Tag Archives: Online Writing Group 2016

Summer 2016 Writing Group Wrapped Up!

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This summer’s online writing group has officially finished up! We had a solid eight weeks, and although some of us didn’t always meet our weekly goals (me — primarily me), we kept each other accountable, wrote, and shared our progress.

Inspired by Anne H., I’m including a couple of new things for our wrap-up post. In addition to asking for each writer’s final progress report, I asked them all to contribute the first or last line of their work-in-progress, and a picture of their writing space. Anne suggested this, since we’d talked about writing spaces a couple of times over our session, and she’d recently contributed a guest post about writing and driving. I loved her idea, and now you all get to see our writing spaces!

Alena

I wrote and proofread a poem this week that I’m completely in love with. I feel it is publication-ready. I also went back and proofread the short story I finished last week. All in all, it has been a productive last week and a productive last eight weeks! I definitely wouldn’t have written as much as I did this summer if it weren’t for this group’s deadlines and advice. I’ll miss the extra nudge. Thank you, everyone!
 
I would have included a picture of my workspace, but I kind of write all over the place, always with a notebook or laptop in hand. Here are the first lines of the four things I’ve been working on this summer:
 
First line of “Two Bakas”:
Your grandmother has a Facebook.
 
First line of “Darkblooms”:
Warm blood trickled down my face.

First line of “Conscious”:
The happiness hurts.
 
First line of “Ékleipsis”:
She needs somewhere to sleep, something to eat.

Anne D.

This summer was once again too busy for me to accomplish much. I only recently got a car and was able to go to the library if needed. To make a long story short I may have a magazine decided on and will go from there.

Anne H.

These are the last two lines of my short something “Midnight Blindspot in a Rear View Mirror.”  That title comes from the musical composition composed in my honor on the occasion of my college graduation. A friend commissioned it from another friend who has since had quite a good career as a composer. My favorite part was always the title; I’ve never even heard the piece.

I find myself reflecting lately on middle age. That’s what the Prince short something was about, and that’s what this short something is about as well.

Last two lines:

The midnight blind spot is not a black hole which will engulf me;  it is in the rearview mirror
And I power forth

Final report:

I only wrote 1.5 short somethings and 1 guest blog post. But without the encouragement of this group, I doubt that I would have written anything whatever. So, thank you, Laura. I look forward to your next group.

Anne's Writing Space

Anne’s Writing Space

Bev

I have revised eleven of fifteen chapters of my memoir, so far cutting 50,104 words. I am 23,100 words short of my goal of getting the damned thing down to 90K, which an agent told me was the customary maximum for a memoir. And yes, I do have the word counts for each chapter on a spread sheet. I am a geek.

I really, really want to get this thing done before classes start, but it’s hard to find time when the harvest starts. I’ll keep trying, though. I can’t seem to sleep past 5:00 these days. I’ve been getting up and writing until the dew is off the grass. I did accomplish my goal of posting on my blog at least weekly and got one letter in the mail to my readers.

First line:

“I’m taking the job in North Dakota,” I announced while having lunch with the girls at a Thai restaurant in Greektown.

Below are photos of formal and casual work spaces. I have been working mostly in the casual space this summer. The formal space hasn’t gotten messed up since the cleaning ladies were here last week.

Bev's Writing Spaces

Bev’s Writing Spaces

Donna

I know what my dilemma is — I don’t check this email on weekends. I don’t have a designated writing space. My notebook is at home, so I can’t send a first line. Excuses aside, I did THINK about writing frequently over the past two weeks, and have thought of my main character’s name and a tentative outline.

Katherine

I made great progress this summer, and the weekly goals kept me on track and focused. I have currently what I would consider a finished draft of a memoir, almost 37,000 words.

I couldn’t just send the last line… so here are the last three:

Avery is my reason for doing all that I do and all that I should do. Being a mother makes me want to be a better person. I have reevaluated the way I have been living and the people I have surrounded myself with in an effort to make better choices for her and to set a better example for her.

Below is a picture of my work space. I am either writing on the couch near Elmo or some other kid toy or at the kitchen table.

Thanks, all, for a great writing summer.

Katherine's Writing Space

Katherine’s Writing Space

Laura

I didn’t get nearly what I’d hoped to accomplish this summer, but thanks to the group, I had to think about writing, write about writing, and actually do some writing, so thank you, group!

First line:

Mary and her dog, Bubs, walked past the white house with the pillars and the twice-a-week gardener, past what she thought of as the “party house” because it filled the block with the sound of children playing and splashing in the backyard pool from May until mid-September, and past Chico’s house, although Chico—a black Chihuahua who was in a constant state of near-fear at Bubs though still chased him into the street whenever he got the chance—didn’t seem to be home.

My Writing Space

My Writing Space

Lisa

Again, I’m so happy to have been a part of the group! It really does keep me on track. I definitely got more done than I would have otherwise. Thanks!!!

Opening:
This was finally one of those things; something Cal couldn’t have possibly had the foresight to tell her, couldn’t possibly have warned her about.

Ending:
“No, we just buried it in the yard.” He turned towards her and leaned up on his elbow. In the bit of light that filtered in from the kitchen, she saw him raise an eyebrow at her. “What kind of people do you think we are, Nay?”

Lisa's Writing Space

Lisa’s Writing Space

Matt

What can I say? I still haven’t quite made it through this last pass on my story. It’s been a hell of a busy week. But I have made progress, and overall, the work I’ve done since this group began has been pretty satisfying. This is the best it has ever been (which is a claim of dubious quality, since you don’t know what it was before.) Anyway, the changes are getting smaller, more pointed. I feel the story has attained more or less its final shape, which is a grand accomplishment that I am prepared to enjoy until I decide I was wrong in a couple of weeks.

This is the first line of The Liminal Man:

At least if you get your legs chopped off, you know for sure that your life is going to be different from now on.

Mike

I definitely didn’t accomplish what I expected over the eight weeks, but I’m happy with what I have gotten done. I didn’t touch the novel-in-progress, which was my original goal, but I’m pleased that I was able to objectively realize how much work my short story still needed.

My previous round of revisions cut away a lot of unnecessary pages that I’d left in for far too long. Reading the story without them these eight weeks reinforced those were the right cuts to make, but I did further tightening and wrote (from scratch in most cases) the story again with better connective material. There’s a flow now that was missing in some parts, and I’ve reconsidered a few large plot points and incorporated them into the latest version (which is still not finished, but I see a better finished product on the horizon).

The first lines of the story are:

The first time Tyler’s head hit up against the passenger window, it was an accident. But because he didn’t wake up, and we had a good twenty minutes to go till we reached the airport, it turned into a game. And I was a little pissed he’d been asleep since we left our driveway; he didn’t know yet that I was coming on the plane with him.

Below is a picture of my home office, where I’ve been doing 90% of my work (aside from when I find a spot to write a page or so in my actual work office or on my train commute). As much as I love our new house (as of March), the office is the best addition for me.

Mike's Writing Space

Mike’s Writing Space

Robert

Final report: 8,528 words written. Novel still incomplete.

First line:

He seemed, in a crowded room, a ship with a damaged rudder, or with torn sails.

Rosalie

My next project is to file all of the resources I used.

First line:

European countries are amazingly diverse despite the fact that they are bound by close geographic connections. This mosaic of cultures is reflected in the art and history of Europe.

Rosalie's Writing Space

Rosalie’s Writing Space

Thank you, participants, for sharing your time, efforts, work, and spaces with us!

I really enjoyed this summer’s group; it gave me a bit of structure and kept me from straight-binge-watching three seasons of Veronica Mars and then every single thing in my Netflix queue, even those dozen foreign films I’ve had in there for five years and always mean to watch but never get around to (You think I’m kidding. I’m not. Watching twelve hours of television every day is literally the only thing I would have done this summer if not for the group. I thank you. My husband thanks you. My dog thanks you.)

I’ll be running another four-week winter session in January, 2017, and I hope you’ll all consider joining. It’ll be a nice mental work-out for our post holiday-season brains.

And of course, please continue to read my regular blog posts, which will come less frequently when I don’t have twelve people to answer to, and which will 99% of the time feature my dog. So, clearly, you’ll be really excited about that.

Have a terrific last few weeks of the summer, all, and, as usual, write on!

Roo on a Tube

Who wouldn’t want to read about this dog? She’s in a tube! A tube!

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Driving

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Anne Humphrey is a colleague of mine in MCC’s English Department who first joined in on our Winter 2016 writing group. I have a soft spot in my heart for Anne H., because, in addition to being a fellow grammar nerd, ardent defender of the Oxford comma, and my office neighbor, she is also a fellow alum of DePaul’s MA in Writing program.

And, like me (or like I used to be), Anne is used to commuting quite a distance to and from work. Here’s what Anne has to say about taking advantage of driving for her creative endeavors.

This is a guest post from Anne Humphrey, a member of this summer’s Online Writing Group:

This past week, I was on a road trip to Connecticut and back. I love driving. and I love road trips. On the way back on this trip, I was so excited to work on some of what was discussed at the conference, and from seeing old friends there, that I drove all night without getting tired.

But I love to drive in general. Driving for me is not mainly about the trip itself, or the act of driving, but the way driving makes me feel — I am DRIVING as in accomplishing, moving forward, going to a next step.

I commute over an hour, each way, during the school year. Sometimes, people express concern or pity. But I say “I don’t mind. I make phone calls. I listen to podcasts.” To people I know better, I say, “I rehearse for class; I think through various problems.” Some people who correspond with me frequently know that I even manage text and email communication while driving (don’t worry, just at stop signs).

But what I rarely have admitted to anyone is that driving is for me prime writing time. Admittedly, I’m usually working out carefully worded emails about delicate situations, but I’ve worked on my creative writing too, quite a bit, while driving.

We’ve been spending time in this group discussing our writing space, and I am working on a new space in my house. But my main writing space for about thirty years has been in the driver’s seat of my car.

There are things I’ve tried over the years: a pad fitted for the dashboard (people commented on that quite a bit, but it was not really that exotic — my mom got it for me at Walmart); carrying a camera (now can just use my phone for this); carrying a voice recorder (now I can use phone and even voice recognition the same way); and recording phone calls (legal in Illinois if the other party knows you are doing it) — I would use these to talk through writing ideas with my mother or one close friend who is also a writer.

Most of the driving-writing has been inadvertent; ideas just flow for me in that environment, so in thinking about my WIP, ideas would come. Or random new ideas would occur from the stimulation of the driving. However, some writing I have assigned myself as an objective for the road trip.

On one occasion about twenty years ago, I had a novel almost finished but could not work out a central chapter. I knew what needed to happen, and where I wanted it to happen, but I had skipped over the chapter when drafting because I felt intimidated by that piece somehow. So, I said “I will work on that during this trip.” I was driving from St. Charles, IL to Cincinnati. In northern Indiana, I had to stop to replace my voice recorder, which, under the heavy use of this project, chose the first half of that trip to die completely. I forged on. I wrote the chapter. I even thought it almost was good, or at least as good as the rest of the book (which was not very good, but still).

After that, I gave myself many purposeful assignments for during specific trips, both long road trips and my commute. This summer, I had the idea for the “Prince poem” and wrote about half of it on a road trip back from Lake Erie a few weeks ago. On the overnight trip last Sunday night (action photo above), I worked on a different short something and wrote the whole thing. It’s just a short something. I’m not going to say “poem” because in the past few weeks, at two early music conferences, I’ve sat in a few talks about poetry that made me realize that I was not making poems. So for now I am calling them short somethings. Anyway, the Prince short something is still only half done. But I finished the “Midnight Blindspot in a Rearview Mirror” short something, while driving, on an overnight road trip.

I did it using text messaging, texting single lines or couplets to myself. The technology changes, but my method only changes slightly.

MORAL OF THIS RAMBLING STORY: I’d say, when it comes to writing, we should simply do what works: “Just do it.” Get the equipment, be at least somewhat intentional, and do it. Also, the writing space is where you are/where I am. So we should just start writing.

Notwithstanding this strong pitch, I’ll try to finish and post about my in-house writing space for our end post. I’m pretty pleased with it so far. I want the space to be so perfect for my needs that it lures me in, to writing.

Anne (R) dressed as her alter-ego, Grammar Girl, helps me (L) and our colleague Starr (C) recruit students on MCC Night, 2014

Anne (R) dressed as her alter-ego, Grammar Girl, helps me (L) and our colleague Starr (C) recruit students on MCC Night, 2014

Thanks, Anne! Although I don’t promote texting in the car (Trevor can attest to this, since I harangue him if he even looks at his phone while he’s driving), I love these ideas and wholeheartedly agree that writers can capitalize on driving, both for quiet, alone time as well as for brainstorming. So next time you’re stuck on an idea, get in the car and drive!

Week Eight: Summer 2016 Online Writing Group

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It’s week eight of our online writing group!

IT’S WEEK EIGHT! WEEK EIGHT!

It’s a busy time of the summer, so some of our writers are out of town, out of the country, and out of the writing zone, so check back later this week for possible new updates.

And now, our goals!

Week Eight Goals:

  • Alena: I already finished the new short story that I started. So, for the last week of the group, I’ll allow myself to circle back to an old work-in-progress or start a new one.
  • Aliena: Coming soon…
  • Anne D.: What I’m thinking of doing this week is revising a few pieces to be done before the Fall semester starts and submitting them to the literary magazine at Columbia.
  • Anne H.: Coming soon…
  • Bev: Blog about my vacation. Finish my vacation journal. Finish revisions on the next chapter of my memoir, which I dutifully took on vacation with me and consistently ignored for eight full days.
  • Emily: Coming soon…
  • Katherine: Last week, I finished entering my line edit revisions into the computer. It didn’t take me nearly as long as I had initially thought. I also wrote a “closing.”

