“on writing”
on writing finale :: why i write {and a grateful ode to swirlygirl}
The question of why I write is still one I ponder from time to time. This personal inquiry usually occurs after a visit to Barnes & Noble, where books are stacked and displayed as far as the eye can see with memoirs from politicians and celebrities who have far more star power than I to attract the attention of the New York Times Book Review. For all the talk of how the publishing world is struggling, there are still an awful lot of books being churned out, all of them laden with the hopes that they might be the next Eat, Pray, Love.
I wrote a book this year, and was fortunate to have it published by a bona fide publisher. I sent in my proposal, revised it at their suggestion, and was offered a contract. I then met a number of deadlines for a ten-chapter, twenty-contributor, one hundred plus-image collection of stories about creating a meaningful life. I wrote it, edited it, and entrusted it in the hands of my editor, and it now sits on the shelves of the very space that sometimes tempts me to throw in the towel and pursue another career – Barnes & Noble bookstore.
With its endless array of titles, not to mention stationery displays, magazine racks, and knick knack tables, I’m not exactly sure how my book will grab the attention of potential readers. Then again, I’m not exactly sure my customer base fits the profile of a typical Barnes & Noble customer (whatever that is.) All I know is that I wrote my book to the best of my ability, and now I have to let it go. I covered topics that I feel deeply passionate about, and shared the stories of twenty astounding women. I have put together a multi-faceted marketing plan, something I started working on months before the book was released.
In other words, I am doing the work of a writer, which, these days, isn’t merely about hibernating at a desk with endless cups of coffee. It is about bringing a vision into the world and then being willing to get behind it with whatever resources I have. It is about showing up, writing, and continuing to do what I can do to improve my writing. It is about undulating waves of internal work and external work, about sitting alone with my thoughts so I can figure out how to express them and then meandering all over the world to sell these wares to an audience. It is about having much to share, but being comfortable with the idea of not sharing everything at once.
I gave up trying to predict what might sell and/or catch people’s attention long ago. I’ve experienced surprises and disappointments along these lines as a greeting card designer, a mixed media artist, a blogger, and a writer. There is no way of knowing what will take off or what will flop, and the minute I try to figure that out ahead of time my work begins to suffer. I can only do my best, and speak my truth, and embrace the sense of mystery that is a part of every creative act. This is why I do what I do. This is why I write.
************
seems fitting that as christine’s last post goes up here in the Wishstudio (sniffle, sniff), i’m somewhere snug in her nest celebrating the momentous launch of her book. it’s with overwhelming gratitude and tremendous awe that i look back at where our paths first intersected years ago, and where we are now as friends and as individuals. so many beautiful shared experiences have come to pass, a true testament to leaning into dreams and wishing big and all those things we go on about here in this community. it is for real.
thank you, christine, for helping me to find my wings, for encouraging me at the very beginning, and for believing in the passion and crazy notions of an absolute stranger, and for being a steadfast anchor and guiding star along my way! my life would be completely different had you not answered that initial message. i’ll always be eternally grateful for your spacial place deep in the roots of Wishstudio and therefore in my own creative soul. thank you for all that you have contributed, all you have shared and given of yourself, and all you have taught me.
so this is not goodbye (not even close!), but a sparkly send off to the next exciting, unknown, passionate leg of the journey… who knows what will be? great things, for sure! i can’t wait to see what unfolds for you next.
with love and immeasurable gratitude… mindy
Read more >>on writing :: creating sparks…and an Inspire(d) giveaway!
I’ve lately been a wee bit bored with myself. At the time of writing this essay, I am in the midst of a blog hiatus, wanting to take a break in order to explore new ways of sharing my stories, inspirations, and ideas. I have fallen into a very comfortable space of writing slightly poetic, metaphor-laden stories of philosophical insights gleaned in everyday life, which isn’t a bad space to write in, but I’m itching for something a bit more challenging. Something more daring – maybe even sassy.
