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News & Noteworthy

The News.

Remember my post on Fearless Writing? I talked about taking chances, and not just on that work in progress. I know, I know. I keep bringing it up. But, mantras really work. Our efforts pay off, whether they nudge us in a different direction or shift our perspective ever so slightly or result in something much more concrete.

Suzannah Windsor, of Write It Sideways, is creating a new digital literary journal, COMPOSE. A while back, she sent out a call for editors, and I applied, not knowing if my experience was enough to earn me a spot on the masthead. But, I took the risk anyway. I was thrilled, then, to accept her offer of a position as an editorial assistant. Suzannah is a mother-writer who sets goals and gets them done. She’s a model for the rest of us trying to balance life and motherhood and writing, and I couldn’t be more excited to work with her on this new project. Read more about the full masthead here.

The Noteworthy.

At my day job recently, I heard of a website called Lynda.com. For half a second, I wondered about the site: who was this Lynda? What does she do? Then, I got busy with work again. It wasn’t until I saw a post on Facebook by Lisa Cron about her page on the site that I finally investigated. Lynda.com is an online learning center offering a myriad of courses from art and design to photography and, well, now writing. Lisa Cron, author of Wired for Story, has a new course up and running for those of us wanting to know more about story structure.

I’ve raved about Wired for story before, and I imagine the course follows Lisa’s book somewhat. But, if you’re like me, sometimes reading the book isn’t enough. I want more.

The course isn’t free. Not exactly. But, the cost is certainly doable: $25 gets you a 30-day subscription to lynda.com, which allows you to view Lisa Cron’s course AND any other courses that suit your fancy. Perhaps something on illustrations for a children’s book? One on formatting that ebook? Once you’ve subscribed, they’re all free. Even if you only watch Lisa’s The Craft of Story and cancel your membership after 30 days, that’s still a pretty good deal.

Another author using the internet as a classroom, of sorts, is Lisa Rivero. She’s written a great book for young historians called Oscar’s Gift, about Oscar Micheaux, the first major African-American filmmaker who has history as a homesteader as well. Right now, in honor of Black History Month, she’s posting lots of extras to go with her book: videos, writing prompts, and news about the time period in which Oscar lived. If you write historical fiction, for kids or grown-ups, check out Lisa’s website to see how historical resources can enhance the reading experience.

What’s new or noteworthy with you? And, have you ever visited lynda.com? I’d love to hear from someone who’s taken courses there, it looks so inviting.

 

 

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Two Great Writing Books and a Prompt

Whatever kind of flash you write, fiction or non, the Rose Metal Press offers a book full of essays on craft and beautiful writing that will feed your creativity. I’ve mentioned the Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction before: each time I open it, I bookmark pages and highlight and say yes, yes, yes.

Last Saturday, I met with my senior citizen friends for our creative writing class, and I read from Barbara Hurd’s essay in the Fieldguide, “Pauses:”

In music, a rest note can, by its command, make me lift my fingers. ‘Shh-and-shh,’ my piano teacher says as she counts out quarter-note rests, those squiggles on the score that look like weak-willed iron gates rethinking their prohibition to proceed. My hands hover over the keys; I listen as sound recedes; I’m poised and waiting. Yes, wait, I tell myself, out of habit; for inside such possibilities might be the world in abeyance, the music both gone and still here. . . . Wait. Linger. No need to rush.

Then, I presented the group with a prompt from Midge Raymond’s Everyday Writing that, in a way, corresponds with the idea suggested in Hurd’s essay:

Write about a time when something small – a chocolate bar, a smile from the right person at the right time, a martini – made you happy.

In other words, I asked them to write about a moment that caused them to take pause, to take note.

Around the table, one person read about the moment his two brothers, discharged from the war, saw each other for the first time in three years. Another person described the thrill, as a ten year old boy, of watching a man cut blocks of ice from atop his wagon, knowing he’d toss frozen chips to him and his friends waiting in the heat of the sun. I wrote about my son, how his pause in one moment filled my heart and stayed with me:

The life of a fifth grade boy is busy. With a flip of the light switch in the morning, the wheels are slow to start. But, once they get moving there is breakfast and the comics and where is the sports page and check the weather and do you know how cold it is in Fairbanks, Alaska? Can I wait in the car, Mom? I’m ready to go, I don’t want to be late for school, I don’t want to walk in with the first graders, can we go already? Mom!

I don’t move fast enough for my son. To add to the tension, his sister puts on her coat with such precision that we are always two minutes behind. By the time we reach school, my son has one hand on his backpack and one on the seatbelt release, and he is out the door and on the curb with barely a moment for me to say goodbye.

