What the Novice Should Do - A Lesson for Writers from a Home Cook

The novice should try some fairly easy dish that requires long cooking. The novice should consult several recipes and read them over a few times until he or she has gotten them straight in his or her mind. And the novice should call up the best cook he or she knows and listen to what that person says. And then the novice should stick to it. ~Home Cooking, by Laurie Colwin

Since my "retirement" I've had the time (and inclination) to dabble with Cooking. I mean, of course, the kind of cooking that's more complex than the standard recipes I've relied on for the past three decades of homemaking. To inspire me, I turned to some well known food writers for their insight and experience in the art of food preparation and enjoyment. Home Cooking, by Laurie Colwin, was mentioned as one I should read.

Life and art intersect all over the place, so it's not surprising that Cooking would have things to teach the Writer. Colwin's advice to the novice cook jumped off the page and set me thinking that it served just as well for the person planning their first novel as preparing their first dinner party.

Should the novice writer jump right in and begin the magnum opus that will make their name in literary history? Probably not. "Some fairly easy dish that requires long cooking" would certainly be more appropriate. Start out by writing a journal in which you describe events that happen to you, characters you know well or chance to meet in coffee shops. Write a little bit every day for a long number of days (maybe forever), write easily and freely and don't worry overmuch about getting it perfect just yet.

Consult other writers and teachers of writing. Learn the rules of grammar and composition. Read about writing and how others go about the process until you get it straight in your mind.

Call up the best writers you know by reading their books over and over. Study the way they put sentences together and string those sentences along on the page. Listen to the rhythm of their words and learn what works. Find other writers around you and have a conversation with them. Listen to what they say about how they prepare meals of words.

Most importantly of all, stick to it. Determination and patience are the keys to perfection, in the kitchen or on the page.

How about you? What's your recipe for writing success?

Writing in Color

The handbell group I rang with prided themselves on an unusually expressive musical style which they called "ringing in color." It was a term that came to identify their performances to such an extent that they legally trademarked it. When asked about it, our director was happy to explain what the term meant to us. "We want our playing to take the black and white notes off the page and bring them into full color," she would say. This was achieved by careful attention to dynamics, phrasing, melodic  and harmonic lines, and overall visual presentation, so the group was "as much fun to watch as it was to hear."

I'm well acquainted with the musical practice of analyzing each line of music, looking for the climax of the phrase, searching out the melody notes which might be hidden amongst the inner voices and the leading tones in chords. I know how to emphasize notes in order to make the music more meaningful as well as more pleasurable to the listener. It's a painstaking task, looking at a piece of music line by line, analyzing, dissecting, listening and learning to feel the best possible interpretation.

I never thought about applying this process to writing until this morning.

Beth Kephart, is one of my favorite writers and blogging friends, an author well-known for extraordinarily lyrical and descriptive writing style, the very embodiment of the "writing in color" idea. Beth  is hosting a sentence challenge for NaNoWriMo participants. She is seeking  "a single sentence as it was first written in the heat of a NaNo moment, and that same sentence after it has been reconsidered, revised."

As  examples, she shows us "before and after" versions of  sentences from her own work in progress. The first example is perfectly functional, grammatically correct, and clearly conveys its meaning. But the revised sentence reads as smoothly as warm dark chocolate, leaving a satisfying aftertaste in the readers brain. The first sentence is a clearly black and white while the second jumps off the page in living color.

Beth has said she can spend hours, days in fact, getting one sentence just right.  "I care perhaps too much about language," she writes in a blog post. " I want to take risks with it, yearn to push it.  (...) because I think we have a responsibility as writers not just to tell stories, but to try to tell stories artfully, with originality and daring."

I never fully understood the possibility of such an undertaking, but I'm beginning to.  Crafting colorful sentences requires the skillful combination of vocabulary and grammar but also that unexplainable "X" factor which allows you to recognize when the words appear in living color. Like any skill, it takes practice and committment plus careful and thoughtful study, particularly study of other writers who are successful with this concept.

Each writers voice brings a unique style to their sentences, just as a musicians touch does to their instrument. Beyond  basic good writing skills the best writers will take an extra step to compose sentences which transcend black and white ink on the page and develop into vivid colors in the reader's mind.

That's really writing in color.

November All Year Long

Yesterday was the big day, the beginning of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. If you're a writer, you've surely heard of this challenge to write a novel -or at least the first 50,000 words of one -during the month of November. Maybe you've even completed it a time or two or maybe you're participating for the first time this year. Whatever your NaNo status for 2011, you'll probably be hearing about it online for the remainder of the month. I completed NaNoWriMo in 2006 and 2007, meaning I got at least 50,000 words on paper in each of those years. I finished a "complete" novel the first time, and got more than three-quarters of the way to a clear ending on one the second time.

The benefits of NaNoWriMo were clearly evident to me both times I particiapted, but they aren't limited to the month of November. In fact, they are aspects of the writer's journey which could be called upon all year long.

1. Community: There is a huge NaNoWriMo support group - online and off - to cheer you on. Having the support of others dealing with the same situation is key to success in any big undertaking, and the NaNo organizers understand this. Having a cheering section, and also a group of people to whom you are accountable is a powerful incentive.

