Grateful November 26, 2008
Posted by Becca in Uncategorized.11 comments
A short post today, to accomodate all the holiday busyness…
During these days to focus on thankfulness, I’m certainly grateful for the wonderful community of writers and friends who have gathered at this writer’s roundtable for the past few months.
If you have a moment to write during these next days, you might share your thoughts on the people who have inspired you in your writing journey. For some, it might be teachers or friends, for others, lovers or children. Perhaps it’s an author whose work you admire, and whose words set your fingers itching to pick up a pencil.
Enjoy the feast ’round your dining room tables tomorrow.
We’ll reconvene here soon.
Life in General November 19, 2008
Posted by Becca in Uncategorized.17 comments
Before The Red Tent, before Good Harbor, before and during six books on contemporary Jewish life, I was a colunist,” writes Anita Diamant, in her introduction to Pitching My Tent. “I wrote essays about friendship and fashion, about marriage and electoral politics, about abortion, lingerie, situation comedies, birth, death, God, country, and my dog. I covered the waterfront and the supermarket, my synagogue, the waiting room outside the intensive care unit, and my own kitchen table. My job was to report on the events of the day and the changes under my own roof. The challenge was to pay closer-than-average attention and then shape my experiences and reactions into entertaining prose that rose above the level of my own navel. It was more than a great job – it was a meaningful job.
Life in General – that’s the subtitle of my other blog, Becca’s Byline. But it’s also the underlying theme of most things I write about. Certainly my life isn’t exciting or unique by modern standards. Mostly it’s consumed with family and friendships, work and hobbies, worries and fears about the world around me. These are the subjects all humans confront every day, the experiences of life in general.
The uniqueness is in what we make of those experiences, how we process the ordinary (and extraordinary!) events of our lives, the individual filter through which we view everything from our most cherished relationships to the process of picking fresh fruit at the market. That vision becomes the basis of our artistic expression, whether it’s with words and music or paint, clay and fabric.
I love reading personal essays, because they provide me with another viewpoint on Life In General, this thing we’re all immersed in every day. Anna Quindlen and Carolyn Knapp are two of my favorite contemporary essayists. Joyce Carol Oates writes a pretty mean essay, and Anne Fadiman produces some wonderful personal writing about literature and life. Yes, these are women whose lives might seem richer and more fulfilled than yours and mine. But it’s their witty and insightful reflections on those normal everyday events – walking the dog, making coffee, reading books- which truly help me put my own world into perspective. See, I tell myself, they have the same problems and needs as I.
It’s this intimate way of expressing our relationship with Life In General that makes blogging such an exciting format. We have access to sharing life experiences with hundreds of people, and the opportunity to fine tune our self expression in the process.
When it comes to our writing, individual experiences are extremely valuable. It’s not narcissism to value our lives and what we’ve done with them – it’s a way of paying witness to ourselves and to the things which matter. Becoming attuned to the special value of each passing moment allows us to transmit the details into words and images which in turn become valued by our readers.
“Writing is an act of self-cherishing,” writes Julia Cameron. “We often write most deeply and happily on those areas closest to our heart.”
So tell me, what are the areas closest to your heart? What aspects of your life in general do you find yourself sharing in writing? Do you enjoy reading/writing personal essays? Who are some of your favorite essayists?
Extra Credit (from The Right to Write): In your journal, list 50 things you’re proud of about yourself…what does this list tell you about the things you value most?
Warm Ups November 11, 2008
Posted by Becca in Write On Wednesday.17 comments
Music and writing are woven throughout my life like the strands of a double helix, and I often learn things from one discipline which can be applied to the other. Warm ups, for example. Singers simply must warm up their vocal chords before a performance, and there is a wide variety of exercises designed to target specific aspects of vocal production. The high school girls love to do “sirens,” a high pitched “woo-oo” sound which gets them singing in their head voice and also relieves a lot of tension, effectively serving as a (safe!) vocal scream.
As a pianist, I need those warm up exercises too, and the older I get the more important they are. My fingers are literally stiff until I’ve played for a bit, and my mind needs some time to focus itself on the music, to set aside my worries from the day and hone in on the nuances of those notes in front of me. If I’m playing a different instrument, the warm up becomes even more important. What’s the key action like? Is the pedal sticky or loose? Is the upper register overly bright? All those things are important to know to avoid being surprised during the actual performance.
