Bob Yehling: Word Journeys

(This is a long blog, so I am dividing it into three parts — to run today, Monday and Wednesday. Enjoy)

(Talk delivered to the Ananda College of Living Wisdom, near Nevada City, CA on Monday, May 17, 2010)

I have been asked to talk with you tonight about Gary Snyder, who will be giving a reading here next week. This is both a privilege and honor, because in my nearly 35 years as a journalist, poet, author and, most recently, editor of the literary anthology The Hummingbird Review, no one has made a greater impact on my writing – or the causes, subjects, concerns and themes that have informed and populated my journalism, poetry, essays, narratives, the way I teach writing, and my present and future books.

Gary Snyder is one of the world’s pre-eminent poets and essayists. He belongs in the pantheon of the top 15 poets in U.S. history, his face on a prosaic Mt. Rushmore with, say, figures like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, Anne Waldman, Allen Ginsberg, Edna St. Vincent Millay, e.e. cummings, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Denise Levertov, and the foremost Native American poet, Joy Harjo. More than that, though, he is one of the most important literary figures, a man whose writings and activities bring out his brilliance, deep soul, compassion and childlike reverence for life itself. He’s a man of the wild, in both heart and place, who lives in integrity and full commitment to that which he cherishes – our backyard. He protects the Inimin Forest that surrounds us and the San Juan Ridge on which you have lived and studied with the love of a child and the ferocity of the mythical Nalagiri – half-tiger, half-elephant. Can you imagine angering such a creature?

But we’re not talking about anger, or confrontation – although the U.S. Forestry Service, Bureau of Land Management, State of California and numerous regional and local groups would beg to differ when they’ve had to deal with Gary as he fought to protect this area. If I were the Sierra Nevada, he’d be the first guy on my team. Actually, in a sense, the mountains have chosen him. Since he and his family moved here in 1970, a few years after joining Swami Kriyananda, Allen Ginsberg and Richard Roshi Baker to purchase 100 acres – the eastern side of which became Ananda’s first community, later the Ananda Meditation Retreat – Gary has sounded the proverbial conch for the ecological well-being of the northern Sierra like no other. When he blew a conch shell to call the fabled Human Be-In to order in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in January 1967, then recited poems and chants with Allen Ginsberg to the thousands gathered on this special day that also included music by Jefferson Airplane, Quiksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead, he essentially previewed things to come. That day heralded what we baby boomers know as the “back to the land” movement… intrinsically connected to Ananda’s history. Ananda turned out to be the most enduring of hundreds of intentional communities that sprouted nationwide from that movement – and certainly the most yoga-centered.

I first came into contact with Gary’s work when I was your age, a college freshman in San Diego. My creative writing professor, Dr. Don Eulert, was the founding editor of American Haiku magazine back in the ’60s. He and Gary were two of maybe five Americans who truly understood haiku at its deepest levels at that time, and they knew each other because of their mutual affinity for Zen Buddhism and love of traditional Japanese poetry. I’d already logged three years as a newspaper reporter, but I wanted to write books, poetry. Dr. Eulert deconstructed my inverted pyramid writing style – most important facts up top – and taught me to write subjectively, the way of the memoirist, novelist and New Journalism – inserting yourself into articles and essays as a participant, the rage of the day, the predecessor of today’s popular narrative non-fiction genre. Or, as Gary later put it: “Imagination–Direct Experience–the Ineluctable Present Moment.”

That’s my style now, to a T.

Dr. Eulert gave me some great books to read and told me to come back in two weeks, then we’d begin: they included White Album by Joan Didion; Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth; Sunflower Splendor, an anthology of 5,000 years of Chinese poetry; the then just-published The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe; On the Road and The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac; and one of his collections, Outposts: Letters from Buffalo Bill to Annie Oakley. He also gave me Turtle Island, Gary’s most famous collection, fresh off receiving the 1975 Pulitzer Prize. Immediately, I fell in love with the places about which Gary wrote, especially the ground on which we sit tonight. (Ten years later, my spiritual quest led me to Ananda, right next door to his place, Kitkitdizze. What great fortune to find both my spiritual and literary polestars in the same neighborhood!) Every poem and essay resonated –life on the Ridge, treasures from his years in Japan, mountains and rivers, the forests, beautiful interpretations of Native American myths, the creatures with which he co-existed as steward and equal, not exploiter and dominator. He showed the back-to-nature movement exactly what ahimsa, non-violence, looked like in practice.

(To be continued)

I’m getting ready to write a print book memoir and an ongoing online blog-memoir, a series of digital postcards, if you will. (Note: The latter will be the new incarnation of my other blog, 366writing.wordpress.com, alternating with writing exercises). During these times when major book projects are percolating, I always seem to dive deeper into a sense of place – wherever that place may be. Which, with me, could be just about anywhere; somewhere along the line, I inherited an awful lot of gypsy genes.

Right now, am sitting in the Sierra Nevada foothills, at the Ananda Meditation Retreat, rejuvenating health, meditating, writing, editing my clients’ books, planning future teaching gigs, and mapping out the digital publishing side of Word Journeys. I always feel right at home here, deep in-place. Partly, it’s because after the past several years of living in Kentucky, the rural space – whether in hardwood forests, deserts or lush Ponderosa Pine mountains – feels very comfortable. Or maybe it’s because the greatest single influence of my writing life, the great Pulitzer Prize-winning poet-essayist-conservationist-ecologist Gary Snyder, is hanging out at his home not 500 yards away, taking in a rare mixture of rain and snow in mid-May, perhaps reflecting on the 80th birthday he celebrated Saturday. Or, Gary being Gary, moving forward, finding the next text to study, the next piece of firewood to chop, the next poem or essay to experience, then develop. (I am very proud to state that, for 31 of those years, I have been reading, studying and learning from his works.)
I don’t know. What I do see, though, in more and more writing – especially in this new era in which anyone can publish, anytime – is a lot of descriptions about places, without actually writing from within the place. It’s like the difference between us describing Nature and Ecology: Nature is a thing, an object we categorize, define or otherwise try to relate to; Ecology is movement, relationship, the interweaving and interaction of all elements that share the same space, the same place. Nature requires us to write from past or even future; Ecology is all about presence. The difference between the two is the difference between a photograph and a movie. And our goal, as writers and as citizens of this planet, should always be to not only watch the movie, but find our place within it. The great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore put it this way: “Center everywhere, circumference nowhere.”
When we write from within a place – whether it’s our home, community, place we visit often, or somewhere that transforms us, like a beach – we write with strength and conviction. Readers not only surmise that you know what you’re talking about; they can feel it in every energized word. When we can take our readers by the hand and anchor them into our setting, or place – whether in a poem, an essay or a story – we’ve got them. The common perception is that we can accomplish this through facts and crafty word choices, but that’s only the window dressing. The real writing, the real value, comes from feeling the pulsating heart of the earth, or a tree, or a river flush with winter’s snows, or the vibration of a hummingbird’s wings, and sharing the wealth.
Unfortunately, in our haste to crank out the next books, essays, articles or poems, we often miss this point. We miss the ecology, the entire relationship of place in which we exist, and settle for the nature.
I have a couple of exercises in my book The Write Time that help develop the skill of writing within a place that I’d like to share:
1) Sit outside, in a setting that comforts you – a lakeshore, riverbank, woods, garden, beach or even your backyard. From where you sit, visually create a circle surrounding you, 30 feet in diameter. Drop the curtain on everything beyond that circle; your world now exists totally within the circle. This is your place, your oikos (root word of Ecology). For the next 30 to 60 minutes, write your place. You can start by writing about the place, describing things, but turn inward as soon as possible and become the center of the place – write from its heart.
2) Try writing haiku – tiny three-line poems. True Japanese haiku doesn’t use the 5-7-5 syllable rule; rather, it focuses on the simple dynamic of a moment in time, in place. For the purpose of this exercise, observe a movement around you, and put it into three lines. Go with the 5-7-5 syllable count, simply to practice economy of words. As you write your haiku, focus solely on the wholeness of what you’re observing – and keep yourself out of the picture. You’re writing the moment, not your interpretation of it.
See how these practices help with writing place. This skill is essential, no matter the genre. I know one thing – editors and publishers find it very hard to put down manuscripts or collections that are rooted in this way. Readers can’t put them down, either. And there is little more satisfying to writers – whether professionals, journalers or letter-writers – than knowing you have not only described a place well, but written the heart and spirit of that place.
Finally, a little morning moment, using haiku in the popular 5-7-5 format:
Pungent wood smoke scent,
driven down and scattered by
rain and hummingbirds

