"So, what are you writing about?"

Ah yes, that loaded question most writers simultansously appreciate and dread.  People are interested and curious about our work, yet we have no answers to give them.  And if you're like me, no matter how much you hear that this "not knowing" stage of writing is typical, or that most writers go through it often, this is the point at which you panic.  Because all of a sudden, you believe you have no story.  You have no talent.  You have no voice. You will probably not write anything ever again - and if you do, no one will read it.  Because you have nothing to say.  Hell, how can you have anything to say when you don't even know what you are writing about?  You suck and now everyone knows.  Way to go. 

After all, isn't the first rule of writing to "know your story"?  Or at least your purpose for writing the story?  Absolutely without a doubt yes.  I'm not a huge fan of intentionally obtuse writers who indulge in abstraction when I hold their book in my hands and ask "What is this about?"  I don't want to hear that it is about love or death or immorality.  As overaeching themes, those are fine.  But where is the meaning and what is the substance of a book? That is the question that I, the reader, want answered and it is the question that I, the writer, want to be able to answer. Even so, as I think about the "know your story" rule, I can't help but think about the "shitty first (and second, and third) draft" rule, too.  I think that one is pretty self-explanatory.

Of course I always want to know what I am writing about when I sit down at my computer, at my scheduled writing time, for my pre-planned number of hours devoted to a specific part of a specific piece.  During this third semester of my MFA, my monthly submissions to my mentor include at least twenty pages of new work, twenty or so pages of revised/older work, and several substantial pieces of what will end up becoming a twenty-ish page craft essay.  So I have decided to schedule myself into an artless corner in order to accomplish everything on time.  And schedules are great - I certainly won't knock the very tools by which I live - but schedules also leave very little room for low-inspiration days and muse-less moments.  Sure, I have sprinkled fact checking and research sessions throughout my weeks, but I can only rely on those for so long before I actually have to attach them to something substantial. Something from my own head.  And there are days when a "Wednesday, 6-9PM: Get inspired" schedule simply isn't going to happen. 

In his book *On Writing,* Stephen King talks about closed door/open door writing, which isn't all that diffrent from the "shitty first draft" concept, but is more along the concrete visual lines I prefer.  He basically says that when you first sit down with what you think you are writing, do so behing a closed door - literally. This writing is for you and you alone.  Write as if no one will ever see it.  And after months (yes, King says months) of drafting, then letting it sit in the desk drawer for awhile, then drafting again, then letting it sit just a little longer, take the piece out, finalize it, and fling the door open.   Show it to the world.  Or at least to your significant other, your mentor, your go-to reader, whomever gets that first, fresh copy of your newest stuff and is generally the first critic (and hopefully the first cheerleader) of everything you produce.  THIS is the point at which you should be able to answer the "What is this story about?" question. Or at which you should at least be able to have that conversation with your small circle of readers. After giving yourself weeks, maybe months, to indulge in not knowing (on a conscious level), now it is time to get real with yourself and with your story.

I say all this because I recently shared a piece I wrote for last semester's food course with a friend of mine.  This friend is not a writer, and she hasn't even read a whole lot of my work.  But after I showed her the piece I wrote about my first taste of authentic Montreal Poutine, she emailed a one-sentence response: "Wow! Powerful 9/11 story!"

Since September 11, 2001 formed a sort of backdrop for this piece, I wasn't surprised that she mentioned it.  But I had never thought to define this as a "9/11 story."  In fact, I have always insisted that, unlike so many of my friends who were personally impacted by 9/11, I didn't really have a 9/11 story.  But apparently, at least to one reader, I do.  I sat with this story again and read it, reread it, and have now put it away for awhile, at least mentally, so I can come back to it in a few weeks, with fresh eyes and a clear mind.  The piece is titled "Ca va faire une maudite poutine," and I am posting it on my workspace page (tab at top right of screen) as an example of how it is possible to start with an idea - my first and last experience eating Poutine - and end up telling a multi-layered story about events that simply cannot be separated and that truly serve to enhance one another.  Maybe I wouldn't have had the courage to try Poutine had I not recently seen such real tragedy on a global scale.  Even so, 9/11 wrote its way into a story that I thought was about food - and only food.  Goes to show what I know.  A food piece is never just about food.

~~ Until next time, keep writing

Writing: The Why?

In my last post I talked about the Who/What/When/Where/How? of writing. All the components that really make up what we refer to as "the writing process." The technical nuts and bolts of our practice that can be learned (and unlearned) as we discover what serves our work and what doesn't.

But the Why of writing deserves its own conversation.  I don't see the Why of writing as a teachable part of technique, but as an innate need to engage in something  that cannot necessarily be reduced to a generality or some sort of universal experience.  Sure, we all have our standard "I write because ..." lists:

I write because it calms me

I write because it amps me up

I write because I have something to say

I write because I worry I have nothing to say

I write to tell what I know

I write to find out what I don't know

And my favorite of all time (because I think there is a whole lot of truth to it):

I write because I HAVE to. 

