i will share this with my editing clients. to receive editing suggestions can be disheartening for writers who sometimes seem mostly to expect only validation.
Without having gone to college, I managed to become an art teacher in private schools. I pretty much had to teach myself how to teach. When I decided to take writing seriously, I realized immediately how woefully unprepared I was, even having been a voracious reader of CNF, the kind of writing I wanted to do. Miraculously, at the age of 68 was accepted to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference where my eyes were opened so wide, I almost went blind and quit. Fourteen years and a lot of workshopping later, I'm being published (to my delight). And my favorite workshop is the VCFA PGWC where I will go again this summer. What I want to say, above all, is how much I have learned by reading other writers' work and talking about it in workshop with an excellent teacher. Now, with WITD, I have an additional favorite learning opportunity and teacher I can depend on. Thank you, Jeannine!
Char,.that's very inspiring. i have been writing all my life but it wasn't until my late 30s that i started to share my work and took formal writing classes. now at 61, i am only really starting to feel like my instrument is humming at the right frequency.
Swimming in WITD waters I have quit thinking in terms of scarcity when it comes to my words because we approach the craft in such an open and playful way. There’s no win/lose, have/ have not— there’s just more words and more ways to approach them. I have learned resilience in this space and it has served me beyond the words.
I hear this, I’ve started adding little exercises like forcing myself to find ways to include random words, or look closer at a scene to find a strange object or a weird character tic, all based on looking as closely as I can to let details emerge so I can name them … the process feels more alchemical….
Creative resilience would be a fun thing to talk and write about--and yes, this idea that we can make more words, that if we take a risk and arrange words in a certain way that doesn't turn out, we can just ... arrange them in a different way, or arrange different words, or ... and nothing is even wasted. It's very freeing.
I will think of "rich compost" now whenever I feel like my writing stinks! Compost can be a generous word for sh!t, and I'm 'composing,' or composting a lot of that lately.
Ha! You’re talking to my alter ego, “Queen Poopicina,” who playfully introduced composting toilets to music festivals in the NW. I’m so glad you’re composting all that sh*t!
“The kindest, most generous gift you can give yourself as an aspiring writer is to befriend that creative friction as soon as you possibly can.” This speaks to me. I’ve always been very protective of my writing, shielding it from the harshness of criticism. This has prevented me from taking risks, both in the writing itself but also in the sharing. But I must get comfortable with the right “creative friction.”
Yes, and I think getting comfortable with creative friction is how we start to know when it's good creative friction and when it's the kind of frustration that means something really isn't working. Kind of like with exercise--good pain and bad pain.
i will share this with my editing clients. to receive editing suggestions can be disheartening for writers who sometimes seem mostly to expect only validation.
thanks as always Jeannine!
Without having gone to college, I managed to become an art teacher in private schools. I pretty much had to teach myself how to teach. When I decided to take writing seriously, I realized immediately how woefully unprepared I was, even having been a voracious reader of CNF, the kind of writing I wanted to do. Miraculously, at the age of 68 was accepted to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference where my eyes were opened so wide, I almost went blind and quit. Fourteen years and a lot of workshopping later, I'm being published (to my delight). And my favorite workshop is the VCFA PGWC where I will go again this summer. What I want to say, above all, is how much I have learned by reading other writers' work and talking about it in workshop with an excellent teacher. Now, with WITD, I have an additional favorite learning opportunity and teacher I can depend on. Thank you, Jeannine!
Char,.that's very inspiring. i have been writing all my life but it wasn't until my late 30s that i started to share my work and took formal writing classes. now at 61, i am only really starting to feel like my instrument is humming at the right frequency.
Swimming in WITD waters I have quit thinking in terms of scarcity when it comes to my words because we approach the craft in such an open and playful way. There’s no win/lose, have/ have not— there’s just more words and more ways to approach them. I have learned resilience in this space and it has served me beyond the words.
i love this, Emily. yes, resilience. i am learning how to be a better editor of my own work from WITD and through editing the work of others.
Thank you! Yes! It is transformative!
I hear this, I’ve started adding little exercises like forcing myself to find ways to include random words, or look closer at a scene to find a strange object or a weird character tic, all based on looking as closely as I can to let details emerge so I can name them … the process feels more alchemical….
That sounds like an amazing practice, Tasha! So generative.
Creative resilience would be a fun thing to talk and write about--and yes, this idea that we can make more words, that if we take a risk and arrange words in a certain way that doesn't turn out, we can just ... arrange them in a different way, or arrange different words, or ... and nothing is even wasted. It's very freeing.
It’s rich compost!
I will think of "rich compost" now whenever I feel like my writing stinks! Compost can be a generous word for sh!t, and I'm 'composing,' or composting a lot of that lately.
Ha! You’re talking to my alter ego, “Queen Poopicina,” who playfully introduced composting toilets to music festivals in the NW. I’m so glad you’re composting all that sh*t!
“The kindest, most generous gift you can give yourself as an aspiring writer is to befriend that creative friction as soon as you possibly can.” This speaks to me. I’ve always been very protective of my writing, shielding it from the harshness of criticism. This has prevented me from taking risks, both in the writing itself but also in the sharing. But I must get comfortable with the right “creative friction.”
Yes, and I think getting comfortable with creative friction is how we start to know when it's good creative friction and when it's the kind of frustration that means something really isn't working. Kind of like with exercise--good pain and bad pain.
Rules and advice are like great big NO TRESPASSING signs.
Rules, especially!!! We all know what they say about rules!