Reading for Writers: The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Chapter 1.1

In her first chapter of The Writing Life, Annie Dillard begins to explain the complexities of writing.  She hones in on the process.  She starts with the importance of the word as a tool, a hammer, a pick, that gets to the root of the gold you are searching, plumbing depths and getting you closer to truth.  But she also asserts the need to know that many of your words will need to be scrapped, thrown away for the good of a piece.

This first chapter is a perfect example of sparseness that works.  Dillard moves back and forth between musing about writing and metaphors for writing.  For example, she tells of the inch worm that is constantly searching climbing a blade, “in constant panic” (7).  When putting forth her metaphors, she does not fumble with explication or transitions. Instead she boldly throws the metaphor out juxtaposed with her thoughts about writing and allows her reader to draw their own conclusions about the meaning and purpose of the metaphor.  This book would be a quick and easy read; this first chapter is a mere 21 pages.  But Dillard trusts that her reader will stop and parse the nuance behind her words.  This makes for an enjoyable, engaging experience for the reader and an excellent example of how to write in a way that engrosses the reader.

I loved her discussion of why to write word by word:  “The reason to perfect a piece of prose as it progresses – to secure each sentence before building on it – is that original writing fashions a form.  It unrolls out into nothingness. It grows cell to cell, bole to bough to twig to leaf; any careful word may suggest a route, may begin a strand of metaphor or event out of which much, or all, will develop.” (15)

Though she also discusses the merits of writing like a steam train, without thinking and just going, going, going, this quote really resonated with me and with the way that I write.  I love a little thesaurus.com and Wikipedia.org while I am writing.  Sometimes I feel the need to find just the perfect word and when I do, it leads me on a new idea or metaphor that runs away into the sky in beautiful swirls of words.  This happens also with Wikipedia. Often I have a question or want to know more about some small detail I am including and once I get into Wikipedia, I’m off on new paths that I never imagined but are wonderfully complex and inspire the piece I am working on to go further than I ever thought.

My creative nonfiction professor balked when I told him how long it took me to do our weekly three-page exercises.  I was often spending hours on an assignment that was intended to take only one or two. “You’ve got to learn to write faster. There’s going to be demand for your work and you’re going to have to fill it.”  I tried to explain that I wasn’t being overly meticulous or editing as I wrote, necessarily, but that my process for creativity and association took a lot of time and consideration to come about.

I love the non-linear, associative, over-the-top writing of someone like Tom Robbins (some of you might know that he’s one of my favie faves), who said in an interview with the New York Times, “The reason I write so slowly is because I try never to leave a sentence until it’s as perfect as I can make it,  so there isn’t a word in any of my books that hasn’t been gone over 40 times.” I think this kind of consideration and thorough thought about each word is exactly the reason that Robbins’ sentences are so jam-packed with meaning and imagery and purpose and humor.  They leave me both feeling full and always wanting more.  In the same interview Robbins says that he often starts with just a title, and you can easily imagine how you can go from just a title to a whole whirlwind of a novel if you building it word by word in this way.

The quote above from Dillard helped me to remember why I write this way.  After a failed (well, 17,165 words, which was excellent for me, but not the 50,000 word target) attempt at NaNoWriMo and a push from my nonfiction prof, I was doubting my process and this little aside in The Writing Life reminded me that my process is my own. It does get results and I do love what comes out of it.  So, I can let go a bit on this insistence on word count and instead remember that what I need to put in is time.  Sit so the muse will show up.  And when she does, I’ll be there, listening slowly and conscientiously, even if she gives me only 100 words a day.

 

*This post is part of a series on the craft of writing called Reading for Writers.  This series examines a variety of authors to ascertain the choices they’ve made in their writing and the effects of those choices so that we as writers can make better decisions in our own writing. May contain affiliate links.

 

 

Books for Writers: The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
Writing Tips from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life
How to Be a Writer: Lessons from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Check out the Lightning Droplets Blog for writing inspiration from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life. A book every writer should read!

Learn how to develop a writing practice and get useful advice for writers about how to cultivate a writing life. This writing inspiration can be used in all kinds of creative writing: poetry, novel writing, fiction writing, and memoir writing.

#mustread #writing #nonfiction #books #memoir #tbr #amwriting #tipsforwriters #inspiration #writinglife #creativity
Books for Writers: The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
Writing Tips from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life
How to Be a Writer: Lessons from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Check out the Lightning Droplets Blog for writing inspiration from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life. A book every writer should read!