A piece of writing flowed out of me recently that was told in a voice I didn’t even know existed in me, at least not as a writer. One of the most consistent comments I get from people who meet me in person after having read my blog is that they had no idea I was so….goofy. And funny. And snarky. So for a while now I have pondered the idea of bringing in more Lucille Ball and loosening the tight hold I’ve had on my efforts to channel May Sarton. This feels like a daunting idea, and one that has the potential to flop more miserably than others. I’m not sure that recent piece of writing unleashed a new voice that was funny in a laugh out loud kind of way, but it was bolder and more direct than how I usually write. This helped get across the fact that the story I was telling was so outrageously dramatic that it was kind of funny. It was ridiculous how many things were going wrong during the chapter of my life I was sharing. I had no choice but to laugh at the circumstances when I was living them, and by exposing the details more matter-of-factly than I am accustomed to, I invited my readers to do the same. Everyone who has read this piece has loved it like nothing I’ve written before. Somewhere in there lies a magic formula.
I have since started experimenting with different voices – with being goofy, and snarky, and, in one story, even angry. I don’t consider them exercises in catharsis as much as creative experiments, where I am trying to figure out how my voices and stories interact with one another. Some combust, others do nothing, but the process of allowing different parts of myself to flow through my fingertips is a fun one indeed. With safety goggles, a starched lab coat, and plenty of passion, I’m sure to create sparks – stories that sing, and more boldly express the truth.
AND… in celebration of christine’s upcoming book launch for her brand new title, Desire to Inspire, she has invited us all to start celebrating by giving away one of her yummy hard bound journals! one lucky wishstudio winner will be chosen from the comments on this post and will be announced right here on monday, november 28th! good luck, and i hope to see you at the Launch Party in LA on december 15th! woot!
*** and the winner is… Heather!***
congrats! please email me your snail mail addy and the journal will be on its way.
on writing :: ode to professor fishwick
One of my favorite classes in college was a Humanities taught by a Professor named Marshall Fishwick. I took this course my senior year, and was slightly devastated over the impact it had on me. Had I taken it earlier – when I was a freshman or sophomore – I knew I would have immediately changed my major. My art degree didn’t go to waste, and I enjoyed the program, but Professor Fishwick’s course opened a doorway to my creative conscious that I never knew existed. Ever since I finished his class, I’ve lived with a slight pang of remorse at having lost the opportunity to work more closely with him.
One of the projects assigned to us in his class was to study the story of Twelve Angry Men. We read the story, read the play, and also saw the film – three different interpretations of the same narrative, which concerns “a jury made up of twelve men as they deliberate the guilt or innocence of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt.” (source: Wikipedia) It was a lesson in the power of perspective, and how viewing the same thing from different angles can open my eyes to new connections and ideas.
I have since used this method of study with my own work. One of the simplest ways I put this into action with my artwork is by looking at my creations in the mirror, which always reveals where something is (or isn’t) needed. With my writing, the technique is equally as straightforward – I read my words aloud. Just as I noticed and absorbed different details through the three variations of Twelve Angry Men, hearing my words spoken aloud helps me figure out where I need to tone something down, brighten something up, or maybe even toss something to the wind.
I might not have had the ability to turn back the clock and change my major, but just one course gave me tools of observation that were powerful enough to sustain me through all my years as a professional artist and writer. Through actual instruction as well as the example of his unrelenting curiosity about the world around him, Professor Fishwick taught me to dig deeper, flip things upside down, and explore every possible angle. Maybe with my next story I’ll try singing it. Professor Fishwick would love that.
on writing :: beginning
A “perfect” piece of writing does not arrive as a finished, tightly folded, neatly creased quilt. As I write, I do not pull the corners away from one another and spread it open in an orderly, tidy way. It arrives in pieces, as fragments. Threads are loose and buttons are missing. Entire spaces are empty. I try to stitch pieces together over here, only to realize they need to be sewn over there. I work for days before I find the swatch I was looking for, hidden beneath a pile of discarded bits.
