Category Archives: essays

Reigniting the Writing Challenge: Avoiding the Obstacles of Fear

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Yes, last month was NaNoWriMo, but this month it’s the Southeast Review Writer’s Regimen. Last month focused on the novelist, which I am not. The latter of which is applicable to many genres.
This 30-day experience costs $15. With it comes the chance to be published, a free copy of the Southeast Review‘s stellar literary journal, daily prompts, networking with other writers though various media, and, of course, production.

On a more personal note I’m participating out of fear. Staying in the US for six weeks will certainly prove a shift in my lifestyle. It’ll throw me into first gear. I could lollygag all day with my dad. I could drink wine until the wee hours. I could sleep until the late afternoon. I could cook and eat until I can’t fit into my jeans anymore. Perish the thought of what that would do to the progress gleaned from National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo to us writers). Instead my daily schedule will include efforts toward keeping up writing productivity, honing my craft, reading and networking with other writers, and selling the final results.

Here’s How It Works
STEP ONE Each day the SER sends participants a writing prompt.
Today’s was scars. Without hesitation I seized the opportunity to materialize an essay extant only in journal form thus far. This particular essay can help me heal from a certain travel experience. My desire to do this reminds me of two Joan Didion quotes:
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.”

STEP TWO Every day features a reading/writing exercise.
Today’s is a brief excerpt of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. For this fan of works from Oscar Wild through Truman Capote (and a few contemporary authors), this step will prove challenging. As December progresses, expect some literary squirming on these posts. To practice literary tropes I’m not practiced in and those I’ve never considered, however, will expand and enhance my skills.


STEP THREE A riff word should spur us on.
I rarely need inspiration when writing. I don’t need a word, image, or topic. What I need is structure and a little discipline. Hence, my second consecutive month of regimentation. However, I will agree to use today’s word, cumbersome, whenever and however it comes up. Scratch that. I will endeavor to use it, especially as it’s a sesquipedalian favorite of mine.

STEP FOUR Someone does the work for me.
That is, SER features a daily podcast. Today’s is by Tom Healy. He teaches about the musical obsessions of writers, a frightening notion to me as I, of late, have been thinking about my long-ago obsession with Andrew Bird.

STEP FIVE Participate in forums.
For this I’ll usually post on Facebook (for publicity), on select groups of SheWrites (for a shoulder to cry on or a cheerleader to root me on), and on blogs of other writers I know and admire.

Not all steps will proceed in a chronological manner each day. Not all steps will be followed every day. An effort will be made daily. An essay (and gracious knows what other literature) will result. Let my writing remain in third gear. Steer clear of sloth and lethargy, genetically modified foods and dairy. Ride along better life and writing regimens. And in case it’s still not second nature after by 1 January National Travel Writing Month is right around the corner.

NaNoWriMo and the Battle over Writers Block

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New to the reality of writers block, I am learning my own coping techniques, my own techniques for combating it. While the past few days have been prolific, a veritable literary volcano, today another road block stopped me short. Instead of letting this prove itself a successful impediment, I fought back. November is, after all, National Blog Posting month and National Novel Writing Month. Writers around the world meets various goals such as writing x-number of words per day or submitting a piece every day or posting every day. The goals vary, depending on which genre a writer is.

For what I’ve learned by talking with and reading other writers for the past few months is that writers block will again raise its dreary head. It will also pass on by like a barge on the ocean’s horizon. It’s our responsibility to sit and write. Regardless of what comes out, just write the stuff. Just sit and write. That is the key to writers block. I’ve found, meanwhile, that reading serves as inspiration to get us back into the chair.

I didn’t need inspiration. What plagued me was a clog. There were too many essays floating through my mind. I didn’t know where to start with any of them. For all ideas, fortunately, I had a substantial amount of content already written. My goal was to use a particular tactic I’d never learned in journalism: compose a lengthy travel essay and break it into smaller pieces, all of which can be sold. Something that plagued me was deciding where to submit these pieces. How long did each literary or travel publication want these essays to be? Which sections should I submit them to? Which audience was I writing for?

The forest blinded me to the trees. The horse walked behind the cart. The decision then became clear: list the topics to be written. Here’s what resulted.

Mini essays:

  1. The art and architecture of Victor Delfin
  2. Don Boscos: a beautifully artistic NGO whose headquarters warrants a piece about architecture and art
  3. Las Pallas, a store that educates its customers about Peruvian arts and whose owner has a definitive personality worthy of travel literature
  4. Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian artist who would suit a literary travel blog I found
  5. A weekend spent in Barranco.

All of these essay ideas sprang from an architectural walk I took in July. That walk has already precipitated one article written for my Hong Kong publisher. Therefore, it’s from journalism that I’m learning to create and sell multiple essays. What I never experienced when writing journalism was the block, though.

What this national writing month might teach me is to conquer writers block before the battle starts. What I’m hoping is that it’ll also help me grant a more balanced approach to writing. Rather than spitting out 1,200 words over 90 minutes or nine hours, as the past two days have seen me do, it’s better to write at least a little every day. Merely typing out the outline led me to put together the information I had for the Delfin piece. That led to composing some 1,000 words. That, in turn, led to this blog post. I’ve learned therefore that battling writers block doesn’t necessarily entail composing beautiful sentences. In my writing process, symbolized on a tattoo on my right thigh, I have three concrete stages: prewriting, composing, and editing. Therefore, those fighting writers block can justify their sitting and writing by reminding themselves that even prewriting is a part of the process. We needn’t expect ourselves to become the next Joan Didion when returning to the seat.

Welcome, national writing month. Saludos, writers block.

Publishing Blog Offers Writers Tips, Intellect, Laughs

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It wouldn’t be fair to call this week’s Media Monday’s installment a “review” of the publishing blog AdadPress. Jason Boudreau’s blog has been on my blogroll for months, after all. He’s one blog I make sure to catch up with frequently because I always glean insight into the world of publishing– traditional, self, hard or soft covers, and ebook. Whether reading as a biblophile, a writer, or a hopeful author, others who enjoy the blogosphere will enjoy that his posts are never less than informative. Even his subtitle is catchy, “Looks Like We Got Us a Reader”. It’s also a subtle forewarning that Boudreau’s unapologetic for being…intellectual!

Boudreau’s posts on his publishing blog are always brief yet impressively packed with reflection and information. He covers industry trends and contests, current events in literature and comics, and other items in the esoteric periphery to writing. In one post, he connects Herman Melville’s 192nd birthday to a Moby Dick mini-series starring William Hurt. In another he waxes humorous after finding a photo with this lovely re-(Sir)-mix-a-lot: “I like big books and I can not lie.” In yet another post he might discuss how to write a novel in three days or the histories of libraries or of Times New Roman.

One post that repeatedly comes to mind concerns software to help prevent author distraction. This doesn’t seem to ring through for me because, evidently, I’m a rare bird who gets so focused on writing that nothing else in the world exists. Yet I like the post because it echoes what so many other writers claim as their shared problem. I see the light blinking on my Gmail and my Yahoo and my Facebook and hear it in my Mac Mail, but it would never occur to me to use software to prevent these images. I simply ignore them. Perhaps I like the post because it reminds me of at least one problem I don’t have. Whenever I hear of another writer besieged with that quandary though, I send them the Adad post.

I tend to clamor to the blog otherwise to see what Boudreau’s saying about Kindles, the publishing industry, and book rights.

Adad publishing blog’s design is clean with professional graphics, free from clutter and blinking distractions, and simple to navigate. It’s updated regularly, therefore it’s always timely. Boudreau’s resourcefulness and creativity make me curious about his forthcoming book.

See the author’s guest blog post here, which decidely contradicts the fact I said his were brief, yet undergirds what I said about his being informative. Learn more about the blogger and the story behind Adad, the publishing blog.