How to start a writing group

One of the best things that's happened to me as an author this past year has been being a part of a writing group. Not just any writing group, mind you—a magical one! Now, all the ladies in my group know that fantasy is hardly my forte (or interest whatsoever), so I'm not talking about talking animals or vampires showing up every week to the cafe and ordering coffee while wrestling prose alongside us muggles. When I say magical, I mean that our group has been a cauldron (sorry!) of momentum, community, encouragement and direction for a group of women who needed all of the above.

While living in New Zealand for six months I wrote full-time and finished the first draft of my manuscript. I enjoyed the independent work and it was nice to get all my thoughts onto the page without showing anyone. But when I moved to Seattle I started to feel thirsty for creative community, people to share the isolating writing process with.

I attended a local writing group and author talks and looked for an established community to link into. But nothing quite seemed to click.

I heard that Natalie Goldberg (writing muse and author of Writing Down the Bones) was going to be in town speaking at a Writers Conference, so I rustled up a few friends to attend with me. That changed everything. Natalie said that her biggest writing trick is to agree a public meeting place with a writer friend and say, "Next Monday, 8pm. You, me, cute cafe." They'd meet and just start writing for twenty minutes. Then they'd stop and read what they'd written, no matter how awful or brilliant, and then do another timed writing.

After the talk, eager to action Natalie's tip, I put it out there. "How about it? Next Monday? 8pm?"

They were in!

Then, within a few days, friends of friends were expressing interest. They were in too! And then we were six. English teachers, mothers, young adult fantasy enthusiasts (whose fantasy writing I actually love, so it must be good), memoirists, screenwriters and the next Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, gathering together weekly for coffee, pie and timed writings.

Seven months later, two manuscripts have been finished. Film schools have been applied to and narrative arcs formed and re-formed. We invited local author Janna Cawrse Esarey to talk with us about the writing and publishing process and have a retreat planned for a few weeks' time. We also started a critique element, so that if someone has a chapter they want advice on, they bring it in and we share our impressions, what works, what feels flat, where the energy is. It's scary, but empowering.

I've heard time and again that the most important thing to do when you are pushing into any sort of creative endeavor is to surround yourself with like-minded people to spur you on (and remind you that you're not crazy for spending years on a project with no guarantee of payment!).

If you're looking to start a writing group, here are my tips:

• Research any existing groups in the area first on meetup.com and go and see what they're like. Who knows, you may find the perfect fit! If you do need to reinvent the wheel, then at least you'll have some inspiration, thoughts on what works and doesn't, and you'll certainly meet some interesting folks. Just get out there and do something that gets you going in the right direction!
• If you want to start your own group, don't wait for a full attendance roster to be handed to you. Start with one writer friend and be bold in getting the word out. I was surprised to see how many people popped out of the woodwork once they heard about the opportunity.
• Find a location with a big corner table and bottomless coffee that doesn't mind your funny group typing away silently and reading intimate yet therapeutic essays. (It's amazing what comes out when you start tapping away at the keyboard after a long day!). Our location is by no means the coolest place in Seattle, but the staff is friendly and happy to let us do our thang.
• Six or seven people has been a good size for us.
• Start with two timed writing sessions for twenty minutes each. We love the pomodoro timer widget our on dashboards that tell us when we're done in their robotic, tomato-y voices.
• It's always awkward to share our unedited, imperfect writing, but like jumping into a cold lake, it's stimulating. (I say this like jumping into cold lakes is routine for me, it's not.) Instead of justifying and going on and on about how crap what you've just written is, just read. Perfectionism is the enemy of the creative mind, save it for the editing stage.
• Your group will probably develop over time, based on your needs. Roll with it and develop organically. We introduced the "critique time" element a few months after we started, once we were really comfortable and knew each others voices.

There is something so rewarding about having a group of fellow writers who are encouraging me, believing in me, laughing at my jokes (!) and pushing me forward. What can I say, I love my writing group big time, and hope you can find (or start) the perfect group for you as well.



How has community (on-line or in the flesh) helped you in your creative pursuits? What's worked well for you in the past? What support are you craving?


  

{I'm loving this new header font from dafont.com by the way! What do you think? The "Journal Bandolier is from the cleverhands etsy shop—very clever indeed.}

Got any good book recommendations?

My life-long tendency has been to have about 20 books on the go. As a child I'd pack a good five to six books for a twenty-minute car journey, you know, to have options. I never knew if it would be a Samantha Learns a Lesson, Number the Stars, or Baby-Sitters Club Super Special type of day. My reading selection had everything to do with what was in stock at the library or featured in the Scholastic school book order (!).

These days a lot of my recommendations come via the interweb, so I thought it would be fun to share some of the books we're loving right now.

