Liz Shine's Blog, page 11

Yep. It’s a first draft, all right.

This week, I finished up another draft of a manuscript that is in nearing the publishing phase of the editing process, then finished a read-through of a first draft of a novel I’ll spend the summer revising. A pretty productive week! I had this moment after reading that first draft where I let loose an enormous, heavy sigh. That sigh was me letting go of all the delusions of grandeur I’d let mount over the months I’d spent writing. In fact, in spite of my highest of hopes, it was a true first draft, lacking so much of what I’d intended to be there, including some things I had intended, but that now seem like a pretty bad idea. I’m okay, though, I have a plan.

First, I’ll go through the book again, charting some notes on key scenes, details, conflicts, and motifs chapter by chapter. Then, I’ll write more before diving in and making changes to that first draft. I’ll write new scenes first before going in to delete and change what I already have. Then, I’ll begin weaving it all together into a second draft, hopefully, better than the first. This is how we do it. It’s not magic. It’s first inspiration, then persistence, discipline, and planning.

Tomorrow; however, is Friday, and with all this editing in my life right now, I’m aching for that first draft feeling where it’s all vision and flowing words, and damn, you’re good! So I’ve declared that as for my writing process, my Fridays are going to be something akin to casual Fridays and I will write new words, first drafts.

The post Yep. It’s a first draft, all right. appeared first on Make Time..

Learning from a confidence crash: Reflections from a writing retreat.

I started this blog as a way to keep myself writing. It was the same kind of desperate attempt to build good habits that causes people to talk their significants into doing dietary cleanses with them. I needed an audience, some accountability outside my insecure self. It wasn’t enough to just remind myself why I was writing, how I was writing, that I deserved to make time for writing. I needed to shout it out loud.

That’s still true, but over time it has become a creative work of its own. A voice has emerged, a voice I didn’t know I had. A voice strong, confident in the fact that she has something to say that’s worthy of being heard.

I’m in Ocean Shores on a writing retreat now. This is a place I know well. I’ve spent many hours with my cousins on the beach, the adults who brought us sheltered from the wind in the car we’d driven right onto the beach. Yesterday, I drove into town on my own to pick up a few things from the store, get gas, shop for some souvenirs. I went in to pay for the gas, began pumping, sat in the driver’s seat to wait for the tank to fill. That’s when it happened. My self dissipated. What was I doing here? Who was I kidding? What kind of fraud had I perpetrated, masquerading as a writer for over twenty years?

I’m mostly immune to these kinds of identity crises, though as a young writer they plagued me. You see, I’ve built good habits in getting up in the morning to write, keeping this blog, annotating every book I read. I love the work and I’m not so worried about who approves anymore. In the face of this unforeseen confidence crash, I parked my car at the IGA and went for a walk through town, breathing deep and consciously, feeling the straps of my backpack, each stride. I shook it off, remembered I don’t care about that shit anymore. I simply make time and do the work. Beginning my summer vacation with a writing intensive that includes my summer writing schedule (up at 5AM for a run, shower, then pour a cup of coffee and get to work) is likely the cause of the crisis (when you retreat for a week to write the pressure to get work done is great) and now that I’ve recovered, I’m glad I had that moment. Because when I had returned to my body and was breathing freely again, I felt immense gratitude, commitment to do the work, to stay in the room, focused on the goal or two I’ve set for the day.

The post Learning from a confidence crash: Reflections from a writing retreat. appeared first on Make Time..

How did the scene-a-day go?

I’ve been intending to write a reflection on the scene-a-day experience for days now, but this has been a difficult few weeks to make time to write even these few extra words beyond my morning writing sessions. One morning, last week, I sat staring at my computer screen sipping coffee and watching the clock move from 4:15 to 5:03 without writing a single word. My brain just couldn’t get whirring beyond the simplest thought, “Ah, coffee.” *sips “Ah, more coffee.” *sips again. It’s sort of surprising to me that I’m finding it difficult to make creative time especially since it’s been a month now since I decided to ditch my evening unwind with wine routine for a cleaner, clearer mind. And yet, it’s not all that surprising, I suppose, since it’s the end of the school year, a time when teachers get more than a little crazy worrying about how to get all the things done by the end of the year, planning their perfect summers in which somehow they are going to rewrite all their courses, take a vacation, read all the books, and make time for whatever art or hobbies you love. While I’m not complaining about having a summer vacation, there is stress that comes along with this annual routine annihilation.

But, I digress. Back to the scene-a-day. For those of you who haven’t been here, scroll back and look at my posts from May and you’ll get the drift. For the first 30 days of May, I posted a prompt for a scene a day, which I also attempted to write. I didn’t write every day, though I sincerely tried and I also brought my seniors in on the writing and they wrote some amazing scenes that they are now presenting and I am so, so proud of them. I didn’t write a single scene I felt particularly proud of, not one. Some were okay, but nothing really great. I did write approximately 5,000 words about a character I’ve been thinking about for a decade and who is the protagonist of a novel that is in the incubating stage right now. I did get to know that character a whole lot better and came to re-appreciate how writing throw away pages to get to know a character better, to warm up, is not a waste of time. Like doing burpees, it may be ugly, but you are becoming stronger.

The post How did the scene-a-day go? appeared first on Make Time..

The finale! Scene-a-day. Day 30. A theft. An unreliable narrator?

Final prompt! Tomorrow we take a look back and see what we see.

Review: Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My book group picked Citizen for the month of May. One unusually sunny April weekend day, I was bopping around Powell’s dreaming of leisurely summer reads when I came across Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (published in 2004) in the new books, used prices section. I noticed the subtitle is also “An American Lyric” and I thought, hmmm, I should read this one too and I should read it first. So, I did, and now I have less than a week to read the book we are actually discussing. This doesn’t worry me since I read Don’t Let Me Be Lonely in three days. I didn’t read it straight through, though. I would read a section, then close the book to catch my breathe before opening the book again to read more. The book is a co-mingling of words, images, and footnotes. I read them all together the first time through, then flipped back and looked at each separately. I got something different each time. The book begins like a simple diary, a recording of life events and that forms the backbone of the book, which dips into image, poem, spoken word, then back to diary. Rankine meditates on television violence, pharmaceuticals, depression, death, and history to show the consequences of fear: dark, pervasive loneliness. It is in the last pages where the book becomes most clearly metapoetic: “Sometimes you read something and a thought that was floating around in your veins reorganizes itself into the sentence that reflects it.” And this is the digression that saves you from being overcome by the dark truths in the book. Rankine writes, “In order from something to be handed over a hand must extend and a hand must receive. We must both be here in this world in this life in this place indicating the presence of.” Rankine suggests the possibility of art as perhaps not an antidote, but at least a respite to the pervasive loneliness that arises from the inevitability or death, especially in our modern world.

View all my reviews

The post Review: Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric appeared first on Make Time..

Scene-a-day. Three prompts for the weekend!

I’m headed out into the woods this weekend, so I’m posting three prompts in advance! I will post the last prompt Monday morning, at which time we can commence with bragging about our beauteous scenes, our impressive word counts, and our writing calluses. Let’s do this. *offers hand for a rallying cheer

 

Write a scene that takes place on an airplane.

 

Challenge: Include a rant.

 

Write a scene where the character can’t sleep- revisits old memory.

 

Challenge: Have a memory moment include a middle school dance.

 

Write a scene where the weather plays a prominent role.

 

Challenge: Focus on color.

The post Scene-a-day. Three prompts for the weekend! appeared first on Make Time..

Scene-a-day. Day 26. Exercising moment.

Write a scene where the main character and a secondary character have an exercising moment

 

Challenge: Have them be observed by someone meaningful or important to the story.

 

Photo credit. 

The post Scene-a-day. Day 26. Exercising moment. appeared first on Make Time..

Scene-a-day. Day 25. Scene that takes place in a school.

Write a scene that takes place at a school.

 

Challenge: Incorporate the following objects: a shoe, a note, and a fish.

The post Scene-a-day. Day 25. Scene that takes place in a school. appeared first on Make Time..

Scene-a-day. Day 24. Getting into trouble

Write a scene about getting into trouble.

 

Challenge: Make it funny.

 

Photo credit. 

The post Scene-a-day. Day 24. Getting into trouble appeared first on Make Time..

Scene-a-day. Day 23. Something falls apart.

Write a scene in which something falls apart.

 

Challenge: Evoke sadness or pity.

The post Scene-a-day. Day 23. Something falls apart. appeared first on Make Time..