Susanna Lang

This winter, the cold and snow began to feel like an assault, as if an ice queen from the old stories had turned her malevolent gaze on the eastern half of the country. Week after week, the temperatures hovered a little below or a little above zero, more snow had to be shoveled, and the wind found every crack in the walls. Our delivery of heating oil was delayed. The schools closed for more days than ever in my 30 years of teaching, but we were locked in by the cold so it didn’t feel like a release.

Then I fell on snow packed slick and shiny as porcelain, and the malice became intensely personal. I broke my right arm above the elbow, requiring surgery. I am strongly right-dominant, and of the generation that only feels comfortable with illegible scribbles for first drafts. I would never leave the house without a notebook and a pen.

On the other hand, while my poetry is not confessional—I don’t find myself endlessly fascinating, so why should anyone else?—I do use writing to work through what troubles and intrigues me. As I have grown older and watched my parents and friends struggle to stay upright, my poems have meditated on loss. When it snowed outside, it snowed in my notebook. I couldn’t imagine getting through this new and excruciating pain without words, but I couldn’t form the words I needed.

Of course, nights were the worst. The pain came in waves, sleep was impossible, and my devoted husband had collapsed in exhaustion after a day of juggling his own work, both our chores, and my needs for a glass of water, more pills, a bath, another ice pack. During the first nights, I counted the hours on my smartphone. I followed developments in Ukraine. I found I could lose myself in the poems that the Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Foundation sent to my inbox (bless them!). Then I discovered that the memo app worked fine for first drafts. I wrote this post in the same way. Typing left-handed was slow, but there’s something to be said for moving slowly. Fewer falls that way.

My students use their phones for every phase of the writing process. They research their papers, they write drafts, they text each other suggestions for revision, and ask me to read their tiny screens. I have always refused. I pleaded ignorance of technology. I pleaded my old eyes. But in the watches of the night, my phone offered a way to travel safely through the pain and the dark. When writing friends suggested that I make my medical leave into a writing sabbatical, I thought they were insensitive. It turned out they were merely sensible. I was the one with a fragment of ice in my eye that kept me from seeing the obvious.

I wrote in my notebook on February 9, the morning of my fall—in fact, at 3:00 am, and I must have turned on the light, despite my sleeping husband. I opened my notebook again on March 16, and found I could write with a pen, but even a page tugged on my elbow, created a strain, the first pangs of what would become intolerable before I’d finished a second page. As we enter April, I am still in physical therapy, though I can write comments on my students’ papers (submitted the old-fashioned way on paper), and I can write on my classroom white board, even the date at the top. Still, my notebook remains on my desk, not in my purse—extra weight—and my newest poem began as a middle-of-the-night draft on the memo app of my phone. I don’t know whether I will continue to write on a tiny screen with a tiny keyboard once (if?) I regain the full use of my right arm. But although I miss the texture and expansiveness of paper, now I think of my notebook as a luxury, not a necessity. Words are the necessity, while the technology—pen or pixel—is only their tool.

Susanna Lang’s newest collection of poems, Tracing the Lines, was published in 2013 by the Brick Road Poetry Press. Her first collection, Even Now, was published by The Backwaters Press (2008), followed by a chapbook, Two by Two (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her poems have appeared in journals including Little Star, The Green Mountains Review, The Baltimore Review, Kalliope, and Jubilat; “Migration” is forthcoming in South85 Journal. She lives and teaches in the Chicago Public Schools.

David Colodney

Sure, I was up late that night, when I turned on the TV and Jimmy Fallon was writing his thank you notes, the piano-tinkling accompanying music going through my head.

OK, I’d had some wine, too, so I was certainly thinking my clearest after reading some of Kenneth Koch’s Selected Poems before I flipped on the TV. Koch’s poem, “To Jewishness,” was still on my mind as I started thinking about how we all have these outside identities that help define us. Or, maybe, that help others define us.

If you don’t know the poem, this is the poem where he realizes the identity of being a Jew was different from the actual practice of the religion, and he confronts his Jewishness throughout the poem, addressing it as “you” throughout.

Koch, not only one of America’s greatest 20^th century poets but a professor and author of wonderful craft books on the writing of poetry, was on to something. If he had his Jewishness as his alter ego, I had one too: I had writing. I have often wrestled with the writing thing. I’ve struggled with it. I’ve fought epic one-on-one cage matches with it in my head. And, like Koch ultimately realized with his Jewish identity, I need writing.

And so, to you, writing, I would like to write you a Fallon-esque thank you note. But we need to clear the air on a few things first, ok, writing?

