Well... I've been so heartened by all of you. I've been sending these letters for the past few months, and I mean it when I say that this has been the best part of my week, every week. Last week I asked you all if there was more I could do. Some way to turn this into a real school or writing consultation service. Most of you told me no... or at least not right now.
And that's okay.
You're a writer, and I want you to be able to focus on that first and foremost, not worry about other paid services, stressful deadlines, or content to read. Just write. It all starts there. I'm going to do the same. I'll go dark for a while now while I consider what's next for me. Maybe more free content is coming, when I can get it in. But the truth is, like most of you, I also have a day job, so every free minute counts, and I want to use it to focus on two books I have in progress (I know, I know... I need to pick one and just get it done, but my brain doesn't always work that way).
Many of you emailed me regularly, and these moments have been so lovely. I want you to know how much I appreciate these relationships. I'd love to stay in touch. To those of you interested in continuing our conversations — to have a fellow writer to bounce around ideas, overcome imposter syndrome, or share pages — please email me one last time and I'll share my personal email address. I always welcome another writing friend and accountability partner, and I know I myself can always use a bit of encouragement to keep going.
Most importantly, this is a thank you. For signing up in the first place. For your thoughtful comments. But perhaps most importantly, for your time. That's more valuable than anything else, and I don't take it lightly. You opened these letters each Sunday when you could have been doing something, anything, else. I appreciate it, and I hope it helped you with your craft on occasion.
Enough of the sappy stuff, though. I want to leave you with three quick craft thoughts.
One. Don't forget the Six Opening Moves
When you're stuck, if you need a quick writing exercise to work your way into a scene, start with a Place, bring in a Person, show us their Perspective, energize the scene with Action, give us some Dialogue, and then keep Weaving those together to pace out the scene. To recap:
Place — open grounded in the setting. Put us somewhere before anything else.
Person — give us a character in motion (this can be interchanged with Place, as we've discussed)
Perspective — show us a filtered, partial point of view.
Action — keep it moving.
Dialogue — add speech to reveal character.
Weave — braiding threads together, paying off what you set up.
I'm going to write this now for fun, totally off the cuff, using the Six Moves.
A slice of sun parted the woods in the backyard. Everything slick from last night's cold rain. Jenny eyed the twigs and leaves strewn about the dead grass. She wanted to rake, but what would be the point now? It was too wet. Too much work. Everything felt like too much work. She twirled the rake in her hand, letting it hypnotize her a bit. The green teeth spinning with the muted autumn colors of the leaves, it looked like the twirl painting she did as a restless kid in the seventies. 'Get it together,' she chastised herself. She sniffed the damp wood smell mixed with her own coffee breath and made her way back to the cold garage, using the rake like an oar to sail across the daunting expanse of lawn.
Peel out the 6 moves from that passage. Rewrite it, even. Play with it. In addition to the six moves, there are two things I included to help bring some life to the scene: sensory imagery and similes. These two things can do wonders. What does the scene smell like? Feel like? Look like? And just as important, what does the scene remind your character of? Using simile to describe elements of the scene can give us a deeper insight into your character. Who they are. What they remember. How they view the world.
Two. Every chapter is the book
This is something I've been working to remind myself. I recently watched an interview with Wes Anderson, a wonderful, enigmatic filmmaker, and he mentioned a piece of advice he'd picked up along the way, something like: focus on the shot you're on.
It seems too simple. Yes, of course we should focus on the shot — or bit of writing — we're doing now. But I think the point is this... you can't eat the whole elephant at once. You have to take it a bite at a time. If you try to see the whole story at once, you're going to either rush your writing just to get to the end (I am VERY guilty of this), resulting in half-baked plotting and characters that make revisions a slog, or worse, you're going to get overwhelmed and stop writing altogether.
So when you're on a chapter, or a scene, remember that this moment IS the book. Don't rush it. Don't overthink it. Just write it. In fact, linger in it. Remember how important this moment is to you, and get the most out of it. Lately, I've been pretending like the rest of my book doesn't exist, treating each chapter like a short story that I want to get right, and wow... I feel like the depth and creativity of my writing in each chapter has improved drastically.
In short, don't worry about the finish line. Enjoy the process. The finish line will reveal itself.
Three. Just write
Yep, the heading just about sums this one up. Just write. It doesn't matter what. Snippets. Grocery lists. Emails. Text messages. Reminders. Just keep writing, and use it all as opportunity to practice, and to stay creative. Obviously, try to chip away at your actual story, but when you can't sneak in enough time to find a state of flow on your novel, then just write something. Anything.
I've been playing with poetry recently. I'm loving it! I'm not a poet by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't find time to dig into my big story every day, so this helps me at least produce a little something each day to stay sharp. Sometimes it's just a quick description of a setting. Sometimes it's a deeper thought or idea. I wrote this one the other day about a dog I loved who passed a few years back...
I wept for you last night
Instead of sleeping,
I remembered how I found you,
A milk chocolate mass,
Huddled in the corner
Of the only world you ever knew,
Your precocious brother and sister
Danced for attention,
But not you,
Your eyes were all heart,
They said, “I will never ask for much,”
A promise on which you delivered,
Too faithfully,
I like to think that I raised you,
At least that’s what I tell people,
But the truth is the opposite,
I paraded you with pride,
Like I had any part in your benevolence,
Me, a boy in a man’s body,
Trying to show the world how
Important I was,
While you were just happy to be,
In the service of others
You found joy,
To have someone next to you
For however briefly we experience
Whatever this is,
You found joy,
And that taught me something,
That we can be carefree,
Or that we can care for others
More than ourselves…
I loved you,
I loved you,
I love you,
If only I’d been trained to show it—
Simple acts of kindness
And quiet sacrifices—
Before we walked together,
How unfair for you
To be practice for someone like me,
How unfair that practice is a requisite,
For something like humanity.
As far as "see you later" letters go, this one grew into something bigger than I expected. If you're still reading, you're a trooper.
This has been a blast. Thank you for hanging in there with me. And you're a writer, so keep doing it.
Yours in writing,
Patrick