Ask the Author: Sandra Rodriguez Barron
Answered Questions (3)
Sandra Rodriguez Barron
1. Free yourself from ego & expectations for several years. Give yourself time to play, grow, learn, make mistakes and breathe. Trying to force your creative spirit to perform right away is like expecting your child to behave like a little adult. It's almost abusive. Your muse will rebel and hate you and torture you. Don't do it.
2. Be very specific about your reading list. If you have an idea about a theme or style of writing, read everything there is in that category. Then read interviews or biographies about those writers and find out who they were influenced by (there is always a trail of DNA to all art) and read those books too.
3. I think every fiction writer should read poetry. Not formally, just scan anthologies or journals for bright bits of language that you could imitate in your prose. It will make all the difference because most commercial writers don't do this.
4. Find ways to believe in yourself. I don't mean that your should surround yourself with friends who will tell you what you want to hear. I mean work hard, make progress and earn respect from the inside. Just like athletics, creative work requires stamina and perseverance and focus. No one can tell you that you're a good golfer or skier or runner and have it be true just because they said it. You either build up a skill or you don't.
5. Learn to emotionally detach from your work. It takes years to read your own work with a sharp, merciless eye. I recommend carefully chosen critique groups as training to become your own editor, reader, critic. It's somewhat schizophrenicto be the playful wild child (the creative) and the scissor-wielding editor. This multi-tasking is so difficult for all writers, but it's the greatest challenge of the beginner. You gain maturity in your personal life by falling and getting up. Same goes for your identity as a writer.
6. Connect. This would be a trite statement if I was talking about social media. Everyone knows it's important to interact online to get our work out there. It is essential to get out of our writerly, academic, or personal bubble of isolation and connect with the world. Do volunteer work for a cause or social issue that matters to you. Talk (and listen) to children, to old people, to your relatives, to random people you encounter, especially people who are not like you. Keep your ear to the ground, listen to the pulse of humanity, because that's where powerful stories come from. Make sure you're getting your inspiration from real life, not from artifice. You can turn to other books or films for structure and guidance, but make sure that the spark of life is coming from the real world. Don't beat yourself up for not writing if what you were doing instead can be called fully living. Writing and life go hand in hand.
7. Trust the thoughts you have in the shower. When you're alone and naked and the hot water is melting your neck tension and you are hidden behind a curtain from the world, your thoughts are also free to run around naked. Whatever menagerie of images and emotions make an appearance in this safe space are your primary concerns in life and your writing should stem from your emotional core. Same goes for images and ideas and feelings you experiences when you are doing other things than writing. Movement is a great generator of creativity.
2. Be very specific about your reading list. If you have an idea about a theme or style of writing, read everything there is in that category. Then read interviews or biographies about those writers and find out who they were influenced by (there is always a trail of DNA to all art) and read those books too.
3. I think every fiction writer should read poetry. Not formally, just scan anthologies or journals for bright bits of language that you could imitate in your prose. It will make all the difference because most commercial writers don't do this.
4. Find ways to believe in yourself. I don't mean that your should surround yourself with friends who will tell you what you want to hear. I mean work hard, make progress and earn respect from the inside. Just like athletics, creative work requires stamina and perseverance and focus. No one can tell you that you're a good golfer or skier or runner and have it be true just because they said it. You either build up a skill or you don't.
5. Learn to emotionally detach from your work. It takes years to read your own work with a sharp, merciless eye. I recommend carefully chosen critique groups as training to become your own editor, reader, critic. It's somewhat schizophrenicto be the playful wild child (the creative) and the scissor-wielding editor. This multi-tasking is so difficult for all writers, but it's the greatest challenge of the beginner. You gain maturity in your personal life by falling and getting up. Same goes for your identity as a writer.
6. Connect. This would be a trite statement if I was talking about social media. Everyone knows it's important to interact online to get our work out there. It is essential to get out of our writerly, academic, or personal bubble of isolation and connect with the world. Do volunteer work for a cause or social issue that matters to you. Talk (and listen) to children, to old people, to your relatives, to random people you encounter, especially people who are not like you. Keep your ear to the ground, listen to the pulse of humanity, because that's where powerful stories come from. Make sure you're getting your inspiration from real life, not from artifice. You can turn to other books or films for structure and guidance, but make sure that the spark of life is coming from the real world. Don't beat yourself up for not writing if what you were doing instead can be called fully living. Writing and life go hand in hand.