    My week eight goal is to start researching and writing query letters. Writer’s Digest had a post about some agents looking for memoirs. Also, I want to go to the book store to see who publishes miscarriage and mommy books. HEY YOU MCC FULL TIMERS!!! I might be dropping by in August to see if one of you will look at my query letter(s). I have never ever written one before. (Katherine — Bev might be a great person to hook up with to talk query letters!)
  • Laura: I didn’t get as much done last week as I’d have liked, but I’m excited to continue working this week. I’m going to put my big project aside and get into this shorter piece that’s been lurking around me for years. And I will write the opening scene, at least one paragraph, for a new short story.
  • Lisa: This week I will try to finish and submit my story. Wish me luck! (Good luck!)
  • Matt: I accomplished my most important goal of week seven, which was printing and shipping the 523 pages of my manuscript to my old college thesis adviser, whom I haven’t seen in nineteen years.  That’s a load off my mind!

Meanwhile I have continued my most tedious and painstaking pass through the first story. Each scene seems to reveal a new problem that was invisible before. My goal for the final week is to complete this latest edit of The Liminal Man and finish the eighth week in a state of readiness to move ahead. I’d like to be able to embark on a new read-through of the remaining stories in the aftermath.

  • Matt the Second: Coming soon…
  • Mike: This week’s report and goal will look much like last week’s, but I did continue to make progress with the story. I revised another four pages but didn’t touch the blog post. The goal for this week will be to revise another five pages (which could potentially put me at the end of the story) and finish and publish the blog post.
  • Ray: As always, my writing seems to be going in fits and stops and starts. This week I completed four chapters. I was just in the zone I guess, and I am two chapters away from attaining my goal of having the story arc, completely laid out for a main character, for my third and final novel in the series I am writing. It has been a strange summer, weatherwise, workwise, and the strange world that we suddenly seem to be living in. Some escapism is in order, and I find myself more willing to spend time in storyland, than engaging in following the news. My main concern at this point is that the world will end, before my book comes out about the world ending. Irony huh?
  • Robert: Goal: 7000 words. (Robert, your consistency is my rock, and I am grateful.)
  • Rosalie: I will be making my edits this weekend and then I’m all done. This has been a very difficult project and I’m looking forward to pushing that send button.
  • Sarah: Coming soon…

For this final week, I wanted to give you all a bit of perspective on writing advice. Advice can be helpful, whether you’re a novice writer working on your first piece, or whether you’ve got a list of publications (and an even longer list of rejections, the writer’s best frenemy).

But advice can also be overwhelming, off-base, and just plain wrong, even when it’s coming from someone whose work you admire and who you’ve previously written about as being the Original Gangster of Dialogue.

So this week, please read this funny and on-base essay by Danielle Dutton about terrible writing advice from great writers. As Dutton writes, sometimes “there’s no right track at all” for your writing. Just have faith that what you’re doing is something that can be good, can be great (even if it’s not right now).

Now get writing!

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Week Seven: Summer 2016 Online Writing Group

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It’s week seven of our online writing group!

Nick Dancing in Helmet

We’re almost finished! It sounds as though everyone has made solid progress on works-in-progress, and that makes me feel warm and gooey. I, myself, have gotten more done with this group than I would have without it, and that makes me feel grateful for all of you who are participating. Thank you!

This week, we welcome Donna, who’s going to pop into the group for our last two weeks. I’ve also got some tidbits about willpower from health psychologist Dr. Kelly McGonigal, and later this week, we might have a surprise guest post. (yay! surprises!)

And now, let’s get to the goals.

Week Seven Goals:

  • Alena: I’m nearly finished with the short story I’ve been working on; however, I’m burnt out on it. I’ve started a new short story. It’s pretty experimental so I’m not sure it will eventually get published or anything. Nonetheless, it’s been a good writing exercise for me. My goals for week seven are to work on anything. Just write.
  • Aliena: Coming soon…
  • Anne D.: Coming soon…
  • Anne H.: Finish draft of Prince poem on long road trip this next week. I drafted the first half on a road trip a few weeks ago. If I get this done, perhaps I’ll make a guest post for the next writer’s group on writing while driving. I do quite a bit of work while driving, and I’ve learned a few tips which might be useful, especially for those with long commutes.
  • Bev: Gone fishin’.
  • Donna: My weekly goal is figuring out a name for my main character and what she desires most.
  • Emily: Coming soon…
  • Katherine: Last week I did a line edit of 110 pages and made some structure revisions to the end of the book.

    This week, I need to make my line edits on the computer. I have thirty pages edited on the computer so far. I am also not entirely happy with the final couple of chapters. I want to take a closer look at those next week.
  • Laura: This week I’m going to keep working on revisions to my short story. I’m not ready to start something new, and I’m happy just to keep working on it every day this week. If I need a break, I’m going to investigate the new horror magazine Belladonna Horror for submission guidelines, and then do a bit of brainstorming.
  • Lisa: My goal for this week is to revise a story. I need a break from the work I’ve been looking at, so I’m mixing things up this week.
  • Matt: This week my focus has gotten even smaller, as I find myself spending greater amounts of time on smaller passages. Sometimes completely restructuring sections for clarity, sometimes just cutting out all the synonyms and dialogue tags. It all feels like a natural pace. The next couple of weeks I have more fewer days away from work so I am just hoping to maintain my momentum.

Meanwhile, I was contacted by my thesis adviser from college, Maxine Scates, who oversaw the original creation of the exact story I’m chipping away on at the moment. Having previously given conditional assent to read a draft of my book, she has now requested that I send her a hard copy. So I am in the process of printing that copy now, and I’m pretty excited to get it into her hands as soon as possible. The version of this story that will be included is already out of date, of course, but there’s nothing to be done about that now. It’s a pretty current incarnation, different from what she read twenty years ago, and will be accompanied by hundreds of pages of stories following the same characters that she saw me develop in the mid-nineties. I feel that her participation in this process will be invaluable, whatever form it takes, and I am unbelievably relieved that she is willing to read this thing.

  • Matt the Second: Coming soon…
  • Mike: I managed to get through the next four pages of revisions on my short story (out of the five that was my goal) but I didn’t have a chance to publish the blog post as I hoped. For this week, I plan to revise the next five pages of the story and actually finish and publish the blog post.
  • Ray: Coming soon…
  • Robert: Goal is 7000 words.
  • Rosalie:  I have a very little bit of work and I will be finished with this project. We will be on vacation next week and I won’t be doing any work but I have set aside Sunday the 24th as my finish date. It has been fun and helpful to be in this group. (And it’s been great to have you!)
  • Sarah: Other than a rather organized guest bedroom closet I got nothing done this week. So I am carrying over my previous week’s goals. I am reading a book called Possession, which is inspiring a great deal of thought. Now to capture that in scripts and videos. To the batcave.

Sounds great, everyone!

This week I wanted to talk a bit about productivity. There are so many books and methods and systems out there aimed toward increasing productivity. If you Google the word, you’ll find not only definitions, but lists upon lists upon lists of “tips” from highly productive people. Some of them are pretty good, and some of them just rehash the same-ole, same-ole. Not that keeping to a writing schedule and being accountable are bad — these things are good, and they’re why we’re all here, aren’t they? But we all know that we need to make time for writing, that successful and prolific writers are those who make writing a priority during their day, no matter what. We know this.

But, how do we actually do it?

Like so much else in life, we need to practice: practice using our willpower and self-control in order to strengthen it for the important activities in life, like writing.