I realize now I had you even when I was a little kid, when my dad brought home both The Miami Herald and The Miami News, and I’d cut out all the sports stories and paste them together to form my own newspaper.

I had you as I became an editor on two college newspapers, but fought the urge to pursue you for a living because it was kind of a crapshoot and I needed to have a regular 9-5 like my dad. So I held a bunch of jobs I hated, yet I still came home to you and caught up with you first via typewriter, and now via my little 10” laptop I carry around, but also in the notebooks that take up a shelf in my closet.

I had you through my first marriage, and the raising of my sons. I cursed you as I covered high school football games on rainy September Florida nights. When my first son was born, it was in a hospital down the street from the Fort Lauderdale bureau of The Miami Herald where I worked; since my wife was being induced I knew I’d have time to finish and file the two stories I was working on for the Prep Preview edition, although if I had more time, the second story would have been better. And when my second son was born, my Herald editor was right with me. I mean, literally, right with me. His son was also born October 17, 2000.

When I went through my divorce, you were there for me in a rented apartment equipped with strange furniture and pictures on the wall of people I didn’t know. When my younger son was so seriously ill, it was you I lashed out at and cried with and, when he was better, the one I celebrated with first.

When all the numbness wore off and I fell in love again, you were happiest for me, even though we took a little break from each other for a while. But you knew I’d be back, and you were right. I mean, you were the one who helped me sort out my feelings for this new woman in my life.

For sure, there were times I hated you, and times I resented you for distracting me from things other guys my age cared about, their golf clubs, washing their BMWs, watching the stock market. I know a guy who has had the same job for 12 years and always seemed perfectly content. As much as I may have wished, Mister Normal Suburban Guy could never be me because I had you gnawing at me constantly. Damn you, writing, it was you who made me go back to grad school in my mid-40s! It was my way of trying to understand you, I think.

Sure, I get angry when you wake me in the middle of the night with your words, your damn words, and ideas, oh, man, don’t get me started on the ideas, too. Good thing I keep my iPhone next to my side of the bed, so I can type in your better thoughts before I forget them.

And so, to you, writing, I thank you. You know I need you. Hell, you’re like a tattoo: branded on me forever. I guess I’m grateful you found me.

Now if I could just get you to stop with that waking me up stuff…

After realizing from an early age that he had no athletic ability whatsoever, David Colodney turned his attention to writing about sports instead, and has written for The Miami Herald and The Tampa Tribune. He currently studies poetry in the MFA program at Converse College, and serves as Assistant Poetry Editor of the 85South literary magazine. His poetry has appeared in Shot Glass Journal and Egg. David lives in Boynton Beach, Florida.

Kathy Garvin

Dear Writing World,

I’m so happy to report that I’m in a new relationship!  Like all new relationships, it’s exciting, passionate, and like nothing I’ve ever experienced.  We met at Converse College in the Low Residency MFA Creative Writing Program.  She’s creative, funny, and honest.  She’s also intelligent, supportive, analytical and trustworthy.  Unlike some other relationships I’ve been in, we’ve mutually agreed on some high standards to which we hold ourselves accountable and she’s not afraid to tell me directly if I’ve fallen short of meeting any one of them.  Who is this alluring crackerjack?  She’s my writing partner!  We’ve been seeing each other now on a regular basis since our first semester.

In his memoir On Writing, Stephen King suggests that if you’re a beginner, you should “take your story through at least two drafts; the one you do with the study door closed and the one you do with it open.”  In other words, write one draft on your own, then open the door and let your first reader in.  I will not question the process of one of the world’s most prolific writers, but I will say this:  For a beginning writer, numbering distinct drafts is a subjective science.  And it is difficult for the beginning writer to decide who to invite first through the door once it is opened.

Should it be my mother who, in equal doses, either hates or loves anything I’ve ever done in my whole life?  Should it be my husband whose future ability to pay our mortgage, send our kids to college, and feed ourselves in our old age seem to hinge on my ability to write and teach for a living?  Should it be that soulful looking artsy guy at the coffee shop downtown?  The one who has a hole in his earlobe big enough for me to watch the sunset through it?  At least two out of three of these people are intelligent, supportive, trustworthy, and love me unconditionally (bonus!), but they are not my ideal first readers.

My writing partner, on the other hand, is perfect.  She’s well-read, sensitive, and experienced in critical analysis.  Not only that, but she’s an artist, so naturally she understands some things that simply cannot be articulated.  Perhaps most importantly, our chief shared interests are our deep love for reading and writing and our investment in each other’s success.  I look forward to seeing my name in the acknowledgments section of her first novel, and I know she looks forward to the same from me.

