Category Archives: being a writer

The River: How writers should ‘think’, by Kaspalita

Another ‘River’ post by Kaspalita, with more advice from Ted Hughes. The river of stones is our mindful writing challenge. Properly notice one thing each day, and write it down. Click here to find out more.

Kaspa writes: Last week I wrote about how Ted Hughes compared writing poems to catching animals, and how when you put your attention on what you are writing about (instead of on the form of the poem) the right words will appear.

I found that advice in his book Poetry in the Making, which I’m still reading. I’ve just finished the chapter Learning to Think, and was struck by how close his advice there was to instructions in single pointed meditation.

Hughes writes about learning this kind of attention whilst fishing. He would just watch the float, and keep bringing his mind back to the float… and with this an awareness of how the fish were moving (or not) just beneath the surface of the water.

Alongside this kind of attention on the object, Hughes describes ‘awareness of thought’ as another useful skill. One is able to fish into one’s mind and make conscious whatever has been moving about there.

Bringing these two kinds of thinking together is immensely valuable for a writer. Often when we put our attention on one thing we have an association with something else, and something else, and something else… and end up with a thought so far away from the original object of attention that we have forgotten where we started.

Hughes, with admitted exaggeration, suggests it should be possible to think about one’s uncle for weeks on end, continually collecting all ones thoughts/feelings/experiences about that uncle. You can try that out, if you like…

Or try it out with your small stone practice. Give yourself five minutes and just focus on one thing. If/when your mind starts to wonder bring it back to that one thing. You can either write during this time, or do your timed concentration first, and then write afterwards.

For poems and prose, you can start to cast your net wider, and allow in more and more associations. Both skills are important for good writing; being able to fix on one thing, and being able to move creatively between things… Tell me about the oak tree… tell me about the lovers who meet underneath its branches… and so on.

from Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

Wallace Stevens

image: Ted Huges by Reginald Gray, public domain.

What am I avoiding? (learning to celebrate good things)

Not necessarily happy, but glad (books as children)

A lesson in characterisation (and just lying on the couch and being happy)

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My new characters wait for me in the mist.

When I give them permission to come forwards (I did this a few days ago, by writing the name ‘April’ in the middle of a sheet of A4 paper) they shyly approach me.

Yesterday, whilst driving, I realised that April speaks to a man called Arthur in her story. I got to know Arthur a little (he’s fabulous, you’ll love him). I realised that she had a mum but I don’t know where her dad is yet. He’s not around. I’ll find out.

This morning, when slicing cambozola onto my toast, I realised that April feels squeamish about a lot of foods, especially meat and eggs. She’s not a vegetarian for ethical reasons, and sometimes eats chicken breast, but she can’t bear runny egg yolk or the fat and sinew in meat.

As I wrote this, I suddenly remember that she has red hair. Long, straight, red hair. I think I already knew this but I can’t be sure.

She’s just there, in the mist. It’s what Gary Snyder said about poetry. I have to be a receptacle for something that is already formed. I have to differentiate between what she is, and what I might want her to be. I have to tell her story, not mine.

My lesson in characterisation is this: let your characters characterise themselves. Get out of the way.

I am completely in love with Terresa’s blog, The Chocolate Chip Waffle, and vacillate between awe and envy. You should go see. This, for example, in which she considers everything. The words and images are just delicious.

This from Whiskey River this morning, which I just had to share with you all. A deep bow to the author of WR. In fact, I’ll email them right now. Enjoy your Thursdays, people, especially if you’re writing an essay…….

Any Morning
Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can’t
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People won’t even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.

- William Stafford

Why do we help others? (and getting ready to write)

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“…whenever we feel an urgency or longing to help, it’s often rooted in the fear of facing our own unhealed pain.”

This is Ezra Bayda’s proposal in his article ‘The “Helper” Syndrome‘ on Tricycle. He encourage us to be curious about what’s going on when we help others. Are we subconsciously seeking approval, or propping up our flagging sense of usefulness?

The questions feel very relevant to my work both as a therapist and as a writer. As a therapist I’ve already done some exploration, in training and in my own therapy, around what drew me to being a therapist. I like to contain other people’s chaos – it makes me feel safe. I like to be ‘the one who knows’. All these subtle motivations (which run alongside more ‘wholesome’ ones) will have an effect on my work with clients, and not being honest about them is more dangerous than including them in my acknowledgement of who I am.

As a writer, I have a drive to write which runs underneath any worldly expectations. But I am also riddled with compulsive needs for recognition, approval, fame, fortune….

I am getting ready to write my fifth novel. As always, I’ve no idea how to write a novel – how the hell did I do it before? And maybe more importantly, why do I do it? It’s no picnic in the park, writing a novel, you know.

