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HOW TO WRITE A MEMOIR PART 2: DECIDING ON YOUR BOOK’S STRUCTURE

In the previous blog post, I discussed two ways of starting your memoir. No matter what approach you take, eventually you’ll have enough words on the page, or enough of an outline, to think about your book’s structure.

At first, structuring your memoir will probably feel like walking through fog, but eventually the shape of your story will become clear.

There are two tried-and-true ways to structure a narrative:

TIME-BASED MEMOIRS are straightforward, chronological stories. Three of my favorites in this style are Educated by Tara Westover, The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr, and Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller. All three of these books are chronological and happen to be childhood memoirs.

Writing a time-based memoir does NOT mean that you have to tell every detail from A to Z, only that the chronology moves steadily from the past forward in time. In your early drafts, you’ll want to get as much on the page as possible, but as you write, you’ll trim the anecdotes down to the most vivid moments in your life story.

THEME-BASED MEMOIRS are not necessarily chronological, but every chapter is devoted to a different aspect of the same thing. One great example is David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day, his book about living in Paris. Another is She Left Me the Gun by Emma Brocke, an exploration of the author’s own life as she researches her mysterious mother’s past. Another great theme-based memoir is A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel, a book about the author’s childhood in small-town Indiana. Instead of being chronological, all three of these books have chapters related to main themes. In Kimmel’s book, for instance, every chapter is devoted to some aspect of small-town life, while Sedaris devotes each chapter to a different aspect of his life as an American struggling to master the language and customs of France.

As you write, think about what makes the most emotional impact. Do you want your reader to be inside your childhood voice and point of view, limited to only what you know? Do you want the adult perspective? Does it make more sense to move back and forth in time, building suspense that way?

Don’t be afraid to play around with time. Maybe even write the separate scenes and print them out, then lay them on the floor in different arrangements so you can “see” your story’s shape.

Next up: How to Write a Memoir, Part 3: Deciding What Stays and What Goes

HOW TO WRITE A MEMOIR: Part 1: WHAT’S IN YOUR LEGO BIN?

By Holly Robinson 2 Comments

When our children were young, they accumulated so many Lego kits that we eventually filled several Lego bins with the pieces once the kits were taken apart.

If you’re writing a memoir, or even thinking about it, then you’ve probably already accumulated a lot of useful pieces in journals, letters, blog posts, or essays.

Now, what will you do with those pieces? As you get started on your manuscript, there are two approaches:

Empty out that Lego bin of pieces you’ve been accumulating and start building. There will be a lot of trial and error, but eventually your hands, eyes, and heart will tell you what design pleases you most. The advantage of this method is that, if you spend a lot of time writing whatever comes to you, you will uncover some hidden gems and your book might open up in surprising directions.

Organize your pieces by color, shape, and size. Then draw a picture of what you want to build and map out what pieces you’ll need to assemble your structure. The advantage of this method is that it’s harder to get stuck because you have a blueprint to follow.

No matter what approach appeals to you, there are two essential questions you’ll have to answer eventually:

Who is my audience?
What do I hope my audience will gain from reading my book? See if you can boil this down into one sentence, like, “I hope my readers will learn that even children who have been through poverty and abuse can become resilient, generous adults,” or, “I hope readers will see that kicking the scaffolding out from under everyday life by living wild in the New Zealand bush is the true path to God.” That will be your pitch line to agents and editors.

The word “memoir” comes from the French mémoire, meaning “memory.” So in the simplest sense, memoirs are books crafted by authors remembering and reflecting on their life experiences. However, every great memoir is about something universal that extends beyond the author’s life, and it will be helpful to you—and, later, to your agent and editor–if you can decide ahead of time not only on your message, but on what type of memoir you’re writing.

TYPES OF MEMOIRS

LIFE MEMOIR: Life memoirs offer readers a window onto an author’s individual experiences in ways that will resonate and teach life lessons. Good examples of these are Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen is a twentieth-century classic about a Danish woman’s experiences owning a plantation in Kenya. More recent examples include Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl (a female geobiologist’s celebration of science), Susan Straight’s In the Country of Women (about the powerful women who are the ancestors of her mixed-race daughters) and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me (an exploration of what it is to be black in America).

SPIRITUAL MEMOIR: Each of us has a spiritual belief system, and many memoirs are about how the authors came to find theirs. Check out The Confessions of Saint Augustine, 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper (about dying and coming back to life), and Walden, Henry David Thoreau’s meditations on nature.