When I begin, it is more about movement and less about style. It is the 25 stumbling, wobbly balance beam routines I practiced as a gymnast in high school so that I could repeat it in front of a panel of judges without any falls. It is about dropping a big mound of clay on a table and shaping it into an object of beauty over the course of days and weeks. It is about recognizing that sometimes the ideas I think will sing through my fingertips fall hollow and flat, and other times a spur of the moment whim will soar through the clouds. It is about not knowing the ultimate outcome, and about trying to not even care. The work, in the beginning, is to just start writing.
Don’t know how to begin? Start typing. Or writing. Or rubber stamp your words. However it looks, just get your hand moving. Then keep going, and going, and going.
Read more >>on writing :: the pilot
I recently sat down to write a story about an experience I was smack in the middle of. I was motivated by the idea that if I didn’t write about it as I was living it, the thoughts and emotions it was inspiring would become vague and blurry, and I would lose the opportunity to write a great story. With that goal in mind, I started pounding away at my keyboard, and before I knew an entire afternoon had passed and I’d filled fifteen pages. What began as a story about circumstances that were still unfolding evolved into a story about how the strange confluence of events that got the ball rolling years ago, a twist that caught me by complete surprise.
When I sit down to write, I usually do so with a specific topic in mind. What I don’t know is how (or if) I’ll be able to adequately and creatively express what I want to share about that topic. I have become quite comfortable with the notion that I’ll need to slog through some bad ideas before I find the real jewels, but I’m still figuring out how to give my stories as much leeway as possible to take me where they want to go. The day I decided it was time to unearth some of the emotions I was currently wrestling with, I somehow managed to get out of the way immediately, and the words poured out of me like never before.
In any area of life, the act of surrendering is usually what enables me to see the bigger picture and take a deep exhale. It is true in my relationships, when I’m submitting a book proposal, and when I am writing a story. In these moments – when I am able to let go of the reins – it is as if I am boarding an airplane bound for who knows where. Only after takeoff will I begin to get a sense for where I’m going, and only after having traversed some miles will I be able to land and see where I’ve ended up. My story is the pilot, and my work is to let it carry me.
on writing :: the blank page
No matter how much preparation, brainstorming, mind-mapping, and the like, a blank page can still be daunting. I mean, it’s a blank page – it’s empty – and that means there is work to do, maybe a lot of work. I’ve come to expect no less than five drafts of my essays and stories, but I’ve gone through as many as thirteen revisions. A blank page not only means there is much work ahead of me, it also means I have to be prepared to do some mediocre, even crappy, writing at the beginning in order to find my way to the good stuff. I fill those first blank pages with the basic shapes and general ideas. It is only in the later versions that the fine-tuning begins, after I’ve dumped and deleted countless words and fragments from my earliest drafts.
Here’s the other thing about a blank page: It means anything is possible. It means I might be taking my first steps towards that timeless space of the “zone”, where I feel the work of a higher power flowing through my fingertips. It means I might be opening the door to a story I wasn’t even aware was within me. Recently, I sat down with a blank page, started writing, and discovered an entirely new voice, one that served me in ways I’d never experienced. Without the blank page, that voice would have lay dormant. Now that I’ve found it, I want to let it run wild, to fill as many blank pages as it wants.
With a blank page, there is also the possibility that an idea I have for a piece of writing – an idea I’m convinced is going to be brilliant – will fall flat. There is the possibility I’ll never quite figure out how to make a certain story shine alongside the potential for a fuzzy, unfocused idea to unfold in perfect assemblage. But if I don’t pull up those blank pages and do at least a little bit of spilling, then only one thing is certain to happen: Nothing.
Blank pages aren’t for keeping clean, and they aren’t merely flat, empty surfaces for the placement of two-dimensional words. They are vessels, meant to safeguard and carry my stories forward as I give them shape and smooth out their corners. With a blank page, I have everything I need – an invitation to dive in, and see where a story wants to take me.
Read more >>on writing :: going further
Ten Tips & Resources to Deepen Your Writing Practice
- Write. Write more.
- Be willing to write badly ~ sometimes it takes some slogging to get to the good stuff. Trust me, I’ve written loads of gunk.
