Writers Ask

August 30, 2009

So school is back in full swing now, but i’m making plans for how to keep my life organized, to keep writing, and how to keep my sanity intact.

One goal of mine is to go to bed BY 11 PM EVERY WEEK NIGHT. I can’t say that i’ll be able to do that on the weekends, but I’m going to try to do it on weeknights so that I can get up early (7 a.m? 6 a.m.?) to write. Especially on Tues/Thurs when I don’t go in to class until 3.

Can I do it? I hope so.

My classes, though, have been lively so far, which is a good sign. No creative writing classes to teach this semester so i’m channeling all of that energy into my own writing.

I have to say, I’m still loving the newsletter Writers Ask, from Glimmer Train. I find each issue more inspiring than the last. It’s a short (usually 15 pages or so) flyer that comes every three months. It doesn’t tell you how to write or how to get published, but it is chock full of interviews with other writers giving their brief input on the writing process and other aspects of writing. The current issue (came this week) includes:

Naming and Titles

Inspiration

Writing What You Know

Forms

Writing as Art

from such writers as:

Alice Mattison

Michael Cunningham

Amy Bloom

Ann Patchett

Thomas Beller (yay!)

Susan Orlean

Charles Baxter (yay!)

James Lasdun (yay!)

Sandra Cisneros (yay!)

among others.

Thisbe Nissen is asked about the quotes she has at the beginning of a particular story of hers.

She says: Maybe all writers do, but I just love quotes. My bulletin board is covered with Post-its of song lyrics and fragments of poems. As I’m writing I always have some quote that I’m working with.

I’m the same way. I love quotes. I love clipping them out of newspapers or typing them up on my computer and printing them and putting them on my bulletin board. I’ve had this one quote on my board for at least two years:

The two most engaging powers of a writer are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.

– Samuel Johnson

And my friend Kelli gave me a bunch of quotes in a frame, including:

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.

– Vladimir Nabakov

Writers Ask is inexpensive and so so worth it. Check it out.