Let 2018 mark the year that I found my way back to writing!
Once upon a time, quite a long time ago now, I wrote freely and voraciously and without self-consciousness... do you know what I'm talking about? Then life happened, and I stopped writing for years. This year life happened again, and I found that I
had to write, because I was a writer who wasn't writing, and writing again feels like coming home... like I'm finally doing the work I was meant to do, that writing is what I was put on earth for.
But it hasn't been easy to feel my way back into writing. I feel like Lyra Belacqua after she lost her natural ability to read the alethiometer, searching for tools and texts to teach me how to do what I once knew. I feel like Seraphina in Shadow Scale with a shrinking mind garden, wondering how I can stumble on my lost mental powers again.
In the first half of 2018 I built myself a writing routine. I am cursed, or blessed, with a long commute. In the half-light of dawn I tumble out the door towards the bus-stop, and when the bus hisses in front of me I slur into the first available seat and rumble half-asleep along with the bus, and when it ejects me at the station I usher myself through metro-tiled corridors unheeding the florescent lights or street musicians or other passengers, only dimly registering that I am part of a horde of bodies streaming towards our goal of catching the train. It is, not unlike what Roxana Robinson describes in
"How I Get to Write" where she tells us that "In the morning, I don't talk to anyone, nor do I think about certain things. I try to stay within certain confines. I imagine this as a narrow, shadowy corridor with dim bare walls. I'm moving down this corridor, getting to the place where I can write. [...] I am not yet in the world, and there is a certain risk involved in talking: the night spins a fine membrane, like the film inside an eggshell. It seals you off from the world, but it's fragile, easily pierced." I learned that, as the train carries me from unworldly consciousness into the world and the day's task, this was the liminal space in which I could write...
But it wasn't enough. I moved so slowly. I wrote the same sentence over and over again, trading one word for another until that sentence was so shiny I didn't know where it fit into the story.
I don't know how I convinced myself to take a course -- I am of the frugal sort, and probably secretly a subscriber of the old-fashioned belief that creativity can't be taught -- but I did. I bought
Story is a State of Mind, designed by the Canadian writer Sarah Selecky (whose short stories are so piercingly sharp it almost hurts to read). It is of the same school of creativity as Elizabeth Gilbert and Ira Glass, in other words, the underlying principle is that "your story is smarter than you are," or "you already have the water, you only need to find the jars" and that the only way to get better at your craft is to persist despite your own resistance to it. Or as Abdo in Seraphina would say "If "through meditation you can turn the mind to water," as Lyra finds out at the end of His Dark Materials that she must re-learn what she once knew through diligent study...
Through audio lectures (with transcripts) and readings,
The Story Course tricks you into prioritizing your right brain (your creative brain) and ignoring your left brain (your inner critic) as you work through the basics of storytelling - beginnings, dialogue, plot and drift, voice. It's thoughfully designed hand-holding to help you liberate your story, because with the right creative prompts and habits, you (simply have to trust in that) your story will surface. There's also a wonderful course community of free resources like
Sarah's Six Senses writing program, which I've done twice now! I used to be terrified of unstructured writing, but it turns out that this really is the most valuable tool especially if you're trying to move past your inhibitions into generating original fiction.
After all the writing practice I craved a more detailed scrutiny of theme and relevance in my fiction, so I did MOOCS at the
International Writer's Program at the University of Iowa. These are pure gold if you are looking to take your writing (fiction, non-fiction or poetry) to a critical level. The course readings are top-notch -- I have discovered so many new short stories that I have fallen head over heels in love with, and learned a lot from the discussion forums with the readings that I didn't love. The peer feedback on assignments is also incredibly helpful. (also: Message me if you do one in the future and I'll make sure to look at your assignment!)
So with all that I also decided to do Yuletide. I was browsing
the prompts and couldn't resist... ideas and words just flowed. I only regret that I didn't have time to write more before the deadline, there were several other fandoms I was eyeing! I love how with fanfiction you get ready-made worlds to play in and your writing comes in as a pure response to something you love. The thing is, original fiction isn't so different: as you go through it you are also in conversation with your favourite authors, hoping you can one day join their ranks.
Here's to a happy, productive, story-filled 2019!
Note: If you end up signing up for
The Story Course via my links, I get a small referral fee.
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