No one is born a great writer, just like no one is born a great tennis player or a great musician. Even the supremely talented Mozart had to learn to play the piano. This is good news, for each of us can become a good writer, and even a great writer, if we're willing to put in the time. Here are some suggestions for moving towards greatness.
1. Write! I know, I know. How can that be the secret? It's so obvious. Writers write. Good writers write a lot. Great writers write even more. Write a daily journal entry. Write poems. Write stories. Write from prompts. Write down what you see, what you hear, what you taste, smell, feel. Writing is a skill and to get good at any skill, you have to practice. Write whether anybody reads your work or critiques it. Write every day and you'll get better.
2. Read! Read everything: newspapers, magazines, graphic novels, potboilers, essays, Internet postings. But focus as much of your reading as you can on the greats--the great essayists, the great poets, the great novelists. Human beings imitate language. That's how we learn to speak. We have an innate ability for language and we hear and absorb it and speak it. Similarly, we read great prose and in a mysterious process, we absorb the patterns of sentence structure and phrasing. If you read great stuff, your own writing will improve.
3. Read some things twice. Read a bad novel for the plot and then reread it and figure out why it isn't good. Why is the dialog corny? Why are the characters flat or unbelievable? Why is the plot thin? Similarly read great writing twice. Why is it beautiful? Why is it original? Why is it great? How does it work?
4. Keep at it. There's room in our world for many more beautiful books, stories, poems, essays, meditations. Few novelists publish their first novel. Often what is called "first" is first published. In a drawer or computer file sit two or three or eight other books that were all part of the learning process. No athlete would expect to win an award for his first Little League game; no painter would expect to sell his first-ever painting.
Writers write and read. Keep at it until you're as good as you can be and then keep going.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The 50-Question/16-Solutions Writing Tools
Years ago, when I began teaching research writing, I realized that most of my students had little idea how to begin. I told them one of my favorite tricks, which is to make a big list of questions, 50 if you can, that you would like to answer for the reader. These could be factual questions (e.g., how many teenagers a year get pregnant) or questions that lead to in-depth discussion of ideas (e.g., what are the main reasons teenagers choose to keep their infants).
Once they had the list of questions, the writer could use it to guide research (find the answers) and then to begin writing (write the answers in full sentences and in context). By the time, she'd finished writing from the list, she'd have most of a rough draft although perhaps not in the final order. The idea works whether you're writing a term paper for a college class, an article for a magazine, or a non-fiction book. And you can keep a running list as you work on the document, crossing off answered questions and adding new ones you think of.
When I coach fiction writers, I often suggest a variation on the 50 questions called "16 solutions." If the writer is stuck on a plot point, I'll suggest he write out a list of 16 solutions: 16 things the character could do next, 16 things that could happen next, 16 people the character could meet. You get the idea. It breaks open the creativity.
Why 16/50 and not 20/45 or 12/55? I'm not sure if there's any magic in the number, other than that they are big. Our first few answers are always obvious. It's only when we get goofy, get creative, start thinking out of that box, that new ideas can come. My best solutions are often #12, 13, or 14.
Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Once they had the list of questions, the writer could use it to guide research (find the answers) and then to begin writing (write the answers in full sentences and in context). By the time, she'd finished writing from the list, she'd have most of a rough draft although perhaps not in the final order. The idea works whether you're writing a term paper for a college class, an article for a magazine, or a non-fiction book. And you can keep a running list as you work on the document, crossing off answered questions and adding new ones you think of.
When I coach fiction writers, I often suggest a variation on the 50 questions called "16 solutions." If the writer is stuck on a plot point, I'll suggest he write out a list of 16 solutions: 16 things the character could do next, 16 things that could happen next, 16 people the character could meet. You get the idea. It breaks open the creativity.
Why 16/50 and not 20/45 or 12/55? I'm not sure if there's any magic in the number, other than that they are big. Our first few answers are always obvious. It's only when we get goofy, get creative, start thinking out of that box, that new ideas can come. My best solutions are often #12, 13, or 14.
Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Writing My Memoir
Around 2001, I began writing stories about my past for a writing group that a friend and I had put together. We used a wonderful book from Frederick and Maryann Brussat called Spiritual Rx as our springboard, taking each of their topics (silence, kindness, generosity, etc.) and telling of a memorable experience we’d had. These initial pieces of mine, about 30 of them, were three pages long. For Christmas 2005 I printed up a dozen copies of the stories with a piece of my art work on the cover and gave it to family and friends as a gift. I felt done with it.
Shortly after that, I was taking a workshop from writer Christina Baldwin, and I submitted some of the pieces as a potential project. Christina loved them but felt they were incomplete, needing dialog and detail in ways I hadn’t yet created. I had no thought yet of publishing but I decided to learn what I could as a writer by tripling the content of each of the 30 small stories. Eventually I added another dozen stories.
Successive workshops with Christina and memoirist Judith Barrington helped me see that I could create something that would be a clear expression of my journey and that might offer inspiration to others, not only those who have struggled with addiction in its many forms but also those interested in re-inventing their lives। So in 2006-2007 I began a process of rewriting, editing, polishing, and shaping the stories into a book। A major breakthrough came in mid-2007 when I saw that the underlying themes were about honesty: how I learned to be dishonest in my family and how I learned to be honest in sobriety। Knowing the theme helped me create the final version, which was published in late December 2007 as Sober Truths: The Making of an Honest Woman (available at http://www.amazon.com/Sober-Truths-Making-Honest-Woman/dp/0595468640/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202575820&sr=8-1.
Shortly after that, I was taking a workshop from writer Christina Baldwin, and I submitted some of the pieces as a potential project. Christina loved them but felt they were incomplete, needing dialog and detail in ways I hadn’t yet created. I had no thought yet of publishing but I decided to learn what I could as a writer by tripling the content of each of the 30 small stories. Eventually I added another dozen stories.
Successive workshops with Christina and memoirist Judith Barrington helped me see that I could create something that would be a clear expression of my journey and that might offer inspiration to others, not only those who have struggled with addiction in its many forms but also those interested in re-inventing their lives। So in 2006-2007 I began a process of rewriting, editing, polishing, and shaping the stories into a book। A major breakthrough came in mid-2007 when I saw that the underlying themes were about honesty: how I learned to be dishonest in my family and how I learned to be honest in sobriety। Knowing the theme helped me create the final version, which was published in late December 2007 as Sober Truths: The Making of an Honest Woman (available at http://www.amazon.com/Sober-Truths-Making-Honest-Woman/dp/0595468640/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202575820&sr=8-1.
Monday, February 15, 2010
From a recent prompt
Four-handed piano
Carol had heard all she wanted to hear. The music from the four pianists had moved from melodic and romantic to some new-fangled atonal piece and it grated on her nerves. Those nerves had been to begin with. A week of poor sleep—thanks, menopause!—a fight with her boss that afternoon, and an overturned latte with extra syrup all over the cloth car seat had worn her out.
She glanced around the room of friends and family who’d come to the recital. Those in the front somehow managed to look attentive but she noticed others rolling their eyes and shaking their heads off to her left and behind her a man was urging his wife to leave.
Her friend Maura caught her eye at that moment and beamed. Maura had organized the event for Pachyderms without Partners, her latest pet charity. In support of her friend, Carol had corralled four of her own friends to pony up $25 and show up in black dresses and glitzy jewelry.
Now Carol felt nervous. Did they feel as she did about the screeching noises the quartet was yanking out of the twin Steinways? And was that a serving fork being dragged across the strings of the piano on the left?
Suddenly the music stopped—all four musicians picked their fingers up off the keyboards and looked expectantly at the double doors at the room’s end. The audience too all turned to look at once, as if on cue. Then the red-headed woman on the left at the second piano began to play a lumbering tune, the doors opened, and two small elephants swayed into the room. They wore bow ties and top hats and were led by a small monkey in a tutu.
