Write on Wednesday-I Am Writer...Hear Me Roar!

My friend Michele at Writing the Cyber Highway honored me with this award, and I'm so pleased and grateful!

Of course, since Michele is all about encouraging aspiring writers, the award comes with an assignement. I'm supposed to share three writing tips that will make your writing powerful.

1) Keep a journal or a notebook of some kind and write in it every day. Writing "morning pages" each day are the way I jump start my writing. Sitting down every morning and writing whatever comes into my head is something like the warms up we do in choir, or the stretches a runner does before a marathon. Some days it's nothing but drivel, but other days, some really good ideas come out on the page.

2) Read fiction, poetry, biography, essay's. Find authors who inspire you, and study their descriptive techniques and the way they construct sentences, and create dialogue.

3) Write what you know, write what comes from your heart, from your experiences and feelings. That's the only way your writing will be meaningful to the people who read it.


So, how about you? What do you think it takes to make your writing roar?

Write on Wednesday-Goody Bag

In the spirit of filling your Halloween bag with goodies, here are some of the writing related books, sites, and activities I've been devouring:

~Cafe Writing opened for business TODAY, so make sure you stop in. Cafe manager MissMeliss offers a menu of six creative options to suit any and all of your writing/artistic talents. The prompts are good for one month, so you may partake of any or all of them, posting your individual "entrees" on your own blog. I'm torn between trying option two, three, four or five...so many savory choices!

~I stumbled on Writer Advice while looking for their interview with Gayle Brandeis. Not only advice is featured here- there are writing contests, interviews with writers and artists, and products. Lots of goodies to explore.

~My new friend, Michele, chronicles her experiences as a freelance writer at Writing the Cyber Highway. Michele inspires me with her positive attitude, as well as her writing advice.

~In my own personal "writer development training course," (which I chronicle in my other blog) I'm currently working my way through "Courage & Craft: Writing Your Life Into Story," by Barbara Abercrombie. This book offers super exercises and advice for writing personal essays in a no-nonsense, approachable fashion. Barbara also co-hosts Writing Time, one of my favorite places to go on the internet for writing tips and inspiration.

~I admit it - I'm a writing book junkie, and lying in wait on my bookshelf are these tasty goodies...Fruitflesh, by Gayle Brandeis, Writing Begins With the Breath, by Laraine Herring, and Making a Literary Life, by Carolyn See.

You now have lot of things to keep you busy and inspire you to Write On Wednesday.

So, what are you waiting for??


How about you? Have you found any inspiring writing sites, or read any good writing books lately?

Write on Wednesday-Addendum

Visit Writing Time to "cyber audit" a class called "Courage and Craft: Writing Your Life Into Story."

Author, teacher, and blogger, Barbara Abercrombie teaches this course at the UCLA Extension Writers Program, and she's sharing some of her class lectures and writing exercises with those of us who read her blog. The class is based on her newly published book by the same title, and promises to offer some exciting suggestions and inspiration.

So get yourself a new spiral notebook and a pen, and head over to class. Don't be late!

Write on Wednesday-Working Nine to Five

Each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I work in an office~a real business type office, where I have my own cubicle, complete with plastic desk protector, overhead bin, file folders, an "in-box," and a telephone extension. I spend those three days a week writing medical reports, summarizing medical records, preparing billing statements, and shuffling great lots of paper - bond paper, that is.

If one must work in an office, (and, at this juncture in my life, I must, for the checkbook demands the extra weekly feeding) my particular situation couldn't be better. I work with six other women whom I'm very fond of. They range in age from 27 to 67, they're all bright, personable, funny and easy to get along with. My work hours are flexible, I can do lots of my work remotely, and I have an "alter ego" who can trade off with me when I travel to Florida.

Perfect, yes?

And no. As much as I'm grateful for my job and all its conveniences, I have to admit that it's become awfully boring. Twice lately, I've literally fallen asleep at my desk after lunch! ( Luckily, my cube is in the corner so no one noticed!) Six years ago when I interviewed for my original position as a "medical report writer," the interviewer was concerned that I would become disenchanted with the pedantic nature of the writing required.

"Don't worry," I assured her. "I like writing fact based reports. I'm certainly not a creative writer!"

Hmm. At that time, I was being completely truthful.

But things change, don't they? Nowadays, my head is filled with poems and stories and ideas for stories and blog posts and books and...my oh my.

And somehow, I don't feel as if I could ever explain this compulsion to any of the women I work with. I feel as if I'm harboring a secret life, that when they ask what I did over the weekend and I say, "oh, not much"- leaving out that I wrote three blog posts, or started a new story, or did some research for the novel I'm thinking about writing, or for the one I've already written- I'm denying them the ability to know who I really am.

A while back, I wrote about coming out of the writers closet, and this post is certainly reflective of those feelings. As much as I love and am grateful for the community of bloggers with which to share words and ideas, I'm feeling the need for the kind of interaction you can only have with people in the present.

How about you? Do you have a "day job" and does it hamper or inspire your creativity? Do your real world friends understand and support your writing?

Write On Wednesday-Coming Alive

Don't ask yourself what the world needs.

Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do it.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

~Harold Thurman Whitman

Each time I run across these words, I feel an electric shock run down my spine.

They remind me that the world, myself included sometimes, is filled with people going through the motions of their days, finding no joy, no deep indwelling sense of satisfaction or accomplishment, nothing that creates the feeling of life abundantly lived. So these words prod and poke me, nudge me to search for what creates the spark of life in my soul.

