A Week of Observations: P5

I hope your Thanksgiving was fantastic. My husband and I managed to travel to Ohio to see my grandmother, to Michigan (for the OSU v Michigan game), to Windsor, and back in four days. Here are a few observations from the week:

• Canada is cold in late November.
• It's not a good idea to open an umbrella in a casino, even if you're just walking through.
• If someone aggressively sells you an umbrella, it will probably do this: 
  
• Due to the fact that my husband ran into them in Japan, and we ran into them in Toledo, Ohio, I'm thinking there's a 20% chance that you will run into Exodus in any given hotel restaurant.
• At any given Thanksgiving celebration, the stuffing should be positioned at least two places down (beyond arm's length) from me.
• There is nothing like connecting with family, even if for a short time.
• Ohio in late November is cold.
• Being the opposing team fans at a big college football game may get you flicked off by an eight-year-old. 
• Airbnb can be fantastic, as can shepherd's pie.
• In November, Michigan is cold.
• Anyone who goes to Ann Arbor should try Zingerman's sourdough. 
• The year moves fast.
• A real vacation means blocking email, and a real vacation is nothing short of bliss.
• There's never enough time with family.  
• Vacations do not always equal sleep.

Prompt: Go to a competitive sports event you wouldn't ordinarily attend and sit on the opposing side (no home games). The conversations get interesting and are often quite fun. If you can't make it to an event, try to think worst case scenario and write a short story. Twenty minutes. Go!  

Happy Holidays!! 

A Week of Observations: P4

What I learned this week, and a prompt:

• The advice given others can be quite useful when repackaged and delivered back.
• Flow is only possible with focus. Focus is necessary.
• Gyms are great. Go figure.
• There are days when everything sounds like a good idea, then there are days when everything promised needs delivered on and half of it no longer seems like a good idea.
• Running is far more pleasant in chilly temperatures.
• Deep-fried cookie dough exists, and it really should not exist.
• Sweater dresses are not very flattering in general, but they look good on a hanger.
• Black and white photos can make anyone look cool, even when said person forgot to tuck in her shirt (see me reading at Viva Tacoland with my shirt half hanging out).
• Everything seems simpler on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram.
• Magical thinking exists for good reason.
• Interviews are damn fun.
• The elderly couple who workout in jeans are more motivation than the iron men and women of the fitness club.
• Dyslexia can be a real PITA, but it's not something to dwell on.
• The guy who works at the coffee shop and doesn't drink coffee should keep that fact to himself.
• Writing is hard but worth it.

As I work on the next author interview, I want to offer a simple prompt:

Find something you've kept for a long time, a memento or even just a strange accessory you refuse to throw away, a broken bracelet or a belt that you've tied around a stuffed animal's belly... whatever. Pick something in your home that you've had for more than a few years. Describe it in detail. Now think about why you still have this thing - what value does it hold? Exaggerate this, give the object to a character and write about why s/he has it for 20 minutes. Nonstop. This is November, people! Go!

Complicating conflict and finding routine

Fiction writers need to be good at complicating conflict; we need to find the frailties in our characters and exploit them. We need to make huge messes, in heads or landscapes or due to disagreements. Conversely, we need to keep a good amount of peace in our own lives in order to find the time and space to feed creative chaos.

With routine comes the continuity necessary to raise hell on the page (raising hell being the goal here). But life doesn't always lend itself to routine. Case in point: my life right now. I am a program director at a literary nonprofit, a freelance writer, and a freelance writing teacher and coach. My work schedule is busy and less-than-predictable.

So how to force routine? This has been my project over the last few weeks. After waking up at 5:30AM, then 5AM, then 4:30AM to try to force it; I tried nights. I tried. I failed.

So instead, here's my Midwestern workaround: accepting the chaos and working despite it. If you're making a casserole, for instance, and you don't have a key ingredient it won't matter because you'll find another ingredient. That's what makes it a casserole. Accordingly, I decided to give up trying to find a set time or day to write.

