writ7707, Author at Writing Like a Dancer

WRITING A CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

Posted on June 5, 2015 by writ7707 Posted in Character Description, Description, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Writing, Writing Description, Writing Inspiration, Writing Moment to Moment, Writing what you mean 2 Comments

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your MUSE

Writing Leap #54

Writing a Character Description

Hi Writers,

I belong to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (S.C.B.W.I.) They have a new offering for their members. Write a 50 word description of a character for a children’s book, using the word wart. They will post it on their widely-subscribed website (scbwi.org) for agents and editors to see.

At first I dismissed the idea. I wasn’t inspired by warts. Then my closed mind decided to open up and I had an idea! Big lesson: Consider everything as inspiration for your writing. Don’t be an inspiration snob like me. Stretch!

Writing a 50 word description of one of your characters is great writing practice for showing not telling. Fifty words is a challenge to try and evoke, not describe, something about your character that is real. Try it Writers! It’s really satisfying, I found.

Here’s mine inspired by the word wart.

The plump Queen had a wart on her bottom. So embarrassing. Especially when she sat on her throne and cried, “Ouch!” Her round cheeks blushed cherry red, her round mouth resembled a doughnut and her round eyes opened as wide as two apple pies. She heard everybody giggling quietly.

Happy Writing Everybody,

LINKING THE ARTS

The Queen, trying her best.

A Favorite Word: Evoke, as in to summon or suggest. This is one of the jobs of our muse.

WRITING ABOUT FEAR

Posted on May 7, 2015 by writ7707 Posted in The Writing Muse, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse 1 Comment

Writing Practice and the Muse who is ALWAYS THERE

Writing Leap #53

Hi Writers,

Feeling deeply what your characters fear and then using that understanding to create their actions is one way to make him or her breathe with authenticity. When I “looked my 9-year-old character in the eye” and asked her gently, “What are you afraid of, darling?” she revealed something that surprised me.

So sit down, get quiet, comfortable and non-judgmental with your characters and ask them with kindness, “Are you afraid of something?”

I asked myself this question a few hours after my recent shoulder surgery. When I tried to lift my arm up in my sling it was dead weight, a heavy sack of potatoes. “My arm is paralyzed,” I thought, envisioning a life as a true lefty without the use of her left arm. Images of a useless left arm and an awkward right one bombarded my imagination. I stopped breathing. I tried to lift my arm again. Worse. With my right hand I punched in dear Dr. Yasgur’s telephone number with effort. It was a baby’s hand learning how to land on the correct button and missing. My fears escalated.

“No, No, Cynthia. That’s the nerve block we gave you for your surgery. It will disappear in six to twelve hours.”

I relaxed my grip on the telephone and felt a tidal wave of relief.

Fears, irrational and real, can pop up anywhere. Discovering what our characters fear can be a way for us to find the subtleties in their behavior. Just ask them! If they say, “None of your business,” persist. Use your wily, writerly ways.

LINKING THE ARTS

The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry. Workman Publishing Co. N.Y. 2010

An indispensable, glorious book for writers and my new go-to for clear insights into the world of writers, agents, editors and publishers.

Writers, I urge you to put this book on your head and hope for osmosis. And read the chapter “Rejection Section” over and over. I have.

Ah, writers’ fear. Who among us hasn’t been afraid at times of a litany of terrible possibilities concerning our work? Often following rejections by individuals in the publishing world. It’s a raw fear. My writing falls flat. I have nothing new to bring to the literary world. Do I even have my own voice? Chatter, Chatter, Chatter. The inner demon doesn’t shut up, even in the face of praise for one’s work and worse, in the face of an inner knowing that what you have just written sings with truth. Writer’s fear is a misery.

Listen to Arielle and David. Let them take your writing fears and send them off like so many birds escaping from their cage.

A GOOD PHOTO

A GOOD WORD

Dancing: As in “Keep on Dancing.”

WRITER’S WRITE

Posted on April 15, 2015 by writ7707 Posted in The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Writing Leave a comment

Writing Practice and the Muse who is ALWAYS THERE

Hi Writers,

A thought for all of us.

“It’s impossible,” said pride.

“It’s risky,” said experience.