I just finished Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House by Meghan Daum and am raving about it. It's hard to live up to a title like that, but the author does it with flying (and hilarious) colors. I'm also looking forward to reading The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance by Elna Baker. Apparently I'm in a female-penned-long-titled-memoir phase, but I'm fine with that. It's much lighter than previous Russian literature phases.


So, what book(s) are you excited about right now? Can't wait to hear!



{Isn't this embroidered book cover by Jillian Tamaki amazing, by the way? There's more flossed goodness where that came from here.}

Do what you love to undo what you hate + CD giveaway!

Who am I to want happiness in such a hurting world? 

Have you ever asked yourself this? I certainly have. It's always more subtle though, and usually feels less like a philosophical discussion and more like a nagging guilt. Who am I to want to write books and flourish creatively when 5,000 children are dying per day of diarrhea-related illness? (It's true.) Who am I to want more than what I already have when I already have more, materially, than 90% of the world? Who am I to want to surround myself with beautiful things when there is so much ugly in the world? A professional background in communicating global-poverty issues gives me plenty of ammunition for guilt.

I know I'm not the only one who's felt this. I've seen friends stay in bad relationships because they felt that asking for happiness would be too much. I've known plenty of people to stay in jobs that suck the life out of them because they felt they couldn't leave a "good" job. I should just be lucky to have a job in this economy, right? (Great post by Laura on Stratejoy about this, by the way.)

It's a constant dance between tending to your heart and living in your strengths and the sacrifice necessary for collective responsibility to a world that has quite a lot of need.

Jennifer Louden, a writer based on Bainbridge Island who I've come across recently, calls this intersection the sweet spot, and has committed to pursuing that sweet spot for a year on her Savor and Serve website. Check it out!

Some more amazing people to check out are Curtis and Grace Romjue. They are the founders of Jubilee, an abolitionist band (beach town folk rock, to be specific) that encourages their fans to take action on modern-day slavery. (You can read my husband's review of their album launch concert for KEXP here).  They're the first band also officially registered as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, giving a portion of all their income to an organization (International Justice Mission) that works to fight human trafficking around the world. I love the way they describe the sweet spot of engagement. They call their guilt-free, compassion- and passion-driven work as "thrive activism". Love it! They also coined a phrase that I wish I came up with:

Do what you love to undo what you hate.

It's not just "do what you and forget everyone else". But it's also not "undo what you hate, even if you're miserable". It's about finding the convergence.

It's Friday. I'm in Seattle's Belltown doing a few choice activities that I love (drinking coffee, reading and writing!) and thought I'd give a bit of weekend encouragement. I also thought I'd do a CD giveaway.

If you want a chance to win Jubilee's new album, To See You Well, just leave a comment below, somehow, however loosely, related to the idea of doing what you love to undo what you hate. If you put it on twitter or facebook and tell me, you'll get even more chances to win. I'll draw the winner next Friday. Woo hoo!

**Update, using random.org, I've drawn the winner: Joanna! I'll get this to you today and thanks for entering. 

My Seattle:: Local's Guide to Seattle

This week we have some dear friends from England visiting us! I think they're our first English visitors, but I have an increasingly bad memory and am trying to correct myself if that is untrue. Has anyone else visited us from England? Anyone?

With who I presume to be our first English visitors, I plan to put Seattle's best face forward, to make them leave with the impression that our drizzly city is actually a gem, an emerald even. Plus it's a great excuse to brunch daily and play visitor myself. 

Another reason I'm so happy to have them here, in addition to the fellowship of course, is that it's fun to have reminders of a life in England that seems distant sometimes. Aside from the fact that I'm writing a book about it and thinking about England daily, of course. But actually living somewhere is much different than writing about it.

One of the downsides of moving to a new city at least every two years since college (Santa Monica, Tokyo, Osaka, Seattle, Bath, Birmingham, London, Auckland and back to Seattle), is that while I've become pro at packing, it can feel like my community is scattered to the far corners of the earth. I invest in people, and vice versa, and then leave. It's a bit schizophrenic, all these lives I've created for myself. Having friends in town reminds me, Alisha, you actually lived in central England for two years, isn't that just nuts? 

Finally, entertaining visitors is all the excuse I need to compile a Local's Guide to Seattle. You won't find any Space Needle action on it, just a few of my favorite places to eat, drink and explore. 

Here goes, by neighbo(u)rhood...

Capitol Hill -

• Oddfellows and Elliott Bay Bookstore
• Caffe Presse and Stumptown
• Volunteer Park Cafe then walking around Volunteer Park and the surrounding gorgeous old houses
• Can't wait to try Analog Coffee + Poquito's when they open!

International District - 

• The Panama Hotel Tea + Coffee House (wonderful history about old Japantown too, and the setting of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet)
• Maneki Sushi (yet to try)
• Uwajimaya (just because of my acute Japanophilia)
• Zeitgeist Coffee (technically this is Pioneer Square, but who's counting?)

