This thread is currently closed to new comments, but do scroll through existing Q&As for a deep dive into the craft of writing and what it takes to build a creative life…
Hello Tanya. Thank you for all the time and energy you put into supporting people here. I'm also enjoying your contributions to Hagitude enormously and find both spaces really affirming. Please can you share something about how you keep yourself safe while sharing intimate parts of your story? I've done a lot of work on boundaries recently after discovering at the age of 50 that my boundaries were paper thin. It's a fascinating and helpful process, but I have't yet managed to integrate my new knowledge into my creative work. I've found myself hiding behind research and science and evidence-based knowledge and ignoring my own gentle emotional intelligent knowing. I now feel drawn to relax back into my essential self and listen to the guide inside. She's waiting patiently in the shadows to show me the way - but how much to share, how raw to be... Whose is this internal voice that says 'who do you think you are, no-one cares about your story / stop being self indulgent / your experience isn't special / stop attention seeking / I can't believe you told people THAT' Is it my own voice trying to protect me, or another critical voice from my childhood? What tips can you offer to craft authentic meaningful edited work - and feel safe when it goes out into the world?
Rachel, I've been away from emails for a while, so sorry my reply is coming a few days later than would otherwise be so. What a wonderful question to bring to the thread. Thank you for asking it.
I too hid in the language of academia for a long time, and then in my diaries (my only creative practice for two decades) even though it was only for me and my husband to read, I still often prefaced or ended any though of my own with a quotation or reference to someone else.
(I'm rereading Ferrante's Neopolitan Quartet this week, and there is a wonderful passage towards the end of Book Two when Lenu - the rare girl who is allowed to continue her education and become a university graduate, as no one in that time and place was - reflects on what is has earned her, and what it has cost. And the limits of all that painstakingly acquired language, culture, knowledge. Do give those books a look if you get a chance - they speak so so strongly to all of what you're saying here).
That internal voice which says 'Who do you think you are/who would care about your small town/life/place'. It's not entirely mistaken - there's a really excoriating reader review of my book on Amazon that will last as long as the book's online presence! - which says all this and worse about my story. Go find it and read it - it's by an American reader. It hurt - like a splinter of glass - and then... it didn't. Because in showing and sharing my real self [more on that below] much more good has come to me then bad.
How did I finally push through that same thing in myself? Simply by making a list of all the books, all the poets/poems, whose work speaks strongly to me, and feels necessary, courage- and hope-giving. Looking through them, returning to them, and realising that the mining towns & neighbouring farms of 19th century Nottingham, that the villages of 'Wessex', that the Shad Valley, that Salinas Valley, that the Yorkshire Moors... all these and more only exist in my imagination, and feel important, because an author made them important to me through their lived experience of them...
And isn't that the most exciting, empowering thought? That there is a small but significant chance that things you write and share about your place, your people, your inner experience of those, might be read by people FROM there and from far beyond it. As you are reading me?
So that's the most powerful way I've found to make the work.
The crafting, the shaping, that comes later. And just like a dancer can't dance on stage with what looks like effortless without the invisible hours of barre exercises and stretches, so our shared version of raw experience comes after lots of experimenting with unpublished stuff.
My book hits people hard as raw, as fearless, as full of nakedly-revealed shame and failure and desire. And it IS honest and unsparing - I'm hard on myself and fairly kind on others and their motives. (Because to blame others for my actions is not, in my opinion, the purpose of memoir). BUT, it isn't raw and unstructured confession or catharsis. Parts of the first and second drafts were - and other parts were too obscure, too evasive. But the published version arrives at a perspective and acceptance I couldn't have at the time. This is the work that is worth sharing with others, that just might be of use beyond myself.
I felt very exposed in publishing the book - but only in the worldly sense of knowing that it and I were open every after to media and reader reviews. But I didn't feel I'd written anything I'd regret. I didn't feel I had any blindspots - I worked those out in drafts, and by sharing them with well-chosen people.
