Writing down the bones – The Writers in Residence

By Maggie King

Writer’s block. Many writers suffer from this condition. I used to scoff at the very idea of writer’s block, regarding it as another way for writers to procrastinate. But the creative slowdown I’ve experienced for several months has humbled me.

I’m not blocked for ideas, I have them by the dozen. The problem lies in creating a story, one people would actually want to read. My writing skills have gone on hiatus.

My solution: free writing. According to Matt Ellis in his post in Grammarly.com, “How Freewriting Can Boost Your Creativity,” freewriting is a technique in which the author writes their thoughts quickly and continuously, without worrying about form, style, or even grammar.

Mr. Ellis extols the benefits of this practice: “The benefits of free writing revolve around organization, brainstorming, and inspiration, as well as beating writer’s block and relieving certain anxieties. Just getting anything written, even if it is imperfect, can jump-start creativity.”

Author Natalie Goldberg also encourages free writing, or “first thoughts” in her parlance. In this excerpt from her classic Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within she explains how to write first thoughts (#6 is a tough one!):

Keep your hand moving. Don’t pause to read what you’ve just written.
That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.
Don’t cross out. That is editing as you write. Even if you write something
you didn’t mean to write, leave it.
Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. Don’t even care about
staying in the margins and lines on the page.
Lose control.
Don’t think. Don’t get logical.
Go for the jugular. If something comes up in your writing that is scary or
naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.

Sometimes I write from a prompt (maybe not technically free writing, but who’s nitpicking?); at other times I simply write whatever comes forth. I set a timer on my smart watch for thirty minutes and go, without stopping. At first I went for ten minute sprints, but soon found that half an hour worked best. My thoughts and words flow. When the timer goes off, I pause, then go for another thirty minutes. At that point my hand needs a rest!

My free writing is turning into a memoir. Nothing organized or even chronological—whatever occurs to me ends up on the page. What occurs are often experiences from my past: family, people I’ve known, jobs held, schools attended, challenges faced. I’ve devoted pages and pages to my summers spent with relatives in a rural part of upstate New York.

It’s been an enlightening process, especially as I discover how my perspectives have changed over the years. Frankly, there are memories I’d like to keep buried, but I’ve found it liberating to get them down on paper (See #6 of Natalie Goldberg’s list above).

Since I started this process in July, I now look forward to writing each day. I can’t yet report much creative writing activity, but last week I was invited to submit a short story to an anthology. I have a great idea for a story (remember, I have no dearth of ideas) and now feel up to the challenge of actually writing it.

And now, please excuse me … it’s time to free write!

Handmade Software, Inc. Image Alchemy v1.14

by Jill Amadio

Like most writers I have read dozens of how-to books, joined Sisters in Crime; Mystery Writers of America; the Authors Guild, and even ASJA – the American Society of Journalists and Authors. I’ve been a panelist at conferences, given talks all over the place, and enjoyed writing for this blog and magazines.

These days I have suffered from a lack of inspiration.

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Previously I had deadlines that worked when I had a demanding publisher or if I was ghostwriting for a client. At present neither apply and I find myself with days, weeks even, of time to work on three books of my own that have been on the back burner.

They include a biography of a woman who pioneered aviation art in America; my third mystery, and a book about a terrorist event that was originally to be ghostwritten.

This last one is a true account of a teenager who was married in 1992 to a Middle Eastern college student who later became a terrorist. Divorced in 1994 she went on with her life. When she saw her ex-husband’s photograph on TV as one of the terrorists she contacted the authorities.

I interviewed her years ago in Oregon, made copies of her marriage certificate and divorce decree, and wrote a 40-page book proposal. I was quickly signed up with a top-five New York literary agent. However, no publisher was willing to touch it back then and a few months later, at the age of 31 and just before I was due to meet with her again, the young woman died in a suspicious car accident reminiscent of the Karen Silkwood story.

Last year, before moving to Connecticut, I emptied my storage unit and found the two bins of research I’d collected containing recordings of the girl, her mother, sister, and brother who knew the terrorist husband. Mindful of the fate she suffered I decided to fictionalize the book. I’d signed a contract with her mother giving me all rights, registered the book proposal with the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress, and went to work. So far I have nine chapters.

The decision to go forward with this project was easy. The implementation almost impossible. I just haven’t been able to get myself to work on it further for the past few months, perhaps because of the overwhelming amount of research I had gathered.

My research includes several books on the event and I have great quotes from the young woman and the family. I visited locations and took photos, and had lunch in the same restaurants her ex-husband had taken her to where they met up with “friends.”

The bins are brimming with marvelous, usable material. I was pumped and eagerly dove into writing. I became so engrossed I made dozens of cups of tea and left them in the kitchen forgetting they were there. The agent lost interest because the subject was no longer alive to promote the book. I stored the names of the detectives who investigated her death; transcriptions; the coroner’s report; the death certificate, and her obituary. So I went on to other projects.

Now, I want to complete it. But guess what?

I can’t get myself to open the document. I’ve thankfully avoided writer’s block for decades and I have come the conclusion that I am simply lazy. This condition is exacerbated by the virus causing enforced isolation more than usual, and my discovery of the wonders of Netflix. Or maybe the 123 files staring me in the face are too intimidating.

I remember reading how John Updike solved his lack of excitement for a story when he lived here in Connecticut, incidentally. In his den he set up three typewriters on which he was typing three different stories, During a day he walked from one to another when he ran out of ideas for one novel and moved on to the next for a while.

What to do? After a stern argument with myself last week which got me nowhere I reached out to friends for a solution and received some excellent advice.

Peggy Ehrhart who is on her eighth mystery in her knitting series, had a suggestion. She told me to start at the front of a bin, pull out the first file and insert whatever material was in that file into the appropriates chapters. And so on. Great idea.

Sandy Giedeman, a well-published award-winning poet who often edits my books offered more advice. I told her one of my favorite guides was “Writing Down the Bones,” by Natalie Goldberg. Sandy told me to re-read it and start putting flesh on the skeleton I had already created in the synopsis that included a sentence or two for each of the chapters. That helped. I had a terrific, ready-made skeleton for the entire book in the book proposal I had shelved years earlier. (It is one reason I am a fanatic for flash drives and printing out hard copies of precious writings)

A third friend said I should listen to uplifting music. I dug out my favorite CDs and heard the Mamas and Pappas singing “California Dreamin’” Well, that was a little sad as I was no longer in California and had a hankering to be back there. I also listened to ABBA, again a bit of a mistake since instead of writing anything I sat on the sofa and daydreamed about my life when the band was famous many years ago.

I also played “The Standing Stones of Callanish,” Celtic music composed about an ancient site in Cornwall but then I remembered I had bought that disc to put me in the mood for my Cornishwoman mysteries. I replaced it with “Puccini Without Words,” which is quite lovely but again, maudlin in parts because operas are so melodramatic. Nevertheless, all three suggestions helped and I am now happily engaged in methodically sorting through the first bin of files.

It is so easy to waste time instead of sitting down and writing. Such a strange paradox as we all share the passion and when inspiration smacks us on the jaw it is thrilling to get our ideas onto the electronic page – and just as disappointing when we don’t or can’t.

I’m sure most writers have their own solutions, even quirky ones, and someone has probably written a book about them. I still like Goldberg’s book not only because I write mysteries and love its title, “Writing Down the Bones,” but also for its content.

My current plan is to finish the first draft of the story by May 15, self-publish, and see how it goes.

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