January Newsletter - The Writing Life

January 2003 Newsletter

By Jessica Page Morrell

Renewal January is the time of year, often dreaded, for resolutions, fresh starts and making promises to ourselves. But, let's face it, it's a tough time for feeling renewed. The Christmas cookies and party snacks have migrated to our waistlines, our bank accounts are skimpy, the weather threatens our good humor and instead promises months ahead of gloom and cold. I wish I could pass along a miracle diet or a get-rich-quick scheme. I wish I had a plan for world peace. There are lots of things that need changing in the world at large and in many of our lives. But one thing I know for sure, the means for success are within our reach and it all begins by keeping our promises to ourselves .It sounds so simple: Make a promise, verify it is reasonable and achievable, then create a plan for success. But of course, sometimes our promises never make it past the wishful stage. I can pass along something I've learned through many years of writing and teaching. Sometimes our reluctance to write or our difficulties with facing the page stem from emotional deficit or depletion, not lack of talent. We might have a fabulous list of ideas and plots locked in our heads, but if our emotional well is dry, the writing won't make it to the page. Of course there is a whole dismaying and dizzying cavalcade of things, events, demands and people who deplete us. We also have to factor in the pesky necessity of making a living. Most jobs are draining, some relationships are dysfunctional, our children demand our time and energy. When the demands of life pile on, we hunker down, we slip into survival or battle mode, we cope the best we can. But coping and sizzling with creativity are two vastly different states of being. So how do we get from empty to brimming? There are many ways, but let's start with a small step that will hopefully set your revival in motion. Spend about an hour looking around you and analyzing your life, then make a list of all the petty annoyances, draining details and small things that every day tick you off, whisper that you're behind schedule, or create headaches or that terrible, sinking feeling. If you're surrounded by dozens of reminders that you're inept, sloppy or overwhelmed, you'll remain so. Perhaps your office is always a mess. Perhaps you need to organize your research files. Perhaps you have 50 e-mails to answer. Perhaps all your socks have holes in them. Perhaps your friends always call during your writing time. Perhaps you need to upgrade your computer. Perhaps the light bulb in the bathroom is burned out. Perhaps your pens are out of ink. Perhaps your favorite shirts have missing buttons or need to go to the cleaners. Perhaps your place is dripping in cobwebs like a movie set for a haunted house. Now instead of allowing this list to daunt you, choose at least six hours sometime this January and tackle as many of these pesky details as you can manage. Give it an all-out effort. File, sort, sew on buttons, recycle, toss out, clean, purge, organize. Hire help if you must. Bribe your spouse or kids if necessary. It doesn't matter how you handle your list, it just matters that you do. As the first step for renewal, for keeping your promises in the beginning of a new year. *************************************************** Recently I was listening to National Public radio when I heard a brief news item that the small town where I grew up was selling off its parking meters. The meters, which were designed to be fed pennies were being sold as a municipal fundraiser. For a moment, I gave in to nostalgia, remembering the line of silver meters marching down Main Street. I imagined ordering one, but the reality of the shipping costs and other considerations stopped me. But once again, I was transported to years past, and I could almost see heat shimmering above the sidewalks on an August afternoon. We have so many treasures within, so many memories and stories just simmering below the surface of the dailiness of our lives. *********************************************************** Jump start your writing: Here are ideas for renewing your writing practice in the new year: * Be accountable. Join a writing group or find a writing partner. Meet regularly. * Write about the best meal you ever ate. * Create a collage. * Read Steven Pressfield's The War of Art. * Buy a notebook that is perfect for carrying around everywhere. * Read Stephen King's On Writing * Write a scene set in a cemetery. * Write about a character or person you've known who is extremely ugly. * Write a story about a case of mistaken identity. * Write a story about missing or stolen underwear. * Draw a map of your childhood neighborhood using crayons and adding lots of details. Write a piece based on a childhood memory. * Write in bed during the first minutes after you awake. * Interview an 80 year old about his or her childhood. * Write a story about a man wearing plaid pants. * Write about losing. * Write a story where bagpipes are featured. * Write about grief. * Write a letter of appreciation to an author you admire. * Write about unrequited love. * Borrow a first line that sizzles and keep writing. A few contenders: "There's one thing I want to make clear right off: my baby was a virgin the day she met Errol Flynn.." Florence Adams, The Big Love; "There was once a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Traveler; "They threw me off the train about noon." James. M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice; "None of them knew the colour of the sky." Stephen Crane, The Open Boat * Write a piece based on a series of e-mail exchanges. * Listen to music in the dark. * Write a piece based on a character's journal entries. * Take your notebook and sit near a river, lake, an ocean. Write and savor your senses. * Write a story about someone weeping in public. *Write a scene where someone is wrongly accused of a crime or misdeed. * Spend time watching the night sky. * Listen to music from another era.

INSPIRATION:
"One must be pitiless about the matter of "mood." In a sense, the writing will create the mood. If art is, as I believe it to be, a genuinely transcendental function-a means by which we rise out of limited, parochial states of mind-then it should not matter very much what states of mind or emotion we are in. Generally I've found this to be true: I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes....and somehow the activity of writing changes everything." -Joyce Carol Oates

"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sort of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way...." --W. H. Murrary, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition