Why do you write?

  • Why do you write?

    “Life often has a way of making people feel small and unimportant. But if you find a way to express yourself through writing, to put your ideas and stories on paper, you’ll feel more consequential. No one should pass through time without writing their thoughts and experiences down for others to learn from. Even if only one person, a family member, reads something you wrote long after you’re gone, you live on. So writing gives you power. Writing gives you immortality.” — Antwone Fisher, Screenwriter and author

    Note from Marlene:

    I write to get out of my head and onto paper. Writing, with a pen or pencil, is an extension of my arm. When I picture my arm, it’s elongated by the pen, which in my mind, is always there. Computer typing — same thing — the keyboard is an extension of me. Writing is as natural and as much a part of me as breathing. I would rather write than do almost anything else. I write because I get to see a side of myself that isn’t always present. My daily concerns revolve around household chores, gardening, helping my husband run his consulting business and whatever else needs to be done. My efficient me bustles about cleaning and scrubbing and waiting until I have a moment or two to write. And those moments are glorious. Because I’m writing for me. Not for any monetary gain. Not for notoriety. I don’t need to be noticed to enjoy writing.

    Hand & PenI write because I not only can, I have to.

    Why do you write?

    Marlene C

    , , , ,

  • A man opens his mail box and finds. . . Prompt #96

    Today’s writing prompt is inspired from the September 2014 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine.

    “A man opens his mailbox to find an envelope containing a set of instructions.”

    Set your time and write for 20 minutes.  Set it aside for twenty minutes. Then read. Tweak, make a few changes, but not too many. The energy from that first and fast writing is usually spot-on.

    Write a short story of 750 words or fewer based on this prompt and enter Writer’s Digest Contest #60.

    Send your story using the online form at writersdigest.com/your-story-competition or send via email to yourstorycontest@fmedia.com (entries must be pasted directly into the body of the email; attachments will not be opened).

    DEADLINE: August 25, 2014

    IMG_1453

    Marlene C

    , , , , , , ,

  • What do these writers have in common?

    Bella Andre, David Corbett and Jordan Rosenfeld have all been Writers Forum of Petaluma presenters. Scroll down for details.

    The September 2014 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine is filled with practical, helpful and inspirational articles. Bella Andre is on the cover. Her story, “Romancing Big Publishers With E-book Success” might encourage you to go the indie route for publishing or try traditional. She also talks about why she uses a pen name.

    Do you wonder about “pacing and tension?” Jessica Page Morrell has written an article that explains it in easy-to-understand format.

    Donald Maass writes about “Building Microtension Into Every Scene” and makes it seem like an easy thing to do.

    check mark.1  Writer’s Digest Contest #60 is one you can enter. “Write a short story of 750 words or fewer based on the prompt: A man opens his mailbox to find an envelope containing a set of instructions.” “You can be funny, poignant, witty, etc.; It is, after all, your story.”

    To enter: Send your story using the online form at writersdigest.com/your-story-competition or via email to yourstorycontest@fmedia.com (entries must be pasted directly into the body of the email; attachments will not be opened).

    DEADLINE: August 25, 2014

    Bella.Writers Digest 8.14Note from Marlene:  I don’t receive any money from endorsing Writer’s Digest Magazine.  I just enjoy articles that are well-written, informative and inspiring for writers and this particular issue is jam-packed with good stuff.

    Bella Andre has been a Writers Forum presenter twice. Other contributors in this issue who have also been Writers Forum presenters:  Jordan Rosenfeld (twice), and David Corbett.  Lots of talent in these pages, as well as at Writers Forum.

    And be sure to check out the last page of Writer’s Digest, “Reject A Hit.”  Amy Maricinick, a Petaluma’s Jumpstart Sonoma county writers cleverly spoofed a rejection letter for Great Expectations in the March/April 2013.  Your name can be here, too.  Write your Reject a Hit spoof.

    Marlene C

    , , , ,

  • Guest Blogger Karin Gillespie: 5 Pieces of Advice That Changed the Way I Write

    Guest Blogger Karin Gillespie writes:

    “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

    Long ago, when I first read the statement above, I imagined an encounter with a big-bellied, toga-wearing monk who would whisper the secrets of the universe into my ear.

