February Newsletter

By Jessica Page Morrell

In January I teach workshops designed to help students kick start their writing and tackle their goals for the new year. We talk, we write, we brainstorm, we look for solutions for the always-perplexing problem of how to carve time to write amid a hectic schedule.

At some point during the day I mention my favorite quote from Annie Dillard: "...How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." It is the end of January as I write this and I've quoted Dillard three times this month to my students. Because I've never forgotten her words since I first read them, because their truth hit me like cold water. If our runaway days rush past crowded by daily occupations, errands and concerns, the writing won't get done. Our dreams will remain as elusive as fireflies at dusk.

The reality is this: if we have a vision for our future, this vision will pull us forward. But first claim the vision, take the step of knowing what you most surely want.

February Dreaming

Years ago, on a February afternoon with sky the color of steel, I stepped off a bus and minced along frozen sidewalks edged in snow drifts to a low-slung building.

It was a small town bowling alley and as my friend and I moved into the room, smoothing our hair and looking around for OLDER BOYS the opening chords of The Mamas and Papas "California Dreaming" came over the sound system. It was the first time I'd heard the song, and everything about it, the soaring harmonies, the sweet longing of the lyrics, the whole West Coast sound swept me far from the jangle of toppling bowling pins and hormones simmering and into a world miles from my reality.

A few years later I stepped into a noisy barroom when Jim Morrison's "Riders on the Storm" blasted from the jukebox and the song literally entered my veins with its fresh chord arrangements, haunting poetry, and shattering loneliness. I thought I loved a man who was in that room, who was also moved by Morrison's artistry. And while things didn't work out between us, I've never forgotten how that sound slipped into me and how all art can enter our lives at unbidden moments. And how years later we discover it has left an indelible mark.

When T.S. Eliot dubbed April as the cruelest month he must have lived in the Southern hemisphere during February. Because now the noise of the new year and charm of the holidays have faded and we're left with the debris of the season, more months of winter ahead, along with the hard reality of our daily schedules where there is never enough time to write and read.

To sustain during this short but cruel month, you'll need to dig deep into every pocket you own for inspiration. Because my birthday falls in early February, I always begin the month by creating a collage. On this collage, which hangs on the wall in front of my desk, I assemble words, photos and images that create a vivid vision of what I'm aiming for in the coming year.

And I want to confess that there are many times during the day, when I'm numb from answering e-mails; or searching for the perfect phrase; or how to break the harsh news to an editing client that his manuscript doesn't work; that by gazing at my collage and its jumble of images and words, that I find my way. Or at least my mind is soothed for a moment. I've also noticed that after working only a few feet from my collage that over time, the messages of that page somehow seep into my consciousness.

So my eyes stray again and again to this vivid vision, dreams spun on humble posterboard, like a penitent entering church hoping for a message of salvation.

Images, senses, sounds and words enter us. I've learned this at concerts, in art museums, movie theaters and on forest paths. We all need an assemblage of sensory treasures to sustain us. We need them to hush the noise, the jangled nerves, the restless limbs and creeping doubts that are part of most artists' struggles. We need them to survive February.

"My life burned inside me. Even such as it was, it the only record of me, and it was my only creation, and something in me would not accept that it was insignificant. Something in me must have been waiting to stand up and be counted. Because eventually, when I was presented with the opportunity to talk about myself, I grasped at it." Nuala O'Faolain on writing her memoir, Are You Somebody: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman

"In the writing process, the more a story cooks the better." Doris Lessing

Brainstorming

"Order comes out of disorder, form out of chaos, as it did in the creation of the universe." Rollo May

There are many reasons why a piece of writing doesn't come together-sometimes it's unfocused or the writer is trying to discover the story as he or she goes along. While this process might work at times, we often write most effectively when we work with an outline or at least a clear idea. Writing can also falter because a writer doesn't spend enough time brainstorming before the outline is written, before he or she begins.

Brainstorming is one of those overused words strewn among our conversations these days. It suggests that there is a method to yank ideas from the brain and onto a page, a method that perhaps circumvents the ordinary writing process. And in reality there are ways to access our ideas and creativity through methods that are playful, quick and inventive. Like most aspects of writing, there is no single answer, or one-size-fits-all technique out there.

Since brainstorming is part play, choose a method that suits, one that makes you feel free and youthful. Use freewriting, bubble maps, free association, group think sessions--whatever it takes to have FUN with your writing and spark your creativity.

Pen a story based on 20 words that you randomly select in a dictionary. Choose a first line of a poem or a published story and keep writing your own version. Write about old family photos or intriguing magazine photos.

If you're stuck with a character's motivation or conflict, approach the character from another vantage. Write a letter from your character to her mother or the lover who jilted her. Imagine meeting your character at a party, a reunion, a funeral.

Maybe discussing your plot problems with a mentor, teacher or writing group is your favored method of brainstorming. For some writers, sketching and doodling frees the mind. Try sketching a map or illustrating the story you're writing. Write about or draw a significant dream. Or make a list of all the things that bring you joy-sometimes thinking about what you value is the doorway to your imagination.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH:
"Fiction should be just that. Thinly veiled autobiographies about a drugged-out trip to San Francisco and the sexy girl or guy you shagged on the beach are not for us. Fiction is an imitation of life performed with sufficient craft to make everyday seem extraordinary, not just the mere recitation of life events laced with an unhealthy dose of middle class cynicism. ....Don't describe your female character's breast size before your allow them to speak. We're sorry you were beaten up in high school, but that doesn't make your novel about it any good. If you think living in mama's basement stinks, try Haiti for three months. Our jobs at the copy shop also sucked. We want more than all that. We want writers who have mastered the craft of writing so completely that they can forget about the craft. We want speculation, creativity, and fire in the words, not just angst and and wish fulfillment on the page. Don't just be different, write differently. Give us a still beating heart in the hand of a bum, give us a forest that whispers our names, give us an iron boot to plant on someone's neck, give us a neck with a boot shaped bruise on it. Give us yourself, and then give us something that makes us care about you. No Eggersarian prefaces, footnotes, back matter or anything else. If you don't know what we are talking about, don't worry about it. If you do, rest assured, we do mean you. It just isn't funny." Submission guidelines from Soft Skull Press