Renee is Writing

On Thursday April 26 my writing critique group, Tapestries, set off for a twice yearly retreat. On a brisk partly cloudy morning I drove to Amagansett on the south fork of Long Island, almost to the tip at the Montauk Lighthouse. I met one of our members at Sea Crest on the Ocean where we stay and we went to lunch. Over a tasty chicken salad sandwich on rye bread we relaxed into the few days of peace, quiet and writing as winds blew across the sandy coastline. For three days, four writing women read, wrote, brainstormed and walked on the beach searching for stones left by our muses. Picking up these invisible stones of inspiration we fondled them in our hands, turning them over and over in search of a unique character trait or edgy plot twist that would make our novels rise above the slush piles in editors' and agents' offices. At the end of our peaceable retreat I had revised two short stories and a chapter of my novel. A quite productive opportunity to be the writer I k...

I am just begging for someone to ground me, send me to my room and put me in time out. "Time out" as a behavioral intervention for preschoolers is frowned upon and in many cases prohibited. But I believe for adults--mothers, teachers, therapists, and especially artists and writers--it should be implemented frequently and for long periods of time. The formula for "time out" is one minute for each year of the child's life. For me that would be 62 minutes of glorious peace, quiet and creative time. I prescribe it for myself about three times a day so that morning, noon and night I can hide away and get something created. Unfortunately I cannot self medicate so I am doomed to wait patiently until some physician discovers that this is the best treatment and it has only healthy and positive side effects. In time out I could read quietly, absorbing poems like mist on my skin instead of gobbling them up without a chance to fully appreciate the rhythm and the message. ...

Progress in writing is like the weather, especially if, like me, you write in several genres. Sometimes there are sunny skies and the writing goes well, I am focused on a project and moving along at a good flow. For instance, Saturday was one of those days. I typed out several pages in my novel and stashed them in  a binder to await revision. Then I wrote one and a half new chapters in longhand in my ever present spiral notebook. I also made a few plot notes and created a new character. It was writing bliss. Then Sunday came, and not so good. The weather itself was warm and sunny--a glorious day for winter in the northeast. The writing weather was a disaster. I did a lot of reading, got some errands accomplished and enjoyed the warm sun, but the only writing I achieved were my three morning pages--which I didn't write until 5:00 in the evening. Not feeling very productive I ended the weekend grateful for what I got done on Saturday. Sunday night I made a commitment to make...

I discovered a writing secret on my recent trip to LA. In the 757 aircraft the pressure equalizes, the lights dim, and the white noise of the engines is so loud it feels like it's coming from deep inside my own body. I've heard the safety instructions, eaten my take on board lunch, since sandwiches on the plane are too costly, and I've drunk enough water to keep me from getting a dehydration headache. I have also read several chapters in the novel I brought along on vacation and listened to Adele's album on my i-pod. There are several hours left of this cross country flight. I take out the spiral notebook I am using to write first draft chapters of my novel and here is where the secret reveals itself. Stuck in the plane at 35,000 feet about mountains and streams, nestled into the narrow, even for me, seat of the plane, strapped to my seat with few distractions, the story comes to me like a film on a 3-D screen. My characters' voices speak in my head, the movements...

I am not so arrogant to say I never get writers' block but I'm learning to call it by different names. Some days it's just laziness and lack of interest in my project. Other days it's strong resistance to work and thinking. Resistance is like a stone wall I have to barrel through--it hurts my head but releases me from the bonds of idleness. I've read that "writing begets more writing," and I believe it's true. It's like priming the verbal pump with a trickle of good sentences. When the block comes in the guise of procrastination there's only one thing to do--sit at my desk, whip out a spiral notebook and my favorite purple pen and start writing. When I encounter the block of badly written sentences and characters that fall flat I have to force myself not to quit writing. If I keep going, tossing my lack of confidence out the door, I find dialogue, characterization, and settings building and scenes stretch out over several pages. Maybe not ...

Saturday was rainy and gloomy but I was happy to be indoors and sheltered by the quilt of gray clouds and the light of my muse. Sometimes it's just delightful to stay home all day and gather my poems into a notebook to await revisions. To leisurely lounge in bed, have a lovely breakfast and relax with that second cup of coffee while discussing politics with my husband. Then read without thinking about where I have to go, or what I have to do next. I need these points of stillness in my life in order to let the muse in. She's shy and doesn't like to appear in the midst of noise, people or chaos. Somehow these rainy days, with soft music in the background, and the comfort of hot tea, beckon her out onto my shoulder where I can just sit, stare into space, not thinking, and let her guide me in the right direction. Lately she's been nudging me toward poetry, but the other night she gave me a significant push back toward my abandoned novel. I could use more days of soft s...

Yes, writing is wading through words. First they hunker behind the gray convolutions of the brain. I nudge them out with a long walk outdoors, maybe some instrumental music, hot tea and candles, perhaps a dip into some good poetry or an exciting well written novel. Then all those anxious words begin to tumble around in my head like so many schools of krill. I toss my net into the chaos hoping to catch the train of a plot, an image to turn into a poem, an exciting character to build a story around. As I string the words across the page the magic happens. Scenes build, sentences become doorways into new worlds, characters spring to life before my eyes. I am compelled to keep going, it brings me back to the notebook again and again. It seems the more ideas I have for poems and short stories, the more ideas I get. Once all those words get loosened up there is no stopping them. I feel free. I believe I am a writer. I am halfway through revising short stories for my collectio...