They confronted me this morning when I opened my brand new copy of Foolsgold, by Susan G. Woolridge (author of Poemcrazy). Outside my window, a cloudy, drizzly September day waits for me. Another day in my office beckons, a day of paper shuffling and organizing, a day of sifting through piles of medical records and information. Nothing about the prospect of this day makes me come alive.

But if I am honest, I recognize that I am luckier than most~I've achieved half the battle to follow that credo. I, at least, have found the things that make me come alive.

Certainly, writing is one of them.

Foolsgold promises to help me "find the artist within by cultivating a creative lifestyle that will not only expand and inspire you, but may also ground and heal you." A "creative lifestyle" is what interests me here. In the past months, as I've come to realize how much writing means to me, I've allowed it to play a bigger role in my inner life. Yet I keep it tucked in the cupboard of my lifestyle, afraid to let it to play in the daylight hours, only taking it out when I've completed all the other, less livening activities.

I think in order to start living that "fully alive" life the world needs, I must allow creativity to permeate my entire lifestyle, not just those few "off hours" when the regular work is done.

What does that mean in practical terms? I'm not sure. Perhaps Foolsgold will provide some answers, as I read it with that thought in mind.

It will be a journey, this "coming alive" process.

I'll keep you posted.

How about you? Have you found the things that make you come alive? Are you doing them?

Write on Wednesday-Dream Works

Last night in my dreams, a writing angel haunted me. Really. In a strange, exciting, miraculous sort of way, I was awakened at 4:30 am with a virtual cacophony of sentences erupting in my head. Paragraphs in fact, spinning themselves out as if my mind were a blank computer screen and someone else was doing the typing.

"Wait," I shouted at myself. "Slow down - I'll never remember all this!"

And it was cold last night, I was cold, I hadn't remembered to get my blanket out of the storage box in the basement. I was huddled in bed, curled into in fetal position, surrounded by small dogs who were also cold. I was cursing myself because, of all the dozens of notebooks and pens in this house, there wasn't one of them in my bedroom this morning at 4:30 a.m. And the words, the sentences, some very good sentences, just kept pouring into my semi-conscious head.

Here's the back story...I've been thinking about NaNoWriMo, you know the November madness where some of us who are crazy enough to submit ourselves to 30 days of insane writing torture, sign on to complete a 50,000 word novel during the four weeks of November. So, I've been thinking about two ideas - actually, I've had these ideas in my mind since last November. One of them is, I think, a really good idea for a novel. But I'm not kidding myself - it's not an easy idea. It would really require lots of research even to do a half-assed sort of job. And it's such a good idea (did I say that already?) that I don't want to waste it by not being ready for it.

You know what I mean?

But that writing dream, well, it was all about this novel. It was just ideas on top of ideas, flooding into my brain at 4:30 in the morning. It was sentences, and names, and dialogue even.

I think the genesis for this visitation arose from the post I read yesterday in Not For Robots, Laini Taylors blog about writing. Here's what she wrote in her first post:

"You want to write a novel. You have a seed. Perhaps you have a character name, an idea of the setting, and a vague sense of what it’s “about.” A good place to start “brainstorming” is just by freewriting everything you know about your idea so far. Don’t worry at all about the “writing” at this phase, about your prose or sentence structure or having the perfect name for your character. Doesn’t matter. This is just about getting ideas out. Every possible idea, even ones that flitter through your head and you’re pretty sure you won’t use. Go ahead and write them down and give them an opportunity to explain themselves. If it came to mind, there’s a chance there’s something in it you can use. At this stage, do not discriminate. Think of it like the auditions for American Idol. You have to listen to the terrible singers -- you have to listen to all the singers -- to ferret out the tiny handful of good ones."

Well, I wrestled with this dream weaver until it was time to get up - finally I managed to drag my cold and rusty bones out of bed, find the notebook I've already started for this book, and try to capture some of those crazy words and ideas.

I went to the library, and started poking around with some background research. But there is just so much I need to know for this book. Laini knew I'd make that discovery too. "As you’re writing down everything you know about the story, you’ll start to see how much you don’t know," she wrote. I sure did, and there's plenty.

Frankly, I'm scared.

I think it's too big for me.

Even in my wildest dreams.


How about you? Have you ever been visited by a writing angel? Have you had a writing (or other creative) project you really wanted to do, but were afraid of?

Write on Wednesday-Coming Out of the Writer's Closet

None of my friends know I do it. My husband knows, but basically ignores it, considering it another amusing little project that takes up time and doesn't make any money. My son probably understands it better than most, and does it himself on occasion. What is this deep dark secret I'm harboring? Writing, of course.

"You know the last thing in the world people want to hear from you," writes Carolyn See in Making a Literary Life, "the very last thing they're interested in? The fact that you have always wanted to write, that you cherish dreams of being a writer, that you wrote something and got rejected once, that you believe you have it in you - if only the people around you would give you a chance - to write a very credible, if not great, American novel."

Every so often, I think about telling one of my really good friends that I write. Perhaps my friend Pat, who is all about "living your dreams," no matter what age you are. After all, she's nudged me out of my musical shell, taught me to step outside my safe box and take risk now and then. Surely she, of all people, wouldn't think I was silly, or worse yet, pathetic, for writing stories and poems, for hoarding private fantasies about publishing novels.

