Liz Shine's Blog, page 3
April 22, 2023
Poem-a-day Week 3
Had some struggles this week. No prompts were speaking to me. Not a whole lot of breathing room, let alone poem-writing room in a day. Quite a few responsibilities came to bear their full weight. It wasn’t easy, but I got it done and I’m now moving on the Week 3 looking at that light at the end of the tunnel and running for it with my arms up high and a big-ass grin on my face. It’s not too late to join me in writing a poem-a-day this April.
Here are some places you can get prompts:
Day 15
Staff Yoga Class with Sam
I invited the entire staff
FREE yoga, I cried!
Once my student, now my peer,
you arrived ready to teach.
Though it was time,
no one arrived,
so we sat on our mats
face to face, chatting. We were both
nervous–me, because as my idea
I’d imagined it grand and well-attended.
We would both teach–you one class,
me another. Teachers would set down their ungraded papers,
flock to staff yoga. We were both nervous–
You, because this was your day to teach,
and teaching is still new to you.
There was a moment before someone finally arrived
when I saw our selves like mirrors, each reflecting back to the other.
I saw your earnest smile, the joy behind your eyes.
In that moment, nervousness fled, and I felt
quite suddenly so happy to be so vulnerable and there.
Day 16
“Suffering maims” –Victor Pelerin
About suffering they were never wrong, he wrote.
The human condition.
And yet–no mud, no lotus–
it is true.
When I consider the spectrum of suffering,
I feel deeply grateful that I’ve
endured just enough to have deep roots in the soil,
a tough outer bark,
adornments (leaves) that thrive
and shimmer in the breeze.
Day 17
Prompt: Write a haiku
Leave-cups
Raindrops collect
on the cups of leaves–reserve.
Intelligent nature.
Day 18
Prompt: Write a love poem
It’s easy to lie,
say you’ve entered a new phase–
a more settled, mature phase
no longer achingly desperate,
no longer prioritizing desire over
risk of exposure or embarassment.
It’s easy to lie here,
reading our books in silence,
say this is all I need,
this isn’t boredom
or a failure of communication–
it’s just this age, this phase–
which is sometimes true,
but not always
and it isn’t always easy
to find the language at those times–I need
a codeword. Fire!, perhaps. Or–
hand.
Day 19
Sour
A bit of an acquired taste, I suppose.
Small children tend to hate it.
Perhaps the tongue gets bored,
begins to want something shocking,
pucker-worthy.
Fierce and bright.
Something with equal parts
danger and delight.
Day 20
Maya
We call you bullet.
Fast like a bullet,
but with bounce and grace.
You’re slower these days,
not so bad for an old lady though. Old lady,
who loves
napping in sunbeams
hiding under blankets
walks that happen on time
not stepping out into the rain
silence, kisses, and carpets.
Day 21
Prompt: Write a poem using these six words: bow, lean, park, saw, tear, wound
In upward-bow, I lean,
rock like a saw,
then park on my belly.
Sometimes through a tear in my armor,
a wound escapes and breathes with me a while–
heart open–fearce–about to break,
I heal.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time:
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
April 15, 2023
Poem.A.Day. Week 2, plus an update on making time
I know, I know. It’s a little crazy to be trying to write one poem a day for the entire month of April, especially when these last few months have been some of the most challenging I’ve seen in years for making time. In the past three months, I’ve had one weekend that wasn’t full of obligations on my time. I’ve got three fiction projects sweetly simmering and begging for attention. But. It’s April. It’s been more than fifteen years since I didn’t make an attempt at poem-a-day. Why?
It brings me joy. It provides a low-stakes opportunity to play with language, form, and concepts. It leads to an entire month spent doing what poetry does best: shining a light on the wonders of our lives, packaging those wonders in a short, concentrated form that can be taken in a short burst of concentration.
Here are the seven poems I wrote last week. Onward to week 3!
Day 8.
“But I was so sad that evening: I understand—as I have understood at different points in my life—that the childhood isolation of fear and loneliness would never leave me. My childhood had been a lockdown.” Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea
Sometimes for a long time, I forget,
and then I’ll freeze at the sight of her standing there,
just outside the door,
her hands tucked inside long sleeves, downcast eyes,
the me before me.
But, lately, I’ve been inviting her
to meditate with me at my imagined place
on the grass watching the still pond,
wondering at how the wind ripples the surface.
She just showed up one day,
sat down beside me, leaned in.
I put my arm around her shoulders,
whispered so glad you’re here.
Then the light broke through the clouds,
sent a shimmer across the surface.
Day 9.
“Toward the end of July, I had a massive panic attack, and as a result, many things in my life changed; huge changes were made.” Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea
Be grateful, she said,
as she coaxed us out of savasana
at the end of a practice
that brought me to the edge of possible.
Be grateful, for everything
that has brought you to this moment.
And I thought of how I’d gone to the emergency room,
my roadrunner heart in midair
not just one time, and doesn’t count
the times I decided to die alone.
I thought of how desperation brought me
to the yoga mat, where I began to heal.
Day 10.
“However, as each doll is placed inside a larger doll, over time the light of the innermost doll is forgotten. If you see the entire set of dolls put together, from the outside, you see only one doll—the outer shell. It’s easy to forget but you are so much more than just what you see, that you are the light and that light is radiance, truth, and beauty.” Tracee Stanley, Radiant Rest
A person inside
a person
inside a person—
Russian dolls—
faces to meet the faces.
Inside, a gem
that’s polished up,
ready to shine.
Day 11.
“I know how to work. Rest requires devotion and practice on my part.” Tracee Stanley, Radiant Rest
It’s difficult to unlearn
when you’ve elbow-greased it
for epochs, and entire relationships
rest on the foundation of our doing,
and it is the stuff you’ve made you’ve made
your potluck offerings of since you learned to make rice.
There is so much patterning to unwind
and so many reasons
to recline in this hammock
counting stars to fall asleep.
Day 12.
“Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by.” –Elizabeth Bishop
I’d like to apologize
to ever Monday I ever shunned,
every day I clock watched my way through
every cloudy sky I didn’t admire.
Hello, sweet sadness.
Let’s sit a while, see if
we can understand each other.
I want to be so angry
the dishes in the cupboard clatter.
I want to let my grief stay long enough
to say all she needs to say,
stay a while in silence.
I’ve wasted too much time
already waiting for the wanderer, happiness.
Day 13.
Prompt: Write a forgive poem.
Come hither, love.
Let me place my hands
where you are holding on
to fear or doubt or hurt or anger.
Give me all the weight.
Let it go.
Yes, even the weight of
my words
my action
my inaction
my misjudgment
misidentification
my limited human imagination.
Forgive me,
I can be so small and unkind.
Day 14.
Prompt: And now for something completely different.
Bee-watching.
Olives on fingers!
Rock-skipping.
Echo making.
Dahlia viewing.
Ocean breathing.
Mmmmmmmm.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time:
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
April 7, 2023
Poetry month is here! Who is doing the Poem-a-day challenge?
Every year for more than a decade, I’ve been doing the poem-a-day challenge in April. This year is no exception! Will you join me? Share your poems to keep me inspired along the way?
I’ll be posting here by the week, which means I’ll have to save this post in draft and get caught up from the past three days before I publish this post. Do you see that little extra motivation I stacked up for myself? Haha.
I know that a poem a day might seem like a lot, but it doesn’t have to be. I set a timer and give it my best shot. What I write is what I write. I figure if I get at least a few gems by the end of the month, it’s been worth it to me. Most importantly, it’s an opportunity to play with words in a focused, concentrated way.
In the past, I’ve often used prompts, and there are many websites that offer them. I’ll post a few below. This year, I’m trying something different. It came to me when reading Awakening Artemis a few days ago. I came across a quote that rapped so insistently on the door of my heart that I had to use it, so I did. I enjoyed that process so much that I decided to spend this month collecting quotes from what I read to use as the basis for my poems.
Here are some places you can get prompts:
Here are my poems so far:
Day 1
Sunrise Breakfast at the Yoga Retreat
Woke vulnerable,
reliant on someone else’s schedule,
the fact that someone else
would pour hot water through coffee grounds
so that I could hold that assurance
between two quivering palms.
A plant on the path—
a circle of fronds
in the center a pool of water collected,
a pond where tiny lavender flowers
dared to bloom.
Day 2
Prayer
The clock that is a year ticks toward fifty,
and I release the intense level of care around time
we cultivate when still trying to earn worth
in the adult world.
