Maurice Sendak will never be forgotten. His life and body of work are inspiration for writers everywhere.

He wrote from the dark places of childhood and fears and longing. Thanks for the magic Mr. Sendak. Rest where the wild things are. Here is his obituary.  To hear his thoughts on writing in an interview with Bill Moyers go here. Let the sad rumpus begin.

Going Home

€Jessica P. Morrell

Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.  ~Doug Larson

Almost two years ago I went home to the small town in northern Wisconsin where I lived until I was fourteen. The occasion was my father’s 80^th birthday and I found a place changed by time, and sometimes as I drove down the streets it seemed that I was seeing it for the first time because the reality of this place doesn’t match what exists in my memory and dreams.

I experienced the biggest gap between now and memory when at night the fireflies didn’t appear with their tiny inner lanterns. An uncle suggested they liked open meadows, a brother said they had them in their Illinois backyard. I since have learned that their best habitat includes standing water and long grass, and since the house I grew up was located near a creek and surrounded by meadows, I understand why I didn’t spot any in the town, city, and lakesides that we stayed in. But I was disappointed since I live in the West where fireflies mostly don’t exist and they were everywhere at night when I was a girl, they were part of dusk, part of dark, lighting the shadows and night and our gladiator arena where we played nighttime games and laughed about ghosts and spooks.

As writers we all need to return in memory to the places of childhood or our roots because without memory our writing cannot represent us fully and cannot be well-charged with emotion and sensory detail. We need to visit our origins to understand this queer pastime we’ve chosen, the reasons for why we became a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging and re-arranging words. Because going home illuminates our grown-up lives and if you’re a writer there are no forgotten children and there is always shelter and sky and seasons.

Even without knowing it, we all write from a sense of place and from the jumble of our pasts. And in these pasts were our confused emotions and hurts and secrets, the seed or source of our writing.  Going home you can find your first literary idols and the library with its smell of books and wood and rain. You can find the specificity of detail that brings a place, and thus a story to life. Going home you might find the haunts and shadows, or the impetus for your feral imagination.

We can never truly recover our pasts, not even if we have reams of photographs and grainy films and boxes of childhood trophies. But we can search for them, and we can use sojourns into the land of memory as inspiration, or even a road map for writing.  Memory and storytelling are as linked as right hand, left hand joining forces on a keyboard to shape words.  We can trace our family dynamics or our cousin’s family dynamics into a story remembering if things were tense or easygoing or if secrets lurked.  We can mine the senses, feel the intensity of times past, especially feelings of vulnerability or not knowing.

Unspooling the past we recognize how it adds breath and energy to our writing. That writing from experience, even if it’s emotional experiences, as opposed to actual experiences, has huge value. You ask yourself questions about your simple desire to tell stories and why your eight-year-old self wrote spy stories or horror tales and poems.

From the safe perch of adulthood I look back at the girl I was with all her longings, passions, and black-hearted jealousies. I can feel the keys of my Royal typewriter I owned as a girl, can see the desk I sat at, filled with such importance that I had my own desk, my own place to write.  I find my clumsy metaphors, my girlhood griefs, the big and small cruelties of childhood, the words stuck or stalled in my throat, the bottled-up anger at small and large injustices,  the insecurities and obsessions, the joys of running along the creek and playing games of make-believe, the breadcrumbs that lead to my starting point as a writer.

When going home you find the music of previous eras the songs that tug you back in time yet live on. You never forget these lyrics and their reminders of heartbreak or first love, or the giddiness of youth. It’s all there, the richness and texture and tangle of memory, the old and retold stories.  At times the soft edges of the past and sharp lines of the present clash and groan like winter ice breaking up in the spring. And as we write from memory, more memories arrive, and with memory comes associations and inspirations and more stories. And we find patterns, sometimes that have gone unnoticed for years, threading through events and truths and discoveries.

But mostly when you go home, you see stories, a narrative, everywhere in the remembered and the now.  Stories practically grow on trees and swim in the familiar air. The air of my past is heated and bathed in humidity and my grown up body finds these temperatures unbearable, but the baked summers of my childhood were spent in creeks and rivers, not air conditioning and summer arriving always returns me to childhood.

