Guest Post: Kim Suhr on Honoring Your Desire to Write

Kim Suhr is the director of Red Oak Writing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She organizes Saturday workshops on craft and leads Roundtable Critique Groups–in person and now (I love this) online. Let distance no longer be a barrier to joining a group! She is author, editor, and champion of other writers, helping them see the gift in their stories and encouraging them to pursue their dreams. Her guest post today does exactly that: she recognizes our tendency to downplay our work and offers insight for why we should (and how we can) honor our desire to write.

Can’t Afford a Writing Class? Maybe.

From time to time, people tell me they’d love to improve their writing, but they just can’t afford a class. Since I don’t have access to their bank accounts and spending habits, I have no way to know if this is true. But I do think that—in some cases—“not being able to afford it” is more akin to “not feeling justified in spending money on it.” And to those writers, I have one word to say: golf.

We all know people who play golf (or ski or cook or knit) with the verve of a professional despite the fact that they’ll never make a living at their passion. Still they continue to sink time and money into the activity just for the pleasure of it.

Imagine the following arguments against paying for a writing class translated into the golf scenario:

1. I don’t need a class. I’ll just get better by writing a LOT. Practice makes perfect, right?

DSC_0083Actually, there is much to like about this reasoning: the whole 10,000 hours to become an expert argument and all. Only thing is, if your golf stroke stinks, increasing the number of swings isn’t going to improve your game. In fact, it will probably get progressively worse or, at the very least, take a long time to get better. What will help—and in pretty short order—is an expert who can point out your dipped shoulder or the fact that your club face is open.

Same with writing. Ten thousand hours of point-of-view slips or ill-conceived plots will just make you better at bad writing. Best to get some instruction from someone who knows that they’re talking about. Then, the next 9,999 hours will be time well spent.

2. Why not just get a bunch of people together and help each other for free?

I like parts of this argument, too. You could get lucky and find some naturally skilled groupmates who give great advice. I have seen it happen for golfers and for writers. On the other hand, you could end up with a duffer who thinks he knows more about golf than he really does. He might advise you to change your grip only to make your slice worse. Let’s face it, bad advice is worse than no advice at all. The other hazard here is that your golf game could be so much better than your mates’ that they can offer no suggestions for improvement.

If you’ve been with the same group of writers without seeing much growth, you probably know what I’m talking about. As a facilitator of Roundtable critique groups, I can attest to the power of being among writers serious enough about their work to pay for a class and committed enough to meet deadlines and do the hard work of revision.

A third reason is often unspoken, but, I believe, is at the heart of many emerging writers’ reluctance to invest money in writing classes:

3. The chances of making the big time are slim. Why would I spend money when I probably won’t see tangible, financial payback?

black-and-white-people-bar-menSadly, there is much truth to this. No matter how avid a golfer you are, it isn’t likely you’ll be in the Masters’ Tournament any time soon. Still, golfers are out there every Saturday morning, doing what they love, spending a fair amount of money on it, and not feeling guilty in the least. No one is saying, “Why do you play so much golf? You’ll never make any money at it anyway.”

Why, then, do we apply the same standard to writing? Sure, from any one writing class, it will be difficult to see a direct monetary payoff on investment. But, when you “splurge” on a class, you find your tribe and deeper connections with those who share in your passion. Taken together, what you gain from classes, conferences and critique groups adds up to stronger writing and better chances of publishing, if that’s your goal.

In the end, for many people it comes down to this: How do I honor my desire to become a better writer? Do I really mean that I can’t afford a class or that I don’t feel justified in taking one? If your answer is the latter, I encourage you to reconsider. The call to write is every bit as important as other pursuits, maybe more so. Think of the words that have moved you. Consider the writers who claimed the time and used financial resources to write them for you. Imagine how your words may do the same for your readers one day. Remember, your writing will last much longer than a golf score.

