Three Lessons on Writing (In The Word Cellar)

I just started the third semester of my MFA program. Here's some of what I've learned so far. (And scroll down for a giveaway!)

Lesson One: Write with your body

At my first on-campus residency last summer, I realized that I'd been writing almost completely from my head. I'd been ignoring the five senses on the page, writing about my observations and interior life nearly devoid of sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. When I heard people read work that mesmerized me, I realized that they were describing things in the physical world. Fancy that!

This simple concept revolutionized my writing. I started writing not just with my head, but with my eyes, nose, mouth, skin, and ears. I discovered a lyric writing voice I'd never suspected I had -- or  that I'd even wanted. I fell in love with this new way of writing down the world.

Lesson Two: Choose your own story (and your voice)

By my second residency last winter, I was practicing my new voice and playing around with various writing styles and topics. I'd written a few lyric essays that were related to each other, but I didn't have a real direction with my work. When I realized that I'd need at least 75 pages for a final collection in order to graduate, I panicked. Those 75 pages didn't have to be related, but wouldn't it be nice if they were? It was time to choose a direction.

On top of it all, my advisors were encouraging me to write about a true story from my life that I did not want to write. "I'm just not interested in telling that story," I'd say.

They'd counter with: "But there's so much good stuff in there!"

I knew they were right: There is good stuff in there. And I knew I wanted a cohesive collection of 75 pages for my portfolio. So I started writing that story. I wrote 30 pages. I hated most of them. I hated the process of telling that particular story in that particular way.

But I'm so glad that my advisors encouraged me to try it, because those 30 pages showed me exactly what I didn't want to write, which finally illuminated what I did want to write.

I realized that my lyric essays had been trying to tell a similar story as those pages of memoir, but I hadn't seen it until I took a detour. By showing me what I didn't want to do, those 30 pages illuminated the story I did want to tell and how I wanted to tell it.

The only way to keep writing (and to keep making art of any kind) is to be true to our creative visions, to honor our passions and quirks. Sometimes it takes a detour to show us our true path. That's just part of the process.

In the end, you get to choose the story you tell, and how you tell it.

Lesson Three: Let the writing take over

I got back from my third residency last week. While I was there, the message all around me was this: Go deeper. Be wilder. Let the writing take over. Stop worrying about appearing normal to other people.

Within a few days of receiving this message from the universe, the first challenge to it smacked me in the chest and sent me to my knees. Circumstances conspired to make this going deeper and being wilder seem too risky. I contemplated scrapping my soul-baring lyric essays and instead writing about coffee or kittens -- anything to avoid letting the writing take over. Anything to avoid telling my story in my voice. Anything to avoid going deeper.

For two days I cried to friends and teared up when anyone asked me how I was. I looked for loopholes, tangents, escape routes -- anything to avoid the work of my artistic calling: to be true, no matter the consequences (real or imagined).

I don't know what going deeper and wilder will look like. I'm excited and afraid. I'm also utterly convinced that there is no other way forward.

*  *  *

Giveaway
Ask a writing question. Be entered to win a copy of Lanterns.

For the rest of July, anyone who emails me a writing question or leaves one in the comment will be entered to win a copy of Lanterns: A Gathering of Stories. I'll choose the winner randomly, and there's no limit to how many questions you can ask.

Leave your questions in the comments of this post or email them to jennifer{at}thewordcellar{dot}com. Small questions and big ones. Vague questions and the very specific. Questions on the writing life, the writing process, and the craft of writing. Send them all!

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

Editing is a Creative Act (In The Word Cellar)

Diana+ (Kodak 400-VC3)

"We generally go for a pretty straight definitive version of what the song sounds like it should be, and then, deconstruct it a little bit to see if there's some more exciting way to approach it. There's no reason -- at all -- not to destroy it. We made it, so it's ours to destroy. And that's liberating and exciting in a really creative way." ~Jeff Tweedy, singer/songwriter (in "I am trying to break your heart," a documentary film about the band Wilco)

The writer's worst nightmare: The blank page.

The writer's other worst nightmare: The editing process.

Both have a reputation for intimidating writers and making us long to get up and do some laundry. Personally, I think the blank page is way scarier than editing. The beginning of a project -- those moments (or years) before a word is written -- can paralyze me with possibility. I'm working on changing that, trying to see the blank canvas as an invitation rather than a terrifying wasteland.

