As I did with Bibliophilia, for today’s post, I sought inspiration from the cards, one for each genre. This time, I went to an actual oracle deck, Earth Magic:
These cards are accompanied by a guidebook, so I excerpted some of the card’s advice as well. Use the cards and/or their messages as encouragement, advice, writing prompts, or whatever else seems to fit.
Okay, here we go!
Continue reading
In honor of Throw Back Thursday, I offer writing prompts from two different posts. The first was originally published March 6, 2012. The second was a post that I NEVER finished writing (but has been sitting in “draft” form for many years!) Continue reading
You might not believe this, but writing and online dating have a lot in common. How do I know this? I’ve been writing (and sadly, dating) for a considerable period of time. Admittedly, I’ve been writing far longer, but after a decade spent using multiple apps and sites, I’m practically a certified dating expert. (Although my lack of success with said dating might undercut this claim.) In any case, I think I’m qualified to make a few comparisons.
For starters, writing and dating both require a proactive approach and a thick skin. Think rhino hide. They also demand that one embrace rejection as part of the process. If you are a writer of any genre, you know the drill. You send out work, it gets rejected. You brush yourself off and submit again. Continue reading
A glimpse of UC Merced
You may not know this about me, but I teach professional writing at the University level, and I love it! There is a practicality to this writing style that aligns with daily aesthetic, a sense of order and audience awareness that, in the vast openness that is the creative path, offers my brain relief. Not sure where to start? Consider your audience. Identify your purpose. Find a way to deliver information that is quick and easy to digest (and use headings and lists because that often helps!). In this way, professional writing realm really can resemble that plug and chug formula that (yes, I admit) I sometimes crave. (So, before you get all huffy, dude, I know…the prof writing forms can still have style and personality, but you and I both know that we can churn out, oh, say a blog post, in a matter of hours (or days if we are being a bit picky) while a story or essay or poem can take us years upon years to complete…and then more years to have someone decide to publish it…)
Anyway, this is all to say that my two worlds – the professional writing world and the creative writing world – rarely intersect. And yet, the practical professional writing approach CAN help us creative types approach our own work better.
And so, today, I want to offer advice I learned from my course readings about working in teams. Continue reading
In honor of “bite”-sized sound bites, we’ll keep this intro equally small! First, here are two bite-sized sound-bites (followed by one that is a bit more than a bite-sized chew):
Writing Excuses Podcast (“15 minutes long because you’re in a hurry”)This show is primarily an advice & discussion session with some notable sci/fi/fantasy/romance writers. This podcast is geared toward genre writers, but there are plenty of useful things here for writers of all tropes so for all you high-brow literary types, try it before you snub it. (Then erase it quickly from your list of podcasts so no one knows you’re listening to it.) Topics range from simple craft questions on POV and the like, to more sensitive issues such as cultural appropriation, gender dynamics, and colonialism. They also discuss issues on the business end of writing (how to hand-sell your book, for instance) and on the psychological end (how not to feel like an imposter). A great choice for the commute home if you write in the evenings or to enjoy with your coffee if you’re a morning writer.
Grammar Girl Quick & Dirty Tips For Better Writing, with Mignon FogartyA nice and tidy little podcast that tells you all you need to know about it right in the title. It helped me solve my embarrassing who vs. whom incompetence once and for all. Imagine what it can do for you. (And if you like the podcast, the website is equally nice, tidy, quick and dirty.)
Don’t Keep Your Day Job, with Cathy Heller (The not so bite-sized podcast that is still easy to digest):This is one for creatives of all sorts. Its purpose is to inspire you to follow your passion by sharing stories of how other artists have made a living doing what they love. It’s positive and uplifting…and the host’s sincere enthusiasm go-get’em attitude might eventually get on some people’s nerves. But there are some great stories here and good advice for thinking and living outside the box. A couple to start with: “Turning Misery into Motivation” (with photographer Elisabeth Caren) and “What Can You Do Today?” (with the host, Cathy Heller). Episodes are 45-60 minutes.
Perhaps the favorite thing Randi and I brought back from AWP (other than the memories, of course!) was a box of “literary postcards” called Bibliophilia:
The postcards come in a box of 100*. They are beautiful images, each with a different quote from a famous writer. Randi found them at one of the booths, and she showed me the find with a guilty pleasure, pulling them from her tote bag in the middle of the bustling AWP Bookfair. “Look!” she said, and we opened them immediately, our hands reaching outwards, not to flip through the cards as you might expect, but to each draw one at random, our eyes closed, left hands extended, seeking our inspiration for the day.
