A Few Writing Resources for the Restless Writer

Crows on the Mind: A Self Portrait (2017)

I have been cutting my heart out the last year writing a memoir, that I suspect now will become a trilogy.  I have the first book written and have tucked it away as I write the second. The third is nothing more than good hope. 

Each section written, requires rest. My resting moments where I distance myself from the stories I am telling are often ones where I am reading.  In 2013 I wrote a post listing important texts that have aided me as a writer and thinker.  In this post, I update that list, citing works I recently found compelling. Here's a link to the 2013 post.

A Few Books that Help Me to Consider How Place Shapes a Person

Bachelard, Gaston. (2014). The Poetics of Space. New York: Penguin.

Basho. (1996). Back Roads to Far Towns. New York: Ecco.

Biss, Eula. (2009). Notes from No Man’s Land.  St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press.

De Botton, Alain. (2008). The Architecture of Happiness. New York: Vintage.

Ehrlich, Gretel. (1986). The Solace of Open Spaces. New York: Penguin.

Lopez, Barry. (1989). Crossing Open  Ground. New York: Vintage.

Norris, Kathleen. (2001). Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Oliver, Mary. (2016). Upstream: Selected Essays. New York: Penguin.

Stenger, Wallace. (1987). The American West as Living Space.  University of Michigan Press.

A Few Books That Inspire Me to Look Closely (Really this list is arbitrary.  Perhaps substitute with those texts you cannot help but put down/pick up/put down/pick up/Turn towards and away... and so on)

Currey, Mason, (2013). Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. New York: Borzoi Book.

Danticat, Edwidge. (2017). The Art Of Death: Writing the Final Story. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press. 

Didion, Joan. (2006). The Year of Magical Thinking. New York: Vintage.

Doré, Garance. (2015). Love Style Life. New York: Spiegel & Grau.

Li, Yiyun. (2017). Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. New York: Random House.

Solnit, Rebecca. (2014). The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness. San Antonio, TXL: Trinity University Press.

A Few Books To Tune Your Ears and Call You to Play

Rushdie, Salman. (1991). Haroun and the Sea of Stories. New York: Granta Books.

A Few Books To Strengthen Your Own Art as Writer

Casey, Maud. (2018). The Art of Mystery: The Search for Questions. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press. 

Clark, Roy Peter. (2008). Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer. New York: Little Brown.

Doty, Mark. (2010). The Art of Description. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press. 

Gardner, John. (1979). On Moral Fiction. New York: Basic Books.

Klinkenborg, Verlyn. (2013). Several Short Sentences About Writing. New York: Vintage.

Lopate, Philip. (2013). To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction. New York: Free Press.

Maran, Meredith. (2016). Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why TheyExpose Themselves (And Others) in the Name of Literature. New York: Plume.

Smith, Marion Roach. (2011). The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing& Life. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

Woolf, Virginia. (1985). “A  Sketch of the Past” in Moments of Being. New york: Mariner Books.

A Few Books To Complicate Your Teaching Practices

Latta, Margharet Macintyre. (2013). Curricular Conversations: Play is the (Missing) Thing. New York: Routledge.
Newkirk, Tom. (2017). "Telling a Better Story about Writing." Embarrassment: And the Emotional Underlife of Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

#SOL17: Courage and the Writing Group

self portrait with iphone (Paris, 2016)

I. 

Tonight I will be attending my weekly writer's group and for the first time we will be discussing work I produced. The majority of writers in the group write fiction. Only one other is writing memoir, like me. Last week we met in the bathroom and each confessed a bad case of nerves. 

It's so revealing, I said. There's no place to hide.
I know, she added.  

It's a sizable group--usually about a dozen people. Each week, two works are discussed and everyone around the table says something, often with sharp details about the work, and at the end of the session, the author is given the written comments from each group member.  I have learned a lot the last month listening to others critique work I have read too.  We read differently and there is something rather grand about that. This insight reminds me that we ought to acknowledge and celebrate different interpretations and noticings at school instead of requiring/expecting/celebrating the more homogenous reading of texts.

II.

Since I submitted my work, last week, I have been imagining various responses of those who have read the 15 pages. My worst fears are these:

Stop writing. Just stop.
You shouldn't try to write anymore.
What you have written simply isn't good enough.
It's too depressing.
Can't you write something more cheerful?
What was the point of this?
I was bored reading this.

Now, in my heart I don't think anyone will say this directly, but I do wonder if some might think some of this. What I do think is possible, as I have thought it too, is that some may say that the work meanders and a reader might grow impatient and wonder, what exactly do you want me to feel here? And the answer is that I don't know exactly.  I am one of those who writes to discover.  I am writing a memoir that chronicles Rob's death and the aftermath that comes with living, being a widow, and being a single parent of a high schooler.  Such change.

Crafting a memoir requires me to think about the through lines in the work. What do I need to tug and make more explicit at a structural level? Thematic level?  Figurative level? To help, I am blocking out chunks of time within the narrative and telling the stories that surface and then I will go back to refine the work by asking:

What truths emerge across the pages and across the months? How can I code this?
Are there motifs present in the work? If so, what?
What metaphors are at work? Are any extended?
What lessons seem more important, than merely interesting?
What remains ambivalent? Is that a strength?
What is repetitive and does the repetition advance or likely cause a reader to stumble, lose interest?
How does the mix of prose-poetry style work? Is it coherent? Is art work needed or not?
How does the writing look on the page?
Is the work brave?
Do I feel this? How raw is too raw?
Is there redemption?  Is that necessary?
What surprises me--catches me unaware?
Have I lost my way?

There's much to consider. For now though, I am seeing this sharing of work as courageous.  It's been a year of being courageous. Perhaps that is one of the through lines.

I'll let you know how it went.