So. For now, to begin, you just need to start - as the cliche goes - to dance like no one's watching. To sing like no one's listening. Because to begin with, they aren't. Read your own words out loud to birds, to gravestones in a cemetary (I've done both!). Record yourself reading them, and make yourself listen til the recorded you (which is what others hear) is as or more familiar to you than the voice in your head. Externalise without an audience, in other words. Get things out in the open.
Then, later, when you are working on something longer in that voice you've given strength and volume too? Well there are people like me here waiting to share more resources with you to help you on the later stage of getting ready for publication.
One note of caution. If you already have a facebook or instagram account with some followers, it can be tempting to start putting personal writing out on those channels. But if your family or friends are among that number you can find yourself getting criticism or silence that sets you back years or forever. Find channels like this one (that's why I've made it by the way) where you will get only encouraging feedback from others who are on the same journey of finding a form for their stories.
And here's a lovely little animated talk by the American broadcaster Ira Glass that I recommend to everyone who is beginning to move into finding a voice for their stories and making work that might one day be shared. It's called The Gap, and it's about why we need to keep going in the obscure early years (and why most people quit):
Pleasure. And I'd love to hear from you back on this thread if you make any process discoveries in your practice that you'd be happy to share with others here in the project: you're not at all alone here in wanting to find a voice beyond your academic training. I'd love too if you would write for this month's theme which is on the Voices Around Us! x
I've just finished your book. I was directed to it via Simple Things to Instagram to my local bookshop where it was sitting waiting on the shelf for me. I read it in two days. I took myself to the beach, to sit beside my sea (that is not really the sea, but a promise of the sea out east) to finish it today. I smiled when I read that in Wild Woman Swimming you advised that it was to be read "outside - may it go waterlogged, sun-buckled and wind-chapped" - as this is how I always christen the books that are my Important Books. My Important Books are not pristine but are spine-cracked, with frayed corners and sand wedged into every crevice.
About half way through reading the cure for sleep I knew it had become an Important Book to me. (As well as being weather-battered, Important Books can be identified as those books that I wholeheartedly recommend to friends and family, but only reluctantly lend in case it should not find it's way back to me.) Fresh from reading it, I don't think I can yet say exactly the specifics of how it is one of my Important Books, I will need a re-read to articulate it fully. I want to re-read it immediately, but I think better to read it in a few months time when my life feels a little less portentous and noisy.
I have never been a more-of-a-comment-than-a-question sort of person (in truth, not even just-a-quick-question sort of person) but here I am, crashing into this generous space you have created, where mainly I just want to say thank you. Thank you for your words, and thank you especially for writing "Because it would be enough, more than enough, to be a person occupied for the rest of my life by what might look to others only an idiotically simple gathering in of small and obscure moments: the collecting of stories from ordinary people like me." This, this is so very key to who I want to be. I will sit with these words, and with the "THE SCULPTOR'S ADVICE FOR ART AND LIFE", borrow them a little, if that's okay, as I try to write ordinary stories of ordinary things and ordinary people.
I hope you are well. And again, thank you so very much for your book.
What a beautiful message to receive - your kind words about reading my book but also the gift you’ve given of you, as a reader & writer yourself. Such a vivid sense of you got from those words. I’d love to see & hold other of your Important Books to learn how they’ve spoken to you.
I’m just arrived with a great friend of the Wild Woman - who I know only because of that one meeting with Lynne. We’re going to walk along the Dart this morning, then teach memoir together all weekend.
I hope some of the prompts on here will interest you to write for - I’d love to see how you respond to them…
I love that you christen your Important Books, "spine-cracked, with frayed corners and sand wedged into every crevice," and that you and Tanya both take them to "the sea." I only have a river with rocks and grass nearby, but.... gonna do some christening! Thanks for the inspiration!
