Reading and Writing and...

I come from a long line of storytellers.  This probably drew me to writing, the natural progression from orating to authorship.  Most of the things I write now have begun as stories I tell at parties.  I feel very fortunate that public speaking doesn’t make me want to hide in the nearest crack in the floorboards and I sympathize with people for whom public speaking ranks scarier than death on their list of biggest fears. (A large part of the population feels this way, it seems; Jerry Seinfeld once quipped that most people at a funeral would rather be in the casket than standing at the podium giving the eulogy.)  At first glance, writing appears to be a remote activity, one that allows the author to express his or her thoughts without having to leave the comforts of the couch.  Passive.  Safe.

But reading work aloud makes writing less of a lonely endeavor and more of a collective experience, a connection between the writer/reader and the audience/listener.  As someone who has participated in dozens of readings, I have discovered several benefits of reading one’s work aloud, and I encourage anyone who considers herself serious about writing to participate in at least one reading this year.  Why?

The 'I'

CNF is a lot about new angles, new perspectives. Our personal perspectives are always shifting, and they are always unique to us, to our lives. Well. Earlier this week, I reached for my iPad. I was dozing on the couch, and I had lost the iPad somewhere in the folds of the comforter I was wrapped in. When I found it, the screen was face down and the etched text on the back was wrong side up—so completely backwards. It was a great moment to reflect on one of the iPad’s ingenuities—its ability to reorient the screen to suit how you hold it. The back cover of course does not reorient, but upsidedown words can be considered as lines and shapes and not letters. And I noticed, beside the neat symmetry of the ‘P’ and ‘d’, the ‘i’ in iPad is a perfect exclamation point. I can’t claim to know why the teams over at Apple named the iPad iPad, but that first letter is another case of brilliant design. It evokes the inverted exclamation point, and it is inseparable from the word. iPad (notice how even at the beginning of a sentence, it is not IPad) comes with its own excitement, its own fervor, its own life. Just great marketing? What about our need for these devices, are they sparked by the urgency in the name? Is it really so wrong to be excited? The inverted exclamation point is unique to the Spanish language. Its expression seems almost parallel to the English exclamation point, only it comes at the beginning of a sentence. In English punctuation, the exclamation point signals commands, energetic or passionate statements, statements of disbelief, or even statements made in times of duress. All connote motion, the slant forward of iTalics (couldn’t resist), the present. The Now, never the past. The movement toward the pressing future. I find excitement, too, in how that lowercase iPad ‘i’ has come to be synonymous with ‘I’, that power player of CNF. And by extension, the i/I is also kin to the inverted exclamation point; it is a signal forward. The i/I is interesting, compelling, never at rest. Which leads to what every CNF writer must do: exclaim. Declare. Insist on your relevance, your design, how essential you are. Write your i/I into the world, and let it connote urgency, fervor, passion, life.

Tales From a Great Workshop

Workshopping. That word, I think, conjures up a visceral reaction in nearly everyone who has taken part in one, and often that reaction isn’t positive. I have been in workshops that felt petty and pointless, workshops that felt less like writers helping each another and more like crows picking apart roadkill.

When workshops are handled well, though, they can be indispensable. Because no matter how long we’ve been writing, we still can’t get enough distance from our own work to be completely objective about it. Workshopping provides that little reality check from others who are less invested, but it also can answer some BIG QUESTIONS: Is what we’re trying to say actually getting across on the page? Does our work match up with our intentions? A good workshop can show us little veins of gold shimmering in places we didn’t even know were there. But a great workshop does even more. It lets us see possibilities in our writing even when the work being discussed isn’t our own.

Who Needs Memoir When We Have Facebook?

Last month Facebook introduced Timeline, a new profile design that attempts to create the story of your life, starting from the moment you were born. It essentially turns the social media site into a mini memoir machine:



Of course mini-memoirs like this video and the examples on the info page are really just a form of PR developed in support of each of our personal brands. These aren't stories that try to make sense of the painful or incomprehensible parts of life. There is no divorce, miscarriage, death here -- only the awesome things that we're doing with all our awesome, photogenic friends.

