Isabel Allende is one of my favourite writers. In November she was given yet another award, honoured by America's National Book Foundation for her distinguished contribution to American letters, the first such award given to a Spanish-language writer. Allende gave an acceptance speech for her award and mentioned how being 'chronically uprooted' has inspired her creativity. Themes of 'nostalgia, loss and separation' can be found in all of her books and also define her writing process: 'As a stranger ... I observe and listen carefully. I ask questions and I question everything. For my writing, I don't need to invent much; I look around and take notes. I'm a collector of experiences.' I kept a 'writer's notebook' for years. It went with me everywhere and I scratched down things that I saw or heard. I didn't use most of the stuff I wrote down but some I did. When I was working as a courier in Atlanta, Georgia, I sometimes had to run out of town and up into the northern part of the state to places like Calhoun and Rome. I passed lots of billboards along the side of the country roads. One in particular stayed with me and went into my notebook: God recycles junk souls. I used it as the title of a short story. Even though I was very young when we left the USA to move to New Zealand, I do remember some of of our life in the 60s over there: watching American Bandstand with Dick Clark on TV, rock n'roll music, going to the drive-in movies. And those memories generate some of that nostalgia Allende refers to. I wasn't 'chronically uprooted' as she was, but I was uprooted at a young age from everything I knew and all that was normal to me, put on a ship for a voyage across the Pacific, and then placed in an alien environment where even the flushing of the frightening 'thunderbox' toilet scared me to death. This uprooting made me an observer at the age of 8. I'd always had a tendency to be shy and quiet, and when we came to New Zealand, things were so different, the children I met so unusual with their funny accents and marmite-white-bread sandwiches, I retreated. I sat, watched, said little, asked some questions, and learned how to fit in through careful observation. Of course they thought I was totally weird too with my funny accent and peanut butter and jam sandwiches. When I return to the USA for visits, I'm hit with that sweet/sad feeling when I see something I remember from years ago: it might well be that old billboard, or the sight of our family home in Seahurst (Seattle) where we lived (the house looks different now but there's enough left to inspire memory) and walk down the street of that old neighbourhood. The sense of nostalgia that often comes with childhood memories, of loss and separation, made more profound if that childhood had a dislocation or major change, a move from one country to another for whatever reason, can be a powerful source of emotion for our stories. Childhood memories are often fragmentary, wispy sensations lingering in the background, snippets of things said or done. So keep a notebook. Jot them down as they come to you. Use them as the basis for your life stories.
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And I don't mean gun triggers. I mean those everyday things that can trigger a memory, a sensation, an emotion. These triggers can be the true stuff of life writing. Take this morning. I brew up the coffee and put some bread in the toaster. The toast pops out and as I am buttering it, I remember my secondary school English teacher. I didn't like English when I was at school. Even though this teacher was one of the best I've ever had the good fortune to know, I didn't really like going to her classroom. It wasn't her, it was the subject. However I've always considered her to be one of my mentors, someone who had a keen interest in my writing and took the time to actively support and encourage me. Indeed her interest in my writing continued after I left school, and goes on to this day along with a firm friendship we have enjoyed for so many years. So what does all this have to do with a piece of toast? Many years ago now, my teacher and her husband were packing up their house to move away. In a case of bad timing, she broke her arm or wrist, I can't remember which, was in a cast and so couldn't do a whole lot of packing. I came over one day to help. When it was time for lunch, we downed tools and prepared some soup and toast. As I was buttering her pieces of toast, she said, watching me closely, 'Butter it right to the very edges.' Every morning, I butter the toast to the very edges so even the crusts are included. I could write a whole lot more about this very special teacher who invested so much of her kindness, patience, and energy into my writing at a time when it was so needed - and all it takes is a piece of toast and a spread of butter to get me thinking about those memories. Have a look around you right now. Are there some objects that trigger a memory for you? Perhaps it's the scent from a vase of flowers on the dining table that takes you back to a soft, shimmering summer day, or an expensive writing pen that your Dad gave you when you were 21 (remember how special that was because he so rarely gave you anything?), or something as simple as the way sunlight glints off a wave in the bay, reminding you of a sailing adventure on a small boat with someone you really didn't like too much. Be open to triggers, be watchful, be observant, jot the thoughts down in your notebook for later when you're looking for something to write about. Writing can be joyous, momentous, creatively satisfying when it's going well ... but when it isn't, finding words can be impossible and the blank computer screen can be a vision from hell and the stuff of nightmares. There is of course the old 'writer's block' where you just can't get to first base with anything; it's like a creative constipation. Nothing is moving and you need some kind of 'laxative for creative people' - hey, there's an idea! I can see that on the retail shelves already. Then there are the times when I'm doing OK with my creative work but then 'life gets in the way' and something major happens. Maybe old Miss Betsy-cat gets worryingly sick, the plumbing goes bung or I'm unwell, then I develop a one-track focus. I give all of my attention to the problem and I cannot do any writing. I've always been like that. I don't multi-task too well. When this happens, I have to take time out. I take my lead from Betsy. She just lies down in the sun. With a 'writer's block situation' I have some tools I use to get started again but when there's a life issue, I have learned to ease up on the laxatives and just stop. It took me a long time to convince myself that this was OK because I always believed I should be able to write, no matter what else was going on in my life. That is still mostly true because if we let life overtake us we would never write a word. But when there is a life event that requires my focus to really be there, right with it, then I stop and that is OK. When the going gets tough, the tough sack out. It's OK to to take time out. If you can't write because your emotions and concern are elsewhere, do whatever you need to do to take it easy ... and give yourself permission. I am jolly lucky because I can sit out on the deck and look at the sea or the trees and the birds and I feel surrounded by friends and comfort. And always remember that tomorrow is another day. You can try again. Do you remember the first time you rode a bike? I was about ten. Mom had a bike that she'd brought over from the USA