Or my friend Millie, my "other mother" as I call her, who always props up my flagging confidence with genuine caring and pride, who simply grabs me by the hand and drags me into places I'm fearful of, assuring me with steadfast certainty that I can handle myself there. Wouldn't she pat me on the back with a hearty "good for you!" and say "I'm not the least bit surprised!"

So why do I always cringe at the thought of admitting my secret aloud to these women, these "real world" friends? Why is it so easy for me to share my writing dreams with all of you, and not with the people who share my life on a daily basis?

Part of it, I suppose, is fear of criticism, fear that they'll look at me, smile politely, and make some sort of "that's nice, dear," remark before continuing the conversation about next weeks rehearsal or last night's episode of "The Closer." That reaction would not only bruise my fragile writing hopes, but could actually damage our friendship.

Perhaps keeping the writing secret is a way of protecting it. Hemingway said that talking about your work weakens it, diminishes the magic it develops as it gestates in your head. Carolyn See writes that "the wonderful thing about your inner life is that it's your inner life." All the while you're stuck in traffic, or sitting through boring meetings at work, or spending time with deadly dull relatives, you can think about this secret world of characters and ideas living in your mind.

Still, I often feel a distinct urge to spill my secret. I'll have it planned out, waiting to announce when people ask "So, what have you been up to lately?"

"Well," I'll offer, "I've been writing - stories, poems, even a novel."

But when the moment comes, inevitably I back away. "Oh, the usual," I'll concede. "Work, some music stuff, taking care of the parents - you know, nothing new." Once again, I pull the writer's closet door tightly closed, hoarding my secret to myself for a while longer.


So, how about you? Have you come out of the writer's closet to your friends and family?

Write on Wednesday-Detail Oriented

As I write this, a cool breeze from the fan overhead gently lifts my hair, the soft whirring of its blades a counterpoint to the clicking computer keyboard. One dog (Molly) lies stretched full length in the doorway, sleeping soundly, while the other (Magic) is perched on the bed gazing attentively out the window, awake and on the lookout for a squirrel, or his favorite neighbor from across the street. Dusk is falling, earlier now that summer is on the wane, and soon I'll need to switch on the desk lamp, but not yet...I can still just barely see the keyboard in the hazy blue glow from the monitor. A glass of white wine rests on a slate coaster beside me, beads of sweat forming around it as the chill liquid inside meets the warm air of the room.

"Writing is about learning to pay attention and communicate what is going on," writes Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird. "In order to be a writer...you have to learn to be reverent."

Life is in the details, someone once said, and for the writer, learning to observe everyday details and make them important for the reader is vital to creating character, setting, and moving plot along. In my first paragraph, I was trying to give you a word picture of where I was (a bedroom/writing room), the weather (hot, as evidenced by the ceiling fan and the sweaty glass), the type of person I am (someone who writes, drinks wine, and loves dogs, because they lie on my bed!) But I was also trying to convey a sense of reverence for these homely details about my life and this room where I come to write.

"We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded," says Natalie Goldberg, in Writing Down the Bones. "This is how writers must think, how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived."

The writing I love to read is full of details - about people and places, some might call it minutiae, but for me the details are what make the story and the era come alive. I love to know what people were having for tea in Jane Austen's drawing room, how they dressed for the party in Scarlett O'Hara's American South, and in more contemporary work, the cars they were driving, the TV shows they were watching, all those kinds of everyday details that help me identify time, place, and character. And often I am surprised by the beauty evident in those seemingly ordinary moments.

"This is our goal as writers," Lamott continues, "to help others have this sense of wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break into our small, bordered worlds. There is ecstasy in paying attention."

Since I've been writing, I have found myself more open to observing details in the world around me, everything from the new ochre colored paint on the walls in my favorite coffee shop to the glorious rosy sky in the morning sunrise. I'm find myself thinking about the people I encounter - the young man I see walking the street morning and evening, winter and summer, wondering about the restless energy that is so apparent in his nervous stride. What is his story?

"To be engrossed in something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind," Lamott concludes. Finding a sense of wonder in the details of the world around us, in the people before us, all the little things that make us who and what we are.

"This is what it is to be a writer," Goldberg tells us. "To be the carrier of details that make up history."

Write on Wednesday-Revision Redux

The revision process continues to be on my mind this summer - notice I said "on my mind," meaning I haven't done much more than think about it. The whole process of novel revision seems terribly daunting. I've been collecting other writer's thoughts on their process of revision, hoping to get inspired, and it worked to some degree. I've started revising a short story I wrote last winter, hoping that by "practicing" on something smaller, I'll be less intimidated by the work involved in revising the novel.

Here's some food for thought regarding the revision process...as you will see, every author approaches it completely differently!

