by Phel Jacobson

Dear Fellow Writers:

If Lucia hadn’t been my friend, I would never have taken this Creative Nonfiction writing course.  That is unthinkable to me now. As an octogenarian I was sure that my days of attending a class to learn something new, except perhaps how to get my affairs in order, was over. However, with Lucia’s friendship and enthusiasm for whatever she undertakes, I had the courage to join her in this class.  I was hesitant.  I remember asking her “Do you think I will make myself look foolish?” She assured me that I had nothing to worry about.  I love to write, but I hadn’t done any serious writing.

I am now completing my second session of Creative Nonfiction Writing under the wonderful tutelage of Jay Varner, who as an author in his own right, and at his young age, found something in this old woman’s writing to encourage me to continue and even flattered me by uttering those words that every would-be writer wants to hear, “You should write a memoir.”

Going back to school hasn’t been easy for me.  I’m a non-techer.  It hasn’t been too long since I adjusted to electricity and a flush toilet so the computer world is as complicated to me as hieroglyphics and Sanskrit would be – what with icons, gnat-sized arrows, and tech words like Windows, online, and Twitter – words which have different meanings to me. This made it a very stressful for me.

If it weren’t for Barb, wonderful reliable Barb, I would have had to drop this class.  Before the course began Lucia and Barb agreed, that they would welcome me into their homes to use their computers in order to get my assignment in “online” and then make sure that I would get copies of your essays.  During a weekend visit, my children took the initiative to go to Walmart and buy me a laptop, which I didn’t want.  Before they left the next morning they gave me a two hour lesson on how to use it.  It was two hours of total confusion for me.  Then they waved good-bye.  I wanted my old life back.

I won’t go into a lot of detail, but my brain was in over-load.  The sensitive touch on the keyboard caused whole lines of l’s and a semi-colon somewhere in each word, which was then obscured by an ad that stubbornly wouldn’t go away no matter what I pressed.  However, my text would delete itself.  I picked up the phone and said, almost in tears, “Barb, I can’t make this machine work the way it’s supposed to.”  She laughed—she always laughed—and said “Don’t worry, I’ll be right over.”  This happened more times than I can count.  During one of our sessions she said, “Your screen needs to be cleaned.  It looks as if it has water drops on it.”  That’s when Bob told her, “It’s Phel spraying the screen with her saliva every time she shouts ‘shit’ at it.

I kept writing – shouting shit – because of Jay and because of you.  Your praises and  your insightful,  helpful editing  gave me confidence and taught me to become a better writer. I have learned about finding my voice, passive and active, about tenses, needless words, vague words, punctuation – commas, nix on ellipses, avoid exclamation marks! – I learned about modifiers and metaphors.  And through reading and editing your essays I have learned a lot about good writing, about different styles and how many great stories are out there that need telling.

Through her writing Jen introduced me to her husband Elmer and her beautiful essay told me much I didn’t know about hummingbirds. Through Erin’s essay I wanted to personally meet her mother – a lady I could identify with.  I feel that I know Fred’s mom and dad and that I learned a lot more about Fred.  I learned that Lucia is big on metaphors, and always marked my essay with a check for using a passive voice.  I will remember Dale’s devotion and think about her sister Deborah, especially when I’m indulging myself with pity.  I was sure that Carole had it all put together until she took us into her confidence and told us about her failed marriage.  She deserves her new chance with Keith.  I don’t drink wine anymore without thinking about Nica’s self-taught enology and  Nica’s rolls which I have already made from her recipe..  I want to visit Linda’s hometown of Hopewell just to see for myself if other residents have her energy and talent for writing; if so maybe Kepone has some good side effects.  A class without Barb wouldn’t be the same.  She speaks with arm and hand gestures that can’t be captured in the written word.  I grew to love her Ernest even though we never met.  I will think often about our two youngsters, Allie, losing her innocence much too early and then finding her loyal Jamie.  And I feel sadness that kind, gentle Teco lost the sister he loves.  Both Allie and Teco are very promising writers.  I envy the years they still have to hone their craft.