How many years was I a mother before I felt like one?
How many years a teacher before I believed I had anything in me worth learning?
How many years before I felt like a person worthy of grace in the world?
I see now that belonging is a given
but not a guarantee.
May I keep my hands in dirt,
keep my hands on the keyboard,
keep my hands around our children who are now
trying to earn their worth in the so-called adult world.
May I cultivate grace.
May I cultivate beauty.
May I cultivate a warrior spirit–theirs and mine.
Letting the foundation be there,
in the confident stance,
the resilience and flexibility of breath.
May I be bold enough to love,
in spite of the tendency to see the blemish before the bloom.
Day 3
Sores
Similar to scars,
only temporary.
Like this cold sore
acquired from an early boyfriend,
that sometimes comes out,
never at a convenient time.
A sign of contagion,
our eyes see,
then turn away.
Day 4
“When I listen to my hunger, the wildflowers of my passion and focus can break through pavement to guide me into light.” –Vanessa Chakour, Awakening Artemis
Hunger
I went to the kitchen
with a mission from God
as I understand them,
reflected in a wildflower,
a Whitman poem.
I ate and ate,
never felt full.
I walked one thousand miles
to a pool of enchanted water
I’m still swimming in.
Day 5
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” –Pablo Picasso
Making sense
Woke up to write again
after a pause
and it felt a bit like spring cleaning:
Slowly, carefully washing the windows,
shaking out the carpets,
chasing dust bunnies from corners,
from under the couches and chairs.
I wrote two pages
on the verge of tears
and for the rest of the day
the world made more sense.
Day 6
“By trying to avoid our death our world becomes lifeless.” Vanessa Chakour, Awakening Artemis
What It Means To Be Dying
Okay, I get it. We all do.
Live like you could die tomorrow,
because,
of course,
you could.
Or today!
And still. That’s not a call to recklessness,
but an invitation to go slow, pay attention,
move with care and intention.
There is so much life
in a still pond,
a slow drive,
a full breath.
Day 7
“Walking is how the body measures itself against the earth.” –Rebecca Solnit
I Walked out in a Rage
I walked out in a rage
at you, but also at me,
because I keep finding myself
in this same place so it must mean that some fundamental mechanism
is not attached in me,
in me, in me.
Each foot hits the ground in a rhythm
the breath begins to match,
and though it is raining,
there is a full moon and
the cool water on my face–
earth’s baptism!
I remember then how just yesterday
we slowly ate a pomegranate and agreed
that life is a series of love letters,
including the one I’ll write to you with words in air
when I return to apologize and demand.
January 31, 2023
What does it mean to be “busy”? Does time even exist? And everyday superpowers.
Still riding a yoga high from an early morning yoga class, on my walk to work this morning, this blog post landed on me. A few things that were said/moments I experienced over the last week or so came together and clicked for me. That feeling, at that moment, may be the closest I’ll ever get to my fantasy of being able to stop time and move around in it like Evie in Out of this World.
The thing that clicked for me has everything to do with the theme of this blog–Make Time. What I realized is that “busyness” is relative and time as we know it does not exist.
Let me explain. I am in my third week of yoga teacher training (which adds up to at least 20 hours a weekend, sometimes more). I’m working on renewal of my National Boards certification for teaching. I’m teaching full-time. I’m helping a talented woman get her stories out and into the world by editing and designing her book. Plus a few other things on the side. I’m guessing you’re thinking right now that I sound “busy”, and that I don’t have time. I’ve certainly been in spots like this where I felt that too. Not this time.
“Busyness” is getting flayed a bit by wellness culture right now. A problem is: we define “busyness” by the number of things we fill our schedules with or have on our to-do lists. From what I can tell “busyness” is a state of mind. If I try to hold things in the future in my mind, I am busy. If I can stay present in the moment and do one thing at a time, I can pack a day to the brim and never feel busy at all. This will require a few things: practice, trust, and an open mind. Our minds run on the tracks we’ve laid out for them through repetition, so staying present will take practice. It may also require you to get your phone habits in check., because our devices are creating terrible habits of mind on top of everything else. Be patient and practice. Trust plays a role here. To be present, we need to trust that the future will arrive and that we will be present for it. What about an open mind? Well, it may turn out that on that list of thirty things you’re simultaneously thinking about doing, a third of them may never happen. A lot of “busy” people actually aren’t doing much at all. They are too paralyzed by how busy everything is.
