Writers, Just Do It

Since switching jobs this fall, I've thought a lot about the writing life and how you go about making time to write. Writers bemoan the lack of time they have to dedicate to their craft more than any other group of people aspiring to something. There are dozens of articles written-- by writers who apparently can find the time to do it-- about how to succeed as a writer. It's easier if you have a spouse that can support you, they say. It's easier if you are a man, they say. You are more likely to succeed if you have only one kid or no kids, or you have a tenure-track job instead of an adjunct position, or you have a non-creative arts job or a creative arts job, a non-writing job or a writing job, no job at all or job security.

Writers everywhere are looking over the fences and assessing each other's grass to determine who has it better or easier or worse or harder in some frenetic attempt to assess one's position relative to the rest of the writing world. Hmmm, looks like she has blue fescue and I only have Kentucky bluegrass, and his lawn is all crabgrass but look how freakin' productive he is in spite of his weedy lawn. The nerve.

So much energy and emotion is wasted in this comparative analysis. Pride and envy get blended with a little navel-gazing until we're just exhausted. Look at all of those other writers, those successful writers, writing all of the time, in spite of or because of their circumstances. It's not fair.

"Oh, if I only had more time to golf," my husband says. So he makes more time to golf.

Just do it. Just go out there and write. Do it. Resolve to, whether you have children or don't, whether you are married or not, whether you are working or unemployed, whether you love or hate your job, if you want to write, just write. Just do it. You want to write, so do the thing. It is not so painful. You are writing words on pages, you are opening your heart and your mind. Write something playful if the painful is too painful. Write something other if the self is too vulnerable. Open a notebook or a Word doc or a journal and write already. You will only find time to write if you find time to write, so find time to write, in the crevices of your day, when you are idling at a stoplight, write in your head or in your phone's notes app or on a legal pad, write while you fold laundry or in between flipping pancakes in the morning, write after the kids go to sleep or the dog goes to sleep, write instead of watching another episode of American Idol, don't idle, write instead of scrolling through Facebook, write while you are on Facebook or Twitter, make each tweet you send out into the world a poem a sentence the briefest fiction the most succinct piece of prose you could compose today and then kiss it on its way into the world, write, write, write, log the thought away until the sun sets or until you need a coffee break or while you eat your lunch, write while your kids do their homework or on a pocket notepad in between waiting on tables, write on napkins, write on a schedule, write when inspiration hits, write for fifteen minutes before you leave for the rest of your day, make your day your poem your prose your composition pad, live your life so your writing is rich with the stuff of life and not the self-pity of envying other's successes and your apparent failures, write because you want to, because you need to, because you have an itch to scratch a thought to develop a ponder to wonder upon until it's pushed to its limit in your life, write, write, write.

Just do it.

Looking Back
2014: Westbound and Down, Rollin' Up and Truckin'
2013: Visiting Ghosts: Writing about the Past
2012: Praying for Enemies
2011: The Weekend
2010: Season of Productivity
2009: A Voice in the Crowd at Capernaum

Next Big Thing

I've been tagged by my dear friend Marilyn Bousquin in the Next Big Thing, a blog chain letter of sorts to talk about what's happening in your writerly life and then to tag five other women writers to hear their stories.  I met Marilyn a few years ago through the Ashland University MFA Program.  She runs Writing Women's Lives, a mentorship program for women who want to write about real life.  She's working on a memoir called Searching for Salt.  I can't wait until this fine book finds a home!  I am so grateful for this woman's support and friendship.

ANYWAY, onward!  My Next Big Thing is two things, both in early, early draft form.  I just started the MFA program at Ashland in nonfiction. I'm working toward a collection of essays oriented around family and relationships.  I'm toying with the idea shared by Jerald Walker of taking the essays and rewriting the collection as memoir, but first I need to have a collection of essays instead of a handful of pieces.  My goal is to have a polished collection by the time I am done with the MFA program. 

The other Big Thing I'm working on when the mood hits me is assembling another collection of poems.  Since this is a little closer to completion in that the stuff is actually written, I'll answer the questions for it. 

What is the title of your book?The operating title is, "My Big Cheesy Book of Poems about My Kids and Winter and Light. And Gardening, Again." Catchy, right? I've also thought about "The Fullness of Things," which might be a little bit more realistic. But anyone who can read would know right away what my book is about with the first title.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?...my big cheesy book of poems about my kids and winter and light. and gardening, again.  :)  But really, the poems in the collection are playful, bright, mini-celebrations of life through the natural, familial, and spiritual worlds in which I spin.  The collection is more...feminine than my first, which felt more gritty and relational in a father-daughter kind of way, whereas this collection includes many more mother-daughter poems and poems of femininity.  I think.

