Writing in the Cracks by Susan Barclay

Writing in the Cracks

I write in isolation
In the cracks of time
Between work
And family
And home

I write in silence
Please do not disturb
Go away
And leave me
Alone

Words are like butterflies
Fluttering here and there

Or they're like morning mist
Or sand through your fingers 

Not easy to catch

And now we are isolated
The time-cracks wider
And still there is work
And family 
And home 

I hear my children's voices
They are loud
My man sits too close
The dog scratches
At the door

There is no distance
No quiet

I love them
But still they stay

Now I must grow my words
By force

Or they will not grow at all

 c. Susan Barclay, 2020
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You can find out more about Susan Barclay's writing at www.susan-barclay.blogspot.com

'Tis the Season by Marnie Pohlmann

I long to be a writer enjoying the hazy days of summer like I did as a child; sitting with a scribbler in the shade of the cherry tree listening to the buzz of bees on clover, or exploring the rocky creek with bare feet to see where danger could lurk.

I want to be a writer tapping on a laptop while sipping iced tea on the deck.

I wish to take these sunny days to plot not just the perfect crime, but get to know the hero who proves the crime is not so perfect.

I dream of waxing eloquent with flowery verse that has ever-deepening layers of meaning.

I yearn to write an expository article sure to change how the church and the world, or maybe just myself, responds to current events.

However, this summer I am not sitting in the heat to write,
     or gathering story ideas while adventuring on the back of our motorcycle,
          or composing poetry while digging painted toes into warm beach sand,
               or treasuring memories of blowing bubbles with my grandson.

While I pray to feel the sunshine warming the world outside the air-conditioned staleness of my workplace, fluorescent lighting reflects the jaundice of my pale arms reaching for the keyboard. Brick walls painted yellow to give the impression of space are once again closing in. The past winter was long, driving to and from work in the dark to spend more years of my life in this basement cell. Spring gave a false promise of freedom, but I now, once again, feel chained to the desk, imprisoned in thick cinder block walls with no cell service and limited Internet. Summer finds me languishing, staring at a sky-blue computer screen that mocks, as though it truly was a window to the outside world.

Yet I believe God when He says,

For everything there is a season,

    a time for every activity under heaven

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NLT)

I do not find one season any busier than another season. I quite easily fill my time with both constructive and wasteful deeds no matter the weather. I find the change of seasons, though, to be most taxing. Winter routines have relaxed, but summer needs at work, church, and home crowd in to fill days and evenings. Until the past season is finished, the preparation for the coming season is complete, and the rhythm of the current season is found, I often feel overwhelmed.

This year during the change of seasons, I add a transition in writing. I’ve been writing for years, yet have only just begun to enter a Season of Writing. I have not yet established foundational disciplines for writing in the midst of these transitioning seasons. I am grateful for this month’s contributions from other writers, which share great ideas I may incorporate into my days.

I find my writing is based not so much on a season of weather,
     as on a season of whether:

• whether I write when I am depressed and when I am joyful.  
• whether I write fancies of imagination, forming and fading like the clouds as my pen-strokes breeze a story onto paper and write facts that may not be exciting but simply state truth. 
• whether I write when the writing is playful and when the words are difficult.  
• whether I write in times of boredom and when I have over-extended my energy.  

Whether I make the time to write and take the time to write. 

This summer, I am learning how God provides for me the time to write. It is said John Grisham was a lawyer who wrote his best-selling novels in the few moments between legal cases. The Apostle Paul wrote while imprisoned. Surely, I too can learn to write in the times and places God gives me in this season – whether a quiet basement office, in the midst of extroverts at home and church, or on warm summer insomniac nights.

Praise God for His faithfulness in giving us a time for every activity!

How is the “whether” in your Season of Writing?


photos © Marnie Pohlmann

The Ultimate – Ramona Heikel

In my usual schedule, the drive to compose sometimes results in a 5 AM creative inspiration, quickly typed, causing me to be a bit late for work, but smiling.  Other times I spend an entire Saturday morning writing (get away from me, laundry basket!), or, in a rare blessing, I have energy left at the end of a day to write coherently.  Of course, I cherish a dream of waking up each day knowing I have the luxury of writing as many hours as I want.  But what if that dream came true?

I’ve had tastes of what that would be like.  In fact, I’m still on a school holiday, which has been an opportunity to live the writing life for a few weeks.  But although living the writer’s dream, I still want to spend time with family and friends, and there are still chores and errands.  These things do a real ADHD number on me, fragmenting my schedule, and worse than that, my mind.  But with a year off, I’d definitely make some helpful changes.