Ballard -

• Delancey (Molly Wizenberg and her husband's NY-style pizza restaurant)
• Honore Bakery
• A Caprice Kitchen (also yet to try their infamous brunch)
• Cafe Besalu and then drive up to Carkeek Park (in Shoreline, but worth it)
• Ballard Sunday Farmer's Market
• Bastille (French Cafe I'm biased toward)

Magnolia -

• Pastries at Upper Crust then Discovery Park
• Bay Cafe at Fisherman's Terminal for a nice diner experience (in my experience Englishmen like a good diner, or maybe it's just my husband)

Phinney/ Green Lake - 

• Herkimer (best coffee in Seattle) or Zoka coffee and walk around Green Lake

Wallinfordia -

• Tilth (for a local, organic brunch, heard great things and can't wait to try)

Queen Anne - 

• Toulouse Petit Cajun/ Creole (M-F brunch happy hour, all dishes $6!)

West Seattle -

• Bakery Nouveau + Lincoln Park

So my guide is heavy on the pastries, brunches and parks, but that's the kind of guide I write because that's the kind of girl I am.


Seattleites, anything else it would be rude to leave out? Where do you take your visiting friends and family?

What's it like to live in England?

Often it happens, as it did at the church women's afternoon tea I attended the other week, that in the process of meeting someone for the first time, it comes up that I lived in England. And the natural question is always, So what was it like?

Since it's hard to boil down four years into thirty seconds, I usually say something flippant like, "The pubs were nice," or "I learned a lot."

That I learned a lot is an understatement. In truth, living in England was a complete re-education. I'd go as for as to say that England was the unlearning of almost 80% of what America had spent 22 years working so hard to teach me, and America had laid it on thick.

The thing with England is that the differences between her and America are not just ornamental, like a preference for tea versus coffee. Although yes, we're all humans with the same basic needs and wants, and yes, we have the same shared heritage, the stories we are told about the world, about how to interact and about what to expect from life at times felt like polar opposites. It was the tension of living in this opposition that made daily life so stimulating, uncomfortable, eye-opening and precious.

And before I may go any further, I have to preface this by saying that what I'm describing is my America and my England, which could very well be different to other people's experiences in both places. But then again, this is my blog. :)

In the 1980s and 90s, America took the raw material of a naturally shy girl and told her, hey, you've got to get out of your shell if you're going to get anywhere in life. If you want to make friends, be friendly! Act excited! Use exclamation points liberally! Smile! It took awhile for me to get this, with much trial and error through high school and college, but by the time I left, I pretty much had it down. And armed with these helpful social tools, I bound off for England. Hey guys! What's going on?

But instead of greeting me with a big hug, smile or, heaven forbid, a high five, England looked at me, eyebrows raised, like I had mental problems. "Why do Americans always say have a nice day?" people would ask, honestly curious, as though this nice parting phrase needed rationalization. Or, "Why are Americans so fake and happy all the time?" I quickly learned that the very traits that Americans considered advantageous had the opposite effect on Britons. "Do you mind turning that enthusiasm down a notch? You're scaring the women and children."

At the turn of the millennium, through subtle comments and looks, England took a bold and idealistic woman and filed her down and chilled her out. It showed her that patience, contentment and holding her tongue were good complements to her natural activism, ambition and proclivity to speaking her mind.

America had told me to fake it till I make it, to act like I know what I'm doing at all times. England countered, You're confidence is making us slightly anxious.

America had said, I don't want to hear you complain until you've done something to change the situation. England looked at my proactivity and sighed.

America said, be direct, bold, forward. Say what you mean, don't beat around the bush. England insinuated, We prefer subtlety here.

America said, go big or go home. England said, I just might head home and put the kettle on then.

America said, how can I make your experience as comfortable as possible? England said, If you're cold put a jumper on.

America said, be inclusive. Talk to strangers. Try to make new people comfortable. Make small talk, make connections. England pleaded, Please just leave me alone. 

America said, put all your cards on the table as soon as possible. England said, Lay each down, one by one. Make them work for it. 

America said, cheer up, don't be so cynical. England said, Why are you in such a good mood?

America said, be perfect. Start your own business. Start a nonprofit. Be remarkable. Do it by the time you're thirty. England said, stop expecting so much out of yourself. Ambition isn't necessarily a great word.

America said, express your feelings, don't keep things bottled up. England said, Only if you absolutely must, and then only after a few drinks.

America said, less taxes and smaller government. England said, More taxes and bigger government.

America said socialism is evil. England said, capitalism is immoral.

