nanowrimo

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penNational Novel Writing Month is so popular among a certain set of writers that it seems almost silly to chime in on it. To learn more, I suggest you visit their official website: http://nanowrimo.org/. (Find the “about” tab for the overview.) I’ll share my take with you here.

Nanowrimo crossed my radar for the first time several years ago when I happened to be teaching an evening section of Fiction Writing at my college. At the time, I was not especially qualified to do so. Although I had been tinkering with fiction for awhile, I was more qualified to teach poetry. No matter, creative writing classes are scarce at my college (I never get to teach poetry), and I’m not often allowed to meddle with this interesting bunch of students. So I said “yes” to the opportunity. A small group of students approached me and asked if I would be the faculty mentor for their nanowrimo group. Their what?

During Nanowrimo, one commits to writing 50,000 words — a short novel, or a draft of a novel. A draft of a draft of a novel. To write 50,000 words in a month, one must write about 1,800 words a day.

I wrote with my student group, of course. I worked on a novel about a waitress who, in 1976, finds herself working at a 24-hour coffee shop (like Denny’s) in Olympia, Washington. Her manager and the two assistant managers are retired military. Her coworkers include military wives and children (Fort Lewis was nearby; JBLM now), and Evergreen State College students (“greenies,” as they were called). I did not write 50,000 words, but I did get the story rolling (about 20,000) despite having younger children (14, 14, and 8, as I recall), a full-time teaching load, etc. It’s a story that sometimes nudges me even now and I expect to get back to it some day.

This November, though I’m not part of an official group, I am going to try to use the momentum and the author pep talks to fuel my draft of Act 3 of my current novel. November: Bethany’s Finishing Month. Cross your fingers for me. Or, better, get out a notebook and pen — or your laptop — and write with me.

Poetry for Peace

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Courting the Muse/2 Comments/in /by

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A friend called yesterday and asked if I’d meet her for a late lunch and a writing session. Last I heard, she was taking a personal essay class, and I was eager to hear how it turned out. Fascinating — it resulted in a complete block and NO writing for 2 months!

We ate our lunch, drank our lattes (mine, plain; hers, pumpkin spice), and talked. When we were finished and had opened our notebooks, another old friend wandered in and we both slammed shut our notebooks and said, “Yay!” (Again, fascinating.) Lucky for us, and our writing practice, he was meeting someone else, so after a little more chit chat, after he had wandered off, I said, “Okay, let’s write.”

I shared two of my strategies for breaking through blocks: 1) writing questions (particularly of the block itself, but any questions will do, just write a long list of them and see where they take you); and 2) holding a dialogue with the block — imagining it as a person and interviewing it.

We picked up our pens and we started writing. We wrote for 15 minutes, (And she filled three notebook pages.) Then we read some excerpts aloud. We talked some more. We ended with a my friend writing out a contract:

“I, _______________________, will write for 20 minutes every day for 2 weeks.” She signed it, dated it, and I signed as her witness. We’ll meet again in 2 weeks.

If you’re not writing at all, then 20 minutes is a start. The muse can be elusive. She’s easily frightened away. She can stay away for 2 months! Or 2 years! But if you keep showing up, even in small chunks of time, giving up one TV show, or one bout with Spider Solitaire, or one phone call with someone you probably didn’t want to kill time with anyway, the muse will show up, too. The muse may surprise you, and get you writing way more than 20 minutes. You won’t know until you try.

 

 

The Book as Baby

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Encouraged by my friend Janet (see her unfortunately neglected but still stellar blog, Deep Grace of Theory), I have been reading Cherishment: A Psychology of the Heart, by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl and Faith Bethelard. After four hours this morning on my own manuscript (and about the same amount of time each morning this week — a record run of uninterrupted days for me), I came across this passage:

“The book made demands. It was a very greedy, eager baby, wanting our time and attention and thought, preoccupying us, getting into everything.” (Young-Bruehl, Bethelard, p. 26)

Heather Sellers, in her book, Chapter after Chapter, makes a similar observation. You have to reach this point with your book if you are ever going to finish it. You can’t put it down and go into another room and not return. You can’t leave the house or go on vacation and not take it with you. It’s your baby. You have to carry it with you. Young-Breuhl and Bethelard would say, You have to cherish it. Don’t say “no.” At least, don’t say no too many times.

Think of your book ms. as a young, needy baby. Say yes to it.