In this month’s Poets and Writers Magazine, novelist Bret Anthony Johnson writes about the effectiveness of writer’s warmups, which, not surprisingly, serve similar purposes for the writer as they do for the musician. Ellis calls them Narrative Calisthenics, and says they transition the writer from the world of daily living into the world of the imagination.
“Writing exercise purges my mind of everything but a concentrated attention to language. I’ve forgotten about the leaky faucet or the overdue library book, and most importantly, I’ve released my fear about starting the morning’s writing.”
Ah yes, the fear of the blank page. Sometimes that seems almost insurmountable, doesn’t it? Here are a couple of Johnson’s suggestions to get the writing muscles warmed up:
- Spend five minutes listing every word you can think of that starts with the letter “a”; tomorrow, use “b”; and so on…
- Spend five minutes listing everything you can think of that’s the color blue; tomorrow, green, and so on…
- Open your dictionary and blindly point to an entry. Do this until you land on a noun, then spend 10 minutes writing a scene in which that noun figures significantly.
About two years ago, I began doing Morning Pages, as recommended by Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way). I’ve found those three pages of stream of consciousness writing each morning to be a useful warm up exercise, a way of “priming the pump” of my imagination. However, they often become an emotional clearing house for worries and concerns which have little or nothing to do with my writing projects. I see the value of Johnson’s objective writing exercises as a way to sharpen the focus before embarking on whatever writing you’re engaged in.
“Writing is one of the most difficult and frightening things anyone chooses to do,” Johnson concludes. “Exercises make the work a little easier and a little less terrifying.”
How about you? Do you do writing exercises or warm ups? Do you think they could be valuable? Have you found warm up exercises helpful in some other area of your life, e.g. art, music, athletics?
Extra Credit: Try one of Johnson’s exercises above, and post about your experiences. Or create an exercise of your own and share it.
Staying the Course November 7, 2008
Posted by Becca in Uncategorized.11 comments
Yikes! In all the excitement over the past few days, Wednesday slipped by before I knew it. Election night was something of a fairy tale with a huge happy ending, and many of us are basking in the afterglow of all those euphoric feelings about hope and change.
I’ve been thinking a bit about dreams, and the visions we all have for our lives, particulary our writing lives. We talked about our wildest writing dreams here a few weeks ago, and pondered the challenge of plunging forward to make those dreams come true. It takes courage to embark on a quest, whether it’s toward achieving our goals as a writer, an athlete, or a leader. There’s a great deal of excitement involved, and heady anticipation at the prospect of things to come.
The outcome of our election is a good reminder of the way dreams come true. But geting there involves not only the courage to embark on the project, but the strength to stay the course when the going gets rough.
Those of you who are involved in NaNoWriMo are about to be tested in that regard. These first few days were a picnic compared with the middle of road humps that are just ahead. Those are the days when it seems as if your characters and plot are totally ridiculous, you have no idea where the story is going, your mind draws a blank when it comes to description and dialogue. At about the mid-way point in your novel writing journey, you have to drag yourself to the keyboard, and those 50,000 words appear as an insurmountable goal.
Here’s where you might need to employ “cheap tricks,” as Julia Cameron calls them, to keep you on track. (The Right to Write) A change of scenery works for some – taking your computer to a cafe or coffee shop. Phoning a writing friend can help, someone who will encourage you to keep at it. Even bribing yourself can help – the promise of a dinner at your favorite restaurant or even the indulgence of massage or manicure to celebrate the achievement of writing goals can sometimes be the incentive to get you started.
Cameron’s favorite “cheap trick” is what she calls the “writing date,” personally connecting with a writing friend and working in tandem. “There is something enlivening about writing in duos,” Cameron says. ”A great deal of usuable track can be laid in chummy proximity.”
I’m sure President elect Obama has plenty of experience with the doubts and negativity that plague us in the pursuit of our dreams. His ability to stay the course was likely tested many times during the campaign, and will be tried many more during his tenure in office. His dedication to the dream was inspiring, and we can take a page from his book when it comes to fulfilling the writing dreams we all share.
How about you? Are you having a hard time staying the course toward fulfilling your writing dreams? What are you doing about it?