The pianists turned back to their instruments, struck up the Emperor’s Waltz, and the elephants danced. By this point, Carol had fallen off her chair.
Carol had heard all she wanted to hear. The music from the four pianists had moved from melodic and romantic to some new-fangled atonal piece and it grated on her nerves. Those nerves had been to begin with. A week of poor sleep—thanks, menopause!—a fight with her boss that afternoon, and an overturned latte with extra syrup all over the cloth car seat had worn her out.
She glanced around the room of friends and family who’d come to the recital. Those in the front somehow managed to look attentive but she noticed others rolling their eyes and shaking their heads off to her left and behind her a man was urging his wife to leave.
Her friend Maura caught her eye at that moment and beamed. Maura had organized the event for Pachyderms without Partners, her latest pet charity. In support of her friend, Carol had corralled four of her own friends to pony up $25 and show up in black dresses and glitzy jewelry.
Now Carol felt nervous. Did they feel as she did about the screeching noises the quartet was yanking out of the twin Steinways? And was that a serving fork being dragged across the strings of the piano on the left?
Suddenly the music stopped—all four musicians picked their fingers up off the keyboards and looked expectantly at the double doors at the room’s end. The audience too all turned to look at once, as if on cue. Then the red-headed woman on the left at the second piano began to play a lumbering tune, the doors opened, and two small elephants swayed into the room. They wore bow ties and top hats and were led by a small monkey in a tutu.
The pianists turned back to their instruments, struck up the Emperor’s Waltz, and the elephants danced. By this point, Carol had fallen off her chair.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Writing every day
I'm taking a class with creativity guru Eric Maisel on creativity coaching. As part of our class, we each commit to a project of our own that will stretch our creativity. My project is to blog every day on my two blogs, The Writing Wheel and Sober Truths, and to learn more about blogging both as a creative medium and as a promotional medium for me and for my creative clients.
Writing every day is something I've been doing for a long time. I started journaling in earnest a few years into sobriety as I tried to make sense of my old life and make sense of all the changes that were happening to me. I still journal each morning, mostly in the Julia Cameron "Morning Pages" vein--three pages of what happened the day before and how I'm feeling and what's up with me. Cameron calls it a form of active meditation and I think of it that way, a kind of clearing of my mind and heart for the next day. On the rare occasions that I don't get to journal, I feel crankier, out of sorts, so it's become an important practice for me.
Then for 20 months in 2003-2004, I wrote a 10-minute story every day. Mostly I wrote in the morning but sometimes late at night, I'd remember I hadn't done it and I was keen on keeping up the momentum. I've gotten a lot of stories out of those 600 writings and the starts of both the novel I finished in November and the one I'm writing now.
Blogging is a bit different. It's an essay on a topic, or it's a personal exploration, or it's a journal entry to friends and strangers alike. It can be a private record or a public statement. I'm excited to see what happens to my writing now that I'm blogging every day.
Writing every day is something I've been doing for a long time. I started journaling in earnest a few years into sobriety as I tried to make sense of my old life and make sense of all the changes that were happening to me. I still journal each morning, mostly in the Julia Cameron "Morning Pages" vein--three pages of what happened the day before and how I'm feeling and what's up with me. Cameron calls it a form of active meditation and I think of it that way, a kind of clearing of my mind and heart for the next day. On the rare occasions that I don't get to journal, I feel crankier, out of sorts, so it's become an important practice for me.
Then for 20 months in 2003-2004, I wrote a 10-minute story every day. Mostly I wrote in the morning but sometimes late at night, I'd remember I hadn't done it and I was keen on keeping up the momentum. I've gotten a lot of stories out of those 600 writings and the starts of both the novel I finished in November and the one I'm writing now.
