I had a little “eureka!” moment I’d like to share with you. Something we’ve all been told countless times, but I keep conveniently forgetting. It has to do with the inner critic. Some days, it’s more like a panel of critics, isn’t it?

While working on a story set in Merritt, I felt compelled to write about a country music festival that used to happen there. For the life of me, I couldn’t come up with any rational reason to include anything about the festival in my story. Even a free write on the subject seemed like a waste of precious time.  After a few days, I’d made no progress on the writing, so I put it away. The chapter sat gathering dust for a month, and I was desperate to get back to it, so one morning I coffee’d up and let fly. Wrote down everything I could remember about the Merritt Mountain Music Festival, from the night Johnny Cash played to the “Walk of Stars” and buildings plastered with murals of smiling country stars in the nearly abandoned downtown core.

Out of this exercise came multiple esthetic and thematic ingredients for my piece, and what do you know, the festival itself did find a place in the story. Maybe it will be cut later. Who cares? Self-critique stopped my writing cold, and taking a risk paid off in spades. Duh.

Post by Carleigh Baker (TWS 2012).

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Writing a memoir can be a daunting task. Research is key, but how do you begin to organize all the information? How do you remind yourself of pertinent points? A list helps, but where to put it?

One way to do this is to use flip chart paper, the kind with a sticky strip on the back so you can throw it on a wall and leave it there. I have several marching across a hallway wall. As I think of different events or learn something new, I add it to one of these papers where I can see it.

Post by Christine Hayvice (TWS 2012).

Photo courtesy of the author.

Ride your bike, lie on the grass in a park, go for long walks around the city or the forest. Visit new places, observe the things you see, jot down some notes. Fresh air and quiet observation are excellent tools for writing.

Post by Laura Matwichuk, a Vancouver-based writer. She holds an MA in Art History from the University of British Columbia and is currently working on her first collection of poetry.

Photo courtesy of the author.

Sit in your quiet room at night. Take out your pencil and notebook, listen to the clock click. Not so quiet anymore, is it? Begin listening to the sounds that float up in your body. Before they rise up and away, take your pencil, write them down:  wrench, riddle, rust, mantle. Rumble, rent, harbour of bliss. Blunder. Play with the sounds. Welcome them onto the page. Hear the rustling in the background. Get curious. Who’s out there? Why? With whom? Write it all down, let your pencil glide, explore. Take a swig of tea. Sigh. Celebrate. Keep writing. There’ll be time for editing later.

Post by Barbara Kmieć, TWS 2012.

Photo by the author.

You’ve just spent hours, days or months finishing your first draft. Now, put it away and forget about it. Don’t look at it. Don’t read it. Don’t show it to anyone. Just let it simmer. Give the work, and yourself, some time to breathe.

In a few weeks, pick up your draft and read it. Being further removed from it, you’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t. You’ll be able to cut redundant sentences, fix grammar mistakes and slash those beautiful lyrical sentences that unfortunately just don’t belong.

Editing is never easy, but putting away your first draft is.

Post by Erica Simmonds (TWS 2012). Erica likes to let her first drafts sit, and has been letting one sit for maybe just a little too long now.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

When I heard published authors joke about spending all day in their pyjamas, I knew I had found a kinship. Later, I would discover that it is precisely this quiet state of doing nothing where inspiration for creative thought emerges. Try lying in bed for a few hours longer than usual in the morning, and think of an area where you are stuck in your writing. You’ll be surprised at how your mind begins to tie the threads together. And, if you are a writer who views sloth as one of the deadly sins, try thinking of it as strategic discipline instead.

Post by K. Lorraine Kiidumae, an adjunct in TWS 2012 and a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. She shares her time between Vancouver and her home in Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

The exact evocation of one image, however beautiful, delights the human mind less than a lightning-flash comparison that fuses and assimilates two images (Brigid Brophy). This unexpected, sleight-of-hand metamorphosis is what gives pleasure.

Creative writing is a combination of the intellect and the imagination. Our intellect helps make our writing succinct and sensible. Our imagination takes us to undiscovered territories. Sometimes, when we sink deep into our minds in search of a metaphor, something marvelous happens. Something that can bring a knowing smile of surprise and accord, an unexpected spark of delight to you and your audience.

Post by Caroline Wong, who, inspired by her tremendously talented, energetic and hardworking fellow poets, finds herself writing and experimenting with different forms more than she has ever done before.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Truth, in writing, is at the heart of it all. Whether you’re writing a memoir, poetry or a sci-fi harlequin, truth is truth—in the way we feel and touch, in the way we fight and love—in existence (on Mars or Earth-bound). The inherent responsibility of every writer should be to make the reader see what they’re seeing, to believe its authenticity and feel its guttural yawp. I write with that intent because I expect my poets and authors to do the same for me.

Truth, in essence, comes through our ability as human beings to bear witness to each other’s struggle—to engage and listen and understand. The most literal self-centrist has got nothing on the fantastical writer who lives life with empathy and patience.

So I truly believe that if you want to be a better writer, you’ve got to shut up and listen.

Post by Calder Cheverie (TWS 2012), who, when not busy living the dream, owns and operates a small factory that produces tiny machinery for other small factories. Visit his website here.

Photo courtesy of the author.

Night thoughts are different from day thoughts. The late-night mind is less constrained, less rational. Not everyone rises early and writes for hours before noon. Let your mind slip into an altered state, and riff. Let your hands type lists of images, metaphors, one-liners, drafts. Then, in the logical light of day, choose ideas you can build on. Trust day light for the clarity to revise and edit your draft. Trust the night imagination to generate–when your inner editor is too dozy to stop the flow of sensation, emotion, and thought.

Post by Tanja Bartel (TWS 2012), a poet who teaches English at an alternate school and trades college in Mission, BC.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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.