"I start on the first page. Then, I rewrite that page twenty or forty times until it's right, and then it's finished. Then, I go to page two and I do the same thing twenty or forty times." Stephen Dixon

"I go over what I've written, but I'm not making major changes. I'm just fixing it by making minor changes that might have a big effect. I hardly throw anything out." Jayne Ann Phillips

"I do twenty or thirty drafts. I'm a big reviser. I go back...and polish the beginning, then I force myself to go through page by page from beginning to end, over and over again." Amy Bloom

"I go through with a very cold eye to cut out everything that can be cut without loss." Thomas E. Kennedy

"I polish as I go along. My habit is to perfect individual sentences, individual paragraphs, and individual pages, and when I think they're as good as I can make them, I feel free to go on to the next part. So when I write the last sentence of the last paragraph, I'm done with the book." Kent Haruf

"I do a great many drafts, no matter what it is. This means letting it sit for a few days before looking at it again, then doing it again, then letting it sit and doing it again. I let my friends read drafts after the first ten or twelve. My early drafts are sketchy in the most important ways - everything vital is left out - and they're wordy in other ways - there's all this extraneous material that doesn't matter. So the revisions are in both directions." Andrea Barrett

"I do a lot of revisions in fits and starts. When I write, I barrel through from beginning to end, and then back up, and if the beginning isn't working, start over. Once it works, I write through to the end, and start revising, and, if necessary, trash the whole thing, and start over." Myla Goldberg

Writer Bug posted some great revision advice which she picked up at her last residency. She talks about picking 15 areas you want to work on in your manuscript, and then going through it 15 times, focusing on one area each time. Some things to work with include: verbs, redundancy, verbosity, vagueness. She also advises reading the story aloud, which is a great idea.

As I've begun revising my own short story, I've been taking one paragraph at a time, revising each sentence, looking for better words, paring down wordiness, then going on to the next paragraph until I've finished the page. Then I re-read the page and see how it flows. Once I've done each page, I'll go back and re-read the whole thing to see if I need to make structural changes.

So, how about you? Anyone else out there in the process of revisions? If so, how's it going?

Write on Wednesday-In the Moment

In the past year, I've become addicted to morning pages. There is something so freeing about sitting down to write three pages every morning and knowing it doesn't matter what I write about, whether the words that end up on the page are sensible, beautiful, logical, or even legible. Knowing that spiral notebook and ballpoint pen are sitting on the table where I left them yesterday morning, waiting patiently to hear all my sleepy headed, good morning thoughts, is like knowing a patient and trusted friend has been sitting up all night just to hear what I have to say.


Admittedly, sometimes the words don't come so easily. Those are the times when I'm the slightest bit fearful of the page, because the reluctance sometimes means there are disturbing thoughts or issues I don't want to face, and they're liable to come rushing to the forefront if I start writing, opening the floodgates in my mind and my heart. I've worked some things out on the page~feelings about relationships, hopes for the future. I've allowed myself to dream "out loud," and also to release my anger in those words I spill onto paper first thing in the morning.


And, because morning pages are all "in the moment," meaning they're not thought out or planned, sometimes all that appears is drivel - what I made for dinner, what movie I plan to see, the new dress I'm shopping for. Whatever flows from my brain through the pen and onto the page is what goes into the mix for the day.


"Daily writing, writing simply for the sake of writing, is like keeping a pot of soup on the back of the stove," writes Julia Cameron. "It is always there, always ready to be tasted, always ready to be added to, always nourishing, savory, life-sustaining. Like soup, your daily writing doesn't have to be fancy. A few simple ingredients are enough."


Cameron's basic recipe for the "stock" of our writer's soup consists of these three "ingredients":

• Honesty~look at "where you are" in your life, both physically and emotionally;
• Observation~what's going on in your world, immediately, and in the larger sphere;
• Imagination~what can you imagine doing, or being that would bring you the greatest happiness?

As I put my morning thoughts on paper, I try to be mindful of these ingredients. Even when the pages seem to be nothing more than a litany of complaints, or a string of worries knotted together like beads, they are reflective of my honest observations about life at the moment. As I write, I feel the soup begin to stir in my brain, simmering slowly as the flavors mix and mingle together. Where am I and what is going on around me? How can I change things? What shall I do next?

Each morning, my writer's soup nourishes me for the day ahead and forms a record of my life "in this moment." The broth only grows richer with each entry.

How about you? Do you keep a writer's soup simmering on the back burner of you mind? What are your basic ingredients?

Write on Wednesday-Character Study

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a psychologist ~ believe it or not, my first major at the University of Michigan was psychology. Seems strange for a girl who grew up playing the piano and writing stories, doesn't it? I think this compulsion sprang from my fascination with people - why they act (and react) the way they do, how their emotions effect their behavior. This same fascination is why I love literature so much - where else can you meet so many fascinating and complex characters?

I recently read an article by Gail Godwin (an author whose characters I greatly admire), who has this to say about "Creating Characters With Depth" (The Writer, June 2007):

"Use yourself. Go deeply into your own feelings and look for the hidden truths, motives, and perspectives. For we all have more in common than you think."

Godwin relates that she was once working on a story with a character who had recently become widowed. Trying to convey a sense of what this woman was feeling, without being trite, Godwin reflected on the way she herself felt when she was alone. She realized that she always felt a need to leave a light burning at night. So by having her character compelled to leave a light on, she was able to convey a sense of vulnerability without being maudlin.

"Observe others, observe yourself," Godwin advises. "Practice putting gestures, habits, facial expressions into words." My son was once quite interested in animation, and took some classes at the Disney animation studios. The artists talked about the way they imitated their characters antics in the mirror, and then drew what they saw. As writers, we can do the same thing with our characters - observe ourselves not only physically, but emotionally, to gain insight into the way people might react in a given situation. Godwin assures us that "you have enough self knowledge to take an imaginative leap from what you don't understand about a character you're trying to create to what you do understand about yourself."

