Tag: writing

Elizabeth Brundage on Being a Writer and Holding Hope

Ann Voorhees Baker 0 Comment 2023 Workshops, Creatives & Creativity, People at WAW 2023, WAW Community News, What I Learned Today, Writing , , , , ,
Elizabeth Brundage on Being a Writer and Holding Hope 
Photo: Edward Acker

I touched base recently with Elizabeth Brundage, author of 5 novels; one of which was made into a Netflix movie. She’s also a fantastic teacher. I had the pleasure of learning under Elizabeth in her juried in “The Craft of the Novel” workshop co-sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany last year. It was a great workshop with wonderful writers, and since then, Elizabeth has been generous in her ongoing encouragement of my own writing. I’m flattered and thrilled that Elizabeth will be joining us at Women At Woodstock this year for an afternoon of discussion about all things writing and publishing. I’m so looking forward to meeting her in the flesh!

These are the novels that Elizabeth has authored:

This is the movie that Netflix produced, “Things Heard & Seen,” based on All Things Cease to Appear:

And this is Elizabeth:

Elizabeth is a human. Just like you and me. When she wrote her first novel, she hadn’t yet had a novel published. But she wrote it, and then it got published. We know she has talent. We know she has perseverance. But still, we’d like to know how she kept going and kept up her hope and her belief in herself. Read Elizabeth’s Q&A below. And come to Women At Woodstock in October and meet her yourself. There, we’ll have a much deeper conversation and you can add your own questions to the mix. I can’t wait until that day!

Q&A With Elizabeth Brundage

1. Which of your novels are you most proud of, and why?

 Maybe pride isn’t the right word. Truthfully, the word that comes to mind when I finish a novel is relief. Pure, unadulterated relief. Because you have this idea in your head that you are trying to see through and the whole time (often several years) you have this lurking sense of doubt. Doubt is always standing there, arms crossed, shaking its head. You are trying to convey something that’s important and meaningful on a very deep and personal level. You are making a story that is a feast for the reader. And every sentence is in some way a reflection of your own particular insight and perspective. You start out with an amorphous idea and try very hard over time to shape it into a work that is both accessible to the reader, and intensely compelling.

My most successful novel is probably All Things Cease to Appear – but my own personal favorite and the one that was hardest to write is The Vanishing Point, which drew upon a family history of addiction and explored the nature of competition between artists and all that goes with it. It tells the story of a love triangle between three photographers who meet in their twenties in an exclusive workshop and follows their lives to see how they turned out, with one character’s envy for another roaring through. To understand what it was to be a photographer, I did quite a lot of research and began taking my own photographs. I was interested in considering, in our visual age, how we each have a totally unique vision of the world and how that vision informs each character based on their life experiences and existential circumstances.

2. How much do you base your novels (on average) on pure fiction and how much on real life?

 All novels reflect real life and I think it’s inevitable that one’s experiences, ideas, fears, etc., ultimately season the work. But as you become more skilled as a novelist you learn to develop characters who fully serve the narrative and vice versa. All my novels come from my life to some degree – but are entirely fictional. For example, I’m married to a doctor – but he’s not an OBGYN like my character in The Doctor’s Wife. In my second novel Somebody Else’s Daughter, a baby girl is given up for adoption – I too am adopted, but it’s not my adoption story. My third book A Stranger Like You takes place in Los Angeles, where I lived and worked for several years in the film industry, and attended the American Film Institute which was the basis for “the Conservatory” in the novel, but none of the things that happen in the book happened to me (thank goodness).

My fourth book, All Things Cease to Appear, is loosely based on the true murder of a Rochester, NY woman which had been a cold case when I discovered it back in the 90’s when my husband was a resident in that city, and we had rented a house in the suburb where the murder took place. I couldn’t get that story out of my head for years, then one day came across some newspaper articles about the case and decided to go ahead and write about it. I used the real facts of the murder as the architecture of the novel but invented everything around it – the setting, near to my home in Albany, the characters, based on people I knew in our small town, the old house where the drama took place, based on a house we had rented that had ghosts – I basically changed everything but used the details of the murder as a structural rubric. (The book was published in 2016, around the same time the FBI reopened the case with fresh DNA evidence and, in 2022, the husband was finally convicted.)

3. What’s your “life as a writer” like? Do you have set hours each day to write, or do you go through spells without writing at all, and then write madly when an idea or event strikes you with inspiration?

Inspiration can be hard to come by and is unreliable. The only way to get a book done is to work on it every single day. Writing a novel or a book of stories requires focus, devotion, and discipline. Finishing a novel is the hardest thing in the world to do. I like to say it’s like digging out of prison with a spoon.

When I’m working on something I wake up every morning, make coffee, and sit down at my desk. Some days are better than others. I might write three or four pages one day and the next write only a paragraph. Or maybe only a sentence. It’s hard to predict. When I’m not able to write for whatever reason, I have learned to be patient, to trust that the work is still going on in my head. And then one day suddenly it comes. Every time I write a new novel it’s like starting all over again from scratch.

4. Before you were first published, did you feel sure that you would become a published writer? What contributed to your most positive thinking? Your most negative thinking?

I have always wanted to write, beginning when I was ten years old. I started as a poet because I fell in love with language, with words. I had an ear for language. I knew I was going to be a writer; I didn’t want to be anything else. And I was very serious about it. I studied other poets and read poetry incessantly.

In college, I worked with outstanding teachers. Then – in my sophomore year I became interested in film. I took my junior year at NYU and, after graduating, intent on making films, I attended the American Film Institute in Los Angeles where I learned how to write screenplays.

Screenwriting is a lot less precious than writing poetry, and writing scripts taught me how to tell a story that appeals to an audience, and how to build a character with pictures. Think about that for a moment. Building characters with pictures. It may help you to figure out how to show your reader what a character is going through as opposed to explaining it to the reader, which is boring. Characters, of course, are the essence of stories, and that’s around the time I figured out how to combine characters with language – fiction.

I wrote my first short story when I was 25. That eventually led me to Iowa where I earned my MFA and started teaching. You build your career by putting in the time and the work and in doing so you begin to trust yourself, that you can do it. The more you read, the more you understand what you’re doing, or trying to do, with words and sentences and paragraphs. At Iowa, I learned not to be afraid of criticism. And to use it to get better.

Writing is solitary work. I always tell people that if you don’t have to write, then please don’t. Because there is too much pain and suffering involved. There is a lot of rejection and disappointment, and you have to find a way to keep going. And somehow, maybe because it comes out of your brain onto a page, it always feels personal. You have to be able to handle that and believe in what you’re writing. And to keep working to make it better. You will never stop doing that. You know when it’s good and when it’s right. It’s an instinct you develop over time. And it rarely fails.

5. How and why did you give yourself permission to “be” a writer? Was your path a straight line from childhood toward a writing career, or did you consider or pursue other ventures or professional identities along the way?

 You don’t need anybody’s permission to write. But I understand that it can be difficult to keep going without any professional acknowledgment. It can be difficult to feel like a “real writer.” The truth is, you are a writer long before you publish. Publishing is important – of course it is – but it’s really the writing that matters, and what’s at stake for you in it. What it means to you. I think it’s important to grapple with that question. I think the stories that come across to publishers do so because they are authentic. Because they are honest and true. And because they truly matter to the writer.

Ask yourself why you are writing? If your answer is to make money or to be the next best-selling author, stop right now. But if you feel you have something to say about this world and the people in it, then you might be able to do it. There are few original stories, but there are many original voices. Be one of those.

6. What’s your advice to writers who’ve started late in life without an MFA or contacts in the publishing world?

In my most recent novel, one of the characters says, “connections were like gossip, they guaranteed nothing. It all came down to the work.” And that is what matters most. The work. Contacts in the publishing world are meaningless – unless the work is remarkable. And if the work is remarkable, it will find a publisher.

And what do I mean by remarkable? Think of all the people you have known in your life who have told you stories. That person on a plane who doesn’t even tell you their name but by the end of the flight you feel like you know them – and I mean really know them. Or that person who tells you something – something private – something that changed them. These are the stories that never get old. Every time we hear a story like that, we think about it, it moves us. If your character isn’t honest – isn’t true – then your novel won’t be either. It may take time and several revisions. Or it may take writing another book. As writers we learn as we go. To some degree writing is about practice. I have learned so much from every novel I’ve written. And you will fail. You. Will. Fail. And failure is as important as success. But – if you are determined – you will succeed. And there is nothing better.

It is a deliberate, thoughtful, and often mysterious mission, to realize your destiny as a writer. An MFA is time…a gift of time to write and to revise. Time to better understand your own singular voice. Time to get to know your characters. Time to understand the story you are telling. But not everybody has time for graduate school, and it is certainly not mandatory. But education is essential, and you can teach yourself. How? Read. Read and read some more. That is really the best way to learn how to write. Also – nurture your brain, your imagination. Go to museums. Take a cooking class. Read Ulysses. Get out into the world and observe. Watch people. Listen. Then start writing as if you are telling that story to a stranger on a plane. A story that absolutely must be told. If you can do that, you have a very good shot at being a writer.

Most writers start publishing in their early 40’s. There is no age limit whatsoever on good writing. The only limitations are the ones you set for yourself. Be realistic. Be critical of your work. And don’t talk about what you’re writing. And for goodness sakes don’t show it to your friends and family. It’s yours. Protect it with your life.

Kindness – A Poem by Mary K. O’Melveny

Ann Voorhees Baker 0 Comment Ann's Blog, Guest Posts, WAW Community News , ,

Mary's new collection of poetry, A Woman of a Certain Age, is available for pre-order now from Finishing Line Press.

. . . . . . . . .

Mary K O’Melveny, a recently retired labor rights attorney, lives in Washington DC and Woodstock, New York. Her poetry has been published in a variety of print and online journals and anthologies. Mary was the winner of the 2017 Raynes Poetry Competition sponsored by Jewish Currents Magazine and a Finalist for the 2017 Pangaea Award sponsored by The Poet’s Billow. Mary also won an Honorable Mention in the 2018 Reid-Howard Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers and was Short-Listed for the 2018 Fish Publishing Poetry Prize judged by Ellen Bass. She is working on two new poetry collections.

KINDNESS

by Mary K O’Melveny

Some of us are trying to be kind.

Even in smallest ways. Even as the known

world self-destructs around us, shards of

optimism falling from the sky before we even

have a chance to look up to see what has

shifted us off our comfortable axis.

 

I’ve got a chipmunk problem in my yard.

The tiny furred creatures have popped up

everywhere, sending showers of dirt

into the air like it was Yellowstone.

I cannot kill them even though I want to.

They will not leave even though I have raged

 

at them, insulted them and their ancestors.

My neighbor brings a have a heart trap

so I can remove them kindly. He baits it with

peanut butter. Soon the trap has a frightened

occupant. I cannot bear to look out for fear

of crying. The prisoner is soon relocated.

 

The trap is replaced. A new chipmunk takes

the bait. He too is repatriated to a new territory.

Capture and repeat.   The metal trap looms larger

each day as an unending array of innocents are

tempted by creamy nut paste. Soon enough,

I begin to worry about babes left behind in tunnels,

 

about mothers and fathers grieving for lost children.

One day a chipmunk plants itself on my deck

and looks in through the window. My kind self

huddles behind the blind. I will not make eye contact.

This is the humane way, I say to myself, even as I begin

to imagine each trapped rodent wearing an orange

 

jumpsuit as interrogators gather nearby with pen

and paper waiting for the inevitable confessions.

One night, the trap is sprung, its detainee freed from

house arrest. I am thrilled. Then I learn that a bear

has likely done it. Probably thanked me for the easy meal.

Now I am lost in my worst fears. There is no kindness in my yard.

 

How could I have thought otherwise? This is how

it always begins. Good intentions vanishing

like some dying star, rationalizations

reverberating across celestial centuries.

Turns out it is our unwavering belief

in our self-righteousness that is the trap.

 

Thrilled to Announce: I Was Accepted to the Master Class, Mendocino Coast Writers Conference

Ann Voorhees Baker 0 Comment Ann's Blog, Creatives & Creativity, WAW Community News , , , ,

“Awards can give you a tremendous amount of encouragement to keep getting better, no matter how young or old you are.”