(In honor of National Poetry Month – and the Muse)

The other day, while putting together the Spring/Summer issue of The Hummingbird Review, I was discussing lyrics and poesy (composing poetic verse) with publisher Charlie Redner (whose poetic spirit and enthusiasm inspires the heck out of me). It is always impossible for me to distinguish between the two, because I feel they are the identical core expression. The only discernible difference is that one is accompanied by vocal or instrumental music and the other is spoken. Maybe I’m crazy about this, a reincarnated Ancient Greek or something…

Which provides a good departure point to discuss the music of writing. So many of us seem to create separation between lyrics/music and our writing. All you have to do is walk into the nearest middle school or high school classroom or hallway to see what I mean: many kids will stick in their ear buds and listen to hip-hop or their favorite singers or bands all day long, but will fall flat on their bored faces when asked to write an essay, book report, paper or story. As for poetry? That’s dead man’s stuff to many of them. Not happening.

Yet, what are they listening to? Poetry! Writing! They cruise through school corridors reciting hip-hop or singing their favorite songs, completely in rhythm, their vocal cadence (while often hilariously out of tune) hugging the meter that the words and beat provide. They sing or lip synch the lyrics with hearts, minds and bodies engaged, feeling the rhythm, embracing the words (for good or bad), diving deeply into the experiences, images or messages being conveyed. They do the exact same thing as spoken word artists, only it’s someone else’s words and it’s accompanied by instrumental sound.

And yet, from classrooms to societal conventions to our own writing desks, we separate the two. We put music in one corner, and writing in the other, as though they were opposing boxers. We keep them apart, to the point of distinguishing between good lyrics and good poetry. (Though Homer Hogan sure didn’t: his two-book The Poetry of Relevance remains, nearly 40 years later, an incomparable counterpoint anthology of poetry/lyrics by 1960s musicians and classic poets). I’ve even had writers at conferences, book expos and workshops, people who have been writing fiction, non-fiction or journalism for years, tell me that music and writing belong apart because writing is more noble, more learned, the thinking man’s art. Seriously.

Huh?????

I’m here to tell you: that’s a mistake. That’s part of the problem plaguing our society, making it less and less literary by the day. Writing was always intended to remind us of how connected we are to universal source, from where original music, thought and expression come. When the ancient poets and writers started laying down symbols and words on cuneiform tablets and papyrus, what do you think was moving through them? Music. They heard the music of words, saw images within melodies, and brought us the earliest verse and prose that became lyric, poetry, drama, story. Musicians and writers even use the same term to describe that inner prompting voice that visits and inspires us:

The Muse.

To me, the best writing – fiction or non-fiction – is deeply musical. I hear and feel the music in each sentence, in the rhythm of the author’s (or character’s) experience, in the flow of the narrative. As a writer and poet, I can’t roll any other way. As an editor, I can always tell when a writer is fully connected to their innermost heart and mind, to the original source of the words that I read on the page. That’s what connects readers as well, whether or not they realize it. I want to pick up your story, essay, poem or book, join the mellifluous cadence of words, hear the way phrases and images come together, and become part of the experience. I want to become part of your narrative music, your verbal symphony playing out on the page. You do that, and I am hooked. Your readers will be, too. My clients and workshop students are very familiar with how I compare Chapter One of a novel or memoir to the overture of a symphony. There’s a reason for that: it is the overture of your story. When we are in tune with the present moment (which we are, when we read something we like), we respond musically to life, to the word, to the experience as it presents itself on paper.

Why? Because that is how homo sapiens has been hard-wired as a species since Day One. We’re musical beings. The ancient shamans sure knew that, which is why they drummed and expressed the callings of spirit in rhythm and chant. I’m the last person to consider myself authority on this one, but when in the beginning there was The Word, and The Word was with God, I’m betting it was felt and heard musically. Or sung. When Enheduanna carved her tributes to the goddess Inanna on cuneiform tablets in Ancient Sumeria 5,500 years ago, becoming the world’s first written poet (yes, a woman was the first known poet-in-writing, since the even older Vedas of Ancient India were transmitted orally until Alexander the Great’s charges began recording them), she conveyed the songs of her soul. And, almost 3,000 years later, the Greek lyrical genius Sappho danced so deftly with music and words that she created a body of work comparable in size to Shakespeare’s or Goethe’s until 98% of it was destroyed by library burnings, time and the hands of men who misunderstood her and her work. (Can you imagine how enriched we would be today if all of Sappho’s works, or even half of them, had survived?)

This, for me, is the secret of great writing: to merge the musician, poet and creator within ourselves. When we bring these aspects together, we touch our greatness and our potential. We touch divinity. Our work resonates; it sings; it moves; it speaks truth; it touches others, deeply. We become one with what we write. Every paragraph, sentence and word of every page conveys the energy we feel when we type or handwrite it.

How do we get there? It’s very simple, but takes some practice and time: read everything aloud, whether it’s fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essay, novel-sized or bite-sized. Read every sentence. If the words flow and resonate, if they convey what we’re trying to say with pace and rhythm, then they will likely do the same for our readers. If they feel choppy or sound rough in any way, then we’re not attaining the music beneath the words, probably not connecting to the innermost point of the writing – calling for a little revision.

Who knows? You might find yourself singing the written lines. And your readers will be singing the song of your creation as they flip the pages.

I am finishing up another of those two-week periods where I feel very privileged, and downright lucky, to be a writer and editor. The stream of people, readings, plans, contacts, opportunities and creativity that move through my professional and personal life remind me not only of how wonderful my writing life is, but also how much hard work and responsibility go into it.

