10 (Completely Idiosyncratic) Reasons Why You Need a Writing Group

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In no particular order:

  1. Because your writing group will keep you writing (literally if your group like mine writes during its time together).
  2. Because the writing you do once a week (or once a month, for that matter) oozes into the rest of your time — you’ll want to have work to share with your writing group — and when you focus on anything, it grows.
  3. Because the stories told by the members of your writing group will spark memories and stories in you.
  4. Because your writing group can be like a good parent and reflect back to you your successes, no matter how small. At our lab, which meets for a scant 1 1/2 hours weekly, we lavish praise for a single line. I was going to say “a single gorgeous line,” but we’d probably lavish praise for a stumbly line, especially if we see that our fellow labster is struggling to get writing done.
  5. Because, conversely, your writing group will stop you from getting too big for your britches. We’re all in this together, and if you’ll be honest with them, they’ll be honest with you.
  6. Because reading and learning to talk about other people’s unpublished writing teaches you so much about your own writing.
  7. Because your writing group witnesses your journey as a writer, from fledgling to … wherever you take it.
  8. Because your writing group will come with wine or covered dishes to your annual potluck.
  9. Because your writing group helps you to shoulder your writing work.
  10. Because your writing group (like the play groups you took part in as a child, like musicians), reminds you that you’ve gathered not to work, but to play.

 

For Lent, Can You Give Up “Not Writing”?

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I have been declaring myself a writer for … well, ages. I love meeting writers and talking about their writing with them, but among the many people I meet, two groups baffle me:

1. Writers who don’t admit that they write. (And why the heck not?)

2. People who want to write, and don’t.

If you are in the latter camp, I’d like to challenge you to write for at least five minutes every day for the next 40 days. Just 5 minutes. 40 days. Easy-peasy.

Whether or not you belong to a religious tradition that celebrates Lent, it begins today, 14 February, this year, and it’s a great time to take on this modest, 40-day challenge. “Lent” by the way is an Old English word, meaning Spring, and probably relating to “the lengthening of days.” The Greek equivalent means fortieth. 

For whatever reason (I’m sure there is one), 40 is an important Biblical number. Noah’s Flood was caused by 40 days of rain. Moses and the Hebrew Tribes wandered in the desert for 40 years. Christ fasted in the wilderness for 40 days. There are other examples. And for anyone in a more secular mood, you could think of Franz Kafka’s Hunger Artist, who fasts for 40 days.

Lent is often thought to be synonymous with fasting — you’ve no doubt heard of chocolate fasts (but why would you?), shopping fasts, giving up anything generally “not good for you.” I like to think of the flip side of that, and use Lent as an opportunity to do something positive for 40 days.

What would you write? 

Don’t get all intimidated by this. If you have a project that you have been meaning to start and you can start it, by all means, do that. If you can’t, just practice being present with a notebook and pen.

Write a very small list of gratitudes. Try to come up with new ones every day. (What you focus on will grow.)

Write about one person who has been on your mind or buzzing about your memory.

Take a photographer’s approach, but instead of taking a picture of the same spot in your garden or on your walk every day, write a little description of it.

Copy out a poem, not necessarily yours. (Any writing counts.)

Draft your own poem — let it be as bad as it needs to be — and then make notes and write variants of it for 40 days — just to see what happens (I’ve been doing this with a poem about my mother).

Write a letter each day.

What if you get all tied up in knots with resistance?

If five minutes are impossible, write for one minute.

Treat yourself like your employee (or child!) — I do this by setting a timer. (Look, here, Bethany, I’m setting the timer for five minutes and I expect you to write until that chime goes off!)

I’m willing to bet that there is some sort of writing that you do already — tweets or Facebook posts or emails. So try writing on your chosen itty-bitty project in that forum. Collect the results and keep them in a folder or envelope or desk drawer. Don’t look at them until the 40 days are up.

Give yourself itty bitty rewards. Big rewards get me all nervous and are weirdly counter-productive, but I will write for red X’s or shiny foil stars. And I don’t know why I’m so compulsive, but I just love an “every day” project. (Ask me how many days in a row I’ve done the dumb little game my daughter downloaded to my phone.) Doing something every day (like walking for at least 5 minutes every day since January 5!) begins to contain its own motivation and rewards.

Remind yourself, it’s just for a few minutes. It’s just for 40 days.

And, while I’m at it, if you are a closet writer (see group #1 above), why not find a way to challenge yourself to share a little bit of work every day for 40 days? You could email it or message it to a friend, and they could do the same for you.

Think of this project as not fasting (giving up anything), but as choosing joy for 40 days. And why not?

 

 

 

Emily Dickinson & YOU

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This coming Saturday, I will be presenting my “Writing with Emily Dickinson” talk at the South Whatcom branch of the Whatcom Public Libraries. Here’s a link, and I very much hope that you can join us. (The address is 10 Barn View Court, Sudden Valley, Gate 2
Bellingham, WA 98229.)

Writing with Emily Dickinson

Bethany Reid is an award-winning poet, fascinated with 19th Century American authors, particularly Emily Dickinson. In this 90-minute workshop she will set her own poetry in the larger context of Dickinson’s, attempting to introduce Dickinson to those unfamiliar with her and to “estrange” the poet from those who think they already understand her. The workshop includes time for participants to write from a prompt and share their work. 

Date: Saturday, Feb 10, 2018
Time: 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Branch: South Whatcom

Your Next Writing Prompt

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I am a great lover of writer prompts, and I seem to have accumulated a dozen books of them. Books that I almost never open…

This year, however, I’ve had a major realization around writing prompts.

My realization began with my new little poetry project that builds on my old one-bad-poem practice. I was doing some reorganizing (an on-going process) and I happened to take down my 2007-2008 book of poem drafts. Early in my five years of writing one poem a day, I revised and re-revised and turned a good percentage of them into actual poems. But by 2008, the practice was beginning to fall apart.

Two thousand eight was the year my mother’s memory problems first came to our attention. In 2008 I was teaching full-time and (if I’m remembering right) I began teaching the very rewarding and very time-consuming Creative Nonfiction class (which changed my life). In 2008 my older daughters were teenagers — 14 and 14 — and though I am apparently in some denial about my year with them, I know from my younger daughter’s 14th year that it can be a roller coaster (she was only 8 years old in 2008, and a delight). In 2008 my dad’s health was slipping a bit and becoming a concern. In 2008 he told me that he thought he was going to have to sell his cows (which he never did, by the way). In 2008 I said yes to a big committee at my church.

So I was writing every day, but it’s really stretching it to call what I wrote a “poem.” It was more like a moment to stop and make an observation and jot down a few lines. In 2009-10 I completely lost it and stopped getting the poems typed up…which eventually led to calling it quits. But in 2008 I was still typing them up. And I’m so glad.

Here’s my realization in a nutshell; it isn’t original, and this isn’t the first time I’ve come across it, but it’s well worth repeating:

What you pay attention to, grows. 

Rereading a “poem” (or whatever it seems to be), writing it into my journal, retyping it, doesn’t take all that much time (and I’m very very forgiving if all I do is read it and make a note or two). But…

even when you haven’t much time — perhaps “especially” when — stopping for fifteen, or five, or ONE minute and paying attention to what you want to create more of will work magic.