Last winter I read a book called The Willpower Instinct, by Dr. Kelly McGonigal, which was much more satisfying than other self-help and pop-science books I’ve read. McGonigal, a lecturer at Standford, used her ten-week willpower seminar as a model for this book, and she recommends looking at each of the ten chapters as a weekly lesson to be thought about and then practiced before moving on. She also uses gobs of psychological studies as the basis for her conclusions and her advice, which I appreciate. (And, yes, “gobs” is a very scientific term. Thank you very much.)

Now, the reason I mention this book is that McGonigal’s thesis resonated with me. Writing each week is not really about creating a tidy work space in your house (sorry, guys), but it is about having the willpower to turn off the t.v., get off your Facebook app, stand up from the couch, and tell your family you need twenty minutes of alone time to write. That. Is. Literally. All. It. Takes.

So why is it so fu@%ing hard?

Well, McGonigal, citing studies from psychologists Roy Baumeister and Matthew Gailliot, among others, writes that “willpower is a muscle you have to build” (McGonigal Ch. 4)*. She uses a “muscle model” of willpower, which likens your self-control to a literal muscle that can be strengthened with targeted practice and exercise. And like all of our other muscles, your “self-control drains throughout the day.” There’s only so much willpower we have to tap into, so if we’re using the same stash to navigate our family, hold productive meetings with work colleagues, eat fewer donuts, and to write more (or write consistently), we might find that there is less and less at the end of the day.

In her third chapter on strengthening our willpower muscle (the fourth chapter of the audiobook), McGonigal writes about Susan, who wanted to start her own business but had to contend with her hour long commute and a ten-hour work day at a demanding job. When Susan got home at the end of the day, she felt too tired to work on her own business plans. She’d been using her willpower up all day long, and it was spent by the time she pulled her car into the garage.

Susan realized, though, that instead of starting her morning at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee, checking her work emails, she would use that same time for her own project. That early morning kitchen table time and space was when she felt clear-headed and full of energy for the day, so why give it up for someone else? She could certainly wait until she got to work to check those emails; she needed to prioritize herself when her willpower was at its strongest.

Clearly, identifying when our willpower is strongest can help us choose when to schedule our own writing time. But that’s not all there is to it: we must also practice using our willpower for small things so that when the time comes and we are supposed to sit down at our writing space, we can actually do it.

This is where Baumeister and Gailliot come in. They aimed to answer the question “could willpower exhaustion simply be a result of the brain running out of energy” (McGonigal Ch. 4). Gailliot used sugar to boost participants’ energy levels, and then looked at how those participants were able to exert willpower. The study’s findings ultimately discovered more about the effects of blood sugar levels on willpower, and supported the scientists’ hypothesis that willpower could be strengthened with exercises in self-control (because mental exercises are a better idea than just eating some sugar every time you need a boost to get some writing done [I’m running an unscientific replication study using Twinkies in an effort to disprove this; I’ll let you know my findings.]).

If the body, and the brain, is out of energy, it may resist exerting extra energy for self-control. And you know that this is true: it’s almost impossible to get out of bed or off the couch if you’ve got a cold or if you’ve had an emotionally taxing day. So how do we strengthen our willpower to make sure we have it when we need it?

McGonigal looked at the Baumeister/Gailliot study, along with others, and found that small exercises can help. She writes that “committing to any small, consistent act of self-control — improving your posture, squeezing a hand-grip every day to exhaustion, cutting back on sweets, and keeping track of your spending — can increase overall willpower” (Ch. 4).

The reason these small acts work is that in order to get into the habit of doing something small, like saying “yes” instead of “yeah,” your brain has to be on alert and then pause before you make the decision. Training your brain for that kind of mindfulness will help you apply it to larger tasks and projects, like your writing.

So these are your jobs this week:

  1. Identify a time of day when your willpower is at its strongest, and then use that time of day for yourself, even if you’re accustomed to using it for someone/something else;
  2. And do something small to practice your willpower. You can focus on improving your posture throughout the day, drinking water instead of soda, or eliminating your own verbal tic (saying “um” a lot, consistently using a slang term…). Choose anything you like, just be aware of it and try to adjust it every day this week.

If nothing else, by the end of this week you’ll have some insight into when you’re most motivated to write, and how good your posture is. This information will be useful!

 

*my citations are for the audiobook, which labels the introduction as “Chapter 1”, so chapter labels in the hard copy will be different

Works Cited:

McGonigal, Kelly. How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It. Gildan Media, LLC, 4 Jan. 2012. Audiobook.

Further Reading:

Baumeister, Roy F., Matthew Gailliot, C. Nathan DeWall, and Megan Oaten. “Self-Regulation and Personality: How Interventions Increase Regulatory Success, and How Depletion Moderates the Effects of Traits on Behavior.” Journal of Personality 74:6 (Dec. 2006): 1774 – 1802. Web. 18 Jul. 2016.

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Read Me A Story…

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Group member Lisa participated in last year’s writing group and wrote an excellent guest post on finding small moments to write. In this post, Lisa shares why reading out loud has become so important — and fun — to her.

Lisa doing a different kind of reading out loud: her own fiction at an MCC faculty reading series

Lisa doing a different kind of reading out loud: her own fiction at an MCC faculty reading series, The Typewriter Factory

This is a guest post from Lisa Crizer, a member of this summer’s Online Writing Group:

Each night, we finish our day here at the Crizer abode with a book. Currently, we’re going between the Random House Book of Ghost Stories, Lila and Myla the Twin Fairies, and Thor: The Mighty.

I have to admit, I love reading aloud. Sure, there are nights, especially when Pinkalicious is requested (again!), when all I want to do is give some quick kisses, tuck a few blankets, and sit in front of the TV as fast as humanly possible. But, as soon as I start reading, I’m always in my happy place.

There’s something special about hearing your own voice as you read the words on the page, pacing yourself, finding the slight nuances of each character, pausing dramatically, and even choosing to skip an unnecessary dialogue tag here and there. And to say it’s magical for me is nothing compared to how it lights up my little ones; their focused eyes exploring every detail of the illustration; their fingers twiddling with pillow cases as their imaginations give life to unearthly visitors, fantastic creatures, and warrior heroes. I jump at the opportunity to read in my kid’s classroom. Twenty-five little imaginations swirling at once. It’s pretty incredible!

Like most summers, though, I’ve been giving myself grief lately for not reading enough. I borrowed Gaiman’s American Gods from the library (again), I’ve started Rigg’s Hollow City twice now, and Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is on call for tonight. These are all good books, but what makes reading with my kids so much more enjoyable to me right now? We do everything together…everything. So, how can something that has always been such a solitary experience for me changed into such a group activity? I think it’s actually the other way around.

Books and reading have always been such an integral part of my life that they found a way in. Even if I don’t have the time, energy, or focus to read the volume I used to, I am able to share in the wonders of story in a way that is new and different, but really fun and rewarding. I’ll take advantage of this for as long as I can. One day, I’ll be back on my own, curled up with a good book.

Check out the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Storyline Online website with videos of some great children’s books being read by actors. So fun!

Enjoy!

Thanks, Lisa, for sharing. Your kids (and their classmates) are so lucky!

