The Unsinkable Priscilla Long

/3 Comments/in , , , , /by

If you have been my student or talked about writing with me, then you probably already know that Priscilla Long, author of The Writer’s Portable Mentor and other books, has been my friend for 30 years.

We met while I was studying for my MFA in poetry at the University of Washington and Priscilla, for her fiction MFA. Or, she was supposed to be studying fiction. After taking a workshop with Colleen McElroy, we decided to exchange poetry manuscripts, and we began meeting for dinner almost every week to rework and deepen our poems.

At our table at the old College Inn in the university district, I confessed to Priscilla my very un-feminist craving for a baby and she told me, “For heaven’s sake! If you want a baby, have a baby! Don’t blame feminism!”

When my twins were a year old and I stalled on my Ph.D. dissertation, Priscilla saved me. “Send me seven pages! They can be terrible! Even with two babies you can write seven terrible pages!” She coaxed that dissertation out of me, never rewriting a single sentence, always telling me, “Of course you can do it!”

So, for those reasons and many others, I am very pleased to direct you to this bio, newly posted at History Link, the free on-line encyclopedia of Washington state history.

https://www.historylink.org/File/20845

More from the fabulous Lauren Sapala

/0 Comments/in , , /by

After attending the Pacific Northwest Writers Association conference this past week — riding high on a wave of energy from great classes, rubbing elbows with all sorts of eager writers, and being invited to submit my mystery novel to one agency and two small publishers — I’ve come home to get to work on the final (one hopes) revision … only to (inevitably) crash.

Part of this, I know, is not about my book at all. It’s about being elbow-to-elbow for four days with a gazillion other people and faking being extroverted and friendly. I can do it. (I like to think I’m actually rather good at being with people.) But it wears me out and makes me want to spend about a month hibernating with a book — not my own, but maybe a stack of Kate Atkinson or Henning Mankell mysteries.

I really don’t have time for that, not when I promised to submit my mystery sometime in the next three weeks!

Just in time to pick me up, dry me off, and get me moving again in the right direction on my own writing, this morning I found an email in my in-box from the fabulous Lauren Sapala, announcing her new book, The INFJ Revolution: Reclaim Your Power, Live Your Purpose, Heal the World. 

Lauren is the author of one of my favorite writing books, The INFJ Writer, a book I read for the third (or fourth?) time only this summer. Her new book promises to help me “grapple with anxiety, shame, self-doubt, low self-esteem and feeling like an alien … in a world that clashes with [my] deepest values and most deeply held ideals.” Why do I wake at 4 a.m., feeling like a fraud, feeling I was crazy to ever imagine I could write a novel, feeling that I really should just go back to my corner and scribble in my journal and not ever expect anyone to read what I write? Why do I keep beating my head against this particular wall of wanting-to-be-a-novelist?

I don’t know why, but sometimes it helps to be with someone who understands. So, Lauren to the rescue.

(In the interest of full-disclosure, I took the Myers-Briggs while in college, but don’t remember the results; according to 16 Personalities, I’m an INFP-T).

I immediately ordered my copy of The INFJ Revolution. Her books are available only on Kindle or as Kindle paperbacks — I recommend getting the paper version, so you can mark them up and reread until they’re tattered. And then,  I hope you write!

17 Ways to Break Back into Your Writing Project

/3 Comments/in , /by

For most of this year, and obsessively this summer since coming home from France, I’ve been working on my mystery novel. But summers have not, historically, been my best time for getting work done.

Summers are usually my time for letting work lie fallow. Summers are for hanging out with my kids. Summers are for family trips and family reunions. Summers are for swimming in really cold water. Summers are for campfires and marshmallows flaming at the end of pointy sticks.

Then, every year, inevitably, summer begins to draw to an end. Lately a few of my friends have remarked on their sense of fall already in the air, but this morning was the first morning I really noticed it for myself. It wasn’t raining this morning, the sky was blue. But there was a nip in the air. I turned on the heater in my cabin (just for a minute!) before I settled down to write. On my forest walk, I picked up a scarlet leaf.

