Five Thirty-Day Exercises for Writing Fun

1. Eavesdrop on the bus, in a coffee shop, at a meeting, really anywhere works. Overhear and write down one snippet a day for thirty days. At the end of thirty days you can: (a) Use the overheard as a starting point and write a flash fiction, or a longer story, or poem from it. (b) Sample the whole, string it together to make it all into one time/place event, story, poem. (c) Something else of your choosing. (d) All of the above.
2. Mini-notebook. I have a writing friend who mailed several friends a tiny notebook with a tiny pen. Write down one thing everyday he said. So the size of the notebook in some ways determines the form, content, substance. It’s interesting to think about how.
3. Sign up for the November novel writing month–too late this year. I’ve thought January would be a better month. It’s longer, with fewer holidays. It’s colder (in most regions) and snowy or rainy (if we’re lucky–I live in California). So maybe there’s more incentive to stay inside and write.
4. One sentence in variation. Write one sentence, then rewrite it 29 times, once a day.
5. Timelines. Make a different one everyday for a project you’re working on or thinking of. It could be a timeline of a day, or a year, an hour. This is a good exercise for autobiography, memoir, and narrative non-fiction. (Yes, of course, and fiction.)

Practice, habit, and kicking ourselves out of a rut or a writer’s block. Writing exercises are good for all of that. Getting new ideas. Looking at the elephant from a different end. In the past, I’ve set myself 30-day exercises when I couldn’t write anything else. It’s magic folks, the act of writing can spur you on to more writing.

Please feel free to share these ideas with your friends, writing group, students. Please feel free to send them over to my blog to see more.

Write on!

I Never Met a Manuscript I Couldn’t Improve by Deletion: A Challenge

Every time I speak about writing and editing, particularly to a group of less experienced authors, I make a categorical statement: I have never edited a manuscript that couldn’t be improved by deleting about 20-30%. (And I have edited more than a thousand books.) As with all rules and truisms, there are the exceptions that prove them. But, by and large, everybody overwrites.

Recently I read an article in a recent New Yorker by John McMpee, one of the grand old men of creative nonfiction (before the term was invented). You can read it here. The article ranges far and wide. It’s well worth the read. McPhee talks about choosing your words to make room for the reader to enter into the article or book. What beautiful idea. If you want to write nonfiction, you should read, no study, this article.

McPhee writes about his time at Time magazine when writers were asked to condense the text by a number of lines. The pieces were marked “Green 5” or 8 or 15, the number of lines by which the writer was to cut his or her piece. This needs to be done carefully, preserving the author’s tone, like carefully pruning a plant. (I’m paraphrasing here.) That’s what McPhee tells his writing students when he asks them to green 10 percent of one of their own pieces.

McPhee challenges his students to green 10 percent of one of their own short pieces. That’s your challenge. Can you bear to delete 10%?

(If you want more, there’s a list of famous pieces in the article, including the Gettysburg Address, all of which the students are asked to green.)

This blog had over 487 words in it the first time around.

First write, then edit!

One Writer’s Grand Gesture

When Nomi Eve’s second book was published she decided she’d do all she could to make sure the book reached as many readers as possible. Read how here. She called it her grand gesture. And she was indefatigable in meeting her goal of meeting with 100 book clubs who were reading her book. That she did it is inspiring I think–sticking with it. Doing that one thing. I recently was on a panel with another novelist, Martha Conway, author of Thieving Forest. (Visit her here.) Her advice to writers about marketing was pretty much the same: pick one or two things and do it (them) consistently–Facebook or some other social media, your own blog. Whatever it is, start early and keep at it regularly. But DO NOT spend all your time at it.

You’re a writer. You’re a writer who wants readers to discover your books. Figure out what you can do to make that happen.

Trust Yourself: And Hire an Editor

This short article offers just a few pieces of advice for authors who want to self (or independently) publish. Read it here. Mark Lingane has been there and done that. What sticks with me most here is that everyone needs an editor and every writer is different. Don’t judge yourself against others! Hmm, good advice for life as well as writing.

Write on!

When Do You Need an Agent? Do You Need an Agent? Where Can You Find One?

This article about when do you need an agent describes one writer’s journey to agent and published book, in a pretty traditional trajectory through an MFA writing program and beyond. It’s a great description of that, but not exactly a how to. You most likely need an agent if you’re trying to traditionally publish a novel with a traditional publishing house, or most anything with one of the so-called Big Five. Obviously you don’t need an agent if you’re going to independently publish. Then you need an editor, a cover designer, maybe a consultant to walk you through your various options.

