Word by Word

Practical insights for writers from Jessica P Morrell

Reminder: Making it in Changing Times on January 31

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Jan• 15•15

Cathy-Lamb-092I feel renewed and excited about a spanking new year to cast my plans and dreams onto. How about you?  If you’re looking for advice on craft, blogging, and attracting an editor’s eye, this one-day conference is for you. It’s called Making it in Changing Times because the publishing landscape is ever changing and it’s hard to stay on top of it all.  We’ll even have a workshop on yoga for writers to help you keep your body going during those long stints at the computer.  The prolific, best-selling, and fun Cathy Lamb is the keynote speaker and will share her secrets about how she’s juggled her life while writing 9 (!) novels and six novellas.

The conference is at Tabor Space is southeast Portland and costs $99 which includes beverages, lunch, and a Continental breakfast.

A serious bargain.  You can find the complete schedule, speaker bios and details here.  2015: Focus, Clarity, Direction.

Meanwhile, keep dreaming, keep writing, have faith

 

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For Motivational Mondays

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Jan• 12•15

watery imageThe root of creativity is in the murky waters of deep imagination. Making contact might involve sitting quietly and looking out the window as the light comes. It might be gardening or long walks in the woods.  – Roderick MacIver

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Thought for the day: Let your subject find you

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Jan• 09•15

“Don’t go searching for a subject, let your subject find you. You can’t rush inspiration. How do you think Capote came to “In Cold Blood”? It was just an ordinary day when he picked up the paper to read his horoscope, and there it was — fate. Whether it’s a harrowing account of a multiple homicide, a botched Everest expedition or a colorful family of singers trying to escape from Austria when the Nazis invade, you can’t force it. Once your subject finds you, it’s like falling in love. It will be your constant companion. Shadowing you, peeping in your windows, calling you at all hours to leave messages like, “Only you understand me.” Your ideal subject should be like a stalker with limitless resources, living off the inheritance he received after the suspiciously sudden death of his father. He’s in your apartment pawing your stuff when you’re not around, using your toothbrush and cutting out all the really good synonyms from the thesaurus. Don’t be afraid: you have a best seller on your hands.” ~Colson Whitehead

 Truman Capote 2

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Thought for the day:

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Jan• 08•15

“I feel that you take from your life experiences, but to make it fiction, you take it to a deeper level. You transform the mundane disappointments or the joys to make it true storytelling. You have to go much farther. You have to be a kind of spy and listen carefully.” ~ spy glassElizabeth Brundage

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Advice to you writers from Kurt Vonnegut

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Jan• 06•15

kurt-vonnegutNovember 5, 2006

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut

 This is from Letters of Note
Keep dreaming, keep writing, have heart

 

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Quick Take: Write What Scares You

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Dec• 30•14

Writing what scares you doesn’t require that you write a depressing memoir, lonely tale, or gore-soaked, zombie-slasher free-for-all. It does mean you’ll be revealing the inky, complex emotions and potholed messes that shape a life. It means you’ll be thinking about human foibles and not-so pleasant qualities.No matter your genre,  fear should have you peering over your shoulder. Although it seems counterintuitive, if you’re not afraid, you’re not writing at your best. Writing is risk.   gate barred

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Quick Take:

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Dec• 30•14

Everything your main characters do must have consequences. No, I’m not talking about tying their shoelaces or walking the dog. Well, unless they’re walking the pooch in a sketchy neighborhood, in the rain at 2 a.m., or as a hurricane is about to blast through…..A kiss needs to lead to something. A slap or lie or fumble must have significance. Now sometimes you need to give readers breathers in your stories–little tidbits of ordinary life or a slower pace. But if theishadow, tallr acts don’t have consequences, it’s likely they’re not needed in the story. 

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Motivational Mondays: Oscar Wilde on happiness

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Dec• 29•14

Oscar Wilde“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?” ~ Oscar Wilde

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Thought for the day:

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Dec• 18•14

“Maybe learning how to be out in the big world isn’t the epic journey everyone thinks it is. Maybe that’s actually the easy part. The hard part is what’s right in front of you. The hard part is learning how to hold the title to your very existence, to own not only property, but also your life.”
– Meghan Daum
Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House

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A poem for the dark days of December

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Dec• 13•14

december frozen branchesTHE WRITING LIFE
Give me the names for things, just give me their real names,
Not what we call them, but what
They call themselves when no one’s listening –
At midnight, the moon-plated hemlocks like unstruck bells,
God wandering aimlessly elsewhere.
Their names, their secret names.

December. Everything’s black and brown. Or half-black and half-brown.
What’s still alive puts its arms around me,
amen from the evergreens
That want my heart on their ribbed sleeves.
Why can’t I listen to them?
Why can’t I offer my heart up
To what’s in plain sight and short of breath?

Restitution of the divine in a secular circumstance –
Page 10, The Appalachian Book of the Dead,
the dog-eared one,
Pre-solstice winter light laser-beaked, sun over Capricorn,
Dead-leaf-and-ice-mix grunged on the sidewalk and driveway.
Short days. Short days. Dark soon the light overtakes.
Stump of a hand.
– Charles Wright

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