CHILDHOOD MEMOIR: Instead of spanning a person’s life, a childhood memoir usually highlights the years of an author’s childhood that were the most formative, and typically involve trauma or struggle. Great examples of these: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii by Toby Neal.

TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE MEMOIRS: Many memoirs are crafted around an author’s adventures or travels and reveal the author’s transformation through travel. Terrific examples include Wild by Cheryl Strayed, The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen, and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

So, what’s in your Lego bin? How do you want to start sorting the pieces? Who’s your audience and what is it that you want them to learn by reading your book?

Answer those questions, and you’ll be on your way to crafting your story.

Next up: Part 2, Time-based versus Theme-based memoirs.

Why Museums Matter

By Holly Robinson Leave a Comment

I went to a museum yesterday.

Last year, I went to so many museums that I lost track, haunting special archival collections to ferret out information and photographs I could use to write a novel set in the late 19^th century. It was wonderful, doing that research, but I never really appreciated museums the way I do now, after so many months away from them.

Yesterday’s visit was to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. I’ve been here a number of times, often for dance performances and special exhibits, and I’ve always loved this airy space on the water. The ICA feels like a completely different place now. The museum cafe was closed, and all of the exhibits were limited to the fourth floor. People entered for timed visits and everyone was careful to stay masked and at least six feet apart.

As I stood there marveling at a soundsuit by Nick Cave—a tapestry body suit with a headdress made mostly of ceramic birds on stiff wires, rising up like an upside-down chandelier—I heard the rustling of skirts on the women across the room and the swish of a handbag. In our masks, it seemed as if we were all wearing soundsuits and taking part in one of Cave’s surprising, joyful dance performances.

And it was joyful, being among museum goers, marveling at works by well-known artists like Cave and Sterling Ruby, and the slyly comic, powerfully feminist collages in riotous colors by talented newcomer Tschabalala Self.

My daughter went with me to the ICA. While we wandered through the rooms, I was struck once again by how subjective the relationship is between artist and viewer as we stood in front of one of Ruby’s pieces and discussed our reactions. This was a ceramic basin filled with odd bits of pottery, part of Ruby’s “Basin Theology” series.

My daughter made a face. “Those pieces in the boat look like body parts,” she said, pointing out what she saw as a liver and a heart.

“I thought of sea creatures,” I said, and pointed out a barnacle and the arm of a starfish, a pair of oars.

Neither of us was “right” in our interpretation of Ruby’s intent. In his series of large-scale ceramics, “Basin Theology,” his vision was to reuse broken remnants, fragments of failed works.

“I am smashing all of my previous attempts and futile, contemporary gestures, and placing them into a mortar, and grinding them down with a blunt pestle,” he said, according to the ICA placard.

How wonderful it is to take what’s broken and make something new. How absolutely necessary, too, I thought, wandering out of the exhibit to the windows overlooking Boston’s waterfront. Down below me, a few masked people were walking with their heads down against the blustery wind, and a solitary plane took off from Logan.

We are in a broken world, and we need museums to remind us that we are not only living through history, but making it. We must catalog this moment, so that we can remember what it was like to live through this day, this month, this year. We must remember what it took to survive, and to take the broken pieces of a world ravaged by the pandemic and divisive politics, and create something new.

Writing through Panic

By Holly Robinson Leave a Comment

Back in early March, before it felt like we were trapped in a lousy cinematic mashup of Chernobyl, Contagion, and Zombieland, I was on a writing retreat with my good pal Toby Neal. We were holed up in a cheap turquoise motel on the trolley tracks near the beach in San Francisco. Toby had a horrible cough—no, not that one—and had brought her prancing little dog with her. I was on my way to visit my daughter in Oregon, who’s soon to be married.

Neither of us, despite all of those walks on the beach, saw the tsunami headed our way. Now that we’re back home and hunkered down—I’m in Massachusetts and she’s in California—Toby has been encouraging me to keep a journal, and to write her letters about whatever I’m going through.

“This is history in the making,” she reminds me, “and artists have to record it.”

She’s right. I know that’s true.

But, although my family is fine so far, I am filled with grief: for the people who are losing loved ones, for those who are struggling to find a way to put food on the table as the economy spirals downward, for the heroes keeping the ambulances and hospitals operating. I am sad for all of our children who are either too young to understand why they can’t play with friends or old enough to know that the careers they’re trying for and the trips they hoped to take this summer are on hold, maybe for a long time.

How can I write fiction, in the middle of all this?

It seems pointless. Frivolous, even, especially since I have just finished a manuscript, a book that I love. My agent is about to submit the manuscript to editors, to “shop it around,” as we used to say, back when publishers bought enough books that we could say fun things like that.

And yet, how can I not write?

While we were together, Toby gave me a wonderful gift, a collection of essays called Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process. There are many great pieces in the book, but my favorite is “Time Passes” by Maggie Shipstead.

She writes, “A novel…is a portal into a preserved wedge of time, a past, present, and future that can be revisited in a way our own can never be…It’s a trade: the writer sits at her desk (or somewhere) and expends many, many quiet hours of her solitary life in exchange for the opportunity to build more lives, imaginary ones, cantilevering them off her own and out into the ether.”

It is the word “opportunity” that snagged my attention here. As a writer, I do have the opportunity to build new lives. I can imagine scenarios where I travel to Spain or Nepal, to 1878 or 2024. I can be twenty years old again or a woman of ninety. I don’t have to stay right here, right now, because I have the magical ability to write my way out of this world and into another.

What a gift that is. And so, yes, I have started a new novel, a portal to a different world.

What about you? Are you reading to escape? Are you writing? Have you had trouble keeping your mind on it lately? Or are you digging in harder than ever? Let me know. I’d love to hear how it’s going.

Ragdale: The Delights of Having a Room of One’s Own

By Holly Robinson 12 Comments

From the moment I first declared myself a novelist in my twenties, there were doubters. My father, for starters. “You’ll never make a living. Why don’t you be a nurse?” he said. “Or a dentist! They make good money.”

Various boyfriends doubted me as well. “Are you still writing fiction?” they asked. “Why are you writing, if you never sell anything?”

And, of course, I was my own biggest doubter. Why did I keep writing fiction, if I never sold anything?

It wasn’t easy. I had children, a husband, a mortgage, car loans. Then a divorce, another husband, stepchildren, a baby of our own. Job layoffs for him, startups that failed, lots of scrambling by both of us. College tuition looming. Retirement plans? Ha. We’ll be working until we’re 110.

Yet, I kept writing fiction. For decades, I wrote fiction at night after meeting my work obligations, at weekend track meets and skate parks and gym classes. I wrote in the car and in the occasional cheap hotel room when I could get away alone for a weekend. At home, I wrote in the dining room, out on the porch in good weather, or in the living room when it’s cold, on an old table by the radiator.

I breathe, therefore I write. That’s the nature of being an artist, isn’t it? You keep doing it because you can’t help yourself.

And, every now and then, if you’re lucky, you are validated. Maybe you have good feedback in a writers’ workshop. Maybe you sell something. (I did sell novels, eventually.) Or people email to say they were moved by your essay or helped by your article. That can keep you going.

But none of that validation solves the essential problem of every artist: How do you find time and space to think clearly and create new work, in the midst of life’s many obligations and distractions?

For women artists, particularly mothers, this is the question that none of us has figured out how to answer, unless we’re lucky enough to be wealthy. As Virginia Woolf said so plainly, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

That’s hard to come by in this society, where art is too often an afterthought or a luxury. Recently, I was granted such an unexpected, extreme act of generosity supporting my art that I’m still reeling from it. Here’s the email:

Dear Holly,

We are pleased to have this unique opportunity to invite you to take a 4- day retreat at Ragdale at no cost as someone highly recommended by our Curatorial Board. A gift from an anonymous donor has allowed us to extend invitations to those artists and administrators who would most benefit from this time.

My jaw dropped. (I knew who had recommended me, but I won’t out her here—I know she values her privacy.) First, I cried, overwhelmed by this tremendous gift.

No way can I go. Christmas is coming. How can I leave? That was my first thought, followed quickly by another: Christmas is coming. That’s the reason to go.

Various places around the country host artists-in-residence. Here in the northeast, we have the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire and Yaddo in New York. The point of all of them is to provide time and space for visual artists and writers to work, uninterrupted, in a supportive, communal setting. Sounds ideal, right? For men or young artists, sure. The problem for women writers like me is that most of these places require a minimum stay of two weeks. I could never get away. Never mind my paid work. Who would watch the kids?

But now my children are older. Could it really help me, to have a room of my own at this point in my career? Or would I flounder, especially if I were surrounded by intimidating young talent? I could only answer these questions if I bit the bullet and gave myself a plane ticket to Chicago for Christmas.

