Writing Full Tilt

We take workshops, classes, read books, go to seminars and lectures. We follow the gurus of the writing world who tell us the inside scoop on how to best get our ideas and images on the page. We want to believe in the magic. Or we want the guaranteed formula. The gurus offer different approaches, a variety of attitudes, a multitude of tricks. And they are all correct. Because what they offer works for them. And it’s likely it will work for us too. And/Or not all of it will work for us. But we won’t know for sure until we try, and it’s while experimenting that the genius happens. Does getting up at 4:00 a.m. light up your page? Does mapping out your novel first with deep backstory and psychological knowledge of your characters? Does winging it on the fly? Do you like setting aside weeks or do you thrive in short bursts? Is it better for you to pull over on the side of the road and burn up a few pages? What pens do you like? What sized notebook or position for your laptop? Is it chocolate, spicy potato chips or a chipotle sandwich that sustains you? Outside or inside? By a window or in a closet? Noise cancelling headphones or heavy metal blasting? You see? The gurus have it right because they have tried it all and found the writing process that sustains them. And here’s the real insider info: No one has just one process. Switching it up because of time constraints, mood, energy level, the genre or the weather is a real response to getting ourselves to our page. We get to decide. We are real writers with our own process that adapts, evolves, and stays true to us. Try everything on and and the magic carpet will reveal itself.

Upcoming Events

Release Date: May 6, 2021: Maud & Addie, a middle-grade novel. In 1910, sisters, Addie and Maud Campbell are swept out to sea off the coast of Nova Scotia. With a half-filled picnic hamper, a carriage blanket and their wits, they survive the North Atlantic and landfall on a deserted island. As castaways, their resilience, courage and inventiveness are tested.

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

Online Weekly Workshops:

Thursday Evenings, ten weeks beginning September 17, 2020 https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

Friday Mornings, ten weeks beginning September 18, 2020, https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

Monday Evenings ten weeks beginning September 14, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/

BREATHING WHILE BLACK Virtual Exhibit at Augusta Savage Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Fall 2020. Terry Jenoure, Director http://www.fineartscenter.com/augusta

Third Eye on the Prize Poetry by Debra Sansone. Pre-publication order through August 14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4fGFprcLj8

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Black voices have always unequivocally articulated how white people benefit from being white. Black voices have taught me to listen, to take responsibility for my own level of awareness and to continue to educate myself about racial inequity. In this newsletter I invite you to pay attention to the powerful and varied voices of these and other Black writers and leaders. Begin to ask and don’t stop asking: “What will I do to end white privilege?” Find a sustainable, to-the-end-of-time, way to participate, contribute and begin to make reparations.

I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.  Harriet Tubman

Writers & Leaders

Kwame Dawes  Poet and Novelist  Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and editor-in-chief of Pairie Schooner. http://kwamedawes.com/

Sonia Sanchez  Poet. Instrumental in introducing black-studies courses into university curricula.  https://soniasanchez.net/

Angelina Weld Grimké  Essayist, Playwright, Fiction writer. Pivotal figure of the Harlem Renaissance. First African-American woman to write a publicly performed play.  https://poets.org/poet/angelina-weld-grimke

Saeed Jones Poet: Prelude to Bruise. BuzzFeed editor, created a literary journal and a $12,000 fellowship for emerging writers. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/saeed-jones

Claudia Rankine  Poet: An American Lyric. 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award. Frederick Iseman Profesor Poetry at Yale University. Founded a multi-disciplinary collaboration called the Racial Imaginary Institute. http://claudiarankine.com/

Tracy K. Smith  Poet: The Body’s Question, Duende, and Life on Mars. Poet Laureate of the United States 2017. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tracy-k-smith

Nikki Giovanni  University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, civil rights activist and renowned poet. Black Feeling, Black Talk; Black Judgement, bothconsidered crucial products of the Black Rights Movement. https://nikki-giovanni.com/

Staceyann Chin: Poet. Co-wrote Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam, performs spoken-word poetry and teaches at Brooklyn’s Saint Ann’s School. Won 1999 Chicago People of Color Slam and WORD: The First Slam for Television. @staceyannchin

Aafa Michael Weaver  Poet: Water Song, Spirit Boxing, City of Eternal Spring, The Government of Nature, The Ten Lights of God. Received Pew Fellowship, Fulbright Scholar appointment to Taiwan. Held Alumnae Endowed Chair for 20 years at Simmons College.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/afaa-michael-weave

Terry Jenoure Musician, writer, visual artist and educator. Director Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Consultant for National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace Readers digest Fund, the Ford Foundation and the Connecticut Commission for Arts Tourism.   https://www.terryjenoure.com/

Nikky Finney: Poet: Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry, Head Off & Split, Rice, The World is Round, Sweet Box of Words. John H. Bennett. Jr., Chair in Creative Writing and Southern letters in both the Department of English Language and Literature and the African American Studies Program at the University of South Carolina. https://nikkyfinney.net/about.html

Ntozake Shange  Playwright, Poet, Novelist and more: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/when the Rainbow is Enuf.  Spell No. 7 won an Obie.     https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ntozake-shange

Rachel Cargle Writer, Lecturer, public academic, and founder of The Loveland Foundation.   https://www.rachelcargle.com/   @rachel.cargle

Aja Barber  Writer and sustainability expert.   @ajabarber  https://www.patreon.com › AjaBarber

Alicia Garza  Writer, public speaker, Special Projects Director for National Domestic Workers Alliance, and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter network.  https://aliciagarza.com/  @chasinggarza

Ijeoma Oluo  Speaker and author of So You Want to Talk About Race.  http://www.ijeomaoluo.com/  @ijeomaoluo

Monique Melton  Anti-racism educator, author, speaker, and host of the Shine Brighter Together podcast.  https://www.moniquemelton.com/  @moemotivate

Tamika Mallory  Co-president of the Women’s March movement, Co-founder of Until Freedom, and a champion for social justice. https://www.kepplerspeakers.com/speakers/tamika-mallory  @tamikadmallory

Megan Torres  Licensed social worker, writer, therapist, and racial justice advocate.  https://megantorres.me/  @trustmeimasocialworker

Brittany Packnett Cunningham  Activist, writer, educator, co-host of Pod: Save the People and co-founder of Campaign Zero.  https://brittanypacknett.com/  @mspackyetti

Austin Channing Brown  Writer, speaker, producer, and author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. http://austinchanning.com/  @austinchanning 

Autumn Gupta and Bryanna Wallace  Justice in June Become Better Allies:  https://justiceinjune.org/

In these weeks full of words like isolation, quarantine, flattening curves, N95 masks, social distancing and ventilators, it can be hard to find our own words. We miss our free-range poetry, and our independently-minded characters. We can feel trapped both in our homes and in our heads. Struggling with what to say seems appropriate right now. Our brains and hearts are overwhelmed. Who are we to play in our art when everything and everyone hurts? But this is the function of Art. The inspirational gold awaits at any moment when we bring ourselves to the page, and Take What Comes. Don’t dodge what is right in front of you. This is the moment we are given. Chronicle it, explore it, describe it, say it. I learned this lesson from my grandmother, Anna Elizabeth Jones. Her younger sister, Loretta, died in 1918 from the Spanish flu. Knowing my grandmother, I also know that Loretta shared her older sister’s humor and grit. At 19, she must have been an incredible young woman. Anna was one of the first telephone operators in New York City. She visited her sister in the hospital on her lunch hour and told her that she would be back that evening to visit again. Anna returned at 6:00 p.m. only to be told that in the intervening hours, Loretta had died. I have my grandmother’s eyes as she talked to me. I was a child and did not know to ask more questions. I did not want to cause my grandmother pain by wanting more details. But even in its brevity, I have this family story, and I know something of what my family experienced and what New York experienced at that time. I can see my grandmother sitting in a hospital hallway; I can hear the sound of traffic on the street below; I can feel my grandmother’s hand as she holds mine as she remembers. We live in history every moment. But some moments are underscored by triumph or catastrophe. Both are agents of profound change. Whether writing from memory or imagination, your writing will articulate this moment in poetry or prose. Take what comes, put your fears, your second-by-second strategies, the statistics, the vocabulary, the images, the conversations, the artifacts into your writing. Allow your writing to be where you are, where the world is. Escaping into writing is right too, both kinds of writing help us find balance. It’s also right to grapple and process. I take heart from my grandmother’s willingness to share her sister with me. I heard sorrow, but I also heard courage and love.

