Writer Teaching Others—Carolyn Wilker

One of my jobs is teaching adults to write. This writing class began in the fall of 2009, after writing a proposal and getting approval from the recreation coordinator at the senior’s centre. The coordinator thought a writing class would be a good addition to the programming, and it has proven to be a popular class once it got started.

The first class began with seven students. I learned that I must be flexible, that adult retired people have busy lives, and I recognized the many sources of wisdom that I can draw on in our discussions.

My students write in response to prompts, questions and discussion topics, then they read their stories aloud, some of them sharing their writing for the first time ever. It’s a safe environment in which confidences are kept and stories too personal to share can be kept for the writer’s eyes alone. The thing is to write, and they have done so. I show them that I am a writer too, by doing most writing exercises along with them.

Many times my teaching plan gets shifted, along with the homework assignments. We have lively discussions on the English language, books, copyright, and grammar. I critique their writing, and we have a session in which they learn how to give helpful feedback. My experience in writing, editing and in Toastmasters have been most valuable and helpful in teaching this class.

I see retired professionals going from writing educational or professional articles to writing something personal, thus demanding a different style. I see the influence of their profession on their writing, in the language they use and their style. I see women who have nurtured their children to adulthood and now want to do something for themselves.

Among my students, there have been retired school and college teachers, psychologists, and homemakers, a nurse, someone who worked in banking and in college administration. There have been mothers of teenage children, a former vice-principal with a love of poetry, a reporter from a small town newspaper in the West, an eighty-one–year-old avid reader, and a young woman, perhaps just past her teenage years, who chose to be in this class instead of a class with her peers.

As adult learners, they’re coming because it’s their choice. They have stories to share with their families, and they want the writing to be worthy. Sometimes there’s a book in them and they’re trying to get started, or maybe they just want to try something different. Students have remarked that they’re not sure they can remember enough, while others have already written stories and want to make them better.

How can I help them? I show them their strengths and help them work on weaknesses in writing—as long as they’re open to correction. They are encouraged to keep on writing. For those struggling to remember, we work on ways to recall memories they thought they had forgotten. Students are often surprised when an event comes back to them and they start writing.

This term I teach two classes: one in creative writing that I’ve taught since the beginning; and a new class on writing memories—a full class at the first registration.

My goal is to teach my students to write those stories well with characters that are alive and vibrant, in scenes that the reader can visualize, and to go away from class having written something new each time. I hope my students will develop confidence in their writing and continue drawing out those stories even when the class is over.

When I see students smile because they’re happy to be in my class, and when their writing makes even the smallest improvement, I know that my teaching has been helpful.

Carolyn Wilker

www.carolynwilker.ca

Once Upon a Sandbox— Carolyn Wilker

After attending my first writer’s conference in 2001, and joining the Word Guild in 2002, I decided to try different kinds of writing to find what I most enjoyed.

My first publication credits had been informational articles. I wrote book reviews, children’s stories, opinion editorials, family stories and poetry. While I found markets for my reviews and poetry, locating a market for family stories seemed elusive, and so the stories remained stowed away in my computer, and backed up on discs, until the day I would bring them to light.

In my early days as writer and member of The Word Guild, co-founder N. J. Lindquist, reminded members that eventually writers need to get up in front of an audience and speak. Early in 2004, knees knocking and with much trepidation, I joined Toastmasters and embarked on the journey of stage time, so that I would be ready whenever the opportunity presented itself.

It took me awhile to call myself Writer, but on the journey, I found I liked to tell stories, which led me to the Story Barn in Baden, Ontario, and then the Storyteller’s Guild. I attended Open Story Night and told regularly. I was hooked on storytelling and listening to stories.

One evening at the Barn, we celebrated the launch of Latitudes of Home, written by fellow storyteller, Sally Russell, about her years of growing up in Georgia. I always enjoyed hearing her tell stories and so I bought her book. I was not disappointed.

The more I read, the more I pondered what if. What if I assembled some of the stories I had written? What if I wrote some of the stories I told so that readers could pick up a collection anytime they wanted to? Who would be interested? Judging by the growing movement in storytelling, and how eagerly listeners at the Barn received the stories, I thought there’d be a sufficient audience.

And so I gathered what I had written, wrote others and put them together in a manuscript—stories about rural living and what it meant to me as a child, recollections of chores and learning to cook, whitewashing the barn, taking care of my 4-H garden, and pet and children antics. I discovered that I needed more material to fill a book and so I wrote more.

While working on a family history the same year, we talked about how things were in my grandparents and my parents’ earlier years. I asked questions and made lists of possible stories, rewrote and revised stories with the help of The Word Guild online critique group. Thus began the manuscript for Once Upon a Sandbox that was released in June.

While my manuscript was under consideration and afterwards, I made a greater effort to get up and speak at my Toastmasters club, entering contests in the club last winter and representing the Energetics at the area International speech contest. I worked on new stories for telling and shared them. I also wrote out a tentative plan of where I could speak and promote my book.