“It’s pointless,” said reason

“Give it a try,” whispered the heart.”

Unknown

WRITING YOUR TRAVEL MOMENT II

Posted on April 4, 2015 by writ7707 Posted in Anecdote, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Travel Writing, Uncategorized, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse Leave a comment

Writing Practice and Finding Your Muse

Writing Leap #52

Hi Writers,

Back to Paris, this time in my imagination. It’s been hard for me to leave behind all the writing inspiration I find there. And my daily indulgences like pain au chocolat and an afternoon café au lait that fed my writer’s spirit.

Here’s another Paris moment, brought alive back home in front of my computer by a series of photos on my phone. While my notebooks and pens were always in my bag, ready to be scribbled in, I was too immersed at this particular moment in what I was hearing and seeing to take notes. Quick photos would have to do.

We stepped out of our courtyard onto the Rue Dauphine into the round full sounds of a jazz saxophone. It floated down our street from the next corner and the glorious notes slipped around my ears. I was so happy to be here, to be walking single file down this narrow street with tiny sidewalks towards the music.

“Woody Allen,” we both said, “From ‘Midnight in Paris.’”

By the time we reached the corner the deep bass had jumped in, as well as the plunk-plunk of the banjo, the birdcall of the clarinet and the low, velvet sounds of the trombone. A small crowd was gathered around five musicians of a certain age and no one was talking. Everyone was smiling. All eyes were on the five men caught up in the joy of their mellow music. They were clearly seasoned professionals, the music was that good. I stared. The melody, the riffs, the sunshine filled me up. I grinned like a happy child. I felt an increased admiration for Woody Allen, a kinship. A pride to be an American too. Spectators were tapping their feet, clicking their fingers. Some were nodding, Aaaah, Wood-y All-en. Accent on the last syllable. Sensationelle.

Woody Allen, it seems, loves Paris. He sees Hemingway there, and Fitzgerald. Corny? Not for me. So do I.

So Writers, Pull out your phone, capture something great, and WRITE ABOUT IT.

LINKING THE ARTS

A Good Word: Jazzy, as in lively and spirited

A Favorite Book: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.

I liked it even better the second time. He doesn’t always write in short, clipped sentences.

WRITING THE TRAVEL MOMENT

Posted on March 3, 2015 by writ7707 Posted in Anecdote, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Travel Writing, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing from a detail, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse, Writing the Vignette, Writing What You See Leave a comment

Writing Practice and the Muse who is ALWAYS THERE

Writing Leap #51

Hi Writers Out There,

We were recently in Paris for three weeks and near where we were staying there is a papeterie, a tiny store that sells newspapers, pens and glorious notebooks of many kinds. You can find all sizes stacked on shelves, some lined, some plain and my favorite, notebooks with graph paper.

I carried three in my bag and tried my dear husband’s patience when I pulled one out at most street corners to capture a moment or a glimpse of something. “You wouldn’t see this, or hear this, or feel quite this way back home!” I would say.

With your writer’s sensibility to “stories” all around you, notebooks for grabbing the freshness of a moment while traveling are essential. Later when you are back home you can fill out your stories from your authentic first impressions and not just from your memory or photo shot.

So Traveling Writers. Lots of pens and lots of notebooks.

Here’s one of my moments, expanded from a few scribbled lines.

I stared at the Louvre across the Seine. It stretched the length of three quais. Hundreds of beautiful tall French windows. Poor Louis XVI and the thousands in attendance to him whose home this was. Beheaded with his wife Marie Antoinette because of all his high-ceilinged rooms gilded pure gold, his walls covered in silk brocade, his powdered wigs, his delicate lace cuffs–all given to him and him alone by God himself.

A woman draped in a dreary shawl picked something up from the sidewalk and approached me.

“Madame, excuse me, but look at this ring,” she said. “It looks like real gold.” She showed me some markings on the inside of the ring. “Sadly, I can’t wear it.” She began to try it on her fingers to show me. Her accent in French was foreign and she mumbled. I wasn’t sure if she said it was too small for her or that it was against her religion to wear it.

“I want you to have it,” she said and held the ring out to me. “You should have it,” she said. I saw kindliness in her face. I looked at her and smiled back. I had an impulse to accept it and actually took it in my hand.

My friend coughed in her glove and threw me a stern look. “No, no,” she said. “Just put it here on this closed up book stall. Come on. Right on top.” I gave the ring back to the woman and she walked away.

Then she turned back and said, “Please, just a few coins. My children are very hungry.”

My friend and I hustled on. “Do you suppose that was a set-up?” I asked. “Rather,” she said.

But I was wondering what the woman’s name might be. Maybe we should have given her something.

A few days later on a boulevard in another Paris neighborhood, a man leaned down and picked up a gold ring off the sidewalk. He offered it to my husband and me.

LINKING THE ARTS

A Good Word for Writers: Wallop, as in “Writer’s Wallop.” Feeling a moment in your gut and getting it down fast before it loosens its hold.

WRITING THE MOMENT THAT TICKLES

Posted on January 11, 2015 by writ7707 Posted in Art and Writing, Literary categories, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Writing, writing funny, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse Leave a comment

Writing Practice and the Muse who is ALWAYS THERE

Writing Leap #50

Happy Creative New Year Writers! May you have many spontaneous bursts of ideas for your writing. And the discipline (ah yes) to sit down and turn some of your sparklers into articles, stories, plays and poems.

An unexpected moment can tickle and delight us. Writing about it (as close to the moment it happens as possible—carry your notebook with you at all times) can be great practice in capturing a revealing aspect of you the writer or your characters. In fiction, the moment may not tickle you the author, but if it tickles your character the reader will get to know him better.

Here’s mine.

Teddy is almost five months old and he is going to Paris. What will his eager little face take in when we, his grandparents, send his parents off to a café and push him in the stroller down the Boulevard St. Germain? I can’t help the ripples of delight I feel each time I imagine it.

And the funniest thing? Teddy needs a passport! His mother texted me a picture of this passport. He is smiling one of his new grins and he’s all official now. I stared at the passport, shook my head, enjoying lots of tickles around my funny bone.

Here’s to your tickle moments writers! Maybe your own passport picture will inspire a funny story?

Warmly,

LINKING THE ARTS

An Old Master Painting

Franz Hals, Dutch, 1582-1666. Tickled by an owl?

Good Word. Delight As in the kind that bubbles up like a well.

WRITERS AND THE WINTER SOLSTICE

Posted on December 14, 2014 by writ7707 Posted in Uncategorized 2 Comments

Writing Practice and the Muse who is ALWAYS THERE

In a sky as black as a raven’s wing, the crackles of fragrant cedar logs and long licks of flames lit up the field orange on this the blackest, longest night of the year. It was December 21^st, the Winter Solstice. The bonfire danced ever hotter and ever higher lighting up cheeks flushed with spiced wine and revels. If you were a storyteller in the twelfth century you might be weaving in and out of the rumpus, noticing the town bully pinching the farmer’s wife or schoolchildren slinking off in the shadows to practice kissing, all tidbits for your stories. You might wassail the trees, toasting them with a heady brew in anticipation of their spring blooms brought on by the increasing warmth of the sun. Happy Solstice! Happy Solstice!

And to you dear writers in the 21^st century, as the sun brings us increasing light day by day after the solstice, may you find more and more light in your writing. May you see ever more clearly the perfect word, the seamless phrase, the emerging idea.

With or without wassail.

Just in case here’s a recipe for wassail adapted from nourishedkitchen.com. Serve in mugs.

4 small apples

1 cup brown sugar

1 orange

13 whole cloves

2 quarts hard apple cider

½ cup brandy

1 T powdered ginger

1 t grated nutmeg

6 allspice berries

2 cinnamon sticks

6 eggs, separated

Core each apple and fill with 1 T sugar

Stud an orange with the cloves

Bake on a cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven for forty minutes.

Pour the apple cider and brandy in a heavy bottomed pot and warm over moderately low heat. Wisk in the powdered ginger and nutmeg. Do not allow wassail to boil.

Tie up the allspice berries and the cinnamon sticks in a square of cheesecloth and float this spice sachet in the wassail as it warms.

