Brandt's Morning

Dorothea Brandt wrote a book called "Becoming a Writer" way back in 1920-something. Gimmie a minute while I Google. . . . Okay, I lied. 1934. The book I was thinking of published in 1920s - I stand corrected again . . . 1935 and it's Stanislovsky's "An Actor Prepares". Both books, however, have a similar goal: Get the artist to start working with or near (as it were) their subconscious.

One of the exercises in Brandt's book is to wake up in the middle of the night and write for a certain amount of time - say, 20 minutes. Along with a few other considerations (she uses exhaustion and exercise to describe the point) her concept is to get the writer to work where access to the subconscious is readily available. It works.

I believe it is argued that this is why more artist per capita (when compared to other professions) boast more drinkers - the drinking brings the writer to the brink.

But it takes such a commitment! I'm working that commitment now.

There is so much I want to do on a regular/daily basis that I can get overwhelmed with the execution. Patience and temperance and easing into the program (whatever we decide it's going to be) is essential. Have I taken on more than I can chew? Time will tell. But the last thing I want to do is feel this sort of dread because there's too much to do in one day: meditate, hygiene, eating properly (diabetic), work on new novel, edit old pieces, work at the casino, etc etc (not to mention all the things that need to get done around the house.

I wonder how others handle their own desires to chase their bliss.

Writers and Challenges

After years of contemplation and research (1993 - 1999), I realized being a writer wasn't such a bad thing. At least that's the way it seemed to me on paper. I had come to the conclusion that one of the steps to being a successful writer was community. I had had some experience in community over those years, but nothing that seemed to me to qualify as ultimately meaningful (life changing) or intimate.

Then I recognized that nearly al the GREATS had been involved with the writer tribe. Hemingway had Perkins; Plath had Hughes and others (though that ended badly), Joyce had a champion in Sylvia Beach (as did others), and so on. Enter my slow involvement around the turn of the century with writer conferences. I went to a number of them before settling down in the State of Washington and Whidbey Island.

I am currently involved with a writer's challenge with a good friend from Washington - Steve White and (in a less formal way) Maria Hartung. I also have a champion for my work who goes by the name Eliana. They have encouraged me, pushed me, and even directed me to "up my game" as it were - and for them I am grateful. I leave this post now to hit the 500 word mark of a novel I've been working on since August 1st, thanks to Steve White.

Much appreciated.

Around the time I created this blog, one of the visiting faculty from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts suggested that people were really not interested in another blog site about writers and writing and the usual lessons that go with them. I took the lesson to heart, and as I only had one follower (Thanks, Joy) I didn't feel I had that much to lose by not contributing to what was amounting to be a journal, therapeutic or not. Perhaps it was the illness that played a role in my decision. E Coli can do that to a person. Four years later (Jan 2015) pneumonia laid me out for most of the year. I'm in good health now.

What interests me about writing is the minutiae. The small things. The things that make a difference and compel a reader to read on or (hopefully) never forget. Five years ago, I had just begun to explore the world of poetry. I can safely say that there hasn't been one day since where I have not had something to do with poetry, either in the reading, writing, or study of it.

I intend to revitalize this blog as a way to keep my literary talons sharp.

Writing While Ill

Forget about it.

I had the happy misfortune of falling ill last week. (thursday, to be exact)

Not the under the weather kind – flat out, can’t move, if you touch me, I’ll find a way to kill you so that we can all die together kind of ill. it was that bad.

During that time, I contemplated quitting my classes (I’m comfortable enough at this point that such a thought is ludicrous, but I thought it anyway) wondered if I should write a will, and suspected Gawd was after me.

This blog is brought to you by the letter E coli. I won’t go into details, but I recommend not cooking three week old sausages for dinner. Yikes!

Okay, back to the writing – I had five poems to fulfill for one assignment (thankfully, I had a ton of notes), a book to read and analyze and the on-going poems for my workshop (of which I was planning to submit the unheard of one a day for a week).

Prioritize. The poem a day for a week can wait – the class members usually submit one a week (but me, not being a poet, must work harder, that’s all). For three full days, until yesterday afternoon, I did absolutely nothing. after awhile you just tell yourself – it ain’t gonna matter if you’re not healthy.

so I concentrated on health (especially the all debilitating hydration!), whatever I could read of the book – a good one – last year’s newbery award winner: One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. and started to pull my notes for the five children’s poems for a book I’m going to call The Handy Handbook.

I can’t say I’m up to speed – this is the most writing I’ve done in five days, but it does feel good to keep the rails greased, as it were.

Some Thoughts on Reading and Craft Assessment

Some business: I thought I had written more for this blog than I see on line. If I do discover that I have, then I’ll repost them or post them here. So there may be some unexpected posting in the next couple of days.

I’ve always tried to assess my place in the literary universe, as writer, author, public, fan, etc. As a fan or public, most of these ruminations take the form of wondering whether I should read this author or that genre for my personal entertainment. I love Stephen King and up until the Gunslinger Series, have read most of those books. I’ve read many of Alexander Duma’s books, and so forth. I like the Science Fiction Genre and some Fantasy and find myself being pretty selective along those lines. Heinlein, Niven, Tolkein, Rowling, fulfill most of those needs.

