The Path of Writing: Word-by-Word

Commitment to the word is also a vow to filling the blank page, either every day, every other day, each week, etc. We all have our schedules, our routines.

Nothing gets written without them. And since the primary act of a writer is to write, all of us must develop our ways, our process for tackling the blank page ,which can and does cause much anxiety–not unlike the empty white canvas disturbs the painter.

Author, editor, and educator, Shonelle Bacon urges authors and would-be writers to consider what brings us to the blank page–what drives us to write–and more importantly what keeps us coming back, i.e. what helps us to finish our stories.

Commitment to writing the first, second and then that third word ultimately leads to crafting that sentence. Before long we have a paragraph, a page, a scene and perhaps a chapter.

Many obstacles lie along this path of writing, none so great as the inner critic. Worry about and criticism of the words we pen, or type, supply the voice of our internal critic with more than an ample supply of ammunition with which to ambush us from every side.

How do we combat this?

I find that process, developing an understanding of how I write, analyzing what brings me to penning the word, filling the blank page with words from my head provides me with what is analogous to doing the American crawl when swimming.

While earning my MFA in Creative Writing one of my teachers emphasized that writers must become comfortable with hanging out in that place of unknowing. I have come to cherish her axiom in the years since receiving my degree and seeing one book into publication by traditional methods.

Her wisdom holds me in even greater stead as I now work to bring my first novel into publication through my own auspices, self-publication.

This teacher was my 3rd and 4th semester advisor, Beatrix Gates. She is also a poet.

I hold immense respect for poets. A fiction writer, my best and most influential teachers have been poets.

Poets have a way with words, a relationship that as one literary agent urged, “…that writers would do well to learn, study and emulate.”

I’ve been told that my writing has a poet rhythm. While holding this as a great compliment, I acknowledge much remains for me to learn both from poets, their eloquent way with words and in spending time in that place, or as the mystics call it, ‘the cloud of unknowing.’

I find my way in the desert of the blank page, so often reminiscent of the place of unknowing through my vow to writer word after word, after word.

Who are some of the greatest influences in your writing life?

How important is poetry to you, the fiction writer?

How much or how often do you read poetry?