“Why ask art into a life at all, if not to be transformed and enlarged by its presence and mysterious means? Some hunger for more is in us – more range, more depth, more feeling; more associative freedom, more beauty. More perplexity and more friction of interest. More prismatic grief and unstunted delight, more longing, more darkness. More saturation and permeability in knowing our own existence as also the existence of others. More capacity to be astonished. Art adds to the sum of the lives we would have, were it possible to live without it. And by changing selves, one by one, art changes also the outer world that selves create and share.”
– Jane Hirshfield Ten Windows
Written By: Jessica Morrell
-
Apr•
22•16
Bitter Truth: Writing cannot save you from yourself.
Written By: Jessica Morrell
-
Apr•
21•16
Sure it can heal some old wounds and that vast emptiness inside you that was once your marriage or your best friend who dumped you for no good reason. It can make you proud and even make your never-lavish-with-praise mother proud. It can fill you with joy and feel like the best kind of fever and the sweetest dream within dreams.
But if you’re a depressed recluse who cannot bear to throw out Pepsi bottles or newspapers, if you’re failing all your freshman year classes, or you’re so obsessed with our vapid pop culture or you’re hooked on computer games so that you scarcely have time to make a living, or you need to lose 200 pounds, well, writing cannot help all that. If you’re depressed you need help. Right now. If you’re failing you need to go to class and hand in your assignments. And consider more sleep and caffeine and less pot and beer. If you’re obsessed with all the versions of Desperate Housewives, with online gossip sites, and the Kardashians you probably don’t have much to say. You’re probably mostly paying attention to other lives, not your own. Not to mention this glorious and ailing planet. Computer games should be a hobby, not a way of life unless you’re a game designer, and then storytelling is a great asset. If you’re obese you need help because life is better when you’re healthy and not addicted to some form of soothing. Besides, obesity is a slide toward early death. I’ve known too many people who died before they wanted to and strongly suggest you take care of yourself more.
Writing is balm, writing is joy, and writing is almost holy on a good day. But on those bad days when you feel washed up or pissed off or just disenchanted it helps to not depend on writing to make it all better. You need to make it better.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart
Reality Check
Written By: Jessica Morrell
-
Apr•
10•16
There will always be a gap between your ideal self and your real self. There will always be a gap between your ideal writing and the writing you can actually accomplish. Write anyway. Your aim is to decrease the distance between these gaps.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart
Rita Mae Reese on non-writing
Written By: Jessica Morrell
-
Apr•
05•16
The one thing I’ve discovered about writing over the years is that not-writing is like a virus—it’s always mutating, always trying to overcome your defenses. Sometimes it will succeed. There’s no single answer that will work the rest of your writing life. You’ll think you’re a disciplined writer and then you’ll have kids; your first book will come out and all of those ideas waiting in your notebook just wither up; you’ll find a great community of writers and find that you spend more time talking about writing than actually writing. I have, however, found a few defenses that have been essential against not-writing. The first is the vitamin B6; it helps you deal with stress and it makes your dreams more vivid. I don’t like taking pills, even a vitamin, so I’ve stopped taking it dozens of times, and always I notice that the impulse for writing wanes without it. The second thing is reminding myself: You don’t have to write anything that you’re not deeply interested in. Every time I remember this, it’s a relief and a surprise. Walking, meditating, writing by hand, and keeping a notebook have also been useful, particularly in conjunction with the first two defenses. I realize that it all comes down to maintaining and refreshing a sense of play. As Martin Buber once wrote, ‘Play is the exultation of the possible,’ and exploring the possible is what writing is all about for me.”
—Rita Mae Reese, author of The Book of Hulga (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016
Bitter Truth: Time is a tyrant
Written By: Jessica Morrell
-
Mar•
25•16
Writing and finishing your short story/novel/memoir will likely take longer than you planned. Anyone who has every hired a contractor to remodel their kitchen or bathroom knows this. Things just can and do go wrong. The factory doesn’t have the right tile in stock. The electrician never shows up. Meanwhile, you’re cooking on your camping stove on the patio and winter is coming….
Most people underestimate how long tasks and projects take to complete. This phenomenon even has a name: planning fallacy. And you know what’s weird, we keep making this mistake over and over because it’s simply difficult to predict all the problems that might occur.
Back to writing. Raise your hand it if this happens to you: You’re 
trying to tell a story that’s above your skill set.
You were way too optimistic when you started out, before you ran into snags and potholes. I mean plotholes.
You procrastinate.
You spent too much time researching.
While fixing your second draft you realize you’ve drifted too far from your theme or the whole shebang needs a major rewrite.
Your beta readers are asking you some hard-to-answer questions about your ending.
Your characters have proven to have a mind of their own.
Real-life events, health problems, and tragedies intervene.
You’re a perfectionist. So is your editor.
Once you’ve gotten a few completed books under your belt it’s easier to predict the amount of time required to reach The End. Meanwhile, carve out time, fix what can be fixed, and no, it cannot all be fixed.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart
Quick Take:
Written By: Jessica Morrell
-
Mar•
23•16
Stories are about change. The more painful the better. These difficult changes are going to happen to your protagonist–he or she will always be the character most hurt and changed by the story events. The effect of all these changes? A character arc. Proof that your protagonist has come through the fire, has been somehow tested and transformed.
Details to heighten conflict
Written By: Jessica Morrell
-
Mar•
21•16
Our daily lives are filled with insipid details, background sounds, and habitual responses. There is both sameness and comfort in the dailiness of our routines, the furnishings and clutter in our homes, the alarm clock buzzing each weekday morning.
And our storytelling needs bits of this day-to-day normality to 
establish an authentic and breathing world. Within the first page or so of a story the reader should know where he is in time and space, the season, the weather, and understand the tone. The opening pages sketch a map for readers to follow and it might include a few beige parts of a story. But stories aren’t beige, they’re Picasso, Matisse colored. They brim with what matters including the details that will pierce your reader, heighten the conflict, make the abstract concrete, show where your character is at in the moment and reveal what he or she is feeling.
Georges-Seurat_A-Sunday-on-La-Grande-Jatte
Have you ever stood in front of a painting that depicts an intricate scene and studied all the dynamics and tiny elements? Have you noticed how it depicts and era, culture and mood? Have you ever felt like you could step into the painting? In a similar way your readers want to step into your scenes and details anchor them there.
Successful stories often feature a character at his/her breaking point. As in life, each character’s breaking point will be idiosyncratic, but somehow the scene must convey the desperation of the moment without spelling it out. That’s where details come in–setting, props, attire, body language and posture, facial expressions– mixed into circumstances and reactions. And the best details heighten the conflict, stir in more tension and questions.
Say a couple is about to call off their engagement. Will the argument escalate while they’re are driving in heavy traffic? Or take place at their favorite Italian restaurant where the waiters know them? Will the diners at the next tables look over in concern and annoyance? Will the air smell like garlic and bread? Has the couple ordered the most expensive or cheapest Chianti on the menu?
Keep asking yourself what small details will create intimacy and communicate layers of meaning. When the drunk and broken-hearted ex-lover pounds on the door for admittance will your character be leaning against a sink filled with dirty dishes or standing amid a gleaming, spotless kitchen?
Will he/she have just showered? Dressed to go out for big night? Awakened on the couch with the Home Shopping Network chirping in the background?
MYSTIC RIVER Jimmy is restrained when he learns his daughter’s body has been found.
When the tragic news arrives will it happen in a dreaded 2 a.m. phone call; will the school principal phone at the office. Will your protagonist spot his teenage daughter or son climbing into the car belonging to a petty criminal or the bad-news friend they’re forbidden to hang out with?
Will the funeral of the too-young-to-be-gone character take place on an impossibly lovely summer afternoon or with rain falling or the ground frozen? Will the victim’s school friends huddle together, sobbing and stunned?
Friends travel to comply with their friend’s wish to scatter his ashes
Will the mourners show up for the wake shaken and struggling to keep it together? Will the dead girl’s mother be unable to greet her guests and instead retreat to her darkened bedroom? Will the dead girl’s father look like he hasn’t slept in days? When another character shakes his hand will those hands be cold and chapped and his eyes vacant? Will the dead girl’s younger brother appear lost and dazed and scared?
Are you keeping a notebook where you spill out these observations and tidbits? Do you write about gatherings and parties and restaurant meals and moments witnessed on the street? Because tragedies, funerals, arguments have all been written thousands and thousands of times keep searching for that trifle that whispers. What fresh angle, dark humor, or complicated emotions can you bring to these moments? What matters?
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart
