Dealing with Feedback (In The Word Cellar)

Frog Creek Lodge, WA

One of the best things about getting feedback on my writing during grad school? Advisors who disagree with each other. Seriously.

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One essay, two opinions:

I love how the essay turns here and you start using the pronoun "you," almost as if you're guiding the reader through the landscape and giving them directions. I like the intimate feel of this.

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I don't think the essay works as well here when you begin to address the reader as "you" and give them directions such as "If you walk here...." The tone changes and doesn't match the rest of the piece. You start to sound like a travel guide.

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These next comments refer to two different essays, but they highlight the two advisors' differing world views:

You're too hard on yourself in this portrayal. Don't hold yourself to such high standards!

*

You could probe more deeply into your own mistakes and shortcomings.

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See? Isn't that fun? (I should note that the above statements are paraphrasings, not direct quotes.)

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Each month, I send about 30 pages of writing to my grad school faculty advisor, who reads it and then offers feedback and suggestions on what's working and what could be working better. I'm in my third semester of this process, long enough to have had several different faculty members read some of the same pieces as I edit them. (I work with a new advisor each semester.) I respect all of these professors as writers, teachers, and scholars. These are smart, well-read, and wicked-good writers.

But I don't always agree with what they tell me. One of the best parts is that they don't always agree with each other. I love it when this happens, because it frees me to figure out what I think. Of course, I'm free to figure that out at any time, but receiving conflicting feedback is a great catalyst for this.

But what happens when multiple people say that something isn't working in a story? It's another invitation to figure out what I think. I step back and take a fresh look at the writing in question. I may decide that it's just the way I want it, feedback be damned! Or I may realize I need to tweak it to make it work better for readers. Or I may decide I need to rewrite or delete it completely.

Getting feedback on your work can be intimidating, nerve wracking, and downright maddening. But if you can take everything with a grain of salt (and maybe a shot of tequila with a squeeze of lime), you have the opportunity to see how readers respond to your work, which can be valuable.

Say you're in a workshop with fellow writers. If nobody in the room understands that your main character was a ghost, and you wanted readers to understand that your main character was a ghost, well, it's time to rethink how you present Ghosty.

If half the room gets Ghosty and half doesn't, then it's time to consider who you want to listen to. (You can set your own criteria for this. I like to side with whichever group has the better writers. Or whichever group has the most cool people in it. Either way.)

Receiving feedback on your work takes some getting used to. I recommend seeking out people who respect you and whom you respect. It's good if they're also kind. Even if I don't like the feedback someone gives me, I try to step back and see if there's any truth or merit in what they said. If there is, I take what I need from it and apply it to my work. If there isn't, I try to let go of it gracefully.

But here's the most important part: In the end you have to trust yourself and stay true to your vision. Some people will get it, and some won't. And that's just fine. So I say be open to feedback, but let your own voice be the one that guides you.

Want more writing tips? Join me in October and November for Alchemy: The Art & Craft of Writing, an online course for creative souls. Register by Sept. 30 to save $30!

In The Word Cellar runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Read other posts in the series here.

Rituals & The Writing Process (In The Word Cellar)

the view from my studio window (Diana F+)

This week's topic comes from Jenn, also known as the Freelance, Unconventional Nun (which is one of the best names ever!), who left a comment back on this post. Her question deals with the writing process and finding techniques and rhythms that work for each us.

Jenn wrote:

Once you let the writing take over and you're flowing, how do you know when to stop or rather how do you separate that life you are creating on paper from the life you are creating around you? I find it hard to write for a few hours and emerge from that space with the ability to stay connected with the people, places and things around me. The feeling scares me and as a result I haven't written much in the last few months. I just start to feel like I'm going crazy and I don't want to.

What an intriguing and powerful question.

I tend to have the opposite problem: The people, places, and things around me often pull me out of my writing. I'm too easily distracted away from the page. That said, I do experience times when the writing draws me in and I'm immersed in the story.