And then there is time. Our most precious resource, right? Yet, ironically, the more we think about how limited time is and try to hold it fast, the faster it goes and the less of it we have. In one sense, these past few weeks I’ve had less time. However, since so much of that time has been spent developing a mindfulness practice, I do not feel short on time. In fact, I feel sort of amazed at how much more time I have than I thought. My days are more packed for sure, but I feel as though I am moving in slow motion when I’m really in it. I’m certainly not thinking about not having time.
We make time by staying present for the moment we’re in and letting go of our obsession with how limited time is. It is limited, of course. And no one knows just how much time they have. That’s the paradox. To savor the time we have, we need to trust and be. And you don’t need to be an alien from another planet like Evie to have her superpowers.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time:
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
January 28, 2023
An exploration of “finishing”
Last week, I finished a collection of stories I’ve been working on for twelve maybe thirteen years. I have memories of a retreat I went on with a writer friend somewhere along the way where I mapped out all the stories and their interconnections using overlapping circles and colored markers. This friend took a picture of me lying belly down on the deck of the cabin where we were staying. I look happy in the picture. I had finished the task of planning. That was twelve years ago.
I came across that diagram the other day when I was cleaning out my file cabinet. Reviewing it’s contents, I had to laugh. So much had changed! The story hadn’t gone at all the way I thought it would. Characters names had changed. The order of stories and their titles too were unrecognizable to me. The seed idea was sort of the same, but even that had evolved to be something more specific than I had started with.
As I was writing the last story in the collection, an insight came up for me that I’d had before. One of those lessons as a writer or a practicer of anything that we have to learn over and over. It is of course the goal of writing to some day finish. And by finish I mean feel satisfied that you’ve done all you can with a piece, that it really is time to send it on it’s way into the world to see how it goes. The problem is that when we focus on finishing, we compromise the work itself.
Writing is a practice of staying in the moment, of being willing to be honest and present enough to bring the words to life. If in the back of your mind your desire to finish is nagging away, it will infect your work. The focus and attention to the moment of each story became more difficult to sustain the closer I got to the end. I kept starting and stopping because when my mind strayed to the future where I was finished, I knew the writing would be no good. It reminded me of the stories Dillard tells in The Writing Life about some of the crazy things writers do to keep themselves in the flow.
So I’ve “finished” and am taking a brief pause in taking up any big projects, taking the time to do some deep yoga work and write frivolous poems and stories for a few months. Four of the stories in the collection have found a place in the literary world. Below are links to where you can read those stories. Look for the whole collection in the not so distant future.
May you make time and find flow, friends.
The stories:
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time:
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
October 16, 2022
I’m here. writing with you…
The original form of this blog started in 2007 or so. It began and in many ways still is a way of asserting myself as a person who writes. More accurately, a person who deserves to write. And do you know what? Being a person who deserves to write had been one of the boldest assertions I’ve ever made. To do this work, I’ve had to contend with all of the following:
my tendency to take care of the needs of others above myselfinsecurityself-doubtthe need to earn money to support my familyfearlazinessindecisionimpatienceexhaustionAnd this is just a starter list. I used to post here more often. That’s because I hadn’t yet figured out what I was writing. I had a just barely 50,000 word novel I’d busted out in November 2005 (NaNoWriMo), notebooks full of poems, and a few half-baked short stories.
Now, what time I have to write (Precious little! When can I retire?!), I spend chipping away at one of the three projects I’ve got in the works: two novels and a short story collection. I also work as an editor and designer for people self-publishing their book (Red Dress Press). Oh, and I teach high school English.
So, I post to this blog less these days, always trying for once a week and falling short. But this blog is forever with me, and I am always sending out wishes for flow to all of you out there endeavoring to tell your story through art in spite of all the distractions (internal and external).
Here are some things that lately are helping me Make Time:
consistent writing scheduleno phone, no email until after writing is donenurturing supportive relationshipsletting go of relationships that drain me/ leave me feeling smallbad-ass groups I’m part of on Inked VoicesI’m here, writing with you. I’ve been here writing with you since I first picked up a pen at fifteen and wrote the most untutored, beautiful-in-retrospect poem. I wrote that poem as an assertion of what had to be asserted first. I want to live. I’ll find a way.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time:
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
October 4, 2022
Print and fold your own Make Time Zine!
