A Writer's Moment: 'Unlocking Creativity'

A Writer's Moment: 'Unlocking Creativity':   “Writing is a muscle that needs to be exercised every day: The more you write, the easier it becomes.” – Jane Green A cancer surviv...

'Unlocking Creativity'

 

“Writing is a muscle that needs to be exercised every day: The more you write, the easier it becomes.” – Jane Green

A cancer survivor who now lives in Connecticut, Green was born in London on this date in 1968 and has become one of the world's leading authors in commercial women's fiction, with millions of books in print and translations in over 25 languages.

A journalist by training, she worked as a feature writer for several London-based newspapers, including The Daily Mail, before writing her first novel, Straight Talking, which went right to bestseller lists in 1995.  Since then she’s had two dozen bestsellers - Stardust being her most recent.

She says she does not necessarily write about her own life but is inspired by the themes of her life.   She made the move from journalistic writing to creative writing with writing regimen that sounds like a great plan to an old journalist like myself.  “I treated my books as a very long journalistic exercise.  I thought of every chapter as an article that needed to be finished (on a deadline).”                       

Her journalism training also taught her that writing is a job, and that you must write, whether you are inspired or not.  “The only way to unlock creativity," she said,  "is to write through it.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Small Triumphs and Large Hearts'

A Writer's Moment: 'Small Triumphs and Large Hearts': “Heroism doesn’t always happen in a burst of glory. Sometimes small triumphs and large heart...

'Small Triumphs and Large Hearts'

“Heroism doesn’t always happen in a burst of glory. Sometimes small triumphs and large hearts change the course of history.”– Mary Roach

 

 On Memorial Day, it’s fitting that we all take a few minutes to both remember loved ones who have died, and to show our appreciation to and remember those who risked their lives for the greater good of our nation.  So many men and women went above and beyond to ensure that our country remains safe and free.   

I like this Memorial Day quote that relates, of course, to those who write.

“On Memorial Day, I don't want to only remember the combatants. There were also those who came out of the trenches to become writers and poets, who started preaching peace; men and women who have made this world a kinder place to live.” – Eric Burdon

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Dare to be ourselves'

A Writer's Moment: 'Dare to be ourselves':   “We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” –   May Sarton     Poet, novelist and...

'Dare to be ourselves'

 

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” –  May Sarton 

 

Poet, novelist and memoirist Eleanore Marie Sarton, born in May 1912 in Belgium, grew up in Boston after her parents fled Europe during World War I.    She started writing poetry in her late teens, publishing her first collection Encounter in 1937.   Her award-winning works tackle many deeply human issues of love, loneliness, aging, nature, and self-doubt.  Here, for Saturday’s Poem, is Sarton's,

 

                  A Country Incident   

   

Absorbed in planting bulbs, that work of hope,

I was startled by a loud human voice,
“Do go on working while I talk. Don’t stop!”
And I was caught upon the difficult choice—
To yield the last half hour of precious light,
Or to stay on my knees, absurd and rude;
I willed her to be gone with all my might,
This kindly neighbor who destroyed a mood;
I could not think of next spring any more,
I had to re-assess the way I live.
Long after I went in and closed the door,
I pondered on the crude imperative.

What it is to be caught up in each day
Like a child fighting imaginary wars,
Converting work into this passionate play,
A rounded whole made up of different chores
Which one might name haphazard meditation.
And yet an unexpected call destroys
Or puts to rout my primitive elation:
Why be so serious about mere joys?
Is this where some outmoded madness lies,
Poet as recluse? No, what comes to me
Is how my father looked out of his eyes,
And how he fought for his own passionate play.

He could tear up unread and throw away
Communications from officialdom,
And, courteous in every other way,
Would not brook anything that kept him from
Those lively dialogues with man’s whole past
That were his intimate and fruitful pleasure.
Impetuous, impatient to the last,
“Be adamant, keep clear, strike for your treasure!”
I hear the youthful ardor in his voice
(And so I must forgive a self in labor).
I feel his unrepentant smiling choice,
(And so I ask forgiveness of my neighbor).