    Over the years I’ve learned you don’t necessarily need a monk to show you the way. If you’re open to it, wisdom comes in many guises, such as advice from a friend, a passage in a book, an overheard conversation or even a sudden insight.

    What follows are the valuable writing gifts I have received over the years. Depending on where you are in this journey, they may or may not resonate with you, but each one was precious to me and changed my way of thinking about my craft.

    Morning Pages        

    Since I was a little girl I always dreamed of being a writer but it wasn’t until I started doing daily morning pages that I gained the courage to face the blank page.  And what are morning pages?

    Simply, first thing when you wake up in the morning, you write longhand in a notebook for twenty minutes without stopping. It’s best if you practice morning pages for two or three months and you shouldn’t read what you’ve written until much later.  The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron popularized morning pages but they’ve been around for decades.

    Morning pages train your subconscious to write. It coaxes out the muse, and, trust me, the practice is utterly magical. Morning pages work best with new writers or writers who have abandoned the craft for a while.

    Save the Cat!

    Storytelling is a skill separate from writing beautiful sentences and Blake Snyder, author of “Save the Cat Strikes Back!” explains plotting in the most eloquent and accessible way possible.

    After reading his book, I knew I would never again plot myself into a corner or abandon a project because of structural problems.  Although his work is written in a breezy style, there’s something very elemental and old-world about Snyder’s approach.

    He died a few years ago, and even though he was a successful screenwriter, I think his insightful how-to books were his true legacy. I recommend all of his books but if you were only to buy one, I’d get “Save the Cat Strikes Back.” In addition to giving structural advice, he shares the very personal story of how he changed his writing life around. An inspiring man who will be missed.

    Pomodoro Technique

    The Pomodoro Techinque is simple: Basically you write for twenty-five minutes, no interruptions, and then take a five minute break.

    Repeat as many times as necessary. This method has increased my focus ten-fold. I no longer worry about being distracted by the Internet or e-mail, because during each twenty-five minute period, you trick the brain to attend only to the writing.

    Rachel Aaron’s Amazing Productivity Method

    Recently I decided I wanted to write first drafts faster, and I ran across Rachel Aaron’s advice on that very topic. Using her method, I easily upped my daily word count from 2,000 words a day to 3,000. (Accomplished in a four-hour time period with brief breaks) The secret?

    Aaron suggests writing a brief summary of what you’re going to write each day before plunging in.  Her advice should be worth a $1,000 it helped me so much. But I only spent $.99 on her book .

    Trusting Your Subconscious Mind

    Once during one of the best performances of his life, Laurence Olivier came off the stage and was approached by a reporter who was bowled over by his mastery. Olivier acknowledged he’d done well, but he also said, “I don’t know if I can ever repeat it, because it did not come from me.”

    The more I write, the more I understand that the best writing is achieved when I leave my ego outside the writing room, and surrender to my subconscious mind.

    Karen GillespieIf I show up every day, the muse will arrive, and if I’m humble and understand that I’m only a conduit or co-creator at best, then good writing will almost always result. When I’m co-creating, the supply of ideas are endless, and I never get stale. Maybe this gift was the most important one of all.

    Karin Gillespie is the author of five novels; her nonfiction work has appeared in the NY Times, Washington Post and The Writer magazine. Click here to visit Karen’s blog about writing and creativity insights.

    Marlene C

    , , ,

  • It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. Khalil Gibran

    You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. —Khalil Gibran

    Note from Marlene:  It seems to me this is what writers do . . . we give of ourselves every time we share our writing. We put ourselves out there . . . our emotions, our vulnerability, and our hope that our writing is understood. Kudos, Writers, for being willing to put yourselves out there. . . what would we do without you and your stories?

    Love Letters in the Sand. Gibran

    Marlene C

  • What do you do if . . . Prompt #95

    You are in a bookstore in another city:

    ~ You see something you can’t live without, but you don’t have enough money to pay for it. What do you do?

    ~ You see a neighbor, alone, weeping. What do you do?

    ~ You see an acquaintance shoplift. What do you do?

    ~ You see two married acquaintances, without their spouses, heads and bodies close together, in a suggestive position. What do you do?

    ~ You are a young child and smile up at the grown-up whose hand you are holding but you don’t recognize the grown-up. What do you do?

