Hanging out with writers…

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P1040599A long time ago, when I still worried about what career I should have, a mentor told me that I should hang out with the type of people I wanted to become. I remember imagining a group of bankers and me dressed up and pretending to be a banker, wandering amidst them. No, I didn’t want to become a banker. But I wasn’t sure what the advice meant.

It isn’t that hard. It’s the “dress for success” idea. It’s as simple as studying with people who get the grades that you want to get. But it’s really, really a great idea for creative-types. If you want to be a singer, then you should be where singing happens, and where other singers are likely to be. If you want to be an actor, getting a job adjacent to a bunch of actors — even if you’re the person who hangs up their coats — isn’t a bad strategy. Being amid other wannabes is good, too. Take an acting class, audition for a local play. Ask someone there (someone who looks like she’s an inch better at it than you are) out for coffee.

So, for writers, there’s a lot to simply getting up every day and writing. And then there’s the whole reading-good-books thing (my favorite way to hang out with writers, being the introvert that I am). But you might, now and then, also look for opportunities to hang out with flesh and blood writers.

Today I’m following that advice and going to Northwest BookFest: http://www.nwbookfest.com/. I’m working a two-hour shift for LitFuse, 2:00-4:00. If you’re there, come by and hang out with me.

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.