When my friends Jen Louden and Lisa Jones invited me to Boulder, Co. this summer to go on a little hiking/writing retreat with them I leapt at the chance. Not only did I look forward to seeing my pals, I was looking forward to some real writing time. Earlier in the summer I’d spent a week with my writing mentor, Deena Metzger, at her place in Topanga, with 20 other writers, but I hadn’t done much writing since then.
I’d liked what I’d started at Deena’s – it was juicy – and I figured these two friends would give me the ass kicking that I needed. They’d challenge me, they’d get past all my clever shit and push me to the wall for more. In my mind, Jen and Lisa were the real writers, while I’ve considered myself more of a writing teacher over the last 15 years. Yes I’ve written books, and yes I write with my students 10 times a week, and yes I write blog posts that I care about, but Lisa and Jen sat down daily to work on their own writing projects – their books. They had discipline, and both had agents who encouraged them. They’d made actual deadlines for themselves, and Lisa was positively unstoppable after 12 publishers had passed on her latest book. She was sure she knew how to make the right changes and she couldn’t wait to get back to work. I was in awe of her.
Writing is hard work. I don’t need to tell you that. Teaching is not as hard for me, and Wild Writing – the kind of writing that I teach – while a rich practice – is more quick and dirty, and it’s not the same as sitting down and trying to carry a thought for 10 pages or 20 pages or 160 pages. That trek feels like it takes discipline – not to just sit down and write, but mental discipline so that when the road gets rocky, when you’re sure what you’ve written is a mess of self indulgent poo, you can keep going. No small thing, and there had been plenty of times over the years that I’d started projects and walked away when I decided that I was fooling myself in thinking that what I had written was any good.
But something about the work I did at Deena’s was pulling at me. I wanted to keep going.
Our days in the mountains of Colorado were busy hiking ginormous hills littered with wild flowers, crossing skinny little streams, wandering out into marshy fields in the moonlight, and talking about the stuff of our lives; what we noticed about aging, what our work looked like and how well we were doing loving ourselves and others. It was a sweet, sweet trip, and while we didn’t get as much writing done as we had planned, we did snuggle up in our cabin and read our work to one another at night.
I’ll just say it, the stuff I’m working on reminds me of wet, uncooked meat. It’s raw, it’s bloody and it’s not tasty. It covers some pretty gritty territory involving my dad, my body, sex and drinking. If I worry about anything it’s that it’s too self indulgent and there’s nothing there for the reader. So when I began reading that first night I mumbled a few things about it being a draft, I sucked in my breath and began reading. I even skipped around a bit because I thought I might bore them. Mostly I wanted to get to the end of a couple of pages so we could get to the ass kicking that would follow and I could make what I’d written better.
But they liked it. They did not kick my ass. They did not throw me to the wall and tell me that the whole thing was a bunch of crap. They told me that it was good, very good, and that I needed to keep going. There were some challenges, yes, but nothing that wouldn’t work itself out.
As I listened I sat stone-faced. I was not Sally Fields when she accepted her Academy Award for Places in the Heart, “You like me, you like me,” she bleated to the crowd. I was more like, “holy shit, does this mean I have to keep going?”
My friends were taking my work seriously. Could I?
It reminded me of something Deena said to me one year at her retreat, “you’re a good writer,” she said, “but you could be so much better.” I never forgot that, but I wasn’t sure what becoming a better writer would take. I think I just hoped it would happen without much effort – just like a wine gets better the longer you leave it in the bottle.
Sitting with my friends – these serious writers who will finish their books and sell them – I wondered whether I could commit to my work, making dates to sit down weekly and ink the bloody thing out. Could I amble over the hard moments – the times when I’m sure it’s shit and I’m just “navel gazing,” as a psychic once described my writing. What if I wrote it and no one read it? What if I wrote it and it was bad? What if I got started, then got too busy, dropping it like I’ve dropped so many other things?
Of course this is the stuff I talk to my students about. I’m their biggest cheerleader. I believe in them. I know they can do it, but it’s like I told you, teaching is so much easier than writing. Time to take a taste of my own medicine.
I look forward to reading that book of yours Laurie. Cheering for you from the Berkshires, from a writer who teaches, loves to teach and is fierce to take my own medicine too. xoS
This is exactly what I needed to read today. You are a great writer and this particular work is raw, gritty and important. I’ll ride you along with them and hold you to it, friend.
Hugs and love
j
I like the idea of you tasting your own medicine. Your own medicine is good medicine. Read to me anytime you need someone to say keep going. I don’t know where I would be without your medicine in my life, but I know where I would not be. Not in the studio this morning, not closing in on a book.
Thank you for being a well-spring of inspiration for me. I’m eager to read your honest details. I’m pulling for you like a tide.
Yes.
Love you,
Grace
Getting ANY writing done in glorious Colorado is a major accomplishment.
You are such an insightful teacher, Laurie. I know that you are bringing that amazing gift to your own writing.
I’m a writing coach, too, and I so understand what you’re saying here. So much easier to teach or coach it than to actually do it. Thank you for writing what I needed to read today. And, I want to read that book, too! Keep going, Laurie!
This is good, Laurie. I can relate. I am working on two (linked) novels now — finally getting disciplined and then steeling myself to stay disciplined, especially since I began the first novel 20 years ago — while sometimes wondering if it’s not a mess of self-indulgent poo, and then rethinking and prodding myself onward with positive thoughts.
Your writing, Laurie, is good, it’s honest; you get to the heart of what inhibits all of us, I think, and it helps us to trek onward in good company and not alone.
Thanks for writing this and sharing your experiences and feelings. I hope you recall, I am Martha Wagner’s friend. I had the pleasure of meeting you at her home just after Paul’s passing. –Carol Child
I am going to sign below under my pen name.
I needed this. Because it’s easier to be the writing student and write for 12 minutes and not push myself to take it any farther. Granted, not all of it needs to be taken past 12 minutes. But the good stuff…the juicy stuff…the hard stuff…yeah…that needs to be taken farther. The anthologies I’m in are baby steps. Small moments. Nothing grand, and certainly not my own. Time to take it to a whole ‘nother level.
xo
Peggy
I would read your books! Looking forward to it… but also understand the scary disciple part and the believing in it. I have been living that my whole life too. <3 <3 Miss you Laurie!
Thanks, Laurie…writing is HARD for the large majority of us. And this was another one of those moments that reinforced for me that we’re not all that different (writers, passionate women, teachers)…but I think the sweet things that motivate us each to propel forward are different, and YUP teaching is WAY easier than doing! I constantly put others work in front of my own from students, peer review, etc…I think its my crutch. I can say I can’t get to my own work because I am doing for Margo, for Lisa, for whom ever…..I am practicing ass in chair for my own work and most days I fail miserably!! It is just easier and less risky to help others :-)…I needed this piece today! Thank you!
I think of you as an amazing writer. I work with you because your writing challenges me to dig deeper. I know about this feeling of not enough, of too introspective, but I believe we both have important stories to share. Thank you for writing this and helping me see myself through your writing.
You are doing what you teach, L, and that is what is so brave and inspiring — the hard work of opening a vein (as Kerouac says) and opening your heart to what needs to be written. Thank you!
What a gift to read this…. so heartening in so many ways. To know you compare yourself to “real writers” (really?!?), to know Wild Writing comes easily but carrying it through to a longer piece or book is hard for you too (hot damn, it’s not only me?!?) Love your honesty. Love your big heart. Love you.
When the ‘read more’ prompt comes up…it doesn’t matter, I either go with the writing directly or I save the email for later when I can really absorb your words or chew them or mull them in my mind. Trust me when I tell you I read everything you write- and it always speaks to me. I can’t wait to have you sign my copy of your book.
My brave, dear, fabulously talented Laurie – as Nan said, you can read to me any time. And another – I can’t wait to have you sign my copy of your book. Keep going – you are such an inspiration to all of us! Maybe I’ll finally kick my doubt and fear in the ass and start the blogging! Love, love, love!
Laurie, I have not taken a class with you yet (key word yet) but will do so soon. Your writing is generous & sensorial. I love your vivid descriptions & imagery, your cut the BS realness. “The stuff I’m working on reminds me of wet, uncooked meat. It’s raw, it’s bloody and it’s not tasty.”
Damn that’s good. Keep going!
Thank you for your honesty here. Soaking in the mirror of my own practice. Grateful to see myself more clearly and sip my medicine as well.