    Pick one and write for 20 minutes.

    Note from Marlene:  You can tweak prompts however you want. For example, with this prompt, the setting could be a deserted walkway near water, in a park, at a crowded Saturday market. You choose the setting and Just Write!

    SF NightSaturday Market Day. MarchKent, silouette

    Photo by Sasha Oaks                  Photo by Jim C. March             Photo by Kent Sorensen

    Marlene C

    , , , , , ,

  • Lower Your Expectations and Just Write

    My dear friend, Karen Batchelor, was an inspiring and wonderful writing teacher. She passed away too soon, December 2013. I was looking through material to post here and came across this gem by Karen. I hope you enjoy it and hope it inspires you to Just Write.

    Lower Your Expectations, by Karen Batchelor

    When 2012 arrived, I dismissed the thought of making any new year’s resolutions. After all, those aspirations often died just days or hours after their birth. However, on January 1, a tiny little idea began to germinate. A few minutes later when the concept was fully formed, I started in on my new project.

     My goal: Write a minimum of five minutes a day.

     I can hear some of you chuckling. What kind of a goal is that?

    In fact for some time, neither grandiose nor modest intentions have worked. Although I could create a lot of excuses, I really didn’t create any pages of great or even mediocre literature. I just couldn’t make this determination stick. When puzzling over this phenomenon, I recalled a story told by a friend and former colleague. She confided that she made a bargain with herself. If she got up early and went to the gym, she wouldn’t have to do anything once she got there. She didn’t have to jog on the treadmill, lift weights, swim laps, stretch or bend into a yoga position. The goal was simply to arrive. Once there, the idea of working out wasn’t so daunting.

    Then I remembered my walking routine. About twenty-five years ago, I trained myself into the habit of taking a brisk walk every day—minimum thirty minutes. I only stopped walking when I had cancer surgery, but after some recovery time, I worked my way back into this habit (up to forty minutes daily) starting with just five minutes. After a week or two, I increased the time to ten minutes. Fifteen. And so forth.

    While contemplating all of this, I realized that my intentions had been good and honest—I really did want to write every day—but I had been looking for a big, elusive, intimidating block of time. For some reason, the writing task felt so overwhelming that I often postponed that trip upstairs to the computer, or even avoided it. I needed something more attainable, something to help me form a new habit. Maybe I needed to lower my expectations.

    Thus my new goal was born. And it’s working.

    Why? I can only guess, but this is what I think. The task is to get into the habit of writing regularly. In order to form a new habit, I have heard, is to perform it twenty times regularly. If I am overwhelmed by the task, I will probably be discouraged and give up.

    So instead of vowing to write 1,000 words a day (Jack London) or five hours a day (advice from any number of respected authors), what about five minutes a day? Anybody can write five minutes a day—my three-year-old grandson probably could. Lowering the bar relieves some kind of fear of failure. And of course, similar to my friend’s experience at the gym, once I’m there, sitting at the computer, I usually write a lot more than five minutes.

    It’s early February and I have kept my commitment to write a meager five minutes a day. Usually that five-minute promise grows to ten, fifteen, thirty minutes or more. But even when I put in just that tiny five minutes, I write something, and I feel just fine because I’m writing every day, forming a good habit and getting practice.

    Progress report? I have started and finished a short-short story, written this article, started another essay, revised a short story to submit and outlined a novel. The total output is only about ten pages.

    You’re laughing again. Ten pages? What’s that? It’s ten pages more than I produced in all of October, November and December combined. The dread is gone and I make that trip upstairs to the computer every morning instead of waiting until the day is nearly gone. And occasionally now, I make that trip upstairs more than once a day.

    For me, it has come to this: By lowering expectations, I have raised my level of success. Even though this concept might not work for everybody, it probably won’t hurt to try.

    Note from Marlene:  Thanks, Karen. Your idea is working for me!  I have managed to write a blog post almost every day, for eleven months and I hope to keep on writing. Five minutes at a time!

    Batchelor.OceanKaren Batchelor spent 35 years teaching English and ESL. She has published several poems, essays, short stories, and professional articles. She has co-authored eight textbooks and a novel, Murder at Ocean View College. Karen has edited several anthologies for Redwood Writers, where her short stories continue to delight readers.

