 A few weeks ago, Laker phenom, Kobe Bryant, announced his retirement from basketball. While I was not a huge fan of the sport or even the player, I am now. Kobe wrote a lovely tribute to his passion in a goodbye poem published on a sports website. (Of course, he's not the first athlete to put pen to paper. Check out this book.)
I shared this poem with my writing students as they viewed highlights of his career. They were equally impressed with the man's words. Then we wrote our own goodbyes to past-times, passions, or activities in our world that we will soon give up. For them: middle school, friendships, sports, hobbies, habits. A girl wrote goodbye to horse tournaments, another said so long to a K-pop musician, a quiet boy wrote a moving tribute to cross country. This week, I continue a month of writing exercises. Today's is inspired by a professional athlete. Here's mine: Dear Television, it's time we part ways. Time for a long commercial break. You offer me nothing now. Once, we cried together over MASH, the goodbye. We laughed with SNL. We wondered with the Wonder Years. Sitting with my dad and Marlin Perkins Sunday nights, we marveled at animals in the Wild Kingdom. Now my time is better spent elsewhere. Not with you. So goodbye, television. Thanks for the memories. What will you say goodbye to? Share yours below. Write on!
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 “There is freedom in being a writer and writing. It is fulfilling your function. I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within As I wind down my energy from the amped up NaNoWriMo writing sprints of November, I return to my usual routines. One of which includes my own writing exercises courtesy Natalie Goldberg's book, "Writing Down the Bones." One of my favorite exercises in that book is one that has you focus on who you are not. I will be using this prompt with my new batch of creative writing students this week, so I thought I'd share the exercise with you as well. Grab your writing notebook and favorite pen. Goldberg says the heart speaks best through a flowing pen rather than a computer. I often write on the computer because it's easier. Plus, I'm a messy writer. However, when it comes to writing exercises, I write freehand in my journal. You have your notebook and pen. Now find a quiet space and set a timer for at least ten to twenty minutes. Get ready, set, write. Who are you not? Here's my unedited flow of words: I'm not the kind of person to own a snake, ride a unicycle, be an astronaut when she grows up, order a burrito with extra hot sauce, dance naked in the street after midnight like my neighbor in college, wear orange tights, get a full sleeve tattoo (or any tattoo?), spank my child, not care what people think of me. I'm not the the person who complains all the time, laughs when someone is hurt, or orders a different ice cream flavor every time she visits the ice cream shop. I am not loud or very quiet. I am not the smartest or dumbest person in the room. I am not sophisticated nor pedestrian. I am not obscene or rude. I am not perfect or happy not being perfect. I am not the person you sit next to on the plane who talks nonstops or doesn't give you elbow room. I am not likely to hurt myself, drive recklessly, or dive off a cliff. I am not likely to scale a building or walk a tightrope higher than one-foot off the ground, sky-dive, or learn to fly a plane. Who I am not says as much about me as who I am. Who are you not? Share with us. Write on!  When I joined the NaNoWriMo crowd 23 days ago, I had little hope of achieving the 50,000-word count by the end of the month. As of today, I've written 36,099 words. No rounding; every word counts.
That's why I'm not going to spend too much time writing my blog today. I need to get back to my novel. First, three things I've learned about goal-setting. 1. Setting a daily word-count goal gives you a visual target. Your inner writing-ego won't let you leave the project if you don't achieve that number. 2. Setting a daily word-count goal pushes your creativity into a corner that you must escape from. This requires more creativity. If you think the chapter's finished, but it's under your word-goal, how about beefing up that description of your protag's jacket or the sound of the rain or make it rain. 3. Setting a daily word-count goal exercises your writing muscles. It's like taking up running. At first, your goal is to get around the block. After a few days, you up to two blocks. Before you know it, you're jogging across town and back. Set reasonable goals then push yourself a little more each day. (Warning: don't set a goal so high that writing becomes a chore. Keep it fun.) Want more inspiration? Try these articles from the experts at NaNoWriMo: Tackling the saggy middle. Putting the fun into your story. If you're writing, good luck. Have fun. You can do this! Write on!  The turn of weather is a great time to take your writing through a poetic carwash. Fall is my absolute favorite season, and I love the poetry inspired by the leaves' changing colors, the biting cold that whips through my hair, and the dulling sun in the late afternoon sky.
Take a moment to visit these sites, read some verse, and give your writing a seasonal lift. Here are my go-to sites and a few seasonal writings that offer dimensional imagery and language to my writing. 1. The Poetry Foundation Grace Paley's Autumn. 2. Academy of American Poets Noah Falck's from "You are in Nearly Every Future" 3. The Poem Hunter John Keats' Ode to Autumn (I recommend you mute the computer-generated narration) 4. Poetry.about.com Elizabeth Barrett Browning's The Autumn If you are participating in NaNoWriMo and need an infusion of color and life or if you simply wish to take in the beauty of this season, discover again the color of poetry and let it drench your prose with folly. Share your whimsy here. Do you have a favorite verse or site you like? I'd love to know. Write on!  This is my first official year joining the throngs of crazies who attempt to write 50,000 words in November. Are you one of us? First, some history... Despite its Viking Helmet which suggests the phenomena began in Sweden or Denmark, NaNoWriMo started in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1999. The lyrical title stands for National Novel Writing Month. The fist one took place in July begun by founder Chris Baty. Starting in 2000, the event moved to the chilly hibernating month of November. Now there's a whole team of people who run the website and support coffee-guzzling authors. Writers are challenged to pump out 50,000 words in thirty days. That's about 1,667 words per day. There's even a challenge for young writers. Yesterday, November 1, I managed 2100 words. That was a Sunday with that extra hour of sleep, no work, and no kids running around asking for anything. We'll see what I manage during the work week. Join in the maniacal fun, and be my buddy! Cheer me on, and let me cheer you on. I look forward to connecting with you at NaNoWriMo. If you need help getting started, drop me a note below. Write on!  Every writer experiences a block on occasion, a point in your writing where you just aren't sure where to go next. I've written before about how to unblock a creative stall. Sometimes it's about the plot, but sometimes it's about the character.
Unstick your writing with a little drawing. If you've distanced yourself from your character, you might need time to see her more clearly. Sketching characters, making maps of settings, and practicing dialogue out loud are not new tricks for writers. You simply need to find the one that works best for you. Try it. Grab a sketchpad or sheet of paper, pencil or pen, and sketch your character. Try to capture her root emotions, her angst, her concern, her hopes, fears, and dreams. Draw her high school graduation picture or her face in the mirror when she wakes up. Create a series of portraits. Once you've got her, ask a friend or stranger to tell you what they see. What emotions does the image evoke? If they see things you didn't intend, consider why they're visible in what you drew. If you meant her to appear scared, but the stranger sees anger, maybe that's her root emotion. Work from there. Why might she be angry? Drawing your character brings her to life. Set her next to you as you write and see what else she has to say about her journey through your story. Share your drawings and thoughts with us. Write on!  Five years ago, the middle school where I teach fell behind. We were placed in the nation's Program Improvement status.
We had four years to get out, each year the state would raise our goal by ten percent. Imagine struggling in a marathon because you twisted your ankle. All your competitors' ankles are fine. They quickly get around corners, grab water and power snacks. You limp along, too late for a snack, too uncoordinated to grab the water. In addition, your competitors have had personal trainers, healthy diets, secure home environments. You have not. You struggle. They don't. You get left behind. Now imagine that every lap you run is ten feet longer than the one before. Come on, you can do it. No, you can't. Problem is, all runners aren't alike. Neither are all kids. That's why the Common Core is killing creativity in our children. I teach Creative Writing. It's my one elective. It's the one point in the day where all of my students in the room move at their own pace. There are no benchmarks. There are no tests. There is plenty of instruction and modeling by their teacher, but when it's time to write, it's all them. They have choice and voice in what they say, how they say it, how far they take it. I accept all their work; they all pass. This class is about taking the teacher's passion and nurturing it in our students. Every student in school takes this Fifth Period Elective. It's Pass/Fail. Nary a one fails. Nearly every kid says Fifth Period is their favorite class. They learn chess, juggling, golf, coding, knitting, crafts, animal care, creative writing, and more. Common Core is killing creativity, but we are bringing it back, one period at a time. If you have a student in your house, find out what they're writing in class. Then ask them what they'd really like to write about. If they're not journaling their own ideas, buy your child a journal (a simple composition book will do), and sit together at the end of each day and write. Use Natalie Goldberg's rules of writing to get you started. Creativity is not common; it needs to be nurtured. Nurture your child's creativity before it dries to the core.  Every so often, I write this post. Why? I am constantly discovering great new books and sites that support, motivate, and improve my writing.