Let’s talk for a minute about zines. Being at the forefront of the Riot Grrrl movement, Olympia has a rich history of zines. In fact, there is still an annual Zine Fest here. I love the idea of guerilla publishing on the cheap and then distributing your work for free because you want to get your message out, which is the original intent of zines. Kind of like blogging without the internet or computers. Kind of. I mean the collage and handwriting aspect can’t be replicated by a computer which makes everything so polished and tidy. There is a special place in my heart for this brave and anti-capitalist form of self-publishing.
A few years back, some friends and I got together to make zines. I made a zine trying to articulate the core ideas behind how we Make Time for art in spite of everything. Basically, what this blog is all about. You can print and download the zine here.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time:
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
August 13, 2022
Lessons from the Lowitt Trail
I come from a long tradition of writers whose creativity seems to depend on movement. Long walks clear my mind, creating space for the seeds of stories to grow unchoked by the weeds of surface worry. Running cuts through my self-doubt and overthinking. Yoga feeds my intuition and cultivates mindfulness and self-acceptance. These are key qualities of mind to induce states of flow. I lean particularly on lessons learned in yoga while in revision mode. Hiking and/or backpacking cultivate the resilience to trust in the messy process. In late July, I backpacked around Mount St. Helen’s, along the Lowitt Trail, with two friends. The trail offered several physical and mental challenges, plus some nuggets of wisdom that I carried home with me to use when I returned to the page. Let me try to break them down here in a few key aphorisms.
In this moment, there is peace.No matter how hard I try to avoid it through careful preparation, I always seem to pack heavy. This was a topic discussed often on the trail as other hikers seemingly sped by us with comparatively petite backpacks. We asked each other: What would you leave behind to have a lighter pack? Answers were–not much. So, our packs were heavy. Except for the first overcast morning, the sun shone fiercely. We spent four days and three nights on the trail. At times the trail seemed to be a mere scratch on a cliffside, the ground just shifting sands underfoot. We trekked up and down many rock gullies. Three of these were so steep that they required ropes to navigate the trail. In a couple of places, the trail seemed to disappear before our eyes as we walked across boulder fields that stretched on and on into the distance. We scrambled our way from trail marker to trail marker, following the dusty footprints or cairns left behind by hikers before us. So much of the trail was exposed that you could see the routes ahead for miles. But here’s the thing: there is a lot of discomfort that comes with thinking about those miles ahead. Just as there is discomfort in thinking of how much further you need to go on your journey to finish your book, or to publication. For the most part, worrying too much about the future makes everything harder. During rest stops, I would pull out my map and think about the road ahead, but when we got to walking again, I tried to stay in the moment. I literally counted the number one to myself over and over to myself at times as a reminder. In this moment, there is a three-headed tigerlily proudly lit by the sun. In this moment, the lavender lupine carpet spreads out along the base of the hills and along the trails. In this moment, I can turn and see any of three mountains and feel a rewarding breeze at the top of a hill.
In writing, there is the ritual of the warmup. I feed and walk my two dogs, do a moving meditation, and prepare the sacred coffee. There is the feel of the keyboard under your fingertips, the sound they make when you get going. The pause of thinking, too. There is the moment of the story unfolding in your imagination. The stall when you get to a sticky part. The breakthrough. It’s counterproductive to the work in these moments to think too much about the miles ahead. Doing so has been known to sabotage an entire writing session. If I’m honest? It’s enough to do in a whole week of them.
Turn up your senses.The mind wants to worry about the future (or to rehash the past). On the trail, this becomes strikingly tedious. There is so much more joy to be had in turning up the senses. Notice the bright red miniature strawberries along the trail. Then bend over to pick and eat one. Identify plants and trees. Take in the panorama of trees, sky, and earth. Listen for birds, the sound of flowing water, the voices of other hikers approaching, who might have intel on upcoming water sources.
The days were long. The water sources were sparse. Our bodies were more tired and sore each day. Our feet hurt, then blistered. But what do I really remember when I look back on all that? The moments, when I had my senses turned up to the volume of awe. Every night we sat under an open sky, trying to name all the constellations we could remember knowing. That is the sort of thing we need to do as writers: turn up our senses in the spirit of constructing our stories so that the places, characters, and scenes come alive in our imaginations.
