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?

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

Oh the places you'll go

Word count: 391                          Reading time: 1-2 minutes

Week One of NaNoWriMo has come and gone. To me this month is always like a wild journey. I think I know where I’m headed when I write my one sentence outline: This is a book about ________ who wants ________ but ___________ gets in the way. But I usually end up somewhere quite different than I first visualize.

This November 1^st, I filled in those blanks and launched myself into the work. To help me navigate the course, I armed myself with some ground rules:

• Do it. Just sit down and write. Or, in the words of Louis L’Amour: The first essential is just to write. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.
• Don’t let perfectionism kill the story. Remind yourself of Natalie’s Goldberg’s golden rule: give yourself permission to write crap.
• Stay organized. Within reason. This is not the month to tidy the tax file, repaint the living room, or arrange the bookshelves alphabetically according to genre. But it is the month to clear off your desk so that only things that help with the novel catch your eye. Push everything else into a drawer.
• Remember to laugh. To help you do this, Debbit Ridpath Ohi and Errol Elumir have created a NaNoWriMo cartoon-a-day website.
• Go to local events. Last week the City of North Vancouver Library hosted five YA writers. These wonderful women gave generously of their time and I was well rewarded for carving out three hours for their workshops. I came back to the keyboard with a better direction and clearer sense of purpose. Thank you, Eileen Cook, Denise Jaden, Catherine Knutsson, Mindi Scott, and Joelle Anthony.
• Don’t forget the music. My novel is moving to a dystopian kind of place so I’ve had Godspeed You! Black Emperor playing Mladic in the background. It’s music of impending dread, like something dark looming on the horizon. Perfect.
• Take care of yourself. Do all those boring things like eat well, get enough sleep, and squeeze in a walk around block if you can. It helps to be fit when you’re wrestling demons.

Have you done NaNoWriMo before? What is helping you with it this year? Is the story unfolding according to your plan? Or will your destination be some place you couldn't quite see when you set out?

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Photo by: Bibigon

All of me, why not use all of me

Word count: 491                   Reading time: 2 minutes   

If you watched the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games, you might have noticed the fabulous woman percussionist who led the 1,000 drummers. When Dame Evelyn Glennie talks about music as she did in a TED lecture in February 2003, she talks about the physicality of making and listening to music. She is an expert on that subject: in spite of being profoundly deaf by the age of 12, she was accepted into the Royal Academy of Music. She urges us to listen to music, but not just with our ears. She says we should use our bodies as the resonating chamber to experience it. To make better music, musicians must likewise open their bodies to find the music that isn’t on the page. They must interpret and translate that which others cannot see.

After watching that talk, I wondered how writers might use their bodies to be resonating chambers for a more physical experience of writing. Is there a way to break out of the narrow space between our fingers and the screen? Here are a few suggestions:

• Write with pen and paper. (How many times have you heard this? Still, Natalie Goldberg and the dozens of others who recommend it are right. It does give a closer, more intimate connection with the art).
• Stand up to write occasionally. Being a chair warrior is an inevitable part of writing but standing opens the body and in doing so, it opens the mind and imagination.
• Write in bare feet, to stay connected with the ground.
• Cut a picture out of a magazine or download one from the internet that looks like one of your characters or backdrops. Stick it on a pin board and stare at it.
• Pick up a pencil, crayon or paint brush and illustrate a small aspect of your story. Draw a map of the town or neighbourhood where events are situated.
• Listen to music while you write. Get up and dance occasionally (no one’s watching) and let the paralysis of sitting slide away.
• Go outside and crush a handful of leaves and feel the texture as they break away.
• Set a cup of tea or coffee beside you on the work desk. Inhale deeply as you sip. Roll the liquid around your mouth before you swallow. How would that taste to your protagonist?
• Read your work aloud because that’s where you’ll hear if your cadence is good and your dialogue natural.
• Go for walks and let the ideas settle over you like autumn leaves or spring blossoms.

Whatever we see, hear, feel, or touch, there is always a story behind it. It may be part of our narrative, trying to get through to us.

How do open your body so your story will resonate through you? Can you remember any particular moment when a story or resolution came to you doing something entirely unrelated to the act of putting words on paper?

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Photo by: Silvijo Selman

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?

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Scuba photo: Cathy Komar

Let's get physical

Word Count: 253                   Reading time: 1-2 mins. 

In her book Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg asserts Writing is physical and is affected by the equipment you use. She advocates the importance of writing with pen and paper, an approach supported by Patrick E. McLean in his light-hearted essay A Defense of Writing Longhand. Both these thinkers agree that writers need to play with the physical, keyboard-free aspect of writing.

Among other things, Goldberg suggests writing on a big drawing pad because she says our tools affect the way we form our thoughts. What is a bigger, more essential tool in writing than our body and brain? In Writing is not Healthy A.J. Jacobs outlines the health risks associated with being a writer. They are many. If you’re a worrier I suggest you don’t read it. His article reminded me of this quote from Herophilus:

When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless and intelligence cannot be applied.

I constantly have anywhere from 3-5 manual writing notebooks on the go. Occasionally I pick up a pencil to sketch one of my characters or scenes, so I guess I meet the use-a-different tool challenge. The instrument that needs greater care is my body. On that note I think I’ll stop typing and go for a walk.

What physical tools do you do use to dig deep into your psyche? What about that most essential piece of equipment – your body? How do you keep yourself strong and fresh for writing?

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Photo by: Dmitry Maslov