Ragdale Foundation offers 200 residencies and fellowships a year to artists of all types. It’s located in an elegant 19^th century home built as a summer house near Lake Michigan by architect Howard Van Doren-Shaw.

I honestly had no idea what to expect, and was floored by the grand house, which still has its original architectural features, and a particularly cozy enclosed porch where giant geraniums bloom on the windowsills. I was even more impressed by the rooms given to residents. Mine was on the second floor, a huge space with a bedroom and sitting area, a private bathroom, a desk by a window, and even a screened porch to use in good weather. The windows overlooked the trails through the prairie behind the house.

So far so good. I went for a run and had no trouble getting to work. What else could I do? No dishes, no laundry, no work commitments awaited me. I worked until dinner, then wandered into the building next door, which houses Ragdale’s library, staff offices, and a communal dining room. There, promptly at 6:30 every night, delightful “Chef Linda” offers dinner, and residents gather to eat and discuss their work. I’d expected to feel like an outcast, since I was there only for a few days and most residents were there for much longer, but I was immediately welcomed and folded into the group.

If I were at home, I’d probably do laundry and watch TV after dinner, or maybe take a bath and read. Here, fired up by the dinner conversation, it felt perfectly normal to go back to my room and resume working on my novel in progress.

The next morning, I foraged for food in the kitchen downstairs—residents are provided food for DIY breakfasts and lunches—and met another woman from the area who writes YA fiction. We talked about agents and publishing markets as we ate breakfast together in that gorgeous, plant-filled sunroom. Then I went back upstairs and started writing. I didn’t get up from my desk again for over three hours, then had lunch and resumed.

I wrote until my fingers were numb from typing, then went for a run and made a sandwich. Upstairs again, I kept writing until dinner. After dinner, guess what? I wrote some more and did a little research for the novel.

Are you getting the picture here? A residency where you meet other writers isn’t intimidating. It’s inspiring, even for experienced workhorses like me, because you’re immersed in silence and beauty for most of the day, and when you come up for air, there are other people who think it’s worthwhile to talk about writing.

Having a room of one’s own and the support of other artists, especially in this commercialized time of year and in a country where books take a back seat to careers, TV streaming services, online gaming, shopping, and, well, just about everything else, isn’t just productive. It’s inspiring. A residency like Ragdale’s, even a brief one, makes you believe not only that you can do the work, but that the work is worth doing simply for the sake of creating it.

I am so grateful to Ragdale’s founders and staff, to the anonymous donor who supported me, and to the woman who nominated me for the residency. I came away determined to find ways to make writing more possible for myself, even if it just means closing the door and taping a sign to it that says, “Quiet, Please. Artist at Work.”

How to Write Historical Fiction about a Guy Some People Love to Hate: Author Anne Easter Smith Dishes about Her New Novel

By Holly Robinson 3 Comments

For the past three years, I’ve been writing (and rewriting, and tearing my hair out over, and rewriting again) my first work of historical fiction, a novel about a woman artist set in the 19^th century. If I had known how difficult it is to write historical fiction, I would have thrown myself onto the fainting couch with a cold cloth over my eyes, hoping the impulse to write it would go away.

Of course, if I’d had the sense to ask my friend Anne Easter Smith about the process of writing historical fiction, I would have been better prepared for the task ahead. But never mind. In life, as in historical fiction, hindsight is everything.

Anne’s newest novel, This Son of York, tells the story of King Richard III and concludes her best-selling Wars of the Roses series. The book will be published November 10, and you can order it here: https://bit.ly/2MqMMKP

As we prepare to celebrate her book launch at Jabberwocky Bookshop in Newburyport on November, 15, I decided to ask Anne about her research and writing. I also wanted to know why her novel’s protagonist, King Richard III, provokes such a strong reaction in anyone who knows of him. Was he a ruthless power-grabber who murdered his nephews to keep their hands off the crown, and an “elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,” as Shakespeare called him? Or was he actually a loving, loyal man who was, as Francis Bacon said, “a good lawmaker for the good and solace of the common people?”

Here’s how our conversation went. Enjoy!

Q. In 2012, human remains accidentally discovered under a car park in Leicester, England turned out to be the bones of King Richard III. Why was this such a remarkable discovery, and how did it set you on the path toward writing this particular novel? I know you were working on something completely different at the time.

