WORDS WORTH QUOTING

By Bonnie Stanard

There's a quotation for almost any subject. Some of my favorites are from Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill. If I'm in a bad mood, I open my folder of quotations and get a laugh while sorting out issues such as Why am I in a bad mood?

I've taken the first half of a W. Somerset Maugham quotation as the title for a presentation I've been working on for the Shepherd's Center in Lexington—"Three Rules of Writing." The audience won't know it, but I'd never attend a presentation with that title (unless I'm giving it...) What's wrong? you may ask. Maybe I'm getting cynical, but writing rules are for seventh graders. A person needs guidance learning the basics, but guidance is not the same as rules. If you don't know what point-of-view (POV) means, you need to read advice. But don't listen to rules. Rules are made by "experts" expecting to aggrandize their reputation.

What writer would say there are exactly three rules? Why not 10? If you browse the internet, you can find a hundred. I'm tempted to ask the audience what they think the three rules are, but they aren't writers. If a writer should show up, I can only hope they will stay long enough to get the second half of Maugham's quotation, which will restore my credibility, as it does for Maugham.

Whether or not they are amusing, quotations provoke us to think. They put glitter on language and show it in its best dress. Here are versions of quotations that I've taken from my folder. Some have been altered to make them applicable to either writing or life or the writing life.

 

• Over prepare, then go with the flow.

• No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, and show up.

• If a relationship has to be a secret, you should be in it.

• Be eccentric now. Don't wait to wear purple.

• However good or bad a situation is, make it better or worse.

• The most important sex organ is the brain.

• When in doubt, just take the next small step.

• Cry with one or your characters. It's more healing than crying alone.

• Everything can change in the blink of an eye. Try to see it does.

• It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

• All that matters in the end is that you love your story.

 

The Shepherd's Center is an organization run by volunteers that provides mental and physical activities for the 55-and-older residents of the Lexington area.

What Longevity Actually Looks Like

By Kasie Whitener

I’ve been reading the same weekly email newsletter from Canadian writer and coach Daphne Gray-Grant forever. I may be one of her longest subscribers. She’s the Publication Coach and you can find issue #847 here. 

Yes, #847 which, divided by 52 weeks a year, is 16 years she’s been delivering weekly advice to writers like me.

That’s roundabout 2006, which is when I remember finding her. I was working for SYNNEX Corporation as a copywriter, my master’s degree making me eligible to use 25-cent words when 5-cent words would suffice. But Daphne has always encouraged me to be concise and precise in my word selection and sentence structure.

This week she encouraged me to recognize where my writing imposter syndrome comes from: a non-existent continuum of writing. 

“...there’s a widely held misunderstanding that writing falls on a commonly accepted continuum of bad to good. And we all worry about doing something that’s baaaaaad,” she writes, “But, in fact, writing doesn’t operate on such a continuum. Instead, it’s a matter of taste. What I see as ‘good’ writing might not please you and visa versa.”

Ever have one of those, “Duh!” moments? Of course I know the writing I like isn’t necessarily what others like and just because others don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Earlier in the day, I’d read a writer’s tweet asking for everyone’s favorite short stories. Lots of great titles including A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Peach Cobbler by Deesha Philyaw. I scrolled through the thread looking for Hemingway and couldn’t find him. Seriously? No one said Hills Like White Elephants?

Just to prove that writing is personal and reading is subjective, my short story The Shower that won the 2022 Broad River Prize for Prose was also the submission that got me rejected from two different conferences. Also, it didn’t make the list from the favorite short stories tweeter. That doesn’t make me Hemingway.

Daphne’s point that we we think of writing on a continuum of bad to good is frustratingly true. I see my own work as inching from the left (bad) as it’s polished, workshopped, submitted, rejected, rehabilitated, resubmitted, and accepted. Accepted is good, right? Except then people read it and don’t connect with it (bad reviews) or start it but don’t finish it (abandoned) or say they’ve been meaning to read it but haven’t yet (can’t even motivate themselves to start the doggone thing!).

Just when I think I’ve written something “good” it seems increasingly likely I’ll never write anything good ever again.

But I’m still writing. And maybe, just maybe, the more I write the better I’ll get. Maybe the next piece will connect with someone. Will resonate. Will push them, like Daphne’s been pushing me, to keep at this thing. For 847 weeks or more.

A Writer’s Education

By Sharon Ewing

While I’ve sometimes been uncertain about the path of my career, I would have said it wasn’t the case of an identity crisis.  Yet this past year I’ve been so immersed in researching and writing about my ancestry that it appears I may be mistaken about that.  My oldest sister, the family historian, did an admirable job researching our family in the days when internet access was rare.  After she passed away, the task became mine.  This happens when siblings flatter you with platitudes about your skills in research, writing, etc.  So, I set out to fatten the existing files and hopefully discover hidden treasures in my lineage.

I’d always intended to write a novel about my childhood in the 50’s.  But as I researched my Irish ancestry, my great-great grandmother’s life intrigued me, and she became the main character in my story.  Funny thing about this process is that I knew few specific facts about her. And since everyone who once knew her was dead, I resorted to fiction in order to flesh her out.  As the story progress, I’m sure the character I created didn’t remotely resemble my great-great grandmother, but by that time I was so invested in the story, it no longer mattered.

In the process, I’ve have researched more about Irish history than I ever imaged possible.  I’ve dug through facts on websites, in non-fiction books, internet archives and drew names from ancestry websites.  I have garnered a new respect for historical authors who produce engaging stories after endless research, so much so, that I forget I’m reading fiction.  Edward Rutherford’s book The Rebels of Ireland, is a proven gem in this field. 

I’ve always loved history.  I remember walking home from school carrying a very cumbersome world cultures textbook, in the era before backpacks.  It was the first day of school that year.  My older sister remarked about the cruelty of my teacher giving homework on the first day.  I told her that I didn’t have homework.  I just wanted to bring the book home so that I could look through it.  When I told her about how I loved the smell of new books, she looked at me like I had morphed into an alien from another planet.

In historical fiction, I can combine my two loves.  I just need to be extra careful not to make the mistake of inserting my fictitious characters into my ancestry chart.  I almost did that once.  However, another bonus of this writing is the intense respect I’ve acquired for my forebearers who lived in challenging times past.  Knowing more of their history demonstrates how we all struggle with the set of circumstances we’ve been given and how much these outside factors influence the path each of us will take.

When I know their history, my characters are free to come to me instead of trying to force them on the paper.  With the setting in place, like actors on stage, their story unfolds. Yes, writer’s block still besets me, but I’ve become more patient.  Eventually, they speak and I write.  Their story becomes a part of mine.  Lesson learned.