—Alan Alda

I’ve talked about “becoming” a writer as of last year. And this year, I’ve started submitting samples and excerpts of my work to journals and competitions. I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve just been chosen for the juried-in Master Class at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. It will be led by National Book Award nominee Elizabeth McKenzie, senior editor of the Chicago Quarterly Review, managing editor of Catamaran Literary Reader, and author of The Portable Veblen, MacGregor Tells the World, and Stop That Girl, as well as fiction published in The New Yorker and other literary journals and magazines. 

I have to thank author and editor Ginnah Howard, the “Writers In Process” coach at our Women At Woodstock 2018 Writers Retreat, who critiqued the piece I submitted with my application and helped me improve it in ways that I could not see by myself. I’m so grateful to her! I’m excited and nervous and chomping at the bit to work with Elizabeth McKenzie and the other writers in the Master Class at MCWC. I’ll tell you how it went after it happens in August!

rustic wood fence in front of seashore

Beginners Guide to Publishing in Literary Magazines – Advice from Ann Stoney

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One of the many women who impressed me at the Women At Woodstock 2017 Writers Retreat was Ann Stoney. Not only is she a beautiful writer, she gets herself out there. Ann has racked up an impressive list of stories published by literary magazines over many years of writing. She’s a pro.

I asked Ann if she would share her experience with the rest of us. How does she find writers’ competitions and calls for entries? How does she choose the right ones for her writing style and goals? How does she WIN?! I’m just starting to submit my work to publications and competitions myself, finally, after all these years, so I’m hanging on every word. If you’re an aspiring writer too – or even if you’ve earned a few publications or awards yourself but know that you could always use good advice, read on. Here, from Ann, is:

Beginners Guide to Publishing in Literary Magazines

There are literally hundreds of well-regarded literary magazines out there, waiting for your submissions. Here are some basic tips from a fellow writer who’s experienced limited success, and is still working on it.

The first step is to investigate writing resources like Poets and Writers magazine, and websites: Every Writers Resource, New Pages, Literistic, among others. They can hook you up not only with literary magazines, but also conferences, retreats, grant money, writing programs and anything else a writer might need. Look for magazines that are accepting submissions from “Emerging Writers”, writers who have not yet published a book, or in a publication with a large readership.

If time permits, research the magazine websites, and the writers they’ve published in past issues. I say if time permits because this is a challenge if you’re submitting your piece to lots of them simultaneously. And you should be. I’m talking fifty and above. Surprised? Given the number of talented writers out there, you can’t expect to get published if you limit your submissions to a few. Research a few, submit to a lot.

Even agents and editors will tell you that choosing pieces for publication is a highly subjective process. What one reader doesn’t like, another reader might. The literary business is, in some ways, a crapshoot. This is why it pays to submit, submit, submit! Make sure you notify the other magazines if your piece gets accepted somewhere.

To give you an example of the crazy literary world, one of my stories won an honorable mention from Glimmer Train (one of the top fifty magazines) and was a semifinalist in the American Literary Review fiction contest and guess what? The story has yet to be published. My submissions on this story that won accolades are close to the 50 mark. How crazy is that? Getting published requires grit, determination and patience. You have to be in it for the long haul, and not get discouraged every time you get a rejection.

The second step is to not expect results right away. Unless you’re submitting to well known magazines with paid staff, you’re dealing with devoted readers who are volunteering their time to plough through your submission along with hundreds of others. Don’t expect a response for at least three to six months.

Once the rejections start piling up, you’re ready for the third step — learning to differentiate between the positives and the negatives. Feel lucky if you get anything beyond a rote rejection blurb, “We regret this story isn’t right for this magazine. Good luck placing it elsewhere.” A more positive rejection might be, “Although this story wasn’t what we were looking for, your writing recommends your talent; please send us more.” Tape the positive ones to your wall and target those magazines. Then do as you’re told and send them more!

In order to send them more, you need a body of work (fourth step). I try to balance my writing time between creating, revising and submitting. I might work on a story for a few days, then take a day off and submit one story to several magazines, perhaps ten in an afternoon. This is not an impossible task, given that most of the magazines now use an online program called Submittable. Be sure to track your submissions, on paper or in a database, making note of the name of the magazine, date submitted, type of submission (contest, general), name of piece submitted, and rejection/acceptance date.

Before submitting to any magazine, do the work. Make sure your piece is as good as it can be. Unless you’re a genius, this means revising it until you’re ready to pull your hair out, based on critical positive feedback from your writing group friends, or an editor you’ve paid to lower the axe.

Speaking of writers groups and conferences, one step towards getting published is to become part of a writing community. One of the members of my writing group started a literary magazine, and voila! I was published. Sure, the magazine closed after a few months, but still, I can list it as a writing credit on my biography. And yes, you will need to submit a short cover letter and biography along with your piece. This is not the place to describe what your piece is about, but rather an opportunity to share with the editors how much you enjoy their magazine (if it’s true), and whatever information you feel is relevant to your writing life. Above all, make it short and sweet.

Good luck to you, fellow aspiring writers. And thank you, Ann, for sharing what you’ve learned as you’ve made your way along the path that we’re all treading.
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I Read This One Single Scene, Put the Book Down, and Cried

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I was reading this beautiful book. I could already tell that it was one I would remember and that I would recommend to friends.

And then I came to page 125. I read this one single scene. Two pages. And I put the book down and cried.

The five hundred-something words on those 2 pages described a young boy’s bedtime ritual with his mother, a memory so pure, so dear, and so sad… simply because it was gone. Those words made me suddenly understand that my bedtimes with my daughters were as hard for me as they were for them – hard because at the end of the day – days that were imperfect and marred and wrought with difficulties and rage and fear and disappointments – I didn’t want the day to have been what it was, and so I didn’t want it to end. Wait… was that what was behind those hours I spent reading, talking, singing? Wait…

Who wrote this beautiful book?

Stefan Merrill Block, a young man of 26.

What 26-year-old man could possibly throw such a searing light on my own memories as a mother?

What 26-year-old man weaves words into such a beautiful, heart-wrenching tale?

What 26-year-old man gets his first novel published?

I’m trying not to look at this writer and his novel, The Story of Forgetting, as proof that he is simply a better writer than I am, that he simply has more merit or more talent, and that therefore he is facing a life ahead as a successful author while I, now past 60, have not yet published a book nor could possibly do so.