Maybe you think revision is worse. Maybe you consider it a dark monolith squatting between you and the joy of a finished piece of writing. I say it's not so! I like revising. All those written words to cover the blank page! All those sentences and punctuation marks to ward off bright white panic! Revising is often one of my favorite parts of the writing process.

Look at the word revision: Re-vision. That's not so scary. In fact, it's rather nice. I think of it as rewriting. No matter what you call it, editing is a creative act.

Yes, there are two different mojos that go into the writing process -- the creative and the critical -- but I think both can be creative acts. On one hand, you have the purely creative mojo, during which you should quiet your inner critic and analyst and let the words fly. On the other hand, there is a time for your editorial, critical eye to rove over your work. But I don't mean critical in a mean-spirited way. I mean critical in a creative way; use your thinking skills to make the work rock.

The only thing your critic and analyst should be doing is helping your creative mojo to better serve the work. If they start ranting or whispering about the value of the work -- about how good or bad it is -- rejigger their wiring until they understand that they're part of the creative process, not part of a panel of judges. This will quiet their cynicism and bitterness, and engage them in the process of making art, which is probably what they've secretly wanted.

Reshaping a work after the first pass of creation is part of the creative process. You move paragraphs around, change words, delete sentences and then sometimes put them back in. You play with the words as though you're shaping wet clay into something beautiful. Until the very end stage of proofreading, all editing is simply rewriting, or, writing again.

Don't be afraid to dig into your writing. Get your soft writer's hands dirty. Plunge them down into the loam of your words, all the way up to your wrists or elbows, however far you need to go. Stop fearing the rewriting process. It's all writing. Dig and move and sing in the pages of your creation. Own the editing process. Be brave enough to change things. You created it. Allow yourself to deconstruct it and put it together again in a new, more interesting way.

A word on a practical issue: Keep copies of vastly different revisions, in case you want to pull something from one version into another.

One word of caution: You could rewrite forever. Don't. Allow yourself to finish things and enjoy them.

I've completely revamped essays four or five times before I began to find their true shape and the story they were trying to tell. I loved the process of rewriting them, of unearthing something new and true, of discovering the art as I was making it.

I know some of you are still having a hard time believing me, but I invite you to try re-envisioning what the editing process can look like. During your next editing session, tell yourself that you're just writing again.

And let me know how it goes.

**Post your writing questions in the comments or send them to jennifer{at}thewordcellar{dot}com.

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

Ways to Enliven Your Writing (In The Word Cellar)

Carousel beneath Space Needle, Seattle (Diana+; Kodak GC400)

This week's nitty gritty writing tips are short and sweet, or maybe they're quick and dirty. (You decide which cliché you like better.)

How can you make your writing more lively? If you're bogged down in a section of writing that drags its feet and bores you, try a few of these tips to perk it up. In fact, they're good techniques to use all the time.

1. Avoid clichés. Wait, that tip itself is rather cliché, isn't it? Sometimes a cliché can be funny or drive home a point as a sort of cultural shorthand. But if you use one, be aware of it. Use it because it's the best way to say something, not because it's the easiest and quickest way to say it.
2. Use active voice. In active voice, the subject of the sentence does the action. In passive voice, the action of the sentence happens to the object. This is passive voice: The omelette was dropped on the floor by the chef. This is active voice: The chef dropped the omelette on the floor. Passive: The baseball was thrown by me. Active: I threw the baseball.
3. Use good verbs, not adverbs. Strong writing uses strong verbs, not weak verbs modified by adverbs. Don't run quickly out the door; sprint or dash out the door. Don't cry profusely; weep or wail. Don't call out angrily; shout or yell or scold. Some writers swear against adverbs at all costs. I'm not that strict, but I believe in the power of lively verbs to strengthen writing.
4. Use fewer "to be" verbs. To be verbs include the following: be, am is, are, was, and were. Sometimes you need to use a to be verb. But often you can find a much more interesting way to write the sentence.
5. Avoid word bloat. You probably need fewer words than you think you do. Remove unnecessary phrases or replace them with shorter, more direct phrases. Less is more. (Hey look, another cliché!)

Do you have any favorite tips for enlivening your writing? Any questions on how to handle specific sluggish sections? Share in the comments or email me: jennifer{at}thewordcellar{dot}com.

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

Finding a Story's Heart (In The Word Cellar)

in the clearing, Frog Creek Lodge, Lakebay, WA; spring 2010 (Diana+, Kodak GC400)

Essays are the Dianas of the writing world.

