Continue reading »]]> Tip #18 Embrace Imperfection

Here’s something to consider. Osho, in his book on creativity, said: “Try to make something perfect and it will remain imperfect. Do it naturally and it is always perfect. Nature is perfect, effort is imperfect. So whenever you are doing something too much, you are destroying it.”

This is really something to keep in mind in the first draft stage of any piece of writing. Now and then you hear about writers who barely alter their first drafts. Arundhati Roy, for example, made very few changes to the first draft of The God of Small Things and that is one brilliant novel. Of course, Roy herself is exceptionally brilliant. Perhaps the book’s vibrancy has something to do with its not being overworked and over-edited.

For most of us, editing is a fact of life, an unavoidable part of the process. But to get to a place of editing, you have to finish a first draft and that can be hard if you are striving for perfection and it’s not coming out that way.

Osho’s quote is really useful in thinking about that (often frustrating) stage of the writing process. Accepting imperfection allows us to move forward. It might make all the difference.

Continue reading »]]> Tip # 17 Play with Yourself

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not much of an athlete. However, that is not going to stop me from creating sports analogies.

Many years ago, I took a couple of golf lessons with my dad. I still remember the most valuable lesson because it applies not only to golf but to art and to life in general. The lesson is to stay focused on your own game.

Golf, like art, is not a competition amongst players. There is an element of that, of course, but primarily it is a game that you play against yourself. A serious golfer can enjoy themselves amidst golfing peers regardless of their own score or other players’. This is because a serious golfer only cares about outperforming their best score.

I think this lesson extends perfectly to all creative careers. We can’t even make fair comparisons between our own performance and someone else’s. All we can do is aim to outperform ourselves. In doing so, we challenge ourselves and we push through our own obstacles. That is why it makes no sense to focus externally.

It doesn’t matter whether someone else got the grant you wanted or the award you wanted. It doesn’t matter if your peers publish more than you or are funnier or smarter or better at crafting a plot. None of that matters because art is a game you play with yourself.

Continue reading »]]> Lindsay Glauser talks to Mette Bach about her favourite reads.

Do you have a favourite Vancouver/Lower Mainland writer?

The one book you always recommend is…?

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I recommend this in all of my classes at Langara. For many writers who are just starting out, it is a valuable tool in terms of personal growth. So much of writing is about battling inner demons and that book provides budding creative people with some very powerful questions to ask themselves.

What writer would you love to see read their work?

Right now, Victor Frankl. Thanks to youtube, that is possible. Imagine what it would be like to have the privilege of attending one of his lectures. This is brilliant:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD1512_XJEw

Continue reading »]]> Creative Writing program at Langara College’s Continuing Studies.

Start 2012 off on the right foot with a fun and inspiring writing class.

I’m teaching the following courses:

All About Publishing (CREA1069)

No matter what you write, here’s how to publish and promote your work. If you want to publish your short stories or essays, launch a blog, or create podcasts, this practical course offers the skills and tools needed in both traditional and new media markets. You will set goals, demystify contracts and discuss developing contact networks.

Getting Paid for Your Opinions (CREA1065)

Learn the practical skills required to becoming a freelance writer by exploring methods of evaluating and critiquing others’ works for review. Through in class discussion and exercises students will discuss the ethics of creative criticism and develop approaches to combining opinion with research. Learn how to structure thoughts and improve drafts in order to create informative and engaging reviews.

Unleash the Writer Within (CREA1022)

Have you dreamed of telling your story but found yourself staring at a blank page or screen? This workshop is for budding creative writers. Explore your strengths and stumbling blocks in a nurturing environment while putting pen to page. This course encourages each student to express themselves and liberate the writer within.

See detailed course information

Continue reading »]]>

Read the original article by Adrienne Gruber on Egale’s website.

1. What inspired you to become a writer? At what age did you begin and what was your first published piece?

I’m a late bloomer. I started to write at about age 27. Before that, I was a really active reader and I do believe that attentive reading is an art form and I suppose it was part of the same creative impulse. The first essay I wrote managed to get published in a tiny little literary journal that no longer exists. The piece was called “West Coast Trail”. It was about going on a nature trek through one of the most cherished trails in Canada and how I got frost bite and a couple of black eyes after falling six feet or so and landing face first in some underbrush. I was airlifted out of the trail.

2. Could you tell us a bit about your writing process?  Do you have a favourite place where you write?  Do you need certain books/snacks/hats/animals/etc. with you?  Do you prefer well-lit rooms with lots of windows, or darkness with ridiculous amounts of candles and incense?  Are you a creature of routine (up at 6a.m., writing until noon when you break for a light lunch of arugula salad with a warm honey-dijon vinaigrette) or do you thrive on spontaneity and spend your writing time on the move from one greasy spoon to the next?