I remember laughing out loud when I read Erin’s critique of my big essay, “Courtship and Marriage.” In bold handwriting she wrote: “I’d like to see more romance and sex in your piece. It’s different than today.” Well, Erin, it’s pretty much the same except it wasn’t on TV or in the movies and we weren’t in as much a hurry to get there. Foreplay lasted longer – sometimes for weeks.

I knew when Jen wrote on my essay what she liked about it that she meant it, because she had the courage to tell me when it made absolutely no sense.

Fred always sat quietly, listening to everyone’s critiquing before he would speak.  He was the smoothie (metaphor) in the class.  He absorbed all of our wide range of comments before he turned on his motor (metaphor) to mix the batch and then served us, in his quiet voice, a delectable drink that masked all the ingredients we gave him.  It was always good and it was always smooth.

Then there’s our Jay. We all love Jay.  In his quiet way he gets the class rolling each session.  He starts with the professional essay we have read.  Let’s say that its title is “Everything You Want to Know About Cows.” Jay will ask the class, “What do you think this essay is about?” Lucia jumps right in with, “I think it’s a metaphor for exploration of the moon.”  We go from there.

I don’t have the words that can tell you how much you and this course have given to me.  How pleased I am that my old-fashioned stories are ones you enjoyed reading. I thought that the only readers I had left were either senile or dead, but with your help you have motivated me to continue writing before I become one of the above mentioned. I mourn the end of this class.  I don’t like to lose friends I have made, even those of a short duration.  You are now a part of my life and I am grateful.

With the risk of sounding like Erin’s mother I say to each of you, who still have many more years to live and write your stories, don’t put it off – write every day – the years will pass more quickly than you can possibly imagine. Write your stories. It’s not important how many people read them. To share them with just one or two will make it worthwhile.  Remember that each person claps his praise individually, so the applause needn’t be thunderous.

Should some ask me if I’ve met you, I will proudly say, not only that I have met you, but that I know you. We shared our lives with each other.

With love, Phel

Phel Jacobson picked up writing at the urging of a friend and neighbor, and her stories of life as a Park Service wife captivated her class. She’s not done learning about the world, nor is she done sharing her stories. Lucky us.

by Stephanie Morris

I read Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, for the first time several years ago. I was initially drawn to the novel because I wanted to see how Woolf explored gender roles and their fluidity. But not long after I started reading, I discovered an additional point of fascination.

The titular protagonist was a writer—the kind of struggling writer I immediately identified with, the kind of writer who knows something about the “rigours of composition,” as Woolf so aptly describes the writing process.

My favorite passage regarding those “rigours” goes like this:

He soon perceived, however, that the battles which Sir Miles and the rest had waged against armed knights to win a kingdom, were not half so arduous as this which he now undertook to win immortality against the English language. Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; acted his people’s parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by how perfectly Virginia Woolf captures the writing struggle—this is, after all, Virginia Woolf, author of A Room of One’s Own. But I hadn’t expected to find such an excellent description in Orlando—a description, furthermore, that mirrored—and more importantly, validated—my own experiences.

At this point in my writing life—I am still very much a beginner and have only recently begun to take classes, read like a writer, and try to impose some kind of order on my nonexistent writing routine—I want to hear about writerly struggles. I’m in the market for these kinds of stories because they give me a point of reference point when I melodramatic about my own difficulties. A writer’s work, as the maxim goes, is lonely work, accomplished in solitude. But no matter how much I agree with these sentiments, I always find myself mired in doubt when I sit down to write. Am I supposed to be having this much trouble coming up with ideas? I’ll wonder. This much trouble getting words onto the screen? Deciding on a character’s name or motivation? Knowing if a story is actually a story or just a scene? Knowing when a piece is finished?

Or am I doing everything wrong?

I am in awe of people who have been writing seriously for years. To have to deal with these doubts every time they write—and yet, to write anyway—takes a strength of mind and purpose that I sometimes fear I may never possess in this life. I suspect that these are the kinds of doubts and anxieties that do not go away, even no matter how far along a writer is in his or her career. And I appreciate seeing those doubts and anxieties astutely described, as Woolf does.

Passages like the one in Orlando remind me that nope! I’m not doing everything wrong. Even the best writers have their difficulties.

It’s all about conflict—am I right or am I right?

Stephanie Morris is a WriterHouse intern, a recent graduate of Piedmont Virginia Community College, an aspiring writer of Gothic horror and speculative fiction, and a voice actor.

by Elizabeth Derby

This article is reposted from Elizabeth Derby’s blog Doctor Derby by permission of the author.

I’ve been reading a lot about writing lately, and one theme that comes up a lot is how writing is really hard and how normal people with normal goals don’t appreciate how hard writing is, even when writers tell them about it over and over and over again. As a neighbor points out to critic/novelist Annie Dillard in her book The Writing Life, “That’s like a factory employee going to work every day even though he hates it. Why do you do it?”

Dear reader, this is the worst question you could ever ask a writer. If you yourself are a writer, you’re nodding. If you’re not, please heed my advice and do not ask it ever (or ever again). It’s like pouring salt on a slug and expecting the poor thing to dance.

Anywho. Haphazard gastropod analogies notwithstanding, I’m glad that other writers feel the same way I do. For many years I assumed I was a big baby with my “poor me”s and “mental anguish”es and “oh, the trials of the mind simply fell me!”isms. While this may still be true, I feel vindicated by this funny, insightful article from author Michael Cunningham.

As a novelist, I learned long ago that my interest in talking about how very difficult it is to write fiction exceeds almost everybody’s interest in hearing about it. I rarely bring the subject up, any more than I expect, in old age, to go on at length about my joint pains or the fact that everything and everyone used to be better than they are now. Every writer I know, however, is obsessed by the subject, and often when we’re alone together we do, in fact, with a sense of guilty abandon, spend a certain amount of time buzzing about how unbelievably, monumentally difficult writing actually is; what fools we are for having taken it up in the first place; and how often we contemplate abandoning the pursuit altogether and going into another line of work, though most of us are too old for go-go dancing and too inept for carpentry.

To learn more about the writing underground or revel in how justified your whining is, click here. Happy reading!

Elizabeth Derby writes creative non-fiction and alarming amounts of marketing material. Follow her literary adventures in C’ville at DoctorDerby.com.

by Raennah Mitchell

In February, my writing group and I decided to celebrate our one year anniversary by going on a weekend-long writing retreat. Three of us arrived together on a Friday evening and settled into our rooms while we waited for the other two to arrive. After unpacking, I immediately began to journal, something I hadn’t made time for in a month, in an attempt to ease myself into the writing head space before tackling my goal: revising and finishing a story I had begun a year ago.

After a while, the three of us congregated in the kitchen. Fortunately, one of our members is a self-proclaimed organizational nerd who had drafted an agenda for our entire stay. There were five of us, five meals to prepare, and writing prompt and revision sessions to lead. While the person assigned to providing dinner that night made her preparations, we talked about writing and our excitement for the weekend. Stephanie, a poet, expressed how thankful she was for the time and space to write, and how amazing it was that the simple act of removing oneself from the daily routine and demands of home could provide that space. She had already begun revising poems.

It wasn’t until later that evening, after our two latecomers arrived safely in the dark, that I realized just how right she was. One of the questions I had been puzzling over the last year regarding my story was what my protagonist did for a living. I had no idea. I knew she had moved to a new town over a year ago, and was two years out of college. But I didn’t know how she spent at least forty hours of her time each week.  Then at about 11 o’clock that first night, I was sitting upright in the unfamiliar bed, staring across the room at the lit lamp, not thinking of anything in particular, when it hit me. She was a photographer. A constant in the piece is her fear, or dislike, of the dark. The lack of light from the windows stretched and distorted the shadow of the lamp against the wall. As a photographer (and as a neurotic and obsessive person), she would dislike the absence of light and how it misshapes and distorts.