I’m trying, instead, to look at what this young writer did that’s different than what I’ve done (so far). I’m trying to clearly see, and understand, truths that will help me as a writer, not discourage me. And this is what I see:

Stefan Merrill Block clearly decided that he would write this book. He simply decided.

Then he just did it. He devoted his mental capacities, his concentration, and countless hours just doing it: sitting down and writing.

And he got help. Lots and lots and lots of help. Stefan asked for help from experts, advisors, readers, editors, and those knowledgeable about the field his story delved into, and most importantly, he asked for help from those who know about writing and the publishing world. At the end of his book, his author’s note thanks, over the course of three pages, 7 writers and filmmakers whose work inspired him; 17 researchers whose work informed him; scores of people he conversed with in an online community; 29 friends, supporters, and advisors; numerous researchers; a group of editors at his publishing house; and 4 experienced readers and editors. A whole community of support.

This most talented young man wrote alone, as we all do. But he did not publish alone. He surrounded himself with “a group of one’s own,” as Linda Lowen describes in her post about creating community through writing.

Stefan Merrill Block, talented as he is, clearly did not think his writing was destined for publication simply because he thought it perfectly written in its first draft. Nor did he think his writing unworthy, not deserving the time and cost of obtaining advice, review, and expertise from others.

And that’s what the Women At Woodstock Writers Retreat is about. Deciding to write your book. Doing it. And most of all, opening yourself up to a community of support; investing the time and, yes, a little money, into stepping into a community of your own that will give you the encouragement, expertise, and support that one needs in order get published.

Are you a writer who’s going to actually write your book? Who’s going to join a community of your own? Who’s going to become a published author – like Women At Woodstock alums Jill Dodd, Laura Iodice, and Peggy Reskin, and like our Writers Retreat coaches Linda Lowen and Colleen Geraghty? I’ll see you in October.

Want to read the scene from The Story of Forgetting that broke me down? Here it is:

WHEN I WAS LITTLE, my mom and I had a game no one else knew about. There weren’t any rules, or winners, or necessary playing elements like boards or dice. In fact, all there was to the game were two words.

At night, after my mom would tell me a story, we would say “good night” to each other dozens of times. After each time one of us said it, the other would have to say it in return, because when it got to the point that no one was saying “good night” at all, that meant that day was really over, and as remarkable as it may seem now, that was once something we hated to admit.

My mom and I also had another game. While the first we could play only in my bed at night, this game we could play anywhere, anytime. Sometimes, when I would think my mom was being eccentric (or maybe something worse), I would suddenly realize that she was just playing the game.

The game was simple: one of us would start to pretend to be the other. It might not sound like much, but sometimes it seemed like more than a game, like we actually could almost become each other, sharing thoughts like the Isidorans. Once, as she sat on the corner of my bed, after we played the first game for close to ten minutes, to the point that a book of psychopathology would categorize it as obsessive behavior, we were silent. I knew she thought I was asleep, but I was awake, thinking about how I didn’t want her to go to bed because then I would know that I was the only one awake in the whole house, maybe the whole neighborhood. Maybe the only one awake in the whole city, who knew?

Suddenly, into the darkness, my mom said, “I can’t sleep because I ‘m worried about not being able to sleep.”

I said, “Me too.”

“The thing I hate the most is to be the only person awake when the whole world is asleep,” she continued.

“Me too!” I said.

I was little and not yet good at the game, so she made it more obvious.

“When I grow up I want to be a famous scientist,” she said.

!!!, I thought.

“You’re me!” I said, so loud it could have woken my dad.

“Bingo,” she said.

“Ohhh,” I said.

And then, after a long time, my mom said, “Good night.”

“Good night.”

My mom said, “Good night.”

I said, “Good night.”

And because my mom didn’t say anything for a long time, I said “Good night.”

And then I said, “Good night.”

 

 

 

 

A Group of One’s Own: Creating Community Through Writing

Ann Voorhees Baker 0 Comment Ann's Blog, Guest Posts , , , , ,

by Linda Lowen

It can be hard to think of yourself as a writer if you haven’t had anything published, earned a paycheck for your writing, or shared your work publicly. Even if you write daily, if you write in isolation it’s like the tree falling in the forest — nobody’s there to read your work except you. Does it count? Yes it does, but getting feedback is part of the process of growing as a writer.

Without regular feedback from a peer group, a writing partner, or a mentor, you’re forced to self-assess your work, and you’re either too in love with your words or you’re filled with self-loathing. This is no exaggeration. We truly are our own worst critics, and we can’t get better all by ourselves. Every writer benefits from input and outside guidance. When you learn what works and what doesn’t, you gain insight into how you can improve your craft.

No (wo)man is an island, and no writer should be either.

Creativity may take root independently, but it comes into full flower only within the context of community and connection. We are made better by our readers because they operate at a very basic level: if they like what they’re reading, they’ll keep reading, and if they don’t, they won’t.

Thus your goal as a writer is to engage — to move readers by making your words ripple through their conscious and subconscious selves. Validation comes when your thoughts invade theirs, crowd out everyday worries and concerns…and compel them to continue reading. How you shape your storytelling can either welcome a reader or repel them–and first impressions form quickly. Inside your head the story may be vivid and bold, but if you lack the skills of translation from vision to communication, the story won’t spring to life.

Words that fall flat never escape the page; they stay caged, black shapes against white. Words that rise and soar lift the reader out of her own life; they carry her into the world you’ve crafted. The reader forgets where she is and what she’s doing as she enters the story you’re telling. Good writing is like a magician performing a levitation. The audience doesn’t want to see the effort, the strings, or the mechanisms — they’re simply there to revel in the magic

This shift from disbelief to belief is what you should strive for. If your writing doesn’t shift at least something in your reader, you need to go back in for a tuneup. If you can’t figure out what’s going wrong, you have to take it out for a spin. In other words, test drive your writing the same way you’d test drive a car to see if it runs smoothly.

This is where a cohort comes in.

A tribe, a posse. A writing group.

There’s a reason why many prominent writers arise from — and credit — their writing groups. A couple of the more famous ones:

The Inklings, an informal literary circle in Oxford, best known for two members who were the nucleus of the group: J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings) and C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia). They met for nearly 20 years, and Tolkien himself described the group as “a feast of reason and flow of soul.”