Beat the egg yokes until light in color and set aside. In separate bowl whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Fold the yokes into the whites, then temper the eggs by slowly pouring ½ cup wassail into the eggs. Remove the spice sachet and slowly pour in the eggs.

Transfer to a punch bowl and float the apples and orange on top.

Wassail!

Happy Winter Solstice Writers!

INTERVIEWING YOUR FICTIONAL CHARACTER

Posted on November 22, 2014 by writ7707 Posted in interview, Interviewing Your Fictional Character, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing from a detail, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse 3 Comments

Writing Practice and the Muse Who is ALWAYS THERE

Writing Leap #48

Hi Writers,

Thanksgiving is the official time to verbalize “gratefuls.”

What about asking your fictional characters to tell you their “gratefuls?” They may surprise you! Maybe they think they don’t have any, or maybe they will reveal something about themselves that will show you a deeper side, an unexpected layer of who they are. Your character may show you he’s not always dense, or loving or grouchy or intelligent.

Asking your character questions, listening for his answers or “seeing” a new gesture or facial expression emerge is one way to add revealing dimensions to his behavior. It’s a good way to avoid the dreaded “one dimensional character.”

Go ahead and try asking your characters what they are grateful for. Start with a blank page, put the character’s name on top and ask the question! Give them a chance to show you how richly layered they may be. They might reward you by breathing right off the page.

Here’s mine. I asked my character if she were grateful for anything. She revealed something I never knew about her and I realized I had done her an injustice. She wasn’t just one way. She was another way too.

She had to get rid of this dog. He bites, well nips, her ankles, the delivery man’s ankles, guest’s ankles, everybody’s ankles. He whines every hour on the hour at night. Can he tell time? Here’s the worst. Sometimes he goes poo-poo in her husband’s back office, in front of the bathroom door. Right after a long walk outside.

Here he was now, looking up at her while she sat reading, tissues piling up in the basket next to her. Her nose wouldn’t stop running and her throat was sore and her head was hot. She crossed her legs trying to find a comfortable position. Holding the top leg slightly out in front of her felt good.

The dog lay at her feet. He reached his big paw up to her lifted leg and plopped it there, on her ankle. He was very still. She stared at him for a few moments, then a few more moments. She couldn’t help the smile and she ruffled the dog’s ears. She leaned back and felt the warmth of his paw spread through her, landing, she realized, on her heart. The dog looked her in the eye and didn’t move his paw from her leg. She really would be bereft without him. How could she be in her house without that doggie love following her around?

A Very Happy Thanksgiving Writers with many “gratefuls!” As for me, I am so grateful I am a writer because my eyes are always open wide.

LINKING THE ARTS

A Good Word

Trust, as in trusting that your characters know who they are.

I wonder if Dickens or Tolstoy or Edith Wharton had conversations with their characters?

WRITING THE UNEXPECTED JOY

Posted on November 1, 2014 by writ7707 Posted in The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Uncategorized, Writing 2 Comments

Writing Practice and the Muse who is ALWAYS THERE

Writing Leap #47

Happy November to all you Wonderful Writers!

Writing the unexpected joy, in memoir, fiction, a poem, is great writing practice for evoking a moment. It’s a chance to filter everything out except those words, those sounds, those smells, that rhythm that calls up the feeling of the moment—for the character and for the reader.

Have you been startled by something that dazzles you lately? Touched by a kindness? Go ahead all you idea-filled writers out there! Practice evoking a joyful moment. Maybe it will turn into a longer piece or turn out to be a horrible moment. Just start.

Here’s mine.

The old man stared at the picnic table by the sand dunes. The sun was peeking down through the clouds, covering half the table in warmth. Crisp, November ocean breezes blew some dried seaweed off the weathered table top.

“C’mon Finnegan.” He pulled his big old brown dog, a mix of god-knows-what, in close. “Let’s do it.”

Leaning on his dog and with a bit of effort, he pulled one leg up on to the table bench. Oof. He stopped to take a breath. “Bossy Dr. ‘Cautious’ would have ten fits if he saw me now, Finnegan, stiff as I am and creaky as I am.” The old man had dizzy spells sometimes and a hip that annoyed him.

