How To Be A Writer (Even if You Lurk)

From the Archives | Building piles and piles of words is not enough. Good writing has a raw, disobedient quality, a feral disposition. So how do we achieve that?

A young writer pays attention to her own eye in a mirror during at one of my writing workshops in 2014

Most writers are introverts, yet, even in writing-related spaces, we beat ourselves up over our quietness. It’s ironic. Quietness is part of observation, which is part of paying attention, which is the bedrock of any creative practice. We need to go a little easier on ourselves in this extrovert-celebrating culture! Just allowing ourselves to be in the observer mode is more than enough most of the time.

Billie Oh

wrote about something similar yesterday in their post about what it really means to stand—and how little attention we often pay to that simple but profound posture. Billie’s 5-minute (free) standing meditation is a surprising revelation.

And a couple of weeks ago, one of my brilliant MFA advisors also reached out to me about writing—being an older writer, getting stuck, getting unstuck, and the soft beauty of lurking. I asked her if I could share her words with you, and she said yes, here they are, slightly abridged. Next week, she and I are actually going to talk more in depth about this topic for a longer, richer post on these rich topics.

For now, though, here’s the short version:

Anyway, I've been wrangling with what my writing life is gonna look like as I go forward for some time (my last novel was in 2011). It's been hard and circuitous and often pressurey. Then one day I said—I'm just gonna do Jeannine's exercises in the Essay in 12 Steps thing (I started story in 12 steps and it didn't feel quite right at the moment) and not ask any questions. Just do what she says. So I did. [And]…something emerged that's very different (and unnerving) than anything I've written before. And I couldn't have done it (or wouldn't have anyway) without these weird little boxes you made :) Constraint is where it's at—which I know as a teacher but it was fascinating to see what it did for me as a student. The essay is still underway—only on third draft. But I'd love to share it with you along the path—maybe even for some editorial comment (though I know you are insanely busy).

Also, the reason I've stayed out of the threads is that rather than finding them encouraging, I found the anxiety about writing/not writing and/or waiting for a response from somebody (the one time I posted, that "what'd ya think" noise went off in my head immediately) just fed into the kind of thinking I've been working to let go of. But I'm so happy for you and everyone that you've built this beautiful community! And I hope we can stay in touch. Sorry to have been so lurk-y (and likely to stay that way), but that's what has been best for my process. You're amazing! xxoo

What’s important about my beloved advisor’s words? Everything.

For one, art is not linear! And neither are we as artists. We never reach a place where we can produce on command or just make things we love easily and without struggle. It just does not work that way. We can write and publish four or five or more books, and still get stuck. It happens all the time!

Also, we change as writers. We crave the feeling of creating something new in our work, because that is what art actually is! It’s creating something that didn’t exist before, not recycling our ideas that worked in the past. That’s why Joy Williams says this about complacency:

The moment a writer knows how to achieve a certain effect, the method must be abandoned. Effects repeated become false, mannered. The writer’s style is his doppelgänger, an apparition that the writer must never trust to do his work for him.

My advisor’s words might be especially encouraging to anyone out there who is interested in WITD: THE SCHOOL, our new 9-month program for “slow-writing,” but who feels uncertain about how much/whether you want to actively participate in a community. The community is a big bonus for many, but it’s also entirely gorgeous to write quietly.

My advisor lurks rather than participates here at WITD because that’s what works for her right now. Sharing her work in the comments triggered her inner critic and that familiar anxiety over external validation, that fear, that measuring and weighing and assessing that she is working to heal after years in the creative writing industrial complex.

Good for her!

Everyone has a different way. We all have different ways at different times. We do what works for us, as best we can. We come as we are, and meet each other and ourselves and the work with curiosity, openness, and a bit of awe—even if we never say a peep “out loud.”

There is no wrong way—I’m just glad you are here!

And what follows now is an archival post from a looooong time ago, when WITD was just a baby Substack. It celebrates, among other things, the secret powers poetry can offer to us prose writers, which feels super apropos given my celebration of having my work included in the forthcoming anthology, Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift, announced for pre-order this week!