These moments of flow feel magical to me, but I understand how an intense writing experience could be disorienting and even frightening as you come out of that focused state.

I've developed a technique that I use when I need to quiet my mind and work through distractions. It's a little ritual, really. I make sure I have something to drink next to me (usually water, tea, or coffee) so I don't have an excuse to get up for a beverage. I light my favorite candle (Lavender Leaves by Henri Bendel) and commit to writing for an hour. I even make the commitment out loud to myself: "I will write for an hour while this candle burns." Sometimes I set a gentle-sounding alarm (on my cell phone) as a way to keep myself from checking the time obsessively during that hour.

This simple ritual helps me to enter into my writing. Sometimes I struggle for most of that hour, wrestling with words and trying to stay focused. But I don't let myself check Facebook or email or go do the laundry. I keep writing. Sometimes I find the flow before the hour ends, and sometimes I don't. Either way, I've put in an hour of writing, and that feels good. When the hour ends, I can choose whether to keep going or to rest and then do another round.

I wonder if you could create a ritual or technique to help you transition out of an intense writing experience. Maybe you could light a candle when you start writing, and perhaps set a timer to go off ten or fifteen minutes before the time you need to stop writing and re-enter the world around you. By giving yourself that cushion of time, you allow yourself to recalibrate and refocus. During those minutes, you could do some yoga poses or stretches, listen to some favorite music, do a little dance around the room -- something to ground you in the physical "now" away from the page. After this little interlude, you could blow out the candle to symbolize the transition to whatever you need to do next, knowing that the candle and the story are available to you when you can return to them.

This is just one suggestion. Everyone has a different writing process. I'd love to hear other ideas and techniques in the comments. How do you stay focused on your writing? How do you leave the story-world for the physical world around you? Please share.

In The Word Cellar runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Read other posts in the series here.

The first In The Word Cellar online writing course for creative souls is coming soon! Learn more about Alchemy: The Art & Craft of Writing. (Registration opens later this month!)

Writing as Discovery, or, We're All Normal (In The Word Cellar)

beach stairs, nantucket (cell phone camera; photo by Bee)

I sit down at the keyboard. I'm following a snippet of a scene, a hazy idea whispering in maddening mumbles at the back of my brain. I have an impression, an inkling, a vague image that I need to uncover and discover.

I sit down at the keyboard and start a conversation with the words. I slide down rabbit holes, jump over fences, take a bold leap into the bright, high sky.

This is writing.

At least, it is for me.

A lot of the time I have no clear idea what I'm trying to write about until I'm elbow deep in a piece. For me, writing is a process of discovery. I write to know what I think. I write to discover how I feel. I write to create a cohesive whole from jumbled sections of thought floating around inside my mind.

As a result of this approach, my writing process includes a lot of editing and rewriting. I forge ahead, I double back. I tinker. I twiddle. I give and I take. This is writing. (This may also be why I fully believe that editing is a creative act.)

For a long time, I thought my natural writing process meant I wasn't a very good writer. In fact, I worried that it meant I wasn't a "real writer" at all.

I'd thought that "real writers" had an easy time writing. I'd thought that they came to the page pregnant with stories and ready to burst at the seams. I'd thought that this is how it worked for real writers every single time.

Boy howdy, was I wrong. There are times when we writers are ripe with words. Those are the joyful times. But there are other times when we writers have to dig and scratch in the dirt, like a dog or a chicken, looking for words like a bone or an insect, unearthing the story. (There are times when metaphors get fuddled.)

What sweet relief when I realized that my writing process is valid and true. When I embrace this idea of writing as a process of discovery, I can stop struggling so mightily with both with my identity as a writer and with the writing itself. When I realize that the story emerges during the process of writing, I allow myself to relax and do what comes naturally.

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Turns out, all of this may be due to my natural preference as an extravert.

Stay with me now.

During a planning phone call with my Writing Lab panel for Blogher '10, the organization's co-founder Elisa Camahort brought up an interesting point about the way different personality types write. She said that she's heard that introverts and extraverts have different writing processes. While introverts tend to write a piece in their heads and come to the page with a nearly fully-formed piece, extraverts tend to do a lot more rewriting.

