The First Week and the Writer’s Process

The First Week and the Writer’s Process

By Amy Langrehr

Attending the NVWP was a gift to my writer self, a chance to dedicate time to writing. Yet when we sat down to write for that first 30 minutes section, I suddenly felt as my students “but Miss…. What do I write about???”

Luckily, my second grade teacher had us write for thirty minutes every morning. I knew how to get words on a paper, and knew that the first step in writing is just getting words down.

My dad, who dabbles in artistic photography, told me once “you take hundreds and hundreds of pictures, and keep only a few of the best ones.” This journal writing was just getting those sentences down. Many would be discarded and forgotten. A few of my thoughts might be applied to a fictional character, to give realistic detail. Maybe a comment on a current event would later be developed into an essay.

Later.

I had no idea what I wanted to write about, as a finished product, yet. I was tired of writing essays about education. If I complained about last year again, well, I was starting to sound like someone on a date who couldn’t stop complaining about the cheating ex. I wanted to write fiction, but I was struggling to find a voice outside of the academic teacher, let alone a whole new character.

Then I thought, well, I have been using a fictional voice this week.

That of my two new stuffed moose from Utah, Mordecai and Michael Moose. I’d been having them talk to my husband, and then, when they came to pick us up from the airport at 10 o’clock Saturday night, to my parents.

So, I wrote a little bit in the voice of Mordecai. It was low stakes. I didn’t have to share any of it. I might take pieces of it to develop into a story.

Later.

Meanwhile, I continued preparing my presentation. I was going to go back to the gym, LATER, after I finished my presentation. The presentation was a finished product I had to make, NOW. I couldn’t work on it little by little, revising it and polishing until I had it just the way I wanted it, as I prefer to do with writing. Like writing for a job, sometimes there are deadlines and you just have to get it out there. It may not be polished as much as I would have liked, but it was fine, and it was done.

I had finished my presentation. Phew. Writing group time.

I had an issue I wanted to bring to my group. I wanted to talk about being burnt out from thinking and writing about educational policy, but struggling to find a voice as a fiction writer. How do people start writing fiction? How do people find a character voice outside of themselves? 

But no. Another Amy insists I read something I’ve written. Bringing a question to the writing group was not enough.

Peter had said something about “it helps if you bring something you want to work on.”

“Shit,” I think.

I had been comfortable in that safe place, “let’s just throw whatever comes to mind onto the journal.  LATER I’ll sift through it and find something I want to develop.” I was supposed to have been developing something all along (I mean, in addition to my presentation).

I take stock of what I’ve written, mostly just whatever came to my mind got put to the page. I worry I might get a parking ticket before I get the pass on Tuesday morning, wonder what to write about, and passing mentions of issues which bother me (education, justice, tough discussions on race, Confederate flags, writing…). The only thing beyond a couple sentence hint at a topic was me writing as if I were Mordecai Moose.

Oh shit. Really? The first piece of writing I’m going to share with a group of accomplished writers I don’t know yet is going to be me as a moose? I mean… I’m silly with my husband, my parents, and my kids (re:students). I’m super goofy, especially with my husband. When I studied abroad in Granada and kept in touch with my husband via Skype, Jumpcito, the small, stuffed red panda who shook when you pulled a stringcoming from his behind, often snuck into the corner of the screen to greet me). That’s a personal side to me I don’t know about sharing, especially since I didn’t go back and tighten up the dialogue, didn’t find out what I want to do with the Moose Voice. Or if I wanted to do anything with the Moose Voice.

I took a deep breath. I read through everything. The parts that sounded good. The parts that sounded like too much. The boring parts. I read it all. I just read it without making excuses or apologies. It was what it was.

And…

The Earth didn’t shatter. No one threw eggs. No one rolled their eyes. Nor did anyone declare me the next Poet Laureate. They asked questions, suggested I come up with a central conflict to focus it into a story. They mentioned a line or two they liked. And we moved on to the next story. I could come up with a conflict and continue to give more and more shape to this story.

Later had become now. Not because everything was READY, but because in order to be ready LATER, sometimes you just have to be. Where you are. NOW.

And so the process continues…