I hope you enjoy this archival post—while remembering that there is never just one right way. The only rule about art-making is that you make your own rules, and if you can do it if you can do it!

How To Be A Writer

Words are my lifeblood.

I’ve been fashioning a life out of this word and that one, placed one after the next, for more than 30 years. And some days, it seems like the longer I write, the less I know about writing.

Or at least, the more I know, the less I know for sure. That is to say, the more there is to discover, including how some of what I once believed about language—what it is, how it works, and how to make it do things like tell the truth—no longer feels relevant, or true.

Some ragged scraps, though, seem to stick. These scraps feel like a kind of wisdom that exists all by itself, separate from any skill, talent, or expertise I may ever have or lack.

Below are a few of those sticky scraps, which, taken together, form a ragged cloak of comfort I put on when I feel overwhelmed with the task of language, the stakes of truth, and the effort and luck involved in making something real out of words.

Start With Reading

We all know good writing starts with reading greedily and discerningly, and well beyond our own tastes—for example, in recent years I pushed myself toward dystopian fiction and have since not only discovered many works I love—Station Eleven, High High We Go in the Dark, Parable of the Sower, The School for Good Mothers—but have also learned things that strengthened my own writing and improved my life (that last part is not an exaggeration!). I also try to read older books alongside the new and contemporary work of my peers. I’m presently reading several novels, two of them being Snow Falling on Cedars, which, in addition to being an older book, falls also outside my range which does not typically encompass much historical fiction, and also Rene Denfeld’s beautiful new novel, Sleeping Giants.

Obviously I read nonfiction copiously, as well, given it’s my primary writing genre, and am as we speak devouring two ARCs—Docile by Hyeseung Song, and The Well-Trained Wife, by Tia Levings.

But I read poetry, too. Lots and lots of poetry.

As Ada Limon has said, “That’s how this machine works.”

I invite you to join me in reading poetry, even if you think it’s not for you!

People think poetry is hard or inaccessible or obtuse, but it doesn’t have to be. At all.

Poetry is just a way of being very close up to the world with our words. Poetry is a way of becoming the world with our words. I like to introduce people to

Margaret Atwood

’s “You Begin” as a stunning and embracing portal to poetry.

Prose writers, especially, have so much to learn from the poets. We need to read the work of young writers and old writers. We need to read, in addition to the classics, the work of living writers and debut writers. Above all we need to read writers who don’t look like ourselves, whose lives haven’t looked like ours, who come from places far from where we live, and most of all, whose voices haven’t risen easily above the white male din that drowns everyone else out.

So yes, we must read truly, madly, deeply, but also, we must take great pains to decode the works we read so that we can figure out exactly what those writers did to make certain passages and whole books so arresting. This kind of reading, this close reading for the craft of it, is what will change us into the writers we hope to become.

Of course, we must write, too, as much as we can, day after day, showing up for the arduous work putting one word after the next, again and again and again.

But there is more to it than that, because building piles and piles of words is not enough. Never enough.

Building piles of words can even teach us bad habits, get us into the practice of writing lazy sentences, sentences that will never sing. Never reveal something so true it can burn through the last layer of our self-delusion and awaken us at a whole new level.

So we must also write the hard way. Because while writing for pleasure and catharsis and the satisfaction of a growing word count is well and good at times, we must, if we are to really “do language” as Toni Morrison claims we are here to do, mostly write for the strain and difficulty and torment of it. We must allow ourselves to write hard, write toward and through the demanding task of carving meaning from a flabby, overused language that has become, in the digital age, mostly used for “content.”

Writing should feel like a wrestling match—a grueling effort that leaves us spent and bruised.

Maybe that sounds unpleasant. But it’s not. It’s invigorating to wrestle with language in this way. This effort is how we reclaim the language, and also how we transform and progress as writers, artists, human beings.