Of course we’ve changed from that person of past decades. It’s natural to grow and evolve and have new strivings and yearnings. But retrieve why you became a writer in the first place. The why of your writing self. Become a detective, a seeker after the treasure of your desires.

Go home to make peace with your past, with the pains and sorrows and lessons of all that was. This is not a sentimental journey, rather it’s an un-rosy pilgrimage, a necessary voyage.

Driving through my former hometown the streets were unpeopled and sleepy, the yards unoccupied, the windows blank. It seemed like a sound stage, when it wasn’t amplified by emotions and memories. The downtown is now mostly cell phone stores, secondhand shops, and auto parts stores.  Missing was the J.C.Penney department store, the Woolworths and Ben Franklin, the shoe stores, dress stores, the daily newspaper office, the mom and pop bakeries, and family-owned diners.

While the downtown has withered, the town has blossomed on the outer edges near a freeway exit with chain motels, a Subway, McDonalds, a Wal Mart where you’ll find more people than anywhere else, a Piggly Wiggly, Dollar Store and Hallmark store. But there is still the majestic court house with its four-sided clock, the many graceful churches planted amid quiet neighborhoods, the library where I spent so much time as a girl which now houses some of my books. The legacy of the forest industry visible in the blocks of  grand historic homes as well as in the forests that surround the town.

The Wisconsin River winds through the town, splashing over rocks and dams before joining the Mississippi. When I think back it’s the place where the sound of rivers and streams have slipped into my blood, a great birthplace for a writer. We all know that time changes us and places and things, but for writers the question is how.

Summer in Words Writing Conference 2012

You don’t want to miss the stellar line up of professionals and bestselling authors so register soon.  Expect craft workshops that you can immediately put to use and inspiration that will propel you to your next steps. If you’re staying at the Hallmark Inn & Resort, register by May 14^th to receive the group rate at 1-888-448-4449.

This year’s theme: Refinement, Resonance & Renewal

Keynote Speaker: Chelsea Cain

For information contact jessicamorrell (at) spiritone.com o Updates at http://summerinwords.wordpress.com

I keep circling back to the idea of resonance in writing, especially lately since it’s going to be one of the techniques explored during  my upcoming Summer in Words Conference. For years now I’ve been trying to puzzle out exactly how writers achieve resonance in their stories. By resonance I mean the many layers of storytelling and how it effects us. It’s part afterburn, part emotional tangle, part word tango, and part lingering potency.

The best stories change the way we look at the world. They teach us something about what it means to be human; to hurt and hope and carry on. The best stories effect our psyches on many levels.  Writers can pen a narrative aimed  at our conscious,using simple daytime language, and can aim the same tale at our unconscious achieving a form of meta-communication (or offering different meanings on various levels). I call it emotional resonance.

The first technique you can use  to create resonance is mood, tone, or atmosphere. Some people use these terms interchangeably, but it  seems to  me that tone is the overall feel of a story–such as suspense or horror or romance. Tone can be comic or serious or romantic. Mood, which should pervade the most important scenes and moments, is especially important in genre fiction such as fantasy or horror and because mood  will induce the sensory-overloaded reader to buy the book.

I tend to relate  mood to color and music–such as when a story is dark or bleak or a song can fill you with longing. Mood can change from scene to scene adding shades as the story progresses, often mirroring the viewpoint character’s situation or emotions.  I’m thinking of the colorless, pitiless landscape and grey ash of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the smothering parlors and forced gaiety tossed in with desperation in Jane Austen’s stories.  I recently saw The Hunger Games film and the mood was so grim and suspenseful that my neck was sore by the time I left the theater. And the  garish pinks and blues  and strange pastels worn by society created such a jarring note of unreality. Of course tension wasn’t only caused by  the mood, since the twists were many, the stakes were high, the situation insane, but the mood added to it all.

Theme and language are entwined as graceful dancers to create resonance. Always pay attention to the connotation of each word. A romance might use softer language while a noir story will have a grittier vocabulary.

Motifs, extended metaphors and symbols are all powerful techniques. In The Hunger Games, the natural world and green, twittering forests should be places of safety, but instead they’re teeming with danger and traps when the Game is underway. There are references to the mockingjay, plants, and herbs. In fact, one of the main characters is named Rue.  Rue’s death and burial are the turning point in the story. After this Katniss is not only trying to survive, but is facing a larger fight for freedom and humanity.  Since these devices are so potent, use them throughout for consistency and also save them for something crucial that you want to convey, preferably a high point in your story or the emotional life of your character. Rue’s burial when she’s covered with flowers is an example. Search always for words and images of rare coinage.

Give readers archetypes and themes that they relate to. Desire. Family. Sex. Betrayal. Heartache. Survival. Childbirth. Rivalry.  Redemption. Injustice. Children. Guilt. Death. War. Racism.  Bring the topics to life with intimate moments and changes in the characters as Mark Twain does when Huckleberry Finn and Jim escape on a raft and become true friends.

Along with themes, create a plot where the character must confront or face important emotional truths. In The Hunger Games, we find the main characters facing horrible realities about their world and the people in power and also what they’re willing to do to survive amid this madness and tyranny. In other words, inner change and recognition create emotional resonance. Resonance means the reader will ponder, remember, and miss your story and characters long after she turns the last page.

Look for updates on Summer in Words 2012 here.

So here’s what you do: take your memories and present them to the reader. Take your passions. You take as much guilt and as little total depravity as you can safely mix in. You read. You steal. You want desperately to be a writer. You volunteer to nail your soft parts to a tree. You soak up everything. You take notes. You retire to your garret or your study or your office and you tie yourself to the chair with the belt of your bathrobe. And you write. You slowly go crazy, but you write. You drink lye, if that is what it will take, and you remember the nights and caves in Granada. Because you desperately want to be a writer. You do. You write. You write. And you write.  ~ Bill Brashler, The Total Writer

 Like some of you, I don’t really like to sit down to write all the time. As a famous wag once said he enjoyed having written more than writing. In fact, some days I detest it.  I avoid it by eating, reading, emptying the dishwasher, answering e-mails, pulling dead leaves off my plants, chatting on the phone—in fact, my list of avoidance tactics is too long to enumerate here. However, like you, I also love to write and some of my most contented moments come while I’m writing. It’s a kick. It makes me feel alive and passionate. It forces me to analyze my ideas and improve my craft. It also makes me feel comforted and safe and like I’ve found a home within myself and also a home within this vast, spinning world. Like you, I also know that I’m called to writing. Because when I don’t write, my life is flat. When I don’t write, I feel nervous, empty and unfulfilled.

So the writer who hates to write and the writer who enjoys the process, lives within me, as I suspect he or she lives within most of you. I work at understanding where my strengths and weaknesses lie, and I suggest you start there too. In my first book Writing out the Storm I wrote that we begin writing by first knowing ourselves a little better. And I still believe in that advice.

It’s important to know what kind of writer you are, and then to find ways to capitalize on your strengths and override your weaknesses. For example, I’m an idea person. I’ve got ideas for at least five nonfiction books, a few screenplays and about a dozen essays bouncing around within me. My problems are managing my time, fleshing out ideas, completing and marketing them.  Some of you might struggle with WHAT to write. You don’t know if you should write nonfiction, essays or fiction, so you drift and your dreams fizzle. Some people struggle with structure–they cannot shape their vague ideas into a format, a plot line, a screenplay, or an essay; so they never try. Some writers get stuck because they don’t have faith in their basic skills such as grammar, style, and spelling. Some writers don’t know how to begin. They have an idea for a novel, but have no concept about how to flesh it out.

Start with where you are now

Start with your where you are now and if you have a lack to be overcome, make concrete plans to fill in the gaps. If you want to write fiction, but need more information about structure, then research every source you can find on the subject. After you’ve read the advice, taken notes, and analyzed your favorite novels, apply what you’ve learned, then practice the exercises here.  BEFORE you write your novel. A lot of us read books on technique, but we don’t practice or experiment based on what we learn. Your brain will not file, store and process new information without practice. It takes action–the muscles of the hand connecting with the idea to improve your voice, style or how you shape a story.

Face your fears

Next, face your fears. There is no such thing as writer’s block, but fear wears many disguises in order to keep us from writing. Some of us worry that we’re not REAL writers; we’re frauds and if we try, eventually we’ll be discovered. Some of us are afraid we’ll never get published, so why bother? Some of us fear that we don’t have enough to say. Some of us worry that our writing will offend our family. Some of us are afraid that we don’t have the discipline to accomplish our goals. I could go on and on with this tragic list, but that’s not my point here. I mention these fears because I’m sure that your particular monster is a big factor in why you’re not writing regularly. Stand up to your fears and understand that we all afraid of some aspect of this process.

But the first kind of fear that you need to acknowledge and then wrestle with, is anxiety. Most writers experience some form of anxiety when they sit down to write. For most of us, the first 15-30 minutes of writing are the worst− we’re nervous, restless and unfocused. This is a common occurrence and you’ve got to find a way to outsmart your anxiety. Set an alarm, or promise yourself a chocolate after you’ve written for half an hour. Play soothing or upbeat music. I begin a writing session by lightly editing the section I’ve worked on the previous day. I’m usually so engrossed with tweaking sentences, trimming flab from my paragraphs and searching for perfect verbs to replace wimpy ones, that I forget my anxiety. Before I know it, my twitchiness has diminished and I’m engrossed in the process. Another trick is to end each writing session at a place where you know what’s going to happen next so that it’s easy to slip into the flow when you begin again.

I believe that many beginning writers imagine that published writers succeed because they’ve somehow overcome their anxieties and fears. This is simply not true. Although the pros might still be plagued with nerves or writing-induced neurosis, they write anyway. Then, with knees quaking, he or she mails a manuscript off to a publisher. It means that even if the pro is still haunted, worried and stressed, these demons do not paralyze him or her.  They keep going despite these uncomfortable feelings. There is no big secret here.

Anxious writers are everywhere

There have been many successful, yet anxious writers: Raymond Carver, Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, and Frederick Exeley, to name a few. But they used their fears to lend the writing intensity. James Cain said that if the writing doesn’t keep the writer up at night, it won’t keep the reader up either.

However, perhaps one aspect that experienced writers work at is not feeling vulnerable about their writing. When I was the writing coach at iVillage.com, not a day passed without a member posting at a message board or admitting during our live classes that she was afraid to post her work because she was terrified of criticism. I believe that some writers mistakenly assume that THEY, not their WORK are being evaluated. Your writing is the sum of your skills TODAY. Next month or next year your skills will likely be honed jewels, while now they’re more like clay or some other raw element.

The other thing I’ve noticed over the years, but was especially made aware of when working as an on-line writing coach, was that many writers mistakenly believe that praise and adoration makes us a better writer. Now I’m all for encouraging writers. BUT we learn best from writers who are more skilled than us, who will take the time to TACTFULLY make recommendations and point out our failures. We cannot fix our mistakes until we see them and for most of us, at least in the beginning stages of writing, this sometimes requires another person’s perceptions and discernment.

Years ago I wrote articles for a community newspaper where the editor was a friend of mine. She returned her edited drafts of my articles and those startling red marks, lines, arrows, deletions taught me more than many semesters of sitting in a journalism class. Of course I was alarmed, even horrified the first time I saw all that red ink. But her editing notes were amazingly enlightening and I’m still grateful to her. Now that I’m in the editor’s chair, I only hope that my marks and comments can be nearly as helpful.

Another fact that is inescapable is simply this: the nature of this business is that you send your words out into the world for others to scrutinize. If it’s published, the critics, your uncle, your ex-boyfriend, your sister who was always jealous of your successes and your high school English teacher might make judgments or possibly tear apart what you wrote. There are two issues here. One, they’ll judge the quality of the work. Two, they’ll judge the content and how it reflects on the person who wrote it. Readers might assume that if your character hates children or sex or cats or Brussels sprouts, that you do too.  Or if the father in the short story is vicious and violent, that your father must have been a horror also.

 Safety zones

Chances are that there are specific people who you are most afraid to show your work. When I was a kid, I made the mistake of showing my parents my writing, mostly poems. Their reactions were far from positive, so as an adult, I was still wary of my family’s reactions to my work. So, living two thousand miles from my hometown, I started sending my writing to them. At first it was an essay about Christmas that was broadcast on Public Radio, then an essay about the Green Bay Packers that had been published in a daily newspaper, in other words, safe subjects. I never asked them what they thought about my essays, but somehow the act of mailing them killed a phantom and put right a long-held hurt

I also discovered that while I am afraid of publishers, editors and other big bad wolves; that the person I’m most afraid of is myself. I’m never completely happy with what I write. It’s never good enough, even if I’m reading it in front of a sold-out room. I can spot every weak verb or tangled metaphor AS I read my words. I’m working to silence my inner critic every time I write and I want to suggest that you face that obnoxious force too.

