the other mother - free writing workshop for moms

Sister, Sister

As I write guest blog posts and visit with groups discussing my new novel, The Orphan Sister, I find I'm thinking more and more about the sister-content in the book. Clementine is the odd sister out; she is a triplet, but her sisters are twins and she's fraternal. They match, she doesn't.

As a theme for the novel, a lot of her emergency in life is finding her other, her match, and realizing at the same time she's whole herself. But those of us with sisters know it's never that simple.If you don't have the book yet, please pick up a copy. It's paperback and easy to tote (and easy to buy!). If you want a signed bookplate, send me an email at [email protected].

Meanwhile, I have a writing topic for you sister acts out there, for anyone who has a sister, or if you don't, imagine what it might be like if you did.

Write: Ten differences between you and your sister.

Ten samenesses.

How has your sister embarrassed you (and how have you embarrassed her)?

What has she done that makes your proud?

From my newly-minted editor and her farrier sister to a new friend who says she no longer even knows where her sister lives, there's closeness and distance.

Write a thank you note to your sister. Thank her for something old and something new; thank her for what you share and how you compete. Post your work here!Happy summer, all! Happy sisterhood!

Summer Reading (why we write)

 

 

On deeply green and often boring summer vacations (boring isn't a four-letter word, really) in Greensboro, Vermont, the highlight of trips to town was the tiny, well-stocked public library. It was packed with possibilities. Someone should have opened a beautiful indie bookstore in Greensboro, at least for the summer, because moms and dads sat in the car during early morning goosebump swim lessons and no one had cell phones or kindles. But I remember the smell of the place, the vanilla and dust of books, checked out and brought to the lake, checked out and left on plaid couches, checked out and read through night and into morning.

This morning I met a Manhattan police woman, coming home after a night shift. She watched me pick up my book to read and said, "that's what I want to do when I retire: read." It'll be one long summer vacation, finding friends in fiction, finding something to ponder with friends in real life. I thanked her for working all night--so we felt safe reading in bed.

So here's your topic: Write a memory of summer reading. Is reading why you love to write? What did you find and read in summer libraries, in rental homes, in your grandmother's basement?

And also: what's on your summer reading list? Here's mine so far--because I want to read, read, read as if I were waiting until after rain to check the crayfish traps and swim out to the big rock.

Jane Smiley's Private Lives,

Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller,

Keeper--a Kathi Appelt YA,

You and Juki, my new serger manual,

B is for Bad Poetry but Pamela August Russell.

That's just the stack by the desk. There are a thousand more in the bedroom, in the library, in my shopping cart.

Also, I hope you'll read THE ORPHAN SISTER, which is coming out July 5th. You can buy it at your local bookstore, or at Amazon, or Powell's online or download it to your kindle or nook. Please do honor me with your read--and let me know what you think. (I believe, this week, if you navigate your way to Goodreads, you can get an advance FREE copy! Also check out Manic Mommy's post--she's giving them away, too, and many other fabulous books!)

Oh, and if you're in northern NJ on July 13, come to Bookends in Ridgewood for a free writing workshop and signing at 7pm. Or Barnes and Noble on Route 17S in Paramus at 730 for a signing and reading--I'm bringing chocolate.

You've Got to Have Fight

 

Which is not to say that writing is about fighting--although if you ask some of my students there's a battle with the fingers and the page and the brain--but today's topic is one I used recently in workshop, and I was so thrilled to have everyone's characters gain sudden depth and speak to us right there in a snow-crusted Starbucks while cellphones buzzed with urgencies and the police politely reminded people that icebanks atop their cars could turn into deadly weapons (I kid you not, and I thank them; a school secretary's husband was killed by a truck iceberg last year).

Anyway, since digression is one of my favorite things, I will break up this topic for you so you can follow along. Don't cheat.

1) pick two characters. If you're not working on something right this minute, pick a real person and make up a character. Write (or type) their names on the top of the page.

