One for me, Two for You: Writing Community and Paying it Forward (and Sideways, and ...)

What does it mean to be part of a literary or writing "community"? At every level: it means the world. To have writer friends and acquaintances who have your best interest at heart? Alliances built on the idea of mutually assisting one another as we blunder, write, and make and break our way through this life. My own literary community delivers gifts to me every day. Two very recent examples:

1. The play's the thing: Deborah Lerner Duane and I have been friends for 22 years. She's had a successful corporate, then solo PR career (during which we often collaborated when I too was running a small PR agency), then went on to complete a master's program in a totally unrelated field. Now, she will soon also be a produced playwright,( not once but twice!). Deborah and I have met for breakfast once a month, every month, for many years, a kind of two-person board of directors; we're there to encourage (often push!) one another, cook up strategies, check in on goals, set deadlines, vet plans; keeping each other honest when we say we're going to do something. Over the years, she's helped me get over many self-imposed hurdles, urged me to seek bigger opportunities, agree to do something challenging, and achieve goals. 

Last fall I challenged her to begin entering play festival script contests. We set deadlines. She wrote, entered, won. I am so proud of her, and reminded again of the power of two friends seriously committed to each another's goals. 

Did I mention that I only knew of the existence of 10-minute play competitions because a student of mine in a workshop at The Writers Circle last year was a fledgling playwright who had entered and won a particular competition, and that's how I could recommend it to Deborah – with a link at the ready – that first time we talked about her moving from writing to submitting?

2. From her to me to you, etc.: Last month, Alyssa Martino, a writer completing an MFA at University of New Hampshire, mentioned she was moving to Brooklyn, and maybe we could have a cup of coffee in Manhattan? I asked if she'd be at the ASJA conference (American Society of Journalists and Authors), and sent her the link to the ASJA Education Foundation's annual conference scholarship. You know the rest. She won, and we'll be having that coffee at ASJA next month where I'm on a panel because Candy Schulman, who I met on Facebook through our mutual writing friend Liane Kupferberg Carter, invited me. 

Did I mention I won the first ASJA conference scholarship in 2011, and only because my writing friend Erika Dreifus clued me in?  That I attended my first ASJA-sponsored event 30-odd years ago, because Bill Glavin, my college magazine professor, took the time to recommend it? And at that panel, a freelance writer named Arky Gonzalez, gave me his card and when I moved to Southern California two years later, met me for lunch and shared editorial contacts? Did I mention Alyssa was once a private student of mine? That I was so pleased to write her a letter of recommendation for UNH, where she would study with Meredith Hall, who once lectured at my Stonecoast MFA program? And who took the time to let me interview her the next year?

I have dozens of other such stories. This may sound like I'm tooting my own horn – look at me, I'm such a good literary citizen; but in each case, I was only able to do what I did because another writer had done what he or she did.

Many other people have similarly helped me in small and large ways. When I tweeted about Alyssa, she noted "writers pay it forward."

My goal is to always be paying, and not as often looking to see who pays me. Because sometimes, though only occasionally, that reciprocal payment is withheld. And it stings.

Sometimes, though happily only very occasionally, people I've assumed are part of what I'd thought of as a mutually supportive literary community have let me down. Behaved badly. Just a couple of weeks ago, in fact. When it happened, I briefly considered (hell, I wrote), a rant of a post about it. 

Then, semi-smart 50-plus-year-old human and writer I am, I put that messy, needy draft aside for a while. Yes, it hurt like hell. Then, the moment passed (okay, it took two weeks), and I deleted the draft of that whiny rant. Decided the better approach was to write this post – the one about how much I love helping other writers, and how much I appreciate when another writer helps me.

Onward.

Images: Stage: Flickr/Creative Commons-Justin S. Campbell; Hand: Flickr/Creative Commons-GrowWear; ASJA Conference: ASJA.

Writers: When offered help, do you say YES?

A few years ago at a writing conference, I took a master class with a writer who'd published novels, memoirs and essay collections. About 12 writers met with this author for several hours over two days for a combination of lecture, discussion and workshop. The second day's class focused on the first two pages of a manuscript, with each of us reading ours aloud for feedback. At the end of the session, the author offered to take another look at any two-page rewrites that resulted; all we need do is email them to him with a reminder note.

I thought he was maybe just being polite, or that he'd send back a standard perfunctory reply along the lines of "Good work and good luck." I figured he must be too busy anyway. Then weeks went by. A few months. And when I did finally think about following through, I decided he probably wouldn't even remember making the offer.

Then one day when I was feeling particularly miserable, his card found its way to the top of my messy desk. A week later, I'd rewritten those two pages based partly on his critique and hit send, reasoning the worst that could happen was he'd ignore my email.

Three days later, I got a response – several paragraphs on precisely what he thought I'd done well in the rewrite, and a few more specific suggestions for further development. And at the end, a P.S. "You are the only writer in that class who took me up on my offer. Actually, I've made that offer about four times in the last two years, and have only heard from two writers, you included."

I was floored. What idiot writer would pass on the opportunity to get further feedback from a writer of this man's stature, at no additional cost? Well, me, almost.

I thought about this again recently after I got back from another conference and realized that the writing world is probably littered with similarly squandered opportunities.

