Writing Life

Day 4: Practice

You need to show up and show us your gift. Until you do that you're just practicing in private.

It's Show Time.

Time to bring the writing out of dusty practice rooms.

Time to give it a shove between the shoulder blades and push it stumbling and weak-kneed onto the stage.

To me, this habit might better be named "performance" than practice. Yes, practice is necessary. But when you're talking about going public, then it's performance time all the way.

We 21st century writers are lucky. We have a stage readily available, with performance times open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. People can enjoy the show for free (good for them, not so good for us) and a often as they like.

I'm talking about the internet, of course, and I make great use of the world wide web as a performance venue for my writing.

But sometimes I think it's a little too easy.

After all, I only have to write something for one of my blogs, hit "publish" and there it is.

Easy peasy.

As much as I appreciate the format, blogging is not the Carnegie Hall of writing. Remember the old joke about how you get there?

Practice, practice, practice.

So maybe I should be working a little harder, aiming a little higher. Toward magazines, essay collections, even a book.

The Carnegie Halls of writing will take a lot of practice too. No more dashing off those cute blog posts or glib book reviews. The kind of writing I have in mind will take careful thought, research, revision.

I've got the ideas already in my head. I've just never had the initiative to move forward with them.

Perhaps this 15 Habits of Great Writers is the shove between the shoulders I need to get me on the stage with a whole new repertoire.

Stay tuned. We'll see what the program looks like.

Day 3: Initiate

Declaration. I am a writer.Belief. I know I can do this.

But do what exactly?

How fine it is to make the outer declaration and hold fast to that inner faith. But without the initiative to take concrete action, declaration and belief aren't even worth a cup of coffee.

And we all know how much writers need their coffee.

This third of the 15 Habits of Great Writers is the bugler's reveille. Pick the thing you most want to write and start writing it. Even if it's scary, even if you have no idea where to begin.

Begin you must, and that is what Great Writers do every day.

In addition to being a writer, I'm also a musician. I'm a pianist, and I've worked as an accompanist for some wonderful school choirs, as well as churches and community groups. I'm also a handbell player, and have played with a professional group. You'd think I'd be satisfied with my proficiency in these instruments.

But no. The musical thing I really wish I could do is sing.

As an accompanist, I work with singers all the time. I'm in the background, and part of me likes that just fine. The spotlight isn't on me. I'm a support person at heart, and I'm usually content to bask in reflected glory.

Deep down, though, I hunger to be the star, the one who can open their mouth and release melody into the air.

Writing is no different. I'm pretty comfortable in my niches - blogging, book reviewing, technical writing.

But oh how I crave to write a novel.

To create an entire world spun from the web of my imagination.

That would take a major initiative on my part.

I don't know if I'm "great" enough for that just yet.

Day 2: Believe

Until you actually believe you are a writer, you’re only kidding yourself. 

from 15 Habits of Great Writers, Day 2

Saying it is one thing. Doing it is another.

Yesterday, I was bold enough to declare my identity as a writer. I was brash enough to say that I’ve been a writer for the past 45 years of my life. I insinuated that I was sure of my writerhood, confident in my ability whether or not the world agreed with me.

But do I believe it?

Saying it is one thing, doing it another.

Years ago I was in behavioral therapy for depression. My therapist, a very wise woman, encouraged me to start acting as if I weren’t depressed. At first, she said, it will feel like the biggest lie you’ve ever perpetrated on yourself. You’ll feel fake and uncomfortable.

In time, you will start to believe this trick you’ve been playing on your psyche. What was once a difficult acting job will become  like second nature. Eventually you’ll realize that you aren’t acting the role of a happier person, you really are a happier person.

Believing in ourselves as writers requires a similar slight-of-mind trickery. Sending the declaration out into the universe is the first step. Doing something about it another. Here’s today’s challenge from the 15 Habits of Great Writers:

Just so you don’t think this is all esoteric, you’re going to do something radical. You’re going to get up two hours early and write.

If you usually get up at seven, get up at five. If five, then three. You get the idea. Don’t check your email or read blogs. Just write. This is how you know you really believe something. Thinking and talking and tweeting about writing is one thing; actually doing it is another. So today, believe it; tomorrow, do it.

Great writers believe in themselves. And when that crazy self-doubt slips in - when the right words won’t come, when the rejections pour in, when the naysayers say - they shove it all back into the corner where it belongs. Sometimes, they pretend it never existed. Everyday they do things that reinforce that belief in themselves.

They believe.

So - I’m game if you are. Tomorrow, up at 5:00 a.m.  Nothing but writing. And believing.

Day 1: Declare

BE A WRITER, the magazine ad screamed at me. JOIN THE FAMOUS WRITERS SCHOOL AND LEARN FROM SOME OF TODAYS WELL KNOWN AUTHORS. MAIL THIS POSTAGE PAID CARD FOR A COPY OF OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST. That ad appeared in every issue of my mother’s Look Magazine. After staring at it and re-reading it month after month, I finally screwed up the courage to submit the card.

It was 1967. I was eleven years old.

Nevermind.

I was a writer. I wanted to learn from the best, and that certainly wasn’t Mrs. McLean, my high-strung, frizzy haired fifth grade teacher. Why shouldn’t I apply for the famous writers school? Let them teach me what I needed to know so I could become famous too.

The aptitude test came, an 8 1/2" x 11” bound paper booklet in which I was to handwrite the answers. (Luckily, my cursive had improved since my third grade teacher, the equally frizzy haired Mrs. Simons, had given me a C in penmanship.) My favorite question was the last - write a descriptive paragraph that will leave the reader feeling a strong emotion.

I titled my paragraph “The Black Room,” and began it with the parenthetical statement that it was “from one of my works.”  In the paragraph, I remember writing about a “narrow room filled with grim shadows” where “only the sensation of evil lurked."

I’m sure you won’t be surprised that I wasn’t accepted into the Famous Writer’s School. However, the Famous Writer who was randomly assigned my aptitude test (and I can’t even recall that Famous Writer’s name) was extremely kind. He/she actually scored my test, and gave me some helpful hints about writing before letting me down very easily.

“Rebecca, you obviously have writing talent,” he scrawled in blue ink, “but unfortunately our students must be at least 18 years of age. Please do try again when you’re older."

I was surprised, but I wasn’t crushed. I would just keep writing, adding to my “works” until I was 18 and then reapply.

Didn’t matter.

I was a writer anyway. And I wasn’t afraid to declare it to those Famous Writers.

Know what?

It’s 45 years later and although I never was admitted to the Famous Writers School, I’m still a writer.

I tell the world I’m a writer every time I hit publish on a blog post, or mail a submission to a magazine or send in a completed technical report to my office. I tell myself  I’m a writer even more often - every time I make notes in my journal, or do research for an essay, or write lists of names for characters.

I declare my writerhood every time I transfer the thoughts from my head into words on a page.

Like I’m doing right now.

I’m a writer. Are you?

 DECLARE your writerhood. It’s one of the 15 Habits of Great Writers, and I’m joining Jeff Goins and over 500 other writers in exploring every one over the course of the next 15 days.