Reading For Writing

I like to read while I’m eating my lunch when I’m babysitting, but the idea is to read only while eating my lunch and then sneak some writing in afterwards. To help get me in the right frame of mind, lately I’ve been reading books on writing.

I just finished reading Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and it was perfect for lunchtime reading with its super short chapters. I think what I found most interesting about it was her talk about filling notebooks with her “practice writing.” I never thought of practicing writing before, I tend to just . . . write.

I’m still kind of struggling with what I should or shouldn’t be putting in my writing journal/notebook. I write down lines, snatches of poetry, ideas, interesting quotes – which is better than my last journal, but Natalie has inspired me to take it a little further. I actually included my last two prompt stories in there and I plan on continuing to do so.

This is kind of a big step for me. Normally I’d maybe jot down the idea for a story in there, and then use a different notebook (one of those 3-subject spiral bound ones) or the computer to actually write it out. After all, I don’t want my writing journal to look messy. But really, who’s going to see it except me? This is why after all these years I’m only on my fourth journal, and the other three have plenty of empty pages.

Of course that being said, I have little snatches of things written on scraps of paper that should go in my writing journal but didn’t. There’s a quote I didn’t want to forget, a story idea, and a couple of lines for a poem. And then I had to finish my last prompt story before I could add anything else because I didn’t want to have half the story, jump to a bunch of unrelated stuff, and then jump back again.

This makes me wonder if I’ve really made all that much progress in my journaling after all. Maybe I should leave a couple of gaps before starting something that has the potential to be several pages, just so I have space for these random lines and don’t have to rush to get a story done.

Natalie talks a lot about timed writings for practice, just keep the pen moving without thought about what you’re doing. This is something which quite honestly never occurred to me before – the writing just for practice, I mean. I’ve always thought that if I sit down to write it should be with purpose. But artists practice, sports figures practice, why not writers?

Reading her book has helped me loosen up a bit, especially when it comes to the prompt stories. Last time I offered prompts I was only doing one a week, and I’d spend pretty much the whole week working on it, getting no other writing done. This time I’m giving myself a time limit which is incredibly freeing. And I’m having a lot more fun with them.

I would love to have a look at Natalie’s journals. I have this vision of them all lined up neatly on a shelf, overflowing with ideas and deathless prose. She talks about re-reading them and pulling a line here and a line there to create a poem. She advises you to go through your own journals and underline the lines that are good, they might be the basis for something even better.

I don’t know if I’m there yet, but I’m getting close.


Prompts of the Week

Prompt one:
As a doctor for hire you’ve met a fair share of odd folks. Nothing quite like this though. A man in his mid-thirties stands before you, clutching a wound just given to him by another man sprinting down the street. Now the perpetrator trips and lands on his own knife. Screaming for help and not knowing what the heck happened—what do you do?

Prompt two:

The ocean is a vast and beautiful thing. Taking a quick peak off the side of your boat you realize something strange. The tentacles slowly creeping up the hull aren’t your imagination and the captain’s nowhere to be found. Where do we go from here?

Remember, don’t spend a lot of time on these, they’re just meant for fun. Take 5 minutes to think about it, then write for 10 or 15 minutes. And if it turns out you like what you’ve written, then by all means turn your exercise into an actual story.