The Bloomsbury Group, led by Virginia Woolf, which began meeting before its members gained literary and artistic prominence. Later, celebrated novelist E.M. Forster joined. According to the Literary Network, “his influence on the Group, and their influence on him, is readily apparent.”

Good writing, it seems, is catching. Makes sense. When you’re caught up in the ‘flow of soul’ of someone else’s words, you’re moved. You’re influenced. Your thinking is altered.

At readings and book signings, eager fans invariably pose the same questions to successful writers: Who are your influences? What writers did you follow? What books did you read? They want to catch what the writer has caught.

We are the company we keep.

Especially true for writers, though you might not think so since writing isn’t exactly a team sport. Yet writers do benefit from those qualities that form a tight, cohesive team. Working toward a common goal, sharing resources, having someone’s back, wanting to see them achieve their best — a writer who finds herself among like-minded cohorts is propelled forward, partly on her own steam, partly buoyed by the force of her circle of influencers.

Over the past five years helping early-stage writers learn the basics of craft, I have logged hundreds of hours of observation to back up all of the above.

During the fall, winter and spring, I teach at a local writers center in my hometown of Syracuse, NY. The classes meet once a week for eight weeks, and at the beginning of each semester every student buzzes with energy, excitement, and enthusiasm. Halfway through, some seats are empty, but for those still with me, commitment has replaced excitement as their energy levels off to a steady state. The people who keep coming back understand that the writer’s life isn’t glamorous, fun, or easy. Sometimes there’s inspiration. Most times there isn’t. But you keep writing because that’s the task in front of you.

The fun part is seeing everyone else’s process

…and progress as words lead to world-building and then full immersion for the reader/listener. This can only come, however, through developing work that’s shared over time.

In the last class I taught this past semester, I encouraged participants to write something each week, and made sure there was enough class time for five-minute readings from those who wanted to share their work.

Ping wrote about her childhood. How she couldn’t pass the necessary tests for school but tried again and again. How she watched over and protected her younger sister. How she tried to stay brave in the face of bullying and humiliation. As her stories evolved, we realized she was writing about the early years of the Communist Revolution in China when the threat of ‘re-education’ hung over everyone’s heads.

Alexandra wrote about the fantasy of living alone. How she’d imagined decorating her own space and having the freedom to express her artistic side. When a difficult divorce led to a move into her own apartment, the reality of life alone set in.

Rosemary wrote about her Venezuelan grandmother whose family was split by a move to the U.S. Whenever she came to visit, she recalled the elderly woman sitting by the window, smiling as she watched her grandchildren play in the yard. Only later did Rosemary learn that her grandmother’s joy came in imagining those children she’d left behind, seeing them in her mind’s eye outside her window.

Most of the students in these classes want to write about their lives, so in the very first session I make it clear: “Creative nonfiction and memoir is like Las Vegas.”

What happens here, stays here.

Together we create a space that is sacred and safe, where the intimate details of each person’s life are kept private. We have male students whose stories often focus on youthful indiscretions, hair-raising escapades, and tough-guy encounters, and they’re fun; but when the group is exclusively female, the mood is more introspective, the sharing more confessional.

In this last group, three men were on the class roster, but only one stuck it out to the end. The eight women formed a tight sisterhood that deepened over time, especially when the guys were absent. They seemed reluctant to part and admitted as much in the final session.

“I wish you were teaching a class this summer,” one woman said. “Then we could all sign up and continue together.”

“Hey, even the teacher needs a break. But you don’t need me. Form a writing group and do this on your own. You know how to critique and share constructive criticism. You could meet once a month.”

Ping spoke up. “I can host the first meeting at my house. I’ll email everyone to figure out a good time to meet.”

This is how it begins. You get comfortable with a group. You see the mutual benefit of staying connected. You become reluctant at the idea of having to reintroduce yourself and your story again and again to total strangers.

You create family.

This is why a writer’s retreat has value beyond the quiet time to write, the instruction you gain in workshops, and the opportunity to read your work aloud for feedback.

You find your people. You form your cohort. You keep in touch. Maybe you find a writing partner to be accountable to, or a mentor or coach to keep you moving forward in the months that follow, or a group that will reconnect on an ongoing basis to reignite the spark that a writing retreat/workshop/conference first calls forth.

The purpose is not to just come in, write, feel good, and then go home to the life you left. The purpose is to envision — and then act on — establishing a new life. Your writer’s life. A life in which you commit to a regular practice of putting ideas on the page, sentences spiraling out from under your fingers, paragraphs settling into story, a world of words taking shape in a formerly blank space. And all your own doing. Something you do for yourself that connects you to strangers who become friends. Fans. Readers.

This is how it began for my last class this spring. And it’s continuing.

Ping did as she promised — she sent out that email. After a little back and forth, everyone agreed to continue meeting at the same time the class had met: Tuesdays from 6-8 pm. The email confirming the date and time ended with “Linda, you’re more than welcome to come!”

As it turns out, I’ll be at my own writing conference that week, spending time with a group I met last year whom I’d like to see again. I made friends and connections, got and gave feedback, and stayed in touch via Facebook.

This is the writer’s life.

Not a creative struggle in isolation, but a vibrant network of friends, setting each other on fire through the all-consuming flame of a well-told story. Once you find your cohort, you’ll wonder how you thought to go it alone. You’ll bask in the warmth of community, and though you’ll still have doubts, you’ll have those you can trust for honesty, integrity, and support.

May you find that at the Women at Woodstock Writers Retreat. Among your people–all of them writers. Just like you.

. . . . . . . . .

Linda Lowen is a resident author & writing coach at the upcoming Women At Woodstock 2017 Writers’ Retreat

Becoming A Writer

Ann Voorhees Baker 0 Comment Guest Posts , , ,

by Ginnah Howard – Guest Blogger

What led me to start writing in my mid-forties, something I’d never considered doing before? The thrill of living alone for the first time in my life—that magic free-fall through all that empty space. My children were off on their own, and a friend loaned me her log cabin on a stretch of back road: no neighbors, no phone, a pump for water in the yard, an outhouse in back, a woodstove, and kerosene lamps for light. And our big dog, Butch. I taught English in a high school twenty miles away, but, in the evenings in the silence of “nothing I had to do,” I began to write.