Once, while reading Dean Koontz’s The Watchers, a fan of Koontz interviewed me to see what I thought of it. We discussed the book – which I absolutely adore – but when I discussed the idea of Koontz’s management of Jungian archetypes within the book (spinster, adolescent child, 007 type bad guys) she suggested that I probably wouldn’t want to read any other Koontz book – that the majority of his work had the same feel and that The Watchers (up to that point 15 years ago) represented the best of what he did. True or not, I set him aside as a choice for author’s to read. I’m not inclined to read that way anyway, so no one should be too surprised.

In assessing my writing craft needs I kept hearing the twin scenario: write write write read read read. For an artist, the two must come together.

I am no reader, by any stretch of the imagination. and it wasn’t until my third year in the bachelor’s program that I was finally able to get up speed and comprehension. This is nice because it means, quite simply, that I can read more books, learn more things, have more mental tools – something that is very important to me. Then came the Master’s and the goal of not only writing novels, but publishing them as well.

I will take years, I realized, to get my chops up and to produce work competently and proficiently. To that end, I began to realize that I was still deficient in the area of reading. I am not well read.

One of the courses needed for the MFA is a creature called Directed Reading. Each genre has a Directed Reading program. It’s a grueling 16 weeks of (usually) reading a novel or work a week. In some cases, such as Children’s Lit, we could be assigned two books a week. What then happens is that the books are analyzed and explored for numerous things. Such as structure, voice, syntax – any number of things.

Last semester I took two Directed Reading courses: Memoir and Narrative Poetry. I survived. By the end of that semester I was reading three times faster and had acquired great comprehension skills. But the point is this: I took these courses together because I needed to become a reader. I do not think that I can achieve my goals without paying attention to these skills and reading in general. After taking these courses, I can see that READ READ READ is just as important as WRITE WRITE WRITE

Fourth Week Report at the Masters

One of the hardest things to do during classes is to let some things go. My office is crowded with mountains of books – but they are organized, I promise. In the last year I’ve purchased over 100 books for the classes alone, not to mention the few that I just can’t seem to keep my paws off of. But it’s now how I want it.

In earlier discussions I have mentioned how frustrating it can be to not be organized but the focus right now is on school. I want to protect my investment in time and money and knowledge by staying on top of things academically. I have yet to do all the things for poetry I’ve wanted to do – and time is fading fast!

Last week there were familial needs and future business needs to attend to. If I hadn’t been on top of things in the past and doing my best to get ahead of the work, then I would have suffered greatly. As it is, I’m where I need to be but will be planning to take advantage of a (hopefully) quiet week coming up.

The take-away: Working harder at the beginning of courses always pays off. I’ve been rewarded with positive responses to the work and I still have a wealth of material to create more work from (especially important for the poetry course), though not as much as I’d like.

Opening Files or Lining Up the Ducks

Recently I took a friend to the Salton Sea. We were on a very tight schedule, and as this friend from Ohio had never been to the Salton Sea but knew of my love for it, she came with me on a one day visit. the driving time alone was to be seven hours. The most we could hope to stay and be back at Disneyland for an evening meeting, was three hours. She wanted to see Salvation Mountain, the volcanic mud pots were on the way, as were many other austere scenic opportunities along the way. We never made it to Salvation Mountain. And barely made it back to Disneyland. How important was it for her to go to Salvation Mountain? I don’t know. Will it make a difference to her and her God? I doubt it. But! If she really wanted to go or had to go – then she could have done so if she’d made a plan and schedule to make it out there.

Of course, flying by the seat of the pants is always good – and this cheap analogy is only meant to segue into what it takes to be productive in writing, and not – necessarily, what it takes to be organized in life.

One of the magical things you can do to move the work along, is to have an idea of where you’re going. I mentioned that I will be opening files soon, both in the computer and physically with a file folder, to help facilitate ease of writing production. This is easier to do when you know where you’re going (!) but it does a number of things as well.

1) Defines the road you’re going on. Often times in writing and planning we have a pretty good idea of where we want to go. The problem comes in when we get sidetracked. Being side-traced at the Salton Sea was a lot of fun. The mud pots are an amazing phenomena. But we did not reach Salvation Mountain – God save our souls!

2) Offers insights into greater opportunities. All that silliness aside about not going to Salvation Mountain – we did have a plan: Go to Salvation Mountain. Okay, good. Then we got in the car and left for the mountain. As it turns out we were able to find other things along the way. if we had not made the plan (opened the file) to go to Salvation Mountain, then we wouldn’t have passed other photo ops, and mud pots, etc. In other words, there were things worth watching along the way.

Opening a file early can occasionally reveal other opportunities ahead of time. I still had a year to go when I opened all the class files for my Bachelor’s degree. By doing so, I was able to see what was ahead of me and how it related to earlier classes and later classes – the end result was my mind was now operating on more than a “here and now” mentality with my courses – I could, in effect, see into the future and take advantages of information that impressed my instructors/students and I had greater control over the facts.

3) Makes it easier to just get started. Often times after studies and projects and writing 2K, it’s difficult to switch mental gears and move forward on a new or old project. having the files prepared (even if they’re empty) is usually enough to get the snowball rolling. It really can be that simple sometimes. There’s an empty file – but it is something! You’ve made a contract with yourself to put something into that file and it’s a lot easier to get something in there if there is indeed a file open.

I’ll even go further that than, if I can. Why not start a word file to go into the empty file?

Why not title the word file with something that might have something to do with the project at hand.

These kinds of personal prompts keep the subconscious mind ruminating behind the scenes so when you return to them later you could have days, weeks, or months of subconscious activity available to your hands and mind by the time you get to work on them. They allow you to incubate and execute when it’s time to get to work – no small gift, I assure you!