Wednesday, April 6, 2011
More encouragement for a writing practice
I found this today for more inspiration. http://ninabadzin.com/2011/03/28/you-will-never-publish-a-word/comment-page-2/#comment-1249
The fifteen minutes that changed my writing life
Many years ago, I went to sleep as depressed as I had ever been in my life. A publisher had cancelled a big contract for a book I had worked on for a long time that had gotten widespread attention. How was I going to face my family and friends, and the large circle who knew and were counting on this book? How was I going to live with this failure, to say nothing of figure out a way to return the large advance? Don't take it personally, my non-writer friends said. It's just business. They didn't understand. This was my life. And it was over as I knew it, because I would never submit myself to this kind of disappointment again. I would never write another word again. Never! Why would I? Clearly I wasn't a writer or the editor wouldn't have cancelled the book. The confessional is not my style, however, if I were writing about a character instead of myself, I could do justice to the agony of that time, the gut-churning humiliation and sense of defeat I had been living with for months as I faced the world with a business-as usual face, while privately I indulged my blackest, most self-loathing thoughts. With my bedroom in darkness, I vowed never to put myself in the path of such public embarrassment again. I didn't know what would replace my passion for writing, but that life was over for me.
Perhaps it is true that we must hit rock bottom before any ray of enlightenment reaches us, or perhaps I had reached my own tolerance for misery and self-pity. At any rate, I woke up and said, no. They (I have names but a confidentiality agreement prevents me from leaking them here) could take the book away from me, but they would not take my writing away from me. Filled with a new determination that was more bravado and fear of any further dives into depression than true confidence, I resolved that I would continue to write. But, I promised myself, I will never show a word to anyone. My writing will be for me alone. I knew I wasn't punishing the world for rejecting me by withholding my golden prose. I was simply saving my shattered ego from any further damage. I had to return to the corporate world to support myself, so I made a plan. I would write fifteen minutes a day before work, and I would carry a page of my writing in my purse at all times so that when I rummaged in it for bus fare or lunch money, I would see my words, my real work, and remind myself that, despite what the world thought, I was a writer. And I did that every day for thirteen years. Well, I missed about seven days a year, including the four years when I had five surgeries. I would write before I went to the hospital (nothing dramatic, bad knees, a shoulder), and then give myself the day off after surgery to wallow in pain pills. Then I was back at it the following day. Two of those surgeries were to correct arthritis in my hands and I even wrote left-handed when my dominant right was in a cast. That was not heroics, but fear of losing the discipline I had fought so hard to find. If I let go of it, I didn’t think I would ever have the whatever to get it back.
Since that commitment to myself, I have written a novel, an on-line food column for a year, several magazine articles to promote the failed book that ultimately found a new publisher and rave reviews, which is another lesson entirely. I have become a writing teacher and coach, editor and now a blogger. And I show my writing to anyone who will read it. The only thing I have to teach people, is what I have learned by writing every day. And the first thing, is write. Every day. Start with fifteen minutes and keep a page of your writing in your purse, briefcase, wallet, wherever you will see it at least once a day and say to yourself, there. See? I’m a writer.
Perhaps it is true that we must hit rock bottom before any ray of enlightenment reaches us, or perhaps I had reached my own tolerance for misery and self-pity. At any rate, I woke up and said, no. They (I have names but a confidentiality agreement prevents me from leaking them here) could take the book away from me, but they would not take my writing away from me. Filled with a new determination that was more bravado and fear of any further dives into depression than true confidence, I resolved that I would continue to write. But, I promised myself, I will never show a word to anyone. My writing will be for me alone. I knew I wasn't punishing the world for rejecting me by withholding my golden prose. I was simply saving my shattered ego from any further damage. I had to return to the corporate world to support myself, so I made a plan. I would write fifteen minutes a day before work, and I would carry a page of my writing in my purse at all times so that when I rummaged in it for bus fare or lunch money, I would see my words, my real work, and remind myself that, despite what the world thought, I was a writer. And I did that every day for thirteen years. Well, I missed about seven days a year, including the four years when I had five surgeries. I would write before I went to the hospital (nothing dramatic, bad knees, a shoulder), and then give myself the day off after surgery to wallow in pain pills. Then I was back at it the following day. Two of those surgeries were to correct arthritis in my hands and I even wrote left-handed when my dominant right was in a cast. That was not heroics, but fear of losing the discipline I had fought so hard to find. If I let go of it, I didn’t think I would ever have the whatever to get it back.
Since that commitment to myself, I have written a novel, an on-line food column for a year, several magazine articles to promote the failed book that ultimately found a new publisher and rave reviews, which is another lesson entirely. I have become a writing teacher and coach, editor and now a blogger. And I show my writing to anyone who will read it. The only thing I have to teach people, is what I have learned by writing every day. And the first thing, is write. Every day. Start with fifteen minutes and keep a page of your writing in your purse, briefcase, wallet, wherever you will see it at least once a day and say to yourself, there. See? I’m a writer.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Start Small
Does this sound familiar? You wake up inspired to write and when you begin working, you cannot get the words on the page fast enough. The same thing happens the next day and the next. You can see putting "The End" on your story, your chapter, your book. Then one day, the writing slows down, or the inspiration isn't there, or you have a full schedule and decide you'll take a day off. Taking a day off is fine, but the next day you find you have written yourself into a wall and you can't figure out where to take your story next. So you quit early. The next day you get busy and as you turn out the light at night you realize you've haven't made it to your writing desk. Tomorrow, you promise yourself. But tomorrow never comes. The longer you put off getting back to your manuscript, the harder it is to start up again. Days, weeks, even months go by and you haven't written a word. Eventually you stumble over your manuscript, or someone talks about writing and you say, yes. I'm going to finish that story or article. You may even pull out a copy and read it, make a few notes. But when you pull it up on your computer screen, you don't know where to start. You feel overwhelmed and the dark thoughts start rushing back. They vary a bit from writer to writer but generally run along the lines of, what ever made me think I could be a writer, you turn off the computer and bury your self-loathing and regret in a pint of ice cream.
But you're not finished with that piece. The next time inspiration hits, and it will--that is the nature of inspiration, it comes and goes--you summon up determination and vow to get disciplined. That's what you need, discipline. This weekend you will lock out the world and spend six hours at the computer. Saturday AND Sunday. Should you manage to clear the deck and actually sit down to write, six hours looms as a life sentence and before long you are cleaning closets or cutting the grass, the pint of ice cream waiting in the freezer.
I don't mean this as a cynical assessment of anyone's writing habits. I describe this tableau in all sympathy, from memory, calling upon my own career as a stop and start writer. For the first half of my writing life, about twenty years, unless I had a deadline hanging over my head, which I never missed, I had no writing habit. I wrote when "the muse spoke to me." I see-sawed between frantic writing and total denial that I even knew how to turn on my computer. Going back to it, or contemplating returning to writing was an exercise in misery. Then one day I had an epiphany. It was as hard to let a writing habit go and start it up again, fighting through self-doubt and regret for lost time, as it was to simply allot a sliver of time every day to putting words down, no matter what. Somehow, because I defy every definition of conventional notions of discipline, I became a daily writer. It changed my life, especially my writing life. What I did was so simple, it is embarrassing to think how long it took me to discover the secret. Start small. More tomorrow.
But you're not finished with that piece. The next time inspiration hits, and it will--that is the nature of inspiration, it comes and goes--you summon up determination and vow to get disciplined. That's what you need, discipline. This weekend you will lock out the world and spend six hours at the computer. Saturday AND Sunday. Should you manage to clear the deck and actually sit down to write, six hours looms as a life sentence and before long you are cleaning closets or cutting the grass, the pint of ice cream waiting in the freezer.
I don't mean this as a cynical assessment of anyone's writing habits. I describe this tableau in all sympathy, from memory, calling upon my own career as a stop and start writer. For the first half of my writing life, about twenty years, unless I had a deadline hanging over my head, which I never missed, I had no writing habit. I wrote when "the muse spoke to me." I see-sawed between frantic writing and total denial that I even knew how to turn on my computer. Going back to it, or contemplating returning to writing was an exercise in misery. Then one day I had an epiphany. It was as hard to let a writing habit go and start it up again, fighting through self-doubt and regret for lost time, as it was to simply allot a sliver of time every day to putting words down, no matter what. Somehow, because I defy every definition of conventional notions of discipline, I became a daily writer. It changed my life, especially my writing life. What I did was so simple, it is embarrassing to think how long it took me to discover the secret. Start small. More tomorrow.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Why Write Every Day
What's the difference between your work and the books on your bookshelves? If you thought I was going to say those authors are better writers, you would be very wrong. The major distinguishing characteristic that separates the novice from the published writer, is that authors lucky enough to make it into print finish their books. It seems self-evident, and goes without saying. But if I had a penny for every writer of talent and imagination with something of value to say who just can’t get to “The End,” I would beat Bill Gates to the bank. Finishing your work doesn’t guarantee publication by any means, even if you have talent and value. But if you don’t finish your book, story, collection of poems, recipes or memoir, well need I say it? You have no chance of ever getting published. A hard lesson I learned years ago is that, while I may get a lot of attention once a book of mine hits the bookstores, until that day no one cares what I’m writing and no one will knock on my door and hold my hand and help me through the briar patch to completion. It is up to me to do that hard, solitary work, ultimately rewarding work.
A member of Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury group, and years ago I could recall his name, was considered the most gifted of that brilliant assemblage of artists and writers. However, he could not get his thoughts down on paper, while lesser minds got into print regularly. Publishers can only print the material at hand, and if yours is still stuck in your computer waiting for the next chapter or a final revision, or the right ending, how will they ever know your worth?
The goal of this blog is to provide support, inspiration and keys to establishing a daily writing practice. Tomorrow I will begin to describe some steps to help you jump start your daily writing practice. Hint: start small.
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