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Kim-Suhr-small-150x150-2KIM SUHR is the author of Maybe I’ll Learn: Snapshots of a Novice Mom and director of Red Oak Writing. Her work has appeared at Grey Sparrow JournalFull of Crow and Foundling Review as well as earning awards from the Wisconsin Writers’ Association’s Jade Ring and Lindemann Humor Contests. You can listen to Kim read her work at WUWM 89.7 on the Lake Effect Program. She holds an MFA from the Solstice program at Pine Manor College where she was the Dennis Lehane Fellow in Fiction. To learn more about her writing, visit kimsuhr.com.

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Be sure to check out the Red Oak learning opportunities available in person at the studio or online.

Exploring New Avenues: Guest Post by Author, Jane Hammons

…[C]reative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty. ~Anne Lamott

Mom's Art - 21

Whenever we create something, anything, the result is a shot of adrenaline, a skip in our step, a whole new outlook on the day. Todays guest post comes from Jane Hammons (@JHammons), who writes about exploring creativity in new ways.


What’s next?

by Jane Hammons

That’s a question I am asked frequently now that I’ve retired from thirty years of teaching writing at UC Berkeley. It’s a question with many answers, sometimes no answer.

Because I’m a writer, I think the assumption is that I’ll say I’m going to write for hours every day. I hope to. But if I don’t, I’m going to try not to freak out about it.

I’ve always written fairly regularly, but I’ve also always taken breaks. Or it might be more accurate to say that sometimes writing takes a break from me. I’ll sit down to work on something and just be filled with dread or self-loathing or ennui, to name a few of the awful feelings writers sometimes experience.

I used to feel much worse about the breaks than I do now, partly because I turn my attention to other things that frequently bring me back to writing. But even if they don’t, I’m not too concerned. Because they take me somewhere, and as long as I’m moving forward and not settling into the conditions mentioned above, I’m okay.

via GaborfromHungar, Morguefile.com
GaborfromHungary, Morguefile.com

Taking photographs is one of those things. I began taking pictures four years ago when I read about a project for journalists who were to document their town by taking a photograph of it every day for a year. I’m not a journalist, so I didn’t hold myself to their guidelines. I just liked the idea of taking a photo a day. So in December 2011, I made it my New Year’s Resolution. But on New Year’s Day, 2012, one of my sisters died suddenly, and I discovered that I was Executor of her estate (something I’ve written about in the essay Final Accounting published in Full Grown People). I wasn’t sure I had time teach my classes, let alone write or take photographs.

What fell by the wayside was writing, but that opened the door to photography. I freed myself from the idea that I had to take good photographs. After all, I am not a photographer. What do I know about visual composition or lighting or f-stops? I allowed myself to be a true beginner and to not judge the product, but just engage in the process. And while I was nervous about it, I began posting the photos to an album on Facebook. I loved the immediate gratification of getting responses from people about some aspect of the photograph. The long-term payoff was that I began to see differently, which made me think differently, and that led me back to writing. On Twitter I came across Tom Mason’s 330 Words where he publishes a photograph accompanied by a short piece of writing. No editing, no rejecting: just submit the photo with a piece of writing and it would appear on his website. I didn’t worry too much about the writing (it’s just 330 words!) and focused on the image as I wrote, usually quickly and without revising much, eventually publishing five pieces there.

What is an image_Barry_large
Photo credit: Jane Hammons

This writing made me want to think more about images. And there is no better person to help with that than the brilliant cartoonist Lynda Barry. Joining the Instagram  #continuouspractice group, I post a photo to represent the day’s writing. I often photograph a page from one of Lynda Barry’s books– What It is or Syllabus—to highlight the aspect of creativity I want to address in my writing. I also use the app Paper Artist to make the image, in some way, my own (and hope Barry doesn’t mind).

Photographs tell stories; written stories create images. We know this. But just as when I begin writing a story, I often don’t know what the story is; when I shoot a photo, I often don’t know what I’ve captured until later when I download the images. What I see when I frame a shot in the lens is not the same thing as the image produced. And, of course, that image can be changed in numerous ways just as a piece of writing can be revised: re-envisioned.

1053 is a poem I wrote about an abandoned building down the street from where I live. Focusing on the shopping cart, I created the character of a homeless woman. A year later, 1053 is a Nest.

