We’ve left it open for you, so you don’t even need one of those little keys. Because writing is life, and keeping it real means forgoing the line between the personal and the professional.
This workshop will detail the essential ingredients of a well-thought-out writing session, helping writers better understand their subjects and develop their material.
No subject is off limits in this gathering:
The many varieties of music, including none at all
How much and what kind of other people’s literature to read beforehand
The right chair and desk height
The role of divination cards, and other ways to connect with your spirit
How to take notes about other aspects of your project without breaking your concentration on the thing you are writing right now
The use of totems and making at least some of them fun, because a very important part of creativity is to playing
And more!
We will also talk about the most important aspect of a writing session: arriving with, and keeping, a clear mind. A meditation for writers will be introduced with the purpose being to take non-related thoughts that arise while you are at the desk and give them a little boost to get them on their way out of here.
Does a writing ritual enhance the quality of the work? Does it enhance the efficiency of the process? Does it make it more fun? Yes, yes, and yes.
We can’t promise you a flow state experience, of course, but we can help you craft an approach that greatly improves your chances of attaining one. The hope is simply that you learn your process, and perhaps evolve your process. And, of course, that you do your process — each and every time — and not skimp on what works for you.
Over the course of the last 25 years, we have done work with a variety of companies and organizations to help their employees become better writers. We teach the basics of structure (scene, series, and theme, you know the drill); the primacy of voice; killing your darlings; how to begin a little bit further on because that is where the good stuff actually gets going; and how to earn your end—through the somewhat torturous process of sorting out the middle.
With that said, at InkHouse Public Relations, we were not only invited to help people become better writers — but become the people they were intending to be all along. Over the course of a decade, we were privileged to teach people how (and why) to leave your reader wanting more, but also to help writers describe what their grandfathers meant to them, how to come clean about their addictions and still be able to manage people (in fact, to be able to manage them better), and how to reach back into the past and connect some of the dots of their experiences to discern where things might be heading in the future.
At InkHouse we put together yearly books of essays, or hosted Moth-style readings, bravely sending the work out into the world so that clients would really know who they were working with—fusing the personal with the professional, in a way that benefitted both lenses. Under the auspices of co-founder and CEO, Beth Monaghan, an excellent writer in her own right, we operated with the understanding that creative non-fiction was neither “unprofessional” nor was it “too personal” — if it was good. Then it could benefit all kinds of relationships, including the one you have with yourself.
We would never want to put words into Beth’s mouth, but it seemed like she realized that some of her employees wouldn’t work for her forever. Hey, it happens. And that means that you have a responsibility to develop not only their resumes and their experience, but their hearts and souls — and to help give credence to a human being’s natural creative gifts. And that is why our work at InkHouse is this month’s chosen highlight from the last quarter century.
Ipuna Estavillo Black, PhD, MSN, RN, MFA recently signed with her first literary agent—after more than a decade of pursuing creative writing. Earlier this month, Madison Utley spoke with Ipuna about what drew her to writing in her thirties, how she kept at it amid competing demands and through bouts of discouragement, and the one piece of advice she has for writers struggling to stay motivated.
MU:To start, can you tell us when you began pursuing creative writing in earnest?
IB: I was always a reader, but I was never one to declare “I’m going to be a writer” when I was three years old. My mom was an immigrant from Korea. I saw her sacrifice and how hard she worked to make a living, so my focus was on creating a career for myself. I didn’t give any time to thinking about my dreams.
I love the direction I chose in nursing. But the extreme research-based learning I did in my PhD program could be quite dry, and made me aware of the lack of creativity in my life at that stage. I was in the final trimester of my fourth (and last) pregnancy at the time and it was getting difficult to do my daily run, so I decided I’d rededicate that time in the morning to writing a book–and I did so in three months. That was 2012.
MU:How’d you land on a full-length book as the ideal vehicle?
IB:When I was younger, I was an avid reader but I had lost that sense of wonder; I wanted to get it back. A few years earlier, after my Masters but before my PhD, I had taken a creative writing class at the local community college. I thought that would be enough to push the urge to be creative down again. I was wrong, and so I decided writing a book might do the job. I had no idea how to write a book, or even what a scene was, or how to tell a compelling story. Like at that point, I thought editing meant checking for grammar.
At the end of the three months of writing, I Googled how to get an agent and Stephenie Meyers’ story popped up. She had written Twilight over three months and then queried 15 agents, and the one she signed with was from Writers House. I assumed that was normal. I had no writer friends so I was like, “Great!” and I also queried 15 agents. I heard nothing back; not even rejections. That’s when I realized I didn’t know what I was doing.
MU:Is that the point where you pursued more formal assistance?
IB:That’s when I decided to attend my first writing conference where I met Stuart. He led a session on editing which made me realize how little I knew about the writing world. At the end of his session he said, “Does anybody have questions?” I didn’t have a question. I had no idea what to even ask.
Stuart ended up being the first person to help me with editing. My manuscript was terrible and needed a lot of work, but he did the best he could with big picture items. He found the perfect balance of giving constructive feedback that was very specific and useful, while keeping things feeling positive. I remember how much he loved the word “awkward” whenever things were off. I always knew if I was on the right track with what I was doing when I’d get the least amount of awkwards in the margins. He was careful to never crush my spirit though, and I felt like I could really learn from him.
After that, there were years and years of editors and agents, conferences and learning, pitching and reworking manuscripts, writing whole new manuscripts. I’ve never been afraid to put myself out there. I always thought: how am I going to learn if I don’t get feedback? I’m not scared of failure and I’m not scared of rejection. When you’re in academia, like in my PhD program, you get a lot of feedback. You’re always sharing your work, your research writing. You’re always critiqued. So I was used to that, and I used every opportunity to connect with somebody who could make me better.
MU:Education seems to have played a large part in your life, both with your nursing career but, eventually, also with your writing. Can you tell me more about that?
IB:I learned so much about the industry through all of my experiences, but eventually I did end up getting my MFA from University of Nevada, Reno in Creative Writing, Writing for Children and Young Adults through a low-residency, mentorship-based program. I finished my YA manuscript–a story of a high school hurdler in 1995 Las Vegas navigating her mother’s Korean War trauma–that secured my agent with the assistance of my four mentors. Together, they helped me hone my voice and identify the heart of my story, while also preparing me for the marketing component of pitching.
When I did start querying, I felt like I was at a high self-esteem point. I knew my story, I knew my voice, and I felt good about it. I got 12 full requests, slowly, over time. From there, I got two really detailed feedbacks on the manuscript. And then, one offer fromSandra Proudman at Gallt & Zacker. I’m very happy with Sandra. She gets my writing and she gets my story. So it was a very long road, but I do feel like I learned from every person who I was connected with along the way.
MU:Did you consider stopping at any point over that time?
IB:For a lot of those years I was working full time, getting degrees, having and raising kids. But in the beginning, it was fun, even though I had to work to carve out the time to write. I was like, “Writing is calling me! This creative energy is calling me! I must listen!” But doubts did start to creep in. I wondered if it was a waste of time, and if I should be focusing my energy on more practical things. But I didn’t stop. Every positive piece of feedback or promising connection that would happen would give me just enough hope to take the next step. Eventually though, it was pure grit keeping me going and I was exhausted. I was a decade in at that point, asking myself, “What am I doing?” But the MFA tipped me over; if I hadn’t done that, I don’t know where I’d be.
MU:What would you say to your fellow writer who has been toiling at this for years and years, and is still waiting for their breakthrough moment?
IB:You have to find a way to make it fun. That’s what made all the difference for me. I’m a very goal-oriented person. A checklist kind of person. I even cut back at work and went part time for a period to meet my rigid page goals. I thought if I just kept investing more time and more energy, then I’m going to make it. But I eventually realized the more negative pressure I put on myself, the worse my writing got. It made my words stiff and forced and I hated it. I took a step back for a spell, but I never considered quitting.
The thing is if you truly want to write, the writing will never quit on you. You will be composing stories in your head, a character will come to you, you’ll dream about something you need to write about. At least for me, it didn’t feel like this desire was going to let me go. I also realized it’s the same thing I tell my kids with their sports; you can see when they’re trying too hard and they’re in their head, they play worse. So I stopped giving myself these crazy daily goals. I built writing into my schedule where it made sense, like longer chunks on the weekends, and that also gave me a chance to anticipate it. Rather than seeing it as a chore, it was something to look forward to. That shift helped the outcome matter less to me; because it was a source of fun and good in and of itself, rather than a means to an end, it brought me to a better mental space and made my life–and, ultimately, my writing–better.
Why do we recommend learning how to meditate to all writers? In part, it is so you will have greater access to your flow state when meditation becomes part of your creative ritual. Sure.
But it is at least as much so that a writer will learn how to wait. Lose the sense of rush, is one of our favorite mantras that applies here. And not just the rush over the course of an entire project, with its side tracks and dead ends, where every draft takes longer than you think, and there are more drafts required than you would ever initially have considered necessary.
Meditation can also help you lose the sense of rush at the outset of every writing session, so that you come equipped with the all-important skill of presence. When you don’t know how to wait, you hurry into words that aren’t quite the words, hastily choose subjects and scenes that might be important eventually but are not where your heart is right now. Because, after all, time’s-a-wasting!
Actually, if you want to become a good writer, you have to be able to wait for so long that the waiting itself becomes interesting. During that time, you naturally shuffle through what you thought you had to do at the desk so you can get to what you want to do. The longer you wait, in fact, the more you are able to pay attention. And the less it seems like waiting at all, in the sense of waiting for something to happen.
Because things are happening all the time. And then, among the presumably infinite stream of happenings, you can tune your ears and your eyes to what you have been looking for all along, beneath the surface or just outside the frame of the picture.
Plus, when a real idea comes, you will be ready for it — your reflexes will be primed so that perception becomes action. The words and lines and paragraphs fall together in a way that would have seemed quick just a little while ago, but are now just part of a natural unfolding.