I often laughingly describe my theories about writing to my students explaining that while the process of writing can be difficult; finishing and evaluating your efforts is harder yet. I’ve compared reading my finished manuscripts to giving birth to an ugly baby. So it is that likely YOU are your harshest critic, the one who labels your completed works ugly. You must face the fact that your writing will never be perfect; will never be as grand or polished as the story that lives in your head. Forgive yourself for being human; have compassion for yourself and your attempts; and keep going.

Write what must be written

So how do you stay motivated in this midst of this turmoil? The answers sound simple, but of course it’s fraught with dangers: Show your work to someone you trust in order to conquer your vulnerabilities. And no matter how vulnerable you feel, write about what calls to you—what MUST be written. If you want to write about a character who hates men or women or gays, do it. If you are called to write about secrets such as, incest, bulimia, addiction, or suicide, do it. The truth is that the most embarrassing, gruesome and hidden topics are often the most interesting. In workshops sometimes I notice that students write around the truth, taking their piece to a certain level, expose only a bit of themselves because they’re afraid what other students will think of them.  Half-formed or evasive writing is not the answer. Clarity, honesty and mining the depths of our emotions will bring reactions from readers and also earn self-respect.

So write with honesty, but not from a bitter or vengeful heart. Instead write with compassion and if possible, some distance.  And then rehearse answers so that when your readers or critics ask probing questions you can sound glib and assured.

Or write under a pseudonym.

All writers are vulnerable, since our words are always naked out in the world without us. But if your motives are pure—even if you’re writing to understand yourself and your past—and your approach is balanced, and your work is polished and original, some day, someone will buy your honest words. No matter what they cost you.

©Jessica Morrell

There is no mystery to turning pro. It’s a decision brought about by an act of will. We make up our minds to view ourselves as pros, and we do it, simple as that. ~ Stephen Pressfield

File this column under my annual pep talk. Something you might hear from a hard ass or an NBA coach. If you’re not aware, most of them aren’t mild or retiring types. I’m thinking of one of my favorite all-time coaches, Don Nelson when he was coaching the Milwaukee Bucks.  His passion for the game was like fire in his veins. He was a maverick in his coaching style (and yes, I know that term has been overused), so zealous about the game that  he once protested a penalty call by tearing off his jacket in frustration, ripping the sleeve from the garment.

When a professional athlete hits the court or playing field he or she is expected to leave everything on the court. No complaints about how the deck is stacked against him; no cursing at the rules of play; no griping at the refs if you’re smart. Pros put on the uniform and play their hearts out. After years learning the fundamentals, years of practice and more practice, of drills and more drills.  Listening to their coach when they need to change course. Refining a technique or switching up the defensive or offensive strategy.

In Stephen Pressfield’s marvelous little book on the creative process The War of Art he explains that the way to succeed in any art is by turning pro. He explains: “The professional respects his craft. He does not consider himself superior to it… The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come. The professional is sly. He knows that by toiling beside the front door of technique, he leaves room for genius to enter by the back.”

So while learning all they can about craft and the publishing or movie business, writers need to be consummate professionals. When you meet an editor or agent.  When you turn in a manuscript (honoring the deadline), and in all your correspondence and public appearances.

Pressfield’s expression turning pro has a specific connotation, and about a third of the book is dedicated to explaining the professional mindset and habits. Turning pro is a state of mind; it’s a mental shift from weekend-warrior amateur to hard-core, self-disciplined professional. If you really want to conquer resistance to doing creative work (or any other major thing that you want to achieve, whether it’s running a marathon or starting a business) get serious about it. Accept that you’ll wage a daily battle against the forces within you that would rather take the easy way out and keep you safely within your comfort zone.