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Be a Mirror and Reflection'

A Writer's Moment: 'Be a Mirror and Reflection':   “Any form of media is an opportunity to be a mirror and reflection of what we are experiencing more in the details of our life.” – Mara ...

'Be a Mirror and Reflection'

 

“Any form of media is an opportunity to be a mirror and reflection of what we are experiencing more in the details of our life.” – Mara Brock Akil

Born this day in 1970, Brock Akil was a trailblazer for black women, making her impact as an award-winning television writer and producer and creating the highly successful BET show Being Mary Jane.  The show centered on the life – both personal and professional – of a successful black broadcaster in L.A.     

While she has been a screenwriter for over 20 years, she started her career as a journalist after graduating with a journalism degree from Northwestern and credits journalistic writing as the key to her success. 

 

Mara Brock Akil

“I often attribute my screenwriting to journalism because they drill in the who, what, when, where and why - but we really need to land on that why,” she said.  “That's what I've been exploring in my writing for many years.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: "Getting a feel for 'place"

A Writer's Moment: "Getting a feel for 'place": “An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.” – Tony Hillerman                Bo...

"Getting a feel for 'place"

“An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.” – Tony Hillerman

            Born on this date in 1925, Hillerman wrote regional Native American detective novels and non-fiction works, best known for his Navajo Tribal Police mysteries featuring two iconic police officers – Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee.  Several of his books have been adapted into movies, including A Dark Wind and the multiple-award winner A Thief of Time.

            A native of Oklahoma, Hillerman gravitated to New Mexico after World War II (he was a highly decorated combat veteran).  Starting as a journalist, he worked out of Santa Fe, and then moved to Albuquerque where he both wrote for newspapers and earned a master’s degree in writing.  It was while covering crime news that he met a sheriff who became the model for his Navajo cop Joe Leaphorn and sparked an idea for his first book The Blessing Way.      

            A consistently bestselling author, he wrote 18 books in his Navajo series and more than 30 books total, among them a memoir and several about the Southwest, its beauty and its history.  Given numerous awards, he said two of the most meaningful were one from the Navajo Nation and another from the Department of the Interior, recognizing his attention to Native culture and his encouragement for maintaining nature and the land. 

            Also a writing professor for many years, he said his best advice to writers was awareness of who they were writing for.  “Remember, he advised, "you write for both yourself and your audience, who are usually better educated and at least as smart as you are.”

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Not Much, You?'

A Writer's Moment: 'Not Much, You?':   “Most people write a lot of autobiography, but when I came to write autobiography I discovered that nothing interesting had ever happened...

'Not Much, You?'

 

“Most people write a lot of autobiography, but when I came to write autobiography I discovered that nothing interesting had ever happened to me. So I had to take the situation and invent stories to go with it.” –  W. P. Kinsella

William Patrick Kinsella, born on this date in 1935 (he died in 2016), is a Canadian novelist and short story writer whose work usually focused on First Nations people and baseball.   For a truly wonderful read about life on the First Nations’ Reserve in Kinsella’s home province of Alberta, check out Dance Me Outside, his very first book from 1977. Narrated by a young Cree named Silas Ermineskin, it is a remarkable look at Reserve life, love, sorrow and triumph.

But while he writes poignantly and with great detail about the First Nations, it is for his 1982 baseball novel Shoeless Joe that he gained international acclaim.

                                                                                                                           Kinsella

 The book was mildly controversial in that it used the reclusive (and still living at the time)  author J.D. Salinger as one of its main characters, even though Kinsella  had never met him. "I made sure to make him a nice character so that he couldn’t sue me.” Kinsella said.  The best-selling book was later adapted into the wonderful 1989 Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams, further cementing Kinsella’s reputation.

“Most writers are unhappy with film adaptations of their work, and rightly so,” Kinsella said.  “But Field of Dreams caught the spirit and essence of Shoeless Joe while making the necessary changes to make the work more visual.”    