When you write creative nonfiction (such as blog posts and essays), are you trying to record the facts of what happened or to capture the essence of the experience? Unless you work as an investigative reporter or a journalist, you probably seek to capture the essence of people, places, and events in your writing. You seek to tell a story.

Great nonfiction doesn't just tell us what happened. It creates art from real life.

There's the scene at hand, and then there's the story.

I used to try to take pictures that captured the whole scene and encapsulated every little true-to-life detail. But those photos bored me; they had no story. Playing with my analogue Diana F+ camera has started to change that. Plastic cameras like the Diana are known for creating photos with a vignette effect -- the way an image fades, blurs, and shades around the edges. Vignette is also the word for a short, descriptive story.

But you don't need a plastic film camera to take great story-shots. And you don't need to write short vignettes to create a story with heart. Digital or analogue. Blog post or long form essay. They're all about framing an object subjectively; about finding the light and shadows; about contours and composition. Art isn't just about capturing what happened. It's about making sense of what happened. Art is about making connections between one thing and another and then another. I'm drawn to stories (visual and written) that do more than simply record a scene. I want stories that offer a new perspective, stories that capture the emotion, essence, and meaning of a moment.

How do you write beyond the events and into the heart of the story?

In elementary school, I went through a phase of telling the truth -- the whole of it and nothing but it. I appointed myself guardian of just the facts, ma'am. If my mom and I ran errands, going first to the bank and then to the bakery, and she later told my dad that we'd gone to the bakery and the bank, I corrected her. She had the order wrong, which meant she wasn't telling the real story.

Ah yes, the real story. Earlier this month we looked at finding our true writing voice. I said that while there is such a thing as an authentic writing voice, it's also a living thing that evolves and can splinter into different (but equally authentic) voices. Turns out that the real story is another slippery entity.

A few months ago my friend Vivienne (who, incidentally, takes gorgeous photographs bursting with stories) and I talked about how to write beyond events and into what really happened. In other words, how to find a story's heart. This topic could consume us for weeks (and maybe it will), but here's a primer on what I know about getting to the heart of things.

1. Stories need meaning, not morals. (This is some of the wisest writing advice my pal Jen Lee has given me.) Give your readers enough meat of the story and its implications to help them understand why the story matters. Don't turn a story into a Sunday School lesson. Nobody likes a moralizing know-it-all. (Trust me, I know; I've been one.) Trust your readers, but don't make them do the creative equivalent of quantum physics to understand what the story means.
2. Stories need details. But not too many. And only the important ones. How do you tell how many and which details to include? It's different for every writer and for every piece of writing, but there are a few things to keep in mind. Details should create texture and interest within a story. They should focus the readers' attention on what matters. They should add to the artfulness of the scene you're writing. Frame your paragraphs as you would frame a photograph. Use spectacular and specific details to draw in readers and immerse them in the world you're recreating. Don't try to capture the whole world, even when you're writing true stories. Be selective.
3. Stories need a bridge between the personal and the universal. Even when you're telling an intimate story about a unique experience, readers should find something in it to relate to as fellow humans. But beware of moralizing here! Don't build a literal bridge that points out the obvious or talks down to the reader. Oddly enough, the more specific your details, the more universal your story can become. This is one of those things (like so much) about writing that I see and feel intuitively. I'm working on figuring out a more concrete way to explain it. Until then, mull it over and let me know if you can verbalize it any better. (Please share in the comments if you take a stab at it.)
4. Stories need a focus. The focus of a story drives the meaning, the details, and the bridge. I usually don't know a story's focus until I've written a large chunk of it. Only after sketching out and connecting ideas do I find a story's heart. I've rewritten essays five times before I found their real essence. A story can contain a lot of seemingly disparate elements, but you need to know how they tie together. If you don't know -- at least on some intuitive level -- your readers won't know.
5. Stories need to be True. That's "Truth" with a capital "T." This may be the most important point of all. Your story needs to feel True on the page, in your mind, in the eyes of your readers. I've written things that are technically true by dutifully capturing my thoughts or the true-to-life details of a scene. But the scene fell flat and veered outside the heart of the story. Annie Dillard says it best in her "Notes for Young Writers": "The work's unity is more important than anything else about it. Those digressions that were so much fun to write must go." This is another one of those things that you learn by doing. The more you write, the easier it will be to decipher what's True, and to sacrifice anything that doesn't serve the story. (Try to get your hands on Dillard's short essay. It may be the best writing advice I've ever read. You can find it in Issue 15 of the literary journal Creative Nonfiction.)