What genre does your book fall under?
poetry

Where did the idea come from for the book?Since Pruning Burning Bushes came out, I've been looking at all of the new poems I have and the poems that didn't make it into the first book, and the trend I saw most was this need, this desire, to examine the world for its glory and its shine, even in the shadows.  Once this thought lodged in my mind, the poems I've generated since then have been in the same vein.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?Most of the poems in the binder-clip right now were written in 2012, with a dozen or so pieces that came into being in earlier years.  It'll take me a while to settle on any kind of order and then to weed out the not-as-good filler poems and replace them with better ones.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?I think this collection is primarily inspired by my daughter, Lydia, who radiates delight in all things, but it is also fueled by my relationship with my mom. 

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?I haven't decided whether I want to try to win a contest to publish this book, to send it to other publishers for consideration, or to return to Wipf and Stock right away with a new manuscript.  Since my other book just came out in 2012, I'm not sure what steps to take with this next collection.  I'm not in a hurry to get another book out, but I also have enough poems that I am in l-o-v-e with that it'd be fun to see them all communing together.

What other works would you compare this book to within your genre?
Hmmm.  I'd like to think I'm striving for similar goals as what Brian Doyle does in his work, even though this is a collection of poems and not essays.  Although I'm not writing a lot of formal poems at the moment, I'd also say my poems rub elbows with Rhina Espaillat.  And I also hope to achieve the accessibility and tight, lyrical quality of Todd Boss's work.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
It'd be so fun to have a movie of poems!  I think Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts, but only because they are my favorite favorite actresses.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?I hope that the collection of poems will tell a story.  I love storytelling, and I want each poem to speak to each other and then carry the reader through a fire-ring kind of narrative about the "fullness of things."

As part of this post, I get to tag other authors who I think will be the Next Big Thing. Sooo, without further ado:

Grace Curtis: author of a chapbook, The Surly Bonds of Earth

Callie Feyen: mama blogger and MFA student

Joan Hanna: author of Threads, a new chapbook from Finishing Line Press

Jayna Murphy: mama blogger who says she "keeps pretending she can write," but seriously, she's a writer and she just needs to get over it. :)

Leslie Nielsen: recent MFA graduate

I realized as I made this list that I know lots of gals that I think are the Next Big Thing, but many of them aren't blogging (or they were already tagged in this fun game)!  What is that all about?!  Tania Runyan, Ginny Taylor, Jen Kindbom, Valerie Due, Jen Ochstein, and on and on, I'm looking at you!  Stop doing "serious writing" and start blathering on a blog like the rest of us!

Building Community

This past weekend, I spent some time in Indiana with about a dozen other writers who mostly met about three months ago at the Festival of Faith and Writing.  We decided to come together because we're all at similar places in our careers, like-minded in ideology and vision for our poetry, and we're all outrageously funny.  At least we find ourselves to be.

I think it is unusual to find and make fast friends with people, but especially other writers. There is a competitive air that surrounds most writer gatherings (except for the River Teeth Nonfiction Conference and the Ashland University MFA Program, but then again, I'm a smidge biased...), a chance to name drop, a chance to prove your superiority or make yourself feel better by pointing out the faults in well-known poets' work, a chance to spread your feathers and strut about with one's accolades ablaze.  This is of course a generalization; not all writers are this way, and not all retreats and conferences take this tone, but we all know those writers who seize any opportunity to establish themselves, sometimes at the cost of other poets.

This retreat was not that way, though we leaned that direction a time or two, mostly in good fun.  What we did was laugh a lot, share our passion for language and poetry and our belief that words have the idealistic power to change people.  We talked about ways we might collectively use our words to make an impact within groups of people who are not as inclined to buy a collection of poems or pick up a literary journal.  We shared meals and drinks together.  We got to know one another and traded stories from each other's lives, and we left eager to meet again, hopefully soon.  And then we began emailing and Facebooking each other to continue the conversation.

That is what community is about--taking the time to feed each other with laughter and truth and common concern for each other's well being.  Community, even across state lines, is sustained by the simple, "Hey, I was just thinking about you and..."  I am ever so grateful for having found this particular set of friends to mutually encourage and challenge as we work toward our personal and collective goals.

In ten days, I get to participate in yet another writing community, this one in my own backyard.  Sixty students and about 20 visiting writers and faculty will descend upon Ashland, Ohio for the annual two-week summer residency (writers' boot camp), and I can hardly contain my excitement to see students and faculty that have become more than colleagues--many are friends.  Even though it is a stressful two weeks involving a lot of administrating, it is also one of the highlights of my year. 

AND, I get to read from my new book for the first time.  Insert several smiley face emoticons here.