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WRITING THE MOMENT
By C. Hope Clark
In my writer's group in Columbia, South Carolina, a couple of
people have commented on how I am able to insert snippets,
slivers and spots of life in my chapters. It's taken me a
number of years, but I attribute it to two things...being a
quiet person and having to write so many editorials for FFW.
If you have a deadline, you write. If you don't, you may or
may not pen that story. Every Tuesday evening, I have a
deadline with my proofreader. She receives my newsletters to give
her time to return them by the end of the week. I cannot count
how many times I've had to sit down at dusk on Tuesday and stare
at a blank screen, tapping my life for an editorial moment.
Columnists understand what I'm saying. Many a journalist or
freelance writer has complained about that monthly date when
something is due. Try it weekly and note how creative you become.
Some messages have flopped and a handful of them have made people
mad. I'm learning not to say anything derogatory about wildlife,
because someone invariably bites my head off. No one wants to
hear details of someone else's family week after week, so those
pieces are limited as well. So I interview myself. I ask these
questions:
1. What challenged me this week?
2. What tickled me this week?
3. What pained me this week?
4. What angered me this week?
5. What inspired me this week?
6. What event changed my direction this week?
7. What public event caught my eye this week?
8. What contented me this week?
9. What did I learn this week?
10. What made me grateful this week?
Without fail, by the time I reach number 10, I have a topic
brewing, boiling and steaming to come forth on the paper. The
weeks I have to write four editorials are the most trying, but
I don't stand from my chair and walk away until they are written.
Tapping into your everyday life is a talent that has to be
groomed. If you are a trained journalist, you understand. At
least you learned some of this in school or on the job.
Reporters might be a pain in the butt in many ways, but they
can definitely smell a story. They watch life through a writer's
eye.
A friend of mine wrote me recently, knowing I'd be intrigued
at how she put her eye to use. Read what Gwynne Spencer had to
say about her writing eye...
"Just thought you'd get a kick out of this.
In the process of moving, I had to convert my long-standing well
loved old phone number to AnywhereVoicemail which required a
prolonged relationship with the gal at the other end of the phone
in the Qwest office. While we were waiting for the complexities of
this cyber transaction to take hold, she was sharing with me her
insight that indeed moving is the pits, and that as a kid she had
moved ONE HUNDRED TIMES. Boinnnngggg! There must be a story in this
somewhere, I said. So while we're on hold, while the computers were
doing whatever they do in Qwestland, I started a new document, took
notes on her stories about moves and their trauma, about how she
is the person she is now because of the moves, stronger, less stuff.
And about an hour later (it was a pretty complex deal that included
severing my old fax line and keeping it alive, keeping DSL alive
on a segregated number, etc. etc.) I had almost a page of notes,
and a promise that she would start some 3x5 cards and be in touch
to collaborate on an article that tells kids that moving, while it
is indeed traumatizing, is in that category of "If It Doesn't Kill
You It Makes You Stronger." (was that Kierkegaard?) and we talked
about how people react differently to loss of stuff, change, and
meltdowns.
When I finally got off the phone, I had about twenty titles dredged
from Amazon that seemed slightly tangential to the topic (but all
irredeemably cheerful) of moving, and a few books for grownups,
but nothing with the immediacy and punch of stories from somebody
who had moved A HUNDRED TIMES. I still think there is a teen novel
in this somewhere, but until I find my box cutter, I just can't cope
with starting a new project.
MORAL OF THE STORY: When you are a writer: everything is material."
http://www.gwynnespencer.com "
An event doesn't have to rock your world to become worthy of a
story. I dare you to take my challenge. Pick one day a week.
Take a seat at your computer, outside with a pad, wherever.
Study everything, everybody, every movement around you. Let your
brain go. This isn't a timed test. Then write a piece from what
you've learned.
I assure you that you can take those minutes of your life and
preserve them into a moral, a story or a motivational message.
Do it for six months, but a year is better. Your mind will be
a writing machine, seeing worth in absolutely every tidbit of
your life.
BIO
C. Hope Clark has confidence this method works. She has written
484 FundsforWriters editorials as proof.
www.fundsforwriters.com
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