Brenda Knight - You Should Be Writing ; A Journal of Inspiration & Instruction to Keep Your Pen Moving

A Journal of Inspiration
& Instruction to Keep
Your Pen Moving

by

Coral Gables

Copyright 2020 by Nita Sweeney and Brenda Knight

Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

Cover Design, Layout & Design: Morgane Leoni
Cover Photo: Panudda/shutterstock.com
Interior Illustration: castecodesign/stock.adobe.com

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You Should Be Writing: A Journal of Inspiration & Instruction to Keep Your Pen Moving

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2020933927
ISBN: (print) 978-1-64250-255-8, (ebook) 978-1-64250-256-5
BISAC category code SEL009000, SELF-HELP / Creativity

Printed in the United States of America

In loving memory of Rich Chin

Contents

As an author, I have heard of and experienced truly frightening writerly maladies: page blindness, horror vacui (otherwise known as fear of the blank space), creative paralysis, inner critic overload, and, of course, the old standbywriters block. As a writer, I too have experienced many of these phases, the worst being muse ab andonment.

How do word wranglers deal with this?

Proust took to his bed but, thankfully, nibbled madeleines dipped in lime tea, and thus Remembrance of Things Past poured forth. Voltaire drank as many as thirty to fifty cups of coffee a day, which surely must have left no time to tend his own garden. Female scribes including brilliants Marguerite Duras, Patricia Highsmith, Elizabeth Bishop, Jane Bowles, Anne Sexton, Carson McCullers, Dorothy Parker, and Shirley Jackson were known to imbib e as well.

Franz Kafka once complained, How time flies; another ten days and I have achieved nothing. It doesnt come off. A page now and then is successful, but I cant keep it up; the next day I am p owerless.

I subscribe to the Jack London school of daily effort. London believed that writing daily was the best way to rouse the sleeping Muse. He advised, Set yourself a stint, and see that you do that stint each day; you will have more words to your credit at the end of the year.

I also agree wholeheartedly with Maya Angelou to just keep at it. The trick is not to overthink it. Write nonsense if you have to. But keep writing, no matter if youre pleased with the final resul t or not.

Toni Morrison believed in establishing a ritual for your writing timebe it music, coffee, a certain time of day or whatever work s for you.

Stephen King offered a cautionary tale about the perils of writers block with his memorable novel, The Shining . And, this much is true, all work and no play makes any of us q uite dull.

But do not despair. Before you pick up your axe or start talking to ghosts, try a more spirited approach to getting inspired and journal. Or doodle, make lists, or jot down yo ur dreams.

Hillary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall , among her excellent works, may well offer the most helpful advi ce of all.

If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, dont just stick there scowling at the problem. But dont make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other peoples words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. B e patient.

This journal is intended to be a place for you to get away and explore the outer reaches of your immense im agination.

It may also help to remember the immense power of writing. A writers great gift is the ability to transmogrify experience even as a host becomes the Body of Christ, if you will indulge my Irish Catholic sensibilities for a moment.

One can uplift, inspire, console, and commune with ones words, or one can denigrate, depress, alarm, or alienate. I choose my words carefully and try to be an apprentice of the first way. Its easier to do in writing because one has time to think before blurting out some unkin d missive.

As my sophomore year journalism teacher, Sister Michael David, BVM, once told her eager students, Choose your words carefully; they are a matter of life and death. She then proved her point by telling us that when Queen Victoria wanted to quell a revolution in Ireland, she rounded up all the poets and writers and hung themthats how powerful ones words can be to the world.

Warmly,
Becc a Anderson

You should be writing.

It echoes in your head as you circle the desk, go for a run, watch a movie, pet the dog, eat dinner, have sex, do your best to fall asleep. You might not know why youre not writing. Even if you did, it probably woul dnt help.

Youre not alone. At some point, nearly every writer (including yours truly) struggles with the inability to get (or keep) the pen moving. Unfortunately, that fact wont help either. You might feel less lonely, but it wont fill the page.

The only cure for not writing is writing. Thats where this journal comes in.

You should b e writing.

Let this journal be a space for you to start, get lost, finish, abandon, return to, and simply have. Let this be a place where your pen flows freely and you get your words down while your head is filled with inspiring and instructive quotes from some of the worlds bes t writers.

Start this journal at the beginning and work your way through, or open to any page, find a quote that feeds you, use that as your prompt, and GO! Just get your pen moving. Thats the key. We are fighting inertia, apathy, and terror. The remedy for each is the same. Get your pen moving and let the w ords lead.

If youre a thinking type, make your outlines on these pages. Sketch your characters. Plan your story. Draw your maps and battlefields. Design the clothing and makeup. Plot your gran d schemes.