Category: Writing

Getting write down to the truth

I’ve mentioned how 30 consecutive days of blogging in March renewed my desire to be writing as a way of being in my life. It’s as though I have remembered for myself all the things I so regularly structure or recommend for others: write informally. Write long and short and fast and slow. Write incompletely. Share writing. Springboard from the writing of others. Make writing social. Write to find out what you want to write. Write to discern what is true. And write the truth, what Glennon Doyle would call “the truthiest truth.” The truth that I know is true when I get really, really quiet, close my eyes, put my hand on my heart, look inside, and ask myself “what do I know right now to be true?”

As those first five days became ten, twenty, thirty, I felt I was living closer to my truth and writing more fluently from it than I had done in a long while. I learned again what I already knew: that I really do wantneed to be writing about most everything, most all the time.

Since “the 30 day challenge” has ended, now it’s simply “the challenge” every day. Apparently I am not blogging every Tuesday, though I still dream. And while I am not posting daily, I am actually writing daily if I count all the writing that “doesn’t count” in many of our minds: lists, post-its, voice memos, notes to self, jottings in a conversation, additions to my book shopping cart/TBR list, texts to my truest partners in truth-telling, sentences I write in my head as I listen to interesting podcasts.

This is the truth that I have recovered during the sabbatical period I’ve been having since January: I really love writing, and what’s more I really NEED writing. I need my head to be always writing its ideas; it leads to more and better ideas and more and better writing!

And then the deepest part: I need my heart to be always writing its own truth to itself.

Force of Habit

In March, I blogged every day as part of the Slice of Life Challenge hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Every day. I didn’t do every day well, or thoroughly, or at the same time every day, but I did it.

Not going to lie, it felt amazing. My professional work and my own experience have taught me so much about the benefits of daily writing, but I had never been able to put it together quite so well until this March. All the benefits of writing came to me, more powerfully than ever. I noticed the world more. I noticed myself more. I felt more creative. I felt inspired to write other, more difficult things. I felt connected to the other people I was writing with and for. Right up until March 31, come what may! It was wonderful.

And then, the next day, I didn’t write. And I didn’t write the next day, or the next. And today when I opened this document with intention, it still took me two hours of farting around doing other things before I started typing.

What makes habits so hard to form? I have spent years reading, thinking, and even teaching about it (list of my favorites below!). Even in elementary school, I was making charts for myself to tick off. I’ve read the books, used the apps, listened to the podcasts, made the accountability groups. They all help. I’m getting better.

None of them has made me the kind of person who can just do all the things daily.

I made a list of the things I actually do every. single. day. without fail. It’s a short list:
1. Brush teeth
2. Use the bathroom
3. Eat food

That’s about it. Even on workdays, in the job I have held for 16 years… there’s nothing I do every single day. And how I have wanted there to be!

If I could be, I’d be the kind of person who does all kinds of things daily, with routines and habits that are nourishing and consistent and peaceful and intentional. Every day in my imaginary consistent, intentional life, I would practice the piano, do yoga, drink 70 oz. of water, take vitamins, write in my journal, make something, check my budget, meditate, tidy up before bed, floss, read a poem, work on my book, take a walk outside…. obviously I would need more than one day to do all of these daily things, daily. Also, I would be a completely different person.

The more I learn about habits, the better I get at developing them. However, it’s also true that the more I learn about myself, the more I am OK with my inconsistency. I do still want healthy habits, and I do still work on that. Yet I’m more self-compassionate about how hard it is for me, and I’m more realistic about what is truly important enough to do every single day.

On Sunday, I revised my blogging intentions from daily to each Tuesday. I began this post on Monday. I am now finishing it on Wednesday. So much for consistency, but hooray for persistence.

Love me as I am! That’s what I’m working on. ❤️

A few of my favorites on habits (and self-compassion because, for me, they’re partners):

Scary story

I’m participating in the Slice of Life Challenge
hosted by Two Writing Teachers


Invited to a classroom to write with some first and third graders:
“You won’t scare the kids!”
Nice thought, but truly, I would
were masking not still a thing.
No amount of stickers
or “Write On!” t-shirt
or smiling enthusiasm
or typewriter socks
or book-print leggings
or punctuation skirt
or gimmick or trick or joke
could make it less scary that I
had both jaws broken then bolted back on with titanium
had my nose grow crooked after
had a screw poking through my sinus just so
have a rubber band holding my front teeth together

that the doctor
sliced me open between my teeth and upper lip
peeled back my face
removed screws and plates and gave them to me in a baggie
scooted my nose back into a straight line
and sewed it there for good measure

that when I woke up I
ran out of local anesthetic
cried for the nurses to do anything
called it worse than the broken bones I’ve walked on without knowing
called it worse than natural childbirth
called it worse than the worst migraine
(or maybe torture, though I’ve not been tortured)
made the doctor come running with his big needles
took four shots directly into my face
looked up within three minutes saying “Ok! I’m fine now!”

that the next day I swelled up like Violet Beauregard
my eyes turned purple then swelled shut
bruises slid down my cheeks and chin
and the doctor sent medicine that helps, but slowly
And indeed, I would scare the kids!