when we immigrated to New Zealand. It was black with two large wire baskets hooked onto the back of the frame, deep enough for all your shopping. Dad was building a sailboat in the garage at the time. He'd done that before in the garage of our house in Seattle. That sailboat was about 23 feet long and it was called Nameless. Unfortunately the New Zealand version was never completed but I used it's skeleton to help me learn to ride. The wooden ribs of the boat were laid out in the garage. I'd get on the bike and propel myself from rib to rib, trying to balance in between. Eventually I could ride past two ribs, then three, and finally I could truck along without having to prop myself up. I had my fair share of tragedies on that bicycle, including a very notable occasion when I was showing off, as one does, had to brake suddenly, and the bike came right out from under me and I ended up on my bottom holding the bike up in front of me. Mom always said, 'Once you learn to ride, you never forget' and that's true. I still have a bike and can hop on and off and ride around quite happily. It's a lifetime skill. Writing is a bit like learning to ride. You start off small, trying to get your balance, learn the nuts and bolts of staying on and staying upright, using props and whatever else you need to make headway. You acquire the skill and of course, practice is the key - keep going until you find your momentum. Sometimes it's tough, like riding up a steep hill when the going is slow (even with gears), the exertion intense, until you get to the top and you can take a deep breath and appreciate your accomplishment. And then there are the times when you fall off, have a 'crash up' as we used to say when we were 10-year olds wheeling around; the wheels well and truly come off the writing caravan. But writing can be a delight, an enjoyment right up there with cycling along on a balmy spring day with the scent of new flowers and the warmth of sunshine on your arms. Writing is a journey, an excursion, a time of discovery. And of course, as my Mom used to say about so many things, 'It's just like riding a bike - you never forget how' - writing is like that. It can be a lifelong companion, a solace, a joy, a way to communicate your vision and what life is like in your world. I've written before about how much I enjoy horror movies - I was raised on them. My sister and I were loaded into the back of the car in our pyjamas and driven by our parents to the drive in movies where, more often than not, there was a double-horror-something. And, as you can see in the ad opposite, my parents were probably attracted by the $1/carload 'family night'. Nothing better for us kids than a night on 'Hell's Island' and getting to know the 'Creature with the Atom Brain.' If you're wanting to write in the genre, 'read lots of it' and get a feel for how these stories are put together and what makes a good one great. And there are so many classics you can read, apart from Stephen King - take the tales of H.P. Lovecraft, Joyce Carol Oates, and 'The Monkey's Paw' an 18th century gem from William Wymark Jacobs (I saw an old black and white movie of this as a child and it scared me so badly I still remember it). How do you come up with ideas? Make a list of what scares you. Objects? Animals? Places? And remember, we are hard-wired to fear the dark, an instinct that goes back to our caveman days when a campfire at night was light and safety. Anything outside of the realm of firelight was too dangerous and frightening to contemplate. So what scares me? Crickets. Not the little ones but those large black shiny ones that can leap and scuttle and seem to be able to fly. So, OK, if I was locked into a dark room full of black crickets, that to me is a horror show. This is a very simplistic example but it's taking an ordinary person (me), confronted with her worst fear (crickets) in a situation where every instinct is on high alert (darkness). Then throw in a 'what if?' What if, while I'm battling crickets in the dark, I sense that there is something else in there with me .... what if I hear shuffling in the corner of the dark room, a hissing or heavy breathing ... OK - you get the picture. Have a go. Scare me. What is it about horror? We kinda know that monsters aren't real (although walking up the stairs to my house late at night, through the bush, I am absolutely 100% certain there is 'something' lurking just beyond the weak illumination my flashlight provides and I think that by walking with purpose, head down, straight ahead, I will deter it from attacking me) and yet after reading a cracking good horror or ghost story, or watching something spooky on TV, we find ourselves double checking the locks and looking under the bed before we hop in. It's Halloween month and so thoughts naturally turn towards the genre. Writing something that is really scary is not easy and this common advice applies to all who wish to write it: read lots in the genre and learn from the greats like Stephen King, Clive Barker and Anne Rice but more than that, write stories that have meaning for you, think about the things that scare you - tap into your fears because by golly, what scares you probably scares the bejesus out of someone else too. Stephen King says there are three types of terror: "The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. "The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. "And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there...” My personal favourite is the last one, the terror, where the ordinary everyday suddenly becomes the bizzarre, the terrifying, the absolute unknown-stalker-thing-in-the-dark. To me that's the worst and I think King is a real pro at this - turning clowns into monsters, populating a seemingly normal town with vampires, trapping a woman in a car at the mercy of a nutty dog ... and using ordinary people going about their normal daily business adds to the terror of it because we begin to see that the line between everyday life and the unmentionable horror is very fine indeed. And remember, a little gem from Neil Gaiman - and this applies to whatever you are writing. Read lots and learn from others but remember to "... start telling stories that only you can tell, because there will always be better writers than you, there will always be smarter writers than you ... but you are the only you." So you may think there is nothing new you can do in the horror genre ... of course there is. You're unique .. your monsters will be too. A friend of mine had a stressful job for years and said she could only relax by setting up a lounge chair in her back yard on a sunny day and watching the laundry flapping and waving on the line. I asked her if she had a gin and tonic alongside and she said no, she didn't, it was something about the movement of the clothes drying on the line, the sunshine on her face, and being on a patch of green (a small patch as she lived in the city) that did the trick for her. My friend added that watching the washing inspired her with ideas for her job at the time, but when she retired, she carried on the laundry- watching to gain inspiration for her romance novels. How do you get your inspiration for writing? Where does it come from? Some writers have a 'muse' - a person, animal, object that inspires them. My cat Betsy would like to think she is my muse but unfortunately not. Author Tom Robbins does have one and he says, "I show up in my writing room at approximately 10 A.M. every morning without fail. Sometimes my muse sees fit to join me there and sometimes she doesn't, but she