1053 and Nest_large
~ Jane Hammons

And now the Nest is empty (I took a break from writing this to go take the photo below.)

Empty Nest_large
~ Jane Hammons

The world tells its story best. As human beings we have the privilege of interpreting and remaking that story in a variety of forms and genres. It’s also a responsibility, I believe, to be attentive, observant storytellers. Camera in hand, I tend to notice things that I might not have otherwise.

What’s next? Moving my house into a storage locker; getting into my car with cameras, iPad and laptop; driving around; taking pictures; writing. That’s the extent of my plan.

And eventually, I will have to find a place to live!

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Jane Hammons-2Jane Hammons is the recipient of a Derringer Award for flash fiction from the Short Fiction Mystery Society. Her writing appears in several anthologies including Hint Fiction (W. W. Norton) and The Maternal is Political (Seal Press). She has published in a variety of places, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Columbia Journalism Review, Crimespree Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, and Word Riot.  She has work forthcoming in Akashic Books’ online series Mondays are Murder. She’ll be blogging about and posting photos from her upcoming excursion at Lighting Out for the Territory.

Guest Post: Mel Miskimen on Things We keep

Last week I finished teaching my Flash Nonfiction course. When I planned the prompts and the assignments, I hadn’t intended to focus on any one theme, but synchronicity often plays a hand in writing. During the four weeks–at different times and under different prompts–each student wrote on things we keep: a box of written confessions, a ball of string, a pencil from years ago unused but somehow symbolic.

Mel Miskimen, my guest today, writes about things she keeps: messages from her mother. Not of the written kind, though. Something even better.

Messages from Mom

IMG_1271Officially my mother had nothing terminal. She had a heart condition that she took pills for. She didn’t have Alzheimer’s, just dementia. Just? According to my WebMD degree, I diagnosed her with Failure To Thrive – impaired physical function, malnutrition, depression, and cognitive impairment. Check. Check. Check and double check.

I hadn’t planned on having a vocal record of her decline, but . . . funny how that worked out. Prior to her hospitalization, I could count on coming home to fourteen messages on my machine, ten from her. I kept some of my mother’s voice messages and made them into a playlist on iTunes. I play them whenever I need . . . you know, something.

I listen to The Cake after a big family get-together, first thing in the morning, when I sit down to write at my computer because that’s the time she would have called and interrupted my writing mojo. It’s an uptempo number. She’s snappy. Sounds like one of those octogenarians who  travel in groups and spend hours rehearsing their South Pacific number for the Senior Center Showcase.

Monday. 9:18 a.m.
Hi, Melly, this is mother . . . I just wanted to call and tell you what a great time we had yesterday–it was very special–and the cake was dee-licious! Buh Bye!

I recorded this in August for a co-mingling of my birthday and my father’s when I tackled the time-consuming Sunshine Cake recipe handed down from my grandmother, that my mother used to make but because she hadn’t the stamina to fold the egg whites into the batter, instead of being light and airy, her Sunshine Cakes were dense and stormy.

And then, a couple weeks later, I mentioned to her that I needed help putting in a zipper in my son’s very expensive, low mileage, winter jacket. I really didn’t need help, I just thought it would be something to keep her brain cells chugging along. Putting a zipper in a winter jacket in August was not high on my list of priorities. My mother had a different list and it was all about The Zipper.

Thursday. 10:42 a.m.
Hi, Melly, it’s your Mom . . . come to me–uh–come over here tomorrow and pick me up . . . I’ll show you how to do that zipper! Bye.

Friday. 5:46 p.m.
Hi, Melly, it’s your mother . . . just wondering if you got that zipper in . . . if not . . . I’ll come tomorrow . . . and help you with it. Bye.

Saturday. 12:28 p.m.
Did you get that zipper in? >sigh< Um . . . Call me back, uh . . .  when you get a minute . . . Bye.