The past two weeks alone have included:

• The Meet the Authors event at Crittenden County Library in Kentucky. Nine authors came together and engaged in one of the best panel discussions in which I’ve ever participated, two hours of conversation with each other and a highly attentive audience about writing, editing, digital publishing, promotion, the future of print books, and much more. My best takeaway, literally, was the book Blood River to Berlin, by Michael Freeland, who was a medic for the 182nd Airborne during the grueling march from Normandy to Berlin that ended World War II in the European theater. While war books are usually the last works you’ll catch me reading, I couldn’t put this one down. What a joy to meet Michael, now 85, and hear his comments about writing, rooted in his rock-deep integrity and character. I felt doubly honored to be there because of the man sitting next to Michael, Marine Lt. Col (ret.) Tom McKenney, a prolific author whose comments were just as insightful and impressive.

• Working with clients. My day job has to be one of the better ones out there – helping authors shape their stories and ideas into fine books, and developing or assisting their strategies on marketing and promotion. In the past two weeks, I’ve been vicariously: learning the complex inner world of former fugitive Eric Rudolph in attorney Richard Jaffe’s forthcoming memoir, Divine Injustice; hearing the story of an ancient Persian girl; sitting next to dedicated charter school students with Hall of Dreams author Marsha Aizumi; joining the adventures of a comatose woman who re-created a fabulous world for her 17-year-old self in Colleen Jiron’s Possibilities; roaming in Africa through Gail Bornfield’s sweet children’s story, Tampei; sharing the triumphs of Al Gilbert, one of the United States’ greatest (and most unsung) track and cross-country coaches ever in Centering Up!; romping through Mexico with a wandering hippie; standing in the kitchen as Chef Renee Kelly whips up dishes full of vitality and taste in her recipe book/memoir; and laughing at the farcical antics of a group of people lodged in a two-story building in Steve Jam’s forthcoming novel, The Seventh Sense.

• Guest Blogging. Thanks to my publisher for The Write Time, Paul Burt of Pen & Publish, I was asked to be interviewed by Deb Eckerling of Write On! Online, a fine writing organization and website. A day later, I wrote a guest column for Write On!, “Why Writing Exercises Work” – not a bad promotional dovetail for , The Write Time. The key point, which relates to this blog as well: By using writing exercises to practice, you can eventually develop a command of language and a versatility that makes it possible to write about anything, at any time, in any genre. Oh yeah, by the way, isn’t Write On! one of the better names for a writing organization that you’ve heard recently (along with Word Journeys — of course)? Facebook them or visit them online — they have some great activities.

• A Book After My Own Heart. This weekend, my client and author of The Champion’s Way, Dr. Steve Victorson, is in Orange County to discuss with me the next book we’re writing together. Let’s just say that a bunch of runners in two Kentucky high schools will be most familiar with the subject matter – and the voice of the crazy coach on the sidelines.

• The Hummingbird Review. Publisher Charles Redner and I are well into production on the Spring/Summer issue of The Hummingbird Review, which is the creative brainchild of bestselling author Luis Alberto Urrea. Charlie and I have been marveling over the quality of the work for the second issue from outside contributors and the fine writers of the Cabin 20 literary blogging group, as well as wonderful contributions from younger poets (the youngest is 18, but you’ll never know it from the wisdom of his words). One thing already giving this literary anthology voice and presence: its multi-cultural presentation. The stories, essays and poems for Issue 2 are riveting. Stay tuned for more – and check out the premier issue while you’re waiting.

• The Word Journeys Show. I’ve wanted to do this for two years. Now, Tucson-based Internet radio producer Jennifer Hillman and I are creating The Word Journeys Show, an hour-long radio program that will debut in mid-June. Get ready for a first-class show with some very special guests, great readings — and call-ins! It will serve as a flagship for all things audio connected to Word Journeys, our clients and my current and future books, which leads to yet another exciting development in these past two weeks …

• Mapping out the Future. Word Journeys is adding an entire new wing to our operation (name to be revealed after we make it official), to handle all platforming, digital publishing and distribution needs for our private and corporate clients. We can now literally produce written material in print, digital, web, audio and video form – and use those same forms to promote the authors and their messages. While a few other companies are doing similar things, here is what sets us apart: the capability and proven track record to zero in on specific programs in specific markets for specific clients who have specific stories to tell. I’m excited about this, because it pulls together everything I’ve ever been in this 34-year journey since a frightened high school kid saddled up for day one of work at The Breeze in Carlsbad and, six months later, The Blade-Tribune in Oceanside: print journalist, book author, editor, public relations executive, event, retreat and conference coordinator, ghostwriter, workshop instructor, teacher, consultant, coach, scriptwriter, show host …

…and most of all, someone who so deeply cares about the written word that it has been my life since 1976.
Now to get into the journal and write the moment. Have a great weekend — and be sure to write something new during the next three days.

To order The Write Time: 366 Exercises to Fulfill Your Writing Life

To order The Write Time: 366 Exercises to Fulfill Your Writing Life

During a spirited, two-hour combination of panel discussion and introductions at the recent Meet the Authors event in Kentucky, the question of our literary times came up: “Will print books be viable, or even available, in the future?”

I’m asked this question a lot – and the frequency is increasing. People are worried that the onslaught of online, digital and hand-held publishing options is going to serious diminish and eventually wipe out printed books. They cite the decline of the newspaper and magazine industries in favor of the Internet, the prevalence of audio and video publishing through everything from blogs to iPhone apps, and the precarious situation facing bookstores, who are losing some customers to e-books, others to Kindle and Sony Reader, and still others to Amazon.com and other online sellers.

To all of these things, I say: Your concerns are justified. For the first time in the 500+ years since Johann Gutenberg fired up his printing press and forever changed the face of literacy in the world – and disempowered a lot of tyrannical governments in the process – the printed book is in trouble. Real trouble.

I know this first-hand, through working with my clients, talking with agents, and watching the trend of the publishing industry. More and more, my clients are starting to see more to life than publishing a printed book. Now they want to know about blogs, webcasts, video books, DVD books, e-books downloadable on everything from Kindles to handheld devices, and the latest: hybrid books, featuring three or four types of media designed together onto, say, an Apple iPad. My clients who have strong stories and self-help messages, particularly healing arts professionals and businessmen and women, are learning how to use books as a “loss leader” (which, to me, is an oxymoron: how can any book be seen as a “loss”?). In this case, they print the book merely to support all the other forms of publishing, networking and marketing. This is the blockbuster movie model, to a T: the movie comes out, it shifts quickly to DVD (where much greater profits lie), then its story and attention at the box office feed everything from games and toys to Saturday morning TV cartoons.

Being a businessman, I’m all set up now to oblige multi-platform authors. Let’s just say it’s been a busy past three months of expansion and development for my business partner and me, and the pieces are coming together quickly.

However, I also have a lifelong history with print books. The writing and reading purist in me is a screaming child throwing the mightiest of temper tantrums. And that kid is screaming at me, among others: How can you turn away from print books? How can you take away all the pleasures of turning pages that we had?

So when I heard the question arise at the Meet the Authors event, my heart dropped as expressions of concern, anger, frustration and loss filled the room. I thought of all the private libraries (including my own 2,000-book collection), the libraries that have informed and impressed people since the ancient Sumerians started storing clay tablets with their cuneiform inscriptions, the countless days and hours of losing myself in book after book while the sun rose and fell and world events spun past … and I cared only about the world I entered between the book covers.

Yes, the printed book is endangered by the digital and multi-media tidal wave. However, there’s another problem: the book industry has taken on a blockbuster mentality that, like the movie industry, is crippling quality writing in favor of authors who have big platforms – and may or may not be good writers. In other words, most publishers will not take any chances with an unknown author. They want to be virtually guaranteed sales before they accept a book, and there’s only one way to accomplish that – by only working with high-profile individuals.

I find this practice troubling, and the real reason why the printed book is in trouble. If the industry made great writing a top priority, and put out those books to readers of all ages, then the books would be sold and read. But society has changed, and the industry has become scared. Consequently, many publishers are constricting the funnel of acceptable material, putting fast money and its top salesperson in the media world, sensationalism, at the forefront. Granted, the industry is not as flush as it used to be, but seems to me the way to promote better reading in this country and tthe continued viability of print books is to PRINT GOOD BOOKS. Never have I seen more great books rejected than in the past five years. It’s a sad indictment, although by no means do all publishers follow suit. Just many of them.

Yes, print books are treading on ground just loosened up by a massive online earthquake. However, I am not one of those who believes they will go away forever. Maybe in the 22nd century, but not now. First of all, my generation and those older and younger than me grew up with print books. Like me, the vast majority will take a print book over an e-book any time, to feel the story as it unfurls on the page, to experience the world that is created between the covers. So no, this is not the reprise of the sad saga of the 8-track tape or VCR.

But the tides are shifting. In a few places in this country, a student can move right through his or her reading education without ever touching a book. (And given the fact parents have to pay exorbitant fees for outdated textbooks in many public schools these days, it’s not always such a bad thing). They research online, their local libraries are entirely digital (I heard at Meet the Authors that the library in Paducah, KY had changed its name to “Paducah Information Center” – how sad!), and they download e-books. Related blogs serve as Cliff’s Notes; by buying a $300 Kindle, they have access to more than a million other volumes. “It’s incredible,” someone said at Meet the Authors. “I have an entire library in my hand.”

“It’s not the same,” author Tom McKenney responded. “Your library is part of you. I lost that part of me, and a lot of first editions signed by authors who are now dead, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed my house. I can’t replace those books.”

How very true. As I’m writing this blog, I’m facing out at my entire library, and thinking of the heartache Tom still feels. I try to refresh my shelves with new books, get rid of books I don’t want anymore … but that’s the hard part. Because when you part with a book from a home library, you part with an experience or a moment that connected you with that book at a particular time in your life. For me, a quick glance and I see: the days spent on a southern creek, reading Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek; or learning about poetry from an Ancient Chinese anthology, Sunflower Splendor; or sitting at Kitkitdizze, Gary Snyder’s home space in the Sierra Nevada foothills, while reading Turtle Island; recalling my friendship and experiences with Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad while re-re-re-re-re reading Chapter 1 of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff (which is all about Pete, whom Wolfe considered the quintessential space explorer); or immersing within the remarkable stories of Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits or Anna Waldo’s Sacajawea; or recalling the romps of Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or Eric Idle’s Road to Mars; or glancing with a heavy heart at a book my friend Barbara Stahura gave me two weeks after my mom died, Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents.

Right now, I don’t know which book I would remove from this library. If I haven’t read them yet, I will; if I have read them, then they carry something very personal within them. I can’t even imagine how Tom McKenney must feel.

Let’s hope that this regret, borne of natural disaster, doesn’t become the lay of the land. I hope all of us continue reading printed books, and never stop.

On Saturday morning at Crittenden County Public Library in Western Kentucky, we’re presenting what I consider to be the most enjoyable of literary events, as both an author and a fan of great writing: Meet the Authors.

For three hours, nine authors will talk with visitors, share their stories and experiences, and participate in three different panel discussions. Best part of this: The panel discussions are unscripted and unscheduled. Event host Regina Merrick of Crittenden County Library (a fine writer and blogger herself!) is going to simply call a spontaneous panel discussion several times during the event – and off we’ll go, to discuss a topic that she presents.

We’re going to have quite a cast on Saturday. It includes:

Jennifer Kennedy Dean – Life Unhindered! and many more
Robert Barlow - At the Water’s Edge, America’s Next War Between the States
Mike Guillerman – Face Boss
Michael Freeland – Blood River to Berlin
Molly Harper – Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs, Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men, Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever
Robert Yehling – The Write Time: 366 Exercises to Fulfill Your Daily Writing Life, The River-Fed Stone, Writes of Life and more
Tom McKenney – Jack Hinson’s One-Man War
Chris Evans – South of the Mouth of Sandy
Samuel Beachy – Guarded by God: In the Midst of an Earthquake

But wait a second … didn’t I just participate in a Meet the Authors, of sorts? Oh yeah – two weeks ago at the Tucson Festival of Books. At that event, I became a fan, as some of my favorite voices and authors strolled through the room … Luis Alberto Urrea, Joy Harjo, Michael Gelb, the wonderfully irascible Elmore Leonard, Kim Addonizio …

Which leads to my point: attending a Meet the Authors is a tremendous experience for working writers, recreational writers, students, teachers, prolific readers and published authors alike. In fact, I consider it one of the most valuable things a writer or reader can do in the course of their life’s journey with words. Here are 10 quick reasons why I think all of us should attend Meet the Authors events when they circle through our communities:

1) To meet the authors of our home areas. They are remarkable sources of information and insight – and probably some books you’d like to read. They’re also the types of people that will intrigue students – and perhaps spark a dream.

2) Always navigate to the local history authors – the best source you can ever turn to if writing a history book that includes that particular area. Or trying to find out about the secret little tales of your locale.

3) To hear how authors craft stories. I may have written eight books and ghosted five others, but I will not stop asking this question when I meet authors. In their responses, we can literally craft our own stories better – and experience them better as readers.

4) To realize you’re not the only one having trouble writing. We all have trouble; we all struggle; we all want to throw our computers out the door like footballs (and some have!). Yet, the successful author is the one who dusts himself or herself off one more time than he/she falls – and their secrets to continuous writing are the tips I want to hear.

5) To hear how authors read. I swear, if teachers and students – and adults who have trouble reading – would learn the tricks authors use to read (after all, they are gathering valuable material for books), the literacy problem in this country would be reduced greatly. We turn reading into an adventure that involves hunting, digging, seeking, imagining, exploring, discovering and realizing new things. Who wouldn’t want to read if it were presented this way?

6) To learn the latest from the book business. This is mostly an item for writers, but the publishing industry is in a state of flux now, that it is incumbent upon every working writer to know what’s going on. Many participants in Meet the Authors are on tour with new books; they certainly know the latest buzz.

7) To make new friends and stay in touch. Befriend your favorite local authors. Communicate with them; share ideas with them; grow a friendship with them. It’s a very special rapport that feeds both people.

Hear some crazy stories from the writing life. We don’t all lock ourselves in offices 24/7 and glue ourselves to a computer (unless we’re on deadline). Many writers enjoy some of life’s greatest adventures in the course of their work – some of which makes it into their books.

9) Hear the back stories. Before we write books, we spend months or years developing the material. What are the life experiences or back stories that preceded the writing of a poem, essay, song or novel? I always ask for back stories; it provides instant inside perspective to the story. Readers should always ask this question when mingling with authors.

10) Celebrate the written word. What better way to celebrate the written word than to mingle with the authors at a party? Then go home and either read something new, or write those stories or thoughts you’ve kept sequestered for years!

Make it a point to attend a Meet the Authors in your community, or a group reading at a local bookstore. For my Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky friends … see you Saturday in Marion!

Here is a sneak preview of comments I made in the free ranging interview that I conducted with Mary Jo Campbell of Writer’s Inspired. The full interview will post Tuesday (March 23) morning at 10 a.m. CDT, after which you can post comments if you’d like:

ON EARLY CAREER: “My formal training took place in the real world – and through reading voraciously, in all genres, from the time I was very young. In 1977, when I was 17, I was hired as a sportswriter by the Blade-Tribune (now North County Times) in Oceanside, CA. My editors, Bill Missett and Steve Scholfield, were true old-schoolers: get in and out of the story, get quotes, get two independent sources to verify every fact. Accuracy and unique angles meant everything to them. And making deadlines. I use that training every day. Also, they let me write for all sections of the paper, which enabled me to become a versatile writer.”

ON WRITING PROCESS: “I do not look back once I start each day. I write for four or five hours, then touch up what I wrote. The next day, I repeat this process. I find it incredibly self-defeating to continually self-edit in the middle of a writing session. It’s like giving the inner censor license to kill – which it will. It will kill your creative process. But for me, it’s important to look over what I wrote after the day is complete. When a draft is done, I rewrite it once from scratch, then move into revision and polishing edits.”

ON CREATING THE WRITE TIME: “I’m a fast writer, with a tendency to be very impatient, so it surprised both my friends and me that I would take 10 years to compile a book. The Write Time never started as a book idea. It started as writing exercises I cooked up for the workshops that I teach around the country. One day in 2007, I sat down and realized that there were more than 250 of these exercises, all created for workshops – and, more importantly, all field-tested by the workshop participants. They liked the story-telling aspect to the exercises and the content very much, so I thought, ‘Why not add 116 exercises and make a one-a-day book about it?’ Those last 116 exercises were by far the hardest to write.”

Check out the full interview Tuesday, March 23 at http://writerinspired.wordpress.com.
To order The Write Time: 366 Exercises to Fulfill Your Writing Life

Mark your calendars, anyone who’s interested: The interview I conducted with Mary Jo Campbell of Writers Inspired will be presented on the Writers Inspired Blog on Tuesday, March 23.

We took a full, round-the-dance-floor twirl about the writing life, books, inspirations and passing it along to young authors. It’s always fun to revisit the touchstones that made this wonderful writing life happen, because when you tell young students about the experiences writing has presented rather than focusing on sentences and punctuation, then they seem to want to read and write more. So we discussed that as well.

Please check into the Writers Inspired blog and leave your comments -– and I’ll get on there and answer them!

… Scott Simon, Joy Harjo, Luis Urrea and other highlights of the Tucson Festival of Books Author’s Table Dinner

Sometimes, the dinner ticket that drops in your lap feels like manna from heaven. Especially if it’s a ticket to the Author’s Table Dinner at the Tucson Festival of Books, and you’re an author who happens to be in town.

My friend and client Lesley Lupo (author of the wonderful, forthcoming children’s book Surf ‘N Seeds), hosted four workshops I facilitated the past two weeks in Arizona’s finest city, where I’ve visited and taught for the past 10 years. She offered me a ticket to what is already shooting around the literary world as a very big function: the Author’s Table Dinner for a book festival that, in its second year, drew 400 authors and more than 50,000 people.

What an event. A different featured author sits at each table. We were honored with New York Times bestselling author Elisabeth Hyde, who has written In The Heart of the Canyon and The Abortionist’s Daughter, among others. I commiserated with several others, among them Luis Alberto Urrea, the bestselling author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter and Nobody’s Son (a GREAT memoir), and the creative inspiration and a guiding light of The Hummingbird Review, the literary journal I now edit, and which is published by my friend, the author-poet Charlie Redner (Down But Never Out). (Did I mention that the Tucson Festival of Books’ logo this year was a hummingbird – isn’t serendipity awesome?)

Luis’ book tour Tweets are nearing legendary status among the countless thousands who have read them; how he packs his ebullient personality into 144 characters or less, I’ll never know. He also draws crowds. They had to turn away people from his event at the festival. I’m sure the University of Arizona’s fire marshal was freaking out, but the massive turnout knew what it wanted.

I also met and briefly chatted with one of my all-time favorite poet-authors, Joy Harjo, the author of How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems (among others). Joy is not only one of contemporary literature’s wisest and most eloquent writers, but also one of the world’s most beautiful souls. Her “Eagle Poem” is epic – check out the musical version on YouTube and see why. While speaking with Joy, I kept mentally merging two of my favorite opening poetic lines: Joy’s “To pray you open your whole self…” and Indian yoga master Paramhansa Yogananda’s “Make me thine eagle of soul progress…”

If the Muse herself donned a human form …. well, she has. Joy is the living song, dance and verse of what is beautiful about each and every one of us, if we would only accept that.

Then there was the featured speaker at the 1,000-person (at least) dinner, Scott Simon. In an evening of personal favorites, let’s add Scott: he’s been my favorite National Public Radio correspondent since his riveting on-site reports from the besieged Sarajevo in the early 1990s. The host of NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday,” he’s also a best-selling author.

Scott gave a wonderful half-hour talk on storytelling, but it was his close that will forever live with me – and which closes today’s blog post. He shared a story of how his father, a Chicago bookstore owner, once told him that a picture is worth a thousand words. Scott respectfully differs (what writer wouldn’t?). In so doing, he demonstrated just how meaningful a thousand words can be. He said that, when you stitch together the Lord’s Prayer, Twenty-Third Psalm, Gettysburg Address, first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, climactic paragraph in Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and the final entry in Anne Frank’s Diary, you have a thousand words.

Enjoy a day of writing and/or reading, a thousand purposeful words at a time.

To order The Write Time: 366 Exercises to Fulfill Your Writing Life

As I watched the closing ceremonies of a fantastic 2010 Winter Olympic Games, I looked out the window of the Southern California condo that serves as my West Coast office. The full moon shone in its silver glory. On the TV, a golden full moon beamed over Vancouver. Appropriate, considering the Canadian hockey team had just beaten the U.S. for the gold medal, and the host nation had just reminded the world what the Olympic spirit is all about. The Canadians’ hospitality – and performances – were truly golden, as they set an all-time record for gold medals won in a single Winter Olympics.

I digress … but only slightly. While considering the different shades of the full moon, I started thinking about eyes, and how vital they are to our perception of the world – and our readers’ perceptions of the people who make our stories. Whether we’re writing novels, articles, essays, poems or journal entries, we can show and illustrate our subjects’ inner and outer worlds by writing effectively and evocatively about their eyes. I’m not just talking about simple descriptions of color or shape, although both are very important to give readers a visual imprint of the subject or character. I’m talking about peering so deeply into one’s eyes that we see the truth of what is percolating, simmering or resting in their hearts, souls and psyches.

This involves what I consider to be the other side of deep listening – listening to the language being spoken in the eyes of the person sitting across from you, or staring out at you from the pages of your story. The way people focus (or not), divert their gaze, increase their rate of blinking, widen or narrow their eyes says much about both the inner character and what is really happening emotionally. Plumbing even deeper, eyes literally cast different qualities of light or shadow to reveal the emotional gravity, pace and impact of situations, no matter how convincing the words they may speak – or even the disarming smiles that may cross their faces.

A quick example from my forthcoming novel, The Voice, an exchange between the father and daughter protagonists, Tom and Christine Timoreaux:

He could apologize no more; every word carried deepest sincerity. There was nothing left to say. She smiled in acceptance, yet the light and shadow swirling in her eyes suggested something else, a conflict, a grip that refused to let go.

Great writers use the eyes of their subjects or characters to build dramatic scenes without describing a single emotion. They simply show the subject’s eyes in full action, reflecting the one part of our physical body that, unless we’re ice-cold psychopaths, cannot lie. They dive as deeply as possible, riding the eye-to-soul highway to tell the stories that lips, egos, body language, emotional walls and secrets do not otherwise reveal.

Every time we write, let’s work to master the language of the eyes. Listen with your eyes when talking to others, or hanging out with them. Look for quality of eye contact, movement, joyful dances or shards of pain – and the sense of light or shadow that comes along with it. Tune into your heart and intuitive mind, and try to feel the other side of those expressions, what is happening in your subject’s heart and soul, what they’re hiding, what they’re revealing. Then write the material. Just like good eye contact itself, that level of writing will keep readers staring at your pages. It will also help your writing become more and more authentic, so that it touches the place where all of us can relate – the universal truth.

The eyes definitely have it – in life, in writing. Showcase them and uncover the deepest stories that they reflect.

In the past 10 days, I have met many dozens of writers and poets. This happened through the Southern California Writers Conference, where I presented a few workshops, and at Sunset Poets, a North San Diego County group where I read poems from my collection, The River-Fed Stone and Shades of Green, and the literary anthology for which I am now managing editor, The Hummingbird Review. This followed a fantastic featured reading by Chris Vannoy, who runs the Drunk Poets group (it’s a name, not an occupation!!!) in the San Diego community of Ocean Beach.

During this time, I have been fortunate to see fine work in several different genres, and to pick up a number of new editing clients. Much of this work comes from as-yet unpublished authors, who are learning the same battles of polishing their writing, finding agents and/or publishing that all published writers once faced – and sometimes still do.

Within this battle come questions of confidence, ability, word choice, self-editing capability, structure and the myriad decisions we make when bringing our work to the highest level of perfection we can achieve before sending it off.

Which leads to the subject of today’s blog: TRUST. I cannot tell you how many writers have trouble trusting their process and what flows through them when they write. They will put down a great sentence or paragraph, and then allow their “inner censor” to take over, that nasty little creature that says “that’s wrong” or “I’m not good enough.” Before they know it, a beautiful image or deeply-felt summoning of spirit or experience – the very reason to write, according to the Ancient Chinese concept of “wen,” or writing – is diminished into something no deeper than a business letter.

As an editor, I bow my head in sadness every time I encounter this. As a writer, I will not allow this overly rational, censorious gremlin into my creative wheelhouse.

It all comes down to our ability to not only trust the words we write, and the order we write them, but to trust the spirit, soul, heart and deep mind from which they came. This goes for great business writing as well as the most poignant memoir. A universal truth that every working artist, musician and writer knows deep down: Our ability to work in the Creative Dream is directly proportional to our ability to trust. That includes self, skills, level of preparedness, and the purpose of our work.

Trust is the most important word in the practice of writing, or any form of creativity. Trust what happens after pen is put to paper, or fingertips to keyboard. Let your consciousness, subconscious, and superconscious minds merge like a pyramid and bring all your relevant life experience, intuition and inspiration into the process. Write what happens. Take the journey and trust it. As my friend, Jefferson Airplane and Starship lead singer, poet and artist Marty Balin once told me, “If something hits you in the gut, don’t question it. Just follow it.”

Trust what you write. Work hard to shut down the inner censor. Learn to distinguish between follow-up questions that enhance and sharpen your writing, and questions that try to strip away the essence of your work. Then make decisions that reflect the complete trust you have in yourself, your subject, and your command of the subject.

If we can trust what we write, then our readers will find us. It’s real “Law of Attraction” stuff. Readers love to read what they can trust, and it is very easy to distinguish between a printed voice that lacks self-trust, and a voice resonating with deep authenticity. That’s where we want to be, no matter what we’re writing.

To order The Write Time: 366 Exercises to Fulfill Your Writing
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Some thoughts and impressions on writing and publishing from the Southern California Writers Conference, at which I was privileged to teach three workshops and lead a “read and critique” group over the weekend. Needless to say, sleep has been really hard to come by the past few days. I’m still buzzing from the wealth of ideas, fine writing and commiseration with authors, editors, agents and publishers from throughout the country. Directors Michael Steven Gregory and Wes Albers have built a wonderfully effective formula of hard work mixed with great keynoters and massive servings of … fun.

And when we all reconvene September 23-25 in Newport Beach, sounds like may get the opportunity to facilitate a very cool session — the Rogue Read & Critique, which starts at 9 p.m. and ends whenever the last person finishes reading and we drop. That could be 6 a.m. the next morning, depending on how much writing and caffeine is consumed. I call it writing and workshopping in its purest, most obsessive form, real Anne Rice stuff … the golden key to becoming truly great at our art and craft …

Anyway, I digress. But you get the gist of this conference’s spirit. It is fun, bawdy, lively, diverse, and good. Plus, it took place on Valentine’s weekend, in San Diego, where the temperatures climbed to 75 – making a lot of people very happy who’ve been freezing, moving sandbags or shoveling snow or mud through this real bitch of a winter (my Aunt told me last night that 49 of the 50 states have seen snow this winter).

Three outtakes (with more to certainly pop up in future blogs):

Multiple Platform Publishing: Even though I help out clients with all forms of publishing, I have been quite reluctant to give up the old way in my work — the printed book that you can touch and feel. Not any more. We’re in the midst of the greatest revolution in communications since Gutenberg invented the printing press 520 years ago. Two workshops by Lin Robinson and a keynote speech by Be The Media author David Mathison emphasized the evident: if we don’t start embracing the myriad forms of digital and online publishing now fanning across the land, and use these vehicles to publish and promote our work, we’re going to get swept down an ever-growing river. And it will happen soon. From Web Lit to e-books, podcasts to video book trailers, blogs to wikis and zines, we need to learn and become proficient quickly. I’ll be featuring both Lin Robinson and David Mathison on future blogs.

Monster and the Muse: Writing Scared: When I saw this workshop title, I thought, “This is about writing horror and hanging in there while your own characters are scaring the hell out of you.” Not even close. Esteemed novelist and San Diego City College professor Laurel Corona, the author of The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice, had something else in mind. Of course, I was intrigued because Laurel was teaching and I’m the biggest Venice freak west of the Grand Canal (maybe my Italian heritage has something to do with it). This workshop was all about overcoming writer’s block at all stages of the process. “The idea is not to get over the fear but to write despite it. We have to have pep talks to get ourselves in harmony with the fear,” she said.