But because of my exhaustion from a long week of work, my real epiphany didn’t come until after a night’s rest. Following a breakfast of bagels and fruit, another poet, Angie, provided our first writing prompt of the day. The idea was to look for patterns in our own work, repeated words or images, and to create something new that revealed something yet unexplored in our patterns. I was then struck by the obvious fact that another one of my stories, which I had finished revising in November, also had a photographer in it—two, in fact. I had workshopped both stories in Kristen-Paige Madonia’s advanced fiction class at WriterHouse last summer and one of my classmates, Kyle, had already raised the question: are the two stories connected? Specifically, does the little girl in the first story grow up to become the young woman in the second story? Sitting in the kitchen of the retreat, the answer fell into my lap: Of course she does. The present life of the little girl is the backstory of the young woman and explains why she grew up to be a photographer afraid of the dark. The little girl’s mother had been killed in the dark, and before her mother died the girl had already decided to grow up to be just like her: a photographer. Her mother was killed by an ex-boyfriend, and the grown daughter (wrongly) mistrusts her own boyfriend, even more so for his habit of walking late at night. Kyle was right. Sarah and Roberta were absolutely the same person.

Somehow, the daily, weekly, and monthly demands of earning a living working in an office, maintaining friendships and family relationships with visits, phone calls, and emails, even the joy of a loving relationship, had left little room in my head to really consider who my character was. My revelation about who she was began with a brain free from any responsibilities that weekend other than writing. After only twelve hours into the retreat, and a great writing prompt, I was on my way toward completing the story.

The other members of my group benefited, too, from the removal from their daily lives to this time and space devoted to writing. Stephanie was able to revisit poems with a fresh perspective and to produce new work. Elizabeth, a creative nonfiction writer, was able to free herself to be vulnerable in the present in order to write about things to which she felt emotionally connected. Jacqui, a poet and creative nonfiction writer, was able to remove herself from the worry of her day job in order to write new material, and to lead us in a lovely and relaxing meditation session. And Angie summed up her experience saying, “It is a special place to find yourself among others, and others among yourself.”

WriterHouse, too, can provide a special place of removal and connection. For a two-month period in my life it provided the retreat I needed two or three times a week in order to finish the first draft of a manuscript before an approaching birthday. And I expect that it, and a couple more weekend writing retreats, will provide that time and space for finishing the second draft this year.

Raennah Lorne Mitchell is a fiction writer who also dabbles in songwriting. Her first short story was recently published by Streetlight Magazine.

by Stephanie Morris

I became involved in my college’s Creative Writing Club in my second semester. It was a big step–I was a girl accustomed to writing in solitude and had scant experience with club, classes, or writing in company. I had little idea of what the club did. Would we spend our afternoons in closet-sized classrooms or would we sit outside in the warm, muggy spring haze? Would we hold free writing sessions? Workshop one another’s work? Listen to speakers and hold poetry slams in the student center? I envisioned a shaded portico crowded with writers of every caliber; I wondered, nervously, if I would find a place among them, and if I would have the courage to comment, critique, and receive critique.

The reality, however, turned out rather differently than I had imagined. The spring semester was a busy time for the Creative Writing Club–because that was when they produced the college’s annual literary magazine.

I had had no hands-on experience with literary magazines when I joined the club, and to be plunged so completely into its production on my first day was as terrifying as it was thrilling. I sat through the first meeting in a kind of stupor. Literary magazines had been so far off my radar that I was in shock. But gradually, I warmed to the idea. Why not? I thought. I had not worked on any school newspapers when I was in high school, and here was my opportunity to gain that experience.