This effort is where we meet ourselves anew (and isn’t that the reason for it all?) through grasping at first desperately, and then exactingly, after the perfect verb, through the slashing of pages and pages of “process writing” that are important to wade through as part of the hunt for the actual story, but that do not belong to the actual story, and therefore also do not belong in the actual story.

This sweaty effort is our chance for a wide-open and unflinching observation of our limitations on the page, and our chance to get back up, go back in there, and try again, but harder. This process can repeat itself for as long as we live. There is no destination. Art and the truth within it always remain just this far beyond our grasp. It’s in the act reaching that we encounter, however briefly, the possibility of self, other, and world.

This effort is where art happens—and it’s the art that matters.

Speaking of art, as writers we need to notice our surroundings with a sense of interest, wonder, and awe. We need to cultivate a searing curiosity about everything and everyone, because curiosity is the genesis of empathy. Our job as writers is to ask why, why, why, why, and be doggedly interested in the multiplicity of possibilities rather than relying too surely on what we think we know.

We must build a great tolerance for uncertainty. This requires a willingness to fail, make messes, write badly in a new way over writing the same thing we already know how to write. We need to learn to love uncertainty, and to consistently choose it over the temptation of knowing.

We need to sit quietly in the dark, even if it hurts.

And by all means we can’t obsess constantly on publication or the workings of the industry. If we want to publish, we should worry about that when the time comes. And the time comes when we’re pretty damn sure (which is as sure as we ever will be) that we’ve written something that’s ready—that’s good enough—for publication. In the meantime, it’s probably better to spend our time writing and improving the writing rather than scheming on the best strategy for breaking in.

Perfecting the writing is an alchemical process that requires an openness to perpetual discovery and refinement. Good writing has a raw, disobedient quality, a feral disposition. That’s what allows it to leap off the page. But achieving prose with that kind of unruly abandon almost always requires an untold amount of grunt work. Good writing that breathes and even gasps on the page almost never comes from focusing on market trends, though many commercially successful books do result from doing exactly that. But a commercially successful book and a transcendent piece of writing are not one and the same. The latter may certainly become the former and it sometimes does, but more often, it does not.

The frequent disconnect between powerful art and commercial remuneration must be understood and accepted from the outset.

Ultimately, we gain the most from focusing on our writing as a practice no different from meditation—we show up, we struggle, we break through or we don’t, and then we do it again.

Only over the course of months, years, decades, a lifetime, if ever, do we begin to see clearly the pattern of our own intricate unfolding within the context of not just our own life, but of everything.

The whole world.

Which is, of course, the point.

Love,
Jeannine

Strange Containers: Flash, Hermits & Other Oddities

Four Weeks of Highly Specific Flash Writing Starts August 7! Join Us!

“I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.” ~ Georgia O’Keeffe

There are millions of ways to tell stories, and sometimes, a straight line from start to finish is not the best or most beautiful option. Sometimes, we can tell our stories in pieces. Fragmented, nonlinear, and other inventive forms can be both powerful and artful. Plus, it’s fun! 

Strange Containers, the next WITD seasonal intensive, starts August 7, and we’ll read some outstanding flash—short, fragmented and broken things in strange containers—and study the techniques behind these nontraditional forms.

Then we’ll gather bits and pieces of our own stories and begin to list, braid, collage, erase, and rearrange these items into... something else. We’ll examine how to combine multiple subjects, images, and motifs within a single piece, and we’ll look at how fragmented structures can add complexity and amplify meaning without confusing the reader.

This intensive is based on the most popular Writing in the Dark live workshop of all time, The Art of the Fractured, which I also taught through Catapult back when Catapult still had writing classes. Art of the Fractured sold out every single time it was offered, and many terrific published pieces were born in that workshop, some of which you can peruse on this big, beautiful list of published work born in WITD:

Born in WITD: A Big Beautiful & Growing Directory of Work Published by WITD Writers

Strange Containers will be fast, playful & inventive, meant to help writers break out of the same old, same old and try some new ways into their own work.