If you decide you want to look for an agent, the best things to do are described in the first paragraph of this article. Network, check out the acknowledgments in your favorite books, research on the internet.

My last little piece of advice here is to follow each agent’s submission guides (almost always available on their websites) to the T. Do not send them anything more than they ask for, or anything less. Rewrite your pitch until it’s razor sharp. Tell them who you are, what you want to write, and what you’re doing to get that writing out into the world. All in the briefest most direct way possible.

Research your options as you write your book. Write on!

Free Advice Is Worth Way More Than You Pay for It: If It Inspires You to Write

I once had a colleague who loudly opined that free advice is worth what you pay for it, a curmudgeonly attitude even in those pre-internet days. But who can put a value on what spurs you to write what you’ve always wanted to write? And who can put a value on your writing?

The tips in this article may come under the category of free advice. But they’re good and sold. Check it out. You may or may not be motivated by writing for yourself as opposed to others. You may or may not have the inclination and wherewithal to attend a writers’ conference and look for an agent. Read it once, maybe twice, then go to your computer or pick up a pen and just do it.

Take what you can use and leave the rest. Write on!

Don’t Just Take My Word For It–Another Great Reading List

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lincolnthompson/43-books-you-wont-be-able-to-stop-talking-about#.ilj8dKjwgj

So I learned a few things when I stumbled across this list, I think posted by someone on Facebook, or maybe in one of the publishing newsletters I get, or maybe forwarded by a friend. I knew about BuzzFeed. Various quotes and quizzes pop up in my FB feed. But I had no idea there was something called BuzzFeed books. You can subscribe to it. Learned that! I haven’t yet subscribed, but maybe some of all of us will find out what it’s all about in the next few days. Here I thought Lincoln Thompson drew up this wonderful eclectic list of old and new books himself. I wanted to invite him to a dinner party with a bunch of bookish friends.

And wow! The other thing I learned–again–is that there are great old(er) books–call them classics out there to read or reread. And great new books. Books and authors I hadn’t ever heard of until I saw this list. When I’m next looking for something new and different to read I’m going to pull this list out and buy some books.

A First-Time Novelist on a Long, Long Road

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/mfa/article/68395-fall-2015-m-f-a-update-like-flying-a-kite-in-a-storm.html

What can I add? is this a cautionary tale? An inspiration? If I had a dollar (or even a nickel) for every time somebody has told me in the last forty years that if I wrote a little bit everyday on a project I would have a finished manuscripts. I’ve never exactly been able to follow this advice, at least consistently. That said, I have written everyday and finished manuscripts. And it’s advice I give and endorse.

And while not everyone who wants to write is going to go to graduate school, we can all find someone–a consultant, an editor, a writing group–to give feedback. Maybe tell us where they get kicked out of our stories. Or who, that is which characters, they might want to hear more from or about. Or another book to read to inspire us through the slog.

What can I add? Write, write, write.

Famous Women Writing Their Own Stories, Or 25 Little Lessons on Writing

I can’t tell you how much I love this collection of quotes/article. I thought of copying some of them whole, right into this blog. I also thought of copying some of them on my old-fashioned notecards–yes, 3″x5″ written in lovely blue pen–and hanging them on my office wall. They are that strong. That moving. That inspirational.

Check it out:

http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/09/25-famous-women-on-writing-their-own-stories.html

These weren’t written as writing assignments. But they could be!

Like this:

Nora Ephron: “In the way I grew up, we knew that you might write about almost anything if you could just find a way to tell the story — that was what we believed in our house, that was religion in our house. Everything was copy.” —Time, November 2010

What’s some copy in your life? Find a way to tell the story so it makes you (and subsequently your readers) laugh or cry and want to go on.

Or this:

Maxine Hong Kingston: “What is universal? There could be some peculiarity that you have in your self, but if you can make it an art, make it part of a story, then when another person reads it, it becomes part of his or her life. And so one’s odd self and ideas become part of the human universal story.” -—“Interview with Maxine Hong Kingston,” July 1996

What is so peculiar in your story that it becomes universal when you tell it a certain way?

Write on!

Time Sensitive–Free Webinar 10/21/15 on MFA Programs

https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet

From a Publishers’ Weekly newsletter–here’s a one-hour free webinar about what MFA programs are looking for in applicants. I look back more than fondly on my later-in-life MFA experience at San Francisco State. Among other things, I read widely–things I never would have found on my own. And I loved the assignments and deadlines.

Hmm, I’m not going back to school, but maybe giving myself some assignments and deadlines isn’t a bad idea. Oops. Off topic. Check out the webinar if you’re interested. And have a good week people!