Beacons of Light for 2016

As December arrives and 2016 comes to a close, I'd like to thank the handful of writers who were so generous and kind over the past year for taking time from their works-in-progress to share their knowledge and love of the writing process with us.

Their insights helped shed new light on some of the challenges that we may confront in our own work and reminded us that, though we may scribble our stories and poems in solitude, we aren't writing alone.

In the year ahead, I trust you’ll find generous Beacons of Light in your life to illuminate your path and help you discover the courage to follow the path wherever it may lead.

For now, I hope the comforting words of Wordswimmer's Beacons of Light for 2016 inspire you to keep writing in the days and weeks ahead.

  

Julie Larios:  “Some days I sit down at the edge of the water, look at the sky, feel the sun on my face, watch the clouds, hear birds chirping, think about what a lovely world it is. Those days I feel just as creative as the days when I'm writing. I don't even think about writing or about being inspired on those days - I just float in the world. Other days, and luckily there are not too many of them, I look at the water and I think "Brrrrrr..." or "Ugh..."and I go right back inside, in a funk. I wouldn't have produced good work that day, no matter what, so I'm better off admitting it. When I do decide to swim, I don't get into the water inch by inch - I go under completely and turn into a fish. I forget I can speak. I grow gills.”

http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2016/01/one-writers-process-julie-larios.html

Gigi Amateau: “I’m hooked on my little rituals that make me happy and give me time to ruminate: clean the house, fuss over my workspace, practice yoga, meditate then FINALLY start working. Although in the winter, my favorite way to write is to get a big fire going in the living room, steep some tea, and revise by the fireplace all afternoon. And, if it’s snowing? The best!”

http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2016/02/one-writers-process-gigi-amateau.html

David Lubar: “I've been a freelancer most of my life, mostly because I have no marketable skills. So I can force myself to work during most of the potential dry spells. But there are times when I throw in the towel and accept that I won't be productive that day, or week, or (shudder) month. At least the towel doesn't get wet.”

http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2016/03/one-writers-process-david-lubar.html

JoAnn Early Macken: “Although I try, I don’t manage to write every day. I’ve learned, though, that the longer I stay away, the more I miss it, and the harder it is to plunge back in. That thought, along with general itchiness, usually keeps me from missing too many days in a row.”

http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2016/04/one-writers-process-joann-early-macken.html

Jacqueline Jules: “When a piece is close to completion, curiosity takes over. Writing can be like reading a book for me. I keep working because I want to know what will happen next. I often feel like I am discovering the story, watching it unfold. I swim with the story until it reveals itself to me.”

http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2016/05/one-writers-process-jacqueline-jules.html

Kelly Ramsdell Fineman:  “Much of what I write is poetry, and I find that as long as I have an idea - an inkling, even - I can explore that and get a first draft down. Sometimes the finished draft is just a slight tweaking of the first draft, sometimes it involves a lot more new writing, coupled with massive revision.”

http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2016/06/one-writers-process-kelly-ramsdell.html

Alex Flinn: “’Just keep swimming,’ as Dory would say. Not every day is going to be great, but you have to keep swimming even when nothing is happening.”

http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2016/09/one-writers-process-alex-flinn.html

Debbie Reed Fischer: “I love it when I'm writing quickly with the story pouring out of me. Those first drafts that are purely for yourself, before you have to show it to anyone or revise it, are my favorite part of the process. I love being alone with me and my characters in that time period before I have to share them with anyone.”

http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2016/10/one-writers-process-debbie-reed-fischer.html

So, as we take a breath over the next few weeks and pause to look back at our year of writing, I want to thank you, dear readers, for joining us in the water.

Although we may post less frequently here (now that Facebook and Twitter have replaced blogging as a way of communicating), we intend to keep dipping our toes in the water here in the year ahead and hope you’ll join us.

Best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year. May it be a year that brings forth many more stories and poems from your pen.

With luck, we'll see you in 2017. In the meantime, keep writing!

If you’d like to follow us on Facebook, visit: https://www.facebook.com/Wordswimmer and, if you’re a fan of Twitter, check out @wordswimmer and @writingyoga. (You can find us on Instagram, too, at @wordswimmer).

And if you enjoy yoga, you might like to take a look at our blog about yoga and keeping a journal: http://journalpractice.wordpress.com

One Writer’s Process: Debbie Reed Fischer

Some writers rely on complicated charts to plot their novels while others use outlines, says Debbie Reed Fischer, the award-winning author of Swimming with the Sharks, Braless in Wonderland, and This is NOT the Abby Show.

Fischer prefers to just sit down with an idea and write, using what she calls a rather chaotic system of notebooks and post-its containing plot points, snippets of dialogue, or key words.

“The fact is everybody’s brain works differently,” says Fischer, “and so there are many ways to plan and write your story. I say find a system that works for you.”

Fischer found a system that worked for her early in life when she was an Air Force and State Department brat moving every two years.

“I coped with classes I hated by sitting in the back row,” she says, “and writing stories, poems and notes to my friends.”

Although she had planned on a career writing film and TV scripts, she ended up after graduating from the University of Miami’s screenwriting program as an agent working on the business end of film and TV.

It may not have been what she’d planned, but the job gave Fischer the inspiration to write Braless in Wonderland. It also left her with little time to write. So she decided to return to college and become an English teacher, which gave her, she soon discovered, even less time to write.

So, after having children of her own, she quit teaching, began writing, signed up for a workshop at her local library, joined a critique group, attended conferences, and dedicated herself to writing and reading.

“I’ve been an avid reader of middle grade and young adult fiction since I was a middle grader myself,” says Fischer. “I’ve never stopped reading books for kids. I met my agent at a writers’ conference, and we started corresponding. He liked my first manuscript, Swimming with the Sharks, and signed me. I wrote my second book, Braless in Wonderland, while waiting for Sharks to sell.”

If there’s anything that she’s learned over the years, it’s how to keep her sense of humor, and how to find humor in almost any situation.

“Humor is everywhere if you pay attention,” says Fischer, whose humorous account of Abby navigating middle school and ADHD has drawn rave reviews and comparisons to Rachel Renee Russell’s Dork Diaries, Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid, and Jack Gantos’ Joey Pigza series. “It’s the little things.  Listening to people order food can have me in hysterics. Little kids say funny things, and so do the elderly. Take note of irony. It’s all around you.”

Fischer lives in Boca Raton, FL with her family and was kind enough to take time from her work on a novel-in-progress to share some thoughts on writing with wordswimmer.

Wordswimmer: How do you get into the water each day?

Fischer: I get in the water early. I wake up at 5:45 when the rest of my household is sleeping, because as the day goes on, it gets harder for me to focus. I like to write while the water is calm and quiet.

Wordswimmer: What keeps you afloat...for short work? For longer work?

Fischer:  Writing snippets of dialogue or scene notes as soon as they pop into my head keeps me afloat and on course. With one of my books, the ending of a novel came to me during dinner, and I jotted it down on napkins. Also, literal swimming keeps me afloat. Swimming opens up my mind somehow. Maybe it's the sound of the water too. Anyway, ideas come when I'm in a pool or at the beach. 

Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells? 

Fischer: I remind myself that a dry spell is just that - a spell. It's temporary. Just keep writing, and eventually, you're swimming again. 

Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?

Fischer: For me, it's revising. I love writing a first draft because it doesn't have to be perfect. But to rewrite a draft many times over can get tough, to the point where I wonder why I'm torturing myself. My middle grade novel, This is NOT the Abby Show, was originally a young adult book. It involved a love triangle, plus some scenes in a juvenile detention facility. After receiving feedback from editors suggesting it was more of a middle grade book, I took out several characters, eliminated the love triangle, cut out half of it, and rewrote the book from a twelve-year-old's point of view. It sold. So I guess that's why I'm torturing myself!

Wordswimmer: How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?

Fischer: I reach out to my writer friends who will understand what I'm going through. I'm lucky to have supportive friends that I've met through SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators). I'm not the only fish in the writing sea, and that has made all the difference. They give me great advice and comfort when I need it.

Wordswimmer: What's the part of swimming that you love the most?

Fischer: I love it when I'm writing quickly with the story pouring out of me. Those first drafts that are purely for yourself, before you have to show it to anyone or revise it, are my favorite part of the process. I love being alone with me and my characters in that time period before I have to share them with anyone.

To learn more about Fischer, visit her website:

http://www.debbiereedfischer.com/writers.html

Or follow her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/debbie.r.fischer.3

and Twitter https://twitter.com/debbierfischer

For more interviews with her, visit:

http://slayground.livejournal.com/407396.html

http://www.fromthemixedupfiles.com/2016/07/interview-debbie-reed-fischer-great-giveaways/

http://reviewerx.blogspot.com/2008/12/debbie-reed-fischer-on-modeling.html

One Writer’s Process: Alex Flinn

When she was merely five years old, Alex Flinn, now the award-winning author of more than ten books for young adults, knew she wanted to be a writer and began keeping her own diary and writing plays for the kids in her neighborhood. Before turning twelve, she started writing a novel.

