Why do you write? Take five minutes, right now, to jot down your answer to that question. Start by scribbling "Journal Entry: Why do I write?" at the top of a blank page, then write down whatever comes to mind, as fast as you can go. You'll find my answer to this question below, but complete your own list or paragraph or whatever before reading the example.

Why do I write? To learn what I know about the world--When I stop for a moment and think about the busy-ness of everyday life, on the run from morning stretch to dreams, no time to sort and organize my thoughts, I know why I write. The fragments need organization, and that is what writing does. Writing means a quiet time to pay attention to the patterns in my life.

I wrote a great deal of poetry and a novel at the kitchen table, tapping away at my manual typewriter in the midst of family life, but in 1980 I moved to a three-bedroom prairie gothic house in Lincoln, Nebraska. For the first time in my life, I had a room of my own, an upstairs bedroom with windows on east and south to catch most of the day's sunlight.

I placed my books neatly on bookshelves, used a family heirloom desk and that same typewriter, grew enormous plants in pots next to the windows. My son, an only child used to a room of his own, made a sign for the door: "Do not enter unless you are bleeding really bad or you need a hug." But whether I wrote in kitchen or in study, those times were my own, a space in which to dream.

Realizing Your Dreams

At first, students write abstract pieces which readers find difficult to understand. Then, in a moment of insight, each writer comes to understand the power of concrete images to create lifelike writing. Some writers experience this epiphany early in the semester, and others take a bit longer. Chapters Two and Three give you the skills you need to make that leap of insight right away. Later chapters explore developing characters, getting individuals into and out of trouble, and shaping writings to fit the ideas they express. Chapter Eleven suggests ways to improve writing through revision, and the last chapter discusses how to publish your work and become a professional writer.  The book encourages you to try out many types of writing.

The most important quality needed by a writer, the one I can't teach except by example, is the willingness to work, to write a first draft and then to revise repeatedly. Many beginning writers believe that once they have an idea, the task of writing is over, but this notion is false. Writing is never a quick and easy task, and all the imagination in the world does not get one line on the page. The most important quality of a writer is the ability to apply pen to paper or fingers to keyboard hour after hour, day after day.

In a videotaped interview, Eudora Welty nodded her long head and in a cool southern accent described her writing schedule. Every morning she sits at her desk for four hours. Sometimes she writes grocery lists or letters, and sometimes she writes stories. If inspiration strikes, Eudora Welty will be ready to write down her fantasies.

A photography student kept getting Cs on his projects. He wanted to improve, so he asked the professor how to raise his grade. "Shoot more film," the teacher answered. As the student shot more film, he learned the techniques of his craft and raised his grade.

A writer's journal can take many forms. Some people prefer a hard-cover blank book, others a spiral notebook, still others a packet of 5x7" cards held together with a rubber band. Perhaps the best format is a ring binder. You can carry a few sheets of paper with you, then punch holes in them later. The ring binder allows you to combine random jottings and more focused exercises done on the computer into one collection of material.

One important thing to remember is that your journal is a record of work-in-progress, not a finished piece of writing. Flipping through another writer's journal you might find a description of a sunset, bits of overheard dialogue, a line from a song, comparisons of an apple and an orange, how the outdoors smells during a rainstorm. Compare your journal to a bank: You make deposits of information, then later withdraw your saved currency to develop into more finished writing projects.

With journal in hand, set out on field trips to places you don't ordinarily go. Take your journal to familiar places, too, and observe your surroundings, making notes about details. Use your five senses. What do you see, hear, smell, taste, touch? Collect the smallest details of the world about you. Listen as people talk, and write down what they say and how they say it, their use of words and phrasing. Watch their behavior and jot down what they do with bodies and hands and faces. Include your speculations about what such gestures and facial expressions might mean.  If you include birds or wildflowers in your writing, avoid generalizations.  Use field guides to find the names of plants and animals.

Study your surroundings with careful eyes and ears and hands. Pretend to be a biologist or an anthropologist or a psychologist visiting a strange tribe in some distant and unknown place. Become a student of the way your world works by recording your observations precisely in your journal. This material will be your source for vivid, realistic images which will make your writing come to life in the minds of readers. Deposit experiences and images in the bank of your journal for later withdrawal, when you will give these writings form and share them with others.

