How To Ward Off Writer's Block

“The second that I think that I have a fear of writing, (I think) ‘No, no, this is just a joyous thing to sit down and tell a story,’” he said.

This is the strategy of writer and fourth grade teacher Ross Modlin, as reported by Cameron Macdonald in The Elk Grove Citizen in Elk Grove, California.

I like simple strategies the best. The complicated ones just seem an additional burden.

This one is flexible because we could take the beginning of the sentence and finish it with anything that needs unsticking.

For example: This is just a joyous thing to design a new course...to begin the revisions that will make this piece so much stronger...to draw a picture....

Also, note that Modlin uses this thought the instant he notices fear coming on.

(The teacher who helped me the most toward becoming a writer was also named Modlin--Mildred Modlin, teaching in Wilmington, NC in the 1960s. So I'm predisposed to thinking this fellow is offering good advice.

One other auspicious sign: Elk Grove was a home base for many gold miners during the Gold Rush. Of course practicing any art is a process of mining for the gold.)

So today's work is just a joyous thing: to go digging for gold, in the company of other miners scattered here and there about the land.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Bold Idea: Sabbatical

I can now shut up about the fact that when I was in high school I was not selected to go to Governor's School in the summer. In the last week I got my own mini-Governor's School.

About 25 years ago, North Carolina Teacher of the Year Jean Powell suggested in a speech that there be a sort of Governor's School for teachers. The (few and fortunate) high-performing high school kids chosen each year to attend this advanced and fabulously enriching boarding school session always came back so excited about learning.

So, Powell said, why not do the same thing for teachers? And send them back to the classroom re-excited about teaching and learning.

Then-Governor Jim Hunt jumped on the idea and the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching was born.

This week I've been teaching a class here called "Write from your Roots." I feel I'm the one who is refreshed and re-excited about learning...and about my own teaching and writing and living.

The 22 guests--teachers, counselors, and librarians--and the staff I worked with here (Jane Dalton, author of The Compassionate Classroom and Tara Melton-Miller) could teach anybody anything. I hope the "students" have gotten even a fraction of the good from the experience that I have.

If you happen to work for the NC public schools, take a bold step and apply to come here. There's a magic chemistry happening on this 30-acre mountain campus--and no doubt at the coastal Ocracoke site as well.

If you aren't eligible, TAKE A BOLD STEP AND FIND YOUR OWN SABBATICAL SOMEWHERE. Even a few days can be a small lifetime tucked into the big one.

Thanks to Jean Powell who boldly spoke up about a good idea and to Jim Hunt who said: let's do it. And to the Legislature that helps it continue. And of course to NCCAT.

Woohoo! I'm coming back! Take that, Governor's School selection panel of 1965-66!



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Teachers as Writers

I do some teaching, but am primarily a writer. Not unusual. Many, if not most, career writers also teach. But perhaps unlike those who are drawn to teaching first, lots of the writers-who-teach are pretty introverted.

This week I'm leading a group made up of people who are career public school educators and are spending this week (at the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching) doing some writing.

After four days, I find myself fascinated by the good things I see in the way teachers conduct themselves as writers.

Almost all of these people are used to "presenting" all day. They are not shy. Or if they are, they're hiding it well. They're also very practiced communicators, with a lot of experience in giving feedback, getting people's attention, laying down the law, and making sure people understand the assignment.

These strengths show in their writing. As writers, they're clear. Bold. They get their message out. Not once have I had the impulse to say: I'm not getting what you mean here.

Whereas, my biggest struggle as a writer is to be sure I'm not too understated. And that's a fairly common piece of feedback in the writing group I've been in for years.

So it's refreshing and inspiring to sit with writers who, with very little hesitation, get their thoughts on the page and their writing out to others. And, for the teacher-writers, it's a great advantage they have as they begin a new kind of writing, for self-expression.




If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Courage for the Inner Journey

Here's the scenery outside the classroom window where I'm leading a group this week on Writing from Your Roots. (My seat faces the wall of windows, I'm happy to say.)

The group is a couple of dozen teachers from all over North Carolina, meeting at the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching in Cullowhee.