Indeed, I was! I had a juicy macabre tale about a Portuguese prince and his lady-in-waiting lover partly written when Richard’s bones were discovered. I need to correct you on your “accidentally” discovered phrase though! In fact, the Richard III Society (of which I am a member) helped fund a dig by the University of Leicester in the spot where one of our members was convinced Richard had been hurriedly buried after the battle of Bosworth in 1485. His gravesite had remained a mystery ever since, although we did know his body was given over to the Grey Friars to be buried, and we know roughly where that church and monastery grounds had once been. On the very first day a skeleton was found, but no one thought it could possibly be so easy to find Richard, as many hundreds of monks must have been buried around the grounds over the centuries. But there was something about this skeleton that rang many bells for the osteologist called to examine it. Its size, the extreme degree of scoliosis, and the many head wounds that spoke of someone who had died in battle and not peacefully, as a monk might have done, were her clues. Six months later, DNA evidence proved the bones were Richard III’s. I cried buckets, as I have had an obsession with this king since I was 21! It took a good friend and my first “reader” to persuade me to drop Pedro and pick up Richard again. “This is the book you were meant to write,” she insisted. And so I did.

Q. Once you’d made up your mind to write a novel featuring King Richard III, what was your next step? Did you have to go back and reread the notes from your earlier books, or did you plunge into fresh digging and research? What was your most exciting find as you wrote?

As I always do for my books, I create a timeline for characters in a grid to make sure I have people in the right place at the right time. I don’t mess with history, and it is the skeleton on which I flesh out the bones of my story. As all my five books have been about Richard’s family (all with female protagonists giving their POV of Richard) I had 20 years of material amassed from previous research of the Yorks and the Wars of the Roses. It was finding Richard’s own voice that proved the most difficult for me—I do think it’s hard to get into a man’s head, ha!ha!—but writing around him all these years, his voice began to come through, and I enjoyed getting into my understanding of his head.

Q. Probably the thing most people believe about King Richard III is that he murdered his nephews to keep them from taking the crown. It sounds like you don’t believe he did this. Why not? Was this a change of heart on your part?

I had a change of heart from the day I finished reading Josephine Tey’s mystery novel “Daughter of Time” back when I was 21. I was astounded that she had done all her research and convinced me that Richard was not the evil, hunchbacked, usurping murderer that my history books at school in England had told me he was. I could not get my hands on enough non-fiction to see where this erroneous portrait had arisen. If I tell you that Sir Thomas More and William Shakespeare are personae non grata in my house, you can guess the origin of the propaganda that stuck with writers and historians through the ages. In conclusion, no, I do not think Richard murdered his nephews—if you read my book, you will know who I think did and why! It astonishes me that there are still people (especially in the UK) who believe the Shakespeare portrayal, although little by little the work done by our Society (including my books) is gradually changing the narrative about Richard, using the word “alleged murderer” in much of the new reference material about him. But until we find that hidden confession or overlooked evidence that the princes were indeed murdered—and we don’t even have their bones to help us—Richard will always be a suspect. I just don’t happen to think he’s the right suspect! I think I have achieved a far more nuanced look at this man, and after reading everything I have over the decades, it was not in Richard’s nature to commit this heinous crime.

Q. One of the toughest things about writing historical fiction is to NOT make it sound overly researched. For instance, I might read four books about a certain character and end up using three facts from those books. How do you write and winnow out the stuff that sounds too much like an information dump? How do you know when you’ve done enough research?

Yikes, that’s a thesis in the making! When I decided to write my first book that would try and right the wrong done to Richard by history, I spent a couple of weeks back home in England walking in his and my female protagonist’s footsteps. I do that for every book, BTW. Every castle, village and church I have written about I have visited—except for one! Yes, not sounding as though you are regurgitating research is tough. I am probably guilty of it, too. But I try to pepper it into conversation and letters and characters’ thought processes, because my books for the most part are biographical historical fiction, and I do like to stay true to the history and whatever we DO know about a person who lived then. Dramatic license is what spices up a story, but I don’t flout facts that might have a reader fling my book across the room in disgust. My readers are very smart—some more knowledgeable about my period than I am. And they let me know when I slip up (which I am happy to say has been very rare)!

Q. If you had to give new writers of historical fiction one golden rule to follow, what would it be?

Please do your research, but unless you are only hellbent on being sure of making a million, please write with passion and not with your pocketbook. How was I supposed to know, after five successful books set in 15th century England, that the medieval and Tudor periods have gone out of fashion. THIS SON OF YORK is my most important book, because finally I have written Richard’s story from his POV with all the passion I have harbored for this much maligned king all my adult life, and I could not sell it to a traditional publisher in this current historical fiction market. (It’s all WWII or early 20th century.) I truly believe the passion for your subject will bring you more satisfaction and be a better product than knocking out a book to follow a trend. (A controversial viewpoint, I am sure, but that’s my golden rule!)