2. Deadline: I work best when I have a clear deadline, and you can't get much clearer than the  30 days of November. I metered out the number of works I had to write each day in order to cross the finish line, and I made sure I got them done. If I fell too far behind, I knew it was "curtains."  Steady and sure was the best method to finish the race, so I made a schedule and stuck to it. Committing to a schedule for 30 days isn't nearly as difficult as commiting to it for a lifetime, but I'm convinced you must have that kind of grit to succeed as a writer over the long term.

3. Goal: The goal was also clearly set - 50,000 words. Knowing exactly how much is expected of you seems to make it easier to stick to the task. You can track your progress and see an end in sight. Similarly, you know right away if you're falling behind, and can do whatever's necessary to catch up.

4. Freedom: NaNoWriMo participants are encouraged to "write shitty first drafts," and there's nothing more freeing than knowing it's okay to just write and worry about editing later. In fact, you're forced to "just write" because if you stop to edit too much or too often, you'll never complete the aforementioned goal on the aforementioned schedule! Ann Lamott knew it, and after finishing two NaNo's I know it too - it's okay to write things that aren't perfect. The important thing - at least initially - is that you Just Write.

If you're participating in the challenge this year, I hope you're successful. But even if you don't complete the challenge, the NaNoWriMo experience can be a positive influence on your writing practice all year long.

How about you? Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? Have you participated in the past? What lessons have you learned that have helped you with your current writing practice?

On Schedule

I’m a full-time believer in writing habits…You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits or it dries up and blows away…Of course you have to make your habits in this conform to what you can do. I write only about two hours every day because that’s all the energy I have, but I don’t let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place.  ~Flannery O'Connor

Four months ago I quit my job. There were many reasons for that decision, but one of the things I hoped to do was to spend more time writing. Within weeks of making that decision to quit working, I learned that my first grandchild was on the way. This pregnancy was a long hoped for event, and one that was very important to me and to our family. Now I would be able to spend more time with him, help my son and daughter in law in this new adventure. So I felt confident that the gods had lined things up nicely for me, and were in fact smiling upon my decision.

Since it's been over 30 years since I cared for an infant, I started doing some reading about the latest thinking on the subject. During those first few months at home, new parents are advised to let the baby take the lead. Don't try putting them on a schedule, let them eat as often as they want. When they cry, pick them up and cuddle them, give them lots of attention and together time.

Indulge their every whim.

That fits quite nicely with my ideas about infant care. And it also mirrors the relationship I've had with my writing in the past four months. I've indulged my muse, let it take the lead with all this new free time. I've been writing whenever I felt like it, and if that meant three hours one day and 20 minutes the next, that's how it played out.

After three or four months, the child rearing experts advise parents to try and develop some semblance of a schedule. The baby is older now, feeling more secure about his place in the family. It won't hurt to let him cry for a few minutes after he wakes up, leave him alone in his crib while you take a quick shower or put in a load of laundry. Figure out a schedule that works for your family, and ease the baby into it.

I think that's probably good advice for my writing life as well.  "You have to make your habits in this conform to what you can do..." O'Connor writes. Because she suffered from a chronic illness, she "only had the energy" to write for two hours per day. "But I don't let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place."

 Forming any kind of habit takes willpower. Part of that willpower involves creating a schedule - the same time and place - and sticking to it. But I also also have to be realistic.  Although I spent seven or eight hours every day at my office job,  I know I'm not ready or able to commit that kind of time to my writing - not yet anyway. I've chosen to dedicate two hours every morning to writing...not internet surfing, not blog reading/commenting, not social networking.

Writing.

Putting words on the page.

To help me be accountable, I'm putting my blogs on a similar schedule. I'm committing to posting daily, alternating between the three blogs, so there is new content somewhere every day.

Here's to forming good habits for the writing life, and for life in general.

Do you believe in writing habits? Do you have a schedule? What works best for you?

Nobody Has to See How Many Times You Rip Out the Hem

The most glorious creations seem to appear in full out of nowhere.  That's the sign of a craftsman. Creating something from nothing is a triumph of imagination and skill. When you sew a stitch, it should be so small that it disappears into the fabric, and becomes part of the whole. The smaller the stitch, the better the seamstress. I imagine words in a novel like stitches. Words should flow seamlessly, without a tug or a pull to take you out of the thought itself. ~ from Don't Sing at the Table, by Adriana Trigiani

I can't sew. In fact, I'm hopeless at anything to do with needlecraft. But there are both quilters and seamstresses in my family, and I know the value of an invisible stitch that holds the material together so it lays perfectly smooth and flows in a clean line on the body.

I also know that before the final product is spread on the bed or pulled up over the hips, there are many occasions when the stitches are torn out, the seams deconstructed, the pattern reset or the hems realigned.  This is the work that never shows, the work you never feel when you snuggle under the soft cotton backing of the quilt, or admire your silhouette in the mirror.

It's also the work you never notice when your eyes devour a page of finely tuned prose, admire a turn of phrase or a deft characterization. Don't be fooled into thinking that finished product came easily to the writer. Just like the quilter or the seamstress, the carpenter or the stonemason, the painter or the sculptor, the pianist or the singer, there are hours and hours of seam ripping behind that finished product.

The more I write, the more I understand that writing is a craft, one that must be honed and practiced, no matter how naturally gifted the writer might be.

That the results of all this hard work appear effortless in the finished product is just another sign of a job well done.

So don't be afraid to rip out a few seams in your writing today.