Karinwritesdangerously

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Trying not to think of you 
yet your face colors 
every contour 
of my mind. 
And every way I turn 
inside of a minute 
I collide 
with your laughter.
I am wind, 
and you 
are chimes.

—- Essex Hemphill 

When a friend asked me to share advice on revising I realized that I’ve learned quite a lot. In the hopes that some of my hard-earned lessons may be helpful if you find your work in need of revision — and who doesn’t? — here are some ideas to spur you on:

Manage your mindset: Sometimes it’s just so hard, so emotionally demanding, to get a story or idea down on paper, that once we’ve taken that step, we feel our job is done. We’ve captured whatever it is we wanted to say in the first flush of our creative commitment — and we’re afraid or unwilling to tamper with it because we might lose something valuable. But our first go-round is exactly that — a first go-round. If we want we’ve written to be better, stronger, truer, deeper, then we need to push it to the next level. And that requires revision: revisiting — and re-envisioning — what we’ve written. 

Focus on faith: Revising is an act of faith. When you embark on a revision, I think it’s important to believe that the steps you take will ultimately improve your work. You may have no idea how this will happen — what additions or deletions you’ll have to make, but you don’t need to know any of this at the start. The only thing you really need is to believe in the value of your work and in the idea that focused effort will lead to improvement. Don’t worry about making the right changes, just start, trusting that the work itself will lead you in the direction you need to go.

Enjoy your excitement: As you revise and begin to see your work getting stronger and richer, your enthusiasm for pushing ahead with more changes is likely to increase and this will prove enormously motivating. Savoring your excitement about bringing your work to the next level will give you the momentum you need to keep going. 

Take the time: Deep revising doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to sort through changes, play with new approaches, and let your ideas ripen. Don’t “push the river” — let it flow at its own pace. And write on!

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In honor of Women’s History Month, I’ve gathered a cornucopia of favorite quotes to inspire and energize us all:

“Inspiration usually comes during work, not before it.”
Madeleine L’Engle

“In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act.
Just write.”
Natalie Goldberg

“But have the courage to write whatever your dream is for yourself.”
May Sarton

“Writing a novel is all about the timed release of information.”
Toni Morrison

“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.”
Muriel Rukeyser

“I might write four lines or I might write twenty. I subtract and I add until I really hit something. You don’t always whittle down, sometimes you whittle up.”
Grace Paley

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
Maya Angelou

“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”
Willa Cather

“Your writing is trying to tell you something. Just lend an ear.”
Joanne Greenberg

“If you have a skeleton in your closet, take it out and dance with it.”
Carolyn MacKenzie

“You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken.”
Edna Ferber

“I have been in Sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands.”
Zora Neale Hurston

Are there any women’s quotes about writing that you especially love? Please share them as we all write on!

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Words of wisdom to from the wonderful writer, Annie Dillard:

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book, give it, give it all, give it now . . . Some more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

Let’s dig into these words for the nuggets of gold they offer us:

“Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right way”— how often do we experience a moment of inspiration, something wonderful that glides from our pen or from our magic computer keys, and decide not to use it right away?

“Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book”—Have you ever decided to hold onto “what seems good,” instead of sharing it in the moment, when it’s red hot and glowing? I have. In my striving to find a better place for it within my story, I let the moment’s heat and light fade away. Let’s not squander these moments of inspiration!

…”give it all, give it now”—Give generously to your readers, let them join you in your moment of inspiration as it arises. That’s Annie’s advice! Giving. In the end, that’s what writing is all about, isn’t it? We’re giving something, hopefully, something wonderful, to our readers. We’re sharing what we know, what we’ve learned, what we believe to be true, what we’ve imagined, what we’ve reflected upon and transformed through the lens of our creativity. Generosity always rewards us, as well as our readers.

“Some more will arise for later, something better.”—Let’s be confident. Let’s believe in our work. Let’s know, in our bones, that as we grow and share what we know, our work becomes better, stronger, truer. Let’s believe that even better words and sentences and thoughts lie ahead of us, just waiting to be discovered and shared.

“These things fill…from beneath, like well water.”—Inspiration is infinite, boundless. The more of it you tap into and use, the more you have. Like an artesian well, the very act of drinking the water of inspiration and sharing it draws more inspiration forth. Our wells are never dry!

“Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.” What wise and wonderful words! Think of nature—the world that Annie Dillard explores so beautifully in her books. Nature gives freely and abundantly, doesn’t it? Think of the thousands of leaves on a blooming tree. The way flowers kissed by the sun, share their fragrance and beauty freely and lavishly. Or the countless grains of sand on a beach. Nature doesn’t hoard its gifts and neither should we.

Well and truly said, Annie! May your beautifully observed reflections
be a constant source of inspiration as we all write on!

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« The longest road out is the shortest road home. » Irish Proverb

Since St. Patrick’s Day is here, fresh as the green grass that is sprouting somewhere just beyond my door, I thought we’d all enjoy the warm glow of a traditional Gaelic blessing:

May The Road
Rise Up To Meet You

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

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“Fiction depends on its life for place.Fiction is properly at work in the here and now.” Eudora Welty

“The work of a novelist is making fake biography.” Philip Roth

“If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.”
Wendell Berry

Consider the importance of the ocean on Ishmael in Moby Dick. The effect of the river on Huck in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or the moors on Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Creating a sense of place is one of the key demands of being a fiction writer — and the writers we all most admire are almost without question able to conjure up a strong feeling of time and place in us as readers. Wherever they set their stories, we come to feel and see that place as real — and to appreciate its compelling influence on both their characters and how those characters’ destinies play out. 