    Karen, an esteemed Past President of Redwood Writers branch of California, was the recipient of the 2009 winner of the Jack London Award for service to the California Writers Club.

    Click here to read one of Karen’s short stories.

    Marlene C

    , ,

  • Something you are wearing right now. Prompt #94

    Write about an article of clothing, shoes, or jewelry. . . something you are wearing right now.

     

    Breana, MirrorPhoto by Breana Marie

    Marlene C

    , , , , , ,

  • Unsolicited submissions = fossil fuel for Barrelhouse

    “Thanks for thinking of us as a home for your work! Unsolicited submissions are the fossil fuel that keeps the Barrelhouse moped puttering along on the side of the literary highway.” — Barrelhouse

    BarrelHouse:

    •  an independent non-profit literary organization.
    •  bridges the gap between serious art and pop culture.
    •  a biannual print journal featuring fiction, poetry, interviews, and essays about music, art, and the    detritus of popular culture.
    •  a web site that regularly posts new short fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and random stuff.
    •  produced by writers for readers who are looking for quality writing with an edge and a sense of humor.
    •   offers 8-week online workshops where writers get the straight dope on their work.
    •  wants to be your weird Internet friend. You can also follow Barrelhouse on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest jibber jabber from Barrelhouse, our contributors, and the indie lit scene.

    BarrelHouse accepts submissions through a Submittable.com account only. No previously published work; simultaneous submissions are OK. Submit one piece of fiction or nonfiction at a time, or up to five poems in a single document. Essays must be pop-culture related.

    Barrelhouse

     

    Marlene C

    , ,

  • Guest Blogger Maria Murnane reveals her secret to getting past the sticky parts.

    I recently read a blog post by Maria Murnane at She Writes and asked Maria if I could share it with you. She graciously said yes.

    Maria writes:

    I’m currently working on my seventh novel, and one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned about the writing process is when to hit pause on a particular scene/sentence/description and move on. If you’re a perfectionist or Type-A personality, that can be hard to do, but it’s extremely important. Trust me.

    I use all caps to keep me focused on progressing the story.

    When I was writing my first novel, if I wasn’t sure where to take the story next, I would spend countless hours tweaking, editing, refining, and tinkering the words I already had written. Where did that get me? Nowhere! The problem with spending too much time on a particular area of the book is that you aren’t moving the story forward, and if you don’t move the story forward, you will never finish the book. I’m convinced this is why it takes some people 10 years to complete the first draft of a novel. They work so hard making every sentence perfect that it takes forever to get to the finish line.

    A good trick I’ve learned is to use the ALL CAPS function. My current manuscript is filled with notes in ALL CAPS such as:

    • WRITE SOMETHING FUNNY HERE
    • FLESH OUT THE DESCRIPTION OF THIS RESTAURANT
    • ADD IN SOMETHING HERE ABOUT WHY THEY GOT DIVORCED
    • FIX THIS- SOUNDS WEIRD
    • MAKE THIS DESCRIPTION BETTER
    • DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?

    It would be easy to spend days, if not weeks working on the above issues, but at the end of the day, they are details that aren’t critical to the story. If I want to finish the novel, my focus has to be on progressing the story. 

    Once you finish the first draft, then it’s time to go back and fix all the problem areas you’ve put in ALL CAPS along the way. That’s where the fun begins, because you know you’re in the home stretch!

    Maria Murnane six book coversBooks by Maria Murnane

     Note from Marlene: I was so inspired by Maria’s wisdom and fun attitude that I signed up to receive her blog posts in my email inbox. Click here to read some of Maria’s inspiring posts. You can also sign up to receive The Write Spot Blog posts in your email inbox (scroll down, look on the right side for the sign-up box).

    Maria Murnane.2Maria Murnane is the best-selling author of the romantic comedies Perfect on Paper, It’s a Waverly Life, Honey on Your Mind, Chocolate for Two, and Cassidy Lane. She also provides consulting services on book publishing and marketing. Click here to learn more about Maria and her consulting services. 

    Katwalk, Maria’s latest book, will be released August 12th.

    To order a copy of any of Maria’s books, please click here.

    This blog post originally appeared on CreateSpace.com. Reprinted with permission. © 2014 CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.

    Marlene C

    , ,