3 Reasons Why It's Okay To Sleep at a Writing Retreat (When You Should Be Writing)

I just spent a week at a writing retreat called The Porches, a lovely spot in rural Virginia on the James River. Many times I've taken myself there to work without distractions, in a private room with a solid desk, and lots of peace and quiet. I got some good writing done that I look forward to continuing. I also edited a piece and submitted it. And I drank some good wine.

Also, I slept.

Trudy Hale, the owner and operator of The Porches, once told me that many writers arrive, set themselves up for good, focused work, then spend two days mostly sleeping. They are always surprised by this, and wonder why they're sleeping in or napping every day when they were so geared up to work. It's simple, Trudy says. They're tired.

Writing Habits: 3 Ways to Engage Your Subconscious Mind

Yesterday I read this article in Observer by Benjamin Hardy. This paragraph got me thinking about the power of the subconscious mind:

The first thing to do when you wake up is output. This may be in the form of writing in a journal to capture all the work your subconscious has been doing while you were sleeping. Or immediately getting to the project you’re working on. When you get out of a meeting or finish any form of activity, rather than going directly to your email or other input, maximize your subconscious by going directly to output—your work. 

I've never thought in terms of "input" and "output" before, but now I'll probably use the words all the time because they fit so well into my beliefs about how the subconscious powers our writing.

Now This is Cool: Non-Profit Dedicated to Studying the Brain Through Writing

Oliver Sacks died just a couple of days ago: August 30, 2015. I miss him already. His writing--elegant, precise, and compassionate--inspires me not just to be a better writer, but to be a better human. He believed in the power of story to heal and to better understand the human mind.

While doing some research on his life, I found this: The Oliver Sacks Foundation. Then I got all excited when I read this:


The Oliver Sacks Foundation is a nonprofit organization devoted to increasing understanding of the human brain and mind through the power of narrative nonfiction and case histories.

The foundation’s goals include making Dr. Sacks’s published and yet-unpublished writings available to the broadest possible audience, preserving and digitizing materials related to his life and work and making them available for scholarly use, working to reduce the stigma of mental and neurological illness, and supporting a humane approach to neurology and psychiatry. (emphasis mine)

Those of us who love to read already know the power of storytelling to make meaning from our lives and better understand our internal worlds. I've never bought into the dividing line between art and science, between what we think is quantifiable and what we think is not. Sacks clearly felt the same, using his tremendous writing talent to share the experiences of and humanize his patients and himself.

Narrative nonfiction, you guys! Let's get into it!

I remember you, Oliver Sacks, M.D. RIP.

9 Current Calls for Nonfiction Submissions

Let's check out some opportunities for nonfiction writers!

I keep a running list of potential markets for my work by scouring a variety of sources, including Literary Hub, The Review Review, NewPages, Places for Writers, and a bunch of other sites. You can check them out to find more options, including poetry, fiction, and cross-genre.

I'm happy to share this with you, in the spirit of writers helping writers. As usual, submit your best work and read the guidelines carefully.

Read the New, Digital, Annotated Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Tag this latest edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland "literary coolness:"

From Medium:

An annotated edition — twelve Lewis Carroll scholars taking a chapter each. A joint project from The Public Domain Review and Medium, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the classic tale.

Here's an example from Chapter 1...

"The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well."

...with an annotation by Zoe Jaques:

"‘[N]ot a moment to think’: Carroll’s repeated references to Alice’s lack of reflection on her entry to Wonderland recalls both the impulsive nature of childhood and also the undirected and non-reflective manner of dreaming."

Read the text, complete with annotations, here on Medium. And definitely check out Arthur Rackhman's beautiful illustrations.

Memoir Craft: Grappling With Memory in Warm Springs (Part 2)

In Part 1, I wrote about the first example of Susan Richard's Shreve's craft technique of making transparent her process of grappling with memory. In her memoir Warm Springs, she employs the metaphor of being examined by doctors to find "traces" of muscle movement in her legs, which have been decimated by polio. Each muscle requires her complete concentration, patience, and focus; recovering her memories, she says, requires the same effort, even if it is only to find "traces" of them.

The second example is a stunning, one-page chapter titled "Memory in Process" in which Shreve recalls her first memory. She is one and half years old and recovering from polio. Her mother walks in and approaches her crib:

Memoir Craft: Grappling with Memory in Warm Springs (Part 1)

Susan Richards Shreve is concerned with memory--its accuracy, reliability, power, and how various people can experience the same events and have entirely different memories of those events.

In Warm Springs, her memoir of spending two childhood years at a polio hospital, she is determined to tell the truth. The truth, as the reader discovers during the story, is established by Shreve in part by making transparent her process of grappling with memory.

On three occasions she takes time--within the story itself--to let us into her process. The first is immediate: the word "traces," which is in the subtitle and is the focus of the first brief chapter.

John Ashbery is Eighty-Effin'-Eight And He Wrote Another Book

Creepy picture? Or the creepiest picture?

The great, renowned, Pulitzer Prize-National Book Award-Robert Frost Medal-etc.etc.-winning America poet John Ashbery turned eighty-eight last week. Eighty-effin'-eight, guys. And he just wrote another book of poetry. Another effin' book. He's already published twenty-something books.

LitHub published a poem, "The Upright Piano," from his new book Breezeway. It's the best kind of Ashbery: full of imagery, asks a lot of questions, knows itself, invites you in, but still makes you think about what the hell is going on. Here's the first stanza:

Did we once go to bed together?
And how was it? I need your help on this one.
Good thing it happened, too—
Intelligence without understanding
is like constant frost, pounding at the temples
until its bargain is overseen. I kid you not.

I know Ashbery's style is controversial and hyper-analyzed and over-scholarized (?) etc. but I just like him. I think he's funny and wise. After losing Mark Strand last year, I'm just really glad this poet is still walking the planet.

This Week's Wanna Read: On The Move by Oliver Sacks

Easy. Oliver Sacks, guys.

This man knows how to blend precise command of the English language with elegant craft to create beautiful, readable prose. He never talks down or condescends in any way. He weaves medical terminology into his writing, defines it for the layperson, while still respecting the reader's intelligence.

His autobiography, On The Move, was released in April of this year. It's on the back burner because I have so much work to do right now, but I know I'll get to this one.

Four Crucial Differences Between Memoir and Autobiography

Two cats who symbolize the difference
between ... oh whatever. Kitties!

The differences between memoir and autobiography are crucial to the experience of both the writer and reader. Many people, however--including writers--don't understand how they differ in in terms of craft and storytelling technique.

I keep these four ideas in mind as I write my own memoir so I can keep the focus and clean story arc I need. They also help guide me in creating myself as a character on the page.

1. Time Span

An autobiography tells the story of a whole life, whether the writer has lived a long time (Oliver Sacks, Roger Ebert) or not so long (Drew Barrymore). If you want to write an overview of your entire life, including all of the significant events and lessons learned, then you want to write an autobiography.

Three Celebrity Memoirs That Are Worth Your Time

In the previous post, I expressed hope but skepticism about Shonda Rhimes' upcoming book, Year Of Yes. I really want it to be good and honest and engaging and not consumer-driven "inspirational" claptrap. But I do have hope, because I have read memoirs by celebrities that are elegantly written, insightful, and tell a great story.

Here are three of my favorites.

Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi

De Rossi honestly and poignantly recounts her life in the business of modeling and acting (and why she changed her name). The main thread of the book is her struggle with body image and eating disorders. It's wonderful reading because she captures the narrative within the frame of the dysfunctional mind. She's a subtly unreliable narrator when it comes to her body.

One revealing example occurs while de Rossi is being photographed for a magazine. The photographer complements her body, saying how beautiful and healthy she is, adding that he sees a lot of sick bodies in the studio. Hearing this, de Rossi thinks to herself: I gotta get me one of those sick bodies.

From the Los Angeles Times:

In prose as simply elegant — and as powerful — as a little black dress, De Rossi weaves together three themes — the impact of a loving, but lonely girlhood as the child of a single mother, the corrosive effect of constant doubts about her appearance and the internal struggle over her sexuality