Participants can expect the kinds of craft essays you usually find from me here at WITD, plus inspiring resources (especially the readings of published work you might not stumble across otherwise), detailed writing exercises, and lots of opportunities to share and read each other’s work, which is a beautiful facet of this community.

The Strange Containers intensive will be very accessible yet also oddly challenging and inspiring for all levels because … it’s just so weird.

To note, Strange Containers is not a writing class per se (there are no class meetings, no Zoom, no “assignments,” etc.), it’s an intensive on Substack, where all the material is delivered through four consecutive Wednesday posts in August. I draw this distinction because I do ALSO teach writing classes! Which are different, which are tuition-based, and which are adjacent to and supported by but separate from the WITD newsletter on Substack.

Anyway, for Strange Containers and all of the other WITD intensives (we run several a year!), everything happens right here on the posts, and all you need to do is be a paid or founding member of WITD—so if you already are, you’re all set for this adventure! Your subscription is all you need to participate.

Subscribed

What’s Included in “Strange Containers”

Paid members:

• Full access to all 4 Strange Container posts, sent via email on Wednesdays, and rich with readings, writing exercises, direct instruction and inspiration for trying your hand at some unusual new short work.

• Access to our incredible comments—WITD comments sections are amazing. Each week, participants share questions, insights, and snippets of work in progress—and your guides, Jeannine and Billie, actively participate, as well.

Founding members also receive extra cool stuff that’s interactive, like:

• Voice Memos and Video Notes.

• Live Write-Ins and Live Salons on Zoom w/open mic readings to celebrate the intensive when we’re done (these are so fun).

All participants come away with:

• A storehouse of valuable new ways to think about approaching short work, and why we might want to, plus specific tools to apply long after the the intensive is over.

• A collection of new work in progress that you can continue to develop on your own. 

• An archive of flash and hermit crab readings and writing exercises that you can repeat as desired.

• A deeper understanding of the ways these forms can work to enliven your writing practice.

Sign Up Now

Join now to start poking around our giant archive and maybe even dip your toe into our thriving Thursday Threads, or explore the full archive of past WITD intensives.

What People Say About Writing in the Dark Intensives

• I can’t believe what I’m getting out of this intensive. It’s changing my writing in the most unexpected ways, and I am beyond grateful. You are the most generous teacher.

• You are magic. Pure magic.

• I have learned much from you in the last year, through your weekly posts and seasonal intensives. The depth and quality of your content is unmatched on Substack (IMHO). That, plus the network of subscribers you have garnered is why I look forward to Wednesdays! (And Mondays for Lit Salon and Thursdays for the new Threads!) I have been involved in workshops that cost more but provide less. Thanks for all you are producing and the community you have created in an effort to bring the out our best writing selves.

• As always, there's more to these exercises than I first anticipate.

• I’m thoroughly enjoying this challenge and truly appreciate all the ways you’re helping each of us become more thoughtful and evocative writers.

• It's actually been super helpful to work through the exercises in quick succession, like a little writing course... But so much more inspiring and thoughtful and generous and fun than any I've taken before. THANK YOU Jeannine, you are brilliant.

• These assignments are like magic.

• Your post gave me a giant AHA moment. You’ve unlocked my understanding of tension and storytelling in memoir.

• This post was wonderful. Love the first quote especially. I had a couple of deeper realizations with this exercise.

• Reading all the comments on my writing today, so full of enthusiasm and encouragement, really made my day! One of the things I will treasure most about this challenge is learning to trust myself and others with my writing.

We know from the Lyric Essay Challenge and Story Challenge and The Visceral Self that these things evolve and change along the way, but these are the main points as far as we can see, and I’m happy to answer questions if you have them! Just throw your thoughts into the comments or respond via email to this post.

I cannot wait to write with you!

xo

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If you or someone you know is walking the long path back to yourself after a painful childhood, then my memoir, The Part That Burns, might help light your way.