Upcoming Events

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

All Workshops Are Now Online

Online Weekly Workshops Amherst, Massachusetts: Thursday Evenings & Friday Mornings, seven weeks beginning July 2 & 3, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

Online Weekly Workshops: Monday Evenings six weeks beginning July 13, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/

Two-Day, Online Craft Seminars: Each seminar consists of four, 3-hour sessions focussed on elements of craft specific to a genre. Writing generated through prompts, followed by reading, discussion and examination of how choices shape effect. Give yourself a stay-at-home writing retreat! Cost: $200 for each seminar Poetry July 5 & 6 Memoir August 9 & 10 Fiction August 11 & 12

August Retreat Hawley, Massachusetts: Postponed to 2021 Four days of writing bliss. The setting is perfect for allowing your writing to emerge! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

Writing Retreat in Malibu California February 22 – 25 2021: Serra Retreat Center overlooking Malibu Bay with tiled fountains, and hidden gardens offer the perfect winter getaway and a place to wander into your writing. All writers welcome, no matter the genre or experience level. There’s still room for you! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

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I hope you and all those you love are safe and well. A friend reminded me how lucky I am to have clean, running water, electricity, a phone and a computer, to have enough food and a sturdy roof over my head. I am wealthy beyond my needs. We talked about our fears and the ways we can spin into panic. What If often looms larger than we can manage. The counterbalance to what if is right now. Right now, I am fine. Right now, I can breathe in and out and look around. And, if I choose, I can move What If into my writing. From memory, what if something small was changed in a family story? What if someone said something different, or if I had known what I know now? What if it had rained that day? Or what if I had loved canned peas? As writers we can move in time and we can revisit past moments. We can also translate memory into fiction. From imagination, what if a character can’t cross a street? What if two characters learn something about each other they didn’t want to know? What if the landscape in which a story takes place offers a surprise? What if the potatoes for dinner have already sprouted? As writers we have the power to exist in other times and places, and within other beings. We can transform our What Ifs in infinite ways. Take this time to indulge this ability. Pay attention to the changes around you, use these in your writing. Chronicle your experiences, your daydreamings, and, yes, your fears and hopes. What we writers do best is channel our emotions into poems, stories, essays, novels, epics, and songs. Give yourself this medium to stay balanced, and share what you have written. We writers can help one another by listening. Letting someone know they have been heard is one of the most healing acts one human can give another. Find a writing partner, or two, or ten. Hear each other’s voices from the page. Let someone hear yours. The What Ifs will be turned into Art.

Upcoming Events

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

All Workshops Are Now Online

Weekly Workshops Amherst, Massachusetts: Thursday Evenings & Friday Mornings, ten weeks beginning December March 5 & 6, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

Online Weekly Workshops: Monday Evenings eight weeks beginning March 16, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/

August Retreat Hawley, Massachusetts: August 9 – 12, 2020 Four days of writing bliss. The setting is perfect for allowing your writing to emerge! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

Writing Retreat in Malibu California February 22 – 25 2021: Serra Retreat Center overlooking Malibu Bay with tiled fountains, and hidden gardens offer the perfect winter getaway and a place to wander into your writing. All writers welcome, no matter the genre or experience level. There’s still room for you! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

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You have written and written, edited and revised. You want to share your work with a larger audience. You want to send your work OUT! But where? Exactly how does this process work? When you begin to look at the possibilities the choices seem infinite. With online journals proliferating at light speed, the options can flatten any hopeful writer. Don’t be daunted, don’t despair. Here are a couple of strategies that will help you on your way.