This year is also, I remarked to my husband, the first late summer of many (since 1998!) that we have not been sending one of our own children off to school. No new paper or pens, no new backbacks, no pleading (from already fully kitted-out daughters) for “new school clothes.”

Maybe you’re the sort of person who greedily jumps straight back into a writing project, without hesitation. But if you, like me, have some difficulty re-entering a project (for me, it’s more like having to carve my own battering ram and then break down the door), here are 17 suggestions:

  1. Remember how you felt as a little kid, getting new school supplies? Remember how eager you were to use them? Take yourself school shopping and buy a new notebook and pen. Don’t do anything with them the first day! (Remember your mother telling you that you couldn’t use them until school started? Remember how eager that made you–or am I just weird?)
  2. The first day back–don’t “write,” just list details, images, or issues that you want to include in your writing project. (List 20 or more!)
  3. Write a list in which each line begins with I could write about ….
  4. Try listing what you will definitely NOT write about.
  5. Tell yourself that you’re NOT going back to your writing project, that this is just an experiment. Just play.
  6. Put a foil star or draw a fat red star or some other symbol on your calendar for every day you work. Hang this up where you can see it from your writing desk. Think of putting the star up as a reward for having written.
  7. Speaking of “play,” think of a beginning pianist practicing scales or simple songs (interesting that we “play” music, but don’t think of writing, usually, as play). Try writing out someone else’s poem or paragraph, just for practice. “Play” on the page.
  8. Draw a picture or a map of what you want to write.
  9. Set a timer–timers make great, non-judgmental bosses. At least for me, when I set a timer, I seem to click “off” that part of my brain that throws up a lot of resistance.
  10. Keep the timed writings short–no more than 15 minutes, but as little as 5 (or even ONE) if you’re having a lot of difficulty.
  11. Robert Maurer in One Small Step suggests simply holding the journal on your lap for a minute. I haven’t had to resort to this, but I think it would work in extreme cases. Just hold your notebook or your laptop for a while, as if holding yourself or whatever that small part of yourself is that is having difficulty getting started. Don’t deny it.
  12. Write an email to someone very very good at encouraging you. In this email, describe your project. (You don’t have to send the email.)
  13. Imagine writing the whole thing in one line per day, for instance on Twitter.
  14. Skip the opening line. Go straight to the second, or even later. (You can write the first line later.)
  15. Write an acknowledgments page. Thank all the people who will help you with this project, all the people who are waiting eagerly for it.
  16. Write something–even if only a few lines, or for a few minutes–every day, even weekends or holidays, for 3 days straight. Or 40 days. (Don’t forget your star!)
  17. Write the dedication to appear at the beginning of your writing project. This is for my mother, who read all of Agatha Christie, at least twice. 

I’d love to read it!

Should I, should I not?

/2 Comments/in /by

I am challenging myself to create a small, private class this fall. I promised myself that I would begin planning it this week.

When I wanted to learn to play the piano, I bought a “teach yourself” book–but after the first time sitting down with it, I…basically…never again opened it. I needed a teacher, and that wise move was what helped me to create a practice that transformed forty years of avoiding the piano (I had lessons as a child), into being able to sit down and play without angst and with pleasure. I may never be a concert pianist (mad laughter here), but I play every day and consider it part of my spiritual practice. Worth it.

If you follow my blog, I’m guessing that there is something you’d like to write. (If you’re writing it, then carry on!) This class could be a wise step in your journey. And no matter where you find yourself–conceptualizing, constructing, completing–it would be a privilege to help you make forward progress.

I’m thinking that it will be 5 90-minute sessions, on Thursday evenings– beginning September 26. (Though nothing, as yet, is certain.)

If it sounds interesting, please drop me a line.

Bethany

p.s. Don’t forget my reading at Elliott Bay Books — coming up August 16!