Seminars here are designed to refresh and re-inspire the teachers. This particular topic is also one that requires of them a fair amount of courage, because writing from the deepest part of oneself takes some digging. And there's often material that's painful, sometimes material that's a surprise.

Tough prose has been read around our table this week: about dealing with a parent's suicide, an early widowhood, and being a refugee from the war in Bosnia, about facing one's buried angers and fears, as well as more joyful experience.

People have leaped over their in-the-moment fears and hesitation and written strong stories. It has been exciting and gratifying to watch and hear.

I applaud these writers and will keep their courage in mind as an example when I'm back at my own manuscript. Because writing fiction also requires some well-digging, before the fountain rises shining in the air.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

40 Inspiring Writing Blogs

Kathryn Vercillo has posted links to "40 Inspiring Writing Blogs that you Don’t Already Read" on her site Real Words from a Real Writer.

You'll find that there's at least one on the list that you do already read. And thanks to Kathryn for including this site.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

If It Scares You...

The seminar I'm leading this week of 22 NC public school teachers got rolling last night and I discovered that teachers are the ideal folks to have in a discussion group. Wow, what a bunch of thoughtful live wires.

This gathering is at NCCAT in Cullowhee in the NC mountains. That's the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching. Gorgeous campus. From where I sit in our meeting room I can watch the spire of water in the fountain in the center of the pond next to the dining room.

So yesterday I was going on about my pre-teaching nervousness. It's gone. As always, getting moving makes the difference.

In our discussion last night, one person volunteered some wisdom from her sister: If it scares the shit out of you, do it.

I'd qualify that a tad: if the risk is reasonably low and the gain is significant, do it. I still don't see the point of bungee jumping.

Otherwise, doing what we want to do is worth weathering a bit of initial uneasiness. It's more than worth it.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Teaching Week

I just arrived in Cullowhee in the NC mountains where I'm leading a writing group for NCCAT--the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

I meet with the group for the first time twenty minutes from now. I always have "green room" nervousness just before starting. Once we get going I'm fine. But still these twenty minutes to go.

It's curious to me that I'm edgy like this before running a group. Public speaking never worries me at all. It feels completely different; it's just talking. Whereas, a class needs to really deliver something.

18 minutes now.

Think I'll go for a walk. Or talk to people, that always distracts me and gets me pumped up.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Creativity Site Recommendation

Kay from California just sent an address to a mind-stirring site from the guy who wrote A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative, just re-released in a 25th anniversary edition.

The same fellow also produced the Creative Whack Pack, a set of cards with 64 different imaginative idea-producing strategies and the Ball of Whacks, "a creativity workshop in a ball."

I have a set of those cards in my bottom desk drawer, but I'd never before gone looking for the site: Creative Think by Roger von Oech. It's a plenty lively place.

In a recent post, von Oech suggests having a "mantra" for your work, but using the word more in the sense of a motto. His is "Look for a second right answer." That's bound to produce interesting outcomes, and it contains a strategy not simply a goal.

My own is "Go after the best result," with the fuller version being: "I unhesitatingly, serenely, joyfully go after the best result." I want to figure out a way to build in the kind of strategy his offers. I'm convinced that having a pithy statement of guiding principle installed in my brain is a bit like having a centerboard in a sailboat.





If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Make A Mistake Today!

This quote arrived at the bottom of an email this week:

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." Scott Adams

I love the idea because it's true and it has the potential to take away the destructive performance pressure so many of us put on ourselves.

Having read this item and pondered it, I then went looking for the identity of the to-me mysterious Scott Adams. Turns out he's famous: the creator of Dilbert.
He's also quite an aphorist. Brainy Quote has a long list of good sayings from him, ranging from wry to inspiring.

Here's another sample from the inspirational end of his spectrum: "Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive."




If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

The Closet Challenge

A few days ago, Mamie Potter of the Can I Do It? blog posted a photo of her closet and an invitation on this blog for others to do the same.

She was simply considering cleaning hers out. In response, Billie Hinton posted a shot of hers on her blog, Camera Obscura saying, "I don't know why but I love the idea of exposing my junky inner self to the world."

Not having anything to hide is a very freeing thing. I never thought of my closet as being hidden, but "in the closet" is certainly the classic phrase used for keeping a large secret.