*NOTE! I was so beautifully cared for by TriCounty Oral Facial Surgeons! The anesthetic thing that happened was NOT something they did wrong, but something my body does almost every time I have a cavity filled or any local anesthetic like lidocaine or articaine (it was just more severe than ever) . I strongly recommend Dr. Engroff for any oral surgery you may need to have!

Any writers here?

“Are there any writers here?”

Being a specialist in teaching writing, writer identity, emotions and writing, and writing research, I ask that question a LOT when I work with any group of people. I have asked it of college freshmen, kindergarteners, and students at every stage in between. I have asked it of beginning teachers and classroom veterans, of doctoral students and senior professors. I have asked people in school, in Sunday school, in the woods, and even by the pool. And for all of those groups of people, across all of those times and places, if the group is new to me, the answer to “any writers here?” is almost always “no.”

Most folks keep both their hands and their gaze down.

Some folks give an emphatic, “No! I hate writing!”

Some folks raise a timid hand for yes, then lower it as they see nobody else is.

Lots of folks ask or tell what “counts” as being a writer.

The older they get, the fewer writers seem to be in the room. Younger kids will say they’re writers if their teacher has been saying it. (and how I love those teachers!) Older ones will say it, but will often qualify it, like “well, I write, but I’m not a writer-writer; I’m a kid.” With teens and adults, maybe one or two in a room usually will claim the label “writer.” These often either journal regularly or have published something.

Lots of teens and adults say with regret, “I used to be.”

Sometimes someone brave says, “I want to be.”

A lot of my work is about helping all these people (and their teachers!) get from feeling like non-writers who can’t write or hate writing to feeling like writers who can write and do write, even if they also hate writing. We build confidence and stamina, we learn to find and grow ideas, and we learn how to work in a writing community. If we keep at it, we learn to live with the difficulty that never really goes away (writing is hard!).

But today was different.

Today I visited a group of pre-kindergarteners I had never met. We gathered on the carpet, and like always, I asked the question. “Are there any writers here today?”

I blinked, and every hand in the room was up. Intrigued, I asked them to point to any writers around them. Many of course pointed to me– I had been introduced as a real author! But then, those small and pointy fingers started to move. One child pointed at another. A third child pointed at herself. Children pointed at the ones across the rug from them. A teacher pointed with all her fingers, spreading them like jazz hands aimed all over the carpet. Pretty soon fingers were waggling and twirling, and a few whole arms swung around heads, pointing at any human in their paths!

A whole room of writers. And so, we got to work!

I’m participating in the Slice of Life Challenge
hosted by Two Writing Teachers

Equinox!

On an equinox, day and night are of equal length; the dark time and light time balance each other. This Sunday was the Vernal Equinox, but it also was a sort of personal equinox for me. It is a time of turning over to a new season, on levels literal, emotional, metaphorical.

There really have been no appropriate bins of seasonal clothing, no decorative seasonal garden flags, no holiday decor to pretty up this last couple of years. Since a good writer friend told me she loves my lists, I’ll list some of the events and characteristics this looooooong last season has featured:

  • Burnout
  • Panic attacks
  • Pandemic
  • Divorce
  • Money problems (see: divorce)
  • Professional rejections and disappointments
  • Missed opportunities
  • Failures
  • Cancellations
  • Health problems: mental, kidney, brain, uterine, teeth, jaws, joints, Covid
  • Treatments: surgeries (5), braces (1 set), medications (so many)
  • Overwhelm
  • Self-judgment
  • Dissociation
  • Near-total societal badness

Lots of dark in that season, and all the flashlights out of batteries at times.

BUT. I arrived home at 4 am Sunday, on the vernal equinox, from a trip. Climbing into my bed, I thought vaguely, “I made it.” And on Monday, I woke up to these sights:

What you are seeing is living stuff revealing that not only is it still alive, it is growing new stuff! And even though spring/new “leaf” (get it?)/new life metaphors are cliches, they are also true.

New light this spring:

  • Headspace
  • Embodiment
  • New love that feeds, not starves
  • Teeth, jaws and face that cooperate
  • Writing ideas
  • Energy
  • Medicines (different and better ones)!
  • Fun plans
  • Self-compassion
  • No part of my body is cold right now!

There may be a pandemic, still. Education is still full of disappointments and frustrations, both personal and systemic. So is society. And life. There may still be lots of societal badness, complete with wars and oppression and tons of harm. I even still wake up every day with joints that hurt and more ideas than I can ever finish, and I want more money.

But still! Leaves are growing! I made it.

I’m participating in the Slice of Life Challenge
hosted by Two Writing Teachers

“I’m getting to know a different side of you,” he said

I’m participating in the Slice of Life Challenge
hosted by Two Writing Teachers

Which of the ones folks know is me? The one who writes, a lot, boldly? The one who has three books in progress but works on none? In one place I’m a leader, in another, behind. Among teachers, an author and friend; among academics, someone who had potential. Or still does? Senior colleague or deadwood? I can’t say.

To a regular person (do I know any of those?), in a regular town (not my college town of super-people), I’m a person who has written a book. Ok, four of them. An Author.