Learn how to develop a writing practice and get useful advice for writers about how to cultivate a writing life. This writing inspiration can be used in all kinds of creative writing: poetry, novel writing, fiction writing, and memoir writing.

#mustread #writing #nonfiction #books #memoir #tbr #amwriting #tipsforwriters #inspiration #writinglife #creativity
Books for Writers: The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
Writing Tips from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life
How to Be a Writer: Lessons from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Check out the Lightning Droplets Blog for writing inspiration from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life. A book every writer should read!

Learn how to develop a writing practice and get useful advice for writers about how to cultivate a writing life. This writing inspiration can be used in all kinds of creative writing: poetry, novel writing, fiction writing, and memoir writing.

#mustread #writing #nonfiction #books #memoir #tbr #amwriting #tipsforwriters #inspiration #writinglife #creativity

2014 New Year’s Resolutions: Process over Goals

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” – Annie Dillard

As I begin this new year, I can see that I’ve reached many of the goals I set for 2013.  I made some big goals.  I started an MFA Program in Writing, so now writing has become the focus of my life.  I’m studying writing, teaching writing, and most importantly writing writing.  I’ve gotten some good publishing under my belt and even won some awards and nominations.  This is, of course, extremely exciting.

As I look into 2014, I realize that what I really need this year has less to do with goals and more to do with systems.  My writing goal long-term is actually not to write a book or make money, but to build a writing life.  For me, this has more to do with habits than with milestones.

This morning I read an article on m.entrepenuer.com that suggested we trade goals in for systems.  It’s a pretty compelling argument.  The author asserts that goals suggest that we are not good enough in the moment, whereas systems give us something we can work at any moment and we will be successful just by virtue of working on them.  He goes on to propose that systems are more motivating in the long term because they release you from the emphasis on results and instead concentrate on the process.  Lastly, goals can often include aspects of things that we can’t actually control, whereas systems are always within our control.  For example, it might not be within our control to set the number of pounds we might lose this year, but it is within our control to set a number of hours each week to exercise.  Whether we lose 5 pounds or 15, we can feel accomplished by having gone through with the routines we’ve set.  Not only that, but this works much better in the long term, because we won’t stop once we’ve reached our goal, but instead we will have developed daily habits that support us in going even further.

The most helpful part of this article, for me, comes at the end.  He writes, “None of this is to say that goals are useless.  However, I’ve found that goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress.”  In some ways, this is what I’ve been doing all along.  When I do a Submission Bonanza!, my goal is obviously to be published.  But also, the decisions that editors make are out of my control.  What is within my control is that I am sending my work out there, on a regular basis.  Also, in doing the Submission Bonanza, I accomplished things that I hadn’t even considered in my goals.  Not only was I published, but I was published 4 times, highlighted as a featured author,  and nominated for Best of the Net.  I wouldn’t have set these things as goals, but the process that I followed lead to these things.

I, for one, have always been skeptical of routines.  How can you grow if you’re doing the same thing every day?  Are you living a thoughtful, authentic life if you’re just following a script?  But Annie Dillard’s above quote is making me change my mind.  How do I want to spend my life?  I’d better make sure that that’s how I’m spending my days.  That’s how I’m going to be living conscientiously.  Not by sitting mindlessly in front of the computer or the TV when I feel like it, but by being thoughtful about how I’m spending my days.  It seems to me that setting routines is an excellent way to be conscious of this.  Instead of being distrustful of habits, I’m coming to see them as cultivation, the planting and nurturing of seeds that need time and attention to grow.

So for me, 2014 will be about creating habits.  My resolutions will be processes, systems instead of goals.  So here they are:

My 2014 Resolutions

  1. Writing Treadmill: 1 hour per day on writing, also keep track, so that at the end of the week, month, or year I can look back and see how much I’ve accomplished.
  2. Submitting Treadmill: 1 submission per day (eep!).  This is basically a year-long Submission Bonanza!, but think of the results!  In terms of process, I’ll spend one hour a day working toward this.  This can include editing pieces, researching magazines or actually submitting.
  3. Mental, Emotional, and Physical Health: 1 hour per day on this, as well.  Yoga, meditation, running, hiking, whatever!  This semester (can I blame the busyness and my first winter?) I’ve lost sight of the importance of these things and I need to make sure that I’m devoting time to keeping myself sane.  In the long run, it’s more important than finishing that last chapter of reading for a class and I need to remember that.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a little more from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life:

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”

Creative Commons love to Nikos on flickr for the inspiring picture.

