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?
Well, I used to lurk here….. ha! And I may have still been lurking when this first appeared, so maybe my newfound loquaciousness is a WITD cautionary tale??? You might be next if you tap in to the delicious vein of untried possibilities that flows through this space! !!!!
But I understand the “hit” that comes with immediate feedback that your wise advisor recognizes. At some point, we have to close the door, close our mouths, open our minds and notebooks and do the work. As you say, there are seasons in our work- we are in this for the long game, and building community to support you through the closed door/ closed mouth times is an investment in the bigger work.
The way you balance the brief sprints of literary examples with the marathons of intensives, and now The School, has really established a rhythm for me that feels sustainable in my own present and future practice. Again, it comes to noticing and listening not only to what is around you but what is inside you, and then responding according to that, not according to an artificial calendar. I see that if I keep showing up, I will have built a body of work to pull from when something happens in the world beyond, and if I wish to respond to in the moment, I will have something slow baked rather than hastily thrown together. I can keep writing that way.
Same with lurking- it may be weird to hear a defense of lurking from the wide-mouthed frog, but the right words, in the right order, at the right time are what matters, no matter where you choose to write them.
Everything--every single thing you say here--is spot on, Emily. And your description of SCHOOl and other pieces, and how they're different but, for each writer, depending on their needs, potentially complementary (though no one EVER needs to do EVERYTHING!). It's just there for us. And Emily, I am so so honored to write with you.
A wide-mouthed frog; that's the kind of student I am: "And what did you eat for breakfast?" (I had to look the story up.)
Well said, Emily: "At some point, we have to close the door, close our mouths, open our minds and notebooks and do the work. As you say, there are seasons in our work- we are in this for the long game, and building community to support you through the closed door/ closed mouth times is an investment in the bigger work."
This bit you quoted from Emily ... if only I had known that when I was younger. If only I had understood how that works. I didn't. But now I do. Thank goodness.
Emily - I agree with this 100% "it comes to noticing and listening not only to what is around you but what is inside you, and then responding according to that, not according to an artificial calendar. I see that if I keep showing up, I will have built a body of work to pull from when something happens in the world beyond, and if I wish to respond to in the moment, I will have something slow baked rather than hastily thrown together. I can keep writing that way." Thank you! Showing up consistently with curiosity and compassion (that's a lot of C's there!) is what fans the creativity flames for me.
I was waist-deep into my teaching career before I fully absorbed the power of quiet, the wild possibilities of quiet classrooms and minds. I followed my students there, and I wrote my way there, and what I found there was boundless (inter)connection. I read poems with my coffee every morning before diving into my academic brain, to write a book about those quiet students, and in the process started teaching Sociology with poetry, poems like Perhaps The World Ends Here (Joy Harjo) and 38 (Layli Long Soldier) and The Night After You Lose Your Job (Debora Kuan) and On My Mom's 50th Birthday (Jose Olivarez). And this, this is a beautiful sentence, a wish for the world: "We need to cultivate a searing curiosity about everything and everyone, because curiosity is the genesis of empathy."
Your book is still on my list, Monica. Where would you recommend ordering from? I will do it now so that at least I have it on hand and can start when I get one breath! And re that sentence, well, Monica, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'm grateful that anyone is interested in my book, so thank you. I am not aiming to use this space for PR! I am a wide-mouthed frog (thank you, Emily).
Thank you!! I try to avoid Amazon too, except that it does increase my visibility as a micro indie press writer (Amazon ranking really matters). So it's something I straddle!! But I am super excited to read your book and you are not promo-ing at all, everyone has been amazing about that. We are going to start a monthly Classifieds where all WITD-ers can happily promote and connect to one another (books, editing services, reading and writing groups, and other stuff, too, like Diana's pottery or other people paint or record music, etc). Meanwhile, you're totally good, I asked!!! Thank you!!
Dearest Jeannine. Uncanny how I always connect so deeply to your words, both in your beautiful writing and in your essays about craft! Especially now, as I am writing an essay on what poetry means to me as a prose writer / playwright! I see poetry everywhere and in everything. It has changed my life. It has SAVED my life! I know you know this… I will also add to all these great points that with the hard work, never lose sight of the joy! Write in a way that most excites you, even if it makes no “logical” sense. And take good care of yourself outside of writing so you can show up to do the work with joy. I know you know this also. I just thought I’d share it with the community because it’s what helps me get through the toughest wrestling matches in writing… :)
As a person who is only a few years into reading poetry (though a lifetime of studying album lyrics and liner notes), I'd love to know what poets others like to read and why/when...maybe a poetry recommendations, crowdsourced thread/classifieds?
“We need to learn to love uncertainty, and to consistently choose it over the temptation of knowing. “. This. This is the hardest thing to step into. Had a thought after sitting with this. If I always stay with what I know, I already know what it is already. It’s only from embracing uncertainty that I learn something. Thank you for this, Jeannine.
Lurkers unite! When I first started teaching writing retreats, I told my husband that it was strange I was building something I would never in a million years sign up for myself. Teaching is one thing--being the participant among others is quite different. I have changed since then, but, trust me, Kelly, I remember the feeling and will never forget it, and, in fact, I value it. I value intentional silence. There is a place for ALL of us.
Aaah Jeannine, what a canny and wise woman you are. It’s the no knowing, the uncertainty, that you talk about, which has been the hardest thing for me to shake off after all my years of corporate writing, which is, just as you say, words, weaselly and weak, born dead on the page. Thanks for the shimmers and shards, the play, the yoga (Billie!)and poetry, of which I was mightily afraid, but no longer. I am grateful far beyond these few words. See you among the hermit crabs in August💙
We are grateful for YOU, Anna! What if no one wanted to get messy, break through the "tidy good sentences" we all know how to write? What if no one wanted to feel the words in their mouths, under their tongues, between their teeth? What if no one wanted to make weird things they can't understand right away, new things that confuse them, unusual things that genuinely surprise them? What if no one wanted to take the risk of letting the images come to them from the real world, through their senses, and therefore, their bodies, rather than from the synthetics factory of the prefrontal cortex? Well, then we would be sitting in the dark all alone. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Seriously, I think sometimes my brain must call out to your brain and say please post something that relates to what is happening up here in my gray matter! This post is right on time. Thank you!! It's everything I needed right this moment <3 Xoxo
I lurk and read and appreciate all you write, Jeannine. I read and appreciate all the comments. I hope to make the transition to writing with you all on this next intensive in August. I have no idea what flash fiction or the rest is, but I'm ready to learn, play with language and find out.
How perfect, Marlee! Flash/experimental stuff is a great way to just … care less, try new weird things, and have fun. It takes the pressure off, and meanwhile, really great work can emerge from it—that’s been my experience both as a writer and a teacher. We’ll have fun. xo
Oh thank you so much for validating the 'lurker' energy. I often feel like this is me (and often berate myself for not contributing more in threads etc. here on Substack). But yes, the introvert energy comes through, even in writing 😀
I have said this a few times today, but silence, the role of simple, active presence without sound, is such a valuable contribution. It doesn't always get seen and noted in the digital space, so that's part of why I wanted to share this. It really matters! There is room for all of us.
So many golden nuggets within this essay. Writing new not iterations of the familiar, and the best one I am keeping in my heart, to write sentences that sing! Thanks for sharing.
👋🏻 from a lurker who's signed up for the School and wants to do the Strange Containers curriculum who doesn't yet know her capacity for the comments but am very grateful they exist.
Oh how I loved reading this essay, thank you Jeannine! Writing leaping off the page because its feral and wild and breathing... I know I need to read more, but in my busy times, which is always at the moment (4 small children) I read poetry, and as you so beautifully say, the work of poets helps us to see the power of words, to see what language can really do.
Thank you for this Jeannine. As always, the perfect words at the perfect time. I've been going through a rough patch lately and I've not been able to show up, both in this beautiful community and in my writing, in the way I'd like to show up, and have had to, unwillingly, become a lurker. This helps me understand that it's alright, it's what I need right now, it's how it has to be, and that it won't be this way forever. Reading your posts and the comments, even when I am unable to participate as I'd like to, brightens up my day immensely in this difficult moment, and I am very grateful for that! ❤️
P.S: congratulations on the anthology! Very much looking forward to reading your work!
P.P.S: the next intensive sounds amazing, really hoping I'll be able to participate! (But if I can't, I'll lurk, and I know that that's ok too!)
Holding space for you here no matter whether you are visible to us or not— you are always with us. Wishing you smoother seas and a sturdy vessel to weather the chop. Be gentle with yourself, please. 💜
“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.”
And, that’s why I write, and have always written. The introspection and discovery of SELF on so many levels, is why I keep going - keep trying to find the best way to shine the brightest light for myself, and hopefully help others in the sharing.
Humbled and honored to be playing in your big, joyful sandbox!
Jeannine, I drank in this post today, How to Be a Writer. I was reminded of so much I have learned in these decades of being a writer, and yet need reminding again, and again, that "we show up, we struggle, we break through or we don’t, and then we do it again," because in that struggle awaits "the whole world." I also took note of your reflection that "Building piles of words can even teach us bad habits, get us into the practice of writing lazy sentences, sentences that will never sing." As I somewhat feverishly draft a new novel, in a more visceral way than I ever have before, taking myself to the ocean to swim for 15, 25 minutes at at time, talking aloud to my new characters, asking them to reveal themselves, bring me into their childhood bedrooms, the kitchens where they sat across from their mother and learned someting they never forgot. Stroke after stroke, I take it all in and then head for shore, pull out my notebook and scrawl down everything the character has just told me. Then I type it up when I get home. So in this first draft I am "building piles of words" because I don't know another way to get this new story out of me. Is it teaching me a bad habit? I don't know. It's a process that is giving me more energy than ever before. My inner critic is quiet. She is certainly not in the ocean swimming with me. Nor is she in my room as I type. So anyway, I wondered if you felt there were exceptions to the rule about not "building piles of words." I also wondered about the sentence that came after it. "Never reveal something so true it can burn through the last layer of our self-delusion and awaken us at a whole new level." Don't we WANT to reveal something so true it burns through the last layer of our self-delusion and awakens us at a whole new level? Thank you. Thank you for being my teacher and inspiration.
Well, I used to lurk here….. ha! And I may have still been lurking when this first appeared, so maybe my newfound loquaciousness is a WITD cautionary tale??? You might be next if you tap in to the delicious vein of untried possibilities that flows through this space! !!!!
But I understand the “hit” that comes with immediate feedback that your wise advisor recognizes. At some point, we have to close the door, close our mouths, open our minds and notebooks and do the work. As you say, there are seasons in our work- we are in this for the long game, and building community to support you through the closed door/ closed mouth times is an investment in the bigger work.
The way you balance the brief sprints of literary examples with the marathons of intensives, and now The School, has really established a rhythm for me that feels sustainable in my own present and future practice. Again, it comes to noticing and listening not only to what is around you but what is inside you, and then responding according to that, not according to an artificial calendar. I see that if I keep showing up, I will have built a body of work to pull from when something happens in the world beyond, and if I wish to respond to in the moment, I will have something slow baked rather than hastily thrown together. I can keep writing that way.
Same with lurking- it may be weird to hear a defense of lurking from the wide-mouthed frog, but the right words, in the right order, at the right time are what matters, no matter where you choose to write them.
Everything--every single thing you say here--is spot on, Emily. And your description of SCHOOl and other pieces, and how they're different but, for each writer, depending on their needs, potentially complementary (though no one EVER needs to do EVERYTHING!). It's just there for us. And Emily, I am so so honored to write with you.
I am so honored, and ridiculously grateful to be here! 💜
A wide-mouthed frog; that's the kind of student I am: "And what did you eat for breakfast?" (I had to look the story up.)
Well said, Emily: "At some point, we have to close the door, close our mouths, open our minds and notebooks and do the work. As you say, there are seasons in our work- we are in this for the long game, and building community to support you through the closed door/ closed mouth times is an investment in the bigger work."
This bit you quoted from Emily ... if only I had known that when I was younger. If only I had understood how that works. I didn't. But now I do. Thank goodness.
Aging, for me, has been a shift from stumbling (in)to intention.
Ha— happy to introduce you to the frog! And thank you!
Emily - I agree with this 100% "it comes to noticing and listening not only to what is around you but what is inside you, and then responding according to that, not according to an artificial calendar. I see that if I keep showing up, I will have built a body of work to pull from when something happens in the world beyond, and if I wish to respond to in the moment, I will have something slow baked rather than hastily thrown together. I can keep writing that way." Thank you! Showing up consistently with curiosity and compassion (that's a lot of C's there!) is what fans the creativity flames for me.
I love those c’s!!!!
I was waist-deep into my teaching career before I fully absorbed the power of quiet, the wild possibilities of quiet classrooms and minds. I followed my students there, and I wrote my way there, and what I found there was boundless (inter)connection. I read poems with my coffee every morning before diving into my academic brain, to write a book about those quiet students, and in the process started teaching Sociology with poetry, poems like Perhaps The World Ends Here (Joy Harjo) and 38 (Layli Long Soldier) and The Night After You Lose Your Job (Debora Kuan) and On My Mom's 50th Birthday (Jose Olivarez). And this, this is a beautiful sentence, a wish for the world: "We need to cultivate a searing curiosity about everything and everyone, because curiosity is the genesis of empathy."
Your book is still on my list, Monica. Where would you recommend ordering from? I will do it now so that at least I have it on hand and can start when I get one breath! And re that sentence, well, Monica, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Take many, many breaths first.
Here's the publisher link, if you don't feel comfortable using the Amazon machine (I can't find it via bookshop.org): https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475867824/Pedagogies-of-Quiet-Silence-and-Social-Justice-in-the-Classroom
I'm grateful that anyone is interested in my book, so thank you. I am not aiming to use this space for PR! I am a wide-mouthed frog (thank you, Emily).
Thank you!! I try to avoid Amazon too, except that it does increase my visibility as a micro indie press writer (Amazon ranking really matters). So it's something I straddle!! But I am super excited to read your book and you are not promo-ing at all, everyone has been amazing about that. We are going to start a monthly Classifieds where all WITD-ers can happily promote and connect to one another (books, editing services, reading and writing groups, and other stuff, too, like Diana's pottery or other people paint or record music, etc). Meanwhile, you're totally good, I asked!!! Thank you!!
As if we need another reason to love you, Jeannine!! 😘😘😘
Oh wow! Thanks for this!!
This is really lovely, Monica. I will share with my teacher folk.
Thank you, Emily! I'm grateful for any shares.
Dearest Jeannine. Uncanny how I always connect so deeply to your words, both in your beautiful writing and in your essays about craft! Especially now, as I am writing an essay on what poetry means to me as a prose writer / playwright! I see poetry everywhere and in everything. It has changed my life. It has SAVED my life! I know you know this… I will also add to all these great points that with the hard work, never lose sight of the joy! Write in a way that most excites you, even if it makes no “logical” sense. And take good care of yourself outside of writing so you can show up to do the work with joy. I know you know this also. I just thought I’d share it with the community because it’s what helps me get through the toughest wrestling matches in writing… :)
I love all of this, Imola ❤️
And I love you. Dearly. ♥️
I’m with you on poetry, certainly a place for joy.
Seriously, my joyful place.
As a person who is only a few years into reading poetry (though a lifetime of studying album lyrics and liner notes), I'd love to know what poets others like to read and why/when...maybe a poetry recommendations, crowdsourced thread/classifieds?
“We need to learn to love uncertainty, and to consistently choose it over the temptation of knowing. “. This. This is the hardest thing to step into. Had a thought after sitting with this. If I always stay with what I know, I already know what it is already. It’s only from embracing uncertainty that I learn something. Thank you for this, Jeannine.
Yes, Steve!!! That is exactly it!!
Well said: "It’s only from embracing uncertainty that I learn something."
Thanks Monica! Sometimes a truth can be there for the taking but it takes a while to see it.
Love this and your advisor. I mostly lurk at this point for the same reasons and I get so much value and inspiration here!
Lurkers unite! When I first started teaching writing retreats, I told my husband that it was strange I was building something I would never in a million years sign up for myself. Teaching is one thing--being the participant among others is quite different. I have changed since then, but, trust me, Kelly, I remember the feeling and will never forget it, and, in fact, I value it. I value intentional silence. There is a place for ALL of us.
❤️❤️❤️
Aaah Jeannine, what a canny and wise woman you are. It’s the no knowing, the uncertainty, that you talk about, which has been the hardest thing for me to shake off after all my years of corporate writing, which is, just as you say, words, weaselly and weak, born dead on the page. Thanks for the shimmers and shards, the play, the yoga (Billie!)and poetry, of which I was mightily afraid, but no longer. I am grateful far beyond these few words. See you among the hermit crabs in August💙
We are grateful for YOU, Anna! What if no one wanted to get messy, break through the "tidy good sentences" we all know how to write? What if no one wanted to feel the words in their mouths, under their tongues, between their teeth? What if no one wanted to make weird things they can't understand right away, new things that confuse them, unusual things that genuinely surprise them? What if no one wanted to take the risk of letting the images come to them from the real world, through their senses, and therefore, their bodies, rather than from the synthetics factory of the prefrontal cortex? Well, then we would be sitting in the dark all alone. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
May I share this comment in my writing workshops? Attributed to you!
I would be honored. Thanks, JQ!
You are welcome. Thank you for agreeing! ☺️
Beautiful, Jeannine. It is an honor to be here with you.
Well this is gorgeous!
Seriously, I think sometimes my brain must call out to your brain and say please post something that relates to what is happening up here in my gray matter! This post is right on time. Thank you!! It's everything I needed right this moment <3 Xoxo
Yay! I am happy to hear this, Mesa!
I lurk and read and appreciate all you write, Jeannine. I read and appreciate all the comments. I hope to make the transition to writing with you all on this next intensive in August. I have no idea what flash fiction or the rest is, but I'm ready to learn, play with language and find out.
How perfect, Marlee! Flash/experimental stuff is a great way to just … care less, try new weird things, and have fun. It takes the pressure off, and meanwhile, really great work can emerge from it—that’s been my experience both as a writer and a teacher. We’ll have fun. xo
Oh thank you so much for validating the 'lurker' energy. I often feel like this is me (and often berate myself for not contributing more in threads etc. here on Substack). But yes, the introvert energy comes through, even in writing 😀
I have said this a few times today, but silence, the role of simple, active presence without sound, is such a valuable contribution. It doesn't always get seen and noted in the digital space, so that's part of why I wanted to share this. It really matters! There is room for all of us.
Jeannine, I am curious about your 'Essay in 12 steps' piece, but the link here doesn't seem to take me to it?
Does this link work - https://writinginthedark.substack.com/t/essay-in-12-steps
Thanks Erin - it goes to Jeannine's home page, but I don't see that specific piece
So many golden nuggets within this essay. Writing new not iterations of the familiar, and the best one I am keeping in my heart, to write sentences that sing! Thanks for sharing.
👋🏻 from a lurker who's signed up for the School and wants to do the Strange Containers curriculum who doesn't yet know her capacity for the comments but am very grateful they exist.
Oh how I loved reading this essay, thank you Jeannine! Writing leaping off the page because its feral and wild and breathing... I know I need to read more, but in my busy times, which is always at the moment (4 small children) I read poetry, and as you so beautifully say, the work of poets helps us to see the power of words, to see what language can really do.
Thank you for this Jeannine. As always, the perfect words at the perfect time. I've been going through a rough patch lately and I've not been able to show up, both in this beautiful community and in my writing, in the way I'd like to show up, and have had to, unwillingly, become a lurker. This helps me understand that it's alright, it's what I need right now, it's how it has to be, and that it won't be this way forever. Reading your posts and the comments, even when I am unable to participate as I'd like to, brightens up my day immensely in this difficult moment, and I am very grateful for that! ❤️
P.S: congratulations on the anthology! Very much looking forward to reading your work!
P.P.S: the next intensive sounds amazing, really hoping I'll be able to participate! (But if I can't, I'll lurk, and I know that that's ok too!)
Holding space for you here no matter whether you are visible to us or not— you are always with us. Wishing you smoother seas and a sturdy vessel to weather the chop. Be gentle with yourself, please. 💜
Thank you so much Emily ❤️
“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.”
And, that’s why I write, and have always written. The introspection and discovery of SELF on so many levels, is why I keep going - keep trying to find the best way to shine the brightest light for myself, and hopefully help others in the sharing.
Humbled and honored to be playing in your big, joyful sandbox!
I adore the way you do language 🩵
Jeannine, I drank in this post today, How to Be a Writer. I was reminded of so much I have learned in these decades of being a writer, and yet need reminding again, and again, that "we show up, we struggle, we break through or we don’t, and then we do it again," because in that struggle awaits "the whole world." I also took note of your reflection that "Building piles of words can even teach us bad habits, get us into the practice of writing lazy sentences, sentences that will never sing." As I somewhat feverishly draft a new novel, in a more visceral way than I ever have before, taking myself to the ocean to swim for 15, 25 minutes at at time, talking aloud to my new characters, asking them to reveal themselves, bring me into their childhood bedrooms, the kitchens where they sat across from their mother and learned someting they never forgot. Stroke after stroke, I take it all in and then head for shore, pull out my notebook and scrawl down everything the character has just told me. Then I type it up when I get home. So in this first draft I am "building piles of words" because I don't know another way to get this new story out of me. Is it teaching me a bad habit? I don't know. It's a process that is giving me more energy than ever before. My inner critic is quiet. She is certainly not in the ocean swimming with me. Nor is she in my room as I type. So anyway, I wondered if you felt there were exceptions to the rule about not "building piles of words." I also wondered about the sentence that came after it. "Never reveal something so true it can burn through the last layer of our self-delusion and awaken us at a whole new level." Don't we WANT to reveal something so true it burns through the last layer of our self-delusion and awakens us at a whole new level? Thank you. Thank you for being my teacher and inspiration.