That first fall, I often wrote while sitting on the porch. A few times a week a Harley Davidson would roar past, driven by a bearded man wearing a bandana, with a long-haired woman on the back. We’d wave, but it was a while before I knew who they were and that our children had gone to school together. I learned they’d been members of the Pagan Motorcycle Club in California who now kept an album of newspaper clippings of Pagan arrests on their coffee table. I loved to visit them, to take it all in.

If I hadn’t met this family, I might never have started that long process of learning the craft of fiction, the deletion of pages of stuff that did not work. Using one true fact from what was for me an exotic world, I tried to make up stories. Though I was an English teacher, a person who had loved to read all my life, I knew almost nothing about writing scenes, about point of view, about narrative tension. Using material from this family and my own life, I wrote one hundred pages of stories. I then went to a one week workshop at Skidmore. The author, Lynne Barrett, taught a class titled “How to Write a Short Story.” She talked about the need to begin the story in the middle—in medias res and showing instead of telling. I threw away that first one hundred pages.

I wrote the first story that “worked” based on a true incident. I had gone to our little local grocery store and as I stepped out of the car, a man on a scaffold working on an old Inn across the street fixed me with an intense stare that made me uncomfortable. It turned out he was on a work-crew from the area correctional facility. When I left the store, I bowed my head and scurried to my car. A few hours later my motorcycle friend went to the store to buy cigarettes. When the man gave her the eye, she waved back and thus began a daily staring match between her and the prisoner as she sat on the bench in front of the store pretending to read the paper. This contrast between these two women’s responses to danger formed one of the cores of the thirty-four stories that eventually became Rope & Bone. And it offered that great learning experience for me as a beginning writer: How to turn the real experiences of my own life into fiction and how to deeply imagine the motorcycle world family fully and convincingly enough to make that world real.

I kept at it to finish Rope & Bone: A Novel in Stories and two other novels, Night Navigation and Doing Time Outside, about these same two families to complete an upstate trilogy. What a long, strange, and thrilling trip it’s been.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ginnah Howard’s work has appeared in Water~Stone Review, Permafrost, Portland Review, Descant 145, Eleven Eleven Journal, The Tusculum Review, and elsewhere. Several stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Night Navigation, Book 2 of her upstate novel trilogy, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Chronogram called Book 3, Doing Time Outside (Standing Stone Books), “a beautiful read.”  The first book of the trilogy, Rope & Bone: A Novel in Stories (Illume) was listed by Publishers Weekly as one of the “best of the best” Indie books of 2015. In her latest book, I’m Sick of This Already: At-Risk Learning in a High School Class, Howard focuses on a year of working with students in a small rural town. Currently she is putting together a collection of poetry and prose titled An Opera of Hankering. To learn more, visit: www.GinnahHoward.com

Ginnah Howard will be the visiting author at the Women At Woodstock Writers Retreat on Nov 2nd.

 

Writing Stories from the Level of the Sentence

Ann Voorhees Baker 0 Comment Guest Posts , ,

The following interview with Laurie Stone about her book My Life as an Animal was conducted by Flash Frontier and appears online in their September Feature.

Flash Frontier: This is a collection of interlinking stories. The chapters revisit themes, characters, and locations. Did you set out to write such a collection, or did the idea occur to you when you discovered your stories were overlapping?

Laurie Stone: I don’t write individual stories with the idea of building a book, and yet a book has to be something different from a bunch of pieces arranged next to each other. Once I had a critical mass of writing connected to leaving and returning to New York and to falling in love, I began to move the stories around like puzzle pieces until a structure emerged. Each piece earned its place by either making something strange feel ordinary or by making something ordinary seem strange. Really, I do not think the order matters as much as the consistency of the narrative voice. I like to imagine a novel as a bowl you smash against a wall. The shards are these stories.

FF: The stories reflect different kinds of ‘dislocation’. Tell us more about that. Why is dislocation compelling for a writer? Is it compelling for you as a woman?

LS: The narrator of the stories, like the author who wrote them, lacks a sense of home in physical locations. She likes being a guest, a visitor, while looking for the next bed (preferably in a hotel room). The streets of New York City come closest to being a home, but more often “home” is people she loves. I do not know if dislocation is compelling as a subject for writers, but I think arrivals and departures provide plot elements. That and bond-and-betrayal. I don’t know too many plots. I am happy when I can seize on any.

FF: Humour runs through the stories. When for example the narrator goes to the hospital to see her mother for what will be the last time, she writes, “When I enter the room I see a pile of sticks. She screams, ‘Get away’. Her voice is so loud the woman in the next bed pleads with me to stop her. ‘How’? I say, ‘I’m open to suggestions’.” What is the role of humour in your writing?

LS: I work with Mel Brooks’ definitions of comedy. He says, “Tragedy is when I have a hangnail. Comedy is when you fall off a cliff and die.” He says, “Comedy is tragedy plus time.” I like to dramatize contradictions that cannot be resolved. Human beings desire to be in two places at the same time: here and somewhere familiar we have never seen before. I am on guard against writing stories that portray a hero and stories that portray a victim or a victim-hero – the most common form of the memoir. These are stories, in essence, that flatter the narrator. My narrators need to be vulnerable and limited. Comedy is about limits. Tragedy is about transcendence. I do not believe in transcendence. I am pretty sure a story has shaken loose the human’s needs to look good and show off when the story generates laughter.

FF: Tell us about your title. Did you come up with it before you’d written the stories?

LS: I mostly use one-word titles for my stories, and the titles are descriptive, i.e. ‘Catch’, ‘Dog’, ‘Happiness’. I do not want to suggest meaning for the reader. The job of the writer is not to organize meaning. That is the job of the reader. The job of the writer is to seduce the reader into thinking the story is about the reader. In other words I try not to tell the reader what to make of anything on the page. I only want to keep them reading. The title “My Life as an Animal” seemed descriptive of the narrator of these stories, a person who feels herself an animal riven by a brain that allows her to think about “not here” and “not now”—the tenets of language and of symbolic thinking.

FF: You recently had a story published at Blue Five Notebook. There’s sparseness in that story that we’ve seen frequently in your writing. You even go so far as to write in that flash about what was not said (reflecting the oft-quoted truth about flash, that the essence is often in what is not there). How does writing flash fiction differ, for you, to writing a set of stories like these?