He hoisted his other knee beside his foot. “O.K. O.K. I’m almost up, Finnegan.” Oooof. He pulled himself on to the tabletop and turned himself bit by bit, ouch, ouch. He lay down on his eighty-nine year old back. Aaaaah. The table was hard and the muscles in the top of his back hurt. He scrunched up his scarf and put it under his head. Yes. Better. Finnegan settled on the bench just beneath him.

The old man smiled and switched his awareness to the cloud pictures passing by in the sky that didn’t end. A slow sense of peace and utter contentment began to release his body into the warm wooden tabletop. The smell of the ocean and the lullaby of the crashing waves delighted his senses.

“I miss you Lizzie,” he said to a floating cloud. Was she clucking at him for doing such a darned foolish thing—climbing up on top of a picnic table? No, no, she’s glad I tried and did it. She only wanted me to be happy. Always.

After a nice long stretch he took one last blissful breath and began the trip down from the table top to the sand. Steady, steady, I can do it. O.K. O.K.

“C’mon Finnegan. I think we deserve a nice shot of whiskey.”

Happy Writing,

LINKING THE ARTS

This does look like a lovely spot to dream some new writing ideas or discover that elusive answer to a revision problem.

A Favorite Word: Contentment

Not to push this too far, but for me to feel deep contentment is what I imagine might be a state of grace.

A Favorite Book

The Outermost House by Henry Beston is full of unexpected joys at the seashore.

WRITING HIGH EMOTIONS

Posted on October 8, 2014 by writ7707 Posted in Literary categories, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Writing, Writing High Emotions, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse, Writing what you mean 3 Comments

Writing Practice and the Muse who is ALWAYS THERE

Writing Leap #46

Hi Writers,

Writing high emotions is tricky. Too much high drama and blatant telling and the emotion is lost in a superficial blur. But if the emotions are high and also deep and written with restraint the reader can feel the intensity as if it were his own.

Try this writers! Imagine or remember an intense experience and write it so that your reader believes you. I think it’s great practice for creating characters who demand empathy from the reader.

For me this requires many revisions. The right phrasing or word can be so elusive. But I find that if I just put myself back into the emotion and quietly breath it in over and over, the words will come.

Here’s mine.

When I hold my infant grandson, Teddy, the son of my much-loved son, next to my heart, his new little body nestled into mine, I close my eyes and an unbelievable tide of love for him flows through me, calm and peaceful. He chirps and I’m delighted. It’s almost like holding his father, when my son was an infant, all over again. Memories of those same, first bolts of love surge up once more.

And now, just a few weeks later and 24 hours ago, Layla and Sadie, my daughter’s twin bundles are here too. It’s hard to breath with so much happiness in my soul.

I put together a bunch of pink balloons, three dark pink and three light pink since my daughter wants her twins to be individuals, with lots of flowing ribbons and tiny white flowers.

“I’m sorry, you can’t bring those up to the room. They’re latex and not allowed in maternity.” The receptionist behind the front desk at the hospital was apologetic.

I looked at her. She couldn’t mean it. My daughter just gave birth to twins! I have to bring them up.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll keep them for you.”

No. My disappointment magnified inside me out of all proportion. But I want her to have them! I thought.

“Wait here,” her colleague said. She returned and gave me two non-latex balloons from the gift shop that said ‘It’s a girl.’ Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. These balloons were not my lovely pink creation but they were filled with warmth and understanding from one woman to another.

What can I say about holding my little granddaughters two hours old? I can’t quite tell them apart yet. I just look at them and they blur into beauty, daughters of my much-loved and beautiful daughter. I snuggle them next to my heart, one at a time, and the profound love I feel is so deep and so magical that I close my eyes and feel sure that I am in heaven. My own baby daughter again times two.

Now I must figure out a way to hold all three little ones in my arms at once.

Many writerly blessings for your work,

LINKING THE ARTS

Elizabeth Gilbert in her new book, The Signature of all Things writes a scene of intense emotion for her main character, Alma. Alma learns that her secret and unsuspecting love is to marry a ninny. I felt the hurricane inside her so intensely I clutched the sides of the book, yet the author’s depiction was measured, albeit tense. Alma’s outward demeanor was a mask.