Instead, I tilted my head at the situation and found another way. How about associating place with routine instead? I go to the same coffee shop, the same desk at home, regularly. I go through the same routine, despite time. I have also created my own micro-routines that have very little to do with time of day. So long as every day, I:

1. clear the cache - meaning write with no expectations and no direction for a few minutes in order to clear out all the distracting thoughts.
2. sit down with the same intention at anytime of day (or night).
3. shut down the Internet (close all windows).
4. get coffee or tea - position it close at hand.
5. stick a book on the desk in case I get stuck.
6. open the novel folder. Reread the opening, then pick up where I left off and write a minimum of ten minutes (timed) after which I can either continue on (usually do) or not
7. go do whatever I'm scheduled to do next.

Worst case scenario: I digress and write a short story instead. Okay, that's a lie. Absolute worst case scenario: I don't sit at the damn desk. And if this happens, I will make up for it the next day. On busy days, I remind myself with a To Do type of app that reminds me to check off my writing time for the day.

For a prompt, if you'd like one, I challenge you to spend an entire week (or two - let's face it, this blog is a bimonthly deal now) refining your own routine. In the midst of this anti-routine, I challenge you to rewrite an existing story from an alternate perspective (another character's). You can do this with your own story, or with a story you admire. Something entirely new should arrive on the page, either way, something only a hell-raising writer could create, something full of the good stuff of fiction, allowed by the good stuff of life. 

Do what you do with intention. xo Jen 

One way to take a day off

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”  

― Kurt Vonnegut

I'm visiting this sorely neglected blog to share some exciting news. After the Gazebo is now available for pre-order at Amazon and Rain Mountain Press. I hope you'll check it out. I am incredibly proud of the book and eager to share it with you.

I have a touch of stomach flu (not the ideal way to get me time), so I am off to watch Wild and hang out with my dog. Before I go, though, here's a quick prompt: 

Read and reread your favorite poem. Take the premise and run with it as a short story. Or vice versa. I assure you, this prompt will take you places wholly unexpected.

xo Jen

A restful prompt

The first week back to a cubicle job, after quite a few days off for holidays, is rough. I ended up making it to the weekend (almost) and then wanting nothing more than to collapse. I've been doing some freelance work that ended up taking most of my free time, however, so my resting time was cut a bit short. Then I realized I was late for yoga. Even though I find my work stimulating and teaching/freelancing gratifying, I realized how much I was craving rest when, after a yoga class, I sat down on the couch to read and fell from conscious reality fast.  I woke dazed and relieved.

My non-stop pattern of work has been recurrent in my life. As a writer, I have always wanted to do and try everything, at least once, so I can't say no for fear of missing out on knowing just what this or that would be like. What ends up happening, however, is that my schedule becomes so tight I barely leave room for air.

I love being busy, but it also comes with real challenges. First, everyone needs rest. Second, every writer needs to write. Otherwise, we go rather batty. To put it nicely. In the past, when I haven't listened to my body's pleas for rest, it has slowed me down with force - either illness or injury - and I thought this would make an interesting prompt.

Write about a person who is going non-stop, maybe a corporate Type A or a Type B with delusions of grandeur (or, ahem, both). Start with this person in the middle of his/her work routine, then bam! Slow this person down. How does the character change? This is a simple plot, but it has potential to be quite dynamic. 

Have a great week, everyone! Don't forget to breathe. xo Jen

Absences

I have been missing posts here, after such a good run. I have, however, been writing here and there. Here, at Fiction Southeast, I have a micro essay on why I believe we still read, despite claims of lowered attention spans and tech-assisted laziness. I also have a piece forthcoming about online personas and their value to the modern-day artist.

BUT I haven't been here. I suppose it's partially due to my busy schedule, school winding down for the term, the holidays, the freelance work I've picked up. Perhaps I have something I want to talk about but can't. Yet. Nevertheless, here I am with a prompt. For you.

Write a story with three characters. Character A is missing and Character B is looking for him/her. Character C finds Character A but doesn't tell Character B. Why? 

It's something of a mystery, and if you write to it, let me know how it goes.

I'm not with my family this year, so I will be having a quiet holiday with my husband and pup. It's strange how not being with family makes you appreciate them all the more.

I wish everyone reading this a very happy holiday season. Enjoy your families and friends, and if you are alone, do something good for yourself. Or for someone else. Enjoy, eat well, and don't feel as though you have to purchase needless things. Only give what matters.

San Antonio looks nothing like this, but this is how I still think of the holidays.

2014 Halloween prompt

I hope your week was fantastic. Mine was eventful. My husband arrived home after approximately five weeks of travel. He had visited various places in Europe, came back to the states briefly for a trade show in Vegas, then went to Australia and New Zealand. Being alone in our new place was quite nice the first few weeks, then it started getting old and, as you can see from my previous entry, with boredom comes ill-conceived landscaping. (Helpful tip: If you just keep adding mulch, eventually things work out.)

My new fiction writing class began this week. I have 28 students this term, and I am excited to see what they can do. I am also excited to return to my Rattle novel. I have a lot of opportunities in the works concerning completed work, so I am also awaiting many answers... This place of unknowing is both fun and torturous. I know this is all vague, but hopefully good news to come.

You know, I don't usually know what I'm going to suggest as a writing prompt until I get to this point in my blog, but this makes the challenge fun. I usually just draw from whatever I'm thinking about or recently did. Yesterday, I went to a Halloween party and had to improvise my outfit (see right) because my original (a Mona Lisa get-up) hadn't arrived in time. Thanks to a few YouTube videos, Tim Burton, and a lot of experimenting, I put together a costume. My husband bought a mask, and we were set. There were quite a few people at this party, and the costumes were so good that we didn't recognize the folks we knew. Not recognizing who you're speaking with could lead to conflict in the right situation. Bingo! We have a prompt.

Write a story about two characters who know each other. One begins confiding in the other, not realizing who the other is. Go!

Since next weekend is Halloween proper, if you write to this and you'd like me to post your story  (or part of it as a teaser), let me know. 

Loosen up

Massage should be covered under everyone's preventative care plans. I truly believe this. That said, when I get a massage, which I try to do as often as finances allow to offset the time I'm hunched over a computer, the therapist always tells me I should come back more often or come back for a longer session next time or try cupping or try hot stones... This is probably part of the routine, the up-sell. But what's not part of the routine is the crunchy, stuck, tight muscles around my shoulders, which don't seem to loosen up, no matter who I go to. I breathe into the muscles deeply, take baths with salts and relaxing bubbles, meditate... nothing helps. More than a few times, I've heard, "Your muscles are the tightest I've seen on a person your size." I've also heard, "You're almost as bad as the bodybuilders that come in." Seeing as how I lift weights once a month, maybe, if I can get on the floor long enough to do a few 5 lb raises to strengthen my triceps before the dog starts walking on my face, the comparison isn't complimentary as much as worrisome. 

On the occasion I am able to get a massage, I always ask the therapist the same thing to divert attention from my stubborn muscles. "I bet you have stories, eh? What's your craziest?" Inevitably, there's an affirmative, and often a story. Herein is this week's prompt:

A massage therapist, male or female, is working on a client who doesn't follow protocol. What does the client do or say? How does the therapist react? Is there awkward small talk? Confrontation? Take it where it goes, and end with the client getting dressed, the therapist outside the door, waiting with a plastic cup of water.    

I'm going to work on my ergonomics and stretching routine this week. I wish you comfort. 

xo Jen

To Go On

“Write while the heat is in you. … The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.”  

—Henry David Thoreau

I am in my last week at the Art Farm residency, and it's finally a nice, cool day. We had some days so humid they seemed to squeeze you like a lemon while multiplying the already-prevalent bugs and insects that seem to dive-bomb here. 

I wanted to share a writing prompt because it seems something that could cross over to other aspects of life and, more, it seems to be my first no-fail method to get something meaningful on the page. Of course it is simple:

Sit down with computer or pen and pad and cellphone. Set the alarm for 10 minutes. Open an old piece (something in-progress or old; or, if you have nothing, read a short story and pick up where the writer left off, keep going with the characters). The prompt is only this: write for the full 10 minutes. Nonstop. Set the alarm and don't allow yourself to move or stop. Then, if on a roll, reset after the alarm sounds. Simple. Works miracles.

I'm up to page 60 on the new novel, and I attribute this largely to this method because, oddly, I can feel very busy at Art Farm and get distracted. I have had work here and an odd allergic reaction to something that has given me bad hives... all these things could be excuses, but no. I wrote. And I did not make it negotiable. Here are a few more images from Nebraska...  

Back to the fun stuff for now... I visited Aurora for the first time yesterday and helped an artist friend set up at the farmer's market. There seems a dynamic community here, with a strong motorcycle culture, which is great for my character Rattle (who can plan these things?!). 

Other interesting new facts about Nebraska:

• There is a town called Worms, which contains a bar called Nightcrawlers and a church.
• Most of the corn around me is ethanol corn.
• It seems, everyone loves the Cornhuskers.
• North Platte has a rich history and a book about it, and I have met a lot of folks with colorful stories about it (too bad I won't get a chance to visit).
• Marilyn Monroe and butter is all over everything at LuLu's Steakhouse in Chapman, NE, where the chicken friend steak is as big as the plate and a single waitress runs the joint on a Saturday night.
• There is every type of tick known to man here.
• Raccoons should not be out in daylight.

Have a great week, and I wish you phenomenal weather where you are. 

Writhout creativity, no bibimbap

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” -Mark Twain

Imagination can nurture or destroy, depending on its direction.  It can cause anxiety by fooling us into thinking we know the future (see: panic disorder), or foster brilliance in art and writing. So how does one harness the imagination so that it works to our favor? Yeah, good question. I'll circle back to it.

I started teaching my short story class this week, and I've got to say, summer courses are the best. The students, for the most part, really want to be there and it shows in the writing. Even more exciting, they're turning in assignments early and eagerly. As a teacher, it's nice to not have to hunt folks down. As a writer, it reminds me of my own initial eagerness. I was the kid in the Internet course in college who would do all the assignments in the first two weeks, then spend hours revising before I turned them in. I imagined my teachers' hair blown back by my stories as I wrote them, and even though I never felt this way when I actually turned in the piece, I tended to do pretty well because my goals were clear and pretty big. I had an audience, and I wanted to impress and entertain that audience. 

When I do not write, even to this day, I get bouts of anxiety. The discontent will pop up randomly, and I'll find myself stressing about being late to an appointment, or I'll talk myself down before a big meeting. I'll even talk my previous writing ventures down, especially as I read, but then I actually sit down to write, and that energy is released. I feel better. I got my fix. 

I don't know who reads this blog, aside from a select few. My comments, from what I hear, only sometimes work, but if you're reading this and you're not a writer, I think the same theory applies to whatever you do creatively. Creative output squashes anxiety, if for a little while. It is necessary for many of us.

Accordingly, I've been challenging myself to get back in a serious writing routine. Last week, I posted a prompt that I wrote to (no final draft yet, but we have a draft and that's what matters), and this week, I'll do the same. I hope to continue this as long as I can, if nothing else but to get that fix. 


Old videos inspired this week's prompt. 

Find an 80s/90s song, the stranger the better.  In fact, to really bring this home, find a video. I'm picking Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight." Really listen to the song, the message (the more elusive the better), then think up a character who has lived the story told in the lyrics. Interpret it ironically or literally, and keep it to a thousand words. 

Speaking of anxiety, sometimes mine comes up around food. Thing is, I am allergic to a lot, my stomach inflates or, worse, I'll break out into hives; needless to say, I'm not very experimental.

Putting my imagination to good use this weekend (I already started on this prompt, and a good kind of crazy creative output ensued), I didn't over-think and tried a new Korean dish, bibimbap (also known as bi bim bop), and it just might be my new favorite thing (image below). 

This stuff is great, and now the challenge will be learning how to make it efficiently. The Food Network has a great recipe (though I'll omit the beef), but 2.40 hours? Yeah, maybe I'll go with this one. Either way, challenge accepted.  I'll let you know how it goes.  

In the meantime, have a great week! 

The Writing Life

“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.” —Annie Dillard

I don't know about you, but I am notorious for thinking something great will have to wait until later, sometime a few months or years from now when I'll have more time or a better space or a tighter grip on what the hell I'm doing as a writer and where I can find that perfect niche. I have this abstract vision of a future me who has it all together.

If everything happens as planned, I should have time and space soon, and before reading this quote, I had caught myself thinking, a few times, Eh, I'll do that when I get to the residency. What I want to do, precisely, is write a piece of flash loosely based on a prompt that a friend of mine shared recently from a memoir-writing workshop she attended. This is an adapted version of what she told me:

A screensaver that is similar to how I remember
seeing my backyard as a kid. Google
"ghetto backyard with bathtub" for an accurate image.

Close your eyes and try to imagine your favorite place to go as a child, whether that be your home, the neighborhood pool, or a friend's house. After you have an image in mind, begin to draw that place. Your artistic prowess is not as important as the effort. Draw with as much insight as you can. Try to remember the details, then use that setting as your catalyst for a story. It can be fiction or nonfiction, but tell a story in the location as you remember it. 

The original prompt was something specific about a childhood home, but I like favorite place better because when I was younger, my favorite places were my safe places--the places that I felt free to get the most crazy and let my imagination go wild. I had a few favorite places, but I'm going to start with the dense and weedy jungle that comprised the backyard of my childhood home. I used to play out there, allowing my imagination to go wild. I would play spy and cop and space travel games with my sister, using my imagination above all else, dreaming up fairies and elves and little purple aliens with attitudes. So that an ordinary, perhaps sad-looking but eclectic backyard (we had a bathtub half buried and filled with sand--a sand tub, for example) would transform into something magical. I assigned superpowers to the homeless men who were sometimes sitting out there on cinder blocks smoking cigarettes and drinking from brown bottles. I would find bugs and imagine them mutating or transmitting messages from a wizard. Imagination can make anything beautiful (or horrifying, but that's another post).

If you write, do the prompt with me and let me know how it works out. I'm shooting for less than 1,000 words or less. I have a sand tub and homeless men who may or may not have been magical going for me. What do you have?

Have a wonderful weekend! - Jen

*I have been struggling with the idea of defining my writing life and trying to tease it out here on this blog. My focus here has been blurry over the years, swaying and unpredictable, something like an old TV that cannot catch the channel you want to watch and is therefore filled with gray, fuzzy lines that may capture attention, but not for long. I write about myself, so that's a constant, and being a writer. I seem to have plenty to say about my subject, but I've decided to make what was once center-stage a mere part of my blog going forward. I'll still post news, but I hope to make the blog more interactive and focused on writing, and I hope you enjoy it. Let me know if you have any feedback. 

Journal writing about journal writing workshops

Let's face it, this blog is really just a public journal. I mostly talk about myself, my writing failures, successes, frustration, and inspiration. I guess this alone qualifies me to teach a journal writing workshop. I've been hosting such workshops at the San Antonio Public Library every six months, for teens and preteens who are interested in journal writing and want to know more about how to do it, and why they should bother.

Here's how these workshops go down:

After our introductions, I begin the workshop by telling the writers what I believe to be the benefits of journal writing. For me, journal writing offers the following:

• a record of life events (no worries about faulty memory)
• perspective on current situations, which allows me to decide what my goals are and what I need to change in my life
• distance from emotions
• safety (if I write or even draft a post, and I decide I don't want to share it, I never have to.) 
• proof of how far I've come
• a reason to write 

After this introduction (sales pitch), we trade our own journal writing practices, if any, and we get ready for the fun stuff. The prompts.

I only have one ground rule for my workshops, a rule inspired by Natalie Golderg's Writing Down to the Bones (a book I often use in my beginning writing classes at San Antonio Community College). Everyone is asked to respond to a specific prompt and let go; allow the mind to be free to wander on the page. I set a timer for 10 minutes, and the only rule is to keep the pen on the paper at all times. No stopping! Just keep the pen moving, Goldberg suggests, and I insist. I like this idea because it means the goal is to shut off the censor and let the writing itself take over.

