what it's done for your creative process.

Shouldn't You Be Writing?

If you're looking for an inspiring podcast to help you get your butt in gear and finish those pages, check out I Should Be Writing, a weekly audio show by Mur Lafferty.

She starts with a "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is" section, where she talks about her own progress on fiction writing. She's running a "Great Rejection Challenge" on her forums, encouraging people to write more so they can submit more, even if they end up with a rejection slip. She also does interviews, book and website recommendations, and writing advice.

The podcast is very well produced and Mur's voice is lovely to listen to. Just the thing you need on your iPod to remind you that you should be writing.

Fiction: All Is Vanity

Something lighter for the end of the week: the comic novel All Is Vanity by Christina Schwarz follows an aspiring novelist as she quits her teaching job and settles in with legal pad and fountain pen. Margaret Snyder thinks that her background in literature and her precocious success with grade school projects will make it a snap to turn out the Great American Novel in a year.

The contortions Margaret puts herself through, trying to get words on the page, are almost too close for comfort. Early on she abandons the work for several weeks so she can repaint her entire apartment, and I winced, thinking of how I too rationalized vacuuming and laundry in place of writing my master's thesis. Eventually she realizes she has to get out of the house to write, and takes up residence at the local library (hmm, I see myself at the coffee shop during National Novel Writing Month, trying to get away from the Internet).

My favourite scenes are when friends and family ask how the writing is going (that dreaded question!) and offer all sorts of well-meaning but useless advice or anecdotes about other writers' wild successes. And of course, there's the friend who says, "I've always wanted to write a novel. I've got the idea, I just need to take a few months and get it down on paper." Argh!

Schwarz captures the desperation so familiar to writers wanting to succeed, and takes it to the extreme with Margaret's descent into lies, plagiarism, and temporary insanity with a literary agent. All Is Vanity may not be the "Great American Novel", but it is a tightly written and engaging book that I really enjoyed.

[And you'll be happy to know that this is one piece of writing Sam Sacks approves of.]

Writing Instead of Anger

I used to work for a software company as a technical editor. One particularly awful day, I got so angry during a meeting that I thought my head would explode. Right after the meeting I put on my jacket and walked across the street to Dows Lake, fought my way into a thicket, leaned my head against a tree, and cried for a while. What bothered me even more than the situation was that I couldn�t let go of it. I knew I was overreacting and it scared me.

Riding the bus home that night, I was still thinking over what the coworker had said that made me angry, coming up with snappy responses, my pulse rate going up, and I thought, what could I possibly do to get this crap out of my head?

And it occurred to me that I could try to understand this woman, try to empathize. What were her fears? What did she want? I started working on a character like my coworker, and mulled it all over quite happily for the rest of the night. What a relief to turn the obsession into creativity. I found I couldn't be angry when my mind had seized on the pleasant work of imagination.

The next day when I went to work, I no longer cared about the situation that had made me so upset. I was much more interested in the new story I was working on. And instead of reacting to my coworker, I observed her with compassion.

I was reminded of this episode when reading a post by James Scott Bell, called Write, Don't Fret:

Dennis Palumbo is a former screenwriter (My Favorite Year) turned psychiatrist--a shrink who specializes in writers! Talk about your never-ending fount of clients, especially in Hollywood. Anyway, he has a nice little book called Writing From the Inside Out on the "mental game" of writing. He says in there, "An hour spent writing is an hour spent not fretting about your writing."

Indeed.