Happy New Year!  It feels good to have this blank page of 2010. It’s like the first page of new journal. You open the journal, get out the new fountain pen, listen to the quill scratch across the rough surface of the page, each letter a work of art. New Year’s Day is at least as close to a clean page as we can get on a ritual basis metaphorically speaking (unless one likes to go to confession).  Why are we so eager to embrace this New Year’s reset button, but, as writers, so afraid of the literal blank page before us as we sit at our writing desk? The love hate relationship of a writer to writing is a curious thing.

In a talk given to Tennessee Young Writers Workshop participants and members of the Clarkesville, TN community, Lorraine Lopez is one of the only fiction writers I’ve heard dispute this resistant relationship and say she ’s always eager to get to the page to write without any qualifying trepidation.  I envy that. I’m sure there are others, but it seems for most of us there is an element of fear associated with that blank page. I’m not talking about being driving to drink, more like driving to distraction, or doing dishes, or scooping dog poop. Unfortunately, procrastination only enhances the fear of the page.

I was raised Catholic, and I have to say my notion of original sin is that human being so often let fear and negative thoughts derail us from our true potential. There are cures for this. Redemption may be only a arm’s reach away.

On this day, this first of the year, I invoke the question my good friend and writer Judy Goldman invokes: “Did I write today?”  Judy–poet, novelist, and now memoirist–says this is the most important question you can ask yourself each day as a writer. Your goal is simply to say, “Yes!” The question isn’t, “How many pages did I write today?” Not, “How many words did I write today?” Simply, “Did I write today?” Writing begets writing. By writing everyday, we train ourselves to swim in the deep water, give ourselves and our writing the advantage of all that potential. 

My good friend Michael Lee West says to touch your novel everyday while you’re working on it. That’s also good advice. If you can’t work on the writing of your book on any given day, do something connected with the novel so that you’re keeping your subconscious engaged with the story it’s busy creating–even if you’re not. If you touch your novel everyday, you’ll be surprised what comes to you in the shower, while you’re mowing the grass, while you’re driving to the grocery store.

That brings me back to Judy Goldman, who says keep a notebook with you at all times.  Write down anything that comes to you or that you witness (say at the grocery store), because when you’re faced with the blank page you may not remember all that good stuff without your notebook.  Judy has a notebook in her purse, in her car, in her kitchen, beside her bed, and other places. She then has a master notebook at her desk. Periodically, she goes through those satellite notebooks and includes everything in her desk notebook.  Each time she moves something from one notebook to the other, she is reminding her subconscious of the material at it’s disposal.

Every time you go through your notebook, you reinforce the work your subconscious is doing while you’re busy doing other things.  If you keep a notebook, if you touch your novel everyday, and if you find some way to write something creative even on the days it seems impossible to do so, you’re feeding your story machine, that beautiful monster, that gorilla that lives under the surface typing away, the workhorse of this writing occupation.  Keep your gorilla fed, keep your pipes clear, keep words dripping onto the page. A drip of water keeps a pipe from freezing. Don’t let your pipes freeze this year!

Give yourself permission to write badly. This notion brings novelist Virginia Boyd to mind. We used to meet as writing partners once a week and the only requirement was a minimum of one shitty page. It could be hand-written in the driveway before the person rang the doorbell; it could be scribbled while the coffee was perking in anticipation of the other person showing up for the weekly meeting. Just that one shitty page a week for each of us turned into poems that were eventually revised and published, scenes that made it into, or lead to scenes that made it into, our published novels. When you write a little on the days you have no time to write, you are seeding your field. Seed! Seed!

Resolution # 3: Write everyday, even if it’s only one shitty page of something, even if it’s a bad first stanza of a poem or the first few sentences of a scene I’ll have to get back to on Tuesday. One shitty page a day–it doesn’t take that long to write badly for one page!

Resolution # 4: Get rid of 17 things a day everyday in January.

This purging activity comes from  my friend and writer Connie Green. There is nothing more gratifying than decluttering a drawer, a closet, a room, a corner.  How you count the 17 things is up to you. If you donate a sack of marbles to Goodwill, you may have met you quote for the day, depending on how you’re counting a sack of marbles and how many marbles are in the sack. But the point is to purge.  I’m going to go start with my desk. If I purge some of the junk on my desk, or relocate it to its proper place, I can sit down and write my shitty page for the day.

If clutter is your nemesis, consider visiting www.flylady.com. She has lots of suggestions on containing and clearing clutter, setting up systems to control what’s always out of control, and she does it in fifteen minutes a day. 

So the message of this January 1 is don’t dismiss the value of small things, small bits of time, small headway on any project. As Fly Lady likes to say, it’s about progress, not perfection.

To find out more about the wonderful women mentioned in this post, check out these online resources, and of course read their books. For more about Judy Goldman and her wonderful novels, including my favorite—Early Leaving, go to www.judygoldman.com. For more about Michael Lee West and her novels, including one of my all-time favorites—She Flew the Coup, go to www.michaelleewest.com. For more about Abigail Dewitt, go to her bio at WW Norton:  http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Author.aspx?id=7172 OR check out her info at The Duke Writers Workshop: http://learnmore.duke.edu/writers/workshop/courses.asp. For more about Lorraine Lopez and her work, including my favorite—Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories, go to: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/english/lorraine_lopez. For more about Connie Jordan Green, go to: http://www.knoxvillewritersguild.org/green.htm. To find out more about Virginia Boyd’s novel One Fell Swoop, go to: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/One-Fell-Swoop/Virginia-Boyd/e/9781595543998.

Expect more posts than usual during this New Year frenzy. And don’t worry. I’ll calm down soon. Happy New Year!

Suggestion: Go quickly get rid of 17 things–any size, from any drawer or cranny.  Give them away, throw them away, put the in the back of your car to drop off on Monday, but get rid of them. Your closet might be a good place to start. But stop at 17. You’ll want to have enough stuff to get you to the end of the month, paring way 17 things a day.

Writing exercise: My friend, novelist Abigail Dewitt suggests beginning a writing session by using one of the five senses.  Write for at least five minutes everyday for ten days using the following prompts:

Friday: Have a character smell something familiar

Saturday: Have a character taste something familiar.

Sunday: Have a character feel something familiar.

Monday: Have a character hear something familiar.

Tuesday: Have a character see something familiar.

Wednesday: Have a character smell something unfamiliar.

Thursday: Have a character taste something unfamiliar.

Friday: Have a character feel something unfamiliar.

Saturday: Have a character hear something unfamiliar.

Sunday: Have a character see something unfamiliar.

You may notice the first five assignments have no inherent conflict. That’s fine, because the conflict may already exist in your story or in your mind as you begin the assignment. The second five have a spring board to some inherent conflict due to the unfamiliarity. You can adapt the first five to include a mitigating circumstance that provides a spring board to conflict: Write about a character who smells something familiar in an envirnment where he or she wouldn’t expect to smell that odor or aroma.

Holiday Scene Storm Word List:

hors d’oeuvres

silver tray

car in a ditch

late

horns

hat

ball

public square

headache

cotton mouth (or cottonmouth)