With my first launch behind me and information from our latest Write! Canada conference still whirling around in my head, I add to my promotion and marketing plan, limited only by my imagination and resources. As in any project, it takes one purposeful step at a time, and even a marketing plan gets done. One step, two, and three— I’m on my way. Here’s to Once Upon a Sandbox, a memoir.

For more information on Once Upon a Sandbox or to follow my events, go here.

Hide and Seek - Ruth Smith Meyer

Have you ever watched very young children play hide-and-seek? The younger ones are apt to hide in corners, their faces against a wall or piece of furniture, so they can't see anything, but the rest of their bodies, or their backs are exposed to anyone else. The hider can't see, so they assume the seeker can't see what isn't readily visible to themselves.

It has been my observation that as adults, we are much the same. Our short-comings, our character flaws or areas where we have some lack, we try to hide from ourselves by not looking at them--closing our eyes to what we don't want others to see.

Many years ago, I was part of a women's group that began to meet for fellowship and Bible study. We had grown up in the same small church and we were all friends. We decided to begin by telling each other our faith journey and a bit of what we struggled with in our inner selves. Each evening we had several women share until we all had our turn. In spite of our familiarity with each other, it was an eye-opening experience.

Each woman's story often contained bits that felt to herself, like deep dark secrets she had been hiding for a long time. Those revelations often were things that to the group were quite well-known parts of that person. It was like that little child, hiding her eyes when the rest of us could see the whole body, the hiding place exposed for all to see. The only new aspect was how the sharer felt about it--shame, dislike or despair, even agony--and a real desire to change.

As the grop continued, it was obvious that in sharing those hidden parts, release and healing began. Not only were we still loved and accepted by each other, those levels went way up because now we were all acknowledging the facts. Where, formerly, there may have been some disapproval and criticism of those character traits in each other, we now understood them to be part of the area in which that person desired growth and change. We rallied around each other to support each other's growth. Growth and change did happen! It was an exciting time that we still remember with great warmth.

That experience has been of great value to me ever since. When I meet people with aggravating personality traits, I far more readily see them as growth areas. Sometimes I picture them with their face in a corner, eyes tightly shut so as not to acknowledge what they don't want to see. It gives me patience and compassion. Deepening our friendship and trust level with people like that can often help them open their eyes and lose their fear of taking a look at the reality of their postition.

Sometimes I become aware of doing the same with one of my character flaws. I then am thankful for those who look past the irritation, gently pry me from my corner and encourage me to open my eyes.

Last night, I met with my writers' group. Only a few of us were able to make it, so although we did share our writing, we also took time to share a bit more personally. That group has helped me in my growth as a writer and as a person. Critique has become a valuable part of our coming together. At first, some were intimidated by having others make all those suggestions for change, but now the veterans welcome the input and look foward to the positive changes to our writing that the group can make through the process.

On the way home, I wondered how one could form a critique group for our lives. Yes, it could be painful at first, but would we begin to value it as much in our everyday lives as in our writing, if we could let others be honest and straightforward in what changes would benefit our lives? It may be a welcome and stable factor in our growth if we got used to its benefit.

In fact, probably if I open my inner ears as I receive critique in my writing, I may be able to make parallels to my attitudes, my carelessness, my first inclinations and reactions, even as I am receiving the critiques on my writing. Hmm-mm!

Author of Not Easily Broken, Not Far from the Tree and Tysons Sad Bad Day

http://www.ruthsmithmeyer.com/

Why I DON'T Write -- Payne

Last post I wrote on why I write. Now I want to share with you my thoughts on why I don't write.

Sometimes I fight writing. I know I have a great idea and I’ve even started it inside my mind, but I put the brakes on. I don’t want to transfer it to paper because I’m afraid that if I start and then am interrupted by the telephone, or by a child’s cry, or by the dryer’s buzzer I fear that I may lose it altogether.

Instead of starting, I keep it inside to protect and nurture it until the timing is right to let it loose. But have I lost ideas entirely because of this? I don’t know. I can’t remember. Perhaps blissfully I lose ideas but is this better than knowingly losing ideas?

I’ve never chanced starting to write knowing that I had only 30 minutes to get my idea down. I’ve never risked it. I’m too afraid that if I let the idea loose without completing it, well then, I’d lose it forever.

I don’t know if I could pick up where I had left off. I don’t know if I could get myself back into that frame of mind.

I feel like I move in spurts. There is a period of incubation and formulation. The thought is tossed and turned in my mind. Then the moment comes where the idea bursts forward and splatters in ink on my paper. I cannot stop it and it runs like a locomotive fiercely out of my mind onto the page.

But as the ink dries, the idea dies out. The writer is spent. And once spent, I return to incubation.
Do I unleash the train before it’s ready? Do I dare ever proceed or yank the brake cord just as the train gathers speed?

This is my dilemma as a writer. Do I take my opportunities as they come up, or wait for the ideal moment? Do I write regardless or steal those moments to luxuriate in reading?

As I pose these questions to myself, I already know the answer. A writer writes.
No more excuses. No hiding behind reading. A writer writes when the ideas are there. And when the ideas are not there. A writer writes through the incubation and into the inspiration. A writer writes.

www.kimberleypayne.com