DEAR WRITER: ON WRITING WHILE WORKING

My fiancé, an Army sergeant and former police officer, wants one of those $2,000 massage chairs from Brookstone. I’ve yet to walk past the storefront at the mall without losing him to one of the chunky, buzzing machines. He says if he had something like it at home, he’d get more done, as if his body—and his mind, just as tense from work and thoughts of it—were massaged into compliance. “Sure, I’ll load the dishwasher, just give me a few minutes in The Chair.”

No matter our job, we all know the feeling of physical and mental strain—the feeling of oversaturation, or total depletion, which, for me, turns what could be a couple of hours of writing and/or revision into a couple of hours of Netflix and ice cream. “You’re just not in the right state of mind right now to be creating—try tomorrow.” For those of you with children, second jobs, and/or multiple extracurricular positions, duties, hobbies, etc., you may scoff at the essays and articles that attempt to answer the question “How do you write and work?” Despite what you may think, if you want to be a writer, you have the time to find (key word: “find,” because it may not be an easy task).

All I can really offer is some of what I’ve done in the past year as a writer and Visiting Instructor who committed to teaching twelve courses (an overload both semesters, plus two courses over the summer), yet did more writing than I ever had previously. Perhaps it’s the poet in me, but I’ve tried to choreograph a few analogies (perhaps a writer’s habit, or the crutch of an introverted poet) to explain how I balanced work and writing. Friends and peers seem to like the following most:

The tightrope walker crosses the gap between two tall buildings, slowly but surely. He’s holding a long pole for balance, which begins to tilt with his body as both are nudged by gusts of wind. He regains his balance (aligns his center of gravity) by tilting the pole, and thus his weight, into the wind. Without doing so, he knows he’ll fall.

As I balanced my way through a very full teaching schedule, writing became my counterweight to the winds of paper grading, email-answering, citizenship applications and processing, family matters, and job hunts (I was, earlier this summer, ending my Visiting Instructorship), and general mental gust of stress and exhaustion, I’d never felt more compelled to spend my free time clacking away on my laptop. Many days, I didn’t feel like it. Many days, I questioned my writing ‘ability.’ Many days, I imagine writers abandon their laptops/notebooks in claim of experiencing ‘writer’s block.’ But, let me tell you, there’s no such thing as writer’s block.

Whatever you’re trying to work on, and struggling to the point at which you’re only winding yourself up, minimize the tab/turn the page and work on something else. Revisit that poem you wrote last year. Free write what could be the heart of a new personal essay. Make a list of craft essay ideas (aka. permit yourself the writing time to lists or outlines, and not clean paragraphs of prose or profound poetic lines). Eventually, in doing so, you’ll ‘retrain’ your mind as I have done this past year, to let myself create and work on multiple things at once. Isn’t that, in a sense, the artist at his freest? The child squirting ketchup on his toast? Hey, let him try it. If that’s what he wants, look at him go—no resistance, no self-imprisoning to how he may think he ‘should be eating…’

Even though university faculty often receive forgiving schedules, we know our free days are often spent working to some degree, or at least living with work on the mind. While some formidable writers have suggested simpler methods of encouraging themselves away from these mental work ties and into a creative/uninhibited state, like getting drunk or high, I’ve heard few success stories. I have, though, heard many writer friends succeed by making “appointments” for themselves to write (ex. “At 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, I have an appointment with Microsoft Word. I’m going to turn off my cell phone, deactivate the wifi, give the dog a new chew toy, and assign the children to the basement with a VHS tape of The Lion King and the remainders of last year’s mega bag of Halloween candy”). This method, at least, forces you to examine your schedule and note one—but ideally a few—promising block of free time you may have in the week. Be sure to treat it like an appointment—you must ‘go,’ and if you don’t, a fee will incur (calling yourself up to say, “Hey, I’m so sorry, I’ve made time tomorrow—see you then,” is a wonderful response to dipping out on a schedule write-time. If you’re not committed enough to sticking with an idea like this, then you don’t get to complain about not having the time or energy to write. Stop making excuses for yourself. Your passion, talent, and artistic integrity don’t deserve to be overshadowed by your laziness or mediocre/poor treatment of your time.

Buck up, writer. Buck up, teacher, student, human. You are capable of more. Sit with yourself, think deeply about what’s holding you back.

Answer: It’s you. It’s always been you. Find a greater balance. Take another step forward.

Jamie is the author of hiku [pull] (Porkbelly Press, 2016). Winner of an AWP Intro Journals Project award for poetry and four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his work has been published with Colorado Review, Black Warrior Review, Passages North, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and DIAGRAM, among other journals. Jamie received his MFA in Creative Writing from Florida Atlantic University, where he was a Lawrence A. Sanders poet fellow and currently teaches as an Instructor. Born in England, and former resident of New Zealand, Jamie is a first-generation Asian-American (officially--he passed his naturalization test and interview this summer!) currently living in West Palm Beach with his partner, John, and their greyhound, Jack. Twitter: @jamesahwhite

Poetry as Gift: My Experience Teaching a Community Outreach Workshop

It was exactly a month ago that I taught a community outreach workshop through the Palm Beach Poetry Workshop. The theme: “Gifts Given & Received,” & was to be held at the Crest Theater in Delray Beach.

The Director of Community Outreach thought it would be fun. “I really think this should be a fun workshop,” she told me. “And our participants just want to generate new poems—not attend a highly academic seminar.” Fun? And paired with “poetry workshop” to boot? Was she friggin’ crazy? My experiences in Graduate Workshops (Capital “G” & “W”, if you really know what’s good for you) led me to believe that the purpose of workshops was to unravel bones, no?

“I’ll bring the snacks & cider!” she added.

It took three weeks of serious thinking in preparation for the two & a half hour class. I emailed colleagues & former professors & consulted some literature; a few tips here & there. Finally I was ready, & then an amazing thing happened: I threw it all away—all except the prompts & a couple of worksheets I’d made. I had the entire workshop scripted, only to decide as I was sitting in my car inside the parking garage to leave it all behind. I decided I didn’t want to be just another piece of furniture in a classroom—I wanted to be there, in the moment.

I wanted to have fun, too. Then I proceeded to walk into a room where I was the only male in a room filled with females, not one of them under the age forty-five. Most were old enough to be my grandmother.

            And yet, it only took only two writing prompts for a truly amazing thing to happen: a breakthrough. The most rewarding thing that can come out of any writing workshop. Unfettered writing—the most righteous kind.

               One woman shared a poem about a father who abandoned her & her younger sister before she broke down crying in the middle of class. Another about growing up a Jew in a Bronx tenement building filled with Latinos. “They taught me how to love,” she said. Another about being White & privileged, born on the “right side” of the track. How she’d sneak away to the “Black side,” the “wrong side.” How they taught her about Jazz, & how she came to love them for it. 

               At the end of the workshop, one of my students shared about teaching writing to special needs children & children who came from violent backgrounds & how important it was to make them feel safe—only then could they write. Then she turned to me & said: “This is a safe room. I feel safe here,” everyone nodding their heads in agreement.

               For the record, that was the single most rewarding workshop I’ve ever attended & not because I was the one teaching it—I barely taught anything. I was more like Ariadne in Inception—the architect who designed the world—& they filled it with their ideas & creativity.

A graduate of Florida Atlantic University's Creative Writing M.F.A. program, Michael J. Pagan’s work has appeared in The Rumpus, DIAGRAM,  Pacifica Literary Review, Spork Press,  Verse, The Coachella Review, BlazeVOX, Spittoon Magazine, Tupelo Press, Menacing Hedge and Mad Hatters’ Review among many others. He currently lives in Deerfield Beach, FL with his wife & daughter.

 

En Route to the Island

“Patricia: You mean, you were diagnosed with something

called a ‘Brain Cloud’ and didn’t ask for a second opinion?”

~ Joe Versus the Volcano

Inspiration is a myth.

So is Writer’s Block.

Actually, they both kind of remind me of that all-time favorite relationship cop out: “I love [Insert Name Here], I’m just not in love with them.” It’s deceptive and confusing. It’s also astonishingly convenient. Why can’t lovers admit when they’ve reached the point that they just can’t stand each other anymore? In my opinion, it has nothing to do with love. It has everything to do with obligation.

