O.C. Writers

By Andrea Lewis //

Still in the early months of the year, I have found myself at the point of drawing a line. One I have dreaded drawing but forced myself to: I have not produced much new writing since the loss of my writing mentor, Jean Ardell. My number one fan, editor and friend who once wrote on a piece I showed her: “WOW! This could be published!” That piece was accepted by LA Times a few months after I rewrote it following her advice.

At this crossroad, between time passing and my not writing, I have been at a loss. Not only of a friend, but of my writing voice, of my words. Thus, I went back to the basics, to school. Precisely, to a Storytellers Workshop at the Newport Beach Library. The very place where my writing journey began in 2014, under the patient and ever encouraging eyes of Jeannie, as her friends and family called her.

Not only did this workshop bring me back to that enthusiasm to read and write, but it prompted me to go back to a few basics on writing. While most of you here will have read these over and over, I am hoping that the power of reminders will be beneficial and welcome.

Here are some tips on creating and keeping a writing habit, on the writing process, inspiration and more.

1. Sources of inspiration

Always listen to your dreams. In his 2000 New York Times article, Instant Novels? In Your Dreams, Thomas Fleming speaks about the inspiration for two of his novels, Loyalties (1994) and Over There (1992). He had been preoccupied and had done extensive reading on both topics. However, in each case, dreams prompted him to take the stories to different directions. Listening and following his dreams proved beneficial for the two novels. The writer is convinced that his dreams and visions of the stories were results of his deep investment into the topics. The combination illustrates Cushing Strout’s “The Veracious Imagination” as quoted by Fleming: “imagination is not simply a device that ‘makes things up.’ On the contrary, it is an intellectual tool, closely wedded to the writer’s intelligence.”

Writers “don’t really know” where they get their inspiration reveals Neil Gaiman in an onstage interview. Writers are also “terrified that the [ideas] may go away.” He does list some of his sources: desperation, deadlines, while doing something else. For Gaiman, ideas mostly come from a “confluence of two things flowing together, daydreaming.” “Writers seem to be trained to know when they get an idea.” In this process, Gaiman detects a lack of a “a clear cut between fiction and fact: you make some things up, but they will reflect things that you know, [or] believe in.” The observation meets Strout’s via Fleming.

“Ideas can come from anywhere,” is Margaret Atwood’s answer in a discussion with two Young Ambassadors from the National Centre for Writing UK. However, Atwood stresses that while sometimes writers get an idea in a very short amount of time, the time spent in working them out into books “takes longer than getting the idea.”

2. Starting to write at a later age should not stop writers.

“Not only can you, but you should start late.” advocatesLee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels. Child did not start writing till after the age of 40 when he was without job. In his opinion, starting to write later in life allows writers to experience life, to do extensive reading which can only enrich their writing. When he started, he looked at writing as a different form of entertainment, after having had a career in entertainment before.

The downside of starting too early. In an interview,Ian McEwan, author of Solar (2010), Sweet Tooth (2012) and The Children Act (2014), finds it useful for aspiring writers to “set aside time, including attending a creative writing class.” However, the writer is concerned about the large number of writing programs especially “the undergraduate writing programs, in the USA.” It seems to soon for someone to start writing so young, when their life experience is limited, when, most of the times, “writers are sequestered on campuses,” cut off from “cities, countryside, or original places.” While writers need solitude to write, they need to experience the world around them in order to create worlds in their work.

This idea plays on many levels. Being outside for movement or for doing something else, fuels the creative process and averts writer’s block.

3. Overcoming obstacles

Avoid perfection in first drafts. Most renowned writers advise this. In her chapter on “Perfectionism” in Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott calls perfectionism “the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people […] the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.”

In his Masterclass, Dan Brown is consistent to the above piece of advice: “You do not have to perfect every bit of it as you go along.” Instead, a writer should not “focus too much on the details of [their] writing. Just try to get the words on the page.” He associates a writer’s work to that of a sculptor, where the form is the first to emerge, and the details will show slowly “while chipping away at the marble.”

Avoid distractions of any kind, advises Dan Brown:

• Your workspace should give you privacy – away from internet, phone, email. “Privacy and intention are more important than the quality of your surroundings.”
• Do not stop while working, not even to do quick research. Instead, make notes in your text to look up/follow up later.

Stay physically active. Examples of writers getting inspiration while on walks are famous through history.

Dan Brown praises movement and engaging in mundane activities as capable of stimulating fresh ideas.

For Joyce Carol Oates, running is a “function of writing.” In To Invigorate Literary Mind, Start Moving Literary Feet, the author of Do With Me What You Will and Them recounts being homesick and thus running compulsively through the streets of London to recreate Detroit with its streets and parks in her mind. She would then transcribe the images when returning to their flat in London. Running is also her meditation as it allows her to scroll in her mind through “the pages she has written, proofreading for errors and improvements.”