Laurel then offered up a way to stop writer’s block before we put down the first sentence of Chapter One, by embracing knowledge and love of language:

• Knowledge Of Subject: You have to really care about your subject. “I care enough to write this, even if nothing happens.”

• Knowledge Of Self: Do you like writing groups? Or solitude? Do you like to write for two hours a day – or all day? Do you need a lot of praise while works are in progress? “You have to have recognition of what your needs are while you’re writing.”

• Knowledge Of Audience: “Do not think you are going to be THE ONE who’s going to appeal to everybody.”

After that, Laurel said something that every writer who ever wants to be an agented, published author and sit on a bookstore shelf should embed in their hearts immediately, and refer to it daily: “You won’t get an agent and the agent won’t get a publisher unless they know where to put it on the shelf at Barnes & Noble. Period. If you want to be published, you have to accept that. You have to know your genre going into the book.”

I had to leave early to conduct a read & review with an attendee, but not before hearing a final gem from this very talented author, who opened her doors writing academic books on foreign countries for a young adult audience and then showed her deeper talent as a novelist: “In the end, we never find the right way to say anything. We find a way to say something that’s acceptable. Writing is really rewriting. It’s amazing how many ways we can say the same thing.”

• Quality of Writing: On Saturday, I had the privilege of conducting a read & critique with about 15 authors. They included fiction writers, a couple of non-fiction authors, a memoirist, and two poets (including 18-year-old Sonoma State University freshman Jake Pruett, perhaps the finest, most refined teen poet I have ever met. I was writing poetry at 18, but my verse was scribble compared to this. Get used to his name, poetry fans; you’re going to see it again). We blew off the 90-minute time allotment and spent a good two hours giving input and feedback on a wide variety of stories; we easily could’ve gone three or more hours. I’ve conducted these types of roundtables before at conferences, but never in 12 years of teaching have I been in a room where all 15 pieces ranged from very good to excellent, as in, ready to publish.

In fact, half the people in the room are now foregoing sleep and busily polishing their works because of editors and agents who saw the same thing I did. Trust me on this: there was a multi-author Facebook and email exchange happening at 1 a.m. this morning; everyone was working. What hit me were two things: their storylines, and their originality of style. They all had strong storylines, and they all had developed voices. None were published book authors – yet.

First point: There is a ton of great writing out there by authors just as hungry to reach their audiences as we are. Often hungrier. The only way to rise above it and see yourself on a bookshelf is to be so original in content and storyline, so resonant in voice, so infectious in the energy of your prose (or poetry) and so polished in your sentence structure and word choices that your book can’t help but sell itself. Do not submit until it’s as perfect as you can make it.

Second point: When the opportunity strikes, seize it and don’t let go. Create the circumstances that form your future as an author. That’s what the 1 a.m. Facebook and email exchange was all about.

Back with more from this magnificent conference …

To order The Write Time: 366 Exercises to Fulfill Your Writing Life

I’ll revert to my journalism days and give you the hookline first: It’s time to get educated in social media and non-print forms of publishing – NOW. Because that will be the future for all of us, whether we print book purists like it or not.

Most importantly, the future is happening now.

I’ve been working with social media and other publishing platforms for the past several months — this blog being one such example — but at the Southern California Writers Conference, I had my eyes opened wide, peeled back and filled with the light of the future. I will break this down much more thoroughly in the coming days and weeks, but for starters, buy a copy of David Mathison’s book Be The Media and visit his website. The book is $35. Don’t ask questions; spend the money. You’ll have one of the best instantly applicable tickets to the publishing future that I have yet seen. For the other best ticket, go to Adoroworks.com and buy Linton Robinson’s ebook on social media.

David Mathison’s story, in a nutshell: On January 20, 2009, he was working as a VP at the Reuters News Agency, and writing Be The Media. He had no advance sales, no publishing contract, and didn’t know when he would finish. He Tweeted about what he was doing. The president of a foundation responded and told him to be at a conference. He dropped what he was doing and went to the conference, and spoke briefly. Two days later, the woman wired him the money for 5,000 copies of his book (5,000 x $35 = money math we all like!). Just like that — from one social media connection — his life has changed forever.

One thing David said that should make everyone look again at how they’re promoting their books: “I was the vice president of Reuters, the world’s largest news agency. Now, every one of us can reach as many people instantly as Reuters did.”

Invest in your future by getting these two works. Like David Mathison said in the keynote last night, most of us are in the same boat he was in a year ago — but all of us can climb into the yacht by using social media and being open and ready for the opportunities that WILL present themselves.

Much more later…

To order The Write Time: 366 Exercises to Fulfill Your Writing Life
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While getting ready for the Southern California Writers Conference, thought I’d share the Cliff Notes version of one of my favorite workshops to teach, which I will present Sunday afternoon in San Diego: Your Journal, Your Goldmine. Because, for working writers, people trying to heal or recover, and those recording their lives, it truly is one of the most vital working assets we have.

Your Journal should be your constant writing companion, along with your creative mind and computer. The journal can be a reflection of the internal feelings, emotions and thoughts surrounding the writing life – and be filled with notes, new words, sketches, drawings, directional lines, ideas started and stopped, figure of speech experiments, character sketches, potential through lines and plot lines, notes on places traveled and events experienced, and much more.

There are countless ways to use a journal as a complement to your writing practice. A few easy-to-implement ideas are listed below:

• Write down the “news”: new observations, new sounds, new experiences, new words learned, new feelings, new dialogue or dialect;

• Write down new types of writing: something you saw in a book, a genre you like, new words/phrases, how those words/phrases were used, new uses of old words, new lingo;

• Write on writing: How the author of the book, story or article you couldn’t put down put his or her words together, how they sustained voice and reader interest, techniques/word skills they used, figures of speech. Watch especially for how he or she seized your senses with their dramatic narrative, the images they used. Aim for a takeaway: How can you bring this new knowledge into your own work, your own experience, and write in your voice?

• Cook up ideas: Brainstorm ideas; spin off ideas or ways to approach; experiment with approaches to idea; experiment with genres; use journal to see how far idea will go. ALWAYS write down ideas; come back to them later. Date them. Let your daily writing produce a new idea for you.

• Write at the speed of life: Practice writing at the speed of life – your life, friends’ lives, subjects’ lives, characters’ lives. Write narrative reflective of speed of events or world. Long sentences — explanatory, cerebral, contemplative, detached. Short sentences — dramatic, emotional, immediate. Write at the speed people talk; capture the speed and rhythm of their movements in words; practice writing descriptions that show speed until you’re good enough to bring them into a story, article or book.

• Research notes: Bring into your journal research notes you really want to incorporate into your work. Write and experiment in the journal until you master the research, until it flows smoothly within your narrative and you have “owned” the material.

• Draw, sketch, blog, cut out articles — multimedia: Make the journal a chemistry lab; use whatever it takes to firmly paint the picture of your writing in your mind, then try out descriptions and phrases in journal.

