The Writer's Cottage

Archive for April, 2010

I’m teaching an ESL writing class this semester at the local community college. ESL stands for English as a Second Language. The students in my writing class are advanced speakers of English as another language besides their native language. They are from South Korea, Egypt, Brazil, Caracas and Romania.

Although they are mostly fluent in speaking English, they need to improve their English writing skills. That’s why they were placed in my class. They have been writing paragraphs all semester, polishing their skills so that they write at least three passing paragraphs. They’ve nearly achieved this goal as a class. At the end of the semester, we are going to enjoy food from everyone’s native culture and discuss tips and tools to help them continue to improve their writing.

That’s the thing about writing — whether in your native language or another language. You must keep writing every day. If you don’t use it, you will definitely lose it.

So how can you incorporate writing in your very busy daily life? Here are some ways I listed to discuss with my students:

• Buy a daily writer’s book, such as The Writer’s Book of Days. These books are great because they give you a writing prompt for every day of the year. Some of the prompts are sentences you are supposed to finish, topics, or questions to answer. You are supposed to write for 15 minutes nonstop. I used to do this daily writing practice every day. I haven’t done so in a while and I can tell in my writing! When I was writing from my book of days every day, my writing on my day job and in my freelance work improved and I sold more pieces! The lesson here is to write every day and these books are great tools to help you do just that.
• Write morning pages before you get out of bed. Julia Cameron talks about these in her bestseller, The Artist’s Way, another excellent book for all writers to read by the way.
• Read one book about writing at least every month (I think it’s best to read two writing books a month, but let’s start with just one). Right now, I’m reading Sol Stein’s How to Grow a Novel.
• Read at least one novel a month for pleasure. And, while you’re enjoying the story, pay attention to how the author writes it. In fact, you could read the novel the first time for pleasure and then go back and re-read the novel to study the author’s technique and the general techniques for fiction writing. I know of one now-famous author who started writing fiction by doing this practice. It helped her see the geneeral format for the genre she was interested in writing. She then went on to write and publish many bestsellers.
• Of  course, we cannot forget about writing in our journal every day. Journal entries are different than morning pages and the book of days writing practice. Journaling is for our eyes only; it is more personal. When we journal, we don’t worry about grammar or style; we just write and write and write. It’s the time we gift our creative muse to just “let it all hang out.” Journaling is very important to honing our writing skills and assuring our creative muse that we will pay attention to her and we are serious about being writers.

That’s all for now. I’ll add more after my students and I have our discussion in a few weeks.

Happy Writing!

Sue

Dialogue…is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes. ~~ Sol Stein in Stein on Writing

One of the elements that many fiction writers struggle with is the art of writing good dialogue in their stories. Recently, I returned to a classic, and favorite of mine, Stein on Writing by Sol Stein, to brush up on my fiction techniques.

In Chapter 11 of his book, published in 1999 by St. Martin’s Press (ISBN 0-312-25421-0), Stein talks about the secrets of good dialogue. Here are some golden nuggets from this chapter:

• Dialogue…is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes.
• Learning the new language of dialogue is as complex as learning any new language.
• Dialogue is always in immediate scene, which is one reason readers relish it.
• Confrontational dialogue… is immediate, creating a visual image of the speakers as it shoots adrenaline into our bloodstream.
• Dialogue… is indirect. The key word to understanding the nature of dialogue is that the best dialogue is oblique.
• Characters don’t need to make speeches at each other.
• We’re not only characterizing, we’re building a story… . A reader’s emotions can be sparked with few words. That’s the power of dialogue.
• Dialogue is a lean language in which every word counts. Count for what? To characterize, to move the story along to have an impact on the reader’s emotions.
• What the reader gets from your fiction is the meaning of words. And most important, the emotion that meaning generates.
• … what counts is not what is said but the effect of what is meant.
• … the best way to judge dialogue read aloud is to read it in a monotone without expression. The words have to do the job.

Stein has many more wonderful suggestions and tips for improving the dialogue in your fiction. I strongly suggest you read Stein on Writing and, when you’re finished with it, read another Stein classic, How to Grow a Novel.

Happy Writing!

Sue

Today, I went to an ESL party at the college where I teach. Students and teachers gathered to share in the food and fellowship of many cultures. While I was sitting there enjoying empanadas from Colombia, dim sum from Korea, and tuna pasta salad from America, a student came up to me. “Mrs. Kern! I’m so glad to finally see you,” he said to me. “You taught me ESL Writing two years ago. I never see you in the halls and so I thought you were no  longer teaching here. I’ve been wanting to thank you so much for teaching me. I’ve taken English Composition 101 and now 102 — I’ve received A’s in both classes and now I’m going to be transferring to a four-year college, maybe Bucknell. I know your teaching was so instrumental in my success. I was so afraid I wouldn’t get to say ‘Thank you’ to you before I graduated.”

Wow! That felt great! Not because his words stroked my ego — but because I heard him say that I made a difference in his world. That’s what really matters — that’s what it is all about — that’s why I’m here in this world: To Make A Difference in the Lives of Others.

No matter what you do in your daily world, I am sure that you, too, make a difference. Think about it and  when you have come up with a few ways your life has helped others’ lives, give thanks that you were given that opportunity to help and to see how what you do matters.

Earlier this week, I received a package from a friend. She had sent me clips of her articles that have been published. A few years ago, I encouraged her to start writing. As her writing coach, I helped her see the unique gift that God had blessed her with and how, through her writing, she could help others who suffer with a chronic illness, just as she does. Her book, The Many Faces of The Wolf, is featured on my blog under Publications. I was thrilled to read my friend’s published articles. And, again, I was humbled by the note she wrote me: “These writings occurred because you encouraged me and believed in a skill (gift) I did not know that God had given me.”

Tonight, I am so grateful for the student  I saw today and for the friend whose package I received this week.  You see, I’ve been thinking I should stop teaching, writing, and coaching new writers, and return to full-time work in the corporate world. Finances are tight, as they are for most people these days, and that corporate salary, once obtained, could make a difference in our monthly budget.

But that difference pales in comparison to the difference I seem to be making through The Writer’s Cottage. That’s all I need to know to make my decision to stick with the vision for The Writer’s Cottage that God gave to me on that river bank nearly 10 years ago on June 2, 2000.

And for that vision and all that has occurred since then, I truly have an Attitude of Gratitude.

I wish you many wonderful hours and days and weeks and months and years of making a difference in this world in whatever you do.

~~Sue