Week Six: Summer 2016 Online Writing Group

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It’s week six of our online writing group!

Week Six, y’all.

Everyone is doing swell, and kicking some butt on the writerly front. This week, in addition to today’s goals post, we’ll have a guest post from Lisa on Wednesday. So come back for that! And now, on to the goals.

Week Six Goals:

  • Alena: Week five has been the first week that I fell short on my goals. *Sad violin.*Now I’m hungry to get back to my short story. (and maybe the novel I’ve been working on too?)
  • Aliena: Coming Soon…
  • Anne D.: Thinking is my goal this week. (Think away, Anne!)
  • Anne H.: I’ve been out of town much of the last four weeks, and had out of town guests another week, so my report is that I’ve done almost nothing since my first burst of energy on the Prince poem (which I am now carrying around, waiting to finish). I hope to have more to report next week! I want to at least get the writing area set-up done. (Even if you don’t, check out last week’s post for writing area tips!)
  • Bev: Week six: Finish the Ch. 11 revisions, which I didn’t get done last week, get Ch. 12 revisions done, do my usual blog post, and pack for vacation.
  • Emily: Goals: 3 more questions for book. Progress: Embarrassing. (Have you gotten out of bed and thought about your writing? YES. No embarrassment.)
  • Katherine: I feel as though I have completely finished my “writing,” and I have moved on to revision this week. I did print out my 110 pages at Office Max. I am working on finding necessary edits and revisions that I missed on the computer. I am 50 pages in.Next week, I need to finish my revision work, which will include some restructuring to the end of the book.
  • Laura: My productivity last week was mediocre, but I’m not discouraged. I have high hopes this week to keep working on my larger project (finish Chapter 2; start Chapter 3), and to continue working on a short story that’s yet unfinished. The person who inspired the story got married last weekend, and his wedding was lovely, so I feel like I owe it to him to just get the damn thing done.
  • Lisa: As far as this week goes, I hope to just write anything. I’ve been slacking this past week, so I’m hoping to get back on track!
  • Matt: I know that, pretty soon, I’m going to embark on another read-through of my entire book, with a lot more editing concerns, but for the moment I’m continuing to focus my efforts on the first story, “The Liminal Man.” Over the past few weeks I’ve put in a lot of hours and succeeded in reducing the overall story length by more than five thousand words, and each strategic reduction is getting me closer to where I need to be. Everything I remove allows me to focus on something else, something revealed in a new light when I chipped away its surroundings.  

After this most recent pass, what became clear to me is that the beginning of the story is the very worst thing that anyone has ever written. It’s so boring that I wept tears that hung themselves in a basement. So that’s what I’m concentrating on right now: making the beginning of the story into something you could actually read. Like, for example, if I put a copy of my story on a table next to a loaded gun, and you sat down to read it, I would like you to be able to at least make it through three or four pages before you grabbed for the gun painted the walls just to avoid having to finish it. To that end, I’ve written a new first line that’s kind of promising, and we’ll take it from there. Week Six: Back to One.

  • Matt the Second: Coming soon…
  • Mike: 1) Continue revising the same short story as in previous weeks; complete another five pages of work on it, and 2) Finish and publish the blog post about my daughter that I worked on last week.
  • Ray: I have been covering another guy’s work all week, and I just got my proofs back for my first book. So I haven’t been getting a lot of writing done. This week things should be back to normal though, and I fully anticipate being able to get some writing done. I am going to aim for one chapter, just to get back into the swing of it.
  • Robert: Goal: 7,000 words this week.
  • Rosalie: I am finishing my project today. Will start massive editing tomorrow and intend to be all done by Friday. It has a soft deadline of July 15, and I intend to make it. 
  • Sarah: I have set up my writing space at the front of the house so that when my three year-old gets engrossed in a game I can be ready to write. That helped me make some progress this week. This week I need a more specific goal to help focus. Currently I have numerous video scripts started but nothing complete. So this week I need to finish China video lectures. I will write the scripts, record the videos and cross China off my to do list.

Last week, I asked participants if they’d rather read a post about writing or a post about project management. No one had a preference, so this week I’m going to focus on writing dialogue.

Writing dialogue is difficult. It takes a writer who’s a good listener, has a good ear, is able capture realistic speech, and balance that speech with a certain amount of exposition. Yeah — it’s difficult. And when you find someone who does it well, you should read as much of it as you possibly can, even if it’s not in your genre. That writer for me is Elmore Leonard.

The summer between my junior and senior years at college, I lived in Washington, D.C. for an internship at the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (now called the Multicultural, Media, Telecom & Internet Council). I lived in the Georgetown Law School dorms, which were empty of law students for the summers, so they could be filled with interns like me. I shared a room with another interning student, but I moved in three weeks before she was and (being an introvert), I wasn’t great at starting up conversation in the building commons. And there was no t.v. in my room. And this was 1997. And I wasn’t old enough to go to a bar.

I figured the best way to spend my off-work time was to read (and listen to Loveline every night, because…1997), so I got myself to the bookstore. The movie Jackie Brown, based on Leonard’s Rum Punch, was coming out that December, and I’d seen some trailers. I bought a mass market copy and got reading. And I needed to go back to the book store the very next day. Six books later, my roommate got there and I had a mad literary crush on Elmore Leonard.

The thing I continue to love most about Elmore Leonard — aside from his lovably crooked and frequently bumbling criminal characters — is his dialogue. As I read his dialogue, the voices just came to life in my head. They. Came. To. Life.

And his dialogue is what makes his books so easily and successfully adaptable to the big screen. The screenplays just write themselves because the dialogue can be lifted right off of Leonard’s pages. But it wasn’t always fast or easy for him, just like it’s not fast or easy for any of us. Here he is, talking a bit about writing dialogue:

And now, here is his work in action, from his novel Glitz, the last four pages of Chapter 9. Notice the way he works in summary dialogue (without the quotation marks, not every word, just as part of the narration):

Read this page

Read this page

Now, read this page

Now, read this page

Next, read this page

Next, read this page

Finally, read this page

Finally, read this page

YES.

So, what can someone like me, someone who writes literary fiction, and maybe someone like you, who doesn’t write crime fiction, take from Leonard’s dialogue? First, we can take away how he writes dialogue tags. Notice how he rarely uses any at all, and when he does, it’s only “he said” or the rare “he asked”? There are no adverbs, and he certainly doesn’t have his characters thinking about things as they talk — they just talk. This back-and-forth style of dialogue with very few tags quickens the pace and is doable for a writer of any kind of fiction. And these minimally used, simple dialogue tags make sure that the writing is streamlined.

Another thing we can take away from Leonard’s dialogue is the way he drops words, frequently articles like “a” and “the.” By doing this, Leonard is mimicking spoken word: people don’t speak in grammatical correct sentences; people don’t speak in complete sentences. So, don’t have your characters speak in grammatically correct, complete sentences. We also use words like “gonna” instead of “going to,” and we start sentences without subjects. So drop words, drop letters, drop whatever you need to in an order to make things sound spoken rather than written.