Bestselling Author Anita Diamant Offers Surprising Advice on Writing–Just in Time for NaNoWriMo

By Holly Robinson 6 Comments

One recent rainy Sunday afternoon, I joined other members of the Newburyport Writers group to soak up the wisdom of Boston-based bestselling author Anita Diamant. Anita was introduced by historical novelist Anne Easter Smith.

Our group is made up of fiction and nonfiction writers at different stages of our careers, so it’s safe to say that we’re all in jaw-dropping awe of Anita, who moves through different writing genres with ease. She’s a novelist, journalist, essayist, and the author of five guidebooks to contemporary Jewish life.

Anita’s first novel, The Red Tent, was inspired by a few lines from Genesis, and tells the story of Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob and Leah. The Red Tent became an international bestseller thanks to reader recommendations, book groups, and support from independent bookstores, and went on to be honored by the Independent Booksellers Alliance.

My favorite novel of Anita’s is The Boston Girl, which begins when a granddaughter asks her grandmother, “How did you get to be the woman you are today?” I think that’s pretty much what we wanted to know when we came to hear Anita speak, and she didn’t disappoint.

The event was a fundraiser for #authorsagainstborderabuse, the inspired effort of another wonderful Boston-based writer, Jessica Keener, and although it lasted only two hours, Anita generously answered questions about her life and work. Our conversation ranged from how to get through writing a first draft to social activism.

Above all, Anita managed to shatter a lot of myths about writing and offered some solid advice just in time for those about to sign up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Below, I’ve collected some snippets of her advice to keep you inspired.

You can order Anita’s books here. Anne’s new novel, This Son of York, tells the story of King Richard III and concludes her best-selling series, Wars of the Roses. The book will be published November 10, and you can order it here. If you want to check out Jessica Keener’s books, you’ll find them here.

On inspiration and writing a first draft:

“Writing is work, not magic. The first draft is murder. Sometimes it takes me seven times as long as the third and fourth drafts combined.”

On making the switch from journalism to fiction:

“When I turned forty, I needed a change, and thought I’d write a novel. One of my editors said the tools I’d learned as a journalist would help me write fiction. He was right. The biggest thing I took from journalism to fiction is the rigor of deadlines. The hardest thing to do is keep your butt in the chair.”

On writing groups:

“You can’t be an artist in a garret. Find a writing group that will cheer you on.”

On writing a synopsis:

“I don’t use a synopsis. I write the book in order. I work on the start of the book endlessly. Once I’ve got it right, I can keep going, but I go down a lot of dead ends.”

On historical fiction:

“For me, the research I include in the book has to feed the story.”

On how to persist when writing is difficult:

“I go for walks a lot. Ideas, and even phrases, materialize when I’m not struggling for solutions, when I’m outside and moving.”

On activism and writing:

“You can’t change the world by writing, but you can add to the conversation and hope it helps.”

How to Keep Going, Whether You’re Running or Writing

By Holly Robinson 6 Comments

I’m a new runner, as in, I ran my very first mile without stopping only three years ago. But I’m an experienced workhorse of a writer.

Recently, I realized that my two favorite activities have one key thing in common: I make progress only if I bend the rules.

With running, those rules cover the gamut from which shoes are “must haves” to how to stretch to avoid injury. Writers of all stripes dole out stern proclamations, too, like, “You must write every day,” “Always/Never Outline,” “Never/Always revise new work from the beginning as you go,” etc.

As it turns out, there’s no one perfect way to run, and there’s no single guaranteed path to writing a book. You have to be willing to experiment, and sometimes that means not only breaking the rules other people set, but your own, too.

Here’s an example. There are lots of training programs designed to help new runners improve their speed. Whenever I try to make myself do any of these speed drills, my immediate reaction is to rebel by grabbing a bag of M&Ms and a book. But, if I set out for a run through my favorite marsh at sunset or along a new back road where I might find wildflower gardens growing in the ditches, I’ll run my heart out, and I’ll find myself setting my own time goals and beating them. Scenery gets me going.

With writing, I’ve tried all of the usual tricks: set a certain word count goal, write at the same time every day, etc. The thing is, many of my best ideas come when I’m not actually writing, but when I “give up” and pull weeds out of the garden or walk the dog. I think better in motion.