 

Primarily set in Iowa it has one of the great literary exchanges when one of the old-time “spirit” ballplayers he creates emerges from a cornfield and asks the main character Ray if this is Heaven?  “No,” Ray answers.  “It's Iowa.”

 

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A Writer's Moment: Speaking Words of Power

A Writer's Moment: Speaking Words of Power:   I hid my heart under my bed because my mother said if you're not careful someday somebody's going to break it. Take it from me, un...

Speaking Words of Power

  I hid my heart under my bed because my mother said if you're not careful someday somebody's going to break it. Take it from me, under the bed is not a good hiding spot.” –  Shane Koyczan 

 

Born on this date in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Koyczan grew up in British Columbia and in 2000 became the first Canadian to win the U.S. Individual Championship title at the National Poetry Slam.

A spoken word poet, writer, and member of the group Tons of Fun University, he is best known for writing about issues like bullying, cancer, death, and eating disorders and internationally famous for his anti-bullying poem To This Day 

  Check out YouTube to see him “perform” it at his TED talk.            

Also the author of several books of poetry and many essays – both written and spoken – Koyczan said he’s also interested in opera.  “Opera is the original marriage of words and music, and there's a theatre element, a dramatic element,” he said.   “It's right up my alley.”

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A Writer's Moment: 'These Make Humanity'

A Writer's Moment: 'These Make Humanity':   “Love, hope, fear, faith - these make humanity. These are its sign and note and character.” – Robert Browning   Som...

'These Make Humanity'

 

“Love, hope, fear, faith - these make humanity. These are its sign and note and character.” – Robert Browning

 

Some writers say love is a major influence on how and what they write, but in Browning’s case it was THE influence in his career.  Languishing as a middle-of-the-road poet at best, he fell in love with Elizabeth Barrett, one of England’s most prominent female writers in the 1840s.  Their love fired his writing and led her to write her famous love sonnets, highlighted by the well-known "How do I love thee?"  Disinherited by her father and rejected by Elizabeth's brothers, the couple moved to Italy where they lived until her death from tuberculosis.  Her work, particularly the love poems, placed her among the all-time leading poets.  For Saturday’s Poem here is Barrett Browning’s, 

 

           How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with a passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

A Writer's Moment: 'At Least Be A Nuisance'

A Writer's Moment: 'At Least Be A Nuisance':   “The optimism of a healthy mind is indefatigable.” – Margery Allingham There’s a saying about crusty old journalists that they have ...

'At Least Be A Nuisance'

 

“The optimism of a healthy mind is indefatigable.” – Margery Allingham

There’s a saying about crusty old journalists that they have “ink in their blood,” but it’s a phrase that also applies to the genteel and light-hearted Allingham, who was born into a writing family.

Writing steadily almost from the time she was first in school, Margery was the daughter of two well-established newspaper writers who probably thought nothing of the fact that their daughter was already considered accomplished in writing before she reached age 10, when her first plays were being performed in schools.

Ultimately this British born writer (on this date in 1904) focused on crime and mystery writing and created one of the most well-known crime detectives of the mid-20^th Century, the sleuth Albert Campion.  Ironically, Campion was put into her first novel almost as an afterthought, but he was such an optimistic and interesting character that her publishers demanded more stories that would focus on him. 

 

With that encouragement and her creative and imaginative mind, Margery went to work and wrote nearly 30 novels with Campion (who many thought to be her alter-ego) at the center of all the action.  (If you haven’t read any, I highly commend them to you – they are terrific!)

 

Allingham died at age 62 from breast cancer but ever the optimist, she laid out ideas for several more novels “just in case they’re wrong and I’m not really dying,” bugging everyone around her to keep the faith and help her keep writing.   

 

As she noted just a few days before her death, “If one cannot command attention by one’s admirable qualities, one can at least be a nuisance.”

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Everything Becomes Copy'

A Writer's Moment: 'Everything Becomes Copy':  “ My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have the potential to be comic stories the ...