I absolutely get that.  I get the whole list, in fact, because it is my list and it is your list and it is the list of every workshop and seminar and writing conference I have ever attended. And it is a fine list - we could stop there and move on.  After all, not everyone enjoys examining everything at its most microcosmic level, unless of course they are looking for a distraction from writing.  And I absolutely get that, too. I didn't think I needed to answer the Why of writing either, at least not specifically. Not until I got lost in my own story. 

While many writers are plagued with that all-too-familiar paralysis known very simply as Writers Block, I often suffer the opposite affliction which I have aptly named (and diagnosed within my own work) Writers Tangentia.  What this means, in layperson's terms, is that if I get stuck or if I feel empty of thought and inspiration, I reach for the nearest tangent and jump on.  And I ride that tangent as far as I can, until I find another tangent, and another tangent, and another tangent ...  until finally I am living that experience that every Windows computer user suffers on a regular basis, having Googled something as simple as the weather and ended up - an hour later - buried in forty-two windows of tangents and sidebar ads trying to back out a window at a time to find tomorrow's forecast - aka the original reason for the Google.  I've been on that hellish journey twice this week, both times in an attempt to avoid writing altogether by calling it research ... until I found myself knee-deep in windows and staring at multi-pack heartworm pills for my dog on the Pet Meds website.  But once again, I digress ...

The best answer I have always been able to give to the Why of writing has simply been the "Because I have to" one.  But what does that mean?  And does it really matter?  Well, yes, it matters.  It matters because if we aren't clear about the big reasons we write, then we won't really know what the hell we are writing.  And we won't really care about it for its own sake, either.   We might care about getting published and being read and sending a universal message out into the world, but the pulse of our words won't feel as urgent or as necessary until we really figure out why it is so necessary for us to bring them to life.

I think my point here is, we all have a Why, but we rarely make ourselves sit down and answer it - for each piece we write, and for the larger reasons we engage in the practice and the craft and the life of writing.  But like anything, if we don't think about it, really pull it apart and annotate it like any good writing craftsperson would analyze the significance of point-of-view or the juxtaposition of water imagery surrounding a particular character, we will never get to the heart of what makes us tick.  And that is when our words stop breathing.

So here's the challenge: Write about why you write.  Whether it is a specific piece or book you are writing (or avoiding writing) or the broader concept of writing as a daily practice and/or occupation.  Be as specific as you can, as personal and as unedited as possible, and see what you find out about yourself in the process.  Does your answer match up with your work?  Are your feelings about writing consistent with the Who/What/When/Where/How? of your writing?  Did your answer surprise you?  Better yet, did your answer elude you (Are you still sitting there staring at a blank page)?

Feel free to share your answers here if you'd like.  And by the way, there are no wrong answers.  "Because" is perfectly acceptable, if it is the only answer you are ready to give.

~~ Keep writing ...

Reality. Perspective. And Primo Levi.

For this semester's Craft Essay component of my MFA in creative nonfiction, I have decided to focus on the role of the Afterwords in memoir. As part of my reading list, I just finished Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz  - both the book and the Afterwords. And even though I see no value in comparative pain - what hurts us hurts us, regardless of the pain someone else may be experiencing - I also think that perspective is a great teacher.

Oppressive heat, a couple of challenging coworkers, trouble breathing, a demonic puppy -- my today includes all of these things (most of them, I suspect, are actually because of the oppressive heat).  Yet I am free to have these things, and what's more, most of them are within my control, not because I can stop them from happening, but because I can choose to see them for what they are: annoying, upsetting, exhausting ... luxuries.

So here's what I think:

A bad day is carrying 200 pounds of metal on one's back all day, every day, as punishment for simply being born. An argument with a coworker? Nuisance.

A bad day is bunking with a roomfull of strangers in a freezing camp while listening to their stomachs growl with starvation. A bland lunch? Bummer that it's bland, blessing that it's lunch.

A bad day is knowing you could die at any moment - and sometimes hoping that the moment is now. A bad mood? A fleeting thing, and nothing that will cost me my life.

Reality.  Perspective.  And Primo Levi.

How and where do you write?

Talking with some writer friends of mine has made me think (or feel like) I am the only writer I know who generally writes in silence (no music or calming "sea sounds" DVDs) and private (usually at home, in my writing room).

I so want to be that writer all nestled into a corner table at the local cafe among other writers and coffee sippers reading their novels (we totally have that coffee shop near me, by the way) but I'm just not. I get easily distracted and taken off track. Even my favorite classical music at home has me stopping to appreciate the complexities of Mozart's manic style and the crisp precision of Bach, instead of solidifying my own passing acquaintance with my always struggling narrative arc.

So out of curiouslty, I was just wondering how and where other people write. I'm talking about the planned writing we do, since I have plenty of those "pull over on the side of the road and jot things down" or "scribble notes on gum wrappters and body parts so I can deal with them later" moments.  But what does your scheduled writing time look like?  Have you ever tried a different approach just to see what the outcome might be? 

As I mentioned, I have gone the coffee shop route and all I really ended up with was a belly full of coffee and several hours of a really active Facebook wall, but I think there is a lot to be said for writing "in the middle of it all" - life, activity, people, noise, reality.  Putting it all together in the silence of my writing room works on a technical level, but I often worry that the pulse of my work, some living, breathing element of it all, is missing from the process, too.