LS: The process of writing longer pieces does not differ much from writing very short pieces because I work at the level of the sentence in everything. I work as the end of the pen or the finger tips on a keyboard, meaning a strong, sexy sentence conveying ambivalence or beauty leads to the sentence that follows it. For me there is no pre-writing. There is no outlining. I work with layering. Something happens in a sentence. The narrator tells the reader about the narrator’s reaction in the moment of that event, and the narrator also tells the reader about how the narrator feels now, looking back, from the vantage point of time passed. There are always two time frames at work: the immediate reaction (the present) and the reaction that has probably changed in looking back. The look back could be 5 minutes later or 25 years later. It does not matter. The story is not really about what happened. It is about what the narrator makes of what happened, that quality of thought and speculation and memory and joyous discover and make it up, sentence by sentence. Sometimes you get the job done in a few sentences. Sometimes you need thousands of words to exploit the possibilities your sentences have stirred up. It’s all invented in the moment, and it is all fiction in that the world you have produced is entirely composed of language.

. . . . . . .

Laurie Stone is an author, most recently of My Life as an Animal, a series of linked, comic stories. She won the Nona Balakian prize in excellence in criticism from the National Book Critics. She participated in “Novel,” living in a house built by architects and situated in an art gallery in the Flux Factory. Her work has appeared in Fence, Open City, Anderbo, Threepenny Review and many other journals. Her latest collaboration with musical composer Gordon Beeferman, “You, the Weather, a Wolf,” will be presented in New York City on December 21 2016.

Laurie will be the visiting author at the Women At Woodstock Writers Retreat on Nov 3rd.

Writing – Or Not. Why You Must Slap Yourself and Move It Along, Sister. Move It Along.

Ann Voorhees Baker 4 Comments Ann's Blog, Guest Posts , , , ,

As some of you know,  I’ve been “writing” a book for some years now – a book that’s very important to me, that tells a story that I very much want to share. I think about it all the time. I think about what I want to add to it and what I don’t want to forget.

But have I written the thing? No. Could I have done it by now? Yes – or hey, why mince around, let’s say “hell, yes!” because in the time that’s passed since I’ve committed to this book, I’ve written 482 posts on my own blog, 207 ghost-written posts for clients, a half dozen guest blog posts on other sites, and – let us not forget, a full-length nonfiction book, 50,000+ words ghostwritten for a client.

To go on with my folly, I’ll share that when I was ghost writing that book, I was in the best work-heaven I’ve been in, possibly ever. Frequently, I lost track of time (worse than usual). I felt good, I felt purposeful, I felt, in my bones, that this was what I was meant to do. Oh yeah, the writer’s life for me!

But back to have I written my own book? Yeah, no. Have I done some of it? Yes, I have. Have I done enough to submit a proposal to a publisher or agent? Yes, actually yes, if I’d just pull myself together and write the damn proposal.

And there you have it.

I am a writer. But I do not allow myself to be.

From time to time I have a session with Linda Lowen, a fantastically insightful, inuitive, smart, hard-working, and tell-it-like-it-is writer and writing coach, and she inspires me. It’s largely because of her that I’ve moved forward as much as I have, little though it might be. I asked Linda to inspire me again – to inspire everyone who longs to be a writer and is a part of this great Women At Woodstock online community. She generously obliged. Here are Linda’s words of wisdom and, for some of you I hope, wake-up call. Read, think, do.

Ann V. Baker signature

Guest Post by Linda Lowen

You’ve always wanted to write, but it’s more dream than reality. Why? Maybe it’s because you haven’t been given ‘permission’ to write. You think if you try to take a writing class, attend a retreat or a writer’s workshop, you won’t be ‘allowed’ in because your work isn’t good enough.

Don’t laugh. This may sound silly, but it’s a very real concern for many would-be writers. Fear of rejection is commonly cited by adults as the biggest reason they avoid doing, joining, or trying new and different things. If you’re not good enough as an athlete, you might brush it off saying you lacked strength or coordination or you had a bad day. But if you’re not good enough as a writer, it’s as if your soul is being judged and dismissed.

I’ve been surprised at the people I’ve met–among them several compelling writers–who’ve told me that they felt this way. They include:

• a talented blogger and teacher from New York who directs a very successful annual event featuring writers sharing essays about motherhood
• a professional writer and internet expert from California who’s ghostwritten a book for a client but is afraid to write one for herself on a familiar (but underreported) problem that affects many of us
• a teacher from Iowa who, in college, studied under–and was praised by–a New York Times best-selling author; later, when his work was rebuffed by a college administrator, he abandoned writing for more than a decade

Nobody is immune to insecurity about their work. That’s why when you commit to a writing practice and surround yourself with a supportive network, you’re more likely to see to long-term success than if you go it alone.

For the past four years I’ve taught writing to adults at a regional writer’s center. Many were complete novices. Others were published authors who wanted clarity in their prose, an editor sensitive to their unique voice, and someone to bounce ideas off of.

Teaching changed everything I knew about writing, and I’d been writing for decades. Before, I believed only a select few could write. You either had it, or you didn’t. That attitude was wrong and arrogant. The truth is, anyone can write. Writing is not a talent, a gift, or a moment of grace bestowed by the Muse or any other supernatural entity. Writing is a skill, one that anyone can develop over time.

And the biggest impediment you may face in developing that skill might be you. You play head games with yourself, one moment believing you’re good, the next minute hating your work. A lot of this may stem from experiences in childhood and young adulthood.

If you were praised for being a good writer as a kid, while you may have been proud of that ability, the praise also placed a burden on you–a burden of high expectations which led to low output because you felt your writing needed to be perfect, otherwise you couldn’t share it. Mixed in was fear that maybe you weren’t as good as others thought–that the praise was a mistake.

“Good” Writers

Good writers aren’t born, they’re made. Good writing takes practice, a lot of practice. Years of work, many failures, novels finished but never sold. And that’s something most successful writers don’t talk about. That “first” novel they had published was probably the 7th or even 10th novel they’d written. Writing is nothing more than a skill perfected, polished, gleaming so brilliantly that the reader is immediately pulled in. A good story takes you away. That’s not happenstance. That’s experience, forethought, and discipline at work in your writing.

What the general public believes about the craft of writing is largely romanticized, unrealistic, and actually harmful to would-be writers who are already anxious enough that they don’t measure up.