When I take the Myers-Briggs personality assessment, I always land on the extravert side, but just barely. Of all the M-B metrics, I'm most balanced on this one. In general, this means that to feel grounded I need large amounts of time alone as well as large amounts of social interaction. I need time to dream by myself, but I also need to brainstorm and hash out ideas with other people. As a writer, I tend to need a lot of quiet time to write, but during that time I engage in conversation with the page. By Elisa's definition, I'm definitely an extraverted writer. Occasionally I start writing with a clear story in my head, but usually I'm following breadcrumbs through a shadowy forest or running after the glint of sea glass strewn along the beach.

An unscientific, anecdotal study of other writers leads me to believe that there's something to this intro/extra process idea. (Chime in below and let us know if it holds true for you.)

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One of the worst things we do to ourselves, both as artists and as humans, is to compare ourselves to other people. A lot of times this shows up in comparisons of how good or bad we think our work or life is compared to those around us. But we also tend to judge our processes against other people's processes. We think there's a bona fide norm to which we should aspire.

I thought that I had to master a particular writing process in order to consider myself a good or real writer. My mistake was believing in this elusive idea of the norm. 

I make that mistake in other areas, too.

I often make dinner after 10:00 at night because my husband's job forces him to keep odd hours. I'm a natural night owl who can set her own hours, so usually it's not a problem. But instead of reveling in the freedom to make this strange schedule work for us, I used to worry that we were weird and deviant, as though eating dinner at 11:00 p.m. somehow made me less of a mature, responsible adult and contributing member of society. But now I'm beginning to see that this is simply our norm for this time in our life. When I worked a traditional nine-to-five job, my husband and I rarely ate dinner together. Now that I can set my own schedule, I can choose to have dinner with my partner long after some of my friends have gone to bed. And then I sleep for hours and hours after they've gotten up the next day. This doesn't make me lazy. I'm just on a different program, one that works for me.

So I eat dinner during the nightly news, sleep till noon, and pick my way through words blindfolded. Maybe you like to eat dinner during the evening news, get up at dawn, and write whole stories in your head before you ever touch a keyboard or pen. We are each of us our own version of normal. As long as we stay true to that, we'll all be alright.

In The Word Cellar runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Read other posts in the series here.

The first In The Word Cellar online writing course for creative souls is coming soon! Learn more about Alchemy: The Art & Craft of Writing.

Summer Vacation (In The Word Cellar)

nantucket sunset, 8 august 2010

As you may have gathered from this week's ::By Post:: (a collaborative project of virtual postcards), I'm living the island life on Nantucket for a few days. In the spirit of a good old fashioned summer vacation, I'm taking a week off from my In The Word Cellar writing posts. In the meantime, I invite you to stroll through the archives.

I also hope you'll check out the first In The Word Cellar course, Alchemy: The Art & Craft of Writing. I'm really excited about this online writing course for creative souls and hope you'll join us for lessons on the craft of writing, inspiration, and supportive community. You can find more information here and sign up to be on the mailing list here. I'll send out more information about the course (including registration details) in the coming weeks.

Stay tuned from another ::By Post:: postcard this evening....

In The Word Cellar normally runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Read other posts in the series here.

Tips on Inspiration (In The Word Cellar)

at the bottom of my yard (Diana F+, Kodak 400VC-3)

Thanks to everyone who's asked a writing question so far. Remember: Ask a question by the end of July to be entered to win a copy of Lanterns: A Gathering of Stories. Just leave a comment on this post or email me: jennifer{at}thewordcellar{dot}com. I'll choose the winner randomly, and there's no limit on the number of questions you can ask.

This week's topic comes from Dani who asked, "How do you stay inspired? How do you write when you're not?"