Nowhere close to Oates, I, too, have found inspiration while running. I have written poems in my mind while running and transcribed them once at home. The only trick: not speak to anyone before getting to my page, or I’d forget everything, like waking up from a trance.   

With 11 Tips for New Writers, the editors at Masterclass are helpful to new and established writers alike. Here are a few of their tips:

Always be reading. I, too, received this advice along with other students in attendance at the Storytellers workshop at the Newport Beach Library. Writing and reading are intertwined. Writers need to read extensively, continuously, everything, not only in their genre. It is the way to develop a writing style, as it is a learning experience from other writers, or for research.

Take writing classes. There is something refreshing about returning into a classroom (even if virtual), as a student. It offers new perspectives, new teachings, new experiences. It was what I did, in order to get a reset, to be reminded of things I have read and known but forgotten once I let them sit for too long. It helped me return to my past writing, understand the time I had invested into it, acknowledge the “not too shabby”-ness of my writing, even though it needed editing.

Join a writing group. It is usually free, and a great way for writers to exchange their writing, make connections, “learn from diverse voices,” and get/offer feedback, a two-way learning experience. OC Writers has a few welcoming options, you can check them out here to find one that best suits you. Online searches will also help settle for a group.

Write in a variety of forms. Never stop exploring. Trying other forms of writing will strengthen parts of your writing that need attention. Switching between projects, writing something different, helps against writer’s block and develop your own voice. “If I am not writing a short story or a novel, I would then be writing an essay or a book review. [Or], I could be doing Twitter” discloses Joyce Carol Oates in her video profile by The New Yorker.

4. Give structure to your story

Building a story on a structure is like interior design. Placement of elements of the story in certain parts of it determine the evolution of the entire work. Resources on story structure abound and I won’t detail them here, however you can read some on OC Writers. The main idea is to make the structure invisible to the reader and rather focus on the characters as that will inevitably lead to events to happen.

An alternative to the classical story structures is building stories based on cognitive storytelling strategies as outlined in Lisa Cron’s Story Genius and quoted by the editors at Reedsy. According to Cron, “We don’t turn to story to escape reality. We turn to story to navigate reality.” (Reedsy)

5. Write daily

In his Masterclass, Dan Brown is adamant about “protecting the process:” being firm with yourself and everyone else about your writing schedule, having a dedicated space for writing that doesn’t have to have the most beautiful view or the most expensive desk, just a space of your own without any distractions, and showing up in that space daily. Showing up is a leitmotif across literary history. Remarkably, Isabel Allende advises “Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn’t show up invited, eventually she just shows up.”

Closing remarks

Sometimes, at crossroads, to continue the writing journey, we need to be reminded why we started writing in the first place, why we love writing. Sometimes, we need to remind ourselves how much we love and trust our stories. Whether they will go out to the public or they are for us to just ‘get them out of our system’, there will always be a first reader: the author.

While to the luckiest of us, staying the course comes easy, to others, including myself, may need to employ one or several of the tips included above. Attending a writing class physically, learning from an instructor, being a student again, listening to other students’ stories, re-ignited my “why.” It reminded me of the love and the voice that not so long ago, drove the keys on my keyboard and laid out my stories. Eventually, it helped me re-open my files. It brought back my optimism. The optimism that Margaret Atwood spoke about in her advice to young writers: “the mere act of writing is an act of optimism. Just writing something down presumes a future reader.”

Have you experienced a “blackout” in your writing journey? If yes, share it here and let us know what you did to get back to your journey. Let us know what keeps you going, so that others will draw inspiration as well.

Resources:

https://lithub.com/great-advice-from-25-writing-manuals-by-famous-authors/

https://writingthroughlife.com/5-famous-authors-talk-about-writing/

https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/05/03/advice-on-writing/

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/071999oates-writing.html

https://blog.reedsy.com/best-books-about-writing/

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/tips-for-new-writers

Margaret Atwood’s Top 5 Writing Tips – YouTube

Creative Writing Advice from Neil Gaiman – YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEnROS8bcTI – Joyce Carol Oates at Home – Writer Profiles – The New Yorker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8slg78LVPQ – Lee Child on starting writing after the age of 40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyfe6DljGPY – Ian McEwan’s “Advice to Aspiring Writers”

https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/02/18/isabel-allende-on-writing/#:~:text=of%20the%20computer.-,Show%20up%2C%20show%20up%2C%20show%20up%2C%20and%20after%20a,eventually%20she%20just%20shows%20up.

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ANDREA LEWIS lives and writes in Huntington Beach. She was born in Romania and moved to the United States at the age of 34, after meeting and marrying her husband. She writes memoir and personal essays, with a recent attempt at freeform poetry. Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times.