It was all very confusing as you can imagine, like your dad telling you to do one thing and then your mum telling you to do the opposite. So many mixed messages, and on so many levels! But that is what living in England was like for me, aged 25-29, trying to figure life out in a completely different context to the one I'd been raised in. 

England was expecting one thing, getting another and then making constant adjustments and finding balance, and home, somewhere in the middle. It was learning to be content with less, to hang dry my clothes and handwash my dishes, without rinsing the suds. It was riding the bus instead of driving a car, learning that working out five times a week isn't normal and that trying to be perfect isn't worth it. England was feeling cold all winter, only going out to eat on special occasions, learning how to cook and bake, feeling like chocolate chip cookies were exotic, paying more than I'd ever paid on a lifestyle that was the simplest I've ever lived, constant awareness that I think differently, having so much annual vacation I had to think strategically to use it all, not worrying about health insurance, drinking a boatload of tea, drinking a boatload of coffee. England was starting a marriage. It was learning to be comfortable well and truly outside of my comfort zone.

England was an exercise in learning how not to be defensive all the time, as accidental ambassador for a country that is a catalyst for countless opinions.

So, that's what living in England was like, in a nutshell.

Whenever someone asks me, in addition to saying that I learned a lot, I also add that I wouldn't trade my experience there for anything. That I feel so blessed to have so many true friends across the pond, who helped me navigate my foreignness and loved me regardless, two of whom will be visiting us in just a few days!

And of course I say that, after four years, it's good to be home.





{Photo via etsy}

Japan, my heart

Yes, spring has come

This morning a nameless hill

Is shrouded in mist.

- Basho

I'm not normally a poetry type of girl, but sometimes less is more. My heart is with Japan right now, a country that, for some strange reason, nestled into the soul of a little girl in Seattle over twenty years ago.

In third grade I begged my parents to let me take Japanese. And violin, though I feared at age seven I would be starting too late. I was the Asian mother's dream.

At sixteen, while most girls dreamed of Paris, I dreamed of Kyoto. I spent the summer before senior year in the mountains of Gunma, cycling around the rice paddies, practicing calligraphy with my host sisters and generally being in my element. 

Even in Albania when I was 19, so far from that island nation, an old Kosovar refugee woman gave me a ring inscribed with the Chinese characters the Japanese language adopted. I later translated it:  Don't forget me.

I met my husband in a forest in Kobe. While teaching young Japanese how to say such useful words as apple, cat and sleep, I let Japan in even more. This place taught me form, tradition and grace, which I never quite mastered, despite my efforts.

I walked down the aisle to taiko drums. Every time I try to write about England, I write about Japan.

This is cheesy, but Japan is my heart. It runs deep.

The people I am still in touch with are safe, but shocked. I received an email yesterday from a friend who is now teaching English in the north. She shared this verse from the Psalms.

''Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,
   for in you I take refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
   until the disaster has passed.''
- Psalm 57:1

I have not forgotten Japan, and I know that God has not either. Right now, as cherry blossoms bloom in Seattle, I pray for this country I love, across the Pacific.


{Photo via flicrk by joel abroad}

Full English breakfast and help me decide on a book title

This weekend we introduced my parents to the joys of a Full English breakfast at the Market Arms in Ballard. I hadn't had a "proper fry-up" for over a year and so was feeling a bit nostalgic. Many Americans may be taken aback by the idea of eating baked beans for breakfast, by choice, but I can assure you they actually complement the rest of the meal quite well.

I got the veggie version, subbing mushrooms for sausage and bacon. Here's the play by play:

(Baked beans, fried eggs, sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes and two cheeky slices of toast hiding under the 'shrooms.)

I'm still eating the British way, which I learned was the correct way: fork in left hand and knife in right throughout. Only children and Americans switch mid-eating maneuver to shovel the food into the mouth I was told.

Knife and fork on right signals a a completed breakie. What you're failing to see is the bottomless coffee I had instead of tea -- English Breakfast, Seattle-style. Yum yum.

I'm actually also doing a bit of a poll, and I invite you to cast your vote. The book I'm writing, a memoir of four years in England, is still a work-in-progress, but needs a name.

There are three ideas I have so far. What do you think? 

1. Tea + Toast: A story steeped in England
2. Swimming in Treacle
3. Full English

Do you know what treacle is? I'd call it the British equivalent to molasses or honey, a sticky sweetener that gets a lot of attention in the pastry case over there, even if just subtly as a minor ingredient. It can also be the main attraction though -- apparently, treacle tart is Harry Potter's favorite dessert. I would consider it an acquired taste if you were not raised on the stuff, to be perfectly honest.

Sometimes living in England felt like swimming in treacle to me -- an exercise in resistance punctuated by sweetness.

I think the other two are self-explanatory.




Anyway, thanks for letting me know in the comments if you like any of my potential names.