by Theresa Garee | Aug 4, 2018 | Blog
“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe
My memoir, formerly titled Twenty-Six Point Freaking Two: How a Sedentary, Middle-Aged Manic Depressive Became a Marathoner (with the help of her dog) has a new working title: Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink.
But that’s beside the point.
The real news is that the manuscript (whatever you want to call it) earned a spot as a finalist in the 2018 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition in Nonfiction. The winner will be announced in September at the conference in New Orleans.
How in the heck did that happen?
It happened because I followed the instructions of my writing coaches, the award-winning authors Tania Casselle and Sean Murphy. Among other things, they advised me to enter every single contest for which the book was eligible.
Every! Single! One!
Still, how does someone who continues to have depressive episodes so crippling they make it difficult to get out of bed some days achieve such a goal? My secret? Structure.
The following five structures work for me:
1) Classes and Workshops.
The idea of entering every contest (or submitting to every publisher) that fit my book came from two extremely qualified writing instructors. Suggestions might come from other students as well. In either case, these people could help you do what might not occur to you, what might seem too difficult, or what you might think is a waste of time and money.
2) A deadline.
The final days of a contest or publisher’s reading period usually is enough to spark me into action. It’s that pressure cooker effect. There’s no time for perfectionism. I just have to get it done.
3) Tracking Tools.
I love querytracker.net and Submittable. Real numbers don’t lie. I can see my submissions and percentages. The geeky part of me loves this. Plus, Submittable recognizes people who collect the most rejections in a month. Anything like that helps.
4) Accountability Partners.
I tell a friend I’m going to do something. I tell my little writing group. I tell my husband or my neighbor. I tell the regulars at the coffeeshop where I write. Eventually, one of them will ask about my goal. I don’t want to let either of us down.
5) Online Groups.
These are a different breed of accountability partners. But be careful with this. Choose wisely. I’m in a secret Facebook group for artists collecting rejection letters. If I’m not entering, I have no rejections to report. Telling these kind strangers is oddly satisfying.
But here’s the true secret. At some point, these external structures become internal. They light a fire inside me and I’m surprised to find myself motivated to attempt things I would never have done before. Magic? Perhaps. But I’ll take it.
What kind of structure do you need to meet your goal? What will help you not give up? I’d love to hear about it.
by Theresa Garee | Mar 4, 2016 | Blog
“Continue under all circumstances. Don’t be tossed away. Make positive effort for the good.” – Katagiri Roshi, Zen Master
I’m just back from ten days in New Mexico. I had the honor of speaking in Taos at the thirtieth anniversary celebration of Writing Down the Bones, the best-selling book by my teacher, Natalie Goldberg. Friday February 19, the Mayor Pro Tem of Taos declared it Natalie Goldberg Day. Saturday, eight of us, Natalie’s long-time students, spoke in the classroom of the new building at Mabel Dodge Luhan House with New Mexico sunlight streaming through stained glass windows. After, we went to lunch at the home of two of the speakers, Tania Casselle and Sean Murphy.
On the plane to New Mexico, as I had skimmed “Bones,” I rediscovered a chapter entitled, “Doubt is Torture.” In it, Natalie describes a conversation between Katagiri Roshi and a young man who was moving to California to become a musician. Katagiri asks the man how he would approach his goal. The man told Katagiri he would try his best and if it didn’t work out he’d just accept it. Natalie writes:
Roshi responded, “That’s the wrong attitude. If they knock you down, you get up. If they knock you down again, get up. No matter how many times they knock you down, get up again. That is how you should go.”
When it was my turn to speak, I cited this chapter. I may have previously forgotten the details, but not the sentiment. “That’s been my journey,” I told the group. Sometimes it wasn’t an external “them” who knocked me down. Just as often it was mental illness, distorted thinking, or bad habits. But I was knocked down just the same. “Having studied writing practice with Natalie for so many years I knew what to do,” I said. “I got back up.”
Today I’m ready to throw myself into further revisions of my current project, Twenty-Six Point Freaking Two. It’s entirely possible I’ll be knocked down again by forces both without and within. That’s the process. But, again, thanks to my training, I know what to do. Get back up. Period.
by Theresa Garee | Sep 4, 2014 | Blog
“Edit your manuscript until your fingers bleed and you have memorized every last word. Then, when you are certain you are on the verge of insanity…edit one more time!”
― C.K. Webb
I continue to remove as many words as I can from the crazy huge manuscript about running my first marathon. My latest trick is what good friend and award-winning author, Tania Casselle, referred to as “removing the scaffolding” when she critiqued a different book I had attempted.
Often first drafts contain phrases, whole sentences, or even entire paragraphs that prop up the real thing we want to say. If our work is strong enough, it can stand on its own. Our job is to remove that scaffolding.