Not long ago, for instance, I’d gone for a run in a new neighborhood. I drove there from my house, completed a five-mile loop, and circled back to the car. Suddenly, I experienced a meteor shower of ideas. I frantically searched the car for a pen and paper, desperate to write down these ideas before they evaporated, and came up only with the bill from a recent car repair and a lipstick. It didn’t matter. I captured enough words to use them later.

Sometimes the best ideas come when you least expect them.

If I had been sitting at my desk, adhering to word count or clock rules, I would have had my laptop and phone. But would I have had the ideas? Probably not. Instead, I might have gotten frustrated and resorted to YouTube videos.

Likewise, I recently was held hostage at the car dealer’s for three hours while they fixed various things on my car. They had tables and chairs set up outside, so I plopped myself down, intending to read, only to find myself watching the car salesmen troll the parking lot for potential customers. And, presto! I had the perfect details for a character I’m writing about in the current manuscript—even though that book is set in 1878.

My body needs discipline, but I will only continue exercising if I enjoy it. My mind, too, needs discipline if I’m actually going to finish anything I start writing. That means constantly finding sources of fresh inspiration. Even writing in a new cafe or choosing a different seat in the library is sometimes enough to jar me out of my routines and make my brain go in new directions.

My advice? Next time you’re feeling sluggish and don’t want to go to the gym, don’t go. Ride a bike instead, or take a dance class.

And, if you can’t think of anything new to write, or you’re stuck on a scene, just stop writing. Stand up from your desk and take a walk or watch a movie. You’ll be amazed by how much your brain can accomplish if you leave it alone for a while. Just make sure you have a lipstick and a scrap of paper handy if you forget your notebook.

P.S. I recently came across an interview with bestselling author Harlan Coben on Salon, where he talks about his need to drift from cafe to cafe because he can’t stand working in the same place. Have a look at the video for extra motivation from a guy who admits that, yeah, writing is still hard.

https://www.salon.com/2019/03/25/harlan-coben-on-why-even-bestselling-authors-get-those-self-loathing-writer-blues/

Write Like a Gardener. Garden Like a Writer.

By Holly Robinson 9 Comments

My arm is itching like crazy because I have a poison ivy rash shaped like Italy. At least it’s not as bad as a couple of years ago, when my arm swelled to the size of a Spanish ham and the rash reached my eyes; that time, I looked like the Elephant Man rushing to Urgent Care and begging for steroids.

The price of being a gardener can be high: rashes, bee stings, permanently cracked fingernails.

There is also a high cost to being a writer: butt spread, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, a car with a hundred thousand miles on it because you’d rather work less and write more.

I never set out to become a writer or a gardener. Now that I’m both, I’m amazed by the similarities.

In college, I majored in biology because I was determined to be a doctor. I was derailed by a creative writing class my last semester of college, and ended up earning an MFA in creative writing. I was hooked on writing fiction the first time I tried writing a short story.

Likewise, I always swore I’d have a cement yard so I wouldn’t be a slave to mowing. I stumbled into gardening accidentally when we bought an old house that had been owned by the same couple for sixty years. During their last ten years here, this couple had let the yard go. I was shocked when I noticed a tree out back blooming with lush white flowers. (Later, I learned it was an ancient Rose of Sharon.) The tree was being choked by vines and I ended up rummaging around in the shed, where I found a rusty machete and hacked away the vines.

As I freed the tree, I discovered a gravel path by its roots and began digging that out, too. This path led to more, and the paths defined garden beds where a few scraggly flowers were blooming among the weeds. It was an ancient perennial garden.

Just as I became passionate about writing fiction because of that one accidental college course, I became equally dedicated to gardening because I accidentally discovered that path. Isn’t that the way life is, though? If we’re lucky, we lose our way along to whatever goals we’ve set, and discover something better.

Recently I finished writing a novel that really beat me up, just as gardening so often does. My antidote was the get outside and weed the garden–an endless but Zen sort of task. As the late, great Oliver Saks wrote in an essay that ran in The New York Times recently, “As a writer, I find gardens essential to the creative process.” Writing fiction calls to something deep in me, and I feel that same deep love of nature when I’m outside working the ground. I hope this will be my seventh novel to find a home with a publisher, but in some ways, it doesn’t matter. Writing this book, like gardening, was a process that fed my soul and gave me a new perspective on topics I’d been thinking about for years, just as gardening allows me to embrace the earth’s gifts in ways I couldn’t otherwise.

The best writers I know are like great gardeners, and vice versa. Here’s how:

1. Sometimes you have to be ruthless. Sure, I love lilies. But I don’t love them springing up in the middle of my paths or crowding out the Solomon’s Seal. If my lilies grow in the wrong places, I dig them up, just as sometimes I have to lose sentences or scenes I love.

2. You can’t weed (or edit) everything all at once. If you do that, you’ll give up for sure. Take it step by step.

3. Ask for help. Writers work in isolation, but we need writer colleagues to help us with everything from critiques to support when the rejections start arriving. Similarly, an older British friend of mine helped me identify the perennials I already had, and other gardener friends gave me great advice on what plants I needed to fill in gaps or, eventually, to create more perennial gardens from the ground up.

4. Enjoy the escape. For me, there is still nothing as challenging or rewarding as writing fiction—except, perhaps, for being outside for hours, my hands deep in the dirt as I transform my small plot of land and feel Nature exert its calming power throughout my life.

Women, Writing, and Guilt: How to Give Yourself Permission to Try

By Holly Robinson 14 Comments

I’m on the home stretch of revising my novel (again). Lately I’ve been having trouble focusing at home, partly because it’s too cold to hide in my barn office, so I’ve had to write in the living room, and partly because my husband is now working from home. Even when he’s quiet, I hear him thinking. As a friend said recently of her husband being at home, “It’s like having a Mylar balloon floating in the background.”

During one of my low points, I Googled writing retreats. Up popped a perfect place, an old house in a remote setting. Perfect for the kind of intense writing and revising that requires solitude.

A writer’s paradise

I emailed the owner to inquire about availability. Just one week, that’s all I wanted. The owner emailed back and said, yes, the house happened to be free during one of the weeks I could come, so I booked the house.

I was happy for maybe an hour. And then guilt came roaring in, nipping at my heels and yapping in my ears. You shouldn’t spend more time away from home. Your family needs you and you have work deadlines. Paid work! And you still haven’t cleaned out the closets you meant to clean out last year. Oh, and shouldn’t you be getting ready for your son’s graduation/daughter’s birthday/high school reunion?

I emailed the woman back and said sorry, I couldn’t come after all. Too much going on.

And then I fell into a slump. Spring is coming. If I don’t finish my novel soon, my agent won’t be able to submit it before the New York publishing world goes on summer hiatus.

Finally I phoned another writer-mom friend. “Is there ever a day when you don’t feel guilty?” I asked.

She just laughed. “No. There’s always someone I’ve let down, or something I’ve left undone.”

Every time I teach a writing class of any sort, I start by giving my students the first rule of writing: give yourself permission.

This is harder to do than it sounds. If you’re new at writing, you probably have trouble believing in yourself. If you’ve been writing for a while, but you’ve had trouble publishing a book, or you’ve been watching the publishing industry tank, it’s tough to think you should keep banging your head against that particular wall.

Never mind the time. How can you justify spending money on a writing retreat. Surely there’s something better to do with that money. An oil change for the car? A birthday gift for your husband? Shoes for your kid? Groceries?

Recently, I saw a documentary on Matisse, and was bemused to learn that he left his wife and children for long stretches to paint in a hotel by the sea, where he hired a woman and children to be his models. The paintings often present an idealized portrait of family life: a woman sitting in a chair, children playing board games. But it’s all fake. Matisse couldn’t paint at home with the chaos of family around. He had to leave.

Likewise, Hemingway wasn’t about to stay in that flat with his wife and baby in Paris, right? Off he went, frequenting cafes and getting tanked while he scrawled his pages.

Yet, women are seen as selfish, if not downright monstrous, if we leave our families so we can write. I know all of this, rationally. I’ve even written about the benefits of writing retreats. (I remembered this only when I Googled “Why go on a writing retreat” and my own damn article on Huffington Post popped up.)

Still, I couldn’t give myself permission to go, so I did the next best thing: I called another writer-mom friend. “I need you to do something for me,” I said.

“Sure,” she said. “What is it?”

“Tell me to go on a writing retreat.”

“Of course you should go on a writing retreat,” she said.

And so I emailed the owner of the house again and booked it. Then, before I could change my mind, I mailed the check and committed to the plan.

I couldn’t give myself permission. Luckily, I belong to a community of women writers who know that, sometimes, only solitude will let you finish a book, and that you are worthy of that solitary creative effort, no matter what the outcome.