When Alice Walker was the editor of Ms. Magazine in New York, she began to feel there were characters inside her who needed to talk to her. But they refused to open up to her in New York. “‘What is all this tall shit anyway,’ they would say.” So Walker took a leave from her job and found a rustic cabin in Northern California. She sat and waited. Walker said there were “days and weeks and even months when nothing happened.” But eventually the characters began to visit her. They would sit down across the table from her and talk. She wrote down their stories, and these became the novel The Color Purple.

Never underestimate the power of sitting and waiting.

Post by Cathy MacLean, TWS 2012.

Information and quotations from “Writing the Color Purple,” in Delighting the Heart (1989; Susan Sellers, ed.)

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Ideas come from everywhere. They come from past experiences, conversations, something we’ve read or heard about, or something we would like to know about. But the best ideas often seem to come out of nowhere. I seem to get my best ideas when I’m:

• taking long walks;
• sitting on the bus, or on a park bench;
• people watching and eavesdropping in cafes and coffee shops;
• being around water: swimming and taking baths;
• daydreaming.

Regardless of where you get your ideas, make sure you write them down before you forget them. You never know, they might just turn into your next great piece.

Post by Erica Simmonds (TWS 2012). Erica’s best ideas seem to come out of nowhere, but not as often as she would like.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In addition to our usual Writers’ Tips, we are also now featuring posts by guest editor Claire De Boer. Claire will talk about a new creative writing course called Southbank Writers’ Program. This SFU summer course will begin at the end of May and continue throughout the summer in Surrey, BC. We look forward to hearing all about it from Claire, who is a 2011 TWS alumni.

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By Claire De Boer

I’m excited about this summer. Firstly because the sun will come out at some point—I hope—and secondly because I will take my first steps into the world of mentoring through a new SFU creative writing course called Southbank Writers’ Program.

One of my long-term goals on my writing journey is to teach others how to find and develop their unique voice. I have been blessed with several mentors so far and I know the value of having someone help you to grow your writing.

As a mentor for Southbank I’ll be providing feedback to students with suggestions for how they might further develop particular pieces of work. And as someone who loves to talk about writing, that’s pretty exciting.

Writing for me is about growing together in community and I know that SFU has this core value at the heart of its creative writing programs. I was therefore only too willing to help the Director of the Writing and Publishing Program devise the kind of course that I would have wanted to take when I started out as a writer.

The Southbank Writers’ Program is unique in that it was built by writers for writers. How often does that happen? Something I felt was really important to writers still developing their style was to define their genre. Do they want to write fiction, non-fiction, blogs, poetry…all of the above? I think if writers aren’t exposed to the various ways of expressing themselves through writing, it’s harder to find their niche.

It’s all about Conversation

I’m not one for sitting back and being lectured to. I learn through conversation and expressing ideas. The teaching format for Southbank is all about conversation and helping writers have more confidence in their work through sharing their thoughts and reading their prose aloud.

We’ll also hear from recently published authors about how they navigated their way through the ever-changing world of self and print publishing, something I definitely want to hear more about.

Yes, it’s going to be a great summer of writing, with or without the sun.

Find out more about the Southbank Writers’ Program.

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Claire De Boer is a fiction writer and graduate of both The Writer’s Studio and the London School of Journalism. She is the Wellness Editor and regular contributor for SheLoves Magazine and also provides professional writing services. Visit Claire J De Boer to learn more.

Prose works written by poets hold a special place of honour on my bookshelf. The memoirs of Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane, Johanna Skibsrud’s novel The Sentimentalists, and Molly Peacock’s two non-fiction works, The Paper Garden and Paradise, Piece by Piece, are a few well-worn examples.

The artful approach to prose and storytelling is what I love about each of these books. They are meditative in tone and setting, full of vivid, precise language, rich in metaphor and imagery, and mindful of the need for books to show us the wonder of words.

I’m not a poet (not yet, at least), but I hope I can learn to write like one!

Post by Erica Mattson (TWS 2012).

Photo courtesy of the author.

I have been revising a novel and feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and the looming deadline. As if I had a shapeless woolly mammoth on my back. The end felt hopelessly out of reach. Once I gave in and took time to make a schedule for completion, marking each chapter off in my diary over the next series of months, I felt like I’d unloaded that mammoth for the first time. It’s not sticking to the schedule so much as making it. Now I can see the task is doable. I feel clearer. Even, at times, inspired!

Post by Sue Goldswain (TWS 2012, fiction class). Sue has been labouring beneath the weight of her first novel for some time.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

I just returned from the Big Island of Hawaii. Before I went, I had a few stories in mind.  I scoped out a few markets. Even wrote a query. Maybe I’ll just pop over, confirm a few things, talk to a few people and voilà, a blue Hawaii travel story and a few bucks. Bonus.

Then the sunshine hit me. Who was I kidding? I’m not going to scribble notes by pretending to care about the square ukulele. Where’s my pen? What was the name of that flower again? And that beach? Was it left or right at the stop sign?

So, if you’re going on a trip and you think, I’ll just write something, no problem, here’s a tip or two or five.

1. Plan ahead. Research. Get clear on ideas. Scope out your potential markets before you go.

2. Focus: Travel. Spas. Hotels. Weirdness? What will it be? Decide.

3. Set up interviews, if you can, prior to getting there to be efficient with time.

4. The best story will undoubtedly be the one you could only hear by being there.

5. Stay longer than six days. Especially if it’s still raining in Vancouver.

Post and photo by Gayle Mavor (TWS 2012). Find more of her work at http://www.gaylemavor.com.

Time to write. Read it two ways. Self admonition (use sparingly). Scheduled time. Schedule time. Perhaps you think you write too little ((not enough time given over, not enough beauty (terrible or otherwise) produced)). Understand you must be many, do much in a day. Understand you must brush your teeth, feed your body, raise the family, make money–write. Writing has its place amongst other necessary acts. One must constantly re-schedule the exigencies. Don’t waste your time somewhere else when you are here. Schedule all/most/some of the here’s. Play with splitting off time. Time to write. When?

Post by David Miller (TWS 2012). David has had the luxury of seemingly unending vistas of uninterrupted writing time and the terror of a landscape filled with the charred remnants of gone time.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

There are basically two types of writers, the “first draft or bust” type, or the “perfected page” writer.

The first barges to the end of a draft without stopping to change much, producing a first draft that may be crude, sketchy or a complete mess.  Now her work begins.

For the ”perfected page” writer the language often propels the story as much as the plot.  This writer revises the preceding day’s work before moving on, digging out unexpected leads, images, implications, producing a very polished first draft.

The reader, who is not privy to the first draft, never knows which type of writer wrote the book in hand, but the writer should have some self-awareness of his or her own process.

Post by Caroline Adderson, writer and instructor of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, which starts on Tuesday, April 3rd at SFU Harbour Cenre, Vancouver. For more information about the course, or to register, click here.

Photo: Flickr

1. Your mother was right, always get a good night’s sleep.

2. Eat a complete breakfast, not just a granola bar, not even the virtuous kind.

3. Get some exercise, any exercise, just move.

4. Buy an ergonomic desk chair and use it as it was intended.

5. Get up to stretch once in a while.

6. Drink plenty of water throughout the day.

7. Don’t overdo it with booze or coffee. You’re no Hemingway and Juan Valdez was a marketing campaign.

8. Listen to your writing voice.

9. Pay attention to structure.

10. Revise, revise, revise.

Post by Rosetta Cannata (TWS 2012), a lifelong storyteller and compulsive list-maker.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

When writing from another person’s perspective (fictional or real), a great way to get into their mindset is to sing.

Close your eyes and imagine their face is your face. Their body is your body. Imagine how this person would feel in a moment of strong emotion.

Staying in character, start to sing, improvising lyrics and tune (this is not about musicality but feeling your way into their psyche). When you hit on a line that rings true, repeat it or make it your refrain.

Whole monologues or a powerful core first line can emerge.

PS: This also works well for yourself–sing the blues while driving, discover how you really feel.

Post by TWS 2012’s Saskia Wolsak.

Photo courtesy of the author.