Friday Write #041
Greetings, writers—
This morning instead of writing I walked around my neighborhood, taking pictures of other people’s gardens. I always prided myself on my little garden, but this year it looks like dogshit.
That’s because I started renting an office space downtown instead of working from home, and without the random midday hours I used to spend weeding or planting, everything’s fallen apart.
It’s not the obvious decline in my house’s curb appeal that bothers me; it’s the vibe I get when I’m carrying my bike down the front steps, past the flowers that are barely blooming this year. Like I’m walking through a cloud of neglect. Like the plants are going, psst, psst, remember us?
And I’m like, yes, I do, but I have to go write. And because I watched 1978’s The Secret Life of Plants, I feel like I really do owe them an apology. Geranium macrorrhizum, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry.
But it was imperative that I get away from my house. Contract writing I could always do anywhere: on riverbanks, in tents, in hospital waiting rooms, on buses, in the passenger seat of our family car if the kid let me push the seat back far enough. But for that book of my own, there was no way I could do it in a space where I could also make muffins or clean out a closet or repaint a bathroom or decide to go take a nap.1
By renting a space, I felt like I was hiring myself to write my book. Suddenly I had real skin in the game. And while I wouldn’t say that the process has been smooth and easy (nor should it be, I guess), I’m a lot farther along than I would be if I hadn’t signed a lease.
This is a long way of making a really simple suggestion, which is that if you’re serious about getting writing done, you should do something that clearly demonstrates that seriousness to yourself.
Make a writing schedule and follow it. Buy a fancy pen if you’re a person who enjoys writing by hand. Take an online class, or an in-person class, or tell a friend that you’re going to send them a story in fourteen days and keep that promise. Take yourself on a writing retreat, even if it’s just four a few hours at a coffee shop. You get the idea.
And remember that a writer is “someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people,”2 so be nice to yourself.
Okay, that was today’s real assignment: make an actual, concrete commitment to your work.
But because it wouldn’t be a proper Friday without a prompt, write a scene that involves a surprising coincidence of some kind. One of your characters should this event as pure random chance, while another sees it as a cosmic sign. Whose view prevails?
(And which sort of person are you: the rational one or the magical thinker?)
And please, if you’re on the fence about the flash fiction course on July 223, just sign up now by hitting reply to this email! Then I can stop writing you all about it, and wouldn’t that be great!
Happy writing—
Emily
The likelihood of these things occurring, in order, goes: nap, muffins, closet, painting. Nap leads by miles.
That’s Thomas Mann. Have I used that one before? I can’t remember.
In this three-hour, in-person workshop dedicated to the short-short story, we’ll read examples of microfiction and discuss how the authors create entire worlds in tightly compressed spaces.
We’ll consider structure, voice, characterization, plot, and more, and use what we’ve learned to generate our own pieces of extremely short fiction (or memoir). We’ll be working with prompts and other encouragements, and you’ll walk away from the class with at least one short-short-short story in your pocket.
When: July 22, 10 am-1 pm
Where: The Writers’ Block in downtown Portland
How much: $100, payable by Venmo to Emily-Chenoweth-2, or by writing me for an address to send a check.
Have any questions? Want to sign up? Hit reply to this newsletter, or send an email to writingisagoodidea@substack.com