Posts Tagged ‘ Writing ’

Super Sad True Writing Habits

Tin House is running a series on the Super Sad True Habits of Highly Effective Writers so, as a writer who has been accused of impressive productivity on more than one occasion, I thought I’d share some of my own:

  • I write in chaos. My desk is a mess, my floor is a mess; even if I’ve just cleaned, something is always a mess. I’m cultivating synchronicity, you see.
  • I usually write at my desk where I sit on an exercise ball, but if it ‘s cold or I’m feeling especially lazy then I bring my laptop to bed. One day I will buy a kotatsu to use instead of my bed on cold days.
  • Mostly, I wear my PJs or an old bathrobe while writing.
  • Sometimes, I use the Pomodoro Technique to tear myself away from Internet fuckery, but it’s really a trick I play on myself since I almost always keep going after the buzzer for the work period ends. It’s just much easier to convince myself to start 25 minutes of work than to talk myself into starting several hours of work.
Lady GaGa
  • When I proofread my work, I print out a copy (usually in a font different from the one I wrote in) and take it to a cafe. Sometimes, if the weather’s warm, this involves drinking a coffee (soy)milkshake.
What about you? How do you get your writing done?

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Sunday Small Stone

one paper bag
covers tempera pink
petals with brown

before they brown
covering the concrete
that rapidly dampens

in circles of darker
gray than the clouds

I love writing small stones.

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Redrafting (for) Your Life

Julianna Baggott has written a post applying the idea of editing to life. She wonders if writers who dislike edits to their work also avoid change in their lives.

IMG_0771

Yes, I worked for this company. No, I wasn't there when it went bankrupt. (Photo credit: turnerw82 on Flickr)

For me, change has rarely been a series of edits. What I have excelled at is redrafting my life. I have now lived in Belfast for just over two-and-a-half years. The last city I lived in longer than this I left more than ten years ago when I moved to San Francisco to pursue my MFA. I rewrote my life as a struggling poet in pricey city. That draft was discarded after two-and-a-half years when, following my graduation, I moved to Japan. The first draft of my life there was at an eikaiwa school; the second, much happier one, at public elementary schools. There are a few more drafts between that one and my current draft as a doctoral candidate. And with every paragraph of my thesis I write, I get closer to the day when I will have to redraft my life again.

Just as a new draft isn’t an entirely new work, redrafting your life doesn’t mean discarding everything. I never stopped writing poetry. My experience teaching English as a foreign language inspired and continues to inform my doctoral research.

The really scary part about redrafting, whether in life or in writing, isn’t the unknown. New discoveries and challenges await. I find that exciting, but even if it made me nervous, it still wouldn’t be the hardest part. No, the most frightening part of redrafting is rereading. What if you find a mortifying mistake? A paragraph you’re ashamed to have written or a hairstyle you’re embarrassed to have worn? All of this has to be faced.

One can redraft without rereading, but that only rarely leads to better work, let alone a better life.

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The Birds & The Trees

Sunset from my Window

by EKSwitaj on Flickr

When I was flat-hunting last summer, I fell in love with the apartment where I write this now because of the view. While washing my dishes or waiting anxiously for the kettle to boil so I can make another French press full of coffee (I’ll let you guess which one of these I do more often), I can see rooftops and green hills beyond them—except at night when city and suburban lights become the highlight. From my desk, in my front room, I can watch the sunset beyond a stone church steeple and, yes, more green hills.

Collared Doves in snowy branches

by DH Wright on Flickr

What I didn’t expect was the way the slender trees that line this block of brick row houses draw birds to them. Every day, they break their flights in the branches: for most, the trees here serve only as a place to rest and sing a bit or find a tasty insect.

This past spring, a pair of collared doves set up a nest, but they abandoned it before even laying any eggs. Maybe the streetlights got to them, or they wisely left before the most common avian visitor to the trees could prey on their young.

The magpie

by Steve-h on Flickr

Magpies, with patches of shimmering blue on their wings, love this block. Usually, I hear them before I see them. They declare whatever it is they have to declare, and I look up from the screen to see them preening in the trees or, on occasion, on my window sill. The magpies are the only birds with the courage to get that close.

Because of the reputed intelligence of magpies, I sometimes ask them for their opinion on my thesis. I try not to take it too personally when their calls sound like laughter.

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Magdalene & the Mermaids

Magdalene & the Mermaids

Magdalene & the Mermaids

Elizabeth Kate Switaj's First Collection of Poetry

Available From Reviewed at Sample poems at
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  • @KristenSahara
    Agreed. I try to write poems with interesting imperfections instead.
    2012/05/18 01:15
  • @nomopoetry
    @dagny Then like I said you'll love Lindley Murray.
    2012/05/17 22:46
  • @nomopoetry
    @dagny OK, if you want to cling to Strunk and White, that's your business.
    2012/05/17 22:18
  • @nomopoetry
    @dagny That would mean striking most of the book. It's not just dated; it was wrong to begin with.
    2012/05/17 22:15
  • @nomopoetry
    @dagny But surely that can be taught without the baseless prescriptivism wrapping?
    2012/05/17 22:13
  • @nomopoetry
    @dagny Formative of what exactly? Linguistic prejudices unrelated to real usage? Why not go all the way & read Lindley Murray?
    2012/05/17 22:51
  • @dagny
    @nomopoetry Argh, please, no. Strunk & White is terrible. See, for instance, and
    http://t.co/GLQYqo3N
    2012/05/17 22:10
  • "Go inside a stone / That would be my way." #poem #poetry
    http://t.co/NNbXR1N3
    2012/05/17 20:25
  • "Writing while facing a wall, incidentally, seems to me the perfect metaphor for being a writer." - Francine Prose
    http://t.co/N42f866H
    2012/05/17 19:18
  • Read an old post: Poem: A Popular Website Puts up a Poll Asking if a Journalist is Responsible for Her Rape
    http://t.co/ogNVIbGz
    2012/05/17 14:12