Why I Write

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Our Pabu, who does not bite.

I often get my ideas for blog posts from conversations with friends. Last night my daughter Annie and I visited my good friend who is going to California next week and needs a dog sitter. As things turned out, the adorable mutt bit the heck out of my hand (I tried to be a good farm-girl and act like it was nothing), with the result that he is going to a kennel for the week.

What does this have to do with writing?

I’ve known this young man (the dog, I mean) for four years, since he was an even more adorable puppy. His owners dote on him, but they work and he is at home alone for long hours. He has never had any training. He bites. He acts like he’s warmed up to you and then he grabs your hand and sinks his teeth in and won’t let go!

And what does this have to do with writing?

My friend happens to be the woman to whom I passed along my copy of Writing Down Your Soul by Janet Conner. Here’s a list of questions that Conner suggests exploring (page 148):

  • I think there’s a pattern in my life, and I don’t want to perpetuate it. What is the pattern? Why does it keep appearing?
  • When did it start? How has it evolved?
  • In what ways am I passing it on to the people around me?
  • Why do I want to break it–or why not? What price am I willing to pay?
  • What needs to happen for me to end this pattern?

After I cleaned up my hand and found the anti-biotic ointment, the three of us (the dog was in his crate) reflected on what has to happen next. Well, a professional kennel where the dog can stay next week, safely. My friend speculated on what she will do after that. Annie cried. I hope training will be explored, but if you know your dog bites, can you just keep doing what you’re doing? Our lovely dog has introduced us to a trainer who has rescued at least two impossible dogs and turned them into model citizens. So maybe training can help. Maybe dog training is a reflective activity akin to journal writing. All I know is that it’s easy to go on–for years–perpetuating a pattern and feeling stuck and helpless. Helpless and hopeless. But writing in my journal, and rereading and taking my reflections deeper, is a way of recognizing those patterns and…one hopes…beginning to change them.

It occurs to me that when I’m stuck it’s often because I’m blaming another person or circumstances. It can’t be helped! It’s his fault! There’s nothing I can do!

But there is always something we can do. Finding out what that is, waking up to the possibility of it, becoming willing to see it differently, that’s what reflective journal writing does for me.

What price am I willing to pay to change? Will it be a lesser or greater price than what staying the same will exact?

The essential question…

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P1040277“The essential question is, ‘Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write?’ Into that space, which is like a form of listening, or of attention, will come the words your characters will speak, ideas–inspiration.” Doris Lessing

Books, books, books…

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books4I am in the process of moving out of my office at the college, an office completely filled with books. My husband went with me the other day and helped me fill 8 boxes with books, which took care of about a quarter of them…it was discouraging. I didn’t touch the file cabinets full of…stuff. An alphabetized file for authors I teach, being the most useful (and probably most useless now). I find it very very hard to part with any of it.

At home I’ve managed to empty 5 boxes by double shelving some books in my writing studio, and designating a lean 1/2 box to give away. (The shelves in the house are already stuffed full.)

This weekend I visited my mother. On Monday morning we went to see my 92-year-old aunt who recently moved from her one-bedroom apartment at the retirement center (where my mother lives) to a studio apartment in her son’s backyard. The new apartment may be a bit larger than her digs at the retirement center, but there is no closet space. In recent years, I’ve watched my aunt downsize from a house to an apartment, to the one-bedroom apartment, and now, again, to living quarters with no closet, and it’s been–inspiring. She commented, “After this, I’ll be moving to an even smaller space!”

There’s no baggage check in heaven. They don’t want your stuff.

And, still, it’s hard to give up my books. This one? I think, picking it up and opening it, reading a passage and then wondering if I wouldn’t like to read the whole book again.

Maybe I’d like to blog about this book! I could quote from this page! 

And maybe, if I really want to read this book again, I can find it at the library.

Oh, dear books.

 

Writing with Witnesses

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P1040083Yesterday the Writing Lab had its fifth annual end-of-year party and reading. I wanted to post something–even though today has been a little crazy at my house–just to say “What an amazing group of people.”

We are a small but dedicated band of writers, all of us in some way associated with Everett Community College. We meet once a week for an hour and half. And we write. We are not a critique group, though after we write for 40 minutes or so, we are welcome to read some work aloud, and sometimes there is a very gentle critique. Mostly what we do is witness one another. In fact, one member, Louise, calls it “Writing with Witnesses.”

For a long time, when I was teaching alongside everything else I try to do, the Writing Lab kept me alive. I have a very sturdy habit of writing in a journal every morning, but writing for an audience, even a very small, intimate audience of 3 or 4 other writers is a gift.

If you’re looking for a writing group, you may want to think, first, about what you want from your writing group. Maybe you’re ready for critique, but if you’re not, you will still benefit from having some witnesses to your process. (Lauren Sapala wrote about this topic on her blog this week, too.)

Good luck finding your witnesses.

And thank you to mine (on the blog, too!).