What are the signs?

In Australia my husband and I adopted a series of abandoned cats. Our vet said there was a mark on our front gatepost that told the animals our house was a good place to find food, shelter, and safety—like the hobo marks of a bygone era.

The internet is that gatepost now. Whatever a person wants to do, the directions are laid out, marks carved or chalked, by those who have passed that way before. Naively, when I set out, I didn’t look for those marks. I thought writing was a solitary journey. It would be an understatement to say I made mistakes—but that’s one way to get an education.

Word count: 481                                                                                                      Reading time: 1-2 minutes

Some of the marks I wish I’d seen earlier in my writing life were these:

• Be prepared for the long haul. It takes can take years to develop proficiency as a writer. In his book On Writing Stephen King says that commitment is one of the six essential tools in the writer’s toolbox.
• Writing a novel can seem overwhelming. Concentrate on what is in front of you and move the story forward one paragraph or one page at a time. Or in the words of Anne Lamott—one bird at a time. 
• When it gets really frustrating, do something else. Agatha Christie said The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes Get away from it—for a while.
• Don’t try to do it alone. Yes, writing is a solitary occupation but there are benefits to sharing with trusted readers or writing partners. You may not find the right person (or people) to share with immediately but keep kissing those frogs. When the match is right, your work will soar.
• Become a ruthless self-editor. Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. Colette
• Don’t send work out too soon. Impatience can close doors.
• Don’t hang on to your work too long. Perfectionism can leave it in limbo.
• Go to writers’ festivals, book launches, and readings at your local libraries.
• Read books on the craft of writing. Try to absorb some of the vast wisdom available. It can be your secret—It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way. (Ernest Hemingway)
• Go into the universe with a friendly, non judgemental soul. It’s easier to observe that way.
• Get an online presence. It doesn’t have to be flashy but agents and editors want to be able to find you when they put your name in a search engine. They want to see what a reader will find with the same search.

What would the hobo marks look like for the points above? What other reminders should be on this list for writers new and old?

What's it all about?

I wrote my first thank you letter in either grade one or two. An aunt in England used to send me a book every Christmas, wrapped in brown paper and tied with thin cotton string. We didn’t have a lot of relatives and she was the only one who sent presents, so my gratitude was heartfelt.

Word count: 329   Reading time: 1-2 minutes

I never did meet this great aunt, this sister of someone married to someone related to my father. She was a stranger in a faraway land and I studied her neat handwriting and wondered at the magic that connected us. The annual event of her gift spurred a tradition that became a lifelong habit of letter writing.

This habit peaked when I moved to Australia in 1987. In those pre e-mail days in Melbourne and Sydney, I wrote 8 to 10 letters a week. Which leads me to wonder, why did I write so profusely? I’ll let Anne Lamott answer that: [I] was desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined moments come alive.  (Bird by Bird)

Long before written language evolved, people sought to record their stories, first in cave paintings and then, 10,000 years later, in petroglyphs.

Laying down our stories has been a part of human psyche for a long time. Maybe we do this because of the reasons articulated by Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones, “[…] the secret ego truth is I want to live eternally and I want my people to live forever. I hurt at our impermanence, at the passing of time. […] I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home and it may be the only real home I’ll ever have.”

What are your memories of your earliest writing? What drives you to keep writing now? Do you know young people and what do you do to encourage their literacy?

***

Painting of a bison in the cave of Altamira photo by: Ramessos

Across the line

Word count: 258        Reading time: 1-2 mins 

I typed the last word into my NaNoWriMo document a week ago. Once I was in the habit of writing 2,000 words a day, it surprised me (yet again) how easy that exercise was. In fact it was very much like physical exercise: much easier when done on a regular basis. Also like physical exercise, one day’s finish line was the next day’s starting block.  

Around the middle of November I saw a tweet from a literary agent cautioning writers against querying her with their new novels in December. I laughed at the idea that the final period in my manuscript might signal anything like a finished work. During NaNoWriMo, I follow Tara Moss’s rule: Don’t write it right, just write it—and then make it right later.

In November I wrote. Later I’ll right. The NaNo effort has been buried in my electronic crypt. Now I’m revising something different, which is a fresh start  - and much more fun in its own way. Rose Tremain explains: The process of rewriting is enjoyable, because you’re not in that existential panic when you don’t have a novel at all.

Last week’s dash across the finish line left me perfectly poised for this week’s race. Practice makes the whole thing easier.

Did you finish a first draft recently, what Anne Lamott calls a SFD? Do you need the distance of time before you can start the process of ruthless self-editing? Or are you able to type ‘the end’ one week and revise the next?

