Category: Writing

Adjusting My Writing Process

~ plainswriter ~ Leave a comment

I enjoy writing in multiple genres: poetry, essay, short fiction, blog posts, memoir. When I don’t feel the strong desire to write in one genre, I can switch to another. Beyond the genre shifting, I have multiple drafts of numerous pieces in each genre. I won’t mention numbers here, but let’s just say that I have a lot of unpublished pieces in various stages of development/degree of completeness.

As I moved into my semester break in early December, I jotted down a list of writing projects: the third draft of an essay, the second draft of a short story, a blog post for my university. In the past, I would work on one project one day, and then the next day work on something else. This break, however, I thought it was time to try something new: to work only on a draft of one piece until the draft was finished. Then, once I finished that draft, I could continue to the next piece.

How did my experiment pan out? The first week or so of my Christmas break I worked on that essay third draft, a draft that I promised to send to a friend by Dec. 22. I was able to send it to him a few days earlier than promised, and as a result, he sent his feedback earlier than I expected.

I also wanted to complete a second draft of a short story, a second draft that I had begun in July(!) and picked up at a few points in time. Instead, I devoted about 10 days working only on that story. I finished that draft early Saturday morning at a local coffee shop, arriving home to my wife and kids having just awoken.

In both instances, I found that during my non-writing times (while washing dishes, while driving, while doing other tasks), I was thinking only about that piece of writing. For the essay, I was thinking about what to cut, what to develop further. For the short story, I was thinking about ways the plot might develop further, how the two characters might interact in other scenes I’d added.

My greatest accomplishment was that my writing attention wasn’t divided among two, three, four, five (or more) “active drafts.” I can also proclaim that my time spent working on each of these longer pieces (a 10-page essay, an 18-page story) was more enjoyable as well. I was immersed in the world of each of the pieces, my attention (again) not divided.

So as I begin 2018, my writing resolution is to complete an initial draft or a subsequent draft before shifting to the next piece.

Signing a Contract

~ plainswriter ~ Leave a comment

For years I’d dreamed of this day, or maybe more accurately, not the day, but what the day would lead to.

Four weeks ago, I signed a contract with Wipf & Stock for my first full-length poetry collection, Your Twenty-First Century Prayer Life. The book will be published in their Cascade Books imprint as a part of the Poiema Poetry Series, a series featuring collections by poets of faith.

I knew signing the contract was the only the first of many steps before the book appears in the world as a thing, not just as binder-clipped pages in a manila file folder. Yet once I returned that electronic contract, I knew that my world had shifted.

I’ve been working on the manuscript for over four years, and some of the poems date back as far as ten years. I recall the initial drafting of many of the poems, as well as the processes of reworking individual poems. The manuscript is as much the evidence of my experiences as it is a collection of forty poems.

Now as I’m two weeks away from delivering my final of the manuscript to the publisher, I still don’t quite believe a new poetry collection will be published, one with my name on the cover, my poems inside.

It’s the dream of most writers to publish a book; it’s certainly a dream of mine. You imagine a reader somewhere (perhaps on a bus or train, or in a bookstore, or at home laying on a couch) reading your words and turning pages to read more of your words. Yes, I write for myself because I enjoy playing with language, but I also eventually want to share those creations with others.

Even as a finish up the manuscript, there are other matters, the biggest one being marketing. Using my different platforms (this website, my author Facebook page, my Twitter account) to promote the book. Scheduling readings and signings. Trying to spread the word about my words.

I have no idea how this book will turn out. What will the cover look like? That first page? How will it be received? (How many copies will I sell?) And these are a couple of the numerous questions. Regardless of the answers, my stanzas and lines will make their way into the world, and for that, I am grateful.

When the Writing Ceased

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I’ve reflected before on periods when I wrote very little before regaining traction in my writing. In an August 2016 post, I shared how I regained writing momentum after teaching two classes in the same summer term.

But last spring, during perhaps the busiest semester of my teaching career, I basically stopped writing. (It feels shameful to see the last four words of the previous sentence. I am a writer, and I teach writing as my full-time job.)

It seemed as though every time I even thought about writing–even a brief poem–, it felt like too much work, work without any possibility of joy. And in the stands beyond those tall hurdles, an announcer droned on about all the grading and class prep. Granted, there were some moments of writing, but they were like the occasional Styrofoam food containers littering the shoulder of a rural highway.

There reached a point where I began to think that I didn’t want to write anymore. That I didn’t have any mental space left for it, and even if I did, that I had nothing to add. I entertained the (absurd) thought that I had lost the ability to write.

I knew that if I floated to the shallow lake shore of May, I would survive, although it didn’t seem conceivable at the time. As much as I enjoy teaching, I was surviving, clutching the boat of the semester that had overturned and was drifting to the distant shore. I didn’t realize how badly I needed May, the time off from teaching, the mental space in which to think a thought that wasn’t about composition or literature.

And so, as I shared a few months ago, I read a dozen books. And as I recapped before, I worked on some important writing projects.

From the end of July through the first third of August, I was “up north” for vacation. During those relaxing days, I wrote a little. I brought along a short story draft, working in a few thirty-minute bursts, and I brought the completed memoir first draft, though I only ended up reading through a couple pages. I read two literary journals cover to cover. I read Stevenson’s Treasure Island, which I enjoyed immensely.

When the meetings resumed on August 14 (three days after I returned), I need to finish three syllabi, as well as the online components for those courses. Also on my mind was the desire to immerse myself back in a more regular writing regimen, to avoid the writing dessert of the previous semester.

Yet so it was that teaching drew me back to writing. I had forgotten how much my teaching is linked to my writing, and how much my writing informs my teaching. The two feed off of each other.

After meeting with my Creative Writing students that first day, I already had an idea for a piece, the first draft of which I discussed in my previous post. Now that I’m six weeks into the semester, I have achieved a reasonable rhythm, completing the second draft of that essay.

I already know what the next writing project is, something that is perhaps one of the highlights of my writing career thus far: preparing the final version of my first full-length collection of poetry. The virtual ink has dried on the contract, and my deadline is three weeks away. More details soon.