ENCOURAGING WRITERS TO WRITE?

Who is encouraging writers to write?

If you answer with teachers, instructors, or professors, keep looking.

Famous writers give encouragement? It sounds nice.

Do you know a famous writer you want to emulate?

Me neither. Now what? Paint?

Personally, I don’t need any direct encouragement.

But then I’ve gone through a bunch of teachers, instructors, and professors.

If they had to read through work like mine, I feel sorry for them.

They give assignments, we turn them in and hope for a good grade.

If a B in WR323 is the goal, and you got one, your writing life is over?

What about an A?

Writing Life For A Lifetime

Baby boomers and better are reaching the age of looking back to see where they’ve been, where it’s led, and how they got to where they are.

Buck Owens sang a song that fits:

I was looking back to see if you were looking back to see
If I was looking back to see if you were looking back at me
You were cute as you could be standing looking back at me
And it was plain to see that I’d enjoy your company

My wife and I know a couple who are more fun doing simple things than almost anyone else we know.

He grew up in Blackpool England, she grew up in Brooklyn NY.

Over dinner we talked about legacy, at least that’s how it sounded to me.

We talked about the books with fill-in-the-answer questions given as presents to grandparents.

They’re called Memory Books.

Odds are, you feel as much fondness for your children’s grandparents (or your own grandparents!) as Ree Drummond does. Of her own mother, the grandmother of her children, she gushes, “People come away from having talked to her feeling a little more hopeful about life.”

Encouraging Writers To Be More Hopeful About Life

As the evening progressed the conversation turned to encouraging writers.

Me: Who is your audience?

Writer Man: The only reason I’d write about myself is for my children.

Me: That’s a good start. What happens if they share your story with their friends?

WM: Why would they?

Me: If you write a good story it’s inevitable. So what do you want to be remembered for?

WM: I hadn’t thought of that.

Me: How do you want to be seen five hundred years from now.

WM: I’m not concerned about five hundred years. I’m more concerned with how it would be received today.

Me: Once you get started it makes more sense.

WM: You’ve done this? Encouraging writers?

Me: Written a memory book? No. Written a blog with over three thousand posts covering most possibilities? Yes, with four hundred and eighty posts tagged ‘writer.’

WM: That seems like a lot.

Me: It feels like a lot, like a good start.

WM: Where do you start?

2

Me: For you, start a long work with an inciting incident.

WM: A what?

Me: Look at your life’s big events and pick one that has had more influence than any other. A revelation.

WM: There are so many.

Me: That’s why it’s called creative writing. Pick one event and try it on for a fit.

Writer Lady: What if it’s an event that is too painful to put down on paper.

Me: That’s the writer’s work. You know what you want to say. Now find a way to say it as well as you can.

WL: Is that what you’ve done on your blog?

Me: After thousands of posts I’m convinced few could care less.

WL: Then why continue?

Me: Because it matters to me. It makes me hopeful about life.

WL: Is that enough?

Me: They don’t know I know, but my analytics show people in small towns reading my blog for over an hour at a time. Twenty posts a visit. They matter to me.

WM: Why is that?

Me: I haven’t been in the towns that show up, but I’ve been alone before and leaned on books, on reading. If these people are leaning on me, I’m standing firm.

WM: I hadn’t thought of it like that.

3

Me: Try this: Set aside an hour and a half at the same time each day. Call it writing time. Make an effort to produce two pages each day. Maybe 250 words a page? So you’ll have 500 words on two page a day. At the end of a week you’ll have fourteen pages, a small stack.

WM: It doesn’t seem like much.

Me: It’s more than you’ve got now, and more important, you’ve got a habit, a writing habit. A hundred pages might measure an inch. That’s what you’re looking for, that elusive inch.

WM: I can do that.

Me: Yes you can. And you can rewrite it as much as you need to keep it with the inciting incident. So what’s it going to be, what’s the incident?

WM: I’m thinking.

Me: Then you’re on the right track. Next comes the writing part after the encouraging writers part.

WM: I could use this conversation as a starter.

Me: That’s what I’d do.