Feel free to share!

~~ And keep writing

On being a writer ...

Being a writer  is tiring. Sometimes it isn't enough that I give myself the luxury of shutting the world out while I indulge what I call "a need to create" as if not putting myself on paper were the same as denying myself food or air. Certainly, the practice and craft of writing is food for the soul, and, if done well, it absolutely lives and breathes and has a pulse that is connected, yet somehow separate and self-sustaining. 

But writing is a gift I give myself because I want it.

And because I feel compelled by it in some way.

And then, after I have opened that gift one more time, put my thoughts down and lived with them a bit, I ask others to gift me by reading and living with them too.  My words. My thoughts. And not just live with them, but embrace them and love them. I want people to talk to me about my writing, to talk to others about my writing, even though so often all I am doing is writing the same story over and over and over again, adding a person here or an image there, or perhaps looking at the same story at a slightly different angle this time. I want people - my friends, my family, my readers (whoever they may be) - to find something new and unique in every one of my words, whether or not they are familiar because I have already written various versions of them several times. Or because someone else has already written them.  I am a human  being telling a human story and a person telling a personal story.  And it is wonderful.  And powerful.  And tiring.

For all these reasons, I often hesitate to admit that I love to write. That I do write. That I am a writer. And yet these are the very same reasons that I proudly insist -- when asked "And what do you do?" by people who assume I will give them a laundry list of my Monday-Friday, 9-5 desk job duties -- "I write. I am a writer."

Writing Process: The Who/What/When/Where/How?

Amy Tan

Writers always want to talk about process.

Do you write every day?  At certain times of day?  In certain places? 
Do you listen to music? 
Do you wear certain clothing?  Lucky clothing? 
Do you use certain pens or paper?  Or do you draft, revise, and finalize on computer? 
Do you eat while you write?  Drink while you write?  Surf the internet so you won't have to write?

Having just returned from my third of four MFA residencies at Lesley University with all these questions still playing like a soundtrack in the back of my mind, I have started to look at whether I actually do have a writing process -- an identifiable, planful, consistent process, that is -- and whether or not I need one.   And the interesting thing is, I actually do have the hint of a partial process-in-progress, which means a full blown writing process is just around the corner.  On the one hand, I think writing is like breathing - we should be willing and able to do it anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances, in order to survive.  We should be constant, diligent observers of the world about which we write, not the world a mere ten feet from our perfectly organized, perfectly lit, perfectly quiet writing desks.  We should take notes on whatever surfaces we can find - sales receipts, gum wrappers, body parts (our own, of course) - to capture immediate sense impressions and ideas that will be nothing more than vague memories of a what once seemed like good ideas by the time our next scheduled writing session rolls around.  And instead of avoiding or drowning out the noise -- or worse, silencing it altogether -- we should listen to it.  Noise is the context of life, after all.  How better to capture -- and differentiate between --  terror's intensity and love's complexity and grief's pain than with the detail that only the sounds and the words and the noise that we so often tune out can provide?

So that is the free-spirited writer in me.  The one who loves my writing for the art it brings to my life and the art it allows my life to put into the world.

EB White

But then, there is that other part of me.  The planner.  The diligent student.  The self who takes refuge in schedules and feels slightly threatened by spontaneity (and slightly jealous of anyone who seems to wear it well).  That part of me is just as much a writer as the non-planner, but is definitely the overbearing control freak who keeps me on task and forces me to meet deadlines and is always, always, always singing in my ear: "Focus on your craft elements.  Modulate your tone.  And for the love of all that is holy, stop trying to make semi-colons work. Just use a period and get on with it."  There was a time in my life when this part of me served me well.  And it still does, to a point.  But my goal now is to more effectively merge the two halves into a whole writer who is focused but open, planful but flexible, artistic but profound, and an editor only of what is on the page and not of what is in my heart and on my mind.

So with that, I have developed what I think is a reasonable combination of the dueling Heathers, in the hopes that my writing grows more inward this semester than it does in length.  Last year was about generating words - 250 pages of words, to be exact - some of which have to come out of the book I now know I am writing so I can nurture the pieces that belong by building them up from the bottom and filling their insides with the substance and the noise of the story I am really telling.  Of course the "extras," the extractions (certainly as painful as losing a tooth, or perhaps the shot of Novacaine that happens before the loss itself) will live somewhere, and they, too, will find a process through which to form their own noisy tale someday. 

Stephen King

One thing is always consistent for me - when I am writing at home, my dog Beckett is always at my feet.  Usually on my feet. Warming my legs with his little body and licking my toes to the rhythm of my typing.  Though I am not a fan of the licking, as long as Beckett is slobbering, that means I am producing something, so I'll take it.  It's part of the journey out of that rigid need to control the world and into that peaceful place of seeing things differently, in a world where a licking dog means a growing manuscript and a honking horn in the middle of a rush hour traffic jam can sound like poetry - if I let it.

Do you have a writing "process" that you can identify/define?  Is it what you want it to be or are you thinking about changing it?  What has worked for you and what hasn't?

~~  Whatever you do ... just keep writing