always knows where I'll be. She doesn't need to go hunting in the taverns or on the beach or drag the boulevard looking for me." Sometimes inspiration to write comes from the simplest of things - perhaps a whiff of perfume as you pass someone on the street, the way the light shimmers on ripples of water at the lake, the taste of chocolate cake and whipped cream ... Or watching the laundry flap in the breeze. And there are those days when the muse, or the inspiration, doesn't appear for us. Then it's just a hard slog to get your words done for the day. But as Tom says, at least the muse, or the inspirational beings, know where you are. They don't need to go looking. They'll find you. Writing can be opportunistic. If we're short of time, we grab an opportunity to write when we can - on the bus to work, at the kitchen table after the kids have been dropped at school. Sometimes we submit a piece of writing to a magazine editor and they say, 'Great, I'll take it!' We've made our approach at the right time, taking advantage of a window of opportunity before it closes. And if you're a self employed writer, you're always looking for opportunities to get your writing out there, ways to make some money, become better known, get famous etc etc. You know. And that can be difficult, a challenge, it goes against the grain because a lot of us writers aren't very entrepreneurial, we haven't worked in the field of PR so we don't know the ropes, and promoting ourselves just doesn't come easily. We'd rather be writing. If you're well established, you can leave all that promotion stuff to someone else, like an agent or manager. Sigh .... maybe someday. My attention has been caught recently by a real opportunist, a little creature that sees a chance, and takes it without care for the repercussions, mindful only of what this opportunity can provide for her. Every time I open the garage door to get the car out, a little black cat rushes in. She goes straight to the woodpile stacked under the workbench and squeezes in way down the back where I cannot reach her. It's cozy back there, snug and dark. When I tell her she shouldn't be in my garage, she just looks at me with those bright, yellow eyes. That's all I see because she's black, and it's dark on top of the woodpile under the bench. I open the roller door at different times each day and yet there she is, a little black ninja, prowling in the shadows, watching and waiting for the opportunity to make her mad dash for the security and comfort of her hiding place. I don't know where she comes from, or where she lives, but she is an opportunist, a stealthy, secretive watcher. She is sleek, well fed and beautiful, so she belongs to someone. Before I knew what her deal was, I inadvertently locked her in overnight, twice. She didn't seem in the least bothered, in fact I think she enjoyed the chance for some uninterrupted hibernation. I can only imagine what her owners are thinking. Perhaps she is well known for such antics, and if she's missing a day or two, they think, 'Oh , she's shacked up again in someone's garage.' Of course she lay up on the hood of the car, the heat from the engine making it a very comfortable perch indeed. Plenty of muddy paw prints to wash off. So can we learn a lesson from this ninja cat? Yes - stay vigilant, every day ... and when the door opens, rush in, look for your niche, get in there, hang out in it, even if you get stuck in there for a while, don't panic. Stay sleek and beautiful, and then leave your paw prints on the world for all to see. It seems there is software for just about anything these days to help you write, punctuate, spell ... it can almost compose a book for you. Where's the fun in that? Actually, it's very fun. Yesterday I installed a voice recognition programme called Dragon. Ah, you've heard of it ? I also got a good headset with a very astute microphone that can pick up all the subtle nuances of my extraordinary speech and fabulous words. Actually my speech and words pale in comparison to the Dragon. What a wonder of tehcnology it is and what jolly good fun! It's like having a little companion inside your computer, one that does what you tell it (I do like giving orders, I admit), comes up with quirky mis-spellings when it doesn't hear you properly, and best of all, you can train it to better recognise what you are saying. There are very few things that I can boss around, even Betsy the cat makes a point of ignoring everything I ask her to do ("get down off the clean bedspread", "go outside", "eat your dinner"), so it's quite nice to have a silent subservient that does what I tell it, mostly. It is a work in progress. Dragon and I are shaking each other down. It's learning my way of speaking, and I'm learning its techno approach to dictation and editing. It takes a while but we're going OK. Why did I get this software? I usually resist these sorts of things, having been brought up in the old writing school of scribbling by hand or onto the computer and then editing and re-writing that way. Anything that might help me with that has usually been met with a scoff and a nose-in-the-air comment like 'There is absolutely no way I'd ever pay good money for any writing software!' I'm getting old and therefore more practical. Typing for hours excites my arthritis so I have surrendered, given in to technological advancement, and I've done it quietly so that my friends don't now turn to me and say, 'But hey you said you'd never ever ...' So shhh, don't tell them, we'll never hear the end of it - but I'll tell you on the quiet here, think about getting yourself a Dragon of your own. It's a worthy investment. It's fun having a little dragon-pet in the computer. It works really well, and does not breathe fire and bellow. Maybe that's what will come next - a Dragon that will belch flames at you if you don't complete your word count target for the day. You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don’t have that kind of feeling for what it is you’re doing, you’ll stop at the first giant hurdle. George Lucas I ask you - who would sign up for the writing life? Most days it feels nuts and I often think I'm the only person in the world doing it. And there are hurdles, many many of them, and as Mr. Lucas says, if you don't love it enough to beat down the bricks and leap over like Superman, well, it's a tough road. I often think one of the hardest things of all about writing is self belief. You have to keep bolstering yourself up every day, because writing is done alone - it's just you - and you don't have a cheer leading squad in the living room encouraging you to keep going, well done, rah rah! You have to find that inner grit, that fortitude to keep going in the midst of all the rejections (they are part of the territory), all of the self doubts (I'm no good at this), the lack of money (can I afford to feed the cat this week? Of course but it means no beer money), the confidence-shaking thoughts of not being able to write anything that anyone will ever want to read (I am going to hide this under a rock). The list goes on and on. Fiona Kidman nails it in her memoir Beside the Dark Pool, ‘So you want to be a writer. Well, you must learn to live with yourself, however difficult that might be at times, because you’re on your own in this job; you need to make space in your life, settle on your priorities. A writer’s life is not spent in an ivory tower. Learn to accept that life is full of interruptions. You have children? Yes, of course, many of us do. Write for fifteen minutes a day – it’s better than nothing at all. No, I agree, this is not about craft and style but it’s about how to survive, which is the best I can tell you right now. Can I guarantee this recipe for success? No, of course not. Nothing is certain.’ Writing requires tenacity, true grit, persistence, determination. Be all of these things. You'll get there. Allowing yourself time and permission to write, and acknowledging that it takes courage to do so, is something we'll talk about in my 'Feel the fear' Workshop on 4 August. In her fabulous book 'Writing Down the Bones' Natalie Goldberg says, Sit down with the least expectation of yourself; say, "I am free to write the worst junk in the world." ... If every time you sat down, you expected something great, writing would always be a great disappointment. Plus that expectation would also keep you from writing. It took me a long time to understand this, years in fact. I could see no point in sitting down to write if: A. I was not going to produce something worthy of an award and B. what I wrote would not be published. I was also waiting for someone to say to me, 'You are A Writer! I give you permission to go forth and write!' Those things didn't happen back then so, needless to say, I produced very little and was always disappointed. I beat myself up about what I believed to be a lack of talent and my inability to produce anything of note, and so eventually, I gave up and wrote nothing for about five years. Phew. Thank heavens I got over that crap. In a way, I had to, because I was going ever-so-majorly-mad. I needed to write and create. I wasn't allowing myself to write and that wasn't good for me. I was not giving myself permission. I knew I could write but I didn't think it was worth it. It seemed fanciful, impractical, a waste of time because it would not earn me money. Besides, I didn't want to be alone at home, in my bathrobe and slippers, scribbling away in a notebook when everyone else was out doing stuff and having fun. Not that the cat was bad company, it's just that the writing life made me feel out of step with everyone and everything, and that was more important to me for a very long time. Hmmm .... Cue the crisis. It was bound to come, It was inevitable. The advice I give to writers in my workshops is: 'Allow yourself to write and give yourself permission to write the worst rubbish in the world.' And only you can do that. As author Dani Shapiro says, If you’re waiting for the green light, the go ahead, the reassuring wand to tap your shoulder and anoint you as a writer, you’d better pull out your thermos and folding chair because you’re going to be waiting for a good long while. Warm up your creativity, come along to my 'Feel the fear and write it in anyway workshop' Saturday 4 August, Whangaparaoa Library, Auckland and you can bring your own dragon if you like. The Library doesn't mind. Protect your writing time like a Hungarian Horntail protects its egg. Breathe fire, flap your wings, and bellow loudly. You know how it is. When you sit down to write, people interrupt you. All you want is to take hold of that precious writing time, the hour that you have every other day to create, enjoy your wordsmithing, and get some work done on that writing project. Other people in the house know that this is your time. You wrote on the whiteboard thing in the kitchen where everybody scribbles down what's needed at the grocery store and you used block letters in black: I WRITE TUES, FRI and SUN from 4pm - 530pm. DO NOT BOTHER ME. And yet here they are, yapping at your door like tiny terriers. 'Mum, I need clean underwear.' 'Darling can I bother you for just one sec?' 'Hey flatmate, I need to get in there and grab a book off the shelf.' You feel unsupported. People are not respecting the one or two hours that you have clearly established as your writing time, a part of your day where you don't want to be disturbed for anything except if the roof is falling in, and even then if you're deep into your work, you may not notice that calamity. How do you protect your writing time from incursion by those distractors? These people, dogs, telephones, roof falling-ins are making it hard for you to write. So what do you do? Get ruthless, get mean, don't give in to those relentless knocks on the door requesting underwear, books, or can-I-bring-you-a-cup-of-tea-and-you-can-tell-me-what-you're-writing-abouts, the scratchings of the cat or dog, or inane requests for books that are really just feeble attempts to attract your attention. As J.K. Rowling said, "Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg.” In my workshop, 'Feel the fear and write it anyway' we'll talk about those times when others don't recognise and respect our writing time, and we'll find ways to set the boundaries and guard our fledgling projects. Join me for a real fire-breathing dragon workshop session. We'll make like Horntails. Feel the Fear and Write it Anyway! (find out more) Writing Workshop Saturday 4 August 2018, 10.30am - 1.30pm Whangaparaoa Library, Whangaparaoa, Auckland In a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway said, "You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless - there is only one thing to do with a novel and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing." It's a kind of despair and melancholy that I can certainly relate to - being in the thick of a project, having made good, promising progress, and then boof! It all falls to pieces, I have a crisis of confidence, I hear my internal gremlin saying, 'Call yourself a writer? What tripe! This writing is terrible. You'll never finish this load of drivel and why would you?' Oh and isn't that the worst thing a gremlin can say to you? 'You'll never finish ...'? I find beginnings and endings very challenging, and I agree with wise Ernest when he says you just have to plough on and get there somehow. Good advice but how do we do that when our confidence takes a hit, we lose our writerly bravado, our ability to sit down and work industriously? When we shrink into our shells, cannot look in the mirror and call ourselves 'a writer' without laughing or crying, cannot sit down in front of our computer or pad of paper without wanting to scream, or get up and have another cup of coffee or wipe the condensation off the window with an old towel or just go and sit alone on a hard wooden chair and say to the universe, 'What's it all for?' in an anguished tone. Come to the 'feel the fear and write it anyway workshop' and we'll sort this out once and for all. We'll boost our self confidence, find ways to keep climbing the mountain when the end seems like a distant gorilla in the mist. We'll do better at treating ourselves gently when the despair hits and patting ourselves on the back when we achieve. What's the difference between 'take' and 'make' when it comes to our writing time? Take seems to suggest, 'I'm gonna rip off this time, take it away from the time I am supposed to spend fixing dinner.' Make is more like, 'I'm gonna make time while I'm fixing dinner. When the potatoes are boiling, I will sit down at the kitchen table with my notepad and write.' Whether you take or make time to write, actually doing the writing is a challenge. This leads on to one of the most basic questions, one that we'll deal with in my upcoming 'Feel the fear and write it anyway' workshop (which, by the way, is on Saturday 4 August here at my local Whangaparaoa Library, 10.30am - 1.30pm and you can register on my site. Will you take time, or make time to come?!! Either way, I hope to see you there). That question is: do I really want to become a writer? How committed am I? This is where that 'take' or 'make' comes in. If you're still undecided about your writing, you might take some time here and there; if you're serious, you'll make time. Ah, it sounds like a big step, and it can be a fearsome one, fraught with perceived difficulties. The pathway to dreams often is. We hang in there though, we stick with the programme, we march onwards to the goal. You'll have to come along to the workshop to learn more about overcoming those fears and our inherent ability to procrastinate ('Hmmm ... I don't feel like writing today, I'd rather clean the bathroom...') but I can leave you with a couple of suggestions ... 1. Look in the mirror and say, 'I am a writer.' How does that feel? Start to think of yourself as a writer. When I was younger, I used to see myself in a multi-million dollar beach house, flouncing about, words fluttering around me like butterflies. The reality of my old door-turned-into-a-writing-desk covered with the cat's hair is somewhat different but there's nothing wrong with aiming high. 2. Have a look at your daily schedule and 'make some time' to write; when is it possible? Maybe it's when you're boiling the potatoes, or in bed just before lights out. So ... call yourself a writer. Do it now. Make time to write. When I'm reading memoirs by writers they'll often say at what point in their life they knew they wanted to be a writer. Sometimes this revelation happens at an early age, sometimes it doesn't register until the person is 60+. In some cases, it seems this is a profound revelation, there is no doubt, it's a feeling within, one of surety. Sometimes it's a shocking decision. As the wonderful Ms Maya Angelou says, her decision to write was '...like deciding to jump into a frozen lake.' However it happens, writing is the path, the destiny, no matter how ill-considered, difficult or daunting it may appear at the time. Did this happen for you? As a little girl, I was painfully shy. I clung to my Mom's skirts, hiding, and I hated to be out of her sight or away from her at all. I was a blue-eyed, blonde pig-tailed little mutt who cried if the check out operator smiled at me and said, 'Hello' as she rang up Mom's groceries. That shyness clung to me for years. I couldn't say what I felt because I was too shy, so I wrote it down. I read a lot from a very young age. Books featured highly in our house, and my sister and I both spent hours losing ourselves in their pages. Reading encouraged me to write. The more I wrote, the better I became at expressing my thoughts, feelings, and observations through words, and when I received a pat on the back by a teacher for my 'creative work' , and it was read out in front of the class, well, that was like fuel to my growing rocket boosters. I'm not embarrassed to admit that yeah, heck yeah, I love the praise that comes from completed work that 'goes public' and people congratulate you and say that your work changed their life, they enjoyed it, or the writing helped them in some way. My very first book launch for Welcome to the Amazon Club was a pinnacle of achievement like none other in my life, and I doubt there's nothing quite like that first celebration, watching people line up to buy your book and then ask you to sign it. Now that's something. So if I am asked when did I know I was a writer, I'd have to say, 'I've always done it, it's just what I do. Writing has always been a part of my life. It was my first real and honest form of communication'. I disappoint people when I say I never made a conscious sit-down-at-the-table-and-think-seriously decision about becoming a writer. Sure, I dreamed about that kind of life, how it would be to write full time and be famous. When I was working cutting up salad vegetables in a restaurant kitchen, or at the telephone company (what was then Pacific Northwest Bell in Seattle) listening to people complain about their broken phones and exorbitant bills, or driving around as a courier in Atlanta on a mind-blowingly energy-sapping typical Georgia hot summer's day, I did dream of doing what I imagined a writer would do: get up whenever, work for a few hours in a fabulous place with a view, walk in the park after lunch and then enjoy an early dinner and drink with other fabulous artists like myself, and of course fit in book launches, signings and author talks all over the place ... oh yes, I sure did. I just never believed that person could be me, and my present-day reality of the writing life has turned out to be somewhat different. Not a lot of glamour! But I do have the time and space to give to my writing now, a gift I've denied myself for years because my writing always took second place to earning a living cutting up vegetables, dodging guard dogs while trying to deliver courier packages, or listening to Dr. Tordekon who would call me from his spaceship (actually a telephone both on a Seattle street corner) to regale me with stories of his outer space adventures. The writing was always there. You could say it has toughed it out, through thick and thin, insistent, wanting and waiting to be heard, and maybe that's how you know you're a writer - you need to be, the feeling never goes away, no matter what you do. Eventually, you have to pay attention. American novelist E.L. Doctorow said that writing is ..."like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." It’s OK to begin writing a story or novel and not know where it's going. After reading a jolly good book, I'll often think to myself, "I bet they had a really strong idea of that story and where it would begin and end." On second thought, a safer bet might be that the writer didn't have had a clue when they started the story that Mrs. Smith next door would end up dumping her house, car, cat and goldfish on her husband and taking off to the south of France with the pool guy. Having said that, you may be writing a who-dunnit, or some other work that requires a carefully thought out plot, so that you know where you're going and can get from A to Z without losing your way. I have a terrible time with plot, mainly because my characters never do what I want them to do. It's a dead certainty that they take on lives of their own and make decisions independent of their creator (i.e. me). Many years ago I tried my hand at writing a thriller. I wasn't good at the genre. I gave it a go, clumsily plodding along, a bit like that game Cluedo where Colonel Mustard murdered Mrs. Peacock in the library with a candlestick. Eventually, my characters got so fed up with this bumbling and plodding that placed them in boring and stupid situations, that one of them walked out, slammed the door in disgust and went off to join the French Foreign Legion. So how do I write? I have a terrible time with beginnings and endings, so I just start somewhere - maybe with a character, or a snippet I heard or have been thinking about that I like the sound of, something that will lead me into my story. It's a haphazard and risky way to start , certainly not with any structure in mind, but it is this not knowing, this sense of discovery, that gives the work momentum and pace, keeps me trucking along, because I want to know, 'what is going to happen next?' Such a writing process requires faith, and that's grown within me over many years, faith I have now to 'wind her up and let her go ...'. Easier said than done sometimes because I get anxious, apprehensive, doubt my ability to put even one sentence together. But, as my Mom always used to say, 'The show must go on'. Let your first draft go where it needs and wants to. There is ample time for the editing, shaping and plotting and structuring later on. Let your imagination lead the way. I love horror movies. I'm reassured in this because I know I'm not alone. Lots of people love them - just not many of my friends who look at me funny when I confess. I was raised on them. I get it from my Mom. She was a hard-core veteran, scared to death as a child by the old black and whites, like Dracula with Bela Lugosi and The Mummy with Boris Karloff and The Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney. She and her friends used to get so traumatised they'd hide under the seats on the wooden floor. The usher would come along and tell them they either had to sit in the seats or leave. As youngsters growing up in Seattle, my sister and I were often bundled up in bathrobes, pyjamas and slippers, loaded into the car and taken to the drive-in movies. I guess it was one way that my parents could have a night out without all the hassle of getting babysitters. Mom's passion for horror meant the movies we went to were double features in brilliant, ghastly Technicolor, bright red blood everywhere. My sister and I took all of this in as we chugged down hotdogs and Coke, and then, satiated with salt and sugar and fat, nodded off to sleep in the midst of the gore and screams emanating through the drive-in. All these years later, I can still remember the title of a film we saw at the drive-in, The Atom Age Vampire, a film produced in 1960. You can see it on YouTube. Of course! These days though, I am continually disappointed. I haven't seen a really good horror in ages, and I see plenty. I have a friend, a stalwart horror fan, who watches even more horrible movies than I, and it take something pretty special to impress her. She's tougher, a real critic. It takes a mega-horror/slasher/blood-spattered mess to shake her foundations. However, in saying that, there have been a few memorable times when we've been watching something hideous together, and take terrified glimpses through fingers-over-eyes. I'm not ashamed to admit it. So what makes for great horror? If you're going to write in this genre, whether it's for film or written word, I reckon you need to do some homework because it's an art form, a talent, and it takes study and diligence. Watch lots and read lots. Stephen King is one of the best horror writers in my book because he has this unerring talent to turn the everyday - the routines, the surroundings, the actions we live with - into horror. He understands our fears and turns them into stories. For example, take his novel It, set in a small American town. It features average, kind of normal families and kids doing kid-like stuff, and begins with a little boy chasing his paper sailboat down a roadside gutter in a rainstorm; the little boat sails down a drain, the kid is upset, peering down the culvert, and then there's a clown down in the drain who says hi and asks the kid if he wants his boat back. Of course he does. Every kid likes clowns, and they're fun and trustworthy right? Maybe a bit cheeky but OK, yeah? And then the horror comes. You have to love ghosts and goblins, ghouls and gremlins, and the evil and horror that lies within all of us. Have a go. Write that scary thing. As Stephen King says, "... as a writer, one of the things that I've always been interested in doing is actually invading your comfort space. Because that's what we're supposed to do. Get under your skin, and make you react." When I was a kid, the first thing I did when I came home from school was to eat a big bowl of Skippy cornflakes. Then I'd go out down the bush out the back of the house, make huts from tree limbs and play war with the boys in our neighbourhood. This was back in the day when milk came in bottles, and the ones with the silver tin foil tops had cream sitting at the top. If I was lucky, I could open a new bottle, pour the cream over my cornflakes, toss some sugar on top, and get into it. Of course Mom hated that because the cream should have been shaken up so that the whole bottle of milk could benefit from the creaminess. Remembering more about the milk in bottles, it was my job to put the empties into a little plastic carrier, pop the milk tokens into one of the bottles (these were purchased from the Murray's Bay dairy down the road and came in little white bags stapled at the top - this was how we paid for the milk) and carry the lot out to the letterbox each evening. Mailboxes in those days had a special built-in compartment for the bottle rack. Early in the morning, I heard the milkman come in his truck, listened to the clank of the bottles, the rattle of the milk tokens, and voila! Fresh milk with foil tops was left behind for breakfast. Fabulous. There was none of this plastic bottle stuff, lined with lightproof whatever, screw tops and sealed tabs that you can't get off, and the milk often when bung after a few days because it was fresh and that's what fresh milk did, unlike today where milk exists happily, cuddled within it's plastic container, for days. There's so much more I could write here, about my early days living on Auckland's North Shore, playing with plastic tommy guns in the bush, setting vicious booby traps for each other. It's a wonder we all made it to our teenage years without missing arms, legs, and eyes. Something as simple as the memory of those cornflakes set my thoughts in motion. Try it. What was the first thing you did when you came in from school back in the day when you were ten or eleven years old? When I gave up dope and alcohol, my immediate feeling was 'I've saved my life but there'll be a price because I'll have nothing that buzzes me any more.' But I enjoyed my kids. My wife loved me and I loved her. And eventually the writing came back and I discovered that the writing was enough. Stupid thing is that probably it always had been. - Stephen King Stephen King would not be the first writer to declare that writing saved him. What's with this? Can it be true? Yes, it absolutely is true. Writing can help us deal with health challenges, life crises, change, dope, and alcoholism, just to name a few. And there is clinical evidence to prove that writing is good for you. A study at our very own University of Auckland (2017) found that people who wrote emotionally about past stressful events two weeks before having a biopsy had their wound heal faster than people who write about factual day to day activities. The trial authors said that the writing had greatest effect when done prior to an acute wound, so the timing of the writing was important. As with most treatments, you can feel worse before you feel better, and that's how it can be with writing. I know in my journals, when I'm tackling something that is painful and emotional, I write it down and feel lousy for maybe a day afterwards, but then I feel so much better, a weight has been lifted, life is worth living again. Writing can help a wound to heal, physically and emotionally. Writing for healing is a bit more specific than daily journaling because it encourages you to tackle troubling events in your life head-on, with stark truth and honesty, letting it all hang out. Trying this technique for 3-5 days, for about 20 minutes per day, can alter the path of your journaling, especially if you're accustomed to simply writing about how you feel and what you experience on any given day, and tend to avoid those memories that are traumatic, too difficult to deal with in your writing. Let's face it, alot of us do this. I'm no exception. It was only when I started writing about my first breast cancer diagnosis that I really began to feel the benefits of 'writing to heal'. Sometimes writing about those difficult times - perhaps painful memories from early childhood - can bring closure, reconciliation, and forgiveness for ourselves and for others. We can gain a more positive perspective, be more understanding of our 'adult mistakes', move beyond the turmoil. So yes, writing can offer you a lifeline. It can help you heal in so many ways. Give it a go. Well known American writer Judy Blume says, 'Writing saved my life. It saved me, it gave me everything, it took away all my illnesses.' “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain Mark Twain gave us lots of great quotes and in this one we can take some lessons for our writing:
I've never been a great risk taker in life and this is also true of my writing - I'm being honest here. I stick to genres that I am comfortable with and tend to write about stuff I know; and according to some writers, that's a fatal mistake. Take author Annie Proulx (The Shipping News) who famously said: “What I find to be very bad advice is the snappy little sentence, 'Write what you know.' It is the most tiresome and stupid advice that could possibly be given." Oops. Annie goes on to say that if we just write about what we know, we don't grow - and there's truth to that. If we keep rolling down the same well-worn track, and we don't digress onto another pathway that looks bright and interesting, or dark yet irresistibly intriguing, we can become tunnel-visioned. I'm all for writing about what you know but within that, take your risks, don't get too comfortable, let the wind fill your sails and rather than pull in the ropes, let them out to allow full flight so you are on that pathway to discovery and imagining. Take what you know and apply it to a new genre: I can take the first fabulous flush of true love I experienced at 16 (well, at least I thought it was true) and translate that into romance fiction; I can take my life with my cat and create a child's picture book; the facts I have about my Mom growing up in Florida during the war I can apply to a local history of that time and place. The main message here is to take chances, enjoy your writing, let it take you to places you never thought you would go - and don't be afraid. Fear is one of the greatest roadblocks to our writing: it manifests as self doubt (I can't possibly do this, I'm not good enough), what-will-people-think-of-me (people will hate my work), and who could possibly be interested in anything I have to say? I say, 'who cares?' Write what you want, take risks, and never stop learning. Every time you write, you learn - about yourself, and your craft. Go on. Explore. Dream. Discover. When I think about life writing, I sometimes wonder what my old cat Betsy would write about. She's had quite the adventurous life. I first met her at the pet shop up the road. She was in a large enclosure with several other tabby kittens and I was in the market for a new feline companion. Her cage mates were dozing and lethargic. She was jumping around, playing with things, looking very lively. I thought, "I'll have her." The first evening at my place she disappeared. I was beside myself, thinking she must have gotten out and was lost in the bush - but how could she escape? Doors and windows within reach were closed, she was so tiny, there was no way she could get out. I searched and called, all the while knowing that this kitten wouldn't yet know it's name and was probably terrified of me anyway. I sat down in despair to watch Shortland Street and heard a high pitched wail from the laundry room. Little Miss Betsy had managed to get up under the washing machine, no mean feat, and was under there crying with a desperation that broke my heart. I managed to get her out, and we began working on our relationship. Her life story might begin this way: "Some lady took me from my brothers and sisters, put me in a cage, let me out into a huge place I didn't know that smelled funky. I sought the only safety I could, under this large white appliance. I squeezed under it and there I stayed, trembling and cold." Our relationship was always twitchy. Betsy was highly strung. Some days she was an angel, but on others she would hiss, spit, claw and hated visitors. No wonder. Maybe it was due to the washing machine. An early memory of trauma. There were days when I wished I'd picked one of those lethargic kittens instead of this lively, somewhat neurotic gal but I loved her and we both hung in there. Betsy could also show absolute and unshakable devotion. I have often written about her constant presence when I was having chemotherapy for breast cancer, with me night and day, bringing me the sustenance of large leaves from the puka tree, only leaving my side to attend to business outside and to eat. She's a clever cat, intuitive, quick, street-smart, savvy. Betsy's life timeline would probably show a period of prolonged difficulty when I adopted a stray male cat, Little Boy. He took over the household and Betsy took to the bush and to the roof. I rarely saw her except at feeding times. What would she say about this? "Jane took in a stray. He was a serial abuser. I learned to survive." Little Boy died over a year ago and Betsy has come into her own again. She's almost 18 years old now and still looking very good, sleek-furred, bright eyed (she would say, "I always kept myself up well.") and very companionable. We sit in the evening and watch Shortland Street together. She can't fit under the washing machine any more, nor would she want to. I do everything I can, and then some, to make her happy and comfortable, because she's earned it, by golly, and, quite frankly, I adore her. We've been together for longer than any relationship I've ever had in my life. What would she write now, I wonder. "Life is OK. I lie in the sun. I have soft pillows to sleep on at night and I get good food. I watch clouds, birds, grass growing. I haven't the energy to bite and scratch. I am content." What more could a cat need? Most of us feel lonely from time to time. For writers, loneliness can come with the territory. There's this image in our heads of the solitary writer, head bowed over the desk, the space illuminated by a lamp, working through the dark hours of the night ... They're probably doing that because the late hours are the ones where there are no distractions. Everyone's gone to bed, the house is quiet, the phone isn't ringing and the river of emails has dried up until tomorrow. If we're full on and in the middle of a piece of work, we cut ourselves off even more. We go out of our way to avoid people, declining invitations, shopping in the half hour before a grocery store closes at night, taking our daily exercise by the light of the moon. Carolyn Murnick, a senior editor at New York Magazine, said, "I've always had a sense that it's not the healthiest to stay inside for three days writing, because then when you go out into the world, you feel a little out of sorts. In the same way it takes some time to get into the writing headspace, it'll take you a while to get back into the space of being with people." I understand that. If I've been on a writing bender, then go out into the world to buy cat food and run into someone I know at the shop, I get tongue-tied, often can't remember their name, have little to talk about, feel the flush of embarrassment rising and hastily make my exit. Solitude seems to come with the writing life but ask a writer how she or he feels about this and they may well reply, "I love it. It's great. I've never been