How do writers evoke a sense of place in their readers in a fresh and exciting way? This was the intriguing question was posed in a wide-ranging talk at the Montclair Public Library by Ann Mckinstry Micou, who’s studied the effect of place on three New Jersey-based, Pulitzer Prize-winning writers: Philip Roth, Richard Ford, and Junot Diaz. How do these writers make us feel as readers that we are right with them, wherever they want us to be? Among Ann’s findings:

They stress “hereness” — They use all the tools at their command to generate the physical and psychological dimensions of place — its weight and feel.

They often use first-person narrators — Adopting this point of view instantly creates a sense of “hereness,” since we are seeing what narrators see through their own eyes and filtered through their own mind and insight — or lack of it.

They use precise, granular description — Employing prose that is “exact, detailed, and particular” is one of the most powerful techniques for creating a sense of “hereness.” “Abstract, vague, generic” references are avoided.

They invoke and evoke memories of the past — A strong sense of place is “inextricably linked to memory of the past,” Ann observed and the “past is insistently present in the here and now.” Remembering the past is always an act of the imagination: As Philip Roth notes, memories are always “memories of your imagining the past.” To remember is to imagine — and strong writers know this and use it to make the past come alive in the present and in doing so, to root us as readers in the places of their choosing. 

The power of place: Let’s plumb its mysterious depths and all write on!

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Twilight

Dreamily over the roofs

The cold spring rain is falling;

Out in the lonely tree

A bird is calling, calling.

Slowly over the earth

The wings of night are falling;

My heart like the bird in the tree

Is calling, calling, calling.

—Sara Teasdale

“I’m the most emotional and passionate about getting kids reading in late elementary and early middle school because if they don’t, how are they going to get through high school?” James Patterson

Anyone who’s passionate and emotional about putting books in the hands of kids has my vote — and James Patterson has donated millions of dollars to help encourage kids to read.

Before he became the best-selling author of the “Alex Cross” series Patterson wasn’t exactly an avid reader himself. In fact, it wasn’t until he was in his early 20s and working the night shift at a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts that he discovered his love for reading, which helped jump start his writing career.

Today, he’s racked up more New York Times best sellers than any other writer, according to Guinness World Records, and he’s become a powerful advocate for books and fostering the love of reading.

James spent his school years without a school library, but fondly remembers his weekly visits to public libraries as a kid and hopes to spotlight the problem of public schools with no libraries or under-funded libraries. No wonder! This blew my socks off: In California, there is just one certified school librarian for every 7,800 hundred kids. And in major cities like Chicago and Philadelphia, library staffs have suffered steep cuts. More than 8,000 public schools nationwide did not have libraries in 2012, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Hard to believe we’re talking about America, isn’t it?

“We can’t do much as individuals about global warming or the health care situation,” says James, “but we can really help literacy in our homes and locally. We can volunteer, we can give books to the school library. So, I’d like to shine a light on the problem… We just want to keep doing something useful, pushing the rock up the hill. It’s a big rock, a big hill.”

Bravo, James, write on!

From “An Afternoon with Hemingway,” by Edward Stanford:

“When you write,” he [Hemingway] said, “Your object is to convey every sensation, sight, feeling, emotion to the reader. So you have to `work over what you write. If you use a pencil, you get three different views of it to see if you are getting it across they way you want to. First, when you read it over, then when it is typed, and again in proof. And it keeps it fluid longer so you can improve it easier.”

“How do you ever learn to convey every sensation, sight, and feeling to the reader? Just keep working at it for forty-odd years the way you have? Are there any tricks?”

“No. The hardest trade in the world to do is the writing of straight, honest prose about human beings. But there are ways you can train yourself.”

“How?”

“When you walk into a room and you get a certain feeling or emotion, remember back until you see exactly what it was that gave you the emotion. Remember what the noises and smells were and what was said. Then write it down, making it clear so the reader will see it too and have the same feeling you had. And watch people, observe, try to put yourself in somebody else’s head. If two men argue, don’t just think who is wright and who is wrong. Think what both their sides are. As a man, you know who is right and who is wrong: you have to judge. As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.”

Bravo, Ernest! Wise advice to ponder and apply as we all write on!

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“In any project the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome.”
William James

In a TV interview, actor and director Clint Eastwood said something that I’ve never forgotten. When someone asked him how he managed to keep going during difficult projects, he said five simple words “I believe in my work.” He could easily have said, “I believe in myself” but he didn’t. Instead, he put the focus on his creative endeavor.

I believe in my work — I think that’s something we need to say to ourselves early and often in our writing projects. Maybe we even need to write it on an index card and stick it up where we can see it every day. I believe that believing in our work blesses it.

When we say “I believe in my work,” here’s what I think we’re saying:

Our work has value: It’s important, it has meaning, it’s worthy of putting time and energy into — and doing it is its own reward. The focus is on getting the work done, not on what doing the work will get us — it’s on the process, not the outcome.

Our work has a life of its own: It exists beyond the bounds of our ego and our self-regard. It has an independent life and energy — and it will grow organically if we get ourselves out of the way and nourish it with our intention and attention.

Our work is where the work is: We can spend all kinds of time and energy wishing we had more talent or skill. We can spend all kinds of time and energy distracting ourselves from the page. We can spend all kinds of time and energy wishing we more successful or had more time to devote to our writing. But in the end, our work is where the work is: Writing isn’t about writing, writing is writing. 

I Believe in My work — what a liberating concept! It frees us to get out of our selves and into the joyful, playful realm of creativity, where ideas have wings and anything is possible. 

When we believe in our work, we don’t have to take ourselves too seriously — just whatever it is we’re striving to accomplish. We don’t have to rely on ourselves to know everything, we just have to trust that the work itself will teach us whatever it is we need to know. And Every day, we have a Fresh chance to put our belief to work as we write on!

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