Craft Archives - Page 12 of 24

June 4, 2017June 2, 2017

#CaringForCommunity: Waiting

#CaringForCommunity is a blog series that spotlights the work of writers, artists, or your next-door neighbors who, without being asked and without pay, carry the light in simple but meaningful ways. These are people giving back in order to lift others up. Real life examples of compassion, concern, and inspiration. In today’s post, the story is personal.

*Post-book launch with authors Carolou and Val.*

A lot can happen in a day, like you wake up still beaming from an excellent book launch; you move into your last few hours of work before summer break; and you scribble a to-do/to-take list for your upcoming writing retreat out of town. You’ve been going going going and doing and worrying (which is what you do best, unfortunately). And you ignore that thing pressing at your back–literally, a pressing of pain–until it moves to the front and your sister-in-law lovingly reminds you that “at your age” you ought to check that out. Especially before you leave town. So you do. That day. And you come to find out you’ve got shingles.

A lot can happen from there, like the sleepless nights and the tell-tale rash and the unfathomable pain until (finally) relief, and by some miracle (meds, the bed, the nurturing from family–all of the above), you do make it to your writing retreat, which turns out to be respite in more ways than one.

You meet a roomful of women (a few men, too, whom you appreciate as well, but it’s the women) who pull you back into balance. Gentle voices and knowing eyes and honest, light-hearted conversation about the process of writing and living and living with writing. Throughout the whole week, you are surrounded by these women, flooded with quiet moments, and nudged with reminders To Just Be.

One woman in particular speaks to you from across the lunch table–the one place where it’s never quiet. You strain to hear her, leaning across your bowl of beef broth soup and plate of noodles dressed in bright, red tomato sauce. Never mind if you get some on your shirt, what she’s saying is important.

She’s talking about waiting.

Waiting for the story.
Listening for the characters.
Being still.

Later, she gives you an article on just that, “When Writing is Actually About Waiting.” The margins of her copy are filled with her handwritten thoughts about waiting and her own personal journey into story. But she doesn’t hesitate to share, to pass on the wisdom gained: it’s in sharing where we fully understand, connect, grow.

And it’s in this article where you read the words you most need to hear:

You can find peace within that. In the waiting.

In the listening. In being still.

. . .

Just what your body has been trying to tell you.

So you take to her message. You take walks, you take naps, you take your pen and paper into town and you sit.

And wait.

And listen.

And gather the story.

February 15, 2017February 14, 2017

#AmReading Patty Dann’s THE BUTTERFLY HOURS:
transforming memories into memoir

I found THE BUTTERFLY HOURS by chance. I had stopped in at the bookstore one Saturday afternoon for an author event. First thing’s first: I bought the author’s book (KRAZY by Michael Tisserand) and a new pack of stationary. Then, I settled into a plush chair two rows back from the speaker podium. I figured I’d thumb through the book while I waited, but I was twenty minutes early and the author had just arrived and people were still setting things up. So instead, I decided to browse the tables of good reads nearby.

With the store set up for author and audience, furniture had been rearranged. The table of current staff favorites that’s usually parked who knows where sat off to the side but steps in front of me now, with the last copy of Patty Dann’s book directly in my line of sight.

The book’s appearance, meek and thin with a simple cover, drew me in. Its subtitle, transforming memories into memoir, clinched my attention, since I’m in the last stages of editing Family Stories from the Attic with Lisa Rivero and in the midst of my online Flash Nonfiction course. After reading through the first three pages, I didn’t hesitate in my second run at the cashier; having finished the book, I’m eager to recommend it. Dann offers chapter after chapter of advice, encouragement, and examples of how writing prompts work–really, how writing in general works.

You have to do the messy part because even if you write ten pages and you only like one phrase, three weeks later, during lunch or in the middle of the night, you might feel compelled to continue that phrase. If you don’t have that one phrase written down, there will be nowhere to begin.

People sometimes freeze up at prompts, get stuck on the literal meaning of a word or the exact image in a phrase. But Dann suggests that the point of a prompt is to start. Write awkward; write clunky. Prompt or no prompt, just write. Last Sunday I “just wrote” the opening scene to a new story–200 words of awful and 10 words of “this might work” (with those 10 being part of a definition from the dictionary). Still, if nothing was written, I would nothing to revise.

Shut your eyes and listen to the church bell, the train whistle, and the snow falling on the roof. Open your eyes and see how children speak into one another’s mouths rather than their ears. Recall the lilac smell of your grandmother as she bent to kiss your cheek. Touch the dried snakeskin on the ground and imagine the way your throat burned the first time you tried hot peppers.

Paying attention to sensory details like touch, smell, and taste can bring a story to life or a memory back to life, benefitting the writer as well as the reader. For writers, such focus on our surroundings can “open us up,” as Dinty W. Moore says (THE MINDFUL WRITER, another of my favorite reads), “help us to see the story or poem or play or monologue or memoir in everyone and everything.” For readers, intimate specifics make way for greater connections with the work.

There are days, even weeks, or certain months of the year, when you simply cannot write. Don’t bother to feel deflated. Accept the fact that you have time off and fill the well.

Ah, there is my saving grace.

Taste new foods, listen to music from childhood, hike trails you’ve long forgotten, try your hand at watercolors, recite the names of the presidents of the United States, and interview your elders.

Because it’s been several months since I opened the draft of my novel. When anyone asks, How’s the book coming along? I cringe, silently berate myself, dance around my answer, hope they won’t notice the shame in my eyes. I wonder what’s wrong with me, worry about whether or not I will ever finish.