happier." Hmm. What's with that? I look at my own writing life and I am content. It is a lonely occupation. I spend the greater part of every working day here, alone, with Betsy the cat. I may not speak to another living person all day but I don't mind it because the solitude gives me the space I need to write. It's hard to do that with a lot of people around. And yeah, I get lonely sometimes, the deep-seated sad type that moves in like a grey, dampening mist and settles in for the long haul, and then I wish I had a more sociable job. Being too much on one's own isn't the best, even for writers, and finding a balance requires pushing out of the creative cocoon, making sure you do see your mates, go for walks, see movies, drink in bars and have trips away. It was about ten years or so ago that I finally understood, and accepted, that writing would become my life. It was almost like going into a convent, giving up social interaction, sacrificing a great party for a night before the computer, and other things I had to give up, not the least of which was a good income. I knew the loneliness that lay ahead, the unique disconnect from the world that, in the strange way of creating, enables me to write about it and communicate my thoughts and so involve myself in the passing parade and the flowing river. Was it worth it? Yes. Of course. People often begin conversations by talking about the weather. In fact, writing about the weather is a prompt I often use to get myself started, especially in my journal. I put the date, then start cracking on about the weather - hot, cold, wet, windy, whatever. And because the weather has been so extraordinary, and, in some cases, quite dangerous this season, it's a really good way to kick-start your writing, and it may even lead you to write about another time in your life when weather played a memorable role. Some of the wild wind we've been having here reminded me of a summer stay up at Whananaki, in Northland, many years ago. A friend and I were lucky enough to have use of an old caravan parked on some beautiful land near the beach. There was an outdoor long-drop dunny, anchored to the rock, with splintered and salt-burned wooden walls and a creaky door on well rusted hinges. The toilet seat was also made of wood, worn smooth by countless bottoms. The cracks in the seat pinched your bum when you sat down, and of course the long, dark hole below was excessively threatening to all five senses. One night a storm came in. We had no electricity, only wavering candles and flash lights. We hunkered down in the caravan with our storm provisions: lukewarm beer and cold baked beans on stale bread. The brave little caravan shook and rattled. The wind hissed, whined, and pummeled the frail structure while we recited drunken poetry and sang songs to ourselves, white-knuckled. Inevitably, after beer, one must venture to the dunny. I put it off for as along as I could. Out I went into the tempest in my foul weather gear, little flashlight beam piercing through the raging wind and horizontal rain. I made it to the dunny for what would be a speedy wee. It seemed as if the wind was blowing up through the longdrop hole, wailing and moaning carrying with it the overpowering scents of decomposing matter mixed with the salt of the sea, while the entire dunny vibrated with the fierceness of the gale. Rain shot through the splinters and cracks in the walls, stinging my face and exposed bottom. I knew then with the certainty that can accompany inebriation, that the dunny would blow over, fly down the hill, onto the beach and into the raging, boiling, surf, with me trapped inside, flailing madly about with my foul weather pants around my ankles. The indignity of it. So certain was I of my impending doom that I flung myself out of that dunny and straight into a sodden, solid, soaking wet, smelly lump of animal that had taken shelter outside. I shrieked, it snorted and galloped away. In the flashlight beam I caught the tail-end of a sheep, bounding off into the dark night. Does writing about the weather take you back to memories of dunnies and storms and soaking wet sheep? Taking time to relax over summer is what we do. After a year of hard work this 'down time' is vital to our health and wellbeing. So far this summer I've spent a lot of time hanging out on the deck, watching the birds hop around the front yard and frolic in their bird bath, reading, visiting with friends ... But I haven't done any writing. Well, not on paper on or the computer, apart from Blogs and work related items. I'm writing in my head at the moment. Writers do tend to sit and stare at things for long periods of time. Other people think we're slacking off but in actual fact, we're working, thinking about our writing, formulating plots, characters, turning points, dialogue, thinking of just the right words to express what we want to say. Right now, I'm doing a lot of thinking about the memoir I'm writing about my Mom. This process is enhanced by my rediscovery of forgotten family artifacts. I've been unpacking boxes places in storage years ago. Each box is a treasure trove of photos, scrapbooks, pieces of art work, and little things Mom displayed on shelves and walls. Each item provokes memory, which inspires the writerly thoughts: where does this fit into my book? Does it belong in there at all? What story is attached to this thing? Who touched this item long ago? How did it come into our family in the first place? Before we begin to write, there is thought. A lot of it, in my case. I have to think it through, ponder it all, sift it gently in my mind, filter out the essential elements, the 'maybes' and the 'absolutely nots'. The New Year is fast approaching and for those of us who enjoy writing journals, one of our resolutions may be: I will write more in 2018 or ... I will write every day in 2018 Both seem like tall orders - are they achievable, or are we setting ourselves a Mission Impossible before the New Year even begins? And can you imagine writing anything on New Year's Day apart from perhaps, "I don't feel too well today." If you're wanting to improve your writing discipline, become a better writer, you simply cannot beat that regular practice of getting something down in a journal as often as possible, preferably sticking to a routine rather than relying on a grab-bag of days and times. Writing every day is ideal but not always realistic or practical. However if you opt for it, even if you manage just a short sentence like, "I went to the beach today and it was good", at least you are showing up for your writing date. Good on you. Perhaps go easy on yourself with a resolution and commit to writing three times a week in the coming year, at a set time that you know is going to work for you. There's nothing quite so disheartening as making our resolutions and failing to reach first base because we've made them unrealistic. You may decide to finally tackle that novel or short story that has been badgering you from the sidelines for months. What a great resolution: I will write my novel this year. OK - make a plan: how are you going to achieve this writing goal? Make your plan realistic, one that is flexible enough to roll with the punches, and the highs and lows that life inevitably brings. Whatever your writing goals for 2018, I wish you every success and full speed ahead! Start the New Year with passion for your idea, and energy and drive to make it happen. As Dorothy Parker once said, 'Never grow a wishbone where your back bone ought to be.' |
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