2) Pick a conflict. Commit. I know you might think, oh, I have plenty in mind, but just pick one, and write it down.  Maybe it's a husband who wants to move to Yugoslavia and a wife who wants to stay in the Bronx. Maybe it's two sisters fighting over a shirt, some amazing boots, the only food in the house, a boy, or whose turn it is to call for an intervention.

3) Got both those things written down? Really, write them down first. I'll give you the next step next, after you write them down...

4) Write a dialogue between these characters, about this conflict. Choose first person (I said, for one character) or close third (she said; he said). Write this dialogue for 14 minutes or four pages, whichever comes first. Don't forget to just write.

5) go back to your dialogue (don't read this until you've written!) and add at least two beats (the spaces between dialogue in which the characters adjust their bra straps, or tip their chairs back, or think the opposite of what they're saying). Now add one more, making sure it gives some important sensory information, ie, She smelled like smoke, I thought, bitter and ruined.

 

Then post it all here in the comments, so we can be proud of you. Conflict and dialogue both, by nature, move a plot along. And with dialogue we hear your characters speaking, and they can think things they do not speak, and do things with their bodies (stepping backward, poking each other with pencils) that tell us even more. Can't wait to read you here!

 

Guess what? My new novel, THE ORPHAN SISTER, is coming in July 2011.

How to post your writing introduction to the writing workshop, part 4

For Mothers Who Write —
Welcome to The Other Mother
Writing Workshop for Moms

Introduction to The Other Mother
Writing Workshop for Moms
Part 4 of 4
Posting your writing

Here is the comment entry form, which is at the bottom of each writing topic blog post. Take a look at the picture below to see how to post your writing as a blog comment.

All you need to do to submit a comment to a Typepad blog post is:

(1) Enter your name (or nickname or initials).

(2) Enter your email address (it will stay private).

(3) Enter your work into the comments box.

(4) Click on the post button.

If you make a mistake and want me to delete your post, just send me an email at [email protected].

If that doesn't work, just email it to me at [email protected], and I'll happily post for you!

Happy Writing!

Get the latest writing topic »

By the way, if you want to start your own Typepad blog, click here.

Come write! Creating an inventory. introduction to the writing workshop, part 3

For Mothers Who Write —
Welcome to The Other Mother
Writing Workshop for Moms

Introduction to The Other Mother
Writing Workshop for Moms
Part 3 of 4
Creating Inventories

One of the things we do periodically in Just Write (and I’m sure I’ve done it in workshops as a student as well) is to take inventories.

This can be a character inventory (all made up) or it can be your own, or something in-between. Your history is the best place to look for topics, even if the ultimate emergencies and conflicts in your story don’t come directly from your life.

Start by answering these questions, quickly, following the writing practice guidelines:

1. Did you always want to be a mother?
2. What do you like about babies?
3. What don’t you like about babies?
4. List three times you’ve been hurt (physically).
5. List three times you’ve be hurt (emotionally).
6. List five trips you’ve taken.
7. List two trips you haven’t.
8. Describe the smell of your child’s room.
9. What do you wish you’d done before having children?
10. Name your first best friend.
11. Your most recent best friend.
12. Your top three writing wishes.

Now that you have an inventory, you have at least twelve writing topics. Save your inventory, go back, there’s important stuff there.

Here's the writing practice topic.

Take a look again at the writing topic guidelines.

Pick one item from your inventory and start writing. Give yourself 11 minutes (or more, if you have more) and dig deep.

Remember this: be brave about posting in the comments—we want to read your story.

That said, we’ll assume everything is fiction (so it’s safe to post), unless you really, really, really want us to know otherwise for some reason…

Post, post, post (posthaste)! I can’t wait to read!

Read more ...
How to post your writing
introduction to the writing workshop, part 4 »

Tell us your story! Welcome. introduction to the writing workshop, part 1

For Mothers Who Write —
Welcome to The Other Mother
Writing Workshop for Moms

Introduction to The Other Mother
Writing Workshop for Moms
Part 1 of 4
About the Writing Workshop

Before you had kids, you thought you were busy. How ridiculous! Now you might have a million ideas—but not enough time to sit down and write. I teach a class called Just Write. It’s one hour long and we read the rules for writing practice (which you can find here) and then write for five minutes about missing a train or sixteen minutes about your three wishes and then we read the fresh dough of new words aloud to find doors — the places to write into.