7. Trust the thoughts you have in the shower. When you're alone and naked and the hot water is melting your neck tension and you are hidden behind a curtain from the world, your thoughts are also free to run around naked. Whatever menagerie of images and emotions make an appearance in this safe space are your primary concerns in life and your writing should stem from your emotional core. Same goes for images and ideas and feelings you experiences when you are doing other things than writing. Movement is a great generator of creativity.
Sandra Rodriguez Barron
1. Sleep. If you write about what matters to you, your demons will feel "heard" and they'll leave you alone at night. Talking to others is one way to process life, of course, but there are things you just aren't ready to share. Journaling or fictionalizing our emotions is a way to express it, process it, and perhaps even synthesize it into art. If we keep it all inside, we find we can't sleep and that can snowball to expressing this pain in destructive ways. Writing allows us to let out the steam slowly and steadily. I think everyone should journal, whether or not they want to write for the public.
2. Empathy. The writer is a lot like the actor in that she has to slip into the body and mind of another; to inhabit worlds in which she herself does not exist. I think this is why many writers are also involved in social causes. The act of writing engages the heart and mind with the outside world and squeezes out the selfish part. To write a good story you have to care about people, to notice how they behave, and to try to figure out why.
3. Community. Writing brings with it the opportunity to meet other like-minded people. From writers' critique circles to people you meet at conferences, people you learn from or teach, to readers who reach out on social media with their comments, each step in the life of a book brings new opportunities to meet writers and readers. You can't beat that feeling of being with kindred spirits!
2. Empathy. The writer is a lot like the actor in that she has to slip into the body and mind of another; to inhabit worlds in which she herself does not exist. I think this is why many writers are also involved in social causes. The act of writing engages the heart and mind with the outside world and squeezes out the selfish part. To write a good story you have to care about people, to notice how they behave, and to try to figure out why.
3. Community. Writing brings with it the opportunity to meet other like-minded people. From writers' critique circles to people you meet at conferences, people you learn from or teach, to readers who reach out on social media with their comments, each step in the life of a book brings new opportunities to meet writers and readers. You can't beat that feeling of being with kindred spirits!
Sandra Rodriguez Barron
I've kept a journal since I was ten. I double back to these scribblings--the recent and the older material--and it always launches me into a writing flow within minutes. I think of writing as somewhat like the process of garment-making in ancient times, back when people had to grow the cotton or spin the silk or yarn first. You design this garment based on what you know about its texture, weight, color, etc. but you shouldn't rush to impose structure or "meaning" on something that is tender and nascent. Let it rest, let it breathe. Put it away for at least two days. I think it's that self-imposed pressure to create a finished product--lickety-split-- that causes the paralyzing stress of writer's block. I write what trickles out from within, rather than trying to force my own mind. Even in middle school now they teach the importance of pre-writing, of collecting "inventory" of thoughts long before before you actually sit down to write. This wasn't taught when I was a kid and I had to figure it out on my own.
I read a lot, and the stories, ideas, and artistry of other writers often launches me into my own flow, as if I were in conversation with them. The other thing to remember is that writers are collectors, so I gather ideas (non-fiction articles, news clips, research, poetry, etc) that resonate with, support, or augment my own themes and let it get all mixed up in the compost pile of my imagination so that it will sprout into something new. Additionally, I take notes on the process of writing and creating as I go. That way, I'm creating inventory for essays, articles, or blog posts about craft.
I read a lot, and the stories, ideas, and artistry of other writers often launches me into my own flow, as if I were in conversation with them. The other thing to remember is that writers are collectors, so I gather ideas (non-fiction articles, news clips, research, poetry, etc) that resonate with, support, or augment my own themes and let it get all mixed up in the compost pile of my imagination so that it will sprout into something new. Additionally, I take notes on the process of writing and creating as I go. That way, I'm creating inventory for essays, articles, or blog posts about craft.
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