- www.pw.org ~ This is the Poets & Writers website, billed as “the nation’s largest non-profit organization serving creative writers.” They have interviews, articles, writing tools, and a database of small presses, literary magazines, and writing contests.
- Submit. Submit more. Worried about being rejected? Read this.
- Read Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton.
- Enroll in an online workshop with Maya Stein, or take one of Laurie Wagner’s Traveling Writers Workshops.
- Feeling stuck? Go for a walk.
- Spend ten minutes writing down any and every memory that comes into your mind, using just a few words for each description. Which one are you most drawn to? Which one are you resisting? Explore both.
- Scope out what is available in your community ~ university extension classes, community colleges, adult education courses, writing groups, etc.
- Write what you want to write, what you feel deeply compelled to write. Let go of trying to figure out what will sell, what could be published, how to get published, how to find an agent, what “the public” will like. Write from your heart, and write honestly.
on writing :: success enough
Success Enough
I have had an idea for a book in my head for months. Months as in years. Not years as in decades, but years as in more than one, and that, to me, means I need to either let the idea go or get a move on. After much hemming and hawing, I’ve decided on the latter, which brings me to my next dilemma: How on earth to begin this crazy endeavor?
The idea is to write a collection of stories about my family. Even writing that sentence makes me feel squeamish, because there are so many things I do not want this book to be. I don’t want it to be a tell-all; I don’t want to sensationalize what are very private experiences. I don’t want it to come across as a memoir; I don’t want it to be a “triumph over adversity”, linear, formulaic narrative. I want this book to somehow capture the not-so-minor miracle of a group of wounded, beautiful, compassionate, flawed individuals who somehow managed to be thrown into one big room, so to speak, where all kinds of havoc could have been wrought, but instead found a way to create a family. That is my challenge, and it feels like a doozy.
About a year ago I submitted a book proposal that I had been determined to put together during a monumentally busy summer. After sitting on it for months, the editor finally set up a phone call with me to discuss the proposal. Here’s a quick overview of the words and phrases she used to describe my proposal:
- Too personal
- No central focus
- Self-indulgent
- Confusing because it wasn’t chronological
- Why would someone care about these stories?
This wasn’t a proposal about a book of stories about my family, but it got me thinking about that idea because the editor kept referring to my proposal as a memoir, which was the last thing I had intended for that book. She explained that the book memoir needed to “have something that jumps from being a journal to being a narrative”, that there wasn’t “a sustained feeling that it was going somewhere BIG.”
So I thought about it. Did I want to write a memoir? Was that what I presented but didn’t know it? If I wrote a memoir, and it had to go somewhere BIG, then it could only be about the stories of my family (instead of stories related to journeys, which was my original intention), right? But if I had to write stories about my family that had “tension” and “drama” followed by “catharsis” and “redemption”, then wouldn’t I end up dragging my entire family out into the proverbial town square, subject to whatever judgments, criticisms, or admonitions readers would very likely feel compelled to hurl their way?
In other words, I didn’t hang up the phone with the editor feeling defeated or angry. It probably served me well that I had only gotten a few hours sleep the night before and was therefore too tired to get worked up about it, but I was deeply appreciative of her honesty nonetheless, and I took her words to heart. I think it is unfortunate there was such a great disconnect between what I presented and how she perceived it, but the greater gift in all of that was how it inspired me to think about the stories of my family ~ to really consider how it felt to imagine a memoir about my family on bookshelves around the world. Needless to say, it didn’t feel good, and in the end, the editor and I parted ways.
Which brings me back to the idea of writing stories about my family, the idea that still nags me even though I turned down a potential opportunity to present these stories to a major publisher. The problem with the idea of writing this book for a mass audience is that it creates a weird pressure to make the stories as palatable (or dramatic, or gruesome, or whatever) as possible for as many people as possible, and right there any hope for authenticity flies out the window. I can’t fathom how I would write this book for the “public”, can’t imagine how I might weave together an array of stories and experiences into one amazing quilt that expresses how brilliant and mind-bogglingly miraculous it is that this motley group of us ~ my family and I ~ sits down at our dinner table dozens of times a year. Because it is that very simple act of sharing a meal, with laughter and love and boundless joy in our hearts, that always ~ always ~ makes me believe the stories of our family are vital and important and needed in this big, weary world of ours.
