Archive for the ‘Brave Writer Philosophy’ Category

Exuberant Imperfection

Exuberant Imperfection

Chris Baty, creator of National Novel Writing Month, says:

The first law of exuberant imperfection is essentially this: the quickest, easiest way to produce something beautiful and lasting is to risk making something horribly crappy.

Most writing programs for homeschool emphasize excellence, order, right thinking and writing.

I’d rather emphasize exuberance.

I wrote recently that “joy is the best teacher.” Exuberance is the manifestation of joy – for the sheer fun of it.

Exuberance looks like jumping on a trampoline with sprinklers underneath, eating the rest of the ice cream out of the carton with a spoon (and not saving any for anyone else!), singing really loudly in the car with the windows down. It’s the down track of a roller coaster, big ocean waves tossing you in the air, your first real kiss (the kind where you lock lips until you gasp for air).

Exuberant writing, then, is the kind that races, that is filled with imagination, hunger, drive, ideas, words and energy.

I know I’m in the “exuberant zone” when I can’t stop, when words pop, when the world is suddenly one big writing tablet.

Is it possible to unleash exuberance in our kids when they often see writing as the enemy? YES! That’s the whole point of this blog.

Exuberant imperfection is critical to better writing later. Anyone who hasn’t experienced exuberance in writing has not yet encountered her writer’s voice. Exuberance fosters voice. Freedom to fail creates the opportunity for exuberance. A receptive audience ensures exuberance (after all, if you dance in your underpants, when you get caught, you hope the person will strip down and dance too, not mock you).

So pick some of the zany freewrites and exercises from this blog. Get jiggy with it!

Exuberate! And write. (Ha! I think I just made up a word. Shakespeare would be proud.)

Write for Fun!

Image by Lauren Manning (cc)

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Writing as a Gift

Give the Gift of Writing

Other than education and publication,
what other ways can you use writing?

Sometimes we become so caught up in writing as a project to complete for a “requirement” we forget that the best writing is the kind that moves us or leaves us breathless or in awe. Artists know something that many of us would benefit from knowing: when we create, we bless others by giving it away as a gift of ourselves.

Somehow it seems obvious to paint a picture and give it to your mother for her birthday. It seems less obvious (perhaps never even thought of) to write a memory and send that to your mother as her gift.

One of my girlfriends (who is naturally a very brave person) wrote a little freewrite with me and a few others. She focused on a summer vacation she took with her family when she was sixteen. Her memory circled back to include lots of precious moments with her brother.

As we discussed our memories (both of us grew up in southern California and have a surprising number of similarities in our up-bringings), she realized that the very next day would be her brother’s birthday. She then thought, “What if I sent this freewrite to my brother?” Suddenly, she got cold feet and wondered how he’d receive it. She even wrote, “Maybe this would be BRAVE for me.”

A few of us urged her to send it and to see what would happen. So she clicked the send button and waited…

Do you know that he called her the next day in tears? This is a grown man, in tears, recalling a childhood memory through his sister’s writing. Apparently, their mother sat in the background crying too. She got to hear the story of their special summer through her daughter’s eyes and it moved her too.

Writing as a Gift

Don’t you love that?

You see, when we put our memories onto paper, we are cherishing ourselves, we are honoring our pasts.

We can give other kinds of writing too: fiction, metaphors and similes, poetry, remembered dialogs, freewrites, letters…

Writing is a gift of the soul. Share it with someone you love.

Keep reading! More on writing…

Writing is a gift of the soul. When we share it, we cherish ourselves, and we honor our past.

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What is It to be Brave?

What is it to be Brave?

I remember standing in the front of the packed room, explaining the principles of “The Writing Compass” (the first name of my online writing company) to 100 homeschooled moms.

“We don’t want writers who are inhibited. We want free writers. We don’t want writers who are afraid of the blank page. We want brave writers.”

As the words rolled off my tongue, my mind said, “Drat! There’s the name of my business: Brave Writer. Shoot! I just ordered 100 books with writingcompass.com on the front cover.”

And so, I went home and changed everything to Brave Writer. Just like that.

I knew in an instant that I didn’t want to churn out good writers, competent writers. I wasn’t interesting in distilling “writing” into its most important principles. I wanted to catalyze bravery in moms, in kids. I wanted to cultivate kids who would stare down those blank pages and offer themselves to their readers. I wanted to inspire moms to trust that process and to revel in it, to enjoy it, to see the quirky, insightful, brilliant minds in their children.

What is it to be Brave?

Here are some of my goals for what Brave Writer might inspire in your families.

Brave Parents

  • Trust that writing is as natural as speech.
  • Write. They use writing in their daily lives and their kids see them writing.
  • Jot down the insightful things their kids share with them.
  • Coo over their children’s interesting word choices, notice specific detail, admire orderly sequence and laugh at all jokes.
  • Believe that a child’s writing voice is more important than proper format.
  • Read. They read to themselves and to their kids. They buy books, check them out from the library and strew them throughout the house.
  • Toss any writing curricula that tells them that writing is primarily a formula, a system, a method to be drilled into children.
  • Stop writing with their children, if it is painful. Seek ways to relieve that pain.
  • Expect writing to be good (enjoyable) to read, not just correctly formatted.
  • Discover the power of the written word… and write more themselves.

Brave Writers

  • Enjoy talking to their moms (and dads and siblings) about everything and anything.
  • See writing as a means to an end – communication. They can talk or write – either one.
  • Have online journals, write on their bedroom walls, keep copy books, pass notes to friends, send letters, use email, freewrite, write stories, keep lists, create websites, design newsletters, publish stories, post flyers…
  • Aren’t afraid to learn new writing forms as they need them.
  • Face the blank page and know what to do to “un-blank” it. 🙂
  • Like and play with words.
  • Read, read, read. (Any and all reading – magazines, email, websites, books, plays, billboards, advertisements, brochures, propaganda, holy books, game instructions, cereal boxes.)
  • Expect, nay, assume (!) that someone will enjoy reading their writing.

Sound good? Then keep taking the steps toward brave writing (and brave living).

Brave Writers assume that someone will enjoy reading their writing.

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Just Say No

Write at the top of your page: NO! in caps, with the exclamation point.

Set the timer for two minutes and write everything that comes to mind related to NO!

Grab a clean sheet of paper. This time write at the top of the page a teeny, tiny no without an exclamation point.

Set the timer for two minutes and write all the things that come to mind when no is tiny.

Now flip the pages over. Start with the big NO!. Write YES! at the top and do the same for the big yes. Then write yes at the top of the back side of no. Write for two minutes for the little yes.

At the end, read and enjoy the different writing these words and sizes conjured up. There may not be any ryhme or reason to them, but then again, there may be. You might even be able to harvest some sentences from these four freewrites to make an interesting poem.

Use the cut and paste method. Print up the lines, cut them into strips and start arranging them (no editing of the actual lines). Just see where they lead and play with all kinds of arrangements. When you’re happy, stop!

Post results here.

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It was like getting a phone call from Bono

Almost. 🙂

Many of you are familiar, by now, with my writing mentor: Peter Elbow (author of Writing with Power). I have been hunting for his email address for five years. My aim? To thank him for his profound influence on my work as a writer, editor and instructor. Mostly, I wanted to touch the hem of his garment.

Fast forward to last week. I attended a book signing. The author happens to work with Jon at Xavier. She and I have become friends, as well. She mentioned in her acknowledgements that Peter Elbow looked at an early manuscript. I jumped on this information.

“Do you have his email address?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he’d mind if I emailed him?”

She assured me that he wouldn’t mind in the least.

So I got up early the next morning and sent him a long overdue thank you note.

Three hours later: Ping! A new email message. From Peter! A rush ran through me. I had a personal email from the master.

Besides being friendly and warm, he sent me two articles to read that speak to issues I’m working through for the high school book. I also shared with him about how he helped me break through writer’s block when I had to write my first graduate level research paper. After ten years of professional writing and editing, you’d think I wouldn’t have struggled. Not! I hit a brick wall reinforced by steel. Dr. Elbow understood and shared a tidbit I want to pass on to you.

So here’s that bit of insight from Dr. Elbow, himself:

When you speak of your recent struggles in grad school, it just reinforces what I see all the time: how school–and ESPECIALLY grad school–has a myriad of factors that make writing hard.

In an academic climate–and when I’m talking to (grad) students who are struggling, I find it useful not just to talk about going fast and not sweating it; it seems to be useful to say WRITE WRONG! The concepts of “write” and “excellent” are so tyrannical: it’s useful just to spit in their face and invite wrongness.

Doors open.

So I charge you: write it wrong! And start spitting. 🙂

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