Wild and Precious Life

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver

It’s one thing to “plan” to follow your dream with “your one wild and precious life” (which might just be the hardest thing to do, really, considering all the pressure you’ll probably face to do everything but that), but having a vivid imagination, having something to say, even finally deciding that you’re going to be a writer, all of these essential things aren’t enough.

You still have to find a way to sit down and write.

After all, the rest of your life can make that very hard to do.

That’s why one of the very best things I’ve done for myself as a writer was to apply to an artist residency.

The semester I graduated from Spalding University, one of my favorite writers and mentors, K.L. Cook, sat on a panel about “Life After the MFA” and, while some people spoke about the seemingly insurmountable odds that stood between each of us soon-to-be-grads and our dreams of living as published writers (the sort of stuff they tend to leave out of the recruitment brochure of any MFA program, but a truthful aspect of the writer’s life), Kenny focused on things we could do from that moment forward to give ourselves the best chance of realizing our dreams.

He didn’t side-step the challenges. He nodded in agreement several times when other people were sharing rather grave experiences. He also chose to provide us with action steps we could take to move us closer to that ultimate goal.

Here are just a few tips for writers

(some blatantly stolen from Kenny – though, it should be noted, not actually quoted, but poorly paraphrased – and others I’ve learned on my own):

Submit Simultaneously – send shorter works, like poems and short stories and essays, to more than one magazine; keep track of what is sent where and when; when you get a rejection look at it as an opportunity to find the right fit, then send the piece(s) out to the next journal on your list; and don’t follow the common advice of “start at the bottom and work your way up,” but start instead with your top-tier choices (the ones you feel match up best with the selection) and work your way down if you must . . .

Enter Contests – be selective, do a little research, avoid fees . . . contests can lead to possible publication and exposure, plus they’re also great ways to impose deadlines and word-length restrictions which can help a writer in several ways . . .

Apply to Artist Residencies  – whether you’re a writer or some other type of artist, residencies offer time and space devoted to your art, two commodities in short supply, especially while navigating the daily grind . . .

Attend Conferences – many conferences allow you to network with writers, agents, and editors in your genre; and some provide opportunities to receive feedback, as well as to learn about topics related to the writer’s life . . .

Treat Yourself to a Retreat – some guided retreats provide excellent continuing education opportunities, as well as community building, while unguided retreats can provide needed solitude and secluded space that’s virtually impossible to find elsewhere

“Submit simultaneously” was one thing Kenny suggested, in particular when it came to sending out short stories or poetry to literary journals.

Submitting to magazines is mostly about finding the right match between a poem and a literary journal and in some ways it’s a lot like dating (we tend to put ourselves out there with more than one person before, if we’re lucky, we find the right match – we tend to learn what relationships aren’t good matches long before we find the one that fits).

So don’t take a rejection (or six for that matter) as a sign that you need to give up on your dream. Consider each rejection as an opportunity, you’re that much closer to finding the right publication.

Kenny also suggested entering contests (in particular, those that don’t charge fees) as much for the experience and for the restrictions each place on you as for a chance to win. He alluded to the fact that contests usually have limits (page limits, word limits) and that these are often quite helpful when it comes time to revise. He intimated that, with no hard deadlines, writers have a tendency to find ways to avoid writing.

I recently entered a contest and I had to take a 3,600 word chapter and cut it to about 2,500 words. Anyone who knows me realizes that I tend to ramble. That’s my style. My narrative voice tends to resemble a skier on a steep, windy, slope with no ability to stop.

By the time I got done revising that chapter for the contest the selection was at 2,495 words and it was much tighter. The thing I learned, however, was that the voice was still in tact. I kept the two main giant slalom paragraphs and they actually seemed to stand out even more because of how tight the rest of the chapter was.

At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.

I’ve tried to apply those same parameters to much of the novel. At times it’s worked well, though a few times the 3,000+ word section I started with simply needed to be that long. Overall, though, Kenny’s advice has been quite helpful which brings me back to the best thing I’ve done so far.

Kenny mentioned that if not for artist residencies he probably wouldn’t have finished any of his wonderful books. After all, up until recently, he was the Coordinator of the Arts & Letters Program, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and an Instructor at Prescott College; not to mention a mentor in the MFA program at Spalding; a husband; a father of four . . .

Each of those roles brings with it a seemingly endless array of responsibilities and tasks and potential distractions.

Look, let’s be honest. It’s not really about finding some extra time to write. It’s about choosing (or finding a way) to shape the time you do have each day in such a way that you sit your butt in a seat and be at the page.

And that feels pretty impossible to do sometimes. Until we do it a little bit. It gets easier then. But creating the right schedule, the right pattern, the right mix, the right balance, that can be extremely hard.

Some award-wining writers I know start writing at 4am every day. Their families know that when the office door is closed, it means, I love you very much, but stay away if you value your life. For others, that just doesn’t seem to work. They have to sneak in half an hour on the train to and from work. They get fifteen minutes two or three times a day. And it takes practice (and usually a lot of it) to make the most of those snippets of time.

But once you start being consistent, that gets a bit easier to do.

I didn’t set out to do it, but I finished the first draft of Xero Treu: The Extraordinary Tales of an Extra Ordinary Boy while I was working on Mr. Bones, devoting just one hour a day to my writing over a five month stretch (after having spent about four years away from the page).

Some days, I only wrote for fifteen minutes. Some days I merely read the previous day’s fifteen-minutes-worth-of-rambling. After the first six weeks, though, finding a way to fit in one hour each day was much more manageable.

Then a friend challenged me to participate in NaNoWriMo and I managed, spending just one hour each day writing, to get out fifty-two thousand new words over those thirty days. The thing I learned was that once you build momentum and get into a flow, it takes less energy and less time to maintain that flow than it did to get started.

Well, if you’ve never been to one, an artist residency is like taking the best parts of those things that work and magnifying them in every way.

In order to write, you need four main things to happen (aside from having an idea, something to say, and an ability to string some words together):

I. You need uninterrupted time
II. You need a separate space
III. You need to be able to slide out of your conscious mind and to slip into your unconscious mind
IV. You need your emotions to be untangled enough that you’re able to find your way in with the certainty that you’ll be able to find your way out again

Artist residencies give you the best chance to have all four of those things at the same time.

Residencies like Ucross, for example, are so removed from the rest of your everyday life that “unplugging” isn’t really an option. Yes, there’s the occasional connection to the Internet and, yes, in certain spots on that 22,000 acre ranch you can get cell phone reception, out there among the antelope and the mule deer.

But once you’re there, once you allow yourself to be there fully, and you settle into yourself as a writer, you very quickly realize how much easier it is to breathe (and to write) without all that stuff pulling at you every which way.

Rather than go into all the perks of an artist residency right now, I’ll tie this post up by saying that if you’ve ever devoted all day, every day just to your writing – for two or three days, for two weeks, three weeks, three months – you’ll know how incomparable it feels.

How the mind, body, soul all seem synched together in the pursuit of something quite amazing.

Next week, I’ll write more about how an artist residency can be life-changing, as well as the possible benefits of conferences and retreats. But, for now, I’d better get back to the page.

After all, I left Xero in mid-fall and have to see how he lands. And what happens then.