how to become a real writer
making space for more of what you love in your writing life, plus October intentions
Welcome to Write More! This is the monthly intentions email, which goes out the last Sunday before a new month starts. Last month, we talked about planning your writing life, and I cohosted a really fun planning party via zoom with novelist and planner extraordinaire Erin Flanagan. (You can find a quick round-up of our best tips and a link to the recording of the party in this post.) This month, we’re talking about reconnecting with what you love about your writing practice.
If you’d like to join us, subscribe here.
We’ve just finished week 3 of the school year here, and we are In It. My kids have a wild schedule with zillions of half days and after school activities and a back to school night that somehow snuck up on all of us. My students are up to the usual mix of earnest hard work and absolute foolishness that’s totally typical of 18-year-olds in college for the the first time. And I’m racing toward my own book deadline. It’s a lot.
This is where I’m often tempted to make a master list and buy a bigger calendar and hope that a shiny new system will save me. But I don’t think that’s what I actually need. Instead, I’m trying to make sure I stay connected with what I love about each part of my life.
In that spirit, I’ve been thinking about this Marge Piercy poem, “For the young who want to,” which ends like this:
The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.
Things you don’t need to be a real writer: adoring fans, a book deal, the perfect writing studio/desk/notebook, an MFA, or even the confidence that you’re a genius every time you sit down to work.
What you do need: a commitment to doing the work.
It’s a high bar, actually. You can’t just walk around dreaming what about what you’re going to write, or telling people you have a great idea for a novel, as seemingly every dude I met between 18 and 21 did. You have to really write.
That’s how you become a real writer: you really write.
October intentions
One question to guide you as you think about your writing life this month:
What do you love about your writing practice? How can you make space for more of it this month?
The answer might be something about the actual act of writing—how good it feels when you find the right shape for a poem, the satisfaction of getting the opening to a chapter nailed down—but it might be something about the process more broadly. Maybe you love sitting down with your notebook first thing in the morning, before anyone else is up to need anything from you. Maybe you love talking through your ideas with a friend or a writing group, or maybe you love getting to share your work at readings. My dear friend Heather Bowlan has a new book out, and she’s been doing these incredible multimodal collaborative performances to celebrate. (And she’s writing a post in early October about drafting, revision, and collage, so stay tuned for that!) It’s been such a good reminder about the real joy to be had in sharing your writing.
What do you love in your writing practice? I’d love to know!
this month in Write More . . .
📓Emily Mohn-Slate, who writes
, on finding the gems and potentials in a stack of notebooks🧟♀️ we chatted about what we’re reading, and I voted for two very different books: Claire Dederer’s Monsters and Ashley Audrain’s The Whispers
🧠 “I think the creative brain and the caring brain are essentially the same,” a good creatures interview with Touched Out author
🌀 novelist Carolyn Prusa on finding the humor in her characters’ messy marriage, plus a writing exercise
and elsewhere on the internet . . .
for a special Care Package edition of
’s great Poetry Bulletin, I shared some tips for writing a query letter for a collection of poetry (and I shared the summary I sent to LSU when I submitted Pocket Universe, which felt a little scary!). if you’re working on a poetry manuscript, you’ll definitely want to subscribe to the Poetry Bulletin, which Emily calls “a poet-to-poet effort to make the publishing process friendlier and easier.”for
’s Today You Will Write, I shared some tips for moving between the micro and the macro in your writing and how to get unstuckand, in three dimensions . . .
if you’re in the Philly area, I’ll be reading at Tattooed Mom on Tuesday, November 14, along with Claudia Cortese and Raena Shirali to celebrate the release of Erin Hoover’s new book, No Spare People. (I haven’t read Erin’s new book yet but am excited to get a copy. Here’s the description: From poems about finding autonomy as a queer, unpartnered parent by choice in the South to those chronicling a generation's economic instability, Hoover rejects so-called "acceptable losses" stemming from inequalities of gender, race, and class. The book asks, what happens to the woman no longer willing to live a lie? Doesn’t that sound like a book you need to read?) I’d love to see you there.
and a chance to write together this winter . . .
I’ll be leading a poetry incubator workshop at this year’s Murphy Writing Winter Getaway, this January 12-15, 2024, near Atlantic City, NJ. I’ve gone to the Getaway for years, as both a participant and a workshop leader, and it’s really a special place—welcoming and supportive for writers at all stages of their writing lives. (Several of the poems in Pocket Universe had their start at the Getaway!) I’d love to have you join my workshop—and there are so many other great workshops in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, memoir, songwriting, playwriting and more. And this year, to celebrate the 30th Getaway, there are a *ton* of scholarships available for first-time attendees—right now, I believe it’s 25! The deadline to apply for scholarships is October 1. You can read more and register at stockton.edu/wintergetaway
Write More, Be Less Careful is a newsletter about why writing is hard & how to do it anyway. I’d love to hear from you. Reply to this email, comment below, or find me on instagram (@nancy.o.reddy).
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I write during the 4am hour every morning. Start my dough mix, heat the oven, brew my coffee, and sit with pen and paper. Just now, at the start of today's entry, I wrote how I most look forward to this hour every day - that writing at 42 years old reminds me of recess at elementary school - you excitedly know it's coming, the possibilities are endless, and you can never predict what path you'll carve when you set out in the beginning.
I often write early in the morning, between 4-6 am,, before my children are awake. It's more accessible to me then as opposed to the end of the day. I love lighting a candle, making myself a warm breakfast with coffee, and setting to work in my corner of the couch.