So it is especially important to note the day he jumped out of his seat, waved to me over his shoulder, and started to close the car door when he stopped. He turned back, then, and looked me in the eye. For a full second.

“Have a good day, Mom.”

Just like that.

He could have tossed the words over his shoulder, could have mumbled them under his breath. But he turned and looked at me, as if to be sure I was paying attention. To be sure.

Have a good day.

A simple and common farewell took on much more meaning in that second. It was puzzling and endearing, and I thought about it all day long.

These pauses in his day are rare, I know. So, I hold memories of them close; I sneak in my own unprompted affection in subtle ways: a pat on his knee, a kiss on the top of his head when he is deep into his morning cereal. And, when I can get away with it, I hold his hand; in the car, as I ask him about his day at school; on the couch, when I sit next to him briefly to see what show he and his sister are watching.

This holding of hands, it is usually fleeting. But he allows me that small gift, and it carries me.

When was the last time you were caught poised and waiting, and remembering? And, what happened?

Next month’s prompt (via Lisa Romeo’s Winter Writing Prompts Project): You look just like __________.

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Becky Levine and the Basement of a Mall

When I first dove in to read Becky Levine’s book, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, I grabbed a pencil. I knew I’d be underlining and bookmarking and returning to the pages again and again. Every writer needs a survival guide, especially when it comes to critique groups.  Two years ago, I wrote the post below right after I began reading her book, as her words urged me on to my first meeting with a local writing group. Today, in light of my 2013 mantra, Fearless Writing, it seems apropos to post it again.

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A few days before I attended my first meeting with a local writing group, I read these words in Becky Levine’s Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide:

Take care to make the meeting worth your time and money. Talk to people. Too often, at these events, writers give in to their nervousness, shyness, or just their uncertainty about their own writing.

…[R]emember: This is your writing. It’s important. I’m not advocating shoving yourself into the middle of someone else’s discussion or waving a red flag in the bathroom line, but put yourself out there.

I was nervous, uncertain, not exactly ready to put myself out there. But, the woman who runs this particular group had emailed me such a nice introduction with the room information (in the lower level of the mall) and said I was welcome to attend. She mentioned that they all would be bringing a sample of their work to share, and she hoped I would as well.

After working a split shift at my paying job, being gone most of the weekend, and after my daughter cried both times I had to leave, the decision to steal away for another two hours on a Sunday wasn’t easy. Add to that guilt the anxiety about sitting in a room with strangers and reading a short story out loud (for the first time to someone other than myself), and I could have easily backed out. But, something in my gut told me – and Becky Levine’s words encouraged me – to go to this meeting.

When I got to the building, I came upon another woman looking for the room. She told me her name and smiled and immediately put me at ease. We made our way to the basement of the building, wound through hallways, and walked into the meeting together. She introduced me to her friends as a “fellow traveler.”

It was a small group, and, mostly, I just listened. When it came time to read our samples of work, I hesitated. A few of the members were aging adults, and the conversation at the beginning of the meeting had drifted from writing to assisted living. In the story I brought to read aloud, a young woman visits her grandmother in a nursing home. I thought maybe they wouldn’t like the story, that they would think I was rude to read something like that to this group. Worse yet, I worried they might not like my writing style.

Then, I remembered,

This is your writing.
It’s important.
Put yourself out there.

So, in the basement of a shopping mall, I sat around a table with six other writers and read my work. My face grew hot and my voice wavered. But, I pushed off that feeling of insecurity and panic and kept my eyes on the words.

After I finished, one person noted a place where I might change the wording. Everyone else sat quiet. Someone got up to leave. I tried to interpret the silence, the sudden departure, then I decided, No. Focus on what’s important: at least I took action. I can’t control their response. Nor, can I assume I know what it means.

And, isn’t that the way it is with every story a writer sends out into the world?

Before the meeting ended, the woman who acknowledged in her kind way that we are all travelers along this winding road complimented my story. The man across the table suggested my work would be published one day. I left the meeting with a few phone numbers and an invitation to come back.

I don’t know that I had much in common with the people there, other than writing itself. But when Becky Levine talks about finding a writing or critique group, she doesn’t say we should search for people like ourselves: with kids or without, working day jobs or not, old or young. Instead, she emphasizes that we follow our gut instinct. Find a group where we feel welcomed and supported – a group that will meet our writing needs.

Whether or not it’s the first group you attend, the key is: put yourself out there.