Take care of others.I know some people who like to hike alone. I’m not one of those people. When we stopped for water, we stood in a line so we could remove each other’s water bottles from the sides of our packs. At one point, my shoe was untied, and my friend said, here, put your foot up on my knee so I can tie it for you. We told each other stories. We pointed out what we saw along the way. We all paused when one of us needed a break. We shared snacks, sunblock, and moleskin. The end of every day was spent sitting in our camp chairs, sharing a meal, and laughing. Well, except for the night when we were too tired and possibly dehydrated to eat. But even that night, we laughed.
It can be the same way in writing. You certainly can go it alone, and I suppose that’s a quicker way to dig into the deep dark shadows of your soul if that is what you are after. As for me, I am looking to connect to others through my writing and along my journey. This means cultivating friendships with other writers, taking time to read other people’s work and give feedback, offering encouragement, writing a blog to inspire other writers, being a part of a writing group or community, and reading and reviewing other writers’ work. It’s taken me some time to see that this part is at least as important as the writing itself.
I’m taking August off from actively writing forward with my novel, focusing on rest and renewal. I’m gathering all the strength and commitment I will need to get back to my desk at 4 AM on school day mornings through the coming school year. I’m proud of myself for writing through June and July, and also for having the sense to take August off. It hasn’t even been two weeks, and I already feel the benefit of the pause. When I return to my characters again in September, I will be more present for them because I took the rest I needed to. The need for a rest may also have been inspired by the incredible effort it took to make my way all the way around Mount St. Helen’s in four days. And you bet your ass you would have heard the three of us singing that familiar refrain “She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes” when we got there.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time:
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Additional Inspiration: The Washington Trails Association pairs a few hikes with poetry!
The post Lessons from the Lowitt Trail appeared first on Make Time..
July 11, 2022
Dear Capitalist notions of worth,
I wanted to illustrate my point. Then, I remembered Etsy and realized that even that analogy no longer works. If you’re a writer and brave and smart enough to call yourself a writer, you probably have encountered this question or some variation of it: Have you published any books? A recent version of that question I was asked recently: Did you self-publish your book? Because heaven forbid that you did not pass through the proper gatekeepers. Certainly, unless you have the right amount of luck, persistence through pain (rejection), and proper appeal to the target market, you can’t really call yourself a writer. Maybe, just maybe, if you work your social media connections and grab yourself a Patreon account, with enough followers, you will be worthy of your assumed title:
Writer.What I’m writing to say to you is that you are an insidious lie of the worst kind. Worth does not come from marketability or earning potential. Worth isn’t earned.
Worth is inherent and the subscription is free lifetime access for all. You are clipping the wings of too many fledglings with the insidious way you creep into our thoughts, cloud our dreams, and dominate the conversations.Writers might be asked far more interesting questions if it weren’t for your strangle-hold on the imaginations of the masses. For instance, Writing seems really hard. How do you do it? Or How do you decide what to write about? Or What do you hope people take away from reading your book?
I get why so many people are caught in your deception. For some it’s a matter of putting food on the table. That’s one nice thing about being a writer with a day job. Making time is more difficult, for sure, but at least I can write and write and write and not worry a damn about how much money it brings in.
I am writing this open letter in case anyone needs a reminder today about the things that actually make you a writer. The fact that you sit down regularly to write, for starters. The fact that you are constantly trying to get better at your craft through reading and conversations with other writers and readers. The fact that you believe in the power of words and stories to change the world.
As for you, dear subject. You are a liar. A dirty liar.With a hearty flip of the bird,
Liz
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time:
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Additional Inspiration:
Oneliness–A meditation on poetry, a particular poem by e.e. cummings
The post Dear Capitalist notions of worth, appeared first on Make Time..
May 26, 2022
I look forward to your reply. Sincerely, Liz.
Dear Friends,
I lookFrom here on out, I’m writing my posts in letter form. Sometimes I’ll write to you, dear readers, sometimes, I will write to others or even objects or subjects. This is a coming together of an old project from the past and a desire to get back to this space where I write about writing for two purposes: to invigorate my own work and to inspire you in your own story-making, whatever form that takes.