Here’s a very brief example:
First draft:
I spent some time standing by the window looking out at a pale moon. The light that it shone glinted against a thin layer of ice on the cracked sidewalk. That cracked sidewalk was where I had fallen when I was running just a few weeks before. Then it had looked ugly and swollen even though the crack was the merest of things, just a bit of a thing, not even an inch of difference in the two edges, but there I had fallen down hard on my arm and my knee and hit my chest. It hurt bad. It still hurt. The ribs were still bruised and I favored them even though I tried not to.
Second (third or fourth) draft:
I looked out the window at the pale moonlight. It glinted off a thin layer of ice on the cracked sidewalk. I’d fallen there a few weeks before while running. Then the small crack had looked ugly and swollen, the merest bit of a thing, not even an inch of difference in the two edges. My skinned arm and knee and my bruised ribs still hurt. I favored them even though I tried not to.
I’ve removed the scaffolding. Only what I want remains.
Now you try it. Let me know how it goes.
by Theresa Garee | Dec 4, 2012 | Blog
“The reason we race isn’t so much to beat each other but to be with each other.” – Christopher McDougall, author of BORN TO RUN
I like
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the same reasons I enjoy running in races. It’s about being with others. We participate together, side by side. And although in NaNoWriMo we’re each competing to get to 50,000 words and secretly hoping to write the magic number quickly or secretly hating the people who get to 50K without much effort at all, we’re really only competing against ourselves. And most of us, loners that we are, need a structure to help us find other writers.
It’s wonderful to know people who share our common goal. We’re so different and yet in November we come together for a common purpose. The books of my fellow wrimos differ greatly from mine. I typed 52,203 words of memoir about – you guessed it – running. As I wrote about buying my first pair of real running shoes and learning tricks to avoid chafing in awkward places, my friends wrote about exploding coffins, children growing up in cemeteries, historic race wars, time-eating space machines, and dystopian scenarios I can’t even begin to wrap my head around. Yet at the numerous write-ins, we were all together writing away.
A community helps us know we’re not alone. When I sit here writing, I am alone, but there’s this whole field of people behind me. On the back of my door in my office, I have pictures of photographs of women writers I admire. This includes many very famous writers such as Natalie Goldberg, Anne LaMott, Toni Morrison, Anne Patchett and many others. It also includes less well-known writers such as
Tania Casselle, Martha Crone, Sammi Soutar,
Deby Dixon,
Wendy Drake, and
Jamie Figueroa. These are the people who have my back. These are the writers I admire whether they’ve ever published a book, so much as a single line of anything, or nothing at all. These are my colleagues and my commiserants. We take care of each other.
On December 16th, when I toe the line with a few thousand other folks in Indianapolis for the Santa Hustle Half Marathon, I probably won’t know any of the other runners. And it won’t matter. I’ll stand out in the cold with like-minded people and be happy. When the starting horn sounds I’ll run as hard and fast as I can, but that won’t be my primary goal. That race is just an excuse to hang out with a bunch of other crazy runners dressed like Santa. We just want to be together.
Writing and racing have that common thread. We are ultimately alone. I sit here writing with my own fingers and my own mind or I race along with my own heart and my own legs, but I do it alongside others. We’re all alone, together.
How do you find community support for whatever activities you enjoy? I’d love to hear about it.
by Theresa Garee | May 28, 2006 | Blog
How often have we heard about the lonely life of the writer penning prose alone in a garret? The image stirs fantasies of finding the perfect cabin in the woods, our own little Walden necessary for us to write.
So now how about a dose of reality? If it weren’t for my writing pals, I’d never get a word written. I need an army of others.
My husband reads every word of the essay for Write Now Newsletter before it goes out and looks over each of the articles and short stories I’m submitting for publication. He’s read the first 80 pages of the memoir and he’ll read the rest when I get around to finishing it.
I meet monthly with a group of writers to snack, gossip, and share writing strategies. Over the past six years, we’ve become a backbone of support for each other and I’m constantly amazed at the talent and wisdom I find among them.
I “meet” once a week to “write” over the phone with a friend who lives in Santa Fe. We pick a topic and a length of time, hang up, do “writing practice” (ala Natalie Goldberg) until the timer goes off. Then I call her back and we read our work aloud without comment.
On another day of the week I participate in a conference call with a group of writers each of whom is writing a memoir. These women are scattered across the globe. I met them while taking one of the Big Sky Writing Workshops with Sean Murphy and Tania Casselle. We get current on what each of us has done in the past week and present any challenges that have come up. We share ideas, solutions and laughs.
Periodically I exchange work with several other writers by email or snail mail. Here I’m looking for feedback, criticism, honest comments on how to make the work better.
And all the while I’m attending author readings and lectures.
So if you’re out there alone trying to figure out how to make your writing life work, find a writing buddy. Take a class. Put up a sign in a coffeehouse. Attend one of the On-going Writing Groups listed on my website. Find some support. We can’t do it alone.
