Wait. That’s been said. And, my, Pablo Neruda could say it, couldn’t he? (Shew!)

… but there is no atmosphere in this winter, and so I can’t write the saddest lines. I have trouble writing any lines at all. Rain has fallen for over a week. The ground is spongy, and the creek banks are littered with long grasses and driftwood brought downstream by gully-washers. Temperatures have been record high, but the sun hasn’t shone in … a very long time. The whimsy of the season is absent. The gloomy weather doesn’t even induce melancholy; it’s just dull.

At this time of year — when days are short, but nights still don’t seem long enough to rejuvenate the exhausted soul — a writer like me needs slow snow fall out the window, and the twinkle of white Christmas tree lights in the reflection of the window near the big writing desk. She needs steaming coffee and music – real music played by clever songwriters on real instruments.

A fireplace might be nice, too, but it’s not essential.

This winter, the precipitation is coming down in buckets, not in flakes, and the fireplace is waiting for me to switch the air-conditioning off again. Thus, the desired writing ambiance is lacking.

Sure, one could concoct a musey-mood elsewhere, I suppose. Sometimes it is easier to achieve an inspirational atmosphere by writing in a public place such as a coffee shop, bustling hotel lobby, or transit station. These places help the writer disappear, or to step outside of who he or she is. For me, I must step outside of who I am to others. The right atmosphere help me achieve that, to a point.

Perhaps that is why there is a restlessness inside of me – a gypsy undercurrent that sometimes tempts me to be absent from my workplace, out of the kitchen, away from the home, released to the highway. The writer in me wants to roam and see and listen and feel and think and roll. I don’t get to do that often, but it seems that when there are wheels under me, my writer heart is happiest.

… but roaming requires time, money, and opportunity. For me, it would be a selfish investment. I am a full-time professional with a family, and like many writers with day jobs, I find myself saying, “I can write when I take time off work/when the chores are finished/when the kids go to college/when I retire …” This is not realistic. Life will always be busy, and writers write, so we must prioritize. I must prioritize.

In an earlier issue of Relatively Random we discussed the things that writers need: invitation, community, and outlet. We reviewed resources that provide invitations for writers, but without community, the equation is incomplete. Writers write, but they don’t do it alone; it is not the solitary business some people imagine it is. Writers need other writers to hold them celebrate with them, inspire them, and hold them accountable.

For 2016, I plan to reimagine my writing community. Within a new community of writers, I will find the balance between life and the writing life. I invite you to join me.

(If you are interested in becoming a part of the Relatively Random writing community, please drop us a note at our Contact Us Page.)

          Thanksgiving was my favorite time.  My parents and I would make the annual drive over the river and through the woods to my matriarchal grandparents’ house where we would gather with my mother’s six siblings and their children.  For me, the visit was not about the huge meal, spread wide and generously on my grandmother’s dining room table.  It wasn’t much about meeting the new babies, and it was only a little bit about the gifts we would exchange after dinner, when we quickly transitioned the holiday over to Christmas with some tree-trimming before my grandparents’ journey south to their winter home in Florida.  For me, it was all about the humor.  You see, my mother had five brothers and when they began reminiscing with my father, who married into the brood at a young age, the storytelling, the irreverence, and the … “education” I enjoyed as a young listener affected me intensely.  Their tales, their style, their gift for exaggeration and understatement … this and so much more influenced me to love language in a way that I will never be able to remove from myself.  

          I think my uncle taught me first, but only by example.  He didn’t mean to do it.  There was something in the way he related to others – something in the greeting.  Something charismatic and engaging.  Something quick.  I wanted to keep up with him, but when I was a child it was hard.  (Even as an adult, when my sharp wit was well-trained and capable, I still couldn’t defeat him in our verbal sparring matches.  Not even at our last one, which occurred in the days before his death.)  When one approached my uncle for a “hello,” one must be prepared to run a course of witticisms.  Small talk with him was more like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book.  When I was younger, I would walk right into his pranks by responding incorrectly to his “set-ups.”  This is what he wanted – to see my face blush, to watch my eyes roll, to muss my hair and “Heh heh heh.  Got you.” Soon I learned to be more clever as I engaged in the challenge of his chit chat.  Still, he was moves ahead of me.  Wiser.  Wittier. 

It took years to learn the strategies to anticipate his jabs, to deflect his verbal punches, and to land a proper rebuttal on his chin, and though I never perfected my craft, I improved and became, he admitted at the very end, a worthy opponent. 

Through my schooling, good teachers provided me these invitations, and my passion grew.   My skills developed.  I followed my talent and interest to college, where the invitation to write remained, but the events became more formal, and after graduation, I assumed the role of the event host.  It was my turn to extend the invitation to a new generation.