Inspiration is the creative ingredient with that je ne s'ais quoi quality. It comes. It goes. It's one fickle little imp. So I don't exactly know how to stay inspired; it's like catching the Tooth Fairy in action. Some days I feel it, some days I don't. But I'm practicing being committed to and enthusiastic about my creative work even when my mojo feels flat. I do know that these things usually help me to feel inspired:

• getting out into the world instead of being a hermit;
• having good conversations with people I love;
• making tangible things such as paintings, photographs, or yummy meals; and
• reading good books, listening to good music, and watching good movies.

But there are still plenty of days when everything I try to write bores me. This is when I remind myself to keep doing the work no matter how enthusiastic or inspired I might feel. Back in March I wrote a post called "How to Keep Creating" for this column. That list was all about approaching your creative work with kindness and a sense of honor of getting to do the work, while acknowledging the hard parts of creating. It's a rather philosophical post, albeit with a few handy tactics like, "When you look at the blank page and panic, type the first ten words that come to mind, no matter what they are. Then type ten more."

But what else can we do to approximate inspiration? Where are the practical tips, dammit?! (This is totally the voice inside my head. Not question-asker Dani's voice.)

Here are a three ideas.

1. Emulation (a.k.a. imitation)

Reading works you love can help to fuel your own writing. For one thing, it immerses your mind in the world of words and ideas, which can spark your own creativity. When I read a piece of writing that makes me think, "I wish I could write like that," I try to figure out why I love it and what the writer did to make it so wonderful.

And sometimes, I copy out a passage that I like and then imitate it as an exercise. I follow the general pattern set by the original author, substituting my own topic and words. This is a fun way to feel how the author has structured her sentences, how the language and rhythm work, how the theme stays focused or jumps around.

But, this practice method borders on unfair use and plagiarism, so I don't advocate using it for something you plan to publish as your own. As I said, consider this an exercise. In the end, you may find snippets of what you've written that you can use in another way. And if you do want to publish something that you've written in this way, be sure to credit the original author and her work. But again, I think you should treat this as a private exercise.

Here's an example so you can see how this works.

2. To Prompt or Not To Prompt?

I have mixed feelings about writing prompts. On one hand, I agree with poet Mary Ruefle (who is one of my MFA faculty members) who says that we don't need prompts devised by someone else. "The world is your prompt!" she said during a recent workshop. On the other hand, I think they can come in handy when you're really feeling stuck. After Mary declared prompts unnecessary, she then caved in and offered us this prompt, which she credited to fellow VCFA faculty member and poet Ralph Angel:

Walk in any direction for five to seven minutes. (You can do this outside or you can roam around inside a building.) Stop. Notice what surrounds you and write about it for the same length of time that you walked. Put your notes away. The next day, look at what you wrote and circle where the language is hot, where something interesting is happening. Put just those circled words on another piece of paper and use your own language as a writing prompt.

I think of this as the prompt of all prompts, like a meta-prompt. You create your own prompt organically. It's really just a formal method for drawing inspiration from the world around you.

3. Make Lists, Make Leaps

Not knowing what to write about is one thing. Prompts and emulation can help with that. But not knowing how to continue with a specific piece of writing is something else entirely. This is when I brainstorm and freewrite. For example, I'm writing an essay about whales right now. I know the essay isn't done, but I haven't figured out where it wants to go next. So I started a list of everything I could think of about whales. (A sampling: Jonah and Whale, Pinocchio, cultures that eat raw blubber.) I see if anything on the list sparks a thought-trail.

I also try freewriting on the topic, which is just me writing furiously, with no regard to coherency, grammar, spelling, or structure. I go as fast as I can and make any leap that comes to mind, no matter how crazy it is, just to see where it takes me. Essentially, I'm trying to trick myself into finding inspiration. I get stuck fairly often, so I use this technique a lot. Sometimes it takes a few tries, but eventually I find the thread and can move forward.

What are your tips for staying inspired? How do you find it when it's missing in action? Is inspiration overrated or is it essential? Leave your thoughts (and writing questions) in the comments.

In The Word Cellar runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Read other posts in the series here.