Writers do not submit first drafts to editors or agents. Most writing goes through a process which begins with an idea and ends with a final product. In between, the writer conducts research, plans the writing, decides on a genre, writes a draft, scribbles the draft full of corrections, revises the draft many times, shares the revisions with other writers for oral and written comments in a workshop, eventually revises and edits the drafts until the work seems done. Then, the writing is ready to be submitted for a grade or possible publication. Some work may never be finished, but the writer should hold on to copies of his or her failures. Sometimes, years later, an old idea takes on new life and becomes a fine piece of writing.

Keep your more finished writing in a portfolio. Write, put pieces into the portfolio, revise them and add the revisions, and eventually, bring the revision to your writers' group for critique. Your journal is raw material, and your portfolio contains what you have made of your observations, your attempt to turn journal notes into art.

You may want to use a cardboard box with a lid, available at most business supply stores, to hold your drafts. Label it with the beginning and ending date, and throw an extra copy into the box every time you print something. Be sure to keep diskettes containing your writing at someone else's house or in a safe deposit box so that you will not lose everything in case of fire or flood. Such sad events do happen. Always have extra copies somewhere.

As you learn to interpret and organize your ideas in words, you will find yourself thinking about your audience. Write for people like you, folks with similar lives and ideas and interests. One aspect of writing for an audience is preparing a readable manuscript. When you rewrite journal entries into a form to share with others, neatness and readability become important.

Writers of today have a great advantage of those of the past:  word processing. Computers allow writers to produce drafts and edit them quickly and easily. Not having the money to purchase your own computer should not hold you back. All but the most isolated writers have access to word processing equipment at work, in public libraries, on university campuses, and at printing and duplicating shops. A typewriter which shows you a few lines at a time will do, but a good personal computer with a word processing program allows the writer to look at and rewrite big blocks of print.

Writing to be shared with others should be typed or printed, double-spaced, on white paper, in dark print. When the ribbon on the dot matrix printer starts to wear out, replace it right away. Correct spelling and grammar errors.  Readers don't stay with the ideas in a sloppy manuscript; they get caught up in thinking about red-penciling errors. If your audience can't read your writing easily, they won't take time to understand your ideas. A readable manuscript shows that the writer is serious about his or her craft.

Example 1.4 illustrates how a journal entry changed as the writer began to revise.

1. Rough Journal Entry

As to Moscow, I don't see it crumbling -- seems much the same. We were out at 6.p.m. today and people were going about traveling home from work.

2. First Revision

Bob said he thought Moscow was crumbling, but to me things look somewhat better than two years ago. At 6.p.m. near Red Square, the sidewalks were crowded with workers on their way home. The white nights give a sense of limitless time in the evening, and no one hurried or pushed; people went about their business firmly but politely.

The women look much better to me. There has been a change in the palette of colors of makeup here. Two years ago, makeup looked garish, purple and red and bright blue or green, but now the colors seem softer, muted, and more coordinated. Their clothes seem a bit more up-to-date, too, late 70s perhaps, with A-line skirts and ruffled blouses.

3. Second Revision

To understand the importance of color in the Soviet Union, you must first know about the absence of color, the dull grayness, the bleaching by air pollution's heavy cloud. The haze cuts down on the light so that everything dims a bit, the sky grayish rather than blue. All other colors take on a dim and muddy hue.

Two years ago, makeup worn by Soviet women seemed garish, a fuchsia and apple green outcry against the dull surroundings. But something has changed in Soviet society during the last two years. Women now have access to color-coordinated makeup in muted colors. Women in Moscow and Minsk and Leningrad now look like women in New York and Buenos Aires and Pocatello, Idaho.

At six on Friday evening, women stroll arm in arm near Red Square, wearing A-line skirts and short sleeved blouses, with canvas slip-on shoes. One benefit of the summer's White Nights is the prolonged evenings, which allow homebound workers the leisure to walk and talk together before climbing on a bus or descending to the Metro station.

Example 1.5 shows how Pamela Stewart's ideas grew into a fine poem from a story-like journal entry which didn't work for Pamela or her audience. Look for images and ideas which stayed and those which the writer chose to eliminate. Pamela rewrote this piece several times over a period of months, and three versions are shown here. She shared each draft with fellow writers, who responded with helpful and kind criticism, allowing her to revise with an empathetic audience in mind. Mechanical errors present in the original have been retained.