I’m definitely a creature of habit. I like to write first thing in the morning. I like to drink coffee while I write in my journal and then I switch to tea and creative writing projects after that.  I tend to spend the first two or three hours of my day this way. I’m okay to skip a day here and there and I do take weekends off but I find that if I upset my routine then I wind up upset. I’m pretty set in my ways.

3. What books are you reading right now and which authors do you love? What book have you read as an adult that you wish you had read when you were young?

Well, I’m not reading it anymore but one book I read recently that I adore is Mark Leiren-Young’s Never Shoot a Stampede Queen, which sounds gay but actually isn’t. It’s about a Vancouver reporter who moves to BC’s interior for a job at a Williams Lake newspaper. It’s hilarious.

I love a lot of authors. To name a few, I’d say: Joan Didion, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, George Orwell, Angela Carter, Dionne Brand, Djuna Barnes and Janet Frame. These are some of the authors I go to often.

When I was a child, my mom made a point of reading all of Hans Christian Andersen’s tales to me in Danish. It was amazing. I’m so grateful that she did that for me.

4. Tell us a bit about your experience of writing a memoir about the suburb (North Delta) you grew up in. What made you decide to write a memoir exploring this aspect of your life?

Actually, that subject started nagging at me almost as soon as I started writing. I had the fortunate experience of getting some early mentorship from Daphne Marlatt who was the writer-in-residence at SFU when I wrote that essay about the West Coast Trail. I went to see her a few times and she asked me some seemingly simple questions that were challenging to answer. She asked about my mom and my best friend’s mom (and what they thought of us going on this dangerous hike in early spring with barely any equipment). I had to confess that our moms didn’t know much about what we were up to as they were single mothers who had a lot of other things to worry about. As my dad lived overseas, he didn’t know what I was up to either. Daphne encouraged me to explore that landscape – both geographic and psychological. She was sure that was where the real story was and I think she was right.

5. You are a screenwriter, a non-fiction writer, and you’ve published essays and journalism pieces as well. How do you find juggling writing in several different genres?

It works for me. I find it rewarding to procrastinate on certain writing projects with other writing projects so I tend to have many different projects in various stages of completion. Different genres bring out different aspects of self-expression. I like that.

6. As a writer, do you feel that being openly queer has had any direct or indirect impact on your writing career and your success?

Not long after I started writing, I landed a column in a queer paper in Columbus, Ohio. I started writing around the same time I met my first girlfriend (I was 27). Given the overlap, it was an opportunity for me to explore new identity questions. It was a fun angle for a column to explore relationships, life and community from this new understanding of myself. I’m still writing it actually, although I think I will wrap it up soon. I have dated people across the gender spectrum and I never felt like I had to limit myself to one type of person. I feel grateful that I get to experience love and life from this perspective.

And as far as impact on my career, I would say that it has been positive. I feel tremendously supported by queer publications and queer readers. There’s a lot of solidarity as well as hunger for stories that express the complexity of queerness.

7. I’ve noticed that many writers have work that revolves around particular obsessions.  Do you find you have specific topics, themes or issues that you keep coming back to as a writer?  If so, how does this impact your writing process?

I suppose a lot of my work to date has explored self-acceptance. It has been a big theme in my life. Sometimes when I look back at external struggles I’ve portrayed in my work, I can see how I was striving for internal acceptance, not external approval.

8. What writing projects are you currently working on right now? Do you have several on the go or are you focusing on one specific piece/manuscript/project?

For the last few years, I’ve worked with ESL learners and it has connected me to some powerful memories. When I bear witness to a young international student’s sense of alienation trying to get by in a Canadian school, it allows me to remember some of my own experiences that I blocked out for many years because they were too painful. I also find my students’ stories compelling and I love the dialogues we have. I want to share them.

So that’s my main project. I’m also working on a couple of short film projects and some freelance articles.

9. You were born in Denmark and you speak Danish fluently. You also offer translations from Danish to English. Have you written any of your own work in Danish? Can you tell us what it’s like to work in translation?

I’ve never written in Danish. I’ve thought about it. Maybe I will one day.

Translation is beautiful. It’s euphoric, actually. It’s like playing Tetris, trying to get everything to line up perfectly. For example, when I was working on my big project – translating Jakob Ejersbo’s short story collection, Superego – I came across this Danish expression that means “to go crazy”. Literally, the expression is “to go cucumber”. Of course I can’t translate that literally because English readers won’t understand. One night, I woke up in the middle of the night. Eureka! In English we say, “to go bananas”. Now, is there anything inherently insane in either bananas or cucumbers? No. Both are bizarre expressions. I felt that one would make the perfect substitute for the other. It’s stuff like that – the small joys. And the questions I get to ask myself, like why do we look to oblong produce as metaphors for mental health?

10. What was the best advice you’ve received as a writer and what advice would you give to young writers who are trying to get published?

