Author: plainswriter

I'm a poet, fiction writer, and essayist. I'm also a freelance editor at nlhwritingservices.com.

2016 in Writing

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The end of a calendar year is a natural time for reflection, so I’ll share some thoughts on my writing for 2016.

Blogging

I expended much of my writing energy writing blog posts, publishing 2 dozen posts besides the ones I wrote here on plainswriter.com. Over 20 of those posts were over at Altarwork.com, where I explored issues related to faith and my personal life. More specifically, I wrote about such things as body image, disordered eating, self-image, and human interactions.

Because I expended a fair amount of writing energy elsewhere, I didn’t write as much here on plainswriter.com. But all of the blogging involved a lot of introspection and self-discovery, two worthy pursuits that have helped me to reside in a more joyful and emotionally stable place.

Fiction

2016 was a quiet year for my short-fiction. I worked on a couple of story revisions off and on, but I couldn’t gather much traction. Earlier in my career as a writer, this “lull” would have cause me worry, but now I am much more accustomed to shifting writing seasons and even “years.”

Nonfiction

Of course, all of blogging falls in this category, but I also wrote a freelance essay for a forthcoming anthology. Although the piece was around 1,500 words, I worked through multiple drafts over about a month-long period. It was a challenging yet rewarding piece to write, and I look forward to seeing it in print.

Throughout the year I had toyed with the idea of starting a book-length memoir dealing with my eating disorder. It wasn’t until the second week of December, however, that I gathered the motivation and discipline to begin the process. I set a goal of at least 500 words a day, and I’ve been at it for over 3 weeks. I plan to continue writing until I “finish” this first draft.

Poetry

I received a summer-research grant from my university to work on a book-length poetry manuscript, and so in May and June I devoted the majority of my writing time to revising those poems and organizing them in a meaningful sequence.

Later in the summer, I contacted an editor, and he and I have begun the process of working further on the manuscript to make it more publication-ready.

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2017?

I’ll continue working on the poetry manuscript and the memoir first draft. I’ll continue blogging (more here) as well as for other publications. Since I will not be teaching any summer classes, I hope to work more on short fiction since the longer spans of time are more suited to working on stories.

However, as I’ve learned in the past year and a half, I cannot measure my “worth” by my word-count, my publications, or any such thing. And there’s also no point in comparing myself to what others have accomplished (or haven’t accomplished). I will instead continue to put words together, making sense of of things as I travel along.

Labor Day Weekend in Southwestern Minnesota

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For the last two years, my family and I have made our usual trek to Minnesota at the beginning of August. This time serves as a respite from the Texas heat, providing refreshment before the start of a new school year.

Unfortunately, we had to make a return trip to Minnesota just a few weeks after we returned to Texas. My father-in-law unexpectedly passed away.

My in-laws’ farmstead is one of my favorite places in the world, but this visit was, understandably, much more somber. On the night that my son and I arrived (my wife and daughter having flown in three days earlier), I walked that familiar stretch of Jackson County 24.

It was around 70 that evening, perfect for shorts and a t-shirt: my favorite attire. I listened, as always in times of grief, to the music of Hammock, pausing to take these pictures.

Enjoy.

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Working Alone and Together

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It’s stating the obvious to observe that writing is a solitary pursuit, but there, I’ve gone and said it anyway. No one will write my poems for me, my stories for me, my essays for me, or even that book-length memoir for me. No one. I am the one who chooses (or not) to work on these pieces, even this piece.

I’m by myself at this moment (5:45 a.m.), the rest of my family still sleeping.  A glass of cold water and a cup of coffee both within reach, a candle burning, a solitary lamp lighting me as I work. No one ordered me to set my alarm for 5:30.

To be clear, I am mostly comfortable with this arrangement of my writing life. It’s no real bother to be “by myself” trying to put down the right word, then the next right word, etc. (I’m not sure how strong extroverts manage to become writers, but they do.)

But the other day I was thinking about my “condition,” 12 years removed from finishing my MFA, 5 years removed from finishing my PhD. I realized an essential component of the writing life I was missing: accountability with another writer.

To me, one of the best benefits of the graduate Creative Writing courses I took was the accountability built into the system. I had to turn in a story every few weeks. I had to turn in a poem each week. Beyond those structural “checks,” fellow writers and I talked in and out of class about our writing. There was genuine community, and I made friends with many of these folks, people I still keep in touch with to this day.

My writer-friends are scattered around the country: Oklahoma, Illinois, South Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, Iowa, Georgia, among other states. I see these folks at conferences, at retreats. I see them online.

What did I do about this lack of accountability?

I reached out to one of my writer friends, to someone I thought who knows my “work,” what I’m “trying to do.” Would he like to start swapping work? He said yes, and we’re in the very first stage of this process, more accurately, on the first piece we sent each other.

As I write this, I am rereading the poem he sent, pining over what comments I might make. And in this set of actions, I’m moving beyond that inward focus towards the self. I am instead considering how I might encourage the writer, what words I might offer that can be of help.

It is a tiny step, yes, towards focusing outward, toward others. Of course, I am curious about what comments he’ll make on my poem. Right now, however, I am not considering that. I am (re)learning this truth: we were made for community.