Blogging is a bit different. It's an essay on a topic, or it's a personal exploration, or it's a journal entry to friends and strangers alike. It can be a private record or a public statement. I'm excited to see what happens to my writing now that I'm blogging every day.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Being a reader-focused writer
As part of my varied professional life, I teach writing improvement classes to graduate students in business and management. All of our work starts from one premise: that the reader is more important than the writer. The assumption is that written business materials, whether they be for marketing or production or design, all have one thing in common: they want to communicate information to the reader.
This may seem self-evident but in my teaching and coaching, I’ve discovered that many writers are only concerned with what they think of the piece they’re working on; they’re only concerned with whether they like it and whether they understand it, not with how it will be received. So we talk about “reader-focused writing,” from word choices to clear and varied sentence structure to thinking about punctuation as a signal of upcoming meaning).
Creative writers interested in placing or selling their work tend to have more of a focus on writing for readers. They want to be entertaining, informative, inspiring enough that an editor or agent or publisher will take their work and send it out to audiences. But they often don’t think beyond that initial reader.
Most native speakers of a language have an excellent internal grammar, allowing them to generate grammatically correct sentences one after the other. They have little need for a deep understanding of the structure of the language. That is, until they become writers and want to reach their readers.
Having a good knowledge of grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure can go a long way into turning okay writers into good ones.
Looking for a place to start? I recommend The Least You Should Know about English (in any of its various workbook versions) by Wilson and Glazier, On Writing Well by William Zinsser, and Style by Joseph M. Williams.
This may seem self-evident but in my teaching and coaching, I’ve discovered that many writers are only concerned with what they think of the piece they’re working on; they’re only concerned with whether they like it and whether they understand it, not with how it will be received. So we talk about “reader-focused writing,” from word choices to clear and varied sentence structure to thinking about punctuation as a signal of upcoming meaning).
Creative writers interested in placing or selling their work tend to have more of a focus on writing for readers. They want to be entertaining, informative, inspiring enough that an editor or agent or publisher will take their work and send it out to audiences. But they often don’t think beyond that initial reader.
Most native speakers of a language have an excellent internal grammar, allowing them to generate grammatically correct sentences one after the other. They have little need for a deep understanding of the structure of the language. That is, until they become writers and want to reach their readers.
Having a good knowledge of grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure can go a long way into turning okay writers into good ones.
Looking for a place to start? I recommend The Least You Should Know about English (in any of its various workbook versions) by Wilson and Glazier, On Writing Well by William Zinsser, and Style by Joseph M. Williams.
Friday, February 12, 2010
A poem for my father
April 2007
Light dappled my hands.
The shears held firmly, I stretched and stretched,
grasping the branch by a thin patch of leaves,
pulling it towards my heart.
A diagonal cut. Then another. And another.
The perfume rose in a single wave to greet me,
Whispering of spring,
of awkward romance, of my first cologne.
Moving towards the kitchen,
I buried my nose in the deep amethyst blooms.
The vase, striped green on the diagonal, held waiting water.
No fancy arrangement, just branch ends immersed.
I turned then to feed the orange cat,
its whiskers tickling my ankle in anticipation.
One scoop. Then another. And another.
When I turned back, my father, five years dead, stood before me.
I smiled.
The lilac scent he loved so much filled the room
and my heart stretched and stretched,
in greeting, in memory.
Light dappled my hands.
The shears held firmly, I stretched and stretched,
grasping the branch by a thin patch of leaves,
pulling it towards my heart.
A diagonal cut. Then another. And another.
The perfume rose in a single wave to greet me,
Whispering of spring,
of awkward romance, of my first cologne.
Moving towards the kitchen,
I buried my nose in the deep amethyst blooms.
The vase, striped green on the diagonal, held waiting water.
No fancy arrangement, just branch ends immersed.
I turned then to feed the orange cat,
its whiskers tickling my ankle in anticipation.
One scoop. Then another. And another.
When I turned back, my father, five years dead, stood before me.
I smiled.
The lilac scent he loved so much filled the room
and my heart stretched and stretched,
in greeting, in memory.
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