Leonard also assumes that his reader is smart enough to follow along, which is why he doesn’t have his characters stop to go over things. Instead, his characters tell anecdotes to give character development and background rather than simply lay out what we as a reader need to know: that Sal is concerned with his appearance and his impression, and that Ricky the Zit “eats like a fucking goat” (which is also a great metaphor).

And no, none of this comes quickly, as Leonard himself admitted in the video. But it should be fun — fun to make these characters come to life, have their own voices and ways of speaking, just as we all do. Their dialogue should reflect who they are as a person. These aren’t just words on the page.

So that’s your job for this week: listen. Listen to the way people speak around you. How do they say what they’re saying? What do they include? What do they leave out? What ticks and speech patterns do they have? What words do they repeat? Write it all down and then, when you need it, use it in your work to develop something about your character. That’s one of the most fun parts about being a writer: calling eavesdropping “research.”

And your unofficial job this week is to watch more interviews on YouTube with Elmore Leonard, and then read one of his books. It’ll only take you about four hours. And, damn, will those be a fun four hours.

For more about Elmore Leonard’s writing, including his dialogue, read this excellent profile from The New York Review of Books.

And check back on Wednesday for a guest post from the terrific Lisa!

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Week Five: Summer 2016 Online Writing Group

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It’s week five of our online writing group! Yee-haw!

Image credit

Now let’s get to it.

Week Five Goals:

  • Alena: Laura’s assignment for week four came at a good time for me. I had hit a wall with the short story I was writing, “Two Bakas,” because I was getting hung up on the story’s flaws. Frustrated, I didn’t work on it for a while. Then, for week four’s assignment, I revisited it with a less critical eye and got back to writing it for the enjoyment of writing’s sake. (I’m so glad it helped!)

My goals for week five include finishing that same short story (or at least coming close to finishing it). I’d also like to work on a novel of mine, which I’ve already started doing character sketches for.

  • Aliena: WRITE. (I’m on vacation, dagnabbit. I have time to write. Just need to make it happen!)
  • Anne D.: My goal this week is to try and write.
  • Anne H.: Coming soon…
  • Bev: We got chicks this week, and I have spent an inordinate amount of time admiring how cute they are. With the holiday extension, I was able to finish Ch. 10 revisions and even go back to Ch. 5, which is still bloated. I also wrote a letter AND put it in the mail without agonizing for weeks about typos. Some of my readers have been critical of me sending letters about summer in December… I will continue to post cute chick pictures on my blog, Fiacre’s Spade, and tackle the next chapter. I’ve already cut four pages. I hope the story still has a soul. (I’m sure it does!)

For next week, I will tackle Chapter 10, May, a big one for plot development, write my blog, and finish the letter. (Bev, I’m so glad the assignment helped — good work!)

  • Emily: Gonna try to write three questions for my book this week.
  • Katherine: Last week, I did get some writing done, but not as much as I would have liked.Next week, I have some writing that still needs to be done, but mostly I am needing to do some reorganizing of the back 30% of the book. I want to print out the entire thing so that I can really analyze the order and structure better than on my small laptop.
  • Laura: I met most of my goals last week and am looking forward to continuing to work this week. I’m going to finish the second chapter of my big project and start on the third; I’m going to finish my blog post about California and publish that on Wednesday; and I’m going to start a short story I’ve been thinking about (I finally have an opening image/scene and feel like I can start it).
  • Lisa: Last week I got absolutely nothing accomplished in the writing department. This week, I hope to at least write five pages.
  • Matt: More of the same from me for week five.

The past week has been different. My progress has slowed considerably, and that is only due in part to a busier schedule and a bit of clusterfrak that diminished my free time during my days off. I’ve made a number of fairly large changes to this story since the writing group started, and now I find myself focusing more on smaller issues. It is a more ponderous pace, but an interesting thing has happened. Somewhere along the line I have developed a sense of confidence that the manuscript is constantly improving, and that each new version of the story is the best version that it has been.

  • Matt the Second: I was able to finish my piece for the Raue’s poetry night from a few weeks ago. But I haven’t been very productive as the only place I have to write is in a very public spot with a lot of distractions and potentially people being nosy and looking over my shoulder. Being that what I want to work on is personal I don’t feel comfortable writing there, and I’m not sure how to overcome this obstacle, which sucks because I’d like to be more productive. Both the pieces are ones I’d really like to see some progress on. One so I can possibly submit it to different 10 minute play festivals and the other so I can get over the hump of not believing I’m able to write something full length. So I guess my goal should be finding a place to write where I feel comfortable to do so. Not sure where that could be. (Try the library!)
  • Mike: Only revised a few more pages of my short story but worked out a big plot point in my head for future work. That’ll have to wait till next week. I’m traveling with my older two daughters this week and will have to keep my goals appropriately realistic. I’m planning to finish a long blog post about my daughter Zoe’s educational environment.
  • Ray: Coming soon…
  • Robert: Goal is 7000 words.
  • Rosalie: Once again I accomplished my week four goals at the very last minute. I seem to be having trouble making up my mind about how I want this work to flow. I have changed the theme FOUR times and finally decided that I’m just going to let it stand. Because I’ve changed the theme so often massive revisions to the work I thought I had finished are in my future. For week five I’m going to start on this task.
  • Sarah: Two goals this week: 1. Set up make-shift writing space in the living room; 2. Sneak in writing time while my kid plays. Still working on scripts for videos on Non-Western art.
  • Tina: Coming soon…

I’ve noticed that a number of you have included “setting up writing spaces” at some point during the last few weeks. And I absolutely recognize the need to have a tidy space that makes you feel in control. That feeling of control makes you much more likely to start working; it’s easier to transition to a working state in you have a comfortable, soothing space to do it in.

And I know how hard it is to transition to a working state. I have a hard time transitioning from listening to NPR in the morning to working; from watching my DVRd episode of The Preacher to working; from watching my DVRd episode of BrainDead to working; watching my DVRd episode of The Bachelorette to working; from binge-watching all of season three of the X-Files for no real reason (except, because, X-Files) to working. You see where I’m going with this?

In fact, I have such a hard time transitioning to a working state, that I rarely get much good work done at home at all, so I try to work as much as I can in my office at school. On campus, I don’t have to contend with my television (or, really, my lack of will power when it comes to my television). Instead, there’s just a cave-like atmosphere (because I turn on very few lights) and the white noise of the building’s HVAC. It’s tremendously productive.

But because I’m not teaching this summer, I have few reasons to go into the office, and I need to capitalize on all of my time here at home. So what I’ve been doing is not letting the lack of a comfortable, soothing, tidy space be my excuse not to work. And that’s your job this week: do not let the lack of a comfortable, soothing, tidy space be your excuse not to work.

This is my office:

Messy Office

This is actually a relatively clean space for me. Only two piles.

See, that’s not a soothing place to work. But I have to work anyway. So here are three options for you to choose from this week if you don’t yet have a great space to write:

Move to a clean space, even if it’s not your office or designated space.

If you have any space in your house that’s cleared off — your kitchen or dining room table, a table in your basement, or your lap as you sit on your couch or on the bed in the guest bedroom, make that your writing space for this week.

Yes, writing in a tidy space is soothing, and I know this because of what Marie Kondō writes about in her two books on tidying up. And do you know where those books are right now? In that pile on my desk. Let’s move on.

Make a Cave.

Let’s imagine that there are no cleared off spaces in your home, and that every single space is covered in piles of books, receipts, papers to file, notes to remember, etc. What do you do? Embrace the piles.

When I was an undergrad at University of Wisconsin, Madison, I used to love studying at Memorial Library where they had these cave-like study carrels. I’d go to do my research (using books, not computers) and then do my writing in a little library cave, usually at night, and usually with a smuggled in cup of coffee. It was quiet and creepy and totally amazing.

So what you have to do to create a writing cave at home is this: double-stack all of your piles on your writing surface so that you have just enough room to work in, but make sure that you’re sort of surrounded by stuff. Then hunker in there and put in a pair of headphones. This is key: the headphones will help you focus and pretend that you’re alone in this little paperwork-pile cave world. You don’t even have to plug them in or listen to anything; just put them in your ears, tell everyone in your house that you can’t be disturbed for thirty minutes, and then get to work.

Do a Quick-Clear.

If you don’t have any clear spaces, and you don’t want to make a cave, then take five minutes — no more — and move everything you don’t need from one of your spaces onto the floor in the corner of the room (preferably behind you so you don’t have to look at it). Don’t worry about organizing. You are not organizing. I repeat: You. Are. Not. Organizing. In fact, the less you pay attention to what’s in the stack you’re moving, the better. Just move it into piles that are sturdy enough not to fall over, then turn your back and get to work. When you’re done, move it all back.

Is any of this ideal? Of course not! But we rarely live in ideal spaces or exist in an ideal situation for writing. We have to carve out space just like we have to carve out time. Don’t let the lack of either be an excuse not to write.

And if all else fails, leave the house and go to the library, a coffee shop, or a park bench!

Doesn’t this stock photo woman look totally romantic and productive? YOU CAN BE HER!

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Have a productive week, writers!

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ICYMI: Writer’s Block is a Jerk

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I knew I could rely on Anne to write a guest post for this year’s writing group, since she did such a great post last summer, “Journaling Past Writer’s Block,” and since, because I used to be her teacher, I feel like I can still give her assignments. (FYI, Anne: when you are an old, old lady, I will probably call you up and tell you to write an essay about something, and I’ll make you remove all of the adjectives and I’ll make you write it in the present tense [and because I am much older than you I will probably be calling you from beyond the grave, so just be prepared for that, to get a phone call from a ghost].)

Here I am, giving Anne an assignment, and there she is, laughing at me.

There I am, giving Anne an assignment, and there she is, laughing at me.

Anne has been having a hard time writing these past couple of weeks, in part because of her hectic schedule, and in part because of some disgusting writer’s block. So she figured that this would be a perfect topic to write about here, and a nice companion piece to her previous guest post.

This is a guest post from Anne Donald, a member of this summer’s Online Writing Group:

I’m currently in my senior (and a half) status at Columbia College Chicago, majoring in writing. I plan to finish and graduate with a BA at the end of the Fall 2017 semester.

This year has been a challenge for me, and, of course, for my writing. One thing that has helped my writing is when I write about current topics. Also reading has helped break my writer’s block. But I will say the one thing that helped most of all was when I took the course Fiction Writers and Censorship. It’s taught me about many types of censorship and has given me a new view on my writing and my life in general. Without this class I would have continued to self-censor.

The class also helped my writing because it has forced me to create more dynamic characters. For example, I tend to look at both sides of an argument and come to an informed conclusion; and now I can take that characteristic of mine and bring it to my characters. Finally I will say that another tactic, besides reading, is that I have been starting to write more politically. I have never done that before aside from middle school and high school assignments. But it brings a very freeing sense to see my normally outspoken, saucy nature on the page. It’s like a pressure release and a brain dump. Also it gives me alternative ways to develop my characters by using the fiction to bring these issues to light.

 

These are all great ideas for us to keep in mind if we hit a wall, and perfect to consider when thinking of what I was going on about Charles Bukowski earlier this week. And remember: even if you’re not writing something good, you’re writing. Eventually you’ll get past the layers of gobbledygook and into something good, something useful for your project.

(also, everyone: Anne really is saucy. she’s not exaggerating.)

Write on, everyone!

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Week Four: Summer 2016 Online Writing Group

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It’s week four of our online writing group, and we’re hanging in there! It sounds like many of us got some great work done, and some of us (me…) got some thinking done if not a lot of writing. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s normal and human (and human is wonderful) that sometimes weekly goals just don’t get met.

I know that it’s that time of the summer when people are taking trips and getting busy with weekend barbecues and spending more time outside in the sun than inside with their computers (or typewriters, or notepads and pens [or quills — I will not presume to know your method]…). So if you didn’t write much last week (again, me!) or are having a hard time getting started, don’t worry. I feel strongly about this group being something useful, something helpful, but not something that makes its members feel guilt or shame for not getting work done. That’s not my style, so don’t expect it. Instead, expect to be invigorated at the end of our excellent goals list with some words of encouragement from the late poet Charles Bukowski (no, I didn’t call him up from the world of the spirits; I’m reading a book of his collected letters).

Week Four Goals:

  • Alena: My goal for this week will be a little different from what I’ve previously done. I need to write lyrics for a song that my boyfriend is recording (we’re both terrible at writing lyrics, so this should be interesting). Any other writing I do this week will be considered a bonus because I have a lot of schoolwork. After this week, however, I’ll be free of my summer-class shackles.
  • Aliena: GOALS: Setting aside time to write during this week and next.
  • Anne D.: My week four goal is the same as week three. I will try to write more this week too. It’s been another hectic week. (You can do it, Anne!)
  • Anne H.: Coming soon…
  • Bev: I did my blog post — a short one this week — and I’m not quite done with April revisions, but since we are finally getting the rain was so desperately need, I have Sunday morning to wrap that up. I didn’t really want to weed the beans again anyway. I took this week’s assignment to heart and have be striking “very” and “quite” right and left! Plus I have been ruthless in cutting stories that are stand-alones that don’t contribute to the overall themes of the memoir — a 47% reduction on this chapter so far — so proud! Plus I started on a letter based on two recent day trips.

For next week, I will tackle Chapter 10, May, a big one for plot development, write my blog, and finish the letter. (Bev, I’m so glad the assignment helped — good work!)