Which of the ones folks know is me? The one whose kids skip grades? Who throws good parties, or volunteers at church or school? Or one who cries, overwhelmed, that she can’t do it until the laundry is put away? And the laundry can’t be put away because it’s piled up; it’s un-beginnable. And I can’t wash laundry until laundry is put away, and I can’t tidy up with all this laundry everywhere, and I can’t work with everything so untidy, and I can’t tidy because I have too much work, and I can’t work because I’m too overwhelmed, and, and, and. That one? And did I take my meds today?

The teacher-writer? The full professor? The ex-wife? Wayward daughter? The program lead, the one who forgot, the committee chair, the fuckup? The girlfriend? The single mom, the MILF, the middle-aged, the grey? The extra ten pounds, the “hx hysterectomy,” the grumpy, the short kid, the bookworm, the blonde? Yes, that’s my real color, no highlights, no makeup. No filter. Except when I give in to wanting a filter. And on Zoom. Every professor deserves a damn Zoom filter.

Which one is me? The wounded kid or this take-no-shit feminist? The liberal, the radical? The Christian, the Sunday school teacher, the mom bringing cupcakes? High test scores, or self-hatred? ADHD or genius? Metal head or choir singer? Optimist?

A light under a bushel, or a fucking volcanic eruption of Big Feelings?

I had a magical friend who gave me the best gift when I was away at summer grad school in Vermont (camp for adults!), missing my female partner and sleeping with a man who didn’t deserve me. (He would write me, five years later, only to learn that by then I had married):

“Anne,” she proclaimed. You’re allowed to be complex.”

And I have been!

On not having any ideas

Why is it that all my best writing ideas happen when I’m driving a car? I don’t even like driving.

It’s been like this for as long as I could drive. Wait… it’s been like this for as long as I could write. When I’m cleaning, or walking, or driving, I have so many ideas. And they are all so good! But of course I’m doing something, and I don’t write them down, and I don’t remember them when I might write them down. And I’m no beginner, so I’ve learned from my forgetting, and now I often make a voice memo or tell Alexa or take a note on my notes app or the back of my hand.

Later, when I sit down to write, I look at those notes and forget what I meant. Or I remember, but the ideas seem much dumber than I remembered. Notes or no, when I’m sitting with my open notebook or at the keyboard, I hate everything I write. It feels like I have no ideas.

For so much of my teaching career, I couldn’t understand what kids meant when they said they had “no ideas.” What do you mean, no ideas? Everyone has ideas. I’m having tons right now. Brains are electrical idea cauldrons, with more ideas bubbling up than we can even grab onto and think about. At least that’s how it’s always felt to me. How can they have no ideas?

But now, having found myself feeling I had no ideas and even saying I had no ideas, I have some ideas about ideas.

I now understand my writers, kids and adults and basically everyone who’s felt they had no ideas, much better. When they say they have no ideas, they mean one of at least these two things. One, they have ideas, but they’re like the ones I make in my notes: they seem less good now, and the writer becomes afraid of going with them, for fear of looking stupid. This isn’t a writing problem, or an ideas problem, it’s a guts problem. I know this one well.

Two, they haven’t actually started trying to write yet, but they are scared they won’t have any ideas when they do. So, they don’t start trying. This isn’t a writing problem either, and if it’s an ideas problem, it’s not lack of ideas at all but simply a delay in ideas. And the delay is caused by fear. So, again, a guts problem.

Ideas don’t come when we’re doing nothing but waiting for ideas to come. They come when we’re doing something. Like driving, or cleaning, or walking. Or, they come when we’re doing something like…writing! Yes! We usually need to start writing in order for the ideas faucet to really turn on.

Or, clean or walk or drive or shower or something. Live. Do things. Notice how ideas come.

Then, the guts problem. If you don’t have the guts to go with the ideas that surely come, think on this: what other ideas do you have? Probably none except for the ones that you do have. So, guts or no… might as well go with those.

By the way, when I opened this Post window and started typing, I had no idea what I would write. I remembered having some good ideas while driving this afternoon, but they didn’t seem so good after all. I sat doing nothing. Finally I started typing. And here we are!

I’m participating in the Slice of Life Challenge
hosted by Two Writing Teachers

I wrote tonight

I wrote tonight.

Before that, I wrote with a group of teachers, all tired from a long day, a long winter, a long year, all brave and committing to write together.

Photo by Adam Lukomski on Unsplash

Before that, I quickly ate the chicken with peanut sauce, brown rice, snap peas and potstickers that I had made. On my son’s plate was just the chicken, plain. On my daughter’s plate was just the potstickers, plain.

Before that, I drove my son home from robot club in the fading daylight. My son explained about technical diagrams and quizzed me hard about a video game taking place in a house. 

Before that, I bought a snowblower from a neighbor. It’s only me, I said, and it’s too much to shovel. We wished together for a robot that you could just send out to clear your snow on a cold morning. 

Before that, I was in my house, with no video games or robots or anything. It was quiet in the house but noisy in my head.

I wrote tonight.

Note: The “before that” is a fun and easy-entry way to capture a slice of life. I learned it from my friend onathought, who undoubtedly learned it from another teacher.