I want to capture the whole world in my writing, but I can only do it one frame and one heartbeat at a time. Now it's your turn: How do you write into the heart of a story?

**Post your writing questions in the comments or send them to jennifer{at}thewordcellar{dot}com.

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

Writing Masquerade: Finding Your Voice (In The Word Cellar)

my shadow (with crazy pigtail buns in my hair)

(Scroll down to the end of this post for a finding-your-voice prompt called Writing Masquerade.)

I have to be honest with you: I've started to dread writing these "In The Word Cellar" columns. This is only the sixth post in the series, and already I feel overwhelmed and worn out. Today I finally figured out why. I'd lost my voice. So today, I'm going to write about voice. (Ever hear the adage that we teach what we need to learn?)

Sometimes, when I really-really care about something, I freeze up. I get twitchy and over-analytical. I worry myself into a state of paralysis. Or worse, I start acting like someone who isn't really me. That's what happened with these posts about writing, because I really-really care about them. I'd seized up with too much caring.

I wanted you to trust me as a writer and a guide on this writing journey. But I was worried that you wouldn't. My go-to move when I feel frightened or insecure is to use logic. So I allowed my analytical left-brain to take over. And that darling leftie told me that I should sound smart for you. And then you'd trust me, right? Ugh. Is there anything worse than someone trying to sound smart? Oh, wait, there is: Someone trying to sound smart while simultaneously pretending they're NOT trying to sound smart. Ugh-ugh.

I love language. I thrill at the thought of telling a good story, of connecting with people through words, of creating something beautiful. Writing is my art and my passion. I wanted to share it with you so much that I lost my voice while trying to do it.

So enough. I'm not going to try to sound smart anymore. I'm going to share what I've learned about writing from my mentors and through practice. I invite you to share, too. You are an important part of this equation. This community can learn from its members. So share what you've got: questions, answers, observations. All of those things help us learn and grow as writers.

This is what I know about voice: We write best when we write in a voice that's true to ourselves.

But how do you find your writing voice? How do you develop a style?

You write. And write. And write. You practice the art and craft of spinning stories, of stringing together words to create meaning. You can also read writers that you love -- not so you can copy them, but so you can see what styles and topics interest you, what makes your heart sing. Follow the energy of what enlivens you. Be inspired to write with that energy.

Over time, your voice will emerge. It will be like that saying about pornography: You'll know it when you see it. You'll probably also find that you have more than one possible writing style. I have one basic voice here on my blog, but I have a different voice when I'm writing lyric essays. We're multifaceted people; it makes sense that we'd have different writing moves. Style, like language itself, is a living, changing entity that can evolve and morph over time.

Writing Masquerade
Here's a prompt to help you try on and tap into a few voices. Pretend the blank page or computer screen is a masquerade ball and you get to dress up your writing any way you like. You can play around with your words and your style, see what fits and what excites you.

(It might seem counterintuitive to talk about masks and pretending when the goal is to find our true voice. But trying something new or out of character can give us access to parts of our voice that we didn't realize we had.)

1. Pick a topic or event to write about. It can be anything. (A few suggestions: your favorite part of the day; an encounter with a stranger; a childhood memory; your high school prom or graduation; the moment you realized that you were a grown-up.)
2. For this experiment, you can write as much or as little as you like, but a few paragraphs is probably a good starting point.
3. Now write about your topic in whatever style comes to mind at first. Don't think about this. Just write.
4. Next, try on a few different writing voices. Write about the same topic again, but put on a different mask:

• Be a Jester: Could you be funny in the piece? Play and have fun. Even sad topics can sometimes handle humor.
• Be a Poet: What if you tried writing about your topic lyrically, with beautiful sensory details, imagery, and metaphors? Take a flight of fancy and see what gorgeous ideas you can string together. 
• Be a Vixen: What's the dark, shadowy side that you're not telling us? Pull on this mask and let your inner bad-girl come out and play on the page. Let her be as sexy, as mysterious, or as mean as she wants to be. (Remember, no one else has to see it.)
• Be a Queen: Own it, sister. Write like you mean it, every blessed word of it. Be strong. Write with authority. Write what you'd write if you ruled the land and could say whatever you wanted without consequence.

I hope you'll share your thoughts on voice and style and maybe a few of your masquerade experiments in the comments. And if you post something on your blog, please link to it!

**Post your writing questions in the comments or send them to jennifer{at}thewordcellar{dot}com.

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