• Figure of speech practice: My favorite. Practice developing and writing metaphors, similes, alliteration and other figures of speech. Also practice using action verbs instead of passive verbs.

• Revisit old ideas and writings: This is the long-term benefit of the journal, especially for those fishing for ideas or working through personal healing and/or recovery issues. Keep writing ideas – no matter how silly they seem – and you can revisit them and incorporate them in many ways. And your old writings will always serve you for a memoir, article or character for a novel.

• Cut loose and have fun: Sometimes, we just need to cut loose and write pages and pages about whatever strikes us, even if it’s totally nonsensical. I do this every two weeks, though I would love to have the time to free write daily. This is real diamonds-in-the-rough writing: If you hit your creative stride and put up no inner censors or fences to what you write, then these free sessions will produce a garden of ideas and continued strengthening of your writing voice.

NEXT: Almost Real-Time Blogging Coverage of the Southern California Writers Conference

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How do you build a writing practice? How do you maintain it? How do you thrive from it?

The daily practice of writing sounds like the easiest thing in the world to develop. But it’s not. We sit down with an idea and motivation, and you write… right? If only it were that easy for the vast majority of us. What many learn, fast, is that the open-ended act of writing is like running wild in a field. If we don’t create some structure to measure and pace ourselves, we will burn out and topple to the ground long before a book, essay, article or other project is complete.

Over the years, I have found 10 approaches that combine to form a solid way to write consistently and productively. Since I am presenting these as part of a workshop Thursday night at the Crittenden County (KY) Library Writing Workshop Series, I thought I would try to stir up some office rearranging, journal writing and brainstorming with you today! These aspects of the craft of writing work for writers of all levels and genres, and are designed to support the writing practice for both the short- and long-term.

1) SETTING: A Writing Environment that works for you
Does your writing office, room or nook work for you? Do you have enough plants, pictures, inspirational sayings, natural light, furnishings and other adornments? Are your key reference books nearby—a dictionary, thesaurus, style manual, maybe a Writer’s Market? Any background music? Do your desk or table and chair work for you? Create an environment that feeds and inspires you.

2) PRACTICING: Turn Your Journal into an idea goldmine
All working writers should keep two journals, or at least be of two minds about their journal: one to recount experiences, feelings and observations of the day; the other to experiment with writing techniques and approaches, perhaps even different genres, and generate ideas. I always tell workshop participants that the journal is the working writer’s “chemistry lab.” It’s also a potential goldmine of ideas.

3) RESEARCHING: Learn It, Note It, Know It, Master It – in your own words
This is key to the writing craft. Research your subject so thoroughly that you can masterfully write about it in your own words. Research different points of view, different perspectives. Read books. Interview experts or knowledgeable people. When you take notes, jot down how this piece of research could work into your narrative, character or subject. Think “applicability” when researching.

4) PREPARING: Your Game Plan
How are you going to write your book, travelogue, essay, story or series of journal entries? After writing freely for awhile, it’s time to create a plan that fulfills your objective of finishing. Which hours work best for you to write? Can you write every day or every other day? How much to write each day? Create an outline or chapter summary that you follow until it’s finished — then pull out the next outline or summary. Break down your work into day-sized pieces.

5) PROCEEDING: Daily writing schedules that leave you eager to continue the next day, and not burned out
Create a daily writing schedule that works for your level of concentration and energy. Some people can write six hours of new material daily; others can only last two or three hours. Set a schedule that is write for you. Take the outline or chapter summary mentioned above, and finish each day at a place where you can’t wait to resume the next day. Author-artist Henry Miller called this “finishing hot.”

6) MAINTAINING: How to maintain Writer’s Mind 24/7 and, thus, momentum when working on particular books or projects
This is my favorite part of the writing process. When I write a book, my mind immerses into that world and subject 24/7. The world seems sharper; my senses are more acute. There is so much you can do with the 18 to 20 hours not spent writing the new material. Edit your past day’s work. Turn post-writing walks or exercise into different workouts, turning over plot or subject matter in your mind. Jot notes in your journal — and work them out with mind-mapping or other brainstorming techniques. Observe the world around you for material you can write. Watch your dreams to see what they might present.

7) TRUSTING: Trust your intuitive writer’s mind to get down the best material every day
Trust is crucial for all writers. We must fully trust what our deeper minds and hearts, and our intuitive faculties, present us as we write. We must also trust ourselves to get everything down and not keep editing and censoring—especially when in a writing session. Most importantly, let your intuitive mind help put your stories together, feed them, and conduct your characters’ “conversations”. This is when great writing happens. It’s like skiing down a hill and resisting all “controlling mind” warnings to slow down—knowing that the faster you go (within reason), the more control you truly have … and the more complete your experience. It’s all about trust.

DEVELOPING: Spin off and develop new ideas while continuing to work on your main project
This step intermingles with Step 6. When I’m writing a book, I put notebooks and note pads all over my home and office. I also tape a sheet of quadrille (small-squared) paper next to my keyboard. Every time an idea pops up for another piece of writing, whether a poem or new book idea, I write it down as an image, note or sentence. At most, I’ll scribble down a paragraph or two. Then back to the project at hand. By allowing yourself those few seconds to honor the ideas, you will always have new writing material for that next project — and you will enjoy a steady stream of ideas, thanks to the law of reciprocity: you reap what you sow. Entertain and jot down all ideas — then sow them later.

Another tip: find blogs in your subject matter, and write guest blogs to illustrate specific areas. Besides keeping you on task, you’ll also be building your all-important writer’s platform in case you want to sell your work — or are selling into an audience different than the one that has read your works in the past.

9) FEEDING: Keeping your mind and body open, energized and flexible
Many writers forget about taking care of themselves. They’re going to dig in, grind it out, throw their sleep patterns asunder, eat atrociously, and fight the ultimate battle to write that book. Writing is more of a marathon than a sprint; pacing and nourishment are vital. But there’s more. When working on a project, feed your mind by cross-reading in different genres, visiting art or sculpture galleries or museums, listening to music that expands and enlivens you, taking long walks, bike rides or runs, cooking new dishes, engaging in rich conversations, going to poetry readings or concerts, and writing letters.

10) FINISHING: Steps to finish — every time
Every year, many thousands of young boys enter Boy Scouts. Most think they will become Eagle Scouts—the highest honor. Less than 2% get there. I would guess that book writing carries the same percentage—2% of all manuscripts are written to completion. The key to finishing is to keep you and your writing fresh, turn each day into bite-sized pieces, and be consistent and disciplined. And be ready to get ultra-focused when you near the end. Write every day that you can. Expand that word “can” into more and more days. Follow the steps listed above. Start by finishing what you set out to do that day. Then string your days together until finished. When you finish the first draft, let it sit for a few days, then proceed to revise and edit it. Give yourself mini-breaks, often. Perhaps most importantly, don’t be too attached to your manuscript. There is a time for it to be done, a time the child becomes an adult and moves out (hopefully!). Finish it, and move on to your next work.

REMEMBER: The Write Time Writing Contest is now underway! $500 in cash prizes, plus publishing opportunities. Deadline is April 15. Check the Word Journeys Website – or the January 22 entry of this blog – for complete details.