It’s amazing what can be accomplished in one hour — brilliant beginnings, whole poems, or just pulling at the threads of truths to find out what matters, where the real story’s hidden. I’m a firm believer in writing practice (though once I’m working on a novel I do use outlines and time lines and plans—all of which change as I’m writing), in just writing, as often as possible. It’s an exercise like any other; the more you do it, the better you get.

I started writing The Other Mother, my third novel, shortly after my son was born and people started asking, “Are you working?” Well, of course I was working, all the time, changing diapers, feeding, walking, soothing. And writing, too—I never stopped, but I realized how quickly people wanted to put me in one camp or the other, and I kind of belonged to both. And neither. It’s isolating however you slice it.

Later I had a babysitter and a few hours a week to write. Later still it was more hours, and now there’s school. But still: I’m neither and both. I went in to my publisher for a marketing meeting the other day, and as soon as I parked the car the cell phone rang: my son’s school (never mind that I had a babysitter lined up for the afternoon). Thankfully, it wasn’t the nurse, but I thought: maybe once every other month I’m more than a few miles from home during the school day, and a few times a week I’m teaching, and that’s when the phone rings and I have to answer it. Pick someone up. A snow day.

You’re never fully free once you’re a mom, and most of the time, that’s okay, and sometimes, it feels absurd. One escape is writing: you get to invent your whole world, you get to make everything up, you get full freedom to make mistakes (your characters can do it for you), to be whomever you want.

I can hear your giant collective moan—you don’t have a Just Write class, and you don’t have a whole spare hour. You have work or you have the home-school association or your baby takes up every second except for laundry, cooking, and that rare indulgence: sleep. But you don’t need a whole hour.

Do this: collect writing topics (there are myriad wonderful books out there: Judy Reeves’ A Writer’s Book of Days, Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones (a classic), or if you’re a poet, the Teachers and Writer’s Handbook of Poetic Forms (pick a page and try it, it’s make for teaching, so it’s easy to follow) to name just a few) and put them in your notebook.

Or better yet, come to the moms writing workshop here pick up a new topic every week. Then bring your notebook everywhere and use the scraps of time you do have. Waiting in the car queue at school pickup (don’t forget to put your car in park), standing in line at the grocery store, during a nap, when you might otherwise fall asleep yourself or pop in a load of laundry—give yourself 5 minutes, 11 minutes on the topic.

Then leave it be to rise like dough. You’re practicing, learning. The making things part comes later, when you have time to take a short-story workshop (online or in person), when you have time to go to graduate school. Now you can get those muscles going. I do it all the time. Waiting at the dentist. Waiting for the bus. Squeeze it in.

You can post your writings on this site. Think of it as a group blog, or a mini-publication if you want, think of it as a chance to post your experiences and hear someone else’s, whether the stories you tell are fictional or autobiographical. We won’t ask; this is a chance to speak your piece. Think of it as a little free version of Just Write. Maybe you’ll read The Other Mother and have your own story to tell.

Many of my writing students have gone on to do this--start a mom’s writing group in your town, or at lunch break at work. Maybe you’ll go it alone (before kids I made writing dates with friends; we met in cafes with topics). Or maybe online is all the company you need.

Whether you’re a working mom or a stay-at-home mom you have truths to share, you have your own (invented or real) narrative. And since the mommy wars are a modern reality—even if it’s just your own private conflict—there are a million other moms out there who would like to hear your side of the story. It helps us make our own choices to know we’re not alone, even if it feels like we are.

Pick up your notebook on your commute (put down your Blackberry), write for fifteen minutes, get yourself in writing shape, and sooner or later you’ll have time to tell your whole story. We’ll be waiting to read it.

Read more ...
The Rules for Writing Practice
introduction to the writing workshop, part 2 »