So I’ve decided to write this book, and I’ve already started that process. And the reason I’ve been able to take that first step ~ the one that is always the hardest ~ is by narrowing my scope dramatically:
I am going to write a book of stories about my family, and I am writing this book for my family. When it is finished, I will have a dozen or so hardbound copies printed, and that is as far as it will go. I will give copies only to family members. If, after everyone has read these stories and we have had a big family discussion about it, we all come to the decision that the book deserves a wider audience, then we will decide that as a family. And if not, then future generations will have these stories, and maybe, just maybe, these stories will inspire them to continue the legacy at work right now, which is a legacy of love, and commitment, and the every so maddening, brilliant joy of what it means to be a family. That is reason enough to write this book; that is success enough.
on writing :: the day of my deadline
This is not a limitation. This is not a brick wall.
This is not a moment when I’ve run out of time and I’m desperate for more. This is not a situation that makes me believe what I’ve done isn’t enough.
This is not a loss, a defeat, or a gauntlet thrown down.
This is not me drifting along as the thundering roar of a waterfall grows louder; this is not me about to tumble beyond the edge of the earth.
This is not me standing tall – a towering tree, swaying in the wind – as the piercing sound of a chainsaw makes its way towards my trunk.
This is a doorway. This is an opening.
This is the moment I’m given permission to stop, take a deep breath, and decide: I am finished.
This is a letting go. This is a release.
This is me stepping forth into a wide open field, the reward after months of hard work. This is my chance to see what else there is to see, to do, to hear, to read, to eat, to drink, to learn.
This is me standing tall – a towering tree, swaying in the wind – letting my leaves fall where they may, allowing the birds to nest where they want.
This is my day to surrender. This is when I put the pen down.
This is the time to finish. This is the day of my deadline.
[This entry was inspired by the magnificent Maya Stein.]
Read more >>on writing :: exotic fare
Last month I wrote a piece for Gypsy Girl’s Guide about a literary journal called Granta. Well, really the piece was about Pakistan, but it all started with Granta, which is just one in a long list of off-the-beaten-path publications I’ve enjoyed ever since I decided to further my writing practice. I chose that particular volume of Granta ~ a UK-based “magazine of new writing” ~ because of its focus on Pakistan. Not knowing much of anything about that part of the world, I thought it would be an interesting way to educate myself about a country as mysterious to me as the disappearance of so many socks between the time they are deposited into our laundry basket and the moment I go to retrieve them from our dryer.
Purchasing journals like these has been part of my work as a writer. My husband and I often kill time at a Barnes & Noble close to one of the movie theaters we frequent, and many times I end up walking out with a publication I’ve never read before. I scour the magazine rack, see what catches my eye, and peruse the contents to see if it is worth bringing home. I’ve even done this at international airports, eager to take advantage of what might not be as readily available stateside. I have enjoyed stories, artwork, essays, and photography from Granta, Elephant, Fourth Genre, Sun Magazine, Zoetrope, American Short Fiction, Poets & Writers, and GUP International Photography Magazine (The India Issue.) Each one has rewarded me with new insights into other areas around the globe, as well as everything from writing styles to life experiences. My favorite stories and features have been about an adoptive mother, the aftermath of Katrina, Indian expats living in the United States, and one entitled Microworlds: The Incredible Shrinking Subject, or the art of miniaturized worlds. Each of these journals and the stories within their pages offering me tiny peeks into worlds I would not have otherwise been exposed to so intimately. They inspire me as a writer, artist, and student of the world, always eager to learn as much as I can about humanity, creativity, and everything in between.
Flipping through pages of Vanity Fair and Oprah are always a good way to enjoy some light hors d’oeuvres, literarily speaking, but when I really want to dive into a savory, multi-course meal with exotic ingredients and delectable sauces, I pick up something I’ve never read before, and savor every morsel.
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