Ariel Gore - The Wayward Writer: Summon Your Power to Take Back Your Story, Liberate Yourself from Capitalism, and Publish Like a Superstar

wayward writer

Summon Your Power to Take Back Your Story, Liberate Yourself from Capitalism, and Publish Like a Superstar

2022 Ariel Gore

This edition Microcosm Publishing 2022

First edition - 5,000 copies - October 22, 2022

eBook ISBN 9781648411090

This is Microcosm #606

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Microcosm Publishing

2752 N Williams Ave.

Portland, OR 97227

https://microcosm.pub/Wayward

All interviews were conducted in 2021 and 2022, except for the interview with Ursula K. LeGuin, which was done in 2006.

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Microcosm Publishing is Portlands most diversified publishing house and distributor with a focus on the colorful, authentic, and empowering. Our books and zines have put your power in your hands since 1996, equipping readers to make positive changes in their lives and in the world around them. Microcosm emphasizes skill-building, showing hidden histories, and fostering creativity through challenging conventional publishing wisdom with books and bookettes about DIY skills, food, bicycling, gender, self-care, and social justice. What was once a distro and record label was started by Joe Biel in his bedroom and has become among the oldest independent publishing houses in Portland, OR. We are a politically moderate, centrist publisher in a world that has inched to the right for the past 80 years.

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Contents

How to Use This Book as a School

Introduction: Desire & Resistance

Part 1: Doors

Outsiders Welcome

Welcome Packet

Gather Sparkly Supplies

Dear Ariel (Packing up in Podunk)

Dont Worry about a Fancy Writing Space

Invoke Psychic Protection

If You Want to Be Like Audre Lorde (Interview with Alexis Pauline Gumbs)

Be a Part of What Happens Next

Support Reverse Gentrification (Interview with Johnny Temple)

Steal This Door

Transform Chaos Into Something You Can Hold

Visit the Strangers Plot

Dear Ariel (Mama in Maine)

Parents, Caregivers, and Other Workers Unite!

Relieve Your Babysitter

Talking Trash about the Living and the Dead

Dear Ariel (Earnest in El Paso)

You Dont Have to be Good (But You Cant Be Half-Assed)

Start Short

Part 2: Other Building Materials, Mostly Salvaged

Let Us Leave Pre-Door Tragedy Behind

Remember Your Strength

Portal Through Time

Bring Honor Where There Has Been Shame

Stand Up for Who & What You Love

Meet Your Real Mother

I (Heart) Apples-Oranges

One Has to Apply (Interview with Darryl Lorenzo Wellington)

Transgress Genre

Take the Noir Descent

Make Room for Your Characters Own Shady Agenda

Write from the Body

Accept Dented Characters

Put Your Enemies in Hell

What? Our Lives Have Themes? (Interview with Reyna Grande)

Hand-Piece Your Memoir

Build Altars and Scaffolding

Dear Ariel (Conflicted in Cleveland)

Part 3: Structure and Gardens

Cast the Hero as a Pregnant Single Mom

Ask How Things Can Get Worse

Believe in the Fairy-Tale Ending (Interview with Michelle Ruiz Keil)

Go See Baba Yaga

Design Magic Gardens

Charge an Object with Narrative Magic

Unload Kingstons Gun

Dear Ariel (Plotless in Pittsburgh)

Cave Theory

Gores Grotto

Try the Dramatic Spinning Green Chile Apple Pie Plot Theory

Ask the Tarot for an Insta-Plot

Create a Unified Experience

Make It Look Intentional

Part 4: Remodeling

Do Your Project Math

Set the Work Aside

Dear Ariel (Overwhelmed in Oklahoma)

The Sonic Edit

Set Up an Editing Parcourse

Get Outside Input

The Only Difference Between Me & Alice Munro

Dear Ariel (Graceless in Grand Rapids)

A Door Can Be a Table

Show and Tell

Borrowing and Stealing

Part 5: Solitude and Scene, Home and Away

Bold as You Can Stand

Create the Community You Wish to Be Part Of

Draft an Artist Statement

Metamorphosize Into a Fire-Breathing Dragon and Apply for All the Residencies

Plan a DIY Writing Retreat

Dear Ariel (People Pleaser in Poughkeepsie)

Invent Your Own Promotion Formula

Go to a Writing Conference

Have a Clear-Headed Understanding of Your Audience (Interview with Jisu Kim)

Dear Ariel (Doubting in Decatur)

Are You a Real Imposter?

All About Imposters

In the Walled City

Writer as Worker (Interview with Adrian Shirk)

Eating Artists

The Hustle is the Destination

Travelers Notes (Interview with Maia Williams)

Part 6: Entertaining Friends and Strangers

Make Your Stories Public

Submit

Dont Give Up (Interview with Ursula K. LeGuin)

You Can Touch the Page You Wrote

Dear Ariel (Dreaming in Davis)

Take a Manuscript and See it Become a Book with a Traditional Publisher

Get an Agent if You Need One (Interview with Laura Mazer)

Think About Your Book Project the Way Your Publisher Will

Dear Ariel (Agent-Shy in Ogunquit)

The Future Is Decentralized

We Really Need to Do Something About Publishing

Conclusion: Wayward Forever

A Wayward Writer Reading List

Acknowledgements

About the Author

How to use this book as a school

W elcome to the School for Wayward Writers. Think of this place as a lab to explore what it takes to make writing your life and make a life from writing. There are no prerequisites.

Feel free to work through the curriculum alone or with a group of writer-pals in a formal or informal setting. Youll need pens and a soft notebook you like to hold, or a device thats easy for you to write on. I like to use lined and unlined Moleskine books, and fine-tipped black ink Pitt Artist Pens. I also use index cards and a laptop. Its also nice to have an old-fashioned kitchen timer.

In this book, youll find 78 try this assignments. Some of the assignments include a specific time allotment, but I also recommend using the timer for any assignment that doesnt immediately inspire you. In the spirit of trying three bites of green beans in the reform school cafeteria before deciding you dont care for them, set your timer for 10 minutes and write whatever comes to mind after reading the assignment even if thats , Yada yada, headmistress Ariel irritates me to no end and my head is full of blue-green glass liquefying into ocean . Youre welcome to keep writing after your timer dings, but just those ten minutes will fulfill the requirement for the assignment. If you complete one assignment each week, you can work the whole program in 18 monthsor two academic years if you take the summer off.

After you finish all 78 assignments, you can fill in your diploma. You can put a rainbow unicorn sticker on it if you like. (Extra credit can be redeemed for more unicorn stickers.) Youre one of us now.

Introduction: Desire & Resistance

I wanted to be myself and survive. I never felt like I could deal with having a normal job where I had to wear heels and smile at all the right times. Not for any longer than necessary, anyway. I did want a careersomething I could nerd out on, an outlet more than a hobby. I wanted to be myself and survive.