Okay, so maybe this was not the purpose of the postcards. I doubt they were meant to be a form of writer’s stichomancy, a grasping at words the way people used to grasp at random Bible passages for insight or divine guidance. But Randi and I do this often, with EVERYTHING, from board game characters to fortune cookies to boxes full of rocks… Either way, the cards’ messages were profound. Continue reading
In honor of the Facebook “Throw Back Thursday” Tradition, I thought I’d bring back Oldie’s But Goodies. This week’s TBT prompt was originally published in 2013 by Jennifer Simpson.
As Jenn writes:
“Goals are good. Measurable goals even better. But understanding the why: why is it important to you, what is your mission, what part of your soul does attaining this goal feed? Those are the things that will keep you going.”
Read the entire post here:
Hopefully a little of both…
Before you dig in too deep with your Writer’s March goals, I’m going to suggest starting with writing about why you write…
Last summer I had the pleasure of attending the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference as a graduate student intern–the last time I will be able to do that since I’ve now graduated. At The Conference I signed up for Seattle-based writer Priscilla Long‘s week-long class, “The Art of the Sentence, the Art of the Paragraph.” (PS there are still spots left in Priscilla’s class for the summer 2013 Conference)
Two great things were sparked by in-class writing exercises: one, an essay that while it has not yet found a home (rejected by 6 of the 12 journals I’ve sent it to) was a finalist for the A Room Of Her Own Orlando Prize for creative non fiction and two, the I…
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At this year’s AWP Conference in Washington, D.C., I spoke on my first panel. The panel
That’s me, hiding behind the podium, speaking with my hands!
was called, “The Politics of Queering Characters,” and was, as the title suggests, about the benefits and drawbacks of creating queer characters on the page (whether that page be fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry or otherwise).
I organized this panel in response to a talk Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You, gave at last year’s AWP. For those unfamiliar with Greenwell, his latest novel has been hailed the “great gay novel of our time,” and as a queer writer, I was eager to hear him speak. On the podium, Greenwell talked about his views on being marginalized as a “gay writer” (a place some writers try to avoid as it often is seen as a curse, a label that can keep a writer from becoming more established and well read). He brought up Aristotle’s idea of the universal, that belief a writer’s our goal should be to tap into a collective consciousness of sorts, where no matter where you live or who you are, if the writer is doing their job, the reader will be moved by a “universal” sense of what it means to be human.
This is something I’ve always aspired towards in my own writing, this sense that all stories, even a queer story (especially a queer story), can be made into a story anyone can relate to, if done correctly. This idea works with my own sense of idealism, and for years, I’d gone about on this quest quite happily. But then, Greenwell threw a metaphorical wrench in that system. He questioned this idea of the universal, wondering who it was made for? Was it made for people like us? Or was the universal created out of the artistic aesthetic of a privileged few. And that aesthetic looks a lot paler, whiter, and straighter than my own.
And so Greenwell argued, why aim for the universal at all? “I am a queer writer,” he said, “writing queer characters for a queer audience.” He spoke, quite passionately, about the so-called “gay-ghetto,” claiming by the end that if James Baldwin and Virginia Woolf are in this “gay-ghetto,” then count him in.
My current day job involves equal parts mind-numbing monotony (think walking very slowly through a grocery store while using a calculator) and twenty or so Billboard pop songs played on loop (think Maroon 5—all day, every day.) So rather than sink further into a Sisyphisian state of depression, I said screw the no-headphones rule and started downloading podcasts.
It turns out you can find a podcast on pretty much anything, including writing. I have found some to be surprisingly motivating and/or educational. I have also found some to be terrible. So I have weeded through dozens of podcasts to bring you this weekly list of recommended listening, which will heretoafter be known as “Sunday Sound Bites.”
Some of these will focus on craft and productivity, others feature author interviews, and some are just good writerly fun. A few may not be about writing, specifically, but should prove useful in developing your writing habit or motivating you when the going gets tough. I hope you’ll find at least a few that you enjoy. Continue reading
Happy Saturday, folks. Here in Merced-land, we are laying down laminate floors and jamming to music. It’s a busy day, but thanks to my commitment to you, I’ll still put words to the page by the end of the night and hope that, no matter what YOU are doing, you’ll do the same, too!
Today, I thought I’d leave words of wisdom to the wise. Here are 13 inspiring quotes stolen from HERE and HERE and HERE. Find the one that inspires you, and write it on a post-it. Leave it somewhere on your desk to remind you as you go.
A Writer's March 