To scale back the vast and random universe, look for calls for submissions to anthologies dedicated to a particular subject. Some examples: anthologies can be collections of writings about mountain climbing, surviving cancer, adoption, gardening, or climate awareness. Poets & Writers, a monthly publication, has a classified section that lists contests and calls for submissions that often include anthologies. It’s an excellent source of reputable publications that will treat your work with respect

Another great source for where to publish your work is Submittable, which is not a journal but a newsletter and a service. The monthly newsletter offers listings of journals open for contests and regular submissions. The service allows you to send your work to many journals through Submittable, which then keeps track of work as it goes through the editorial process.

Duotrope is another excellent option. Like Submittable, it has up-to-date listings of publications, publishers, and agents, and tracks the journey your writing makes. Almost every journal asks for a small fee to accompany a submission. These fees keep small presses alive and are tax deductible if you earn your living through writing.

Spend some time looking at the journals you find through these listings. If you like what you find, then this is likely a good match. If you don’t, it’s not because the journal isn’t worthwhile, it simply has a different aesthetic than you. Move on. Once you’ve sent off your work, let it go; the editors are probably volunteers and it will take time before they focus on your writing and make a decision. Send your work to two or three journals at the same time. If one of them decides to publish something of yours, be polite and let the other journals know that you are withdrawing your work from their consideration.

Finally, if your work does not receive the desired, much anticipated Yes, take heart. Now you know the array of possibilities waiting for you. Send yourself out. Again. Again. Yes will arrive.

Upcoming Events

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

Weekly Workshops Amherst, Massachusetts: Thursday Evenings & Friday Mornings, ten weeks beginning December March 5 & 6, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

Online Weekly Workshops: Monday Evenings eight weeks beginning March 16, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/

August Retreat Hawley, Massachusetts: August 9 – 12, 2020 Four days of writing bliss. The setting is perfect for allowing your writing to emerge! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

Writing Retreat in Malibu California February 22 – 25 2021: Serra Retreat Center overlooking Malibu Bay with tiled fountains, and hidden gardens offer the perfect winter getaway and a place to wander into your writing. All writers welcome, no matter the genre or experience level. There’s still room for you! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

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Writers, in fact all artists and designers, think and talk about form. What is the correct form for any piece of writing? If you were called to build a raft such that it could be sent down a river and have that raft arrive intact so that a person at another place along the river could catch the raft and use it with confidence, what kind of raft would you build? Perhaps you would want to know something about the river: how deep, fast, rocky, cold. Perhaps you would want to know what materials are available for building the raft: type of wood, strapping, caulking, fabric for a sail, paddles. Perhaps you would want to know what tools are available for constructing the raft: saw, hammer, screwdriver, rope. But maybe first, you would want to know why you are building the raft and who you hope will be downstream. You want your raft to float, sustain, navigate, survive and carry your intentions and do the same for the person waiting on shore as the raft arrives. Maybe that’s like writing. But maybe it isn’t. Maybe the purpose of the raft is to float us, to carry our emotions, experience, and imagination so that we don’t drown. And maybe how we create the raft works both ways. Deciding which comes first, function or form, is up to us. But often, just like with building a raft, the purpose comes first. What do we need to say? How we say it may come spontaneously. And that first urgent expression may carry all the energy and clarity in a perfect form. But it’s also possible that our first draft needs a sturdier, more careful raft. We need to shape our need into something that will float downstream and arrive at another’s riverbank. Always, in choosing form, the question is how much the raft is only about form and how much of the original intent is preserved. It’s a delicate dance that calls upon our craft and our understanding of what we want to say. Form can not only contain and sustain, but it can illuminate our meaning. Form can also submerge our meaning if we let it overtake our words. The river of our genius deserves balance and motion, and the raft should be a worthy conveyance.