The first change I’d make if I had a year to focus on writing would be to spend more time praying over my writing, and meditating on related scriptures.  Sad to say, when I’m sneaking in some precious minutes of creativity, I don’t stop to do that.

I would work on one of the drafts of my novels, or start a new novel.  Longer, in-depth plots are the most natural for me to write, but I find that with so many interruptions it is far less frustrating to write smaller pieces.

I would try to find an agent to represent me.  I come to a grinding halt when I enter the moving target of the marketing world.  In addition to an agent, with financial resources as part of the dream, I would hire a writing coach.  As self-motivated as I am mentally, I don’t always walk myself over to my pen and paper to get started.  I envision someone like Kristi Holl from the Writer’s First Aid website knocking on my door from time to time and gently, humorously, forcing me to do the hard work.

And finally, I would hire a cook and maid, and use the freed-up time get exercise with walks in the fresh air, while the thoughts and planning of my writing continue to work themselves out in my head.  For the winter I would have a treadmill or elliptical with the capability of having my laptop at my fingertips, which would require me to move into a larger place.  Which, if I was going to do that, I may as well find myself a cottage out of town…with a view of the mountains…and a babbling brook…or a beach house…?

And you?  I look forward to hearing about your writing year!

Posted by Ramona

www.happilywriting.com

Am I Still a Writer? – Ramona Heikel

At the end of this past summer I was offered a job at a high school which was just what I was looking for, but I wasn’t sure I was qualified. I took it anyway, and since then I’ve been making plenty of adjustments: working full-time instead of part-time, driving to the other end of the city instead of a short commute, and taxing my brain all day so it refuses to operate after I leave the school. As a result, I have suddenly stopped writing!

And boy does that feel strange. It’s like I’ve been kidnapped to another planet.

I haven’t posted on my own blog since September, and forgot last month to post here. I haven’t even thought about all my unfinished writing projects. I feel guilty about all of those things, but at the same time, I know that I am incapable of doing anything else at the moment. It is what it is.

But today I am writing something original for the first time in months. And I can safely say that yes, I still have stories in my head and things I want to say, and I am still a writer. And something good in all this from a writerly point of view is that I am cleaning house. No, not my real house; my visually organized yet actually out-of-control To Do pile of writing activities. Priorities are being defined (and not necessarily by me).

For example, some of my half-finished stories grew out of my trying to squeeze water from a rock, or from someone else’s idea of what would make a good story—and no wonder I can’t seem to get them off the ground. By contrast, one of my favorite pieces that I “haven’t had time for” has just caught the eye of my best friend who is an artist, and she wants to illustrate it.

I recently received a cheque for a reprinted story from one of my favorite children’s magazines; on the other hand, I just packaged up a load other children’s magazines and some marketing books to donate to the thrift store. As I no longer have the luxury of agonizing about finding the perfect places to sell my writing, or trying to learn more and more about writing, I’ve also cleared those off from my dusty mental desk for the time being. There went a lot of frustration out the door!

It’s a good time to redefine the purpose of my blog, or to decide whether or not I should have one. Yes, I’ve made the choice to dedicate myself to the students at school, and I can’t do everything, so I won’t be feeling as much like a writer as I used to. However, during the large chunks of time of school holidays, like the one coming up next week, I’ll enjoy returning to my keyboard as I would a dear friend, to catch up on my favorite pastime.


Posted by Ramona
www.happilywriting.com

Take control of online reading and social media - Violet Nesdoly

These days a writer is expected to do a lot of things in addition to writing. Staying abreast of industry trends and participating in social media are two of them. Trouble is, keeping track of all the interesting and useful stuff on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs can not only suck time from writing but also bury inspiration, dampen enthusiasm, blur focus, and deplete energy. Posting and reading social media updates can be just as distracting. There is so much out there to read and do—and still only 24 hours a day in which to do it.
Two little programs that I use regularly have helped me streamline my time online, even as I attempt to stay on-task in the midst  of all the noise.

Pocket (getpocket.com - formerly Read It Later) is one. It's a program that works on any device (phone, tablet or computer). I have installed it on both my desk computer and laptop using Firefox.

The program puts a little pocket-shaped icon in my browser bar. If I find an article that looks interesting but I don't have time to read it, I simply click on the pocket (which then turns red). It gets saved to a list of links that I access by clicking on a second pocket found at the far right of my browser.