The Creative Writing Club was a small group of four–president, faculty advisor, and two students (myself included). We had less than fifteen weeks to take the magazine from a collection of submissions to print. Fifteen weeks, the president assured us, was never enough time.

I doubted her caution, of course, neophyte that I was. Fifteen weeks seemed an eternity to me.

My first experience with the literary magazine was painless–I helped select the submissions that would go into the magazine and then assisted with the editing. The work was fun, if frenetic, and by the final day of classes, we had a magazine–32 pages of student art, fiction, essays, and poetry. I had the thrill of seeing my name–”Stephanie Morris, poetry and prose editor”–inscribed inside the cover.

The president, who was graduating that semester, asked me if I would like to take over the club. I agreed, after some thought, and in the fall of 2010, I served my first semester as president. The fall was relaxing, in comparison to the previous spring. We held free writing sessions and workshops and brought in speakers.

But then the spring semester dawned, and with it came the literary magazine.

My second experience was rather more complicated than the first. Between corralling all the submissions, selecting the best for publication, parceling out editing duties, and teaching myself to use Adobe InDesign so that I could format the journal, my plate was more crowded than it had ever been.

Those fifteen weeks? They lasted about as long as it takes to gulp down a mouthful of fresh air.

But for all the chaos, producing the 2011 literary magazine was one of my favorite college experiences. The club had doubled in size and I had the privilege of working with an amazing team of passionate, dedicated writers. (Including one artist who designed the cover art!)

SInce then, I’ve worked on two other literary magazines. The latest of them is currently in the editing stages and due at the end of April. We’re working with a design class now (which saves me the immense pressure of relearning InDesign). I’m graduating in May, and this will be the last magazine I will help produce at this school. But I am delighted to say that each experience has proved truly memorable.

Stephanie Morris is a WriterHouse intern, a college sophomore who majors in something new every week, an aspiring writer of Gothic horror and speculative fiction, and a voice actor. (Image courtesy of Pixomar / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

by Don Fry

The outlining debate continues, mostly because writing gurus keep demanding outlines. Steven James reopens this discussion: “Go Organic. Are outlines and formulas polluting your writing?” (Writer’s Digest, March/April 2013, 36-39).

“Outlining is still taught as if it’s ‘the right way’ to shape a story,” he says, “and if you don’t follow those formulas you’ll be labeled an SOPer (that is, a ‘seat-of-the-pantser,’ or sometimes just a ‘pantser’).” He regards outlines as straightjackets on writers’ creative thinking and flow, making them rigidly follow a plan rather than “a more personalized, organic writing process.” He invites writers to join his “rebellion,… to throw away your outline and uncover a story word by word.”

As a writing coach, I find that outlines help some writers and hurt others. You write best and easiest using techniques that suit the way you think and act. You need a writing process that works for you, not for other people’s gurus.

PLANNERS OR PLUNGERS

In their real lives, people come in two flavors: PLANNERS and PLUNGERS. PLANNERS decide what to do, and then they do it. PLUNGERS do things, and figure it out later.

Think about a buffet lunch. Planners walk around the whole spread, surveying  all the food, deciding what they want, and then pick up a plate. Plungers fill their plate with what looks good to them. Planners plan their meal; plungers pick up food, making decisions as they go along.

Think about navigation. How will I drive from here to there with my wife Joan? As a planner, I figure out my route by studying my map. If Joan, a plunger, drives, she’ll aim in the general direction and adjust. We both arrive at the same place at the same time, but each of us thought it out in our own way.

How will we drive to the same place the second time? If I have the wheel, I’ll study my map again and go the same way I went before. Planners are rigid. But Joan will start off in a different direction and correct until she gets there. Plungers like variety.

Planner writers create a plan and follow it. Plunger writers type to discover what they want to say.