Upcoming Events

Writing Retreat in Malibu California February 3 – 6 2020: Serra Retreat Center overlooking Malibu Bay with tiled fountains, and hidden gardens offer the perfect winter getaway and a place to wander into your writing. All writers welcome, no matter the genre or experience level. There’s still room for you! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

Online Weekly Workshops: Monday Evenings eight weeks beginning March 16, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/

Weekly Workshops Amherst, Massachusetts: Thursday Evenings & Friday Mornings, ten weeks beginning December March 5 & 6, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

August Retreat Hawley, Massachusetts: August 9 – 12, 2020 Four days of writing bliss. The setting is perfect for allowing your writing to emerge! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

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You deserve a perfect star with one perfect seed. You deserve pods slyly open, an embroidered star with eight radiating points. You deserve a weathered husk, bark hard and mottled brown. You deserve a gnarled star in the palm of your hand, a star with creased pockets holding tired tears and a smooth star to loosen worry. You deserve a star of pointed shoes for every direction, a rasping star for staying home. You deserve a star for being worn down and holding tight, for being your own magi and the wisdom of figuring it out. You deserve a perfect fallen star, the glow gone, the wonder almost burned away, the aura shrunk. You deserve the star that pulls you in, makes you squint and hunch over. The one with a scent of play and true reckoning.

Bring your stars down to earth. Wish on every one: Eight-pointed arachnid stars; Chrome hubcap stars; Soldered circuit board stars; Laced-up grommet stars; Licorice stars; Polished fork stars; Straight pin stars; Seed pod stars. Are you wishing? Are you matching your wish to the right star? A stop sign star grants one quarter minute of inhale and release. A shopping cart star gives a half aisle of gliding back to silly. A zipper star, well, that’s just up and down fulfillment. A fountain pen star helps you splash it out. And a garden hose star hears every wish for starting over. A whisper star in the ear transports you, and the slipper star makes your safest wish come true.

Happy New Year with more gratitude than there are stars!

Upcoming Events

Writing Retreat in Malibu California February 3 – 6 2020

Serra Retreat Center overlooking Malibu Bay with tiled fountains, and hidden gardens offer the perfect winter getaway and a place to wander into your writing. All writers welcome, no matter the genre or experience level. Please join me this February! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

Online Weekly Workshops: Monday Evenings eight weeks beginning January 6, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/

Weekly Workshops Amherst, Massachusetts: Thursday Evenings & Friday Mornings, ten weeks beginning December 5 & 6, 2019 https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

August Retreat Hawley, Massachusetts: August 9 – 12, 2020 Four days of writing bliss. The setting is perfect for allowing your writing to emerge! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

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What exactly is plot anyway? We know it when we see it, and we follow it when it’s put before us, but how do we write it? literaryterms.net defines plot as . . . the sequence of events that make up a story, whether it’s told, written, filmed, or sung. The plot is the story, and more specifically, how the story develops, unfolds, and moves in time. Plots are typically made up of five main elements: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution/Denoument. OK great. But as writers, how do we create these elements, how do we set about imbuing our narratives with the right doses of each to create an identifiable plot that our characters can embody? The thing is, we can go at it from the outside, and we can go at it from the inside. Or both. Essentially, everything is about plot: How The Story Develops, Unfolds, And Moves In Time. It’s that word HOW that sets us free of the formula. Keep asking how and let your pen find its way into the answer both obvious and subtle.

Several weeks ago, I offered photos as a writing prompt. Paul Rozario-Falcone, a workshop member, chose the photo below. In response, he wrote the following essay, which is not only brilliant, but gets to one kind of How in a most intriguing way. Thank you, Paul, for letting me share this beautiful piece of thought-provoking writing! Paul is an AWA workshop leader residing in Manhattan and Singapore. To write with Paul contact him at: paul@safespacestories.com Here is Paul’s essay:

A lot of good story is about oppositions. For example, appearances being deceiving, or still waters running deep, things the readers know versus things the characters know. I call these oppositions in the sense that one object is at odds or opposes the other. Contrast is opposition, light versus dark, open field versus shady bank, an opposing coastline, too. Neighbouring towns, warring lands. Opposition in story sets up a perspective through which action can take place. And action and behaviour can and should then over the course of the narrative change the opposition, either resolving it or dissolving it, or creating new opposition.

How does a writer use opposition to create a good story? It can be as simple as starting with a woman walking on a bridge in one direction and a man rowing in the river beneath her headed in the other direction, the opposite direction. Such physical and motional opposition in space and time, both spatial and temporal between the woman and the man, can beg questions such as: Do they see each other? Does one look down at the precise moment the other looks up? Do they see each other at a particular point in their paths? At which point? At the halfway point on the bridge and the river? Or at either ends? And will their meeting have any continued opposition in a different form?

As I write, I realise that the above scenarios represent ways in which oppositions dissolve and resolve. The meeting between the two characters, for example, can be seen as a resolving and dissolving of the opposition. But if you, as the writer, choose to keep these two characters — this woman on a bridge walking one way and the man in a boat rowing the other way below her in the river — if you choose to keep them separated throughout the story, the proverbial never the twain shall meet — if so, then what are you saying about these characters, their lives, the paths on which they are travelling? Do they really never meet? For consider also that the bridge and river may connect just two places: the place from which the woman is walking (the place from which she comes) is the same place to which the man is rowing (the place to which he goes). So, in physical space the woman is walking from a past that is the same future the man is rowing toward — another opposition. And of course, walking and rowing can also be set up as oppositions. So, you, the writer, can see the rich possibilities inherent in something as simple as walking and rowing, a bridge over a river, a woman and a man.

Paul Rozario-Falcone November 4, 2019

Upcoming Events

February Retreat Malibu, California: February 3 – 6, 2020

Serra Retreat Center overlooking Malibu Bay with tiled fountains, and hidden gardens offer the perfect winter getaway and a place to wander into your writing. All writers welcome, no matter the genre or experience level. Please join me this February! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

Online Weekly Workshops: Monday Evenings eight weeks beginning January 6, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/

Weekly Workshops Amherst, Massachusetts: Thursday Evenings & Friday Mornings, ten weeks beginning December 5 & 6, 2019 https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

August Retreat Hawley, Massachusetts: August 9 – 12, 2020 Four days of writing bliss. The setting is perfect for allowing your writing to emerge! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

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Someone recently asked me how I develop a story, what is it I do to create the next scene or to understand what’s going on for characters. I’ve read many other authors’ answers to that question, and lots of them talk about creating a plot diagram or writing out detailed backstories and particulars of a character’s personality. These are wonderful responses to the question. And these writers are far more responsible than I am, because they take charge and take control of what happens in their stories. I am a bit reckless, especially at the beginning. When I am daydreaming, wandering about supermarket aisles or cleaning the gutters, I let images come, characters converse, a gesture be expressed. I daydream as long as I can, following what has appeared as long as I can. Then I ask questions: What is going on here? Who is involved? How are they behaving? What got them to this point? What happened before this moment? What might they do next? I approach my stories as if events are being played out before my eyes and I’m not responsible for what gets written down. I follow the answers the characters give me and write it all down. The characters are real, with real lives being enacted, and I have the privilege of trailing along and witnessing what happens. I do ask how characters feel about the things they are experiencing as a way to understand them better. They show me their proclivities, their limitations and their biases. A good and well-known exercise is to open a character’s bureau drawer or medicine cabinet or the trunk of their car. What appears is great information. There have been important scenes that I have written and immediately known that it was wrong. I could feel a character’s resentment at having been pushed in the wrong direction or false words put in their mouth. So I wait. In one instance it took years. But the character eventually let me in on what actually transpired. I knew it because it felt exactly right. So my answer to the question might be something like: I write with abandon, except I never, ever abandon those wonderful beings who give me their incredible company. I stay faithful to those who populate my words.

Publications

Everyday Fiction is a wonderful online journal dedicated to publishing one short story or flash fiction every day. I have had the privilege of having one of my stories accepted. What could be more fun that having a new story delivered every day. Visit the site here and go explore: https://everydayfiction.com/scheveningen-beach-by-maureen-buchanan-jones/

Upcoming Events

February Retreat Malibu, California: February 3 – 6, 2020 All writers welcome, no matter the genre or experience level. This is your time to celebrate your writing! Please join me for this mid-winter getaway! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

Weekly Workshops Amherst, Massachusetts: Thursday Evenings & Friday Mornings, ten weeks beginning December 5 & 6, 2019 https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

Online Weekly Workshops: Monday Evenings eight weeks beginning November 18, 2019. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/

August Retreat Hawley, Massachusetts: August 9 – 12, 2020 Four days of writing bliss. The setting is perfect for allowing your writing to emerge! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

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Upcoming Events

Upcoming Events

Writers often ask each other, especially those who have successfully published their work, whether they have a writing discipline. At a recent retreat writers asked each other this question. The answers were thoughtful and enlightening. It was the kind of conversation about writing I wish every writer could hear and participate in. One writer said she dislikes the word discipline as it conveys a rigidity that doesn’t suit the sensibility of artistic expression. She prefers the term ritual, meaning that she follows steps she has initiated that bring her to her writing as a way to prepare herself for creativity. These steps can be as simple as making good coffee or watching the birds for a few minutes, playing with a cat or listening to music. Other writers said they have a practice, which meant beginning to write at a certain time or writing a set number of pages. Some writers offered that they like to get up very early and write before any other obligations claim their time. Other writers admitted that their preferred writing time came late in the afternoon or late at night when the house was quiet.  Many of the writers at the retreat wanted to know if others wrote every day. Some answered yes, others no. Neither answer defined who wrote or published more.

What the discussion reinforced for me was that each writer has their own time and way of arriving at their writing. Life requires us to focus on so many things and those requirements demand various amounts of attention, time and problem solving. Our writing deserves our respect and determination, but there is no one way that writers resolve their need to write. Designating specific time to write is a way to offer our creativity respect. How we do that is as individual as rising at 4:00 a.m., staying awake until 2:00 a.m., sitting in a parking lot for twenty minutes before going grocery shopping, or attending a weekly writing workshop. Devoting what we can to our writing is being true to a practice. The one thing that keeps us from claiming ourselves as writers is feeling like we don’t measure up to a discipline prescribed by others. I know that I am devoted to my writing because I fall in love every time I sit down to do it, even when it’s hard. Devotion, for me, suits the way I come to the page: a kind of dance where mostly I don’t lead.

Upcoming Events

February Retreat Malibu, California: February 3 – 6, 2020 All writers welcome, no matter the genre or experience level. This is your time to celebrate your writing! Please join me for this mid-winter getaway! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

Weekly Workshops Amherst, Massachusetts: Thursday Evenings & Friday Mornings, beginning September 19 & 20, 2019 https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

Online Weekly Workshops: Monday Evenings beginning September 16, 2019. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/

August Retreat Hawley, Massachusetts: August 9 – 12, 2020 Four days of writing bliss. The setting is perfect for allowing your writing to emerge! https://www.writingfulltilt.com/retreats/

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