It doesn't always work. Not the first time, anyway. But the second or third or fourth time, it works, and once it works, it continues to work a little easier each time you sit with pen and timer. If you stray from a prompt, so be it. If you end up writing a grocery list or a list of wishes, so be it. Just keep writing.

Okay, here are the prompts, a few of which I've actually used in workshops:

Past:

1. Food: Think about a family meal, a holiday or celebratory meal, and begin to write about what you ate. What did it taste like, smell like, were you a child and if so, did you get to sit at the same table as the adults? Were there other children there. Begin to write about the meal, and see where this memory takes you.
2. Aspirations: When you were ten years old, what did you think you'd become when you grew up? Why did you think this way, and did it turn out to be true?
3. Change of scenery: Write about a place you used to visit that no longer exists, a restaurant that has closed or a lot you used to walk through on your way home from school that is now a pizza place. 

Present:

1. How do you feel? Let it out.
2. Write about who you were two years ago and who you are today. What's changed? 
3. What did you dream about last night? Be as vivid as possible.

Future:

1. Aspirations: What do you expect your life to be like in 5 years? How about 10 years?
2. Fears: Let them out, and write your worst case scenario. Seeing our fears on paper, really written out, can make them far smaller.
3. Goals: Write what you need to change and how you plan to change it.

Lists:

1. Write a list, like this one, that recounts what you did to today: 1.) Woke up and hit the snooze button, 2.) Dog licked me in the eye, so I had to get up and walk him, 3.) Got the mail and found yet another envelope addressed to Elida. Who the hell is Elida?, 4.) Listened to Christmas music on the way to work. Stopped singing at the stoplight when the guy in the truck gave me that Texas serial killer look.
2. Write out a list of what you need to do this coming weekend.
3. Write your actual To-Do list and then the To-Do list you'd have if your life was exactly as you wanted it to be.

Roles:

1. Write about what you imagine your life would be like if you were a man (if you're a woman) or a woman (if you're a man), tall (if you're short), etc..
2. Write your ideal day/date/evening/family gathering.
3. Choose your own adventure: Explore on paper what it might have been like if you went overseas to teach, after all; if you decided against that MFA program you're currently paying off, if you went for that Art degree, despite your parents, or if you'd had/not had that elective surgery. You get the idea. What if you took the other path?

Inspiration:

1. Write about those family members, friends, or role models that keep you striving.
2. Write about what makes you happy each day, the little things such as the first cup of coffee or the good seat in Monday meetings.
3. What are you thankful for? In AA, there is the common practice of keeping a gratitude journal. This is kind of what we're going for here... write a sort of thanks-giving post. This is a very helpful tool for people who need to feel grounded or haven't taken the time to reflect on how far they've come.

So, pick one, write for ten minutes. Don't stop. If you go off-topic, so what? It's your journal.

In my workshops, I make the offer to those who want to share writing with others, and a few take me up on the opportunity. This is the beauty of journal writing. Sometimes excellent creative work, some damn funny reflection, or even new realizations, will come up and you'll want to share. But, you're not sitting down to write with the intention to share, so there's no pressure. That's the freedom!

I always look forward to these workshops. I'm holding one tomorrow. We usually only have time to complete three prompts, and it's just enough. A good half an hour of solid, non-stop writing; and then we all part ways with our journals a little fuller. Hopefully, we leave with a little more clarity on some aspect of our lives, even if this clarity comes from a simple scene from our past, perhaps how much we really disliked turkey as a child but ate it willingly on Thanksgiving because when it was served, the entire family became quiet and happy, if just for a moment.

Well, that was a nice warm-up. I'll be hosting a workshop tomorrow after work. Can you tell I'm excited? Have a good week. If you use any of these as catalysts to write, let me know how it goes. 

New Image

This is the second in the series that I will be writing to. The first response was fully developed after an invitation to The Language and Place on the Edge Blog Carnival. (You can see the original image and poem below.) My father, the creator of this piece, sent me a few more images.

If this image inspires you, please, feel free to join me. If you can come up with something under 500 words, I'll post it here on 08/01. The image seems to lend itself to poetry. We'll see...

Image by Mark R. Knox 2011

http://www.knoxworx.com