I’m a writer, but I also love taking pictures and doing collage. I hope to feature more of that work here in the future. The underlying assumption of this blog is that making time to construct our stories through our art leads to a more purposeful life, a better world.
forewardI am, as usual for the past seventeen years, at work on a novel. I wrote my first novel in 2005 for NaNoWriMo. I will be forever grateful for that challenge for giving me the impetus to believe that I could write an entire book. I’d been writing short stories and poems for fifteen years at that point. I write slowly, without excess, so it is still a bit of a shock when I write my way to the end of a book. I’ve written a number now, though aside from the one I self-published, they’re all in the proverbial drawer for now. I’m okay with that. You aren’t going to find much focus here on how you need to contort yourself to get published. You will find loads on how to get yourself to your writing space and do the work, how to do that work in a way that makes you proud of what you’ve done. You will also find some posts about the mind/body connection in this work. Movement has long been a conduit for me to story-making. I’ve got a book about this simmering on the back burner and my autobiographical novella certainly started that conversation.
The search engines prefer that I include subheadings throughout my posts, so I’ve decided to embed some single words throughout that add up to a message to you for each post. The words will add up to the title of the post. Because–why not?
During my day job, I’m a high school teacher. There are so many reasons to look forward to summer, so believe me, I am not complaining. However, when it comes to creative work, summer is often not the idyllic writing retreat people assume it must be. During the school year, I get up at 4 am to get my writing in before my day starts. This tight structure actually helps me focus and put in the work. Summer can be a bit more loosy-goosy, so I’m working on an approach this year that might keep me moving forward while also honoring the play and rest that summer is meant to be. I’ll keep you posted on what I come up with for that.
For now, I am writing my way to the end of the school year as I have been all year. Up at 4 to write on weekdays. Saturday I fit in a couple hours of writing time when I can. That “when I can” hasn’t worked out consistently, so I’m strategizing about that. Though it took me a long while to admit it, I do better writing in the morning.
to your reply,Sundays sometimes are critique group meetings, but not always. It’s a tightly constructed plan to make time, with loads of grace built in, because we are people, not machines, and there will be times when your energy and momentum ebbs and when it flows for all sorts of human reasons, and it’s best to be the wave, not fight it. If you are a writer looking for an online writing network for accountability, critique groups, workshops, and the like and are willing to pay a small fee for that space, Inked Voices is a lovely place for that.
I do this work because I started when I was fifteen years old writing little poems and observations in my notebook. Who doesn’t have an identity crisis at 15?! No exception here. That’s around the time I started having panic attacks. Thank god I discovered yoga and walking. I found some relief from the intense dread I felt if I walked or emulated the yoga poses in the book I’d gotten as a gift or the second book I picked up at the used book store. I would walk home from my job at Burger King rather than take the bus, sometimes I would walk just because. It took about 8 miles to walk across Aberdeen and Hoquiam and there was something about making that distance by foot that started a seed of hope.
I still feel sometimes when I’m walking like I just want to keep walking and not stop. Like I want to skip work, or just not go home. There’s an ease and a freedom I feel that is a relief. This quote from the Lit Hub article Walking Distance by Lizzy Stewart resonates, “I think about walking a lot and I have tried to work out why it is the only way that I can clearly visualize myself. I think it makes me, an uncertain person, into a machine in forward motion, definite and capable.”
I am anxious this week because summer is so near. As much as I can’t wait for it, it disrupts the tight routine I mentioned earlier. Today, I’m going to sit down and make a summer writing plan and hope that will assuage some of this fear. In years past I’ve tried sticking to my school year schedule and it hasn’t worked out so well for me. Regardless, I’m going to sit down today and commit to something. I’ve got to. I’ll keep you posted.
Mostly, though, I look forward to the ease of summer. The Seatlle Public Library published their book bingo and I planned out what book I will read for each category. I’ve started with a re-read of A Visit From The Goon Squad, my book group’s pic for June. What are you reading this summer?
Sincerely, LizIn summary, I am still here making time, hoping the same for you. I’m switching over the a letter format for future posts, because it just feels right. I’ll write again soon—
My light sees your light. Let’s keep making time.
Love, Liz
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time:
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Additional Inspiration:
Oneliness–A meditation on poetry, a particular poem by e.e. cummings
The post I look forward to your reply. Sincerely, Liz. appeared first on Make Time..