Flecks of Inspiration to Ring in the New Year

 

 

These are a few things that I’ve found inspiring over the years, some ideas that have helped me cook up some creativity, punched procrastination in the face, and take a battering ram to writer’s block.  I hope you find them as helpful as I do.

Creativity as Play: John Cleese on what it takes to be creative

Look Up More: The shared experience of absurdity and how it comes to play on storytelling

Cat Exploded? Make Good Art: Neil Gaiman on the creative process

A Vessel for Genius: Elizabeth Gilbert on how to talk to your muse

 

Creative Commons love to Jon Delorey for the photo!

Prompts to Start the New Year

 

 

I always feel like there’s an excitement in the air this time of year, a freshness that’s just waiting to be plucked.  The new year is pregnant with possibility and is just waiting for us to snatch it up.  In celebration of that, here are some revisited prompts to get your creativity and inspiration going.  Enjoy!

The Encyclopedia Game

Myths in New Places

Anagrams

Reimagining History: Rasputin

When the Goddesses Come Out

Write Fast

 

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/bartmaguire/ for the photo! Thanks!

A Mess o’ News

For those of you keeping track at home, you’ll notice that it’s been nearly two months since I posted.  It’s been a whirlwind around here and my poor little Lightning Droplets blog had been put on the backburner because of it.  Lots of exciting things have happened, though, and I’d like to share!

My last post was in November, when I — bravely? insanely? masochistically? — took on my first NaNoWriMo in the middle of my first semester of an MFA Program and my first semester teaching college composition.  I did not reach the goal of 50,000 words, but I did feel like I accomplished a lot.  I started a novel I’m quite excited about and reached my all time daily peak (6,000 words in one day!) and even my monthly best at 17,165 words on one piece (I did write a few other things in November).  You might know from my Write Fast post that I am not a fast writer, but in November, I averaged over 500 words a day.  This is about the same word count as Tom Robbins, who is a favie fave of mine, so I am feeling pretty good about that.

Also in November, I found out that I won a grant!  The grant pays for my class to publish a collection of essays written by my students.  It also pays for me to go to two writing conferences.  So, anyone going to AWP this year will see me there!  Woohoo for a free week in Seattle!  I’ll also be going to the Pacific Rim Conference on Literature and Rhetoric in Anchorage, so that will be a nice little weekend, too.

By the time the end of the semester rolled around, I had been nominated for Best of the Net, published in Yemassee, Flash Frontier, Exegesis, and Saw Palm (forthcoming), written 15 solid pieces in three different genres, done two panel presentations, a roundtable discussion, two craft papers, a position paper, and two Prezis, contributed to the WriteAlaska website, produced a full-length book with my students, read 18 books,submitted work to sixty literary magazines, and drank many, many pints of Alaskan beer.

You can see why my little blog here has been neglected.  I have lots planned for next semester as well, but Lightning Droplets will hopefully get a little more attention as I settle in more to my new life and my new home in the Arctic.

Update: Also, just to let people know, I have joined Amazon’s Affiliate Program. So… Lightning droplets is now a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Prompt: Write Fast

I’ve been told recently that I write too slowly.  I will admit, my process is meticulous.  I follow in the footsteps of Tom Robbins (swoon)* in which I try to make the most perfect sentence possible before moving on to the next one.  There’s all kinds of research that happens and word-associations and trials and retrials.  I realize that this flies in the face of most writing process advice, which is to just get as much down on paper and then edit afterwards, but I have to admit, that’s just not the way it comes out for me.

Lately, I’ve been trying to exercise my “sprinting” muscles a little bit more and one way of doing this is with oneword.  It’s lovely for speed-thinking and writing and a nice little way to start a story.

So, here’s my challenge.  Go on oneword, write for the sixty seconds that they give you and use something you write in those sixty seconds as the start or end of a story.

Ready?  Go!

*It has recently come to my attention that for years I’ve been fostering a schoolgirl crush on a 77-year-old man.  I am not sure how I feel about it, but Switters would be proud.

Sharing: What Reconciles Me by John Berger

“What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together.  They are strewn there pell-mell.  One of your ribs leans against my skull.  A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis.  (Against my broken ribs, your breast, like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel.  It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace.  Yet it does.  With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.”

John Berger

Reaping Rewards: Word Flood in Yemassee

 

 

Here’s another non-rejection that I’ve racked up from my original Submission Bonanza! 

Word Flood,” my first published creative nonfiction piece, just came out in Yemassee.

