Writing Deliberately

Pietro Antonio Rotari
Young Girl Writing a Love Lettter

My writing has taken an interesting turn this year, as I am delving more into non fiction than fiction. When I volunteered to facilitate the Flash Non Fiction series at Writers' Village University last year, little did I realize it where it would lead. I've been experimenting with writing and exploring different styles thanks to authors like Joan Didion and Marcel Proust.  Two authors I would never have considered reading if it weren't for WVU and Bob Hembree, the genius behind the writing community. 

I stumbled across WVU while trying to create DYI MFA for myself, because attending even a low residency MFA program was proving to be too expensive and inconvenient,  I fell in love with the writers and the positive atmosphere and threw myself wholeheartedly into taking classes as well as facilitating.  I'm having loads of fun studying the craft of writing.  

However, I've been neglecting my poor characters in  Eyes in the Ashes as well as other stories I've started but never edited.  They waited quietly and patiently for a while, but now are clamoring for me to get back to work.   I do have Alice La Plante who wrote The Making of a Story to thank for giving me the impetus to write a couple short stories involving those characters.  I wrote Layla and Paul's backstory which helped me to know them better and turned into the prequel, Cats, Dogs and Michaelangelo.  Now I feel brave enough to explore Greg's backstory and the circumstances of his wife's death and how that will affect his relationship with Izzy.  I never delved in my villains, the sibling due Ashley and Victor's, background, except for the bare bones of their character. Time to get into the meaty psychological stuff.  *grin*  

Another goal for this year is to submit short stories and flash nonfiction so will be editing and prepping for submission.  Wish me luck and send lots of virtual courage. 

I've gotten out of the habit of doing morning pages and decided I need to reread Julia Cameron's Artist's Way and get back in the habit. Synchronity -- I'll be joining a group at the village.  Yay! 

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others
what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show
through the smoke. ~Arthur Polotnik