Hello all and Congrats on the first 20 days of 50/50 writing, only one month left to go! I hope that by now you have a good-sized pile of first drafts, and that you have built some kind of daily writing practice.
Making It Easier
If you have been struggling with this class, the urge can sometimes be to get frustrated and to try and tighten your own expectations of how much you should be able to write everyday. Instead, try lowering the bar you set for yourself, until the practice of writing daily becomes very easy to do. For example, simply decide that you will write 14 lines (or sentences) per day in response to each exercise. If you are REALLY swamped for time, give yourself permission to write only 5 lines per day. Remember that even 5 lines per day can be the difference between Writing and Not Writing! Do whatever you can to make it easier and get something, anything on the page each day. Notes, fragments, memories, a single question, anything at all.
Ways to Share The Work
One of the best things about writing regularly is building a range of first draft texts that you might exchange with other writers, if you choose to. As you may have read in the Frequently Asked Questions, this blog will unfortunately not be a place to post the creative work that you are doing everyday. But sharing your work and getting some useful feedback can be an important part of your evolution as working writer. So I wanted to offer five possible ways you might share the work you will do during the class.
1. Print and Read the Work Yourself
As writers, we are constantly trying to practice the art of seeing our work clearly, without judgment, and this process begins by learning how to appreciate the pages we write. We have to learn how to see the strengths and weaknesses in our own work, which requires some intentionality. So if you are used to writing a page of text, scanning it once and then closing the document or journal and heading off into the next part of your day, consider a change in plan. Try to experience your daily text as a READER as well as the writer. There are lots of ways you can do this; for example, when you are done writing your text, print out a copy and go tuck it between the pages of the book you usually read before you go to sleep at night. Or, when you are finished writing for the day, email the document to yourself, so that when you load your new messages tomorrow morning, it will be there in your In Box, waiting to be read. I even know some writer’s who read their daily work out loud, so as to hear its possibilities more clearly. These are all simple methods that allow you to stand, if briefly, in your reader’s shoes, to discover your own text at a different time of the day, in an unexpected moment.
The goal here is not to fall in love with your own work, or to judge it or edit it endlessly, its simple to build an appreciation for the fact that you WORKED as a writer today, and to start becoming familiar with your own voice and style on the page. This familiarity is what we have to build in order to see clearly what needs to be done to strengthen a text. If you can’t SEE it, you can’t make it BETTER. Give it a try!
2. Set up a Peer Writing Partnership
There is nothing as useful to working writers as having good company. Building a community of writers usually starts with two folks deciding to trust one another and make a bit of time to share their work. There are lots of ways to set up a Peer Writing Partnership, here are two:
On-Line Writing Partnerships
If you choose to work with someone on-line, then contact a friend who you know to be a creative writer, and invite them to join you. Set a schedule that works for both of you. You may want someone to read your work daily, but your friend may only have time to read and send you work once a week. The key with any writing partnership or group is to make an “Equal Exchange”. This means that you two find a schedule that works for both of you and, most importantly, that you exchange an equal number of pages. It doesn’t matter if your friend is working on a Sci Fi novel and you are working on a series of Haiku. If you send them 3 poems each week, then they can excerpt 3 pages out of their novel to send to you. The first goal in a writing Partnership is to read and get to know one another’s work. As you become more familiar with one another, feel free to ask Author Questions, specific questions about your own work. General questions (“Is this interesting at all?”) are NOT as useful as specific ones (“Does the title sound too sinister?” or “Does the character of the little boy seem realistic to you?”) . Stay away from the “ILLEGAL” question, which is ANY version of “Does this suck?” It is the writer’s job to answer that, not the Reader. No one can assign core value to your work but YOU.