What writer hasn't at least once received an unexpected and generous offer (from a writer, agent, editor, publisher), to look over something at no cost or obligation – a proposal, manuscript pages, idea, query letter, synopsis, contract – or to otherwise provide additional assistance, advice, contact? And how many times have we either let it slip through the cracks of memory or busy-ness, or filed it too deeply in the back of our minds, or figured he/she was just being polite or wouldn't have the time or interest to respond anyway, or would have forgotten they'd even made the offer?

As for me, the next time someone extends me such an offer, I plan to surprise that person and follow up.

The Intersection of Writing and Reading: Part Two.

The subject today is again about the intersection of writing and reading.

But this time, not so much a rant about reading, as an attempt to unpack another question I get asked a lot by less experienced writers in classes and workshops: Should I avoid reading too much of the kind of material I want to write?

This one is less black and white as why writers need to read, though at first blush it appears to warrant a quick answer, as in, no of course not, don't be so silly.

But if I'm understanding the question properly – and since I've asked people who pose it to explain exactly what they mean, I think I do – the inquiry boils down to: If I read too much of the kind of writing I aspire to, won't I, even unintentionally, begin to mimic others' style? Won't I get another writing voice in my head when I should be listening only to my own?

First things first.

I believe we must read deeply and broadly from what I call our writing sweet spot: If you aspire to be a humorist, you read good humor writers. If you hope to write about trauma or a painful past, you read nonfiction which tackle trauma and painful pasts. If you want to write historical fiction, you read a lot of historical fiction. Poets read poetry. You get the idea.

The reasons are obvious – to see how others do it, and how well and how remarkable it is possible to be on the page. You'll discover places you can go with your work that you never considered before. You will also sometimes encounter stuff you don't want to do.

If you wanted to build an entire new kitchen in your home and you had very little building experience or maybe your building experience was only comprised of building commercial offices, and your cousin the master builder was putting in a new kitchen at a house just down the road and invited you to come along and watch, well - wouldn't you?

The next part, the notion of being unduly influenced by other writers is interesting but really not all that different. In short, I wouldn't really worry about it.

In the above example, your eventual kitchen might utilize some of the same techniques as your cousin's, and who knows, maybe even some of the same materials and similar colors and appliances as your cousin's, but it wouldn't BE that same kitchen. It wouldn't even look much like his kitchen because your house has different dimensions, and structural constraints, and you have a different budget and differing taste. Maybe he was building a showpiece kitchen for folks who mostly eat out, but yours is a kitchen for people who love to cook at home.

Your writing style will be your own, your writing will be your own too. You can't help that. You are stuck with yourself. Usually, for most artists, that's a very good thing. And you know what, if you end up writing like the next (fill in the name of any literary god) well is that a bad thing?

If you were (even subconsciously) to be so heavily influenced by another writer that you began to write in his/her style, that's also not bad news. A little imitation is often a good writing teacher; in fact many writing teachers assign imitative writing as a craft exercise.

Going forward, you won't be able to maintain that imitative style anyway. Your own writing proclivities, quirks and style will always win out. Even if you tried with every ounce of your being to write exactly like a fabulous (or even a bad!) writer, you can't. At least not for more than a few pages. And probably not even that long. Plus, you have different reasons for writing, and different experiences, different ideas about language, a different vocabulary, different urges and intention. That writer has one thing to say, and you have another.

Another reason TO read widely from the sliver of bookshelf you hope to one day occupy is to discover where your material fits in. Do you, as you hope, really have anything new to add to the literary conversation?

Now, having said all of that I also have to admit that there's something to be said for NOT reading from your writing sweet spot at certain times.

What times? Some writer say when they are deeply entrenched in a project, at one stage or another according to their own lights, that's when they want to screen out voices that are maybe a little too close to their writing voice.

I know a few memoir writers who read memoirs voraciously in between projects and up until the early stages of a new manuscript. But then they switch to reading third person fiction so that the only first person voice they are hearing in their heads as they are writing, is their own. I know one young adult novelist who will only read journalism while she's working on the first draft of a book, but then once she's sure of the arc of the story, she's okay with reading everything again.

When I'm reading a book for review, I tend to not read any other book in the same genre at the
same time. When I'm in the revision stages, or rewriting, a memoir piece, I too avoid reading memoir. But when I write personal essay, I practically inhale other personal essays. Everyone's different.

Then there's this.

Most writers I know (me too) will tell you that when stuck, the first place we go is to the bookshelf. Why? Well sometimes we just want to read for a bit, to get out of our own work and inside someone else's, to distract ourselves, but not leave the world of words entirely. But more likely, we want to see how X author (or ten other writers) did it. We're not looking to crib easy "answers" but to get inspired by writers we respect, to reassure ourselves that it's possible to get out of whatever writing corner we've gotten ourselves into.

I like this quote from a legendary stage performer, who was asked how he'd advise aspiring artists: "Watch the masters at work."

As writers, we "watch" the masters at work by reading what they've written.

The Enduring Influence of One Truly Great Writing Teacher

I hope every writer has at least one teacher or mentor about whom he or she can say this many good things as did one writer, about her one-time teacher, all-time mentor, Liz Christman.

That is all.