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Sunday Series: Amanda Hoving on Why I Write

In this Sunday Series, you’ll meet writers new and seasoned as they share what inspires them to put #PenToPaper. This week, welcome Amanda Hoving, who writes about 8-track tapes, Michael McDonald, and playing the fool.

Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

My dad introduced me to the song, “What a Fool Believes” by Michael McDonald on an 8-track cassette while driving in our Bobcat station wagon that was the same color as my muddy flared cords. If any of the words in the previous sentence are foreign to you…congratulations! By luck, birth order, or pharmaceutical means you’ve managed to bypass memories of the early 80’s.

I loved the song, though, and still do, especially after learning the premise behind it, which recounts a chance meeting of two people…with a past. To the “fool” of the pair, their time together had been the best thing to happen in his life; to his partner, well, as the lyrics say, “She had a place in his life, He never made her think twice.” Ouch. Everyone but the fool can see the relationship disparity. In short, love can erase all common sense and sensibilities.

Why bring this up unless to torture you with visions of feathered hair and vintage Jordache jeans, you ask? Because I often think of, “What a Fool Believes” as the soundtrack to my writing life. If it’s not clear already, I’m the fool in this writing metaphor, and my relationship with writing is one that seems to defy all reason.

When Christi first asked me about writing for her Sunday Series, I had just been informed by my school district that I needed to gather two-weeks-worth of “thoughtfully-planned” quality instruction materials for my 30+ students spanning 3 grade levels “just in case.” Two days later, our building closed. That was 7 weeks ago.

Before writing this piece, the last day I had written anything besides my daily parent emails – which are often quite entertaining (to me, at least) and take more time to put together than I will ever willingly admit – was March 7th. Almost 2 months ago. Sadly, I have gone longer without writing. Much, much longer.

I know there are many writers who say they can’t NOT consistently write – that writing to them is almost or more necessary than breathing. I can’t NOT consistently create (stories, images, daydreams) in my head, but I’m very good at the not writing it down bit. Like, super good.

Does this make me any less of a writer? I don’t think so. But, am I just a fool who believes what I want to believe? Maybe.

The Bio I have listed on my website starts like this:
Amanda’s writing career began in 2nd grade with the limited-edition publication of Around the Mulberry Bush – a book of poetry she wrote and illustrated during a thirty-five-minute math class about a type of foliage she had never actually seen.

And, you know what? My writing has always been this way…not the part about mulberry bushes, fascinating as they are, but that it’s done during stolen moments when I’m supposed to be doing something else. I write about exactly what I need or hope to find at the time  –  my published works and works-in-progress are an eclectic mess of my interests and psyche through the years. The one constant has been my proclivity towards adolescent humor. (Thank goodness for that!)

Right now, though, as I’m trapped in a distance teaching Zoom cocoon, there are no moments to steal. Writing has currently become my (other) neglected Significant Other. Again.

Because, although my relationship with writing is often complicated, uneven and disparate, it’s definitely based on love. A love of language. A love of stories. A love of creating. A love of sharing. And, I have to trust that when I can get back to it, it will be waiting for me. Again.  

Or, maybe that type of thinking is just plain foolish?

But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power
To reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing

(“What a Fool Believes” lyrics by Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins, 1979)

Amanda Hoving is a Midwestern writer and teacher currently misplaced on the east coast. She has written humor, fiction and poetry for publications such as Chicago Parent, Writer’s Digest, Highlights for Children, American Girl, McSweeney’s, Slackjaw and others and is a contributing writer for Middle Grade Minded.

You can also find her on her website and on Twitter where she posts in inconsistent bursts that you can never always count on.

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Sunday Series: Kari O’Driscoll on Why I Write

In this Sunday Series, you’ll meet writers new and seasoned as they share what inspires them to put #PenToPaper. This week, welcome Kari O’Driscoll, who sees writing as “a form of alchemy.” 

Photo by Kei Scampa from Pexels

These days, asking me why I write is like asking me why I breathe. It has become such a part of who I am, such a daily practice, that I am often ‘writing’ in my head as I experience the world – walking my dogs, preparing a meal, talking on the phone to a friend. Ultimately, writing is a form of alchemy for me, a way to find or make meaning out of something that is seemingly without any, or that is complicated and tangled and often overwhelming.

One of my odd talents is a skill for unraveling knotted necklaces. My kids both learned, early on, that if they had a chain they wanted to wear that was hopelessly twisted and matted, they could bring it to me and I’d set to work. No matter how little patience I had with anything else going on, there was something about slowly picking at the strands and knots that put me in a zen state.

I don’t know if it was the certain knowledge that there was a solution if I just kept at it, or if the consequences seemed so innocuous if I didn’t manage to undo the mess, but somehow I could settle in to a peaceful, methodical rhythm and restore it to its desired state. That’s what writing does for my head and my heart and my spirit – allows me to come to a place where I know there is meaning if I trust and if I focus and spend time looking at something from all angles, turning it over and over again in my mind but not forcing it, picking at one strand and then another to see what happens, gently loosening one loop from another.

As a kid, I believed life happened to me. The combination of traumatic events, authoritarian parents, and being a certain age meant that I felt as though I had no control over the things I experienced, no matter how much I tried to make meaning of them. Talking to adults never seemed to help; either they couldn’t explain things in a way that made sense to my youthful brain or they were impatient with the questions and refused to engage. For decades, I accepted that there were things that I would never be able to make sense of, and I resigned myself to studying the things I could, like math and science, and ducked to avoid the others. But in my late 30s, I began writing as a way to release some of the constant chatter in my brain. If I couldn’t untangle the knots, at least I could get them out of my head and on to paper so I didn’t have to hold them all inside any longer. And that’s when I discovered the magic of transformation.

