Amy Zhang and your scraps of writing

  • My dear friend, Arlene Mandell, asked a question the other day that I’ve been pondering. What happens to our scraps of writing?  What can we do with our journal writing and our freewrites?

    I just read “The Secret Life of a Teenage Author” by Amy Zhang in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for Writers. Zhang’s honesty and confession led me to want to learn more about her.

    Her blog, “A Story of a Dreamer,” is inspiring and delightful. The October 10 post begins, “If You Give an Author Some Chocolate …to encourage her to revise, she’ll eat it. She’ll eat it slowly because there is an art to eating chocolate bars. She’ll try to revise while holding the chocolate bar in one hand, but realize that she can’t revise without proper music.

    If you let an author look for proper music, she’ll decide that her normal revising playlist simply isn’t good enough, and she will use up a good half an hour trying to develop a new one before finding the perfect one on 8track.”

    Your details might be different, but you have probably been in the same situation as Zhang. You sit down to write, but one thing leads to another. You eventually get back to writing, but it’s a circuitous route.

    Her September 15 post is called, Sh*t People Say to Writers.

    “Last Sunday, my local newspaper wrote a story about me…and my writing…and stuff. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that I used to be very, very secretive about writing. I never talked about it. So this week was WEIRD and awkward and generally hard for me, but on the bright side, I FINALLY get to write this post! I’ve always wanted to. ”

    Here’s where you come in, my writing friends,  . . . you know those free writes and short-shorts you have written and don’t know what to do with?  Turn them into short stories, or combine them, as Zhang did:

    “UNTITLED (we’ll just call it that for now–isn’t it easier?) actually began as two short stories–one about an abandoned imaginary friend, and one about a girl who tries to commit suicide. UNTITLED is their lovechild. I’m not sure where the ideas for the two original short stories came from, but I knew there was a connection between them and I knew I wanted to develop that connection into a full-length novel.”

    Your turn: Select excerpts of your writing, turn them into a short story. I’ll suggest where you can submit your writing in future posts

  • Are you the type of person who needs to clear your desk before getting down to the business of writing?  Me, too. I have to pay the bills, sort, organize, stack things on my desk.  Satisfied, but not ready to get to writing, I look around. Oh, I really need to do the laundry, clean the bathroom, clean the floor, check the refrigerator, look outside, get a drink of water. Sometimes it seems I’ll do everything except write.

    One year I participated in NaNoWriMo for the month of November. I loved it. This year I’m going to participate in Write Nonfiction in November (WNFIN), founded by Nina Amir. But I know I’ll only be successful if I plan ahead.

    Here are Twelve Steps to get to that writing we so want to do.

    1. For the next two weeks, get caught up. Get organized, file those pieces of paper that clutter your desk, your counter, your life.

    2. For the next two weeks, spend extra time crossing things off your actual or mental to-do list. Whatever you’ve been putting off doing. . . do it now.

    3. Plan ahead. What do you usually do in November that you can do now? Put all the Thanksgiving and holiday items in a box (tablecloth, napkins, decorations, plates, etc).

    4. Get a box ready for all the incoming stuff. . . mail and paperwork that can wait until December.

    5. Get another box for important, don’t-want-to-forget items. As things arrive, put them here. Then, once a week in November, take care of business. . . spend as little time as possible. Just get this stuff done so you can get back to writing.

    6. Plan snacks. Make a list of perishable snacks you want to have on hand, so you don’t have to think when the time comes to purchase the snacks. Just take your list to the store. Then get back to writing.

    7. Plan meals. Same as above. Keep meals really easy. Soup and sandwiches. Simple salads.

    8. Purchase whatever you can now for your food needs/wants/cravings. Yes, you will have cravings. Plan for them. Don’t agonize over this. Keep your mind deep in the Land of Writing. But you will need motivation to keep going, not a reason to sneak off for ice cream.  Fill freezer, pantry and cupboards with food stuff you know you will want.

    9. Tell your friends and family whatever you want. . . you have a contagious disease, you have laryngitis, you’re on deadline (you are) . . . but you aren’t accessible to babysit, carpool, lend an ear or a shoulder. This is Your Time to write.

    10. Have everything lined up that you will need . . . paper, pens, ink cartridges, list of writing prompts as daily warm-ups, ashtray (just kidding, unless you really do smoke), water, snacks.

    11.  Turn your phone off, do not look at Facebook until the end of the day, do not get distracted with tweeting, twittering, looking, sneaking, freaking, or any of the many things that will tempt you to distraction.

    12.  Set up your good luck charms, talismans, touchstones, candles, lucky rabbit’s foot . . . whatever it takes to remind you . . . for the month of November. . . You Are A Writer.

    Write that on a post-it note. Post it prominently. Look at it. Remember it. Believe it. You Are A Writer.

    What helps you to keep focused on your writing? What steps would you add to being a successful writer?

     

  • From an interview in The Sun with Natalie Goldberg, November 2003:

    A writing practice is simply picking up a pen — a fast-writing pen, preferably, since the mind is faster than the hand — and doing timed writing exercises. The idea is to keep your hand moving for, say, ten minutes, and don’t cross anything out, because that makes space for your inner editor to come in. You are free to write the worst junk in America. After all, when we get on the tennis courts, we don’t expect to be a champion the first day.

    Writing is an athletic activity; the more you practice, the better you get at it. The reason you keep your hand moving is because there’s often a conflict between the editor and the creator. The editor is always on our shoulder saying, “Oh, you shouldn’t write that. It’s not good.”

    When you keep the hand moving, it’s an opportunity for the creator to have a say. The goal is to allow the written word to connect with your original mind, to write down the first thought that you flash on, before the second and third thoughts come in. That’s where the energy is. That’s where the alive, fresh vision is, before society, which we’ve internalized, takes over and teaches us to be polite and censor ourselves. Another way of putting it is that you need to trust what intuitively comes through you, rather than what you think you should be writing.

    Writing practice teaches you what your obsessions are, what you keep coming back to. Your obsessions have energy, and you can use them. Writing offers you a chance to transform an obsession into a passion, which is a lot better than constantly focusing on the things that are eating you.

  • “My mother was dressed in her beautiful yellow summer robe, the tie cinched evenly into a bow at the exact center of her waist, but her auburn hair was sticking up in the back, an occasional occurrence that I always hated seeing, since in my mind it suggested a kind of incompetence. It was an unruly cowlick, nearly impossible to tame — I knew this, having an identical cowlick of my own — but I did not forgive its presence on my mother. It did not go with the rest of her looks: her deep blue eyes, her thin, sculptured nose, her high cheekbones, her white, white skin — all signs, I was certain, of some distant link to royalty.” — What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg

  • I love gorgeous writing. Melanie Thorne‘s novel, Hand Me Down is rich with gorgeous writing. People magazine calls it “Compelling.”  From San Jose Mercury News: “Hand Me Down, which recalls the gritty power of Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina, is fiction with the ring of truth.” Here’s a sample of what we’re talking about:

    “As I watch the night sketch ghostly shapes in the darkness, a draft sweeps through the room, into my cramped chest, and plants a seed of ice deep inside.”

    “She’s warm and she holds me longer than Mom had in the rain, and I stand there frozen, squeezing my eyes tight against her shoulder. She smells like clean stream water and a hint of lavender and I inhale that freshness in the first deep breath I’ve taken in weeks.”

    If you ever have a chance to hear Melanie speak, or take a class from her . . . go for it! You won’t regret it!

    I love her June 2013 blog post.   Sincere, honest, lovely writing.

    Want to recommend a writing teacher? Want to post writing that you love?  Share with us!