That novel was never finished, and the novel that she wrote after that one—the one that she wrote at the age of 19—was lost. It took another ten years for her to start writing another novel, this time with an eye toward publishing the fruit of her efforts. She was 29 years old. Three years later her first book (the stunning, award-winning debut, Breathing Underwater) was accepted.

Looking back on her youth from today’s vantage point, Flinn observes that she didn’t truly start to think of herself as a writer until her family moved to Miami. “It was the first time I was really miserable,” she says, recalling middle school. “I had a hard time making friends. Art is suffering, people! As it was, I spent a lot of time reading and writing.”

Flinn, like many writers of books for children and young adults, suspects that she chose to write for this age group because she never got over being a child. “In my mind I am still 13 years old,” she claims, “running laps on the athletic field, wearing this really baggy white gym suit.”

What she tries to do in each of her books, she says, is to offer a story to the girl wearing that gym suit that she might enjoy. “It’s a way of going back to being thirteen,” Flinn explains, “knowing what I know now.”

The time that Flinn spent in law school, she says, probably gave her the idea for Breathing Underwater, which is based on her experiences volunteering with battered women. What she discovered during her apprenticeship writing that novel was what every writer needs to learn: she needed to write what she wanted to write, not what she thought might sell.

“If you write something that doesn't have your heart in it because you think other people will like it, it will show,” she says. “It's better if you're genuinely excited about your subject matter.”

Flinn still writes her first drafts by hand in a notebook because it “just feels right,” she says, and because “I get a lot of good editing and adding done when I retype. Why mess with what works?”

Flinn’s forthcoming book, Beheld, is scheduled for release in January 2017. She lives with her husband and daughters a half-mile from her old middle school in Palmetto Bay, a suburb of Miami, where she was kind enough to take time from her work-in-progress to share some thoughts on writing.

Wordswimmer: How do you get into the water each day?

Flinn: Very slowly with a lot of bouncing around to make sure it's warm enough.

Wordswimmer: What keeps you afloat...for short work? For longer work?

Flinn: For short work, usually just going somewhere with few distractions and getting to it. I can write a short story in a day, or I can't write it at all. (For that reason, I am frequently a last-minute contributor to short story anthologies, when some other writer hasn't worked out.) For longer work, sitting there every day for at least some period of time, and planning to write

Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells? 

Flinn: "Just keep swimming," as Dory would say. Not every day is going to be great, but you have to keep swimming even when nothing is happening.

Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?

Flinn: The days when the inspiration doesn't come

Wordswimmer: How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?

Flinn: Write notes to myself, walk my dog. Sometimes, he is well-walked.

Wordswimmer: What's the part of swimming that you love the most?

Flinn: The days when it's easy. But, when I look back on the stuff I wrote on those days versus the hard days, sometimes the stuff I wrote with greater difficulty is better. My upcoming book, Beheld (HarperCollins, January, 2017), is composed of four long stories. I struggled to write the first one. It took me maybe six months to write that. I wrote the other three in less than a month. But that first one was very, very polished and needed less editing. Neither is better, and you don't get a choice, but there are benefits to paddling through the hard parts too.

For more information about Flinn, take a look at her website:

http://alexflinn.com/

Or check her out on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AlexFlinn1 and Twitter @Alex_Flinn

And for a few more interviews with her, check out these links:

http://slayground.livejournal.com/226954.html

http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2007/11/author-interview-alex-flinn-on-beastly.html

http://shutta.com/2009/06/author-interview-alex-flinn-author-of-a-kiss-in-time-beastly-breathing-underwater-and-many-other-books-for-teens/

http://booksinthespotlight.blogspot.com/2012/05/author-interview-alex-flinn-on-writiing.html

One Writer’s Process: Kelly Ramsdell Fineman

“A celebration of the senses on the sand and by the shore.” That’s how a Kirkus reviewer describes the success of children’s author and poet Kelly Ramsdell Fineman’s first picture book, At the Boardwalk. “The oceanside boardwalk bustles from dawn's first light until night's starry skies.”

This kind of praise isn’t a surprise to anyone who has read Fineman’s poems, many of which celebrate the senses and joys of life in such detail.

Many of Fineman’s playful and thoughtful poems are included in poetry anthologies and collections. “Baseball Season” can be found in Little, Brown’s One Minute Til Bedtime; “Catatumbo Lightning” and “San Francisco, Any Night” are included in National Geographic's Book of Nature Poetry; and “Pocket Change” is part of The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations.

“I started writing poems and stories when I was very young,” says Fineman, who continued writing poetry throughout high school and college.

It wasn’t until she began writing again after a hiatus of full-time work, though, that she found herself receiving acceptance letters for her writing projects, including most recently her picture book, At The Boardwalk, and her chapbook of poetry for adults, The Universe Comes Knocking.