So good of you to engage with people like this, Tanya. I've written bits 'n pieces of a spiritual memoir for many years and it just wasn't coming together. So I set up a blog and started posting stories from my personal experience relating to wider Nature, accompanied by photos that I've taken personally. Working on the website inspires me, though I hold intimate experiences back. I think an arc is showing up and perhaps could download the entire thing and start crafting a central plot but am still resisting it. Why do I resist what I really want to do? Feels like the jist of the story is still too mushy.
Hello Val. Thank you for your kind words, and I'm sorry it's been a few days between your comment and my reply (the heat here in UK is slowing me down!).
It's great that your writing already has a public form as a blog - anything that 'exteriorises' our writing/thinking moves us on so much further and faster than years of wholly private notemaking (though that has its roles too in so far as developing our own deep themes and rhythms of prose). Some of the most successful authors working online currently - James Clear and Seth Godin - both began by committing to a blog practice with clear self-commitments to 'ship the work' (in Godin’s phrase). Quality is desirable but most important was the practice of getting the words out to a public - however small - at the time they chose.
I've learned the hard way that resistance can lead us down a rabbit hole of introspection: why do we do it? Why do others? But it's much more effective to simply move forward with a new habit based approach. You can read about this for free on James Clear's brilliant website.
I think you may know that I edited the online swim diaries for the late Lynne Roper after her death? Like me she'd always wanted to be a writer, and like me she held back. Lots of complex reasons. Unlike me she did leave it too late, and never got to the do the fascinating, demanding process of looking at her accumulated blog archive to get the pleasure of reading it aloud, editing it for sense and place and arc as I got to do on her behalf. I so hope for you that you get to enjoy that next stage of shaping your work.
Remember too that your project doesn't need to have a narrative arc. My memoir is quite unusual in having that these days when more and more nature, spirituality and familial memoirs work instead with a calendar year, or cycles of the moon, or are fragmentary arranged by some theme. Soft is okay! Gentle is wonderful! Try to have fun seeing what tone and form your material wants to take!
Also have fun reading 'the olds' - do some of the spiritual memoirs from the deep past offer a form or a tone that excites you when it comes to shaping your own contemporary material?
These kinds of perspectives can all turn your work into serious play rather than being oppressed by a sense of dutiful 'shoulds'.
Dear Tanya, You've really boosted my confidence and thank you so much for this advice! I'll look into James Clear and have already ordered your book on Amazon. I feel ever more certain that I have something to impart. I'm of an age now to see how I'm navigating from ego to soul, through story and metaphor, and how that shift on a personal level holds wisdom on a cultural level. Please stay safe in that searing heat, Tanya. We had it here in BC, Canada last summer in a heat dome that caused terrible grief. These symptoms of collapse are everywhere and, I feel, a clarion call for the human species to mature. Hope to talk again. All Best, Val (Victoria BC)
It's my pleasure, Val. And I'm touched to think you have ordered by book. I do hope it speaks to you. What you are thinking/writing about is the most important story of our time and the decades ahead. Do feel free to keep using this thread if there are craft questions I can help you with as you start work now on shaping your existing material into a new format.
I would like to write more about my Dad and his life, but even though it is four years after he died, I still find it painful and difficult to find the words. I wrote a 3000 word assignment for my course about one aspect of his death and it nearly broke me. Your 300 word prompts have been a creak in the door that I have just about managed. Do you have any advice about how to write about painful events and how to create that distance so the pain doesn't overwhelm you? I think you mentioned in a conversation that you need a gap of 7 years, but I can't remember if that was advice someone had mentioned to you or whether I dreamt it.
Thanks again for you so generously creating a caring community to talk about these things here.
Oh Vanessa, I remember so well our mentoring call last year when you spoke so movingly of what your father meant to you. I couldn't even do that for years after I lost my beloved grandmother in traumatic circumstances. As I say in the book it was a sorrow that stopped my throat. I don't think there is any set time in which we find ourselves able to write about our lost loved ones: I haven't read it yet but I know Clover Stroud has written a fine book about losing her sister, quite soon after the shocking loss. For me, it was I think seven years before I put a few lines about my grandmother into one of my first published pieces - and those same lines are now in The Cure for Sleep another seven years on, but fully expanded into a deep meditation on what she was to me. I think the added pressure of writing for an assignment would have made that 3000-word essay you've just done incredibly demanding. But I also think that you will find yourself returning to it and reworking it in another season in ways that will mean a great deal to you. If any of my prompts here give you small and safe ways to keep approaching that huge loss in a gentle way, then I'm very very glad.