Currently, I nurture and support young adult and adult writers, alike.  I share prompts that inspire me, I offer techniques that tempt and trick writing out of people who think they can’t be writers, and while I find tremendous enjoyment from this, this thing that I do … this teaching, this mentoring, this whatever it is, I sometimes get hungry.  How ironic.  I hold the silver tray and offer treats to writers like hors d’oeuvres to guests, yet I am quite often craving nourishment, too.

So, what does the starving writer do?  When the old songs and dances no longer move her?  When the guests are gone, when the community is quiet, when the old dog wants new tricks?

Join Relatively Random this month as we celebrate National Poetry Month with a weekly series about writing.  We will share writing ideas, resources, reviews, and tips for our readers who write (or know people who do).

We hope you’ll check back each week this month.

As I mentioned previously, I came to the writing life early, thanks to teachers who offered opportunities for me to do so.  All I needed was an invitation.  I firmly believe that the right invitation will inspire writing.

Early in my career, I applied for and was admitted into a writing community called the National Writing Project, which supports teachers as they strive to improve their own writing and offer solid writing instruction to their students.  I spent a summer within this writing community, which provided me with daily creative inspiration – writing prompts, demonstrations, writing time, feedback, etc.  Once the project ended, I took the tools I acquired to my classroom and shared them with the young writers there, and they eagerly devoured them.  Soon, my silver tray was empty, and the writers, like I, were still hungry.  This was long ago, before the internet was widely accessible in American classrooms, so I did what learners used to do:  I went to the bookstore.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the big city bookseller contained a section for writing reference.  Within about five minutes, I had spent $100 of my own salary (teachers do this every single day) on books that offered page after page of writing prompts.  Some of the books I bought that day are still my “go to” texts when I lead a group of writers.  While the books are over a decade old, the concepts never expire.  There is no deadline by which the writer must RSVP.

My favorites include:

Discovering the Writer Within:  The 40-Day Writer’s Workshop by Barry Lane and Bruce Ballenger

A Writer’s Book of Days:  A Spirited Companion and Lively Muse for the Writing Life by Judy Reeves

Room to Write by Bonni Goldberg

Writing Your Life:  Putting Your Past on Paper by Lou Willett Stanek, Ph.D.

My copies of these texts are well-loved.  Well-worn.  Coffee stained.  Fully annotated.  Irreplaceable.  I can’t tell you the number of meaningful writing pieces have come to life thanks to the tried-and-true techniques within these texts.

My own.

My students’.

My friends’.

Nowadays, you have many options — whether you choose to obtain them from an online vendor, a urban brick-and-motor bookseller, or your local independent book merchant, I encourage you to RSVP to the invitation texts such as these provide.  Doing so will help you “Live Like a Writer.”

My newest discovery is 642 Things to Write About, a book that offers 642 invitations to writers like me.  Like you.  It’s just what I need.  What you need.

This unique compilation comes to reader-writers from the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, 35 of whom shared various writing ideas.  In under a day, this collection can carry a writer through a year of writing life, easily.  If the threat of a regimented writing life scares you, this book will calm you.  First, it’s paperback.  Comfortable.  Casual.  Approachable.  It looks like a stack of three-hole-punched loose leaf notebook paper.  How scary is THAT?!  The pages inside the cover possess the marbled texture of a familiar composition notebook, but if that image brings back the sting of a school marm’s “corrections” on your high school English class essays, then you’ll enjoy the fresh, calming blue color of this reimagined image.

Once you move beyond these initial impressions, you’ll will breathe even easier.  While the title may propose a daunting task – WRITE ABOUT THESE 642 THINGS!! – you’ll be relieved to see that the topics are doable, and the book provides space for you to respond to the topic.  Sometimes it’s a whole page.  Sometimes it’s half a page.  Sometimes, it’s just a square portion of part of a page. No big deal!  All you need is a pen.

The topics aren’t dated.  They aren’t in order.  They’re just sweet little invitations.  Take them or leave them.  Skip some.  Come back.  Move around.  Do one a day.  Do two a day.  Do two a week.  Whatever you like.  Just write … because this book will make you want to write.  I know it will.

Po Bronson of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto agrees.  “[This is] a lesson in hidden potential,” he writes.  “You never know what might happen.  In a single day, if you hit the right nerve, you could have something — maybe it’s the start of something, maybe it’s the whole thing.  You just have to … plunge in.”

That’s what I’m about to do.  The very first prompt (“What can happen in a second”) has me thinking.  I’ll keep you posted.