In addition to writing poetry, Fineman produces an enduring and popular blog about writing and literature called Writing and Ruminating. In weekly posts, Fineman muses on a wide variety of subjects, including her love of Jane Austen and William Shakespeare, as well as her interest in the work of more contemporary authors. And, of course, a good deal of the blog is devoted to her passion for poetry.

It was thanks to her blog, and, her love and knowledge of poetry, that Fineman was invited to serve as the poetry chair on the Cybils Award Committee for Poetry (and she was kind enough to invite me to join her on the panel a few years ago, which is how I came to know her).

Fineman, who lives in New Jersey with her sweetheart, was kind enough to take time from her many works-in-progress to share her thoughts about writing.

Wordswimmer: If writing is like swimming, how do you get into the water each day?

Fineman: Sometimes I fall in, almost accidentally. There are days I really want to write, and can’t manage anything much at all, and days when I don't plan on it that something comes to mind and I follow that thought and find something new - a poem, or a chapter, or a blog post.

In the past, there have been periods when I was completely and utterly absorbed in a particular project, and I couldn’t wait to get to the work each day. It was so easy to be excited about the project and the writing (and often research, as well), and I was eager to get to it, that I thought it would always be that way. Come to find out, that’s not the case.

I keep hoping for another totally engrossing project, but in the past few years, it hasn’t happened. I have started flirting with Natalie Goldberg’s notion of daily practice, except that I don’t manage to get to it every day, so it hasn’t developed into a true habit for me yet. On those days, I sometimes figure out what I should be working on while I’m doing my pages, which gives me a bit of structure now and again.

Wordswimmer: What keeps you afloat...for short work? For longer work?

Fineman: Much of what I write is poetry, and I find that as long as I have an idea - an inkling, even - I can explore that and get a first draft down. Sometimes the finished draft is just a slight tweaking of the first draft, sometimes it involves a lot more new writing, coupled with massive revision.

For longer work - either a poetry collection or a picture book, chapter book, novel, or memoir (all of which are on my hard drive in various states of completion) - two things keep them afloat. One is actual interest in or fondness for the project, whether it’s a character or a concept, and the other is regularly “touching” the project. I have a collection of poems based on women in Shakespeare, for instance, that I completely and totally loved the idea of. I worked on that project pretty obsessively, until it was completed. (Still hasn’t sold, but then again, I’m not as diligent at sending completed work out as I ought to be.)

Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells? 

Fineman: I don’t always manage it - sometimes I flop about like a fish on dry land. I have a couple of autoimmune conditions that conspire to make life a bit difficult now and then, so while writing doesn’t require all that much physical energy, I am sometimes deprived of much in the way of mental energy. At those times, the work pretty much pauses.

There are other dry stretches, though, that are pretty much gaps in my own creativity, and those are the sort that are similar to anyone else’s dry spells, I guess. I view them as an opportunity to do other things and to fill the creative well. Something is bound to come along later to demand my time and attention.

Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?

Fineman: For me, the hardest part of actual swimming is keeping from panicking - I start to hyperventilate because I worry that I am going to drown if my face is in the water too long. I guess you can say that applies a bit to writing as well . . . the notion of panic because things aren’t going as well as you’d like, or the words on the page aren’t doing justice to what you meant, or aren’t conveying the idea or image you had inside your head.

Wordswimmer: How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?

Fineman: I guess it depends on the day. Because I am not under contract at the moment, nobody is waiting for any product or revisions, so I don’t have to focus on staying in my lane or kicking hard all the way through - I can always float on my back for a while under the sun, waiting for a new idea to come along. If I find myself in too much of a corner, I will backtrack to see if I went off in the wrong direction along the way. Or I will run it by a friendly first reader to get another opinion.

Wordswimmer: What's the part of swimming that you love the most?

Fineman: There’s a real sense of freedom to it on days when it’s going well and all engines are firing properly. Hours pass quickly by, and things come relatively easily. Those are pretty great days.

The other thing I love the most is playing with words. Finding the precise ones that are just the right shade for what I mean to say is a kick!

For more information about Kelly, visit her website: http://www.kellyfineman.com/

And take a look at her blog, Writing and Ruminating: http://kellyrfineman.livejournal.com/

To see her poetry chapbook for adults, visit: http://www.maverickduckpress.com/universe.html

And for more interviews with her, take a look at:

https://maclibrary.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/interview-with-kelly-fineman/

http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=880

And here’s the review of At the Boardwalk that appeared in Kirkus:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kelly-ramsdell-fineman/boardwalk/