But as the social web continues to be integrated into our lives, it becomes more difficult to keep the messier, more complicated parts of actual life separate from our online stories.

Write Wherever/Whenever? Yes, You SCan!

The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything.
                                                     -John Irving

The picture to the right shows my writing desk. Made of solid wood and topped with a plate of glass, this desk sits next to a window overlooking trees and a nice view of the Ford Parkway Tower. Each one of the desk’s drawers is crammed with writing utensils, paper, items of inspiration to help me compose. I have a comfy chair and a cushy couch if the desk isn’t doing it (or, more likely, is covered with papers). There’s also the Hamline Bush Library, with its variety of tables, carrel desks, and overstuffed chairs. Any one of these would make a good writing spot and you might think I get most of my pages written at these places.

Except you’d be wrong. Most of my writing happens at work.

Before you contact my boss to get me in trouble (or steal my job), I should tell you what I do. I work in an office as an administrative assistant, and after I’ve set out the coffee, checked the electronic documents, alphabetized the filing, and typed any dictations in my inbox, my duty is to scan each file from the prior year onto a database and then shred the file. I really like my job but I like the scanning part of my job the least of any task. It basically entails making sure each page goes through the scanner smoothly, the office equivalent of watching paint dry. But it gives me lots of time to think. And thinking, for me, equals writing.

Early Bird: Grabbing the Words Before Sunrise

If I could, I would write only when I’m inspired, when the sun hits the walls of my office at just the right angle, when I’m alone in a silent house, have finished off my cup of French press coffee and read a little poetry to put me in the mood. I would look out my oversized window at the ducks skating over the pond and the poplars swaying in the wind, lean back in my chair, close my eyes and wait until that perfect idea, that perfect word, entered my head. I would write it down and keep going. I would build up steam as the hours flew by, losing myself completely until it hit me that morning has become afternoon.

Oh, the dreams we dream.

Fact is, there’s no pond outside my window, no swaying poplars or cute little ducks. All I can see is the dirty gray vinyl of my neighbor’s garage ten feet away, which blocks out most of the light. There’s no coffee, just me and my morning breath. And if I waited until I was inspired to write, I wouldn’t be writing at all, because that only seems to happen when I’m washing dishes or brushing my son’s teeth and there is no paper or computer in sight.

Most of my writing happens before 6:30 a.m. This is not because I’m a morning person. Far from it. But the fact is, I have a three-year-old and other commitments taking up most of my day, and early mornings are usually quiet and they’re my only guaranteed times to write. I wear my pajamas and slippers. Sometimes I brush my teeth. I am not a morning person, but I have found that in the morning at least I have my subconscious going for me, my half-awake dream state.

Hamline's Colloquium Chock Full of Good Advice

A little over a week ago, recent graduates of the newly renamed Creative Writing Programs at Hamline University presented words of wisdom and advice for new and current students about their capstone projects during the 24th Annual Colloquium.  

Addie Zierman, who wrote a memoir, How to Talk Evangelical, spoke about the difficulties of publishing CNF as an unknown author.  Her book was picked up pretty quickly by an agent, but multiple publishers passed on the basis that she didn’t have a web presence or “platform.”  Addie explained that the publishers told her they really liked the book but were wary about publishing her work.  Her agent suggested she develop her platform--via blogging, twitter, and other social networks--before moving further into the publishing phase.  Although I found this somewhat disheartening--shouldn’t a writer's work stand on its own?--I’m glad I learned this before I finish my own creative nonfiction book and attempt to publish it.  

On Having "Characters" Read Your Writing

Photo: camil tulcan

I've never shared my writing with those who appear in it (those "characters" who happen to be actual living people) in order to get their input before a piece is published. This isn't because I don't care about how these people feel. I just didn't really believe that the essays I sent out would actually be published.

Then earlier this year I was fortunate to have a couple of pieces published. Both of these essays portray my mother as a less than ideal mother-character, at least in any sort of traditional sense. So with some apprehension, I sent these pieces to my mother after they were already published. Luckily she loved them and had no objections to how she was portrayed.