  • Emily: Coming soon…
  • Katherine: Week Three…I failed at writing. My daughter’s naps are getting shorter making it harder to get anything accomplished.Week Four Goal: Figure out a better time management strategy to create writing time. Accomplish the writing tasks from last week.
  • Laura: I was in California for five days last week and didn’t get a lot of writing done. I, like Sarah, though, was inspired by the scenery and atmosphere, the experiences, and by the friends I’d gone traveling with. I hope that this will fuel me as I start to write this week. My goals for this week are to write every day, write another chapter of my WIP, write a blog post about my trip, and to finish Charles Bukowski’s book On Writing. (more about his book after list)
  • Lisa: This past week I wrote a few pages. Woo hoo! I will be out of town this coming week, so I plan to use it as a much needed reading break.
  • Matt: This last week has been another productive one. When I reached the end of the story this time, The Liminal Man was five thousand words shorter than it was at the start of this process, a couple of weeks ago. That’s pretty sweet. I went right back to page one and kept going, and almost immediately found something else!  Because of some cuts I had made at the end, there was a whole thread I can just pull right out of the book. And that’s what I will be doing for week four: exactly the same thing. Go forward, keep simplifying. I think I have made most of the major cuts at this point, but who knows? Maybe I can turn a whole chapter into a haiku. (YES.)
  • Matt the Second: Coming soon…
  • Mike: I only got through another three pages’ worth of revisions on the story, but it was a good three pages’ worth. This week’s goal is to get through the 7-8 pages I didn’t get to.
  • Ray:  It was a rather unimpressive week around the writing campfire. I started and stopped about a dozen times last week. Just wasn’t feeling it; maybe it was the weather or the headlines, or work, I did not attain my goals. Half of a chapter is better than nothing done I guess, but you can’t force it. I’m going to carry last week’s goals forward to this week, and go from there.
  • Robert: Goal: 7,000 words.
  • Rosalie: For next week I want to edit my two completed tours. Actually I’m going to totally rewrite my Spanish Art tour because I woke up the other day with a much better theme. So far I’ve met my goals usually on the very last day. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree then, Mom, since this is 100% the way I roll, too!)
  • Sarah: Week four goals: I was in Vegas on vacation for week three. I thought reading would inspire my next writing project. Instead a trip to Mandalay Bay Hotel and Aquarium, then the Bellagio conservatory provided just the right focus. I will be working on scripts for non-western art history videos. At least one on the influence of environment on Chinese landscape painting and animal symbolism in early pre-dynastic Chinese art.
  • Tina: Coming soon…

If you’re unfamiliar with the American poet and novelist Charles Bukowski, you should know that people either love him or hate him. He was a philanderer and an alcoholic, he’d been known to hit his girlfriends and wives, and many feel he was a misogynist in his life and in his work.

But I don’t believe that he was a woman-hater, and, in fact, I’m in the camp of people who like Bukowski, thanks much to my Bukowski-loving husband who introduced me to the writer when we moved in together twelve years ago and merged our libraries. Trevor has every book of Bukowski’s collected poetry, so of course, I had to read them to see what the buzz was about. And I felt that the buzz was warranted. It was warranted buzz.

But this isn’t a post about the feminist merits or lack thereof of Charles Bukowski; this is a post about what he felt about being a writer, and many of his ideas are universal.

In 2015, Ecco publishing company (an imprint of HarperCollins) put out a book of letters Bukowski had written to various publishers and editors, many from literary magazines, beginning in 1945 and continuing through 1993, the year before his death. The book, On Writing, was published with help from Bukowski’s widow and was edited by Abel Debritto, and it’s a fascinating read for anyone who’s interested in what it’s like to be a working, write-everyday-no-matter-what-and-try-to-publish-every-goddamn-thing writer.

I wanted to share two of the things he wrote that are (I won’t use the word “inspirational” because I believe Bukowski would retch at that) part of what might be included in his manifesto for writing and for being an artist.

In a letter Bukowski wrote to Whit Burnett in 1954 upon hearing that Story magazine would be shuttering (it has since been revived), he said this:

I’ll always remember the old orange magazine with the white band. Somehow, I’d always had the idea that I could write anything I wanted, and, if it was good enough it’d get in there. I’ve never gotten that idea looking at any other magazines, and especially today, when everybody’s so god damned afraid of offending or saying anything against anybody else — an honest writer is in a hell of a hole. I mean, you sit down to write it and you know it’s no use. There’s a lot of courage gone now and a lot of guts and a lot of clearness — and a lot of Artistry too. (12)

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Bukowski had courage, that’s for sure. In fact, it might be more appropriate to say he had chutzpah, since his writing was frequently rejected for being too sexy, too dark, too gritty, too…Bukowski.

But he didn’t stop writing and he sure didn’t stop submitting his work to get published. He kept doing it, even after he’d hawked his typewriter for booze. So that’s what I’m calling you to do this week: be honest, have no fear, don’t write for an audience, especially not an audience of critics, but just get it on the page, whatever “it” is and whatever you feel it needs to be.

Bukowski also wrote, in 1959, to Anthony Linick, founder of Nomad literary magazine, and talked about the new schools of criticism rising after the end of World War 2. He was likely thinking about his manifesto (written sometime around 1960, called “Manifesto: A Call For Our Own Critics”) when he wrote to Linick about these new critics’ schools of thought:

…but all these are demands on style and manner and method rather than on content, although we have some restrictions here also. But primarily Art is its own excuse, and it’s either Art or it’s something else. It’s either a poem or a piece of cheese. (20)

And I’ve fallen in love with that idea: “It’s either a poem or a piece of cheese.” Our work is our work, and we have to know what it is. This week, I want you to find out what it is. You are not to create for anyone else but yourself and don’t worry about anything other than what you feel your work needs to be.

Be honest, be courageous, and get it done. It’s not a piece of cheese.

 

Bukowski, Charles. On Writing. Ed. Abel Debritto. New York: Ecco, 2015. Print.

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Color-Coded Writing

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Group member Katherine has been teaching with me in MCC’s English Department for years, but I’d really only known her as a teaching acquaintance. But at the end of this past spring semester, she came into my office to chat about writing (the kind of chat I am always in the mood for) and told me she’d finished the first draft of a memoir centered around her first pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage. She wanted to keep working on the manuscript and figure out what next steps to take toward publishing, so I thought she’d be a perfect fit for our group — and clearly she is! Here is Katherine’s method of organizing her thoughts and her revisions.

This is a guest post from Katherine Grant, a member of this summer’s Online Writing Group:

Well, currently I reread my work in its entirety (currently 85+ pages) about once every two weeks, but for smaller attempts at revision and improvement, I color-code my writing. This is something that I began doing when I was working on my master’s thesis in an attempt to keep track of what I felt like was completely finished, what still needed some attention, and what still needed to be started.

All of my text is black when I start, but when my memoir got past thirty pages, I used this strategy to keep track of where I thought I had made progress and where I needed to focus my attention.

A red color coded to-do

Color-Coded Writing

The color red has always served as my to-do list or for things that are nowhere near ready or not even started. I currently have a to-do list at the end of the memoir with anecdotes that still need to be written. For my students, I encourage a to-do list with their writing as well. I often refer to that to-do list as their road map to where they want to go on their next writing trip (what claims still need to be proven). Color-coding my writing helps me to keep the ideas in my head straight, even if I don’t have time to write them entirely just yet. I see RED and realize that work must be done.

The color blue means things are close and that I am pretty happy with this draft, but things aren’t quite polished or are not quite in the best location.

Black text means that the writing is done, polished, and in the correct location. Sometimes black text will still receive a minor revision to correct a typo or change a word choice, but major revisions are complete.

 

There is a lot written by and for teachers about using color-coding to help students differentiate supporting points and ideas as they develop academic essays, and it’s something I use in my classroom, too. But Katherine’s approach to using it within a document for revision is new to me and it’s something I’m interested in trying. Thanks, Katherine, for sharing your process!

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