Our bodies aren’t designed to hold emotion. But when we let our brains grab on to emotional responses – especially the big ones like fear and anger – and wrap stories around them, they become stuck. The more we tell ourselves those stories in our own heads, the bigger the knot gets and the heavier it is to carry. But when I write those things down – even if it’s a jumble of words – scared, sad, overwhelmed, why, angry, painful, broken, willitalwaysbelikethis, whatiswrongwithme, idontknowhowmuchlongericandothis, listening to her cry is breaking my heart, helpless, birds singing outside, the cat came to head-butt me just now – the knots start to come undone. And if I walk after writing or I talk to a friend, they release and relax even more. And if I string together more observations and more messy piles of words and feelings and observations, the patterns begin to reveal themselves and my heart and my head and my spirit find peace. Alchemy. Transforming fear to wonder. Rage to realization. Confusion to harmony.

Writing is the vehicle that takes me there as long as I surrender to it, as long as I trust that I will eventually get to a place of understanding and acceptance, as long as I sit down quietly and begin unraveling the knots.

KARI O’DRISCOLL is a writer and mother of two living in the Pacific NW. She is the author of One Teenager at a Time: Developing Self-Awareness and Critical Thinking in Adolescence, and the recently released memoir, Truth Has a Different Shape. Her other work has been featured in anthologies on parenting, reproductive rights, and cancer as well as appearing online in outlets such as Ms. Magazine and Healthline. She is the founder of The SELF Project, a comprehensive social-emotional health site for teens and parents and educators of teens.

You can find links to her work at  kariodriscollwriter.com. 

*Hidden Timber Books is hosting Kari O’Driscoll as part of their Small Press Author Reading Series on Saturday, May 9th, at 11am Pacific (1pm Central). She’ll be reading from her new memoir, Truth Has a Different Shape. This event is FREE. Register HERE.

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Sunday Series: Ramona Payne on Why I Write

In this Sunday Series, you’ll meet writers new and seasoned as they share what inspires them to put #PenToPaper. This week, welcome Ramona Payne, who writes about nurturing creativity with practice, exploration, and commitment.

Photo by Kat Stokes on Unsplash

My writing starts with an experience, a question, and sometimes an awakening. From there I try to sort out why a particular story takes hold, what it means for me. I hope that by writing I can figure it out and start a conversation with others.

Although I have loved writing since I was a child, it took years before I called myself a writer. Saying you are a writer elicits so many questions. Some are easier, such as, “What do you write?” When I respond to this question, I explain my love for the essay form and then say my favorite genre is creative nonfiction. That term usually requires explanation—isn’t all writing creative?— but then I tell them I use the tools of the novelist while telling a true story. This seems to help them understand, and I can point to examples, such as essays, books, or magazine pieces that fall under this genre.

Then comes the inevitable second question “So have you written a book yet, are you published?” Even though my answer to that question is “Yes,” I had to learn that being published, the frequency of it or the recognition it can bring, cannot be my reason for writing. If I have labored over a work, it is often my intent to send it out, to share it with others. But first, I have to get over imagining the book cover, the catchy title, and book tours and reading. I am left with only one course of action— I have to sit down and actually put the words on paper. All of those imaginings are great for inspiration and ideation, but until I place the words on the page, then wrestle, tease or caress them until they are properly positioned, it’s all make-believe. 

Writing forces me to deal with my desire for perfection. Every time I sit down at my desk to begin a new piece, I wonder how it is going to turn out, or if will it be any good. But the best part of writing is I give myself permission to just let the words come, whether they are in a rush so swift I cannot contain them, or if they come as a measly drip, drip, one tentative word at a time. At the end of the time spent writing, I always am slightly amazed at myself, not because the writing is so incredible, because it is not most of the time, certainly not right away. I am amazed because I sat down with the intention to write and I did it. I kept a commitment to myself, using a gift that I let languish for years because I was busy doing other stuff. I used to wish I was like those people who discovered their vocation early in life, and had started earlier on this writing life. I made peace with that years ago, now that I have lived long enough to have rich and varied experiences, and enough years have passed to give me perspective and insight about what I have gone through.

I believe everyone is an artist of some sort. Creativity has to be nurtured, but it must also be explored. This exploration takes place when we become more aware of the diversity of thought, experience, style, and culture around us. Without this awareness of diversity in artistic expression, a child is told their picture “doesn’t look quite right,” and believes it. A writer tells a story, and because it is so foreign to your worldview, you dismiss it, instead of looking for the kernel of truth, insight, or even humor that might be present.

I go to hear other authors read, visit museums, poke around in small shops, travel, always searching for other ways to look at and feel the world. We are all artists of some sort, and to the question, “How do I get paid for it?” my advice is not to wait to figure out how to make money at writing or any art. Practice, explore get better, and then consider if this craft is something you love enough to do whether it feeds you or not. My life is richer for my writing and that is why I write.

RAMONA M. PAYNE is a writer and author and her work has appeared in essay collections,  magazines, and online. She completed the Creative Writing program at The University of Chicago Graham School, has a liberal arts degree from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from Duke University. She supports local theatre, practices Pilates, and leads her expressive writing workshop, Write.Pause.Reflect.

Currently living between Cincinnati and northern Indiana, she is working on an essay collection. Find her at ramonapayne.com and follow her on Instagram @writepausereflect or Twitter @RamonaPayne1.