Creating characters gives the writer a chance to play God - to take bits and pieces from ourselves, from people we know, and put them together to create a unique individual. It takes lots of practice to be precise and compelling enough with words to get a person "down on paper" well enough so that he can "walk off the page" and into the reader's imagination. As writers we have to be able to "reproduce with clarity" the looks, gestures, objects, and environments of people, because these are the things that make them who they are. "You have the power of observation and compassion necessary to penetrate to the depths of people and realize they are just as complicated as you are," Godwin assures us. "The really great writer is on everybody's side," having empathy and understanding of their emotional needs and motivations.

Since my career in psychology didn't quite pan out, I'll have to be content with studying human nature with an eye to creating complex and entertaining characters. And isn't that what makes reading, writing - and life itself!- so fascinating?

So how about you? Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? If you write fiction, how do you create believable and interesting characters?


More of what I'm learning about character development can be found at Moving Write Along - A Matter of Character, Part, I, II, and III

By the way - I could have written a really good description of myself having a complete meltdown about 30 minutes ago after I finished the first draft of this post (complete with links) and Blogger somehow mysteriously ate it! So much for the "automatically saves your draft" feature.

Write on Wednesday-Avoidance

There are a couple of things I'm avoiding in my personal life right now- you know the kinds of things I mean. Phone calls that are difficult to make, because you're afraid of the answers you might get, matters that need to be discussed, but seem too fraught with emotional baggage to bring up. The things that keep getting passed on to tomorrow's "to do" list, and somehow end up never getting done at all.

I suspect that most of us have a secret cache of things we avoid in our lives. Now that I've developed this regular writing practice, I'm discovering there are some things I avoid there as well.

Like re-writing. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was considering revising Dear Samantha, the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo last fall. And though I talked about not knowing where to begin with that process, my feelings are really more about not wanting to begin that process at all- I'm avoiding it big-time. So I put those pages back in their bright yellow folder, and conveniently lose them in the pile of other things demanding attention on my desk- my morning pages notebook, my daily lists of things to do, a pile of correspondence from my day job. I see them there, right now, staring balefully at me, yet I persist in writing this post, continuing my pattern of avoidance.

Something else I avoid in my writing is research. The narrator of Dear Samantha is in treatment for ovarian cancer, and I know a good part of any serious revision on this novel is going to require research into treatment protocols for this disease. This same narrator is also a musician, but since she's in a chamber group, and I'm not terrible familiar with chamber music repertoire, again I know I'll need to do some research, find and study some examples so I can provide the kind of details that bring the musical scenes in the book to life.

No matter how much we love our creative endeavors, they all have aspects we tend to avoid. I'm very familiar with areas of avoidance in my musical life...fingering and tempo. I clearly remember my first lesson with my college piano teacher. I complained bitterly about the way she made me revise all my fingering on a Mozart Sonata. "I could play this perfectly if she'd let me use my old fingering!" I whined. At first, these new fingerings were clumsy and slow. Grudgingly, I came to accept they did indeed work better and make my playing more efficient. And it took me years before I came to accept the metronome as my friend. (I'm a speed demon at the keyboard as well as on the road!)

This morning, I finally made one of those difficult phone calls that I'd been avoiding so assiduously, and things worked out better than I might have hoped. In the spirit of that success, maybe I'll be inspired to tackle something I've been avoiding on my writing "to do" list as well.

So, how about you? What do you avoid in your writing life or in your other creative endeavors?

Write on Wednesday - Right On!

In my blog surfing today, I came across this video, the kind of rags to riches story that makes me so excited I could jump up and down. It's the story of Paul Potts, a shy, unassuming young man, a salesman in a place called Cell Phone Warehouse, who auditioned for Britain's Got Talent, (the UK version of American Idol) and took the entire nation by storm with his ability to sing opera. On Monday night, he won the competition, and with it a record contract and an opportunity to sing for Her Majesty the Queen.


Simon Cowell judges both Britain's Got Talent, and American Idol. In one of his comments to Paul Potts, he commented that he was exactly what the creators of the show had in mind - an opportunity to put the spotlight on an ordinary man with an extrordinary talent. Until 2 years ago, I had never watched American Idol. I was completely turned off by the snippets I saw in previews or on the news, and thought all the contestants were unbearably "screechy," a phrase Simon himself uses on numerous occasions. For some reason, I started watching in 2006, and was just hooked. Mostly by the fact that ordinary people were suddenly given this opportunity to shine, to have their dreams come true in this magical, fairy tale sort of way. Like Chris Daughtry, who entered the show in 2006 as a 29 year old automobile service manager with a garage band, and now has CD that's gone platinum several times over. And this year's Melinda Doolittle, a professional back up singer who "never saw herself" as being outfront- it was amazing to see her come out of her shell and claim her rightful place at center stage.


So, what does all this have to do with writing? It's really about daring to dream, and having dreams come true. Whether you're a singer, an athlete, a scientist, or a writer, it's about having hope in the possibility of making your dreams come true. As one British journalist said about Potts' victory, "It's really a win for all us, the little people who have a dream they hope will come true."


And it's about knowing what you're meant to do. In this video, Paul Potts admits that he's never had a lot of confidence in himself, and sometimes had a hard time in school. But when he sings, he says, he always feels like he's where he should be and the world seems to come right. Finding that place where the world comes right is crucial, not only to success, but to happiness.


Writing is one of the places the world comes right for me. Music is another. With Paul Potts for inspiration, maybe I'll dust off a few of the dreams I've been harboring and see if they might come true.


So, how about you? What makes the world come right for you?

Write on Wednesday-Revision and Retreat

Last November, I participated in the madness that is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and completed a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. In all honesty, I was quite surprised to have finished. I fully expected this project to end up on the cutting room floor, as they say in the movies, as so many of my other ill-fated bright ideas have a way of doing. But I did finish the novel, and it was a coherent story all the way through - in other words, I didn't cheat and start writing gibberish just to make my word count. As a matter of fact, the last 10 pages are, to me, the best part of the whole book.

Anyway, after I uploaded the final draft on November 30, I promptly hit Ctrl-S and I haven't given it a thought since. That it, until I ran into a friend from church who told me she was in the process of revising her first novel, while beginning to write her second. She happened to have "won" the services of a writing mentor for one year, and was utilizing this to help her with revisions. She meets with her mentor, a novelist and professor of creative writing, who advises her on ways to make the characters stronger, advance the plot line, and generally help decide what works and what doesn't.

I started thinking about pulling out my little book to see what I've got. So, I printed it all out (88 pages, Arial 11, single spaced) and put it in a bright yellow folder. Yesterday morning, while enjoying my morning coffee, I gathered my courage and started reading.

It was a really interesting experience for me, because I had written it all in such a frenzy last November, that I had completely forgotten most of what I'd written about. Of course, I recalled the basic plot, but I had totally forgotten most of the details and how I had moved the story along from point A to B. I found myself getting quite interested in this story, simply because I had forgotten so much of it in the whirlwind to get it done.

Having re-read most of it, I'm now thinking it might be worth revising. Trouble is, I have no idea where to start, and unlike my friend, I don't have a professional mentor to help me along.
Revisions are always a problem for me - I have a hard time seeing where things are wrong and thinking of ways to fix them. It's part of my personality I think ~ in general, I'm quite easy going, and tend to be happy with the status quo. So it's hard for me to read with a critical eye - even my own stuff. I mean, I know it's not perfect, I just don't know what's wrong with it!

In the coming weeks, I'll be perusing my writing library for some advice on how to go about this business of revision. In the meantime, I'll be on a little retreat, starting tomorrow, as we're traveling to Miami to attend my daughter-in-law's "swearing-in" as an official American citizen :)


So, how about you? Do you have a revision process that works for you? Have you read any good "how to" advice about revising?

Write on Wednesday-Practice Makes Perfect

I received a very cool gift today from my blogger friend Deirdre - it's a vintage (circa 1979) chapbook from The Writer's Chapbook Series, entitled Talking About Writing, written by Ursula LeGuin. Ms. LeGuin is probably best known as a science fiction writer, but she has quite a dry wit and humor, which is in evidence throughout this engaging little booklet.

"People come up to you if you're a writer," she starts out, "and they say, I want to be a writer. How do I become a writer? I have a two stage answer for this," she continues. The first stage answer to this question is: You learn to type."

This reminded me instantly of an old chestnut musicians hear a lot: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice!

It's really a very basic truth for a musician, and I don't know why as a writer, I don't think the same way. Because the second stage of Ms. LeGuin's answer to the question of "How do I become a writer?" was: Write.

I've had writing dreams and inclinations for most of my life~they've run side by side with my music inclinations, although I've "done" more music than writing over the past 50 some odd years. But for every performance, every concert, every competition, even every rehearsal, I've done probably three times as much practicing in preparation. I would never think of going out onto a stage without practice, practice, practice. And not just of the pieces I'll be performing. Practice for a musician involves all kinds of other things - like scales and arpeggios for the fluidity in the fingers and wrists, Czerny and Hanon for speed and flexibility, practicing the piece with hands apart, or starting from the back and working your way forward... in other words, we come at a piece of music from all sorts of angles in order to get it up to performance quality.

Why not do the same with writing? Somewhere in the back of my mind lurks this notion that you don't sit down to the page unless you've got a nearly finished product at least stored in your head. You don't bother writing something unless it's going to be published, or, at the very least, submitted to something. Why write if it's not going to be read?

For the same reasons I sit at the piano all those hours. Because it takes practice to perfect the craft. Your fingers get stronger, your ear becomes more sensitive to what the composer is trying to say. The more you write, the better your facility with words, with putting sentences together, with description, with ideas...you get the picture.

And "practice" shouldn't be a dirty word. My mother always bragged to other parents that she never had to "make" me practice the piano, and it's true. I loved practicing - I loved playing, which is they way I thought of it.

Since I've been blogging, and doing morning pages, I've started thinking of writing as a "practice" in the way people speak of yoga or meditation as a practice - a habit that enriches your life spiritually, intellectually, physically, and emotionally. I enjoy playing around with words, so I do more of it. I study the craft of writing, I take apart my sentences and re-arrange them for the fun of it, I sit with a dictionary or thesaurus looking for better words to use. And I do all this with no objective other than to enrich myself and improve my ability.

How about you? Do you practice writing? do you consider your writing a "practice" in your life?

Write on Wednesday-Filling the Well

Just a few weeks ago, I was bemoaning the fact that my writing seemed to be blocked, I couldn't come up with anything to say, and my creative juices were all dried up. There were some wonderfully comforting comments from readers. Deirdre advised me to "trust the silence to show me other things," and Mardougrll assured me that my writer's voice would "come back, if you just keep putting words to paper, words to paper." Bella said "I know that you will be back with words that flow like a soft stream, just give it time. It cannot be forced."


Guess what? They were right. For the past couple of weeks, I can't seem to get my fingers to move fast enough on the keys, or find enough time to write all the ideas that are in my head. I find myself scribbling away on my lunch hour, while sitting in line at the bank, on airplanes, and on the backs of napkins in coffee shops (where is that notebook, anyway?)

What's up with this rollercoaster ride of creativity? Why is it that sometimes the writer's well is full to overflowing, and other times the dipper comes up with nothing but sludge?

I think it's all a matter of balance. In that period of time when I was "blocked," my life outside of my writing was a mess. I was involved in a huge work project which had me sitting at my computer for long hours deciphering medical records, and I had a major vocal competition to accompany. In moderation, activities like these can be grist for the creative mill. However, these were all consuming events, leaving me no energy to process anything remotely creative.

In the past few weeks, my "real life" has returned to a pretty even keel, so I'm free to wander about, both physically and mentally. I've taken some long walks in the park, sat under my big red maple tree reading books and sipping iced tea, and last night I got my bicycle out and went for a long ride, loving the cool breeze whipping through my hair.

In Right to Write, Julia Cameron says that "if we lead chaotic lives, it is difficult to write smoothly and steadily. If, on the other hand, we lead lives that are too regular, too sterile, our voice as writers will also go flat, leaving us straining for effect in an attempt to manufacture interest."

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott says that those times when the words won't come aren't about being "blocked" or "stuck," they're about being "empty." My creative well sometimes gets sucked dry by an overload of obligation and reposibilities. Whatever the reason, our creative spirits occasionally need restocking, and each one of us must find our own ways of doing that, of refilling the well. For me, it involves time~to walk, to read, to notice the world around me and to revel in it, to spend time with the people I care about and really listen to them. And yes, it also means working and pursuing the activities I love ~but all in moderation.



How about you? How do you restock your creative well?

Write on Wednesday-Branching Out

"Tell me a story!"

How often have you heard that from your children, your grandchildren, nieces and nephews, or even your students, if you happen to be an elementary school teacher. I think all children love stories, the more outlandish and unbelievable the better. Story telling has been around since the beginning of time. Those famous cave paintings - weren't they probably the first "graphic novel"? Stories provide us with entertainment, sure, but they also shed meaning into our lives, helping us answer some of those eternal questions about the whys and wherefores of our existence.

I've never outgrown my love of stories, and I always make time for reading them, no matter how crazy my schedule is. Fiction ~the marvelous stories of other people's lives, loves, and adventures~is my passion. A well crafted novel is better to me than the richest chocolate or the finest wine (although I'm certainly not averse to enjoying any combination of all three!)

Until very recently, I've never tried writing any fiction. I've always considered myself a non-fiction writer- I like having a set subject, based on fact, research, or opinion, that I can write about or perhaps shed a new light on.

Lately, though, I've been branching out into the realm of make believe in my writing, trying my hand at some short fiction based on prompts from Sunday Scribblings and other writing sites. I've purchased the Gotham Writers Workshop Practical Guide to Fiction Writing, and I'm working my way through articles and exercises on generating ideas and developing character and plot. I'm learning to observe people and events in different ways, looking for the extra edge or touch of whimsy in characters and events that could develop into a story. Sometimes even a fragment of conversation can set a story idea in motion.

It's a little nerve wracking, this business of making people and events up from thin air. But it's also exciting to try on new writing styles and formats, kind of like playing dress up as a kid. Sometimes, I get going on a roll with an idea, or a character pops into my head from out of nowhere, begging for a story. I start writing things down, and before I know it, I'm out of control, typing crazily almost as if possessed, with my poor unsuspecting character careening down some dark and unknown pathway.

That's one of great things about the practice of writing. With only word play and my imagination, I can create entire worlds, peopled with all sorts of interesting characters working their way through life. In the process of leading them on their journey, I inevitably learn something new about myself as well.


So, how about you? Are you branching out, in your writing life, or elsewhere?

Write on Wednesday-Finding Your Voice

Writers often talk about "finding their voice," that unique way of expressing themselves that identifies them as an individual. Whether it's the way you construct a sentence, the point of view you favor, a persistent use of imagery, every writer is looking for that special something that makes their writing stand out.

In The Right to Write, Julia Cameron tells us to stop looking. "Your voice is already there," she says. "Don't focus on your "writer's voice" to the exclusion of having something to say. If you enter into what you want to express, you will intuitively arrive at ways to express it."

Apparently, the writer's voice is like the singer's voice. Before I started working with singers, I had the mistaken impression that you were either born with a singing voice or you weren't. How wrong I was! Everyone can be taught the craft of singing. Of course, some people are gifted with a more beautiful voice than others, but everyone has a singing voice inside them. By following a tried and true method of instruction, you can learn to make that singing voice work. Yet every voice will carry with it unique qualities that cannot (and should not!) be changed. Timbre, tone quality, and range, are all unique to each person's instrument.

So it is with each writer. Even in the writing I do for my day job, which is completely technical and quite formulaic, my boss tells me she can "immediately" discern which of the three writers in my department have written a particular piece. We each have our distinct way of putting words together that identifies us one from the other.

Yes, I can study the techniques and craft of writing, I can use Stunk and White's Elements of Style as my "bible," I can do writing exercises and revisions galore, and all of this will improve my ability to write. None of it will essentially change the writing voice that I was born with - it's as much a part of me as my hair color (although that's certainly changable!) Even though it's fun to experiment with diffent shades, the "true color" is still there underneath.

"Let the song do the singing," Cameron tells us. Writing is about passing along a message, something that moves us about a person, a place, a circumstance, a feeling. Those things that speak to our hearts are the stories we must concentrate on telling in our own unique voices.

So, how about you? Are you comfortable with your writer's voice?


Postscript: If you haven't read Right to Write, I highly recommend it. For me, it's the best of all Cameron's books, because it includes so many of her ideas in a very succinct format, with great writing exercises as well.

Write on Wednesday - Writing Even When I'm Not

You may have noticed that things have been a bit quiet here at the Byline. In fact, last Wednesday, I mentioned the "b" word that strikes fear in the heart of every writer. In thinking about writing and living over the past week, I don't believe I'm "blocked" as much as I am "busy," that life with all its mundane burdens has simply dulled the creative senses. And I'm really tired - physically and mentally. So I'm not stressing about the lack of wordplay in my mind, but I am trying to rejuvenate my body and spirit, so they will be habitable abodes for the muse once more.

Even though I'm not actually writing a lot, I'm trying to do things that nurture writing, that keep the seeds watered, even if they're still lying dormant in the fallow ground of my mind. Things like these...

• Reading books and poetry, because great words written by others always inspire me...
• Doing morning pages religiously, because I love them, and I nearly always learn something surprising about myself and my life...
• Sleeping! that's right, I've been going to bed early rather than staying up until all hours blogging. I've had a couple of fascinating "sleep epiphanies," when I find myself partially awake with a beautifully crafted sentence or line of poetry in my head. Sadly, I haven't yet been able to rouse myself enough to write them down, but it's been an exciting gift to have them arrive in my brain, unbidden...
• Listening to music~not the music I'm playing for school, but real music. It's surprising how rarely I listen to music, which is unfortunate - listening to good music is just as important to a musician as reading good books is to a writer. So I took my book CD out of the car and replaced it with a rather eclectic collection of music CD's...The Dixie Chicks, Josh Groban, Vladimir Horowitz, The Eagles, and Simon and Garfunkle. Something for every mood...
• Being still~there is so little time to be quiet, to be alone with no demands for my attention. I've been longing for some "moodling" time, to take a long walk or bike ride, perhaps go to a local park and explore a hiking trail, or try out the new coffee shop that just opened nearby...

Nurturing myself, inside and out, giving myself positive sensory input, allowing myself time to absorb life and its experiences are all ways of feeding my creative soul.

How about you? What are some of the ways you "write", even when you're not??

Write On Wednesday-Blocked

I've tried all my usual tricks~reading my favorite "writers on writing," taking a long walk in the park, playing some Mozart at the piano, uncorking a new bottle of Shiraz straight from Australia~nothing's working. You would think after almost a week of not writing that my mind would be bursting with things to say, that words would be foaming up in the well of my imagination, that ideas would be fighting their way through my fingers and onto the page.

Not so.

In fact, I believe I'm suffering from writer's block, and it's really quite frightening.

Since I started writing on a regular basis about a year ago, I've never been at a loss for ideas. On the contrary, I usually had more things to say than I had time to say them. Admittedly, my life in the past few weeks has not been at all conducive toward the gestation of creative ideas. It's actually been quite emotionally and physically draining, so I've been telling myself that this creative dry spell is normal under the circumstances.

It's more than just not feeling like writing...I've been there many times, thinking back to the NaNoWriMo days, when I was determined to get those 50,000 words on the screen by the end of the month. Somehow, just getting in front of the page, letting a few words trickle on to the screen, acted like priming the pump, and the words would then begin to flow until I was treading through waves of them.

But today, I really feel like writing, I have that vicseral sensation of wanting to put words down on paper, but the words that come to me aren't satisfying, they don't convey anything like the feelings or ideas they're meant to convey. They seem banal, worthless, just plain bad.

There's a devlish little voice inside of me saying, "Relax, you've had a hard week, just drink your wine, watch American Idol on TV, forget about this whole writing thing...it's dumb anyway. What good is ever going to come of it? Why waste your time?" I have to admit, I'm very tempted to heed that naughty advice. It would certainly be easier to lie on the couch for the remainder of the evening, letting my mind succumb to the mindless entertainment provided by reality shows and reruns.

However, I much prefer the stimulating conversations I've grown accustomed to having with myself, and with all the other writers out in blogland, the friends I've come to know in the past year who use words to make sense of their lives and the world around us. And I'm afraid ~ fearful that my ability to participate in those coversations is on the wane.

Julia Cameron says that an artist's blocks are "artistic defenses against what is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as a hostile environment." She recommends "blasting through the blocks," by thinking about what's holding you back from continuing with your work. "What resentments, anger, fears, might you be suppressing that act like a restraint on your creative thoughts?"

Resentment? I resent never having enough time to write, that's true. Anger? Yeah, I've been angry lately, with the world in general, about a long list of things that range from the trivial to the horrendous, and all of which serve to make life more difficult. Fear? Well, who isn't fearful, in a world gone mad with destruction and hatred? Could these negative emotions have solidifed into creative roadblocks that derail imagination and spirit? And, if so, how do I "blast through them," allowing a passageway back to creative thought and expression?

In the past few weeks, circumstances have collided, making me feel as if life were completely out of control. Perhaps I need to take the reins of my life in a postive way in order to start chipping away at those blocks of resentment, anger, and fear. Perhaps then I can open the door and welcome all the words back into my head.

So, how about you? Have you ever felt your creative spirit blocked by resentment, anger, or fear? How did you "blast through the block?"