Was she sitting at her kitchen table, staring out the window, fingering her doilies, waiting, waiting, waiting for me to ring her on the zipper hotline? Why had I been avoiding her calls? Because . . . I was a teensy weensy bit annoyed. Didn’t she have anything better to do than obsess over a damn zipper? Which made me feel guilty because . . . she’s my mother, and someday she might not be here, and then I’d feel even more guilt.

A month later, following her first hospital-rehab stint – she had fallen – tests revealed a shrinking brain due to . . . they couldn’t say. All our brains were shrinking, they said. Such a comfort.

I had come over to spend the afternoon with her and when I walked into the kitchen, she was sitting on the pad of her walker, near the same table that she showed me how to bake, roll out pie dough and cut out a skirt on the bias. She looked dried up, hollow. I was afraid to give her a hug. I didn’t want to break her. The house had that smell that no amount of Glade plug-ins could cover up and that’s when I sort of knew, on a gut level that she was dying. I told her I was worried that she had given up. She assured me she was just tired. The next day she called and left a message. There was a noticeable change in the quality of her voice, a smallness, a slight hoarse vibrato, but still traces of her old self.

Monday. 10:14 a.m.
Hi Melly . . . it’s your mom . . . I’m doing much better today.
Uh . . . I got up . . . I ate my breakfast and . . . I just–I’m doing better. So . . . you don’t have to worry about me–if you were going to worry! . . . don’t worry about me. Bye. Bye.

She had given me the okay not to worry about her but . . . still, I worried about me . . . whether or not I was emotionally prepared for what would happen next.

Wednesday. 2:57 p.m.
Melly, I need your HELP! I bought some stockings for myself . . . those stretch ones, you know? and I can’t get them on my feet . . .they’re too tight . . .we bought a small . . . too small, then we bought a medium, too small, we bought a–we didn’t buy a large–but your father is so impatient, just now he said,’To hell with it! You’re not wearing them!’ So here I am . . . sitting with these things half on and half off  . . .  call me back . . . please?

Wow. So much packed into a few minutes. My father’s fear-based frustrations, me being her number two go-to person. Helping her get into those compression stockings was – remember that episode of Seinfeld, when Kramer needed Jerry’s help getting into skinny jeans and the more Jerry pulled, the more Kramer slid off the sofa? Yeah, like that.

Her calls dwindled. I missed coming home to her voice messages. I asked her why she didn’t call. “I don’t call?” she said. She went into the hospital right after Easter for surgery to alleviate fluid build up around her shrinking brain. And, it went well. The doctors said we shouldn’t expect a miracle.

Monday. 9:28 p.m.
Melly . . . Where IS your father?!

Boom. No, sing-songy ‘it’s me, your mother,’ no small talk. Her voice was strong. Forceful. Very commanding. Almost demanding.

He said he was coming to pick me up!

I almost start to feel bad for my father, about the dressing down she’s going to give him the next day when he comes to visit her, and then she went off an a riff that I did not expect.

I’m at the airport! Waiting! >click<

The nurses all said it was the drugs and the shock of surgery, but . . . a couple days later guess what? she took her one way flight to the after life, so . . . my opinion . . . I think she was at the airport. Waiting.

Hi, Mom! It’s Mel. Um . . . just calling to say I miss you . . . but, I get it, I know you are in a better place and all, but still . . .oh, and guess what? . . . I finally got around to putting in that zipper. It only took three years! So, come winter, your grandson will be warm. So, don’t worry . . .  if you were going to worry . . . don’t worry. Bye!

unnamed

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Photo on 2-2-15 at 10.07 AM 2Mel Miskimen is a regular contributor for More Magazine. She is also a contributing writer for the Huffington Post 50/50. Her break-through essay? I’m Changing My Underpants and the Economy. She’s the past recipient of the Wisconsin Regional Writers award for humor.

Mel lives in a drafty, 120 year old empty nest with her husband of 30 plus years and a black labrador named – the first dog allowed on the furniture, because “That is what happens when the kids leave.” She has written a second book – The Seamus Sessions – a heartwarming, inspiring story of grappling with loss, finding hope and healing with the help of a badly behaved labrador. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter.