Jennifer Egan and Susan Choi on Productivity (or Lack of) during a Pandemic

One of my writing students sent me a link to this wonderful podcast, perfect for our chaotic times--which have only gotten more so.  If you're concerned that you haven't made progress on your epic novel or other masterpiece, you're in good company.

Listen here.  If the link doesn't work, go to bookable.simplecast.com and search for the authors' names.  (And thanks to Gail for the link!)

Writing through Anxiety--Write On! Video Featuring Author Shelby Kenney-Lang

I love these videos from the writing school in Boston, Grub Street, featuring their instructors sharing techniques they're using to keep writing during these unprecedented times.  

Here's video from author Shelby Kenney-Lang, who describes a technique he used to write a new essay that was published in the Green Mountain Review.

Link here

Unexpected "Container" in an Award-Winning Novel: An Interview with Ginger Eager

Not just because she's a generous, insightful member of my monthly writer's group.  Not just because her book won the coveted AWP award for the first novel. I fell in love with Ginger Eager's The Nature of Remains for the strong female characters and the unique place she writes about.  

Not unusual for a Southern novelist to be enamored with place.  Ginger Eager comes from Georgia and she set her novel in the fictional Georgia town of Flyshoals, but the larger setting of the book is its geological history.  The soil in that part of Georgia is riddled with amethysts.  The Nature of Remainsis about the people who circle that geological wealth, both the criminals who dig and sell it, and the families affected by their passion.  

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Using the Enneagram's 9 Personality Types to Create Vivid Characters in Fiction and Memoir

No one likes to be categorized or typecast, but when it comes to creating vivid characters on the page, I find the personality system of the Enneagram a life saver.

Twenty-some years ago, when I first began studying this system, not many people knew about it.  It had no huge institutes or psychologists tooting it, as it does now.  It was Greek and new age, a little odd.  My introduction was through Eli Jaxon-Bear, whose book, From Fixation to Freedom, promoted an Eastern approach that appealed to me.  Later I discovered the more Western approach  used like Myers-Briggs typing and promoted by Don Riso and Russ Hudson in their Enneagram Institute.  

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Unexpected Blessings of Writing by Hand: What Other Writers Find in Their Handwriting That's Not on Their Computer

Do you know "BrainPickings," the online newsletter/digest put together by Maria Popova?  (If you don't, it's worth a look.)  Popova recently wrote about her favorite books from 2019 and one was by the poet Ross Gay, called The Book of Delights.  In this article, Popova discusses Ross Gay's enjoyment of writing by hand, something not usual to writers in this super-fast electronic era.  

Writing by hand is slow, thoughts can come faster than they can be scribed.  But I read about more and more writers who swear by the practice.  Either for early drafts, sketching out ideas, even revision.

A colleague in this club tells me her handwritten scenes always contain unexpected blessings--ideas she would never have encountered otherwise.

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Creative Resistance to Hard Times--Guest Blog by Author Ellen Prentiss Campbell

Ellen Prentiss Campbell's Known By Heart: Collected Stories, appeared May 1 (Apprentice House Press). In 2016 her debut novel The Bowl with Gold Seams(Indy Excellence Award for Historical Fiction) and her story collection Contents Under Pressure (National Book Award nominee) were published. Ellen's home in Washington D.C., hosting an online book group for children, writing essays, reading War and Peace and mysteries, and making soup. 

I've invited her to share her view on creativity and Covid times, as her new book launches.  

Looking back, we see the signs. It was coming for us, not reserved for others, not restricted to Over There. But denial is a powerful force. The pandemic arrived stealthily, catching most of us absorbed in routine. Startling us, kidnapping us, blowing away our routine, our assumptions, our plans. The lights went out on Broadway; the stay-at-home mandates swept across the land. Even if we were lucky and healthy, we were hostages, grieving lost expectations, fearful, and uncertain.

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Refining Your Writing Space for Sheltering at Home

One of my favorite writing treats when life seemed normal was an afternoon at our local coffee shop. Surrounded by a dozen others, all plugged into their laptops and earbuds, we wrote.  Sun came in the big windows, I sank into my leather chair, and I sipped a new choice of tea in the coffee shop's huge mugs.   

I wrote at home too, when my family was out of the house.  But mostly at the coffee shop.  I was insanely productive there, even with the music and crowd and cramped space.

Then my coffee shop went to take-out only. For the first month of Covid life, my writing stalled completely, so I didn't even miss the coffee shop.  After a month, I began missing my story. But where to write? 

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Ways to Inch Back into Writing--If You've Stalled Out (Some Good Habits to Test Out during a Pandemic)

I subscribe to Jane Friedman's excellent newsletter and the recent article, "Writing from the Bottom Rung." by guest writer Lisa Cooper Ellison hit home (if the link doesn't work, go to her website and search her blog for that title).  

Jane discussed Maslow's hierarchy of needs: the bottom rung is food, shelter, and warmth, the top is self-actualization, where creativity happens.  

Like many of us, she hasn't been writing either.  She reasoned it out:  If the bottom rung is where we are living during this pandemic, then we can't expect to support a productive writing habit.

Make sure that rung is strong enough to support your weight, Jane advised, before trying to move up.  

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Online Connection--How to Find Your Virtual Writing Tribe While Sheltering at Home

One of my students emailed me this week with a good question.  He's been part of a writing group and loved the social and creative time.  But now that he's sheltering from home, he wondered what else was available for writers?

So I'm running a past post this week, sharing my tips on how to find your virtual tribe.  Hope they are helpful to those of you self-isolating and looking for writerly companionship.

***

Nikki, who travels a lot, took one of my writing workshops and recently emailed me with a great question:  how do you find a writing group or writing partner when you can't physically meet regularly?

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Making Time for Writing When You Have Nothing to Do

Last week I taught my first Zoom class to five writers from across the U.S. when our weeklong retreat in Santa Fe was cancelled thanks to Covid.  Two were working on memoirs, two on novels, all in progress.  Each day, we gathered to learn and inspire each other virtually.  I read their writing and offered feedback.  They were patient as I practiced intricacies of teaching remotely.  I think we all learned a lot.

Our final Zoom meeting was especially heart-opening.  We talked about our lives and our writing during this pandemic.  How a retreat away from "life" gave time and space to really sink in.  But writing while living maybe gave us practice at fitting writing into each day.

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