So, why can’t writers admit when they don’t feel like writing? Say it out loud: “I need a break! I love to write, I just don’t feel like being around it right now. I need to take a mental health day/month/year.” Don’t go blaming it on some imaginary condition. If you’re gonna go blame it on something, at least be creative about it, no?

“Inspiration,” as well as “Writer’s Block,” are convenient to those who believe that writers somehow spend their entire careers de-atomizing things—selectively plucking out of the ether molecules of thought, ideas, images, scenes, etc., that haven’t been discovered yet, then gifting them to the world as if they’ve discovered some new technology or vaccine.

Writers don’t do that.

            If anything, we simply remind ourselves.

            The creative mind doesn’t just shut off, automatically defaulting to its own cute little lock screen with a picture of a panda or a funny hamster or the Liam Neeson quote from Taken: “I don’t know who you are. But I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you,” forcing you to have to scramble for days/weeks/months/years trying to figure out the doubleplussecret security code your brain somehow got past you. We don’t hack into our own brains in order to access the creativity inside—we’re creative all the time, not just when we (or our brains) want to be. The question is: are you disciplined enough to transcribe it?

            “Creativity,” “Inspiration,” “Talent” (or whatever the hell else you choose to name it) is bred out of circumstance, pressure and opportunity. One of the most insightful things I’ve heard an artist say came from Tom Cruise while visiting The Actor’s Studio - he said something like: “If I walk on set and I’m tired, I just accept that I’m tired and tell myself, ‘My character is tired. Let’s explore that. Let’s see where that takes me.”

            If you feel you can’t write, don’t write. See where that takes you.

You put in enough time into writing and you realize quickly that all that other theoretical nonsense is pregame. It ends when you put finger to keyboard. All that other mess resides in the idea/theory department, not in the practical. After that, it’s habit and muscle memory. That’s really how you get your money’s worth out of an M.F.A. program—developing habits.

Everyone says you should write every day even though in reality you probably can’t—

unless, of course, you’ve got enough ducats to not do nothing except write and still have a means to pay your bills—so forget that nonsense. Instead, collect. Like I said before, you’re creative all the time, that’s how our brains are wired. So, pick up your pen and paper and start hoarding scraps of images, dialogue, scenes, shapes, whatever, until you remind, or re-remind,  yourself of what it was you wanted to write about. It doesn’t have to function chronologically. It doesn’t have to fit into that piece you’re currently working on. It could be that missing bit for a poem or short story you stashed aside because it felt incomplete, or the bud for a new piece you haven’t bothered to concentrate on just yet. The point is: we all carry an idea of what we’d like to write about, we just don’t quite know how to put it into words until we actually rediscover the words. After that, it’s just about putting them in their proper order.

            And do yourself a favor: don’t fool yourself into thinking that words are elements that, if mixed irresponsibly, can produce explosive chemicals. If it doesn’t seem to work, hit the Backspace key and do it again until it does work.

Born and raised in Miami, FL, Michael J Pagán spent four years (1999-2003) in the United States Navy before (hastily) running back to college during the spring of 2004. He currently resides in Deerfield Beach, FL with his wife and daughter where he continues to work on his poetry, short fiction, and a collaborative novel. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, BlazeVOX, Pacifica Literary Review, Spittoon, Verse, Spork Press and others. Links to all of his published work can be found on his blog: thelevatoroomcompany.blogspot.com.

Patterns in the Noise

The ability to allow sloppy prose to fill the page, ignore MS word’s blood-red squiggles and green-grammar nagging is certainly an act of faith. When I first tried this method, I had strong doubts that I’d understand my early drafts, much less find anything of value in them to make the effort worthwhile. This was not the case. Instead, I found myself able to decode haphazard gibberish days, weeks, even months later. Discovering meaning in messy drafts led me to create them with abandon. Now, I write them with a feeling that’s suspiciously close-kin to confidence; where I once feared drowning in a sea of noise, I now find, on the worst of days, the lack of comprehension only reaches my waist. 

 

Against the repeated warnings of my attorney, I’m going to argue that fiction writers not only listen to but trust the voices in their heads. Of course, for some of us this may not be the best guidance – but let’s imagine Joe Stalin adjusting the garnish of a picture-perfect omelet in the foreground (ignore the charnel house just behind him) and talk some serious shop. After all, writers who aren’t ruthless in the pursuit of crafting better fiction cannot hope to produce work that’s even remotely interesting.  And, frankly – if writing a story doesn’t strain your emotions, if it doesn’t make you feel somewhat vulnerable, you’re probably not doing it right.

But what about the worst of writing sessions? What about the crabbed notes scratched out during some constipated-creative drought? What about fever scrawling, produced in a cold sweat with three bottles of Robitussin down the gullet and a Thrill-Kill Cult track blasting on auto repeat? How can I argue something worthwhile can come from the hot mess generated in such a state?  I don’t know how it happens. It just does. In the majority of my roughest of drafts, I can locate patterns of meaning within the noise. More importantly, these patterns often lead to something raw and genuine: unlikely angles, weird points of entry, or disconcerting descriptions that I’m unlikely to produce otherwise.

Watch this hustle to be clear: I’m not saying the explosive, bottled-up frustration I describe is something universal, normal, or healthy. Nor am I prescribing some insipid activity like free writing or the use of chemicals. How you do what you do is your business. What I’m advocating is the hyper-development of negative capability. I’m advocating a wholehearted embrace of ambiguity and faith that the chaos and clamor of the roughest draft might lead to improvements and innovations that are substantive and worthwhile.

Don’t limit yourself to trusting the drafts that are going well; shit – those are cause for celebration.  Instead, trust there is something worthwhile in those scrawled pages damp with coffee or that word document typed all in caps. What’s worthwhile may end up being the majority of what’s on the page, or it may only be a fragment; but trust that something of value will happen within the noise. Then get loud.

 
AJ Ferguson holds an MFA in fiction from Florida Atlantic University where he teaches writing. Most of his free time is spent working on a novel-in-progress and various other projects. You can keep up with his most recent forays and misadventures at: aj-ferguson.com.

When the Cats Eating Their Food Gets Too Loud, Simplify

Lately I’ve been staring at blank screens, the cursor blinking, unable to write. If there was no computer in front of me, an onlooker might think I was meditating or sleeping. I start sentences, build opening paragraphs, then highlight them all at once and demolish them with the delete button.

I don’t believe in writer’s block in the same way I refuse to acknowledge being sick. I’ll fight it off, with drink, inspiration, pacing, and often all three at once. Starting a story, confronting the blank page, is one of the hardest things a writer has to deal with, and despite my constant starting, deleting, starting, deleting, in the larger scheme of things I believe I’ve actually learned something important. Well maybe two things, but they’re related.

First, some pressure is good in most endeavors because pressure (even self-imposed) produces action, and sustained action leads to improvement. However, too much pressure is usually counter-productive, as I feel it has been for me. Athletes and writers aren’t much different; a tense body, or a tense mind in this case, doesn’t allow for proper functioning, and so you end up missing free throws, or ruthlessly deleting sentences. You over-think, grow frustrated, and maybe start yelling at your cats for eating their dry food too loudly. How to pull back from this kind of mental paralysis is the second thing that I learned.

As I was about to break an empty beer bottle on the edge of my desk and threaten my cats with it for distracting me with their relentless appetites, something simple and seemingly profound occurred to me. I scrambled to write it down on a sticky note; it has been my North Star ever since. In black felt-tip pen it said: “It’s all about themes you choose to explore.” There are many ingredients to consider when you sit down to write: where’s it happening? What are the character’s names? What’s the first line? Etc, etc, etc. These are all important, but in my own experience, the theme of what you’re writing is often overlooked, but maybe it shouldn’t be. Like a bear hit with a tranquilizer I felt myself relaxing, I lowered the bottle slowly, and I was finally able to approach my writing with a renewed sense of purpose.

By thinking more about why I was writing a story, and less about how I should be writing it, I found that deciding where a story takes place, or what point-of-view it should be told from, could be answered more easily by thinking about what I was trying to say by writing the story in the first place. By choosing to focus more on theme, I simplified my approach and was thus able to stop myself from over-thinking, and my mind seemed to exhale as a result. As writers with arduous careers in front of us, it’s easy to let the pressure to produce wear us down, but finding ways to build ourselves back up might be just as important, for us and our loved ones.

Dan Kennard currently teaches at Keiser University in Port St. Lucie, FL and lives with his wife and three cats.