I want to share them with you. Here are four of my current favorites: 1. The best punctuation book, period by June Casagrande. Every writer needs a great little book at their side where they can double check where to place a comma, capitalize a noun, understand how to use hyphens and en dashes. My copy editor recommended this book to me, and I am in love with it. It's easy to use, is written simply, and is less than 250 pages. 2. Writers Helping Writers with Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. These ladies are fabulous, and their website is filled with amazing resources for your writing. Soon, they will merge into a new site with incredible support for using Scrivener along with their books on Negative and Positive Traits. I've written previously about how I use these books. 3. The Enneagram Test. If you are building characters, this is a great place to help understand and craft their personalities. You might first take the online test to explore your own personality. Then try it as your protagonist and antagonist. The test takes less than three minutes. The results point you toward any of nine specific personality types (similar to Jung). It's a quick, fun, and scientific way to hone in on your characters' true selves. (Couple the results with Writers Helping Writers, and you have a fully developed character.) 4. Goodreads. A great writer is constantly reading other great writing. We learn from each other. If you want to write authentic and appealing middle grade fantasy, you need to read some. Read those getting good reviews and those getting panned. It's important to see what works and what doesn't. Goodreads publishes numerous lists where you can sift through books of all genres and authors. This is my go-to for locating the best (and worst) books because reviews are written by real readers. What are your current favorite writing resources? Share them in the comments below. Write on!  My copy editor noticed something about my stories: I like lists.
There's the list a character keeps in her phone on the Do's and Don't's of Shoplifting. There's the list a grandmother keeps on her fridge for what not to feed the dog. When my editor pointed out my habit, at first I thought: Oops, better stop that. Then I reconsidered. This could be a "thing" in my stories. Every writer needs some kind of trademark, why not lists? Lists are practical, easy to read, and they can offer clues to the character or plot. I also post numerous blogs here that are lists. I like lists. In honor of their awesomeness, let me offer three ideas for using lists in your story. 1. Grocery lists. If I don't write down what I need, I will leave the store with things I'm hungry for now. When I get home, I will have to eat chocolate and mini peppers for dinner. This is not good. Lists help us remember the important stuff. What if your character had to go to the grocery store and forgot something on his list? He'd have to go back. Who might he run into? 2. Birthday lists. Thanks to Google, all my friends' birthdays show up on my calendar. A calendar is a great place for lists because it's all organized by a need to know. How might your character use a calendar in your story? 3. To Do lists. I don't know about you, but my "to do" lists are a mish-mash of so many things. "Make dentist appt; research Vitamin D; send my son a fan... I love "to do" lists because they have no category. It is merely a collection of all the random things that come to mind that must be done. What if your character found someone else's "To Do" list? What might be on it? These are a few ideas for using lists in your writing. How do you employ a list in your stories? Please share your ideas with us. Write on!  What happens when you have nothing to say but you've committed yourself to saying something?
That's when you write crap. That's when you need to write like you're at the edge of a cliff, like you're scared, like you're about to die, like you don't know what's going to happen next. This isn't about writer's block. This isn't even about finding your muse. This is about unleashing your passion, firing up your writing, releasing that sludge of unimaginable creative juice clogging your critical writer's mind. However you do it, whatever you call it, every artist--writer, poet, painter, sculptor, etc.--needs to find a way to stick his hand down his throat and withdraw that hairy, slimy, gritty clog of filth that's blocking the juice of his work. Try it. Close your eyes. Shut out the world. Hide inside a closet. Drive to a remote patch of dirt far from lights, sounds, people, animals. Crawl inside a cave. Whatever you can manage. Get there. Go there. Now. Are you there? Good. Did you bring a journal? No. No. No. Where we're going, we don't need any journals. Sit inside your proverbial cave, melt within the darkness, shut out the world. What do you most fear? See it. Smell it. Go further. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Go deeper. Get pissed. Fight for your life. Fight for your family. Fight for what you love. Curse, yell, scream, punch, spit. Breathe. Keep your eyes closed. Unmelt. Find a light inside. Who is it? What is it? Feel its warmth. Offer your gratitude. Sense a peace. Let this love, warmth, and calm wrap around you. Feel yourself as whole. Breathe. Open your eyes. Find your way back to your writing place. Tell your story to you. It may be a few sentences, a few paragraphs, a page or more. It may be a poem, scraps of sentences and words, or an essay. Structure and form are unimportant. This is for your eyes only. Now go back to your project. Who wants this energy? Who needs it? Let your experience breathe new life into your writing. Don't judge. Don't expect. Let it have its own path. Make this part of your writing ritual. Share your journey. Write on! |
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