In the simplest form, planners jot down some sort of outline. Or they may spend months developing their plot and subplots and character sketches. Plungers just start typing to discover what they think. Planners organize so they can start drafting. Plungers organize by drafting.

Are you a planner or a plunger? Don’t decide yet; there’s more to think about.

As a devoted planner in my life and writing, I always create a plan before I type anything, but not the traditional multi-layered, indented outline we all hated in school. I jot down a simple plan of labels for the parts and their order, like this:

OUTLINING DEBATE
PLANNERS & PLUNGERS
SCHOOL
DARK SIDES
ENDING: DO WHAT WORKS

Plungers would write that piece in an entirely different way.  They would type a lot of sentences, paragraphs, sections, just stuff, not necessarily related or in any order. Then they would collect bits and pieces into sections that make sense by moving them around, and later write transitions between the parts. Some write the beginning first, some later, some last.

Plungers type to see what they have and to figure out what they want to say. As they type, they begin to glimpse emerging patterns and meaning. Once they have the whole thing down, they rearrange it to make sense to themselves and their readers.

Planners and plungers can write at the same quality and speed if they use techniques appropriate to the ways they think and act. You can’t distinguish planners from plungers by what they write. You have to interview them about how they think and about their writing processes.

Plungers grow up with a problem: planners rule the world of writing instruction and production. Steven James begins his article: “I have a confession to make. When I was in school and a teacher would assign us to write an outline for a story, I’d finish the story first, then go back and write the outline so I’d have something to turn in. Even as a teenager I thought outlining was counterintuitive to the writing process.”

Plungers create a “back outline” to please the teacher. Notice that James calls it a “confession.” Plungers feel guilty for not being planners.

By now, about a third of you readers have figured out that you’re plungers. Good. It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with you. And there’s nothing wrong with your planner colleagues either; they’re just don’t think and write the way you do.

THE PLANNER/PLUNGER

Actually, few writers are one or the other: pure planners or plungers. I’m a devoted planner in life, but I plan non-fiction and plunge fiction. I outline columns, but start novels without a plot. Some writers plan long and plunge short, and vice versa. You should do whatever works for you, but plan or plunge based on your strengths, not somebody else’s habits or prejudices.

For people who plan their lives, planner methods tend to produce better and easier writing. People who plunge through life usually feel more comfortable plunging their writing.

So you don’t have to join Steven James’s rebellion against outlining. You need to know who you are, and what works best for you.

by Gail South

I volunteered to write this blog because I was stuck in that depressing void between drafts of a novel. I had been writing about writing for weeks, trying to figure out how to make a particular character more sympathetic, tie up loose ends, pull plot points together. Tighten everything up in a neat little bow to send off to an agent.

I managed to find my way into the manuscript and made it through 150 pages before I hit the wall. That’s what runners call it when during an otherwise pleasant run, 600 or so muscles cramp and sear and your body simply refuses to take one more step.

But when you’re running alone on a country road, you have no choice but to keep moving.

Unlike when you’re sitting with a manuscript and can painlessly walk away mid-sentence.

In What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, novelist Haruki Murakiami says most of what he knows about writing he learned from running. The only way to develop a runner’s physique is by running. He runs everyday. Many of those days, he doesn’t want to. Often the first mile or two is quite slow and painful.

Like not knowing where a story should go and yet sitting through the head banging hours and days of writing crap in order to figure it out.

Craft, like running, requires training. Thousands and thousands of hours. As long as you keep needling the story, sitting through those days at the computer when you have absolutely no idea what to do, you are moving forward. My most memorable run ever was on a bitter February day when the last mile (mile twelve) felt like I was a cartoon character in slow motion, putting in a lot of effort but not getting anywhere. Every minute felt like an hour; I thought I would never finish. But I did. One foot in front of the other. Even when it seemed impossible.

Gail South earned an MFA from Goddard College. Her manuscript, The Solitude of Memory, was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engage Fiction.