For Artists or Wannabe Artists
“Paint your mini masterpieces whenever or where ever the muse taps on the door. “
Contributor: Robin Gaines
These portable watercolor paints https://www.amazon.com/Winsor-Newton-Cotman-Sketchers-14-Pieces/dp/B00004THXI are my new favorite pastime. Get off your phone, the iPad, the laptop and let your imagination go crazy. Paint your mini masterpieces whenever or where ever the muse taps on the door.
Poetry Articles
Contributor: Robin Gaines
Poetry has gotten me through the last four years of chaos and confusion like nothing else. As Ali Smith writes in Artful, “poetry (is) an instrument for exploring the truth of things, as far as human beings can explore it, and it can do so with a greater verbal exactitude than prose can manage.” I’m a recent follower of poetryisnotaluxury. Follow here: https://www.instagram.com/poetryisnotaluxury/?hl=en Better than the news. Healthier than booze.
Books WOW Members are Reading
Collections of Short Stories — Alice Munro
The One-in-a-Million Boy — Monica Wood
So You Want to Talk About Race — Ijeoma Oluo
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings — Maya Angelou
Where the Crawdads Sing — Delia Owens
The Summer Book — Tove Jansson
This Book Will Teach You How to Write Better — Neville Medhora
The Pursuit of Wow — Tom Peters
Little Women — Louisa May Alcott
Can’t Say That, Can She? — Molly Ivins
Joan of Arc — Mark Twain
A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of our Time edited by Stephanie Kaza
Young Romantics — Daisy Hay
The Hour of Land — Terry Tempest Williams
From Our Birth — Nancy Coleman
Believe Me — Eddie Izzard
Crazy for the Storm — Norman Ollestad
Me and White Supremacy — Layla Saad
The Fish Can Sing — Halldor Laxness
Invincible Summers — Robin Gaines
The Friend — Sigrid Nunez
Nicole Asinugo's Suggested Reading List
Save the Cat by Blake Snyder,
The Nutshell Technique by Jill Chamberlain
The Coffee Break Screenwriter by Pilar Alessandra.
Excerpts
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
Thoughts About Writing
In the throes of a global pandemic, it’s good to remember the best of spring. Budding and blooming flowers and foliage. Thawed lakes. Windows thrown open. And, it’s National Poetry Month. “Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits,” so says Carl Sandburg. I agree.
What better way to start the day than a cup of coffee/tea, a biscuit? and a poem. The poem-a-day site is free nourishment for the soul. Check it out here: https://poets.org/poem-a-day
All of us have discovered something true about ourselves as we spend our days cooped up with kids, parents, roommates, partners. What’s your truth this week?
I’ve discovered I need a long walk daily—something I haven’t done as much since our chocolate lab died. I put the earbuds in and press shuffle. This song, Pain by The War On Drugs https://music.apple.com/us/album/pain/1242366660?i=1242366668 I first heard on a drive up to a Night Sky Park in northern Michigan to see the aurora borealis. It resonates in this time of uncertainty and sadness but also feels hopeful.
One of my favorite writers, Lily King, has a new book out. Writers & Lovers tells the story of a young woman struggling to become a writer while grieving the death of her mother and trying to keep a roof over her head. “I think it’s extraordinary that you think you have something to say,” her landlord tells the narrator in the opening pages. What writer hasn’t either been told this or has it on a continuous loop in her head? Here is a craft piece King wrote on LitHub explaining how she came to write this particular book at this particular time https://lithub.com/lily-king-craft-newsletter/
Be safe. Stay home. Write on.
Xo Robin
Miscellaneous Articles
WRITING ABOUT PLACE
This article from HuffPost about writing about place!
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/book-photos_n_4987
AGENT REPRESENTATION
For those seeking agent representation, check out the ongoing chats between members of Binders Seeking Literary Agents here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bindersseekingliteraryagents/ It’s informative, encouraging, a platform for all of us in the hellpit of querying and rejection.
CRITICAL FEEDBACK
Check out LitHub’s “The Case Against Critical Feedback” here: https://lithub.com/the-case-against-critical-feedback/ This is so spot on. I’ve been in writing workshops where the light went out on any future writing for individuals crushed by unnecessary critical feedback. It’s a real thing. Wide Open Writing retreats are a playground for creativity—not one harsh word to dim your brilliance.
Miscellaneous Reading List
Philip Lopate, The Art of the Personal Essay. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.
The Craft of Writing
On Writing by Eudora Welty is a must-read in its entirety and a superb addition to these favorite books on writing.
Complement it with more advice on the craft from great writers, including Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing, Walter Benjamin’s thirteen doctrines, H. P. Lovecraft’s advice to aspiring writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s letter to his daughter, Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and Susan Sontag’s synthesized learnings.
And these links come from a wonderful newsletter called Brain Pickings, which is a recommendation all on its own for people to get hold of and read...!
Elizabeth Benedict - The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers (1996).
Benedict has said that "If it were denied me to write, I imagine I would die," for through writing she makes sense of her own deepest experiences as she reshapes them into "a fictional universe much larger, more varied, and ... more compelling than the extremely personal" with which she begins. And from those deeply personal experiences, she also offers four important lessons for herself and other writers: First, work like a maniac because no one else will do it for you. Second, know that art matters. Next, understand that fiction is about transformation and that change is possible. And finally, make the surface of writing lively, fun-filled, and funny, even if the characters are in excruciating pain.”
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut once came up with a list of eight rules for writing a short story. In 1999, Vonnegut wrote a piece called "How To Write With Style." He ended his essay by summing up his seven most important points: Find a subject you care about; do not ramble, though; keep it simple; have guts to cut; sound like yourself; say what you mean; and pity the readers.
"Every successful creative person creates with an audience of one in mind. That's the secret of artistic unity. ... If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”
"Make characters want something right away — even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time. ... When you exclude plot, when you exclude anyone's wanting anything, you exclude the reader, which is a mean-spirited thing to do."
Wislawa Szymborska, The Joy of Writing
Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
Silence - this word also rustles across the page
and parts the boughs
that have sprouted from the word "woods."
Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they'll never let her get away.
Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.
They forget that what's here isn't life.
Other laws, black on white, obtain.
The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop.
Is there then a world
where I rule absolutely on fate?
A time I bind with chains of signs?
An existence become endless at my bidding?
The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.
Famous Writers Pick The Best Books on Writing and the Writing Process
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
On Writing by Stephen King.
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.
On Writing Well by William Zinsser.
Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster.
On Directing Film by David Mamet.
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.
The Best Books on Writing I’ve Ever Read by Jerry Jenkins
Jerry Jenkins Link
Books Published by WOW Writers
Invincible Summers by the Robin Gaines
Stories from the Chicken Foot House by Tina Jackson
Letters from the Love Room by Corinne Martin
Near Death in the ICU by Laurin Bellg
Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee by Dara-Lyn Shrager
Manual for a Decent Life by Kavita Jindal
Fat is Not a Feeling (in Dutch) by Eline van Wieren
Lessons from a Golfer: a Daughter’s Story of Opening the Heart by Susan Lebel Young
Food Fix: Ancient Nourishment for Modern Hungers by Susan Lebel Young