So I think Mamie's really onto something with this idea. And here is the unveiling of my own junky inner self. It is so much neater than my mental world--or the inside of my car.



If any of the rest of you decide to take part in this closet experiment, do let us all know.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Getting to the Real Reason

Yesterday, I was griping about being in a nasty mood about a list of annoyances.

This morning, my husband Bob, who is a psychologist, suggested that maybe my irritation list wasn't the main thing that's bothering me. Maybe instead it's that a family member is showing undeniable and troubling symptoms.

The truth swept over me--slo-mo. He was right. That was it, I could feel the certainty of it in my jaw muscles, which I've been (destructively) clenching in my sleep.

Now, why can't I always figure out for myself what's bothering me? Is it aversion to facing the real reason? Lack of courage/boldness?

I had even questioned earlier how I could feel so sad and mean over stuff that's pretty familiar and doesn't usually get to me at all.

I'd like to have a procedure for: getting to the real reason for whatever is going on in my own head. Because just identifying it is a tremendous relief. And because I don't like deceiving myself.

Again, I welcome your ideas.

Upcoming: in response to the dare/meme from Mamie Potter at Can I Do It?, tomorrow I post my closet picture, thus letting it all hang out.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

What to Do for a Bad Mood

First let me say that there's nothing life-and-death troubling me just now. But at the moment I do have computer problems, dental problems, agent problems, and book problems. I'm sure I could think of something else to put on that list if I put my irritated mind to it.

Last night my husband asked me what he could to cheer me (he's a large bright spot, that's for sure.) I told him he could bring me home a gooey dessert. He brought a slice of cheesecake with a layer of chocolate crumbles on the top. Good man. Good cheesecake.

Gooey chocolate dessert: That's one thing to do for a bad mood, as long as the cure doesn't get out of hand. (I also meditated for half a hour which helped too.)

What do you do for a minor but brain-numbing multi-day bad mood? (Better come up with something or I'm likely to get out of hand.)



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Write from Our Roots

Next week I'll be teaching a workshop in the North Carolina mountains titled "Write From Our Roots", for the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

A piece I read yesterday in The New York Times Book Review reminded me that roots can be understood in a variety of ways. In an essay on the excellent Jhumpa Lahiri's new book Unaccustomed Earth, Liesl Schillinger noted that the writer "shows that the place to which you feel the strongest attachment isn't necessarily the country you're tied to by blood or birth: it's the place that allows you to become yourself. This place, she quietly indicates, may not lie on any map."

I ask myself what that "place" is for me and I suspect that it's my love for and memory of my hometown of Wilmington, NC. Paradoxically, it's the place that I tried hardest to be like everyone else.

The biography I'm researching is about an artist who lived there before me and who was at least as peculiar as I was naturally inclined to be.

There's one writer/therapist (Harville Hendrix, Getting the Love You Want) who says that we choose as mates people who have the traits that challenged us as kids. The idea is: this time I'm going to get it right.

Maybe something similar is going on with my selection of subject. But the fact is: I mostly don't regret my efforts back then to fit in. That's a reasonable choice, and can be a bold choice; just as it's possible to be both a feminist and a housewife. (I never know where I'm going to wind up when I start writing one of these posts, same with novels.)

Anyway, as I prepare to teach this short course next week, I'm examining my own roots once again, including those that don't lie on a map.





If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

All Comparisons Are Odious

I don't know who first said that, but I do think we all suffer from comparisons.

I just visited Debbie Whaley's wonderful blog, Four Angels' Momma . It was such a pleasure and an uplift to be there. After a few minutes, a familiar destructive thought crept in: why am I not writing a warm blog like this, that feels, not sappy, but more like hot chocolate and excellent slippers and a reading chair, even when it's about the beach.

Then I remembered: this is a clear example of why I'm writing this blog as I am. To encourage us each to do our own thing. Me, especially.

I need to write about the sneaking destructive thoughts and how to catch and make friends with them. (This process is for me crucial to the process of writing--grabbing the fleeting creatures and interviewing them.)