All good questions; all good food for though. But as Dann reminds us, nothing to be ashamed of.

digital sketch of woman looking out of window — *self portrait: unfinished sketch*

Look at the other creative things you’re doing during those quiet weeks or months. There’s much to be said for how a simple sketch or a twist in the recipe of your favorite meal or a day with the camera may feed your creative side. There are plenty of ways to engage in the work, even with your pen tossed aside. And we need that bounty as much as we need to fill the page.

Every essay I read brings me closer to my idea of how I want ( or don’t want) to write. Every story I edit reminds me of structure, what works and what doesn’t. Every book I find by chance re-energizes and renews my affection for the craft and for the power of story. Some might say this is not writing, but others, like Dann, would suggest that respite from one piece of work or another gives way for a writer to “fill the well” once again.

About THE BUTTERFLY HOURS (from Indiebound.org): Sometimes all it takes is a single word to spark a strong memory. Bicycle. Snowstorm. Washing machine. By presenting one-word prompts and simple phrases, author and writing teacher Patty Dann gives us the keys to unlock our life stories. Organized around her ten rules for writing memoir, Dann’s lyrical vignettes offer glimpses into her own life while, surprisingly, opening us up to our own. This book is a small but powerful guide and companion for anyone wanting to get their own story on the page.

January 11, 2017January 10, 2017

Writing Fiction with Help from Picasso

Today’s guest post is written by Patricia Skalka (@PatriciaSkalka). She is the author of the Dave Cubiak Door County Mysteries, with the third book of the series, Death in Cold Water, now on shelves. In her post, Skalka reveals how stepping away from her pen and into the world of art changed her perspective on the way she approached her writing.

I’d been a professional nonfiction writer for more than twenty years when I decided to make the jump to fiction. Specifically, I wanted to write mysteries – stories based on both character and plot. Those were the types of books I most enjoyed reading and felt most drawn to writing. I had plenty of ideas and the confidence that comes from two decades of making my living with words.

So, I started. And failed. The first draft of my first mystery was a dud. The second was not much better. I kept reading, revising, and chipping away. I was determined to do this but each faltering step drained away some of my self-assurance.

The problem lay with my perception of the novelist. As a nonfiction writer, I worked for national magazines like the Reader’s Digest and Ladies Home Journal, and was intimately familiar with the work involved in crafting a piece for publication. First came the idea, followed by the gathering of material through research and interview, then organizing the material and writing a first draft and, finally, the revising. Intellectually, I understood that the same basic process applied to fiction. But on an emotional level I had a very different concept, and therein lay my problem.

Deep in my psyche, I embraced the notion that fiction writers were born to the story. In this fantasy, I envisioned the novelist as one who woke with the idea in full blossom and who proceeded to write a captivating novel with almost effortless ease. The fact that I had to work – and work hard – at the process sent an unconscious message that I wasn’t and never could be a novelist and that, despite my attempts, I was just fooling myself.

I was at one of my lowest points, when I traveled to Europe to visit my daughter during her study-aboard semester in Spain. On a sun-drenched autumn afternoon in Barcelona, I walked down the famous La Rambla to the Museu Picasso in the Old Town area. I went to see his art, never realizing that the hours I would spend there would save my fiction-writing career.

photo of Chicago Picasso sculpture — The Chicago Picasso. *Photo credit: tacvbo via Visualhunt / CC BY-SA*

Among the more than 4,000 works on display were the table-top models and rough sketches that Picasso had made of the iconic untitled sculpture that would eventually be installed in downtown Chicago. I lived in the city and was familiar with the massive, 50-foot tall steel structure. But in Barcelona, I came face-to-face with the many versions that Picasso had to work through before he arrived at the final design.

There were so many, and as I took them in, the truth dawned. I was looking at an example of a world famous artist going through a struggle and process similar to mine. Picasso didn’t wake up one morning with a vision of the finished sculpture in mind. He started with an idea and then for some two years he nurtured it through a long string of evolutionary and developmental steps until he reached his goal.

If Picasso had to work at creating his art, then why shouldn’t I have to work at writing my novels?

The point seems obvious, but to me it was a revelation. I walked out of the museum almost giddy. My attitude and approach were transformed. I could do this.

pencil and pencil shavings Back home, I embraced my work with new enthusiasm and understanding. Failure was not a defeat but a learning process. Ideas were seeds waiting to be cultivated, nourished, and tended. Change was good. Revision was an elemental part of the process. If a plot line didn’t pan out, it wasn’t a disaster but an opportunity to figure out how to make it better.

Eventually, I learned two more important lessons. The first was discovering that I couldn’t write blind. I couldn’t take an idea and write by the seat of my pants. I needed to understand the entire story first. This meant plotting it out step by step before I began to write.

The second was learning to be comfortable writing at my own pace, and learning that the pace would vary. On some days it meant a thousand words and on some it meant five hundred. I congratulate those who are able to do more but no longer let myself be intimidated by their output or feel that I have to match their pace.

Writing is a very intense and personal experience. The only way to make it genuine is to believe in yourself, to go through the trial and error process of finding what works for you, and then to be true to yourself.

I made the trip to Barcelona ten years ago. Since then, I’ve published the first three books in the Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery series and am well into the fourth. All I can say is, Thank you, Picasso!

photo of Patricia Skalka — *Photo by B.E. Pinkham*

Patricia Skalka is the author of Death Stalks Door County, Death at Gills Rock, and Death in Cold Water, the first three books in the popular Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery series. Skalka, a Chicago writer, turned to fiction following a successful career in nonfiction. Her many credits include: Staff Writer for Reader’s Digest, freelancer, ghost writer, writing instructor and book reviewer.