What distinguishes the professional writer? A pro shows up for work every day; a pro is patient; a pro endures adversity. A pro doesn’t take success or failure personally; a pro accepts no excuses; a pro plays hurt. A pro learns to be objective about their own strengths and weaknesses. Here is how you do it:

1. Treat other pros with respect and gratitude. Especially the gatekeepers of the profession—agents, managers, editors, and authors. Say ‘thank you’ a lot. Recognize the busy schedules of these specialists. They don’t owe you their time or respect until you’ve earned it.

2. Dress the part. You’ll be in the presence of anyone who might further your career. Comport yourself with grace, ease, and humility. Notice: desperation wasn’t in that list. Be ready to chat about yourself and your work in an engaging manner, without sounding like you’ve been scripted or like you work in call center in Mumbai. Be yourself, ask questions, tell a story, and smile.

3. Show up with a ‘lunch pail’ attitude toward the work.  Day after day, year after year. Punch in and treat the task at hand with commitment and consistency. At the conference, attend every session you can on craft, but also sit in on the panels featuring agents and editors—taking copious notes at all times.

4. Follow up. At the conference, after you’ve networked and gleaned information, follow up on the contacts you’ve made by sending out manuscripts and thank yous. Then comb though your notes for gems and further inspiration. You might want to type up your notes if they’re handwritten, which anchors them in your memory. Don’t forget to touch base with the writers that you met at the conference, either.

5.  Keep the fire burning. After hobnobbing and learning, don’t let the creative fire you’ve been exposed to die. Keep your passion for writing alive by reading what inspires you and staying connected to other writers.

6. Stick with it no matter what. The pro lives and works in the no-excuse zone.

Not until your back hurts or your ideas start fizzling. Just write through the pain and through the dead zone of a faltering draft. Then write some more.

6. Pros keep learning over their lifetime, gaining skills and mastering techniques. A writing pro must read work far better than he or she can write the learning process.

7. Pros face rejection like a warrior, not a wimp. Professional athletes lose all the time, often while disappointing their fans and with multi-million dollar stakes and world championships on the line. After the loss, they swallow their frustration and pride, suit up and try harder.

8. Pros endure. They play injured, they play tired or scared. No matter what, no matter how long it takes to finish a draft or revise a draft, or sell a manuscript.

9. Pros are humble. We know we’re lucky to be called to this art, to dictate the voices and ideas that whisper in our heads.

10. Pros are always ready when called off the bench. Your opportunity just might be arriving soon so be ready for it.

11. Pros are authentic. Our stories are fiercely illuminating–true in the sense that they reflect our perceptions, imaginations, and hopes.

So get into the game. Play with stamina and grace. As Steven Pressfield said, “Better to be in the arena getting stomped by the bulls, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.”

Line by Line: How to Rewrite, Rework & Reword
March 24, 9-5 Tabor Space, 5441 S.E. Belmont, Portland, OR Cost: $75
Every good writer is also an editor. The tough thing about self-editing is learning what to keep, what to lose, and what to leave well enough alone. For some this can be difficult because writers are extremely close to their work and read what they meant to write, not what’s actually on the page. This workshop will give you perspective on all that. We’ll cover the all-important level of line editing—or how to make each sentence and paragraph sing, how to choose words for potency and resonance, and how to transform clunky sentences and paragraphs into smooth beauties. We’ll be line editing examples throughout the workshop. The aim is to polish so the pages are not only easy to read, but a pleasure to read. Generous handouts and cheat sheets will be supplied. We’ll cover:
• Definitions of developmental editing, copy editing, line editing and proofreading.
• The five steps of line editing and ways to analyze your work with an impersonal eye.
• How to keep a close eye on word usage, looking out for misused words, overused words, crutch words, and words which do not belong.
• We’ll chop clutter and excess prepositions, amp up language, learn where to place emphasis and word grenades.
• How to spot flatness, lack of variety and lack of verve.
• How to retool the language throughout so that it’s more evocative.
• How to smooth out clumsy narrative and clunky dialogue.
• How to correct basic grammar and punctuation problems.

contact me at jessicapage (at)spiritone(dot)com

“And yet, words are the passkeys to our souls. Without them, we can’t really share the enormity of our lives.” ~ Diane Ackerman

The best advice on writing I’ve ever received is to take it seriously, because to do it well is all-consuming.
David Guterson