So again I say to myself and anyone else interested: the world loses when any of us abandons her/his own dharma and goes to imitating.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

"The Anxiety of Nothingness"

What could possibly ever be scary about writing, painting, the blank page, etc? Rollo May, author of The Courage to Create, says it's fear of going into the chaotic unknown.

“This is what the existentialists call the anxiety of nothingness." (quote from La Bloga, a litblog about Chicana/Chicano writers.

My feeling is that it's not necessarily because of the fear of confronting nothing; it's also because of the snakes and spiders one might find.

The novel I'm working on--particularly intensely yesterday--will likely be considered by some to be a rather nasty book. It has some scenes that might be called hard-core.

Why have I written this? I don't altogether know. But I can say that it's a combo of calling and desire and some weird feeling of inevitability, karma or dharma. (I also think it's a damn good book, hope it will appeal to fans of the superb literary and erotic writer Susanna Moore, among others.)

Some years ago, I made a promise to myself to write what emerged from my depths, however strange. I'm doing it, and watching the process with curiousity, defiance, uneasiness, pride, puzzlement, and gusto.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Writing Trance

Too caught up in my novel to switch gears for blogging today. Hope your project is also deeply engrossing.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

The Power of Each Pair of Hands

At a cleanup at North Carolina's Jordan Lake (near my house) a few weeks ago, about 50 volunteers picked up trash over a period of 4.5 hours. (Previous post title: So Glad I Did)

The results: 110 old tires and roughly 250 large bags of trash.

The bold move: getting out there when you might think lots of people are going and two more hands won't make all that much difference.

The pictures are from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which organized the effort and grilled hotdogs afterwards.





If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Ode

Just ran across a magazine "for intelligent optimists" that is both predictably upbeat and appealingly unpredictable. Ode Magazine started in Rotterdam in 1995 and has been publishing out of San Francisco since 2004.

The current April issue includes a piece by William Stimson, a proponent of "radical simplicity," titled "How to Move a Tree: Why Attempting the Impossible Is Always the Right Thing to Do."

And, in the surprising category, is a story: "Tax the Beautiful: Ugly People Should Be Compensated for their Obvious Disadvantage in Society, argues Gonzalo Otaloro." (by Marco Fisher)

Taxing the beautiful is the most outrageous idea I've heard since a few days ago when a Republican candidate for statewide office in NC was reported as favoring merger of the U.S. and Canada.

I can't say that I support either of those, but I love the wide-ranging thinking they show.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Do One Nice Thing

Doing a nice thing for someone can also be encouraging and empowering, as well as health-improving, for the do-er. (See The Healing Power of Doing Good, by Allan Luks with me, Peggy Payne.)

My local paper Sunday ran a piece by Jane Lampman from The Christian Science Monitor about a woman and her website who promote doing a nice thing every Monday. DoOneNiceThing.com offers specific suggestions and addresses if you'd like to send a nice thing: for example, a packet of pencils, notebook, etc. for a child in Afghanistan. This one idea has resulted in the delivery of 70 tons of school supplies.

The originator of the site, Debbie Tenzer, an LA marketing pro, also found that it perked up her sometimes discouraging Mondays.

I do realize that today is Tuesday, but we could secretly pretend it's Monday and do something nice anyway. As Martha might say, It's a bold thing.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Cross-Training

If you've been practicing and teaching your art for a while, it's helpful to occasionally become a beginner at something else. This experience refreshes the practitioner's imagination and renews the teacher's empathy.

Years ago, I heard novelist Lee Smith say to a writing workshop group: if you're new at this, I have some sense of how you feel; I just started taking a tap dance class.

Yesterday, I was a construction assistant to my brother Franc Payne, who is renovating a house in Atlantic, NC, on one of the huge sounds behind the Outer Banks.

I'd never done this kind of work before. (The only thing I ever built before was, tellingly, a lectern when I was about nine, and it was wobbly.)

I found I was pretty fair at carrying lumber in and hauling old bricks out, a bit tentative on subtracting fractions fast in my head, and quite wary of the nail gun and the electric saw.

In addition to having had a wonderful day-long visit with my brother, I return to my desk today well-exercised and with a wider view of the world...and probably more patience with the fact that in the arts we're always beginners.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.