1. The Broken Tree

Some people see the thing that wakes them up every morning as an opportunity clock more than an alarm clock. I am an anomaly. The thing that wakes me up is my entertainment center. I find myself wandering throughout the house singing refrains from whatever song invaded my dreams first. Hours upon hours of mind boggling recitation fill all the empty spaces of my head. Maybe this is why some experts believe music can trigger powerful emotions. A particular song can bring back an feeling so powerful you reliving part of you life.
This morning was no exception. The song, I believe, is called "Broken by the Wind". I have no idea who sings it. The chorus goes:
Like the tree out in the back yard,
That never has been broken by the wind.
Our love will last forever,
If it's strong enough to bend.
or something like that. What I do know is those lines have become

2. Broken Tree

Growing black and green in the sharp night,
An evergreen stands confident against
The fierce vengeance of the cruel storm.
Rapid blues and whites slash the night air
As the din of thunder rolls through
The harvested fields, drawing too close.
The smell of fertile black earth penetrates
Her senses --causing chaos in her dreams.
The question of death or renewal splits
Reality from subconscious. She awakes.
Rain mixed with biting pellets of hail destroy
What pleasure the storm might have brought.
Cecily hurls herself from her bed, and fastens
the frigid panes of glass.
Nature saw the delicate Cecily framed in the window,
and chose to deprive her evergreen of life.
Lightening pierced the core of that Tree.
Its brutal force frighten her innocence.
A quiet tear slipped from the corner of her eye.
Her evergreen lay in splinters at the forrest's edge.
The thunderous sheets of lightening illuminated
The beauty that lay behind her evergreen.
Cecily learned that storm-riddled night.
Good can come from the fierce.

3. Beyond

Scent of Fertile earth
Penetrates dreams.
Storm splits
Reality. She awakes.
Delicate Cecily fastens
Frigid glass.
Pleasure brought-
Cruel storm?
Rain's biting pellets,
With vengeance,
Draw close to
Forrest's edge.
Blues and whites
Slash the night.
Lightning pierces.
Frightening her.
Black and mean
An evergreen falls.
Gentle lies
View beyond.
4. From the Fierce
Black and green in the sharp night,
An evergreen stands confident.
Rapid blues and whites pierce,
It falls at the field's edge.
Scent of fertile earth penetrates
Causing chaos in her dreams.
Questions of death or renewal
Split reality. She awakes.
Rain mixed with biting pellets,
What pleasure the storm brought.
Thunder through harvested fields,
Drawing too close.
Delicate Cecily framed in the window,
Fastens the lock on frigid panes.
Lightning illuminates the view
Beyond the fallen tree.

When you write in your journal, begin with personal experiences and feelings; no one else will read these journal entries, so write in the form which feels most comfortable. As you revise your journal entries for an audience, consider what others need to know. The two exercises at the end of this chapter for your first journal entries will help you get to know your readers.
 
 

1. What is the most important quality needed by a writer?

2. Why should a writer carry and use a journal?

3. Should a writer consider what the audience needs to know?

4. How do computers help writers?

5. Why should writers correct mechanical errors before sharing their writing with others?

Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down. Keep your journal and a pen or pencil nearby because you will be writing when you finish thinking.

Relax, get comfortable, then take a deep breath and close your eyes. Let this breath out slowly, and then take another deep slow breath, feeling the oxygen flow through your bloodstream to stimulate your brain and help you think. As you let out this second breath, relax and feel yourself letting go of the tensions of everyday life.

Keep breathing deeply and slowly, in and out, feeling the oxygen-rich air you take in, letting go of more tension each time you exhale.

When you are ready, begin to think about the audience for your writing. Imagine a face, perhaps someone you know, perhaps a stranger. Standing next to that person is another reader, behind them more. See the rows and rows of people, your audience, waiting for you.

Notice the age and sex of your readers. Are they teens? Young adults? Older folks? Male or female?

Ask them what they want to read and listen when they answer you. Do they like poetry? Stories? Plays? Humorous personal experiences? Let your audience give you ideas for your writing. Notice their interest in you and in what you have to say, and pay attention to your interest in them.

Remember the thoughts and feelings which come to mind during this exercise, and when you are ready, take in a deep breath, exhale, and then open your eyes. In your journal, write down what comes to mind from your meditation. Who did you see?

How did they answer your questions? You can make a list, jot down phrases, or write in complete sentences and paragraphs. Form does not matter as much as capturing the ideas before you forget them.

Try to recall your first experience with words, hearing or speaking or reading language you understood. Focus on this memory for a few minutes, then think about the following questions.

1) When did this experience take place? How old were you?

2) Where were you?

3) Was anyone else present? Who?

4) What activity were you engaged in?

5) Did this first understanding of language change your life? How and why?

Now write for at least ten minutes but not longer than a half hour about this experience. You may want to record vivid details which bring the moment to life or explore the meaning of the event. Write down whatever comes to mind.