Sometimes I send her half-baked utterances about a creepy, recluse named Rita who accidentally turns into fun-loving Cheryl before the last few paragraphs of the piece.  But what is at the barely beating heart of the work is Rita/Cheryl’s affection for John, the married, cat-loving, Veteran suffering post-traumatic stress and living next door to her.  And because my writing partner is accustomed to critically analyzing literary (and not-so-literary) work, she identifies that.  Regardless of the condition of the work I send her, one thing is guaranteed.  Her feedback revitalizes the work, helping me develop it significantly more than I would have been able to do on my own.

So beginning writers, I urge you, if you haven’t done so already, start a relationship!  Get a writing partner.  Open yourself up and commit.  Let them see your messy, vulnerable side, the one that leaves dirty clothes on the bathroom floor and is secretly afraid of dolls.  The one who is so desperate to get her story onto the page that she’ll try, say or write anything.

Below I’ve listed the four fundamental elements of our writing partnership and what seems to make it work so well.  I hope it will help you in finding the same.

Investment – Like any true partnership, you must be invested in each other’s success.  Select another writer and open the door for them to review a not-so-final piece of work of yours.  It will grow exponentially, beyond anything you were able to originally foresee.  As a result, you will write better than you ever imagined, because you are not relying solely on your own imagination.  Know that your partner will benefit from you in the same way.  You will both bring significant sacrifices, contributions, and feelings to the work; therefore you will naturally and gratefully share in each other’s success.

Honesty – When you trust that you have each other’s best interests in mind, in this case producing the best writing each of you can, each partner is free to be honest without worrying about hurting the other one’s feelings.  Giving and receiving direct, honest criticism improves the work of both partners by giving you new insight and challenging you to higher standards of craft.  Also, being criticized in a safe, trusting relationship such as a writing partnership will prepare you for the criticism that will certainly come in workshops and in the published world.

Respect – Respect is paramount in every sustainable relationship, especially a writing partnership.  Because you are both writers, there is an unspoken understanding that what you are reviewing is another’s art.  It is a treasured, precious gift, and it should be handled accordingly.  I am not suggesting you should tread lightly with one another (see Honesty above), but you should tread respectfully.  Ultimately, every decision is the author’s decision.  Also, you may want to articulate any limitations you may have time wise and agree to respect them unconditionally.  In other words, understand when the manuscript you emailed at 10pm on Friday night will not be read until Sunday, whatever the reason. 

Commitment – Plan to meet routinely and hold each other accountable.  For example, my writing partner and I try to meet one week before one of our packet deadlines.  We set the date and we keep it.  We’ve met online, over the phone, and best of all, in person to read, review, and discuss each other’s work. 

I hope that each and every one of you find your perfect writing partner and that you will spend years together developing your work and celebrating your inevitable successes.  I cannot wait to hear about them all.

Truly yours,

Kathy

Kathy Garvin studies fiction in her second semester of Converse College’s MFA Program.  Currently, she teaches adult reading and writing to ESOL students through the Greenville Literacy Association and is a grant writer for the Yvette W. Ferris Foundation.  She lives in Greenville, SC, with her husband Jonathan and their three children, three cats, and three chickens.

Connie A. Thompson

As writers, we spend a great deal of time alone working in our writing spaces crafting stories, essays, or poems. Utilizing social media is a wonderful way to engage with others. You can learn about the craft and wonderful books which have influenced others. You can help others promote their books and other creative endeavors. Agents and publishers prefer to sign authors who have a social media following, so these activities won’t be a waste of your time.

For example, last week, Therese Walsh’s first novel, The Moon Sisters, was released. I was amazed at how many shared the news of her novel’s release. I read the linked review, and immediately added it to my goodreads list of books to read. Personally, I am drawn to fiction which explores the family dynamic, so I was glad to both learn of a new book that interested me and help a fellow writer promote her work.  When my first novel comes out, I hope many people will do the same for me.

When you invest some energy in social media, you never know who is paying attention. Jessica Gross was one of the first to tweet wishing for Amtrak to offer writer’s residencies. Within days of that tweet, she found herself aboard an Amtrak train, writing as the train passed through snow covered hills. Amtrak is now launching their #AmtrakResidency program, offering writers a free space to write away from their normal lives and routines.  All because of a tweet!

So, how do you get started on social media if you don’t already have a presence?  I suggest starting with Facebook and Twitter, two of the most popular social media sites.

Facebook is used for posts, links, videos and photos. Users typically interact with family and friends adding them to their friend networks. You have the ability to like, comment, or share the posts of others.

Twitter is text driven. You can share a link to a video or add a picture if you like, but this affects your character count, which is limited to 140. Spaces and punctuation count as characters.  Twitter is driven by hashtags and retweets.

A hashtag is the # sign. It is predominantly found on Twitter, but Facebook users are adopting it. A hashtag is a short description of the point of interest of your post. Popular hashtags for writers are: #amwriting, #amediting, #writingtip, #writerwednesday, #fridayreads, #bookgiveaway, and #nanowrimo. And specifically for poets, April is national #poetrymonth.

You also have the option to retweet. Below each tweet in gray you will see three icons. The first allows you to respond to the tweet. The second allows you to retweet sending the tweet out to all your followers. The final, the star allows you to favorite a tweet that you find interesting.

90% of your efforts on social media should promote others. You should promote the posts you find interesting and/or enriching. You want your followers to value your opinion. In turn, when you have something personal to promote, your followers will help you by getting the word out.

Be warned!  Even though social media can be useful, it has the propensity to engulf you. To preserve the sanctity of your time, you might look to a program such as HootSuite to help you manage your posts. You should never let social media interfere with your writing time. Set a timer. Limit yourself.

That being said, social media is a great way to interact with others. Connect with writers you admire and find interesting. Connect with your peers and see what inspires them. Help them promote their work, and you will find most reciprocate. And you never know what opportunities you may discover.

Connie A. Thompson is the Social Media Director for South85 Journal.  She is currently enrolled in the MFA program with Converse College.  Her primary literary interests explore the lives of Southern females as portrayed by Southern authors. She and her husband, Chuck, reside in Upstate South Carolina. She is a mother of three and grandmother of three.

Scott Laughlin

Many say that teaching and writing feed one other, but I tend to disagree. I teach high school, and when school begins, my fictive imagination shuts down. All of my creativity funnels into planning classes and thinking about assignments. The alarm sounds early, I spend my day matching the energy of adolescents, and then there’s that pile of essays, a fixture in any English teacher’s life. At night, it takes a monumental act of will to reach for the pen instead of a glass of wine.

Last spring, I approached the Dean of Faculty to ask if I could go part time this year in order to have more time to write. He agreed immediately and told me how impressed he was by my commitment to writing. Although grateful, I didn’t quite share his admiration for my decision.

Rather, I was consumed by doubt and questions, the familiar writer’s terrain. Would I stay up late drinking bourbon and watching episodes of “Breaking Bad”? Would I waste the mornings, sleeping in and reading in bed? Would I squander hours on email and other Internet emptiness? Would I take up some hobby like robotics or glass blowing? If and when I did sit down, would I write one good sentence, one good page? If I didn’t or couldn’t, exactly how deep would my despair be? Then there were financial considerations: how to watch my bank account dwindle as my credit card debt swelled.

As all writers know, it’s the easiest thing in the world not to write. The world conspires against us, hijacking our attention at every turn. Screens surround us and literally beckon to us (what’s your preferred text tone?), and other aspects of life call, too: our jobs, spouses, children, and friends, to name a few. All these demands swiftly detract from the task at hand.

In her wonderful book Mystery and Manners, Flannery O’Connor talks about “the habit of art.” What is a habit but something that’s ingrained, stuck. There are bad habits (chewing your fingernails) and good habits (exercising), and it takes a mental shift and an act of will to kick or gain one. O’Connor says, “Art is the habit of the artist; and habits have to be rooted deep in the whole personality. They have to be cultivated like any other habit, over a long period of time, by experience.”

Looking back at these past months of being part time, I feel proud because I spent my time well: I showed up. But what I find most valuable isn’t a particular story or chapter but finding something akin to what O’Connor is talking about: a habit.

“I think this is more than a discipline, although it is that,” O’Connor says.” I think it is a way of looking at the created world and of using the senses so as to make them find as much meaning as possible in things.” To embrace the spirit she’s talking about, one must pause.

When anything passes quickly, it’s difficult to see; it takes going to the page, where things move more slowly, in order to truly see the world. And when you open your door and go back out, you feel not just refreshed because you’ve done something that is truly good for you (a good habit) but because you’ve taken the time to cultivate a way of seeing and existing in the world that helps you to see that world more sharply, with greater vision. You remove yourself in order to see more clearly.

Last month, I was asked if I could return to full time before the end of the year: A colleague got pregnant, and the department needed someone to take her classes. I checked my bank account and had no choice but to say yes. As I sit here writing this, I’m staring at the reality of losing the valuable time I had before, but I wonder, how strong is this new habit? I have to ask, is writing an easy habit to kick? I certainly hope not.

Scott Laughlin teaches English at San Francisco University High School and is co-founder and Associate Director of DISQUIET: The Dzanc Book Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal. He studied at Boston University and New York University, and is currently enrolled in the MFA Program at Converse College. He has been published in the SF Bay Guardian, Post Road, ZYZZYVA, and will be included in the forthcoming book, Such Conjunctions. 

Shea Faulkner

When it comes to writing, procrastinating is what I do best. I recently read Megan McArdle’s article in The Atlantic, “Why Writers Are the Worst Procrastinators.” In it, McArdle suggested that writers are the best procrastinators due, in part, to a fear of failure. She theorized that because most of us were on the “A” team in school, when writing we are faced with the potential reality that whatever natural talent or “smarts” we might possess isn’t enough. That suddenly, we must work…hard.

But what does it mean to work hard when you’re writing? Does it mean we read incessantly, hoping to gain the genius of Chekhov, Carver, or O’Connor by osmosis? Does it mean we listen to everything that goes on around us to steal from the lives of our loved ones and turn their woes or celebrations into art? Or perhaps working hard means pouring over each word, trying to pick the most excellent one?

For me, it means all of those things, and I find that work overwhelming. I love to write, and on some level, I know I have at least a small amount of talent. Yet the idea of honing that little bit of talent into something beautiful is stifling, so I find myself the day of deadlines cranking out as many words as possible and sending those words that pose as stories to my writer’s group. The work is passable but far from the best that I can do.

Several weeks ago, I found myself talking to writer friends about “the story I was writing.” I spoke about what was happening in the story and who the characters were and how those characters related to the characters in other stories I have written. What I didn’t tell them was that “the story I was writing” was only in my head. Sure, I knew what and who I was going to write about. I even had some sense of what might happen in the story, but what I really had wasn’t “the story I was writing.” It was “the story I might write if I absolutely had to write it.” I think a lot of us are often in this state—a story on the tips of our fingers but no real motivation, other than an impending deadline, to write it.

For most of us, this isn’t a good place to be. While I operate fairly well in last-minute situations, the truth is that I don’t have the time or energy to deal with the stress of a writing cram session. I have a husband, two kids, jobs, and a variety of other people, events, and things that need my attention. Taking a twelve hour stint on a Saturday to pound something out isn’t fair to anyone involved—especially my characters.

As such, I devised a plan to beat my procrastinating ways. I have taken to studying one short story that I love each week. I analyze what, when, and how the writer uses dialogue, description, narration, and then I use my super-detailed format notes provided by said story to help me write my own. I guess in a way you could call me a copycat, but I’m not plagiarizing or stealing. I’m simply helping myself get words on the page.

You see, up until this point, I have been afraid to study other writers’ works too carefully for fear of finding those writers’ themes, words, and situations in my work. Of course, when I read Bastard Out of Carolina last year, my work took on a grittier tone as inspired by Dorothy Allison, but I did not truly study her work; I used that osmosis technique I mentioned earlier. Sure, I read incessantly, and I think my writing improves with each new book I read, but the idea of trying to get into the head of the writer and understand he/she made the choices she did and emulate that was entirely off limits until recently.

Yet each day, I sat in front of my computer and counted my cursor blinks. It didn’t matter how well I scheduled my writing time or how many pre-writing rituals I performed. Ultimately I was left with a white screen. Finally, I’d had enough and decided I must do something new. I thought back over my most recent residency for my MFA and remembered an amazing craft lecture where Andre Debus’s “Leslie in California” was discussed and how taken I was by the story. It occurred to me that I could use the blueprint Debus had already created to help generate my own story. What I was left with was one of the best shitty first drafts I have ever written.

It forced me to realize that the hardest part, for me, is to start, and if picking a part the work of another writer and giving my best try to emulate what that writer does helps me get words on the page, perhaps that’s not so bad.

Shea Faulkner holds a Master’s of Education from Southern Wesleyan University and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from Converse College. Shea’s primary literary interests include the Southern family as portrayed by Southern writers. She currently works as an adjunct English and Reading instructor at Spartanburg Community college and is an independent quality consultant. She and her husband, Campbell, reside in Upstate, SC, with their two children, Ian and Caroline.