In-Person Writing Partnerships
It’s always more fun to sit down with a friend, exchange work, read to one another, discuss what the possibilities are, and then do a bit of writing together. So find a friend who lives near you, make an Equal Exchange of text and time, and jump in! Knowing how busy you both probably are, shoot for meeting for at least 1 hour once a week, in a quiet place that is convenient for both of you. You can email each other your text beforehand, so that you won’t have to take time in person to do your reading, although some folks love to hear the work out loud.
3. Set up a Peer Writing Group
Maybe you have two or more friends, who are as interested in writing as you are. Choose a convenient place and a time, and keep the text exchange equal and mutual. Remember, the fact that you all may be writing in different genres doesn’t matter. Sometimes poets prefer the company and attention of other poets, or novelists prefer to work on text with other novelists, but what matters most is finding a safe, comfortable and intelligent working group of writers who like to eat and laugh as much as they like to give feedback.
When giving feedback remember that your OPINION is not as useful as your attention and your creativity. Instead of telling the author what you “loved” or “hated” tell them what you noticed and where you got lost. Give specific examples and make specific suggestions of things they might try in the next draft. As an author, get in the habit of asking Author Questions, specific questions about your own work. Listen to the responses you get and incorporate the suggestions if they are useful to you. And stay FAR away from anyone who believes that being mean, cruel or manipulative is “helpful” to you as a writer. If you wouldn’t trust them with your kid, don’t trust them with the first draft of your text.
4. Start your own Blog
If you are looking for a place to post your daily writing so that friends and fans can see what you are up to, you might want to consider starting your own blog. There are lots of free blog sites, including; blogger.com, blog.com, livejournal.com and others. Since you may already have set up a google account in order to add comments to this blog, go to blogger.com and explore.
There are a few things to keep in mind when blogging; remember to check the “settings” on your blog, so that you can choose who should have access to it. Be wary of allowing “anonymous” comments on your blog, and be aware that even if you restrict access to users you know, it is NEVER possible to totally restrict content that is posted on a blog. So don’t load up your whole novel if you are worried about copyright infringement. That said, if you DO start a blog of your writing, send me and email and tell me how it goes!
5. Work with a Writing Coach
It may be useful for you to take a local or on-line creative writing class, or start your own writer’s group. But if you are looking for someone to work with one-on-one to read and evaluate your text, and to help you figure out what steps are next for you as a writer, you may want to work privately with a Writing Coach. There are a lot of folks who do this work, and (of course) a lot of scam artists as well. Be wary of anyone who is not themselves a working writer and editor, and be VERY wary of anyone who promises or “guarantees” that they will get you published. Local colleges and universities sometimes have faculty members who teach creative writing and work as Writing Coaches in their spare time, and some Content Editors or Copy Editors do this kind of work as well. Find someone you can afford, who treats both you and your work respectfully, and communicates with integrity, honesty and skillfulness. If I can be a resource in helping you find someone who is right for you, just let me know.
Optional Follow-up Meeting With Max
This semester, at the request of a few students who also took the 50/50 class last time, I have set up an optional follow-up meeting, that you can register for if you are interested. This option is very simple: After the class is over on October 20th, you would choose 10-15 pages of work that you wrote over the 50/50 class and send that work to me via email, attached as a Word document. In your email to me, write any specific Author Questions or concerns that you have about the work. I will print out your work, read it through, and make some detailed notes. Then we schedule an hour long phone session in which we will discuss the work and what the next steps might be. The usual rate for this process in regular one-on-one coaching sessions is $75 but for this class I have waived the reading fee and lowered the hourly rate to $50. If you are interested in this option, please just drop me an email and let me know.
(For more information on the on-going work I do as a Writing Coach, you can check out: http://www.hollowdeckpress.com/coach.html)
Whichever method you choose for sharing your work with others, the goal should be to begin to step forward and take yourself more seriously as a writer. Cultivate writing friends and partners who speak clearly, skillfully and honestly, and who make you laugh! Find some concrete ways to become a little less isolated as a working writer, and let these 50 days of writing become the first step in moving your work and your voice out into the world.
Keep it going!
and be well,
Max
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