“Bunny,” a Japanese teenager from Tokyo, wrote a keitai novel on her mobile, which was widely read by other mobile users, then it was picked up by a publisher and printed in paperback. “Wolf Boy x Natural Girl” has sold over 110,000 copies.
Maybe paper is the new digital? Check it out…
Thanks to Grant for this find!
I worked for several years on an all-consuming project at work. When it was time to come back to my life, I was burned out from being overwhelmed then surrounded with silence. Even though I was disoriented, these writing exercises helped me find my way back. Use these exercises to challenge your current conditions and find more in your present.
Exercise 1: Past Performance
What did you once fear? What did you have to learn to overcome it? When did you doubt your abilities, but pressed ahead anyway and succeeded? List a few of these victories to get you started, then write about one time when you challenged and defeated your own limiting status quo. What were the circumstances? What were the steps? What did you gain? What did you learn? Who did you meet along the way? How did your success feel?
Exercise 2: I would be happy (happier) if only…
What are constraints and conditions that you place on your happiness? For example, I would be happier if my co-worker wasn’t such a jerk.
Exercise 3: The Best Things in Life are Free!
What are the moments, experiences, things you received for free or gave away freely? Think of kind words, acknowledgement, recognition, laughing, gifts, favors, prizes…
Exercise 4: Don’t forget to say thank you…
Gratitude brings us into the present. Be present and say “thank you” by listing all that you are grateful for in this moment.
“A grateful heart is like a magnet drawing toward it a wealth of abundance.” – Cheryl Richardson
Again, I would love to hear how these exercises work for you. See you next month!
If you want something, you have to put yourself out there, even a whisper can be heard. With two answers, a postcard, and a stamp, you can join the World Domination Postcard Project and start heading in another direction.
Thanks to Kirsten for sending this great find!
Essays like Dani Shapiro’s in the Los Angeles Times appear on my radar once a year or so. They are packaged as well-intentioned advice from seasoned veterans (who happen to be releasing a new book) and while the writer sighs about the old days, the new days, the subtext is often daunting and discouraging to a new writer. I know I won’t feel better after reading these essays, but do so anyway and I don’t let these works keep me down and you shouldn’t either. Shapiro raises a lot of distractions that can play with your mind, and even derail you from writing and publishing for a few weeks. We don’t have the kind of time and energy to waste, so here’s how to read this type of essay and survive.
To give you lots of power over what you’re about to read, come to the piece understanding whether you are the “the instant score” writer, an MFA student or post-graduate writer, or somewhere in between. It doesn’t matter which one you are, just be ready to look at the writers she describes and say, “That’s not me,” or “OMG, that is totally me.” Yes, it takes a long time to learn how to write (well) and cultivate a network to get your work noticed and published. And ten years sounds about right. This is what I was told at my MFA program and coincides with the 10,000 hour rule from Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers.”
And I write anyway.
Second, identify what you want your writing to do for you. Do you want adoration, respect? If so, from whom? What is your criteria for success? If money is a desired outcome, be clear and honest about the relationship between your writing and money, the risks you’re willing to take, the compromises you’ll accept, and the time you’re willing to commit.
Shapiro calls upon the “miserable trifecta: uncertainty, rejection, and disappointment” to expand upon why the brilliant may have given up. Newbies, look at me, don’t look at Shapiro. This trifecta applies to everything in life, including writing. If anyone’s life today is untouched by this trifecta, then they live in a bubble and heaven forbid, if they’re writers, they aren’t writing anything interesting. Don’t get sucked into this pity party, it will not make you write better. If you quit writing because of this trifecta, you’ll have to live with them in another context. There is no escaping uncertainty, rejection, and disappointment in a grown-up world.
Another problem with the piece is Shapiro’s loosely constructed non-example assumes a lot about doctors and lawyers after they graduate from school. She might be surprised that writers don’t corner the market on suffering or debt. She needs to do some research about how life after law school, med school, and business school panned out for these professions.
And speaking of professions. Writing is a profession and as such, this means producing under any circumstances. I was surprised by Shapiro’s question, “How, under these conditions can a writer take the risks required to create something original and resonant and true?” I would never approach the vice-president at my day job with a question like this. He would tell me to get back to work. Professionals just get things done.
And, yes, Shapiro is absolutely right, it’s hard to get published.
And your audience doesn’t care.
As Jack Grapes tells his workshop, “No one walks into the bookstore and asks to buy the book that was hardest to write and get published.” Keep your hands on the keyboard, your fingers wrapped around the pen and keep writing things that will move your readers. Honor your commitment to yourself and your writing under the terms you defined at the beginning of this post. Write on your terms not to someone else’s. And even though writing is the hardest thing I do, I know why I stay and why I won’t give it up. And you shouldn’t give up either.
OUR MULTIPLE SELVES
This prompt is based on an exercise from a teacher of mine, Rebecca McClanahan. She writes about it in detail in her great book, Write Your Heart Out. Eloise Klein Healy also uses a form of this exercise in her poetry workshops.
If you can, please do this exercise by hand.
Take a few minutes to list your selves, your roles. You could do this as a list or as a brainstorming drawing with bubbles and sticks. Write down whatever you can think of and get specific. For example, what could start out as “mom” could subdivide into PTA volunteer, soccer coach, math tutor.
A few brainstorming possibilities could include…
Come up with at least 5 selves.
Then, review the list and either
a) Write about what it feels like to look at this list.
b) Compare and contrast your different selves. Maybe have one self write to the other. “Dear Worker Bee, you are totally cramping my style. And you’re a time hog too. Signed, The Artist.”
or
c) Explore your multiple selves with the 10 questions below. Every self doesn’t have to answer all of these questions during this session. You can go deep with one self or skim across all of yourselves with one or two questions. Just keep writing. These questions are just appetizers, warm ups. Chances are as you do this part of the exercise, you’ll break off onto a tangent. Go with it!
10 Questions for Our Multiple Selves
1) What does she want?
2) What’s her secret? (Be it desire, wish, ability, shame…)
3) What’s her secret? Secret desire? Secret wish? Secret ability? Secret shame?
4) What does she care about?
5) What does she worry about?
6) What does she want you to know right now?
7) What is she good at?
8) Who does she love?
9) What do you want her to know? Maybe give her a compliment or some constructive feedback.
10) What’s her favorite piece of advice for others?
I’ll post next month’s prompt on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 12 p.m. (Pacific).
Feel free to send me some feedback through the comment feature below. I’d love to hear about your experience with this exercise.
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