Actually, Daphne Marlatt gave me some great advice about publishing. She said not to rush into it. I heard her even though it might seem like I didn’t. What she was getting at was that it’s okay to take your time and develop your craft and your ideas. A lot of writers put pressure on themselves to publish even though they are not ready. Maybe this is because we live in such a results-oriented culture, but deciding whether a story is ready or not is challenging and subjective. Writing is about process and once something is published, it’s published. You don’t get to take it back and rework it. That’s a lesson I’ve learned the hard way many times. I was so eager to get my work out there and to get paid for it and to think of myself as a “real writer” (an illusion I constructed equating money with writing success).  It’s good to sit on your work and really polish it before sending it out into the world.

10A. I understand you’re willing to share a video you made. Can you tell us about that project? How did it come about?

Maria starred in B.A.B.S., the first short film that I directed. We had a great time working on that and decided it would be fun to try making a music video. So I wrote the story for the narrative part of the video and we got an awesome team of people – queer and straight – together to make the video. I hope your readers enjoy it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Continue reading »]]> This tip isn’t just a New Year’s Resolution for me—but for everyone.

Tip #16 READ

I don’t know how anyone expects to write well if they don’t like reading. It baffles me. Yet, I know these people exist because I have met them. Some of them have taken my classes and admitted to not reading. Sometimes they offer excuses such as being concerned that their reading material will influence their work. I like to point out that there is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I think to myself, you should be so lucky.

I agree with Kurt Vonnegut who stated in one of his essays on writing that reading is an art so complex that very few people master it, even after 12 years of schooling.

When you read, you give space for another writer to communicate. You are, effectively, listening. It is this act of listening that is crucial. To hear how another writer formulates ideas and structures her story, that is one of the greatest writing lessons you can give yourself.

Happy New Year!

Continue reading »]]> The next tip in our series is something to consider for the new year. If you aren’t already comfortable sharing your writing with others, this may be just the swift kick to get you moving.

Tip #15 Share Your Work

I’m a big fan of writing groups. If organized properly, they give budding writers support, valuable critiques and, most importantly, deadlines. It can be easy to let weeks slip by unnoticed without getting any writing time in. Yet, if you know you have to produce something because you have a writing group meeting coming up, it’s often easier to find that extra couple of hours.

When you’re starting out, it can be hard to create and maintain a rigid schedule of writing, but I believe that a rigid schedule is the best thing a writer can have. If you are lucky enough to find a way to impose deadlines, such as blogging regularly or writing a column, fantastic.

Many writers use writing groups to force themselves to keep moving forward. I had an awesome one. Now and then, I still miss it. We met every three weeks for about three years. We were a diverse bunch: a screenwriter, a poet, a couple of fiction writers and a non-fiction writer. It was awesome because we were genuinely interested in hearing each other’s next chapters.

I think writing groups are better for writers than sending your work to your best friend or asking your spouse to listen to a story after dinner. It’s been my experience that while most friends and lovers are polite enough to listen and be supportive, they can’t give you the same level of feedback that other writers can.

Do you have a writing group you attend?

Continue reading »]]> Mentors, teachers and First Readers are very important in the writing process. So here is the next writing tip.

Tip #14  Choose Your Teachers Carefully

I once took a writing class from my favorite writer thinking it would be a dream come true. I can tell you, it was not. I held her in such high regard that I took everything she said way too seriously, including her criticisms of my work. I worked so hard on my story because I was intimidated and wanted everything to be as perfect as it could be. That’s why her circles and underlines and margin comments felt like daggers to my little amateur-writer heart.

After that class, I avoided creative writing for about three years because I believed I wasn’t any good at it because my favorite writer had pointed out some flaws. I doubt she had any idea that her words had that kind of influence. Looking back, I even agree with her comments.

The point is simply that there are some writers that you will naturally put on a pedestal. You love the way they write. You love their novels and poetry. That is natural and it doesn’t mean you should let them look at your first draft.

What are some key characteristics you like to have in a writing mentor or teacher?

Continue reading »]]> As much as I love engaging with people online, sometimes getting out is the best way to help your writing. So here is the next writing tip, from me to you:

Tip #13 Get Out

One way to focus on the craft of writing without actually writing is to attend literary events. At such events, you get to hear what other writers are up to.

One of my favorite literary events in Vancouver is the Robson Reading Series, which is at the UBC Bookstore at the Robson Campus. They pair two writers and each one reads for twenty minutes and then there is a twenty minute question and answer period. This is the perfect opportunity to ask questions about the writing process. They even have refreshments and honoraria for the writers.

If you are pursuing writing, giving yourself the gift of hearing other writers read from their work is pretty fundamental to the process of solidifying writing as a career option. I particularly like the Robson Reading Series because I haven’t heard of all the writers. I think that’s key.

I remember when I first started writing and everyone told me I’d be fine if I could write a best-selling series like J. K. Rowling. Now don’t get me wrong, I love J. K. Rowling, but there are plenty of authors who do just fine without best-selling work or a lot of fame or fortune. It is helpful to hear those writers. It creates a much more realistic idea of what the writing life is all about.

Do you have a favourite reading series or literary event?