What is helpful, though, is to remind myself of all the reasons why I write. Yes, I write because I want people to think I’m wonderful, to give me lots of money, to bow down before my greatness (!). But. I also write because I want to get to know my characters as they appear, which helps me to know myself. I want to try and make something beautiful. I want to share what little I know with other people – an offering. I want to offer my writing self to you all, in good faith.

Bayda again: “The question is: Where in our life do we do good, at least in part, to subtly solidify the self? Where do we get in our own way? Where do we use even our identity as a spiritual seeker,or the comfort of being part of something bigger,to cover the anxious quiver of being?”

I hope I can manage not to get in my own way too much, but to allow the writing to flow through me. To let my ego dissolve and become, as Bayda says, a white bird in the snow.

My new character is called April. I hardly know her, but I trust she’s got lots to teach me. I resolve to acknowledge all of my varied motivations to write, and to give them plenty of space. I resolve to offer myself to the service of the writing. I resolve to love being a writer, to be grateful for the opportunity.

What is your relationship with doing good? What do your resolutions need to be right now?

THIS is what being a writer is all about

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“Thaw made me feel as though there are others just as broken as me, maybe many others, and that gave me hope and comfort even as it made me cry.”
Nicole from Books and Bards

I write for many reasons.

I write because my characters turn up in my head and ask me to write their story.

I write because it helps me to pay attention to the world, and there is nothing more important than paying attention.

I write because I love the feel of words in my mouth and the look of words on the page – their glorious music. I like playing with them, as a child would delight in building blocks.

But most of all, I write because I hope that my words will be helpful to someone. Maybe they’ll raise a chuckle, or help them to make sense of something. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll hold a mirror up to someone, as they did to Nicole, and make them feel less alone.

Thank you for your beautifully written review, Nicole, and for giving me the gift of receiving the gift of Ruth’s story.

This poem, from the glorious whiskey river (who deserves many medals) is for the darkest parts of Ruth, and Nicole, and me, and all of you.

Try to praise the mutilated world

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishesand returns.

Adam Zagajewski
translated by Clare Cavanagh

Drizzle and stories… wierd happenings

Scrumptious words

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I love the taste of words.

Every day I link together a short string of words to post on my other blog, a small stone. (Don’t tell Planting Words that I post there too, she might get jealous).

If my life (or my head) is full, I snatch them wherever I can find them and scribble them down before rushing off to ‘the next thing’.

This week I’ve managed to find a little more space. On Tuesday evening I wrote my small stone in my head, and then had time to play with it.

A workman spits: the long glob flies. The sky is striped with pink and aubergine.

Long glob. They contain almost the same letters. Feel what the two words do to your tongue. That final ‘ob‘. The rhymes – flies, sky, striped. Spit and pink. The rhythm, like a stately dance. And then that last word, that seems separate from the rest of the sentence – alien, with strange vowel sounds. The slight echo of ‘work‘ in ‘ber‘, and the silky-soft g. Gggg.

Never mind what it means – there is enough in the sound of these 15 words to keep me happy until the cows come home.

PS I thought you’d prefer a photo of the clouds to one of spit.

Gently does it… recalcitrant donkeys

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More procrastination. More faffing. More guilt.

I CANNOT get myself to open my manuscript and start working on my novel.

I feel like I’m trying to drag a recalcitrant donkey by a rope. He’s dug in his heels (hooves). He wants to STAY WHERE HE IS.

I don’t know why. I’m on my third draft – it should be getting easier. I am busy, but I do have time.

Maybe I do know why. I’m nearing the end of the process, and soon it will be ‘finished’. That means I have to show someone. That means Joe and his aunt Nel (and my best attempt at writing their story) will be exposed to the world. Arhggh.

These novelists, eh – what drama queens ; )

Gently does it. Look, donkey, there’s something nice to eat over here. There’s no hurry. You just have to take a few steps. Just start with one… good donkey. There’s a good donkey.

I have 11 marvellous blogs signed up for my Blogsplash – I’d like 100. Fancy helping out? My a handful of stones widget (well, Gary’s as he invented it) is continuing to take over the world, like Pinky and The Brain – get yours here. Good luck with your own recalcitrant donkey : )

Getting published – The Holy Grail?

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Six years ago, I completed my first novel. Like most unpublished writers, I desperately wanted a publisher. I wanted my work to be read. I bought The Writer’s Handbook, sent off submissions, started a blog, and continued to write. Six years later, my first three novels were accepted for publication by Snowbooks. My debut, The Letters, was published earlier this year. Was it all I’d hoped for? Was being published my Holy Grail?

Continue reading the rest of this article at the marvellous Juxtabook, and thank you to Catherine for having me.

I was away at a music festival this weekend. I’d forgotten about the toilets, and the queues, and all the people. We did have a lovely time though, and I’ll write about it more later in the week. Until then…