“If we write about our pain, we heal gradually, instead of feeling powerless and confused, and we move to a position of wisdom and power.” — Writing As A Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo
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Twenty-six letters.
Neil Gaiman, excerpt from Brain Pickings, “Why We Read and What Books Do for the Human Experience“
When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world, and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You’re being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed. — Neil Gaiman
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/08/03/neil-gaiman-view-from-the-cheap-seats-reading/
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I’m sorry you are experiencing this.
This Write Spot Blog Post is inspired by The Writings of Tim Lawrence, The Adversity Within, Shining Light on Dark Places. Tim offers ideas in his blog post about helping someone who is grieving:
“I acknowledge your pain. I am here with you.”
“Grief is brutally painful. Grief does not only occur when someone dies. When relationships fall apart, you grieve. When opportunities are shattered, you grieve. When dreams die, you grieve. When illnesses wreck you, you grieve.
So I’m going to repeat a few words I’ve uttered countless times:
Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.
These words come from my dear friend Megan Devine, one of the only writers in the field of loss and trauma I endorse. These words are so poignant because they aim right at the pathetic platitudes our culture has come to embody on an increasingly hopeless level. Losing a child cannot be fixed. Being diagnosed with a debilitating illness cannot be fixed. Facing the betrayal of your closest confidante cannot be fixed.
They can only be carried.”
—Excerpt from Tim Lawrence, 10/19/15 blog post, “Everything Doesn’t Happen For A Reason.”
Note from Marlene: Some people think everything happens for a reason and this is a comforting thought for them. Others do not think everything happens for a reason. Grief can be difficult no matter what your beliefs are about why it happens.
Suggestion from Marlene: When someone is having a difficult time, instead of saying “Everything will be okay,” or “This, too, shall pass,” how about:
“I’m sorry you are experiencing this.“
If you are experiencing grief that you can’t shake, please seek professional help.
It might help to write about your situation. Please be careful not to re-traumatize while writing. For ideas on The Write Spot Blog about healing through writing, click on How to write without adding trauma and Pema Chodron’s Things falling apart is a kind of testing.
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Force yourself . . . and don’t stop . . .
“Force yourself to begin putting words on the page immediately, and don’t stop until the timer goes off, even if you have to write about the weather.” — Jan Ellison, inspired by Ellen SussmanI read this quote in the 12/4/15 Writer’s Digest guest blog post, “9 Practical Tricks for Writing Your First Novel,” written by Jan Ellison.
Since Ellen Sussman was scheduled to be a Writers Forum presenter and since I also believe this philosophy . . . my ears perked up. . . . Daydreaming about how “ears perked up” would look and could it really happen? I think so, in a Fred Flintstone kind of way, when he’s . . .
Oops, I’m taking the writing advice to put words on the page too literally. And the timer is ticking.
Brian Klems, host of The Writer’s Dig Blog where this post appears, gives this introduction to the article: “Whether you’re writing your first novel or are struggling with completing a second one (or more), sometimes you need some help focusing and figuring out how to reach your goal. Use these 9 tricks to help you go from first sentence all the way to completed novel.”
I found “9 Practical Tricks for Writing Your First Novel” to be helpful. You might also find inspiration and helpful ideas in this blog post by Jan Ellison.
Jan Ellison is the bestselling author of the debut novel, A Small Indiscretion (Random House 2015) which was both an Oprah Editor’s Pick and a San Francisco Chronicle Book Club Pick. Jan’s essays and stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Narrative Magazine and elsewhere, and she received an O. Henry Prize for her first short story to appear in print.
Ellen Sussman is the New York Times bestselling author of four novels, A Wedding in Provence, The Paradise Guest House, French Lessons, and On a Night Like This. She is the editor of two critically acclaimed anthologies, Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave and Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex. She teaches through Stanford Continuing Studies and in private classes.
Ellen Sussman will be the presenter at Writers Forum of Petaluma on Thursday, June 16, 2016 where she will talk about will talk about A Writer’s Life: Process and Craft.
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When we accumulated silent things within us . . .
“What is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak….it was born in the moments when we accumulated silent things within us.” ― Gaston BachelardI first learned of Gaston Bachelard from my writing teacher, Terry Ehret, with her response to my poem, “What I Learned.”
Terry wrote on my paper, “Here’s a quote from Gaston Bachelard (French philosopher) that your poem makes me think of.”
I’m no poet, but it’s been fun to dabble. Click on Prompt #221, to read “What I Learned.” (scroll down)
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“I really don’t believe in a wasted draft.”
Novelist Téa Obreht:“I don’t believe in a wasted draft . . . Even work you consider to be your worst is good for something. Every effort teaches you about your desires and tendencies, or guides you toward some new possibility . . . every line you wrote . . . has value.”
—Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife, interviewed by Gabriel Packard, “Writers On Writing,” The Writer magazine, May 2016
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Writers are incorrigible thieves. — Rachael Herron
The excerpt below is from the Conversation Guide at the back of The Ones Who Matter Most.
Question: What might surprise a reader of The Ones Who Matter Most?
Author Rachael Herron answers:
Writing the scene in which Abby is scrabbling through the rolltop desk’s drawers was a special treat. Writers are incorrigible thieves, stealing bits and pieces of their lives to provide sparkle and heft. We can’t help populating our books with parts of ourselves. I share Abby’s optimistic naiveté as much as I do Fern’s ruthless practicality.
But beyond the stolen personality pieces, we steal actual objects.
That’s my desk in Scott’s office. As Abby explores the many small drawers, Abby wonders why they aren’t being made useful. They could hold hair bands and gum and those wonderful yellow Paper Mate pencils. In my office, those drawers do hold those things. Found in an antiques store in a defunct chocolate factory in Oakland, my desk waited for me to stumble over it. As my eye fell on it, a solo spotlight hit its polished oak highlights and a heavenly choir sang one high, perfect note. I hadn’t been looking for a rolltop desk, especially not one as unwieldy as a drunk cow. It was in my office the next day. -
The First Poem — Lucille Clifton
“Poetry began when somebody walked off a savannah or out of a cave and looked up at the sky with wonder and said, ‘Ah-h-h!’ That was the first poem.” — Lucille Clifton
Photo by Colby Drake
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The why must never be obvious.
“Ah, but my dear sir, the why must never be obvious. That is the whole point.”
― Agatha Christie, Five Little Pigs
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A fresh start.
The following excerpt is from Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach.
New Year’s Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery.
Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change. What are your hopes for the future as you reflect on the years that have passed? Gradually, as you become curator of your own contentment, you will learn to embrace the gentle yearnings of your heart. But this year instead of resolutions, write down your most private aspirations. Those longings you have kept tucked away until the time seems right. Trust that now is the time. . .
Take a leap of faith and begin this wondrous new year by believing. Believe in yourself. And believe that there is a loving Source —a Sower of Dreams—just waiting to be asked to help you make your dreams come true.