I’ve pasted the original text below for your reading enjoyment!

 

Her words sank.  Not quickly like an anchor, or with a splash like a rock.  Instead as she spoke, her words fluttered in the air, held afloat by the humidity.  They tickled earlobes, in a language half a world away. Pieces of ideas curled with the wind among tendrils of jasmine, leaving a heavy scent wafting through the city.  Nouns and verbs together toyed with bodhi leaves, pulling them along as they flitted to the ground.  They landed gently on the Chao Phraya, quivering on the surface of the river and leaving ripples too small to be noticed.  Amongst water hyacinth and coconuts they floated, gathering silt and absorbing the wetness of the city.  In this way, the words gained weight and began to drown.

Before long, they swam in the wake of snakefish and nestled between the scales of water monitors.  The more weight they gathered, the more they were immersed, the harder it was to see them. The light had trouble reaching them between algae and waste and even apsaras would be hard pressed to find them.  They landed on the river bed, stirring up the bottom and throwing silt into an already murky darkness.  Covered.

And soon all her pen could do was draw the curves of the paths her words had taken, as if trying to retrace their steps.  Searching between the roots of ficus trees and the stamens of hibiscus for where she had misplaced them.  A world made of tendrils and bubbles, floating in a silent and wordless black and white.  Sea horses and leaves and turtles all swirled with a silent current.  Owls became nok hoo, knock, who? and lost their edges and their names.  Questions were gone and statements no longer made sense.  The world churned as if everything were from the point of view of those lost words, staring up at far away surface of a river that always was moving.

And then there was a flood.  The water seeped slowly, climbing up through sewers and along the streets.  The river rose past dams and sandbags bringing pythons into houses and buoys into cars.  It brought everything from its depths, decay, sand, and her words, which huddled against a curb and waited for the waters to recede.  After months, the river left, burrowing back into its banks but leaving its refuse to dry in the sun.  The sediment cracked and caked.  Mosquito larvae dried like tiny raisins.  The decomposing river sludge made banana trees greener and left seedling strangler figs sprouting along sidewalks.  And, as if growing out from cracked pavement, her words dried, too, finally able to breathe and soak up a little bit of the warm winter sun.

 

Submission Bonanza!: Second Time Around

So, you might have noticed that it’s October 19th.  You might have also noticed that it’s not September any more.  In fact, it’s nearly three-weeks-not-September already.

Way back in July, I set myself a challenge to do a Submission Bonanza!  It was incredible and successful.  I learned so much, and I’ve been published in three magazines so far (more on that to come later!).  It was so successful that I resolved to do it again in September.

Some of my cohorts looked at me like I was insane — and with good reason.  In September, I started an M.F.A. program, began lecturing on writing at university, and moved to the frontier (Why, hello, Alaska!) all in the same month.

It’s true that I didn’t finish my 30 litmags in 30 days.  It’s an ambitious challenge amidst so much transition.  I have, however, finally finished!  It took me much longer than I had hoped, but I still got work out to 30 litmags and ok, it took me 50 days, but better late than never, right?

So, in true Submission Bonanza! fashion, I’ve pasted below links to all the literary magazines that I submitted to.  They’re all magazines that accept submissions online and accept submissions for free, because those are some of the restrictions that I’ve currently set for myself.  You’ll notice that some of the magazines here are quite ambitious for such a fledgling like me to be submitting to (cough, cough, New Yorker, cough, cough, The Atlantic).  One of the things I learned during my first Submission Bonanza! was that I needed to be more choosy.  Once a piece gets published, those First Time North American Rights that all the magazines are asking for are gone, gone forever.  Because of this, I figured I’d start with the big boys and get real about racking up the rejections.

So, here it is, ladies and gents:  an incredibly ambitious September Submission Bonanza! 30 litmags in 50 days.

1. Glimmer Train
2. Subtropics
3. American Scholar
4. Podcastle
5. Writing Tomorrow
6. New Haven Review
7. AGNI
8. Nashville Review
9. A River & Sound
10. Journal of Compressed Creative Arts
11. The Pedestal
12. Poetry Magazine
13. Kenyon Review
14. Shenandoah
15. Devil’s Lake
16. The New Yorker
17. The Atlantic
18. Tin House
19. Cincinatti Review
20. TriQuarterly
21. A Public Space
22. Bomb
23. Chicago Review
24. One Story
25. West Branch
26. New Ohio Review
27. Willow Springs
28. Third Coast
29. Southeast Review

30. Pleiades