Because I have Pocket on both computers, I can browse the internet for information at my desktop, save all the articles in my pocket, and read them later when  I'm relaxing  with my laptop.



A second great time-saver is Buffer (bufferapp.com). This program lets me schedule tweets. I also installed it on both computers using Firefox.

The free version of Buffer lets me schedule updates to one Twitter, one Facebook, and one LinkedIn account, but it does have some limitations. For example, I'm limited to how many tweets I can schedule; I think it's 10. However, that's easily enough to schedule enough tweets for a day or two (I have control over how many times a day I'll tweet and when).

So gone are the days of inundating my followers with a deluge of tweets within seconds of each other. Now I set aside some time most days to Buffer my twitter stream for the next day, remembering to sprinkle in a few tweets for my book or other writing. I haven't posted any updates to Facebook or LinkedIn with Buffer but I'm sure it works just as well. 

These two handy little programs (plug-ins, apps, whatever they're called) have helped me take control of my online reading and social media endeavors. Why don't you give them a try?  You might like them too.

- Violet Nesdoly

******************

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Little by Little, Every Day - Susan Barclay

If you attended church a few decades ago, you probably remember the little chorus on which my title is based:

 Little by little, every day
Little by little, in every way
My Jesus is changing me

Well, if our writing habits follow this model, little by little, through Christ, we can change our world one word at a time.

"Let my teaching fall like rain, and my words descend like dew..." (Deuteronomy 32:2). Dew falls every morning, doesn't it? And dew is part of the hydrologic cycle that sees every molecule of water cleaned and purified so that life on planet earth continues. Dew drops are delicate, gentle beads that refresh the earth daily.

With all of the demands that life places on us, it can be challenging to write on a daily basis. But this is what is needed if our words are to "descend like dew." One author, whose name I've forgotten refers to it as "bum glue" - you must apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair. A crude, "un-dew-like" way of putting it perhaps, but effective. If you want to succeed in the call that God has placed on your heart, you must make the commitment to apply yourself daily to the task He's placed before you.

There are many writers who've made it a habit to write every day, whether their target is a certain number of hours, pages, or words. Graham Greene apparently wrote 500 words a day and then considered his work done; Frederick Forsyth is said to have written 2,000 and Anthony Trollope 3,000. We know the volume of work these men put out over the course of their careers, and the mark they left on the literary scene. Should those of us who belong to Christ do less? Not for the sake of our own fame, but for His, let us work diligently as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23).

Little by little, every day, let our words descend like dew, and may God use our words to change and heal others - and ourselves - for the glory of His kingdom.

Time to Write by Kimberley Payne

On The Word Guild discussion forum, writer Benjamin Collier asked, “I find that unless I know I have four straight hours of writing time ahead of me I feel like I can't get into the right "mode". But then I have made some good progress in two hours or less. It's the anxiety that gets me. And I liked your plan of breaking it up into smaller projects. If anyone else out there has similar issues, do you guys have any additional advice for dealing with this?”

Sandra Reimer of Reimer Reason Communications offered this advice:

1. Free yourself to write garbage in order to get going. Tell yourself you must write something in a given time period. It doesn't have to be good. This sets me free from creativity-killing anxiety. Writing garbage is like making small talk. In the same way that small talk leads to deep, intimate conversation, writing mediocre material often leads to something worthwhile-or at least something that can be distilled into usefulness in the editing process.

2. If after trying to write for awhile you are still feeling jammed and unconfident-take a break. I get a snack, take a nap, go for a bike ride etc.

3. I find being able to write well or to be creative is deeply tied to feeling confident. For me, reviewing past successes or achieving success in a small area kick starts my confidence and can free me to write.

4. If you are breaking a large writing project into smaller chunks, I find it immensely helpful to keep a "working journal." I jot down where I am in a project and what still needs to be done. I review this before I get going in the next session. I finished a screenplay in 1 to 2 hour chunks with a few longer sessions over about a year. My working journal helped be more productive in those short sessions.

Darlene Oakley commented, “Great idea, Sandra! This would be such a great thing considering I have the affliction of not-being-able-to-finish-because-of-life-itis. I've started work on many of my stories only to have life interrupt and I not being able to get back to them. When I start working on them again, I often have to read and review what I have already done and try to re-establish my thought processes and where I wanted to go and where I still need to go. I will have to do this - since I love notebooks!”

Have you got 101 ideas for articles or books but a schedule that’s too full to allow time for you to write? Do you have any other suggestions?