***

Magic Time

Word count: 478                  Reading time: 2 minutes

5:00 PM on Halloween afternoon I looked at the two pumpkins sitting on the kitchen counter. Should we bother to carve them? The weather was foul, not Hurricane-Sandy foul, but heavy-rain-warning-in-the-Pacific-rainforest foul. And rain it did. The downpour drowned the stereo and pounded loudly enough to suspend conversation. No trick or treaters were going to come out in this mess.

But still. Miss this holiday and it would be gone forever. So we rolled up our sleeves. When we were done, we set the two jack-o-lanterns on the front steps. Twenty minutes later our first and only callers of the night arrived: three young girls in garbage can costumes with big plastic lids for hats. I admired their tenacity and determination to celebrate one of the most fun holidays of the year. I also knew that two shining lanterns had drawn the kids to our house.

The next morning, November 1, marked the start of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and I thought of many reasons not to participate this year:

• I only have a story idea. It’s not fleshed out. There is no timeline or well-defined story arc. It’s just a fragment.
• NaNo is hard. It takes a lot of effort and sacrifice even to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It means saying no to many things. Christmas fairs start in November. And I love Christmas fairs.
• All I’ll have at the end of will be a SFD, the start of a work, not a finished product.
• I can’t do it. It’s just not possible.

All of this, of course, is ridiculous. I’ve done NaNo for the past two years. It is a productive, intense experience. So many reasons to participate:

• All stories start with a single idea; they have to be told to find out where they are going. NaNo is the chance to capture what Anne Lamott calls the ‘down draft’, the getting down of the story. The ‘up draft’ – when the story is fixed up – comes later.
• Anything worth having is usually hard work and normally involves sacrifice.
• At the end of the process I’ll have another SFD, the important starting point for another novel.
• I can do it. I’ve done it twice before. In fact, my 2010 NaNo novel is currently under contract to Great Plains Publications. There are lots of published NaNo books.

Like Halloween, NaNoWriMo only comes once a year. A thirty day commitment isn’t forever. And if I miss it this year, I’ll have to wait twelve months to participate again. If I roll up my sleeves and finish a glowing jack-o-lantern for the front porch, who knows what fun characters might show up at the door.

How do you keep moving forward even when your psyche throws up the stop signs? How do you keep the prize of finished work in clear view?

***

Photo by: Alan Bolitho, LM

A Basket Full of Miracles

 Word count: 486                      Reading time: 2-3 minutes

When I learned to scuba dive in the Pacific Northwest, it wasn’t a laidback, warm water experience. The environment posed the biggest threat so I’d don my 40 lb drysuit, heft my 25 lb weight belt, and pick up my 35 lb tank. Then I’d start the long descent to the beach. Adrenaline lightened my load as I anticipated sinking into the dark, frigid ocean. After an exhilarating, sometime dangerous, dive I’d surface and have to haul all that gear back to where I parked.

As I picked my way across kelp-slippery rocks and up rough steep tracks, I’d tell myself not to look at the long stretch that separated me from my car. I’d get there, one step at a time. When did I forget that simple philosophy?

Over the years I’ve amassed a small collection of writing reference books. Trouble is I sometimes buy them, read a random chapter or two, and then file them. Recently, I’ve added a few more to the collection. Then I set them around the house like land mines: on a side table in the living room, on the mantelpiece, beside the bed and on my dresser – anywhere that I am likely to trip over them. They aren’t going back onto the shelves until I’ve finished them, cover to cover. The ones I’m reading (simultaneously) right now are:

• Writing Down the Bones – Natalie Goldberg – I love her theories of free writing for a more physical connection with the work and to unearth long-buried feelings.
• Reading Like A Writer – Francine Prose – I had forgotten her invaluable advice on how to get the most out of the hours spent lost in fiction. A must for anyone who wants to write.
• Self-Editing for Fiction Writers – Renni Browne & Dave King – I wish I’d read this years ago. It gives such a different approach to revising one’s own work.
• Steal Like An Artist – Austin Kleon – this is my latest and I’m reading it for a second time this summer because he offers grounded, often humorous, advice on everything from an artist’s social life to his or her financial management.

I found many treasures had been buried in my bookshelves for far too long. Now they are helping me as I revise my YA novel, due for release in Spring 2014.

So, just like I climbed up the beach with my scuba gear, one step at a time, I’m working through them, page by page. In fact it’s almost Bird By Bird. Thank you Anne Lamott. It’s amazing how much we can do when we concentrate on what is in front of us and stop thinking about the faraway goal.

What books are you reading to help your craft? Do you buy reference books, skim them, and then set them aside for another day? Are there any more books I should be reading?

 ***

Scuba photo: Cathy Komar