Only in the field of writing do we believe that some sort of special grace will just drop down from the heavens and anoint us and we’ll write that superb piece without effort.

Only in the field of writing do we think that if it’s hard, it’s no good.

Surprise! Writing is work. It’s hard. Birds don’t burst into song when you write, flowers don’t blossom on every bare branch. Life isn’t magical as a writer–it’s the same exact thing it always was, and it’s frequently a struggle to produce something worthwhile. When you write, you get little encouragement for putting words on the page, but you do it because you’ve made the commitment to yourself and your craft.

In every other career, we accept that work is work. Every day, whether you want to or not, you go to work. A waitress doesn’t say, “My head’s not in the game and I’m not feeling it about the menu items today. I think I’ll stay home.” A teacher doesn’t say, “I’m not particularly inspired to impart knowledge to young minds today. I’m going shopping instead.” This doesn’t happen. Whatever our profession, we go to work.

To succeed as a writer, you have to–in the words of author and writing guru Steven Pressfield–“go pro,” which means you have to take your writing seriously and do the work every day.

It’s Not If, But When

I won’t say “If you do this” but “When you do this” because if you’re still reading–still with me–something has kept you engaged throughout these 900 words thus far and that’s probably your desire to write. You want this. You want to take that next step, and you know it’s time.

So… When you do this–when you get serious about your writing and make it a daily habit like brushing your teeth, no skipping, no excuses–three outcomes are unavoidable: progress, growth, and self-confidence. Do the work, and this will happen. Guaranteed.

This is not to say that any of this is easy stuff. In fact, you won’t be happy about doing it if you do it right. The work itself is not the reward–the improvement in the writing is the reward.

Look at it this way:
– We don’t expect someone to sink a half court shot in basketball if they’ve never played.
– We wouldn’t hire a lawyer who’s never argued a case in front of a jury.
– We’d be crazy if we agreed to surgery at the hands of someone who’s never operated before.
So why would we expect to be flawless writers on the very first try?

Don’t believe those stories you’ve heard about J.K. Rowling having never written anything before. It’s simply not true. She’s since acknowledged that she’s been writing since she was six, but that no other story had excited her as much as Harry Potter. She also faced rejection from agents and publishers before that first book was accepted.

You can write. YOU CAN WRITE. The only thing stopping you is you…and a little guidance…and the knowledge of what makes for a successful, effective story. Whether you’re writing fiction, non-fiction, memoir, the elements are the same.

I’ll be the writer-in-residence at both Women At Woodstock writing workshops, and will be happy to meet with you outside of our morning gatherings and evening readings for a little one-on-one advice and support. It’s all included in the cost.

The Secret To Becoming A Writer, For Real

Since you’ve hung on ’til the bitter end, I’ll share with you two secrets that separate the successful writer from the dabbling novice.

The first one’s simple: A million words. Write a million words, and you will never again say, “I couldn’t find the words to say what I wanted to say,” because you will have practiced enough to know your craft. You will have the skills to perfect every paragraph, line and word, along with the knowledge that it isn’t supposed to come out right the first time, but it will eventually get there through revision, editing, and hard work.

The second secret is to put yourself in the company of writers and others who will inspire you, share helpful advice, offer constructive criticism of what works and what doesn’t, and push you when you need it. Family and friends–as much as they may try to offer guidance–don’t have the same sense of writing as other writers. Coming together with writers and building a trusted cohort of peers is essential to your skill development.

I just got back from a writer’s conference where I focused on my fiction process, found a writing partner and felt validated in ways I hadn’t expected. I came home riding a wave of energy that prompted me to write 6,000 words in three days. When I posted this on Facebook, I was stunned to see the number of friends who responded with longing, envy, and questions. So many of us want to write, but are afraid to attend a class, workshop or retreat.

Please don’t lose another moment to self-doubt or fear. I promise, if you come to one or both of the two Women at Woodstock writing retreats, you will confront this fear head-on and come away with the tools and confidence you need to really, really write. And you’ll wonder why you waited so long.

If you have any questions about me, my background, or what we’ll be doing, the link to my website is below. If you’re on the fence and just need some encouragement to move forward, please get in touch with me–you can reach me through my website.

Ann’s a good sharer; she’s letting me post again on this blog in August and September with more thoughts on writing. Talk to you then.

Want to know more about me? Visit lindalowen.com.

Linda Lowen is Founder of AlwaysWantedToWrite.com, a writing studio in Syracuse, NY in the historic Delavan Center that offers small classes for absolute beginners and those who’ve written before but are stuck and need encouragement. For more background on Linda, click here.

“You’re Too Old To Be A Writer.” Shut Up, Voice Inside My Head.

Ann Voorhees Baker 10 Comments Ann's Blog, WAW Archives , ,

I was talking to Veronica James, author of Going Gypsy – One Couple’s Adventure From Empty Nest to No Nest At All and the woman behind the uber popular blog “Gypsy Nester” – or rather I was kind of shouting at her, because I was so excited that she’s agreed to teach a workshop at the Women At Woodstock Writer’s Retreat this year. And Veronica asked me about my own writing. How’s it going, she asked me? I gushed with pride about a book that I ghost-wrote recently for an attorney about an evergreen topic of importance to women, and then I grumbled something regretful about my own book that I’m trying to complete, and how I wished I’d started writing much earlier. And Veronica stopped me.

“Hogwash,” she said. “Do you know the average age of a best-selling writer?”

“No.”

“Fifty-five.”

Okaaay then. Okay.

I need to stop feeling that I’m starting so late in life. I’m not late. I’m here. I’m right on time. Doing what I really really love to do. If we’re where we want to be now, how can we wish we took a different path to get here? Maybe if we’d pointed ourselves, earlier, toward this place, maybe we would have ended up somewhere else, far away from Right Here Where We Want To Be. I need to stop saying to myself that I’m too old to be a writer; it’s too late. Shut up, voice inside my head.

Don’t question it. Don’t regret it. Just do it.

That’s what the Women At Woodstock Writers Retreat is all about. Doing it. Writing – all day, every day. Getting feedback and coaching. Standing up and reading our work aloud and seeing how it plays with our audience. Learning from published authors who can tell us much from the land we have not yet trodden upon, the place where we want to be, the place we’re trying, valiantly, to get to.  The Writers Retreat is for doing it. Full steam ahead.