Jhumpa Lahiri on the Writing Process
I found this video at Aerogramme Writer’s Studio, and wanted to share it.
“We are graced and limited by our own pair of eyes.”
Be a big cup!
“Don’t be a thimble when you can be a big cup. Expand your capacity to be happy and fulfilled, to create and enjoy your creations by expanding your heart and generous spirit. Lighten up. Hang loose. Take it easy. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Know that you are a holy vessel, a child of the universe, and all your desires are only a natural urge to exercise your divinity.” –Sonia Choquette (Your Heart’s Desire, 197)
I have been thinking for several days about sharing this quote. Probably my previous blog post, “Keeping it real…small” inspired this ramble, and in order to get work done it does help to keep it small, to write “in the cracks” (as Steven Pressfield puts it in his blogpost today…nice synchronicity there).
When I’m reluctant to write, when I’m feeling stuck, when I’ve had feedback that makes me want to quit, it really, really helps to think small.
Okay, Bethany, what if you just write for 15 minutes? Okay, Bethany, if you can’t write for 15 minutes, can you write for 5 minutes?
Just 5 minutes! How can I say no to that?
I use the same strategy when I’m negotiating with my daughters to get just a little work done. Five minutes with the guitar, how hard can that be! Five minutes on the science homework… They can’t say no to five minutes, and neither can I.
And, here’s the key to how the whole thing works: Five minutes ALWAYS turns into more. And that’s where the “big cup” begins. 
One of my students, a 17-year old who had the world by the tail, recently told me, “I am very ambitious.” She wanted to be a novelist and she wanted me to tell her how to do that. Wow. The chutzpah!
But, yes. First, you have to imagine it, and you might as well imagine it big. Be ambitious for your dreams. To get yourself rolling, today, you might begin with a thimble.
One Day at a Time
Between doctor appointments (mine and a daughter’s), a visit to my mom, and two quick trips to Bellingham, I am still writing. I now have about 16,000 words (14,000 of them typed). Yesterday I wrote my 500 words in my parked car, late in the afternoon while (ostensibly) running an errand. At Lauren Sapala’s blog, she calls this having faith in the process. Just 500 words, that isn’t so much. What’s the big deal if I miss a day? I’ll write 1000 tomorrow–I promise!
But it is a big deal, because writing every day (this would be true even if it were one, 17-syllable long sentence) is what creates the foundation for writing every day.
I’m reminded of my creative writing student Nathalie who used to come into class and shout, “I have 40 days!” “I have 41 days!” She was a recovering addict, and when she disappeared around mid-quarter, for about a week, I worried. When she came back, slinking in and sitting down as though she wished she were invisible, we couldn’t help but look at her, and wait. She raised her chin, looked back at us, and said, “I have one day.” By the end of the quarter, though, she had 17 days. One day generates the momentum for the next.
My daughters are on their way to the Lady Gaga concert at Key Arena this evening. And you think I’m obsessed with working every day on your art? 
It doesn’t have to be good…
After several days of sailing along and writing (it seemed) like a genius, churning out 500-1000 words a day, I’ve been slogging these last two days. It feels as though I am writing just to be writing, writing snippets and scenes that I’m not even sure I’ll keep. It’s frustrating.
There are different schools of thought about bouts such as this. I believe it’s Robert Olen Butler who says one should just sit on a bench and practice not writing, at least on occasion. My friend Thom Lee, a potter, makes his students swear not to clutter the world with bad pots.
I have a different theory. “To write well, write a lot,” an early mentor advised me. And I’m not convinced that–at least not every day–I’m the best judge of the quality of what I write. Sometimes, too, toward the end of my five pages I gin out a jewel that makes it all worthwhile, a jewel that often sparks the next writing session.
Sometimes, when I’m well and truly stymied, I write notes to myself. The notes help. It’s as if they are a secret way for one part of my brain to communicate with another. (Though other people would say for it’s a way of communicating with God, or one’s soul, or the spirit of creativity–and they may be right.) I write civilized little notes, or prayers (Dear God, this is your servant Bethany, the writer…), or I write curse words in big capital letters. You could try drawing, or writing with your off hand. Whatever happens, this process usually results in an idea. Think of free-writing exercises when your teacher instructed you to keep writing, no matter what, even if you had to write, “I don’t know what else to write! This teacher is an idiot! I hate this!” It’s as if your brain gets quickly bored by that and says, Fine, here’s a scene you can write. Anyway, it’s one of the strategies that, for me, results in more writing.
My goal for this project is 500 words per day. When I hesitate at the beginning of a writing session and don’t know what to write, I tell myself, “It doesn’t have to be good.”
As of today, I’ve typed 12,630 words on my new manuscript. Some of them are good.
Keep writing!