In terms of advice? No easy words to salve the pain of writing about loss. But I do always think of this Robert Frost quote:
“A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”
My complicated loss of my grandmother was, as I say, a physical pain in my throat that stopped language. For a long time. But from that pain grew an articulation of loss that now speaks to others. I feel sure your words will find the same path from you to others who need them. Txxx
My question for you: how did you distance yourself enough from your own life for the memoir to be 'crafted' rather than just an outpouring of thoughts and emotions?
And my answers in return: I've started to write again, after not writing anything for myself for about 15 years. I hesitate whenever I read other people's work as I very often love it more than my own. Do I have anything to say that hasn't been written more eloquently by someone else? The way I get around that is just to write, and to try not to overthink it, even if I know it is imperfect, or would benefit from some breathing space and editing.
I am writing for myself, for the pleasure, and relief, of it. Whenever I have to write for someone else (e.g. in work), I find myself constrained by their expectations (imagined or real).
As I'm writing short snippets, I have a lot in my head that doesn't make it into the writing. I wonder if the subtext in my head is making it onto the page, if that makes sense?
I do get stuck with technicalities. In my most recent piece, I tried to write it quickly, without overthinking, but I did try a few different ways of sequencing it. I was describing three periods in time, within 250 words and it felt confusing to me, so I thought it would definitely confuse a reader. After a few tries, I still wasn't sure, but thought it was good enough. I don't think I'd click 'Post' ever, if I felt my writing had to be more than that.
That's an interesting question. I think because I'd kept diaries for decades, a lot of the raw stuff had already gone through a long process of being put onto a page. But I still wasn't at all ready - or experienced! - in telling a long personal story, even at the point where I'd signed a contract to write the book you've now read. And so I learned - after being a lifelong painful perfectionist, who only ever did slow first/final drafts of uni/work documents - that it really is true you need to just get a shitty first draft down, even if it peters out into raw confession or almost more like notes for a story. Rest times between each draft bring perspective too. What details don't need to be there for the story to communicate meaning? It becomes like making an instrument, a boat, a sculpture. First you put it all in, then you take it away.
There came a point for me where I really understood at last that other people's published work had been through their hands many times, and also the hands of many other people - agent, editor, sales, copy eds, proof readers. That the beautiful work that moved me so had been a group effort - it wasn't all on me. But the story, the memories, were. Which is why what you're doing by sharing those short pieces as part of my project here is so powerful for your progress. There's much more I can say on this, drawing on what I learnt from an old and long out of print book that changed my life: How Writers Journey to Fluency and Comfort. I have some notes on that which I will share with you when we walk next.
The short work I'm seeing is superb. Remember that I went straight from having non-fiction 'essays' of no longer than 600 words published straight to this book. The leaps can be big and fast, once you are committed to moving from private writing to public...
Yes I want to write - there is something within me that wants to come out, I’m just not quite sure what it is! Hard to focus and concentrate on finding IT.
Writing by hand doesn’t work for me so I’ve been writing little short notes on my phone, easy as I always have my phone.
I suppose I fear people I know will mock or laugh at what I write
I had that happen in my 'first life' - a few close-to-me people showed interest in my diary-keeping and asked to hear bits. I deliberately chose outward-facing stuff, not the introspective...and their responses fully set me back another decade...
...but here's the thing. Some of those very same paragraphs and sentences went almost completely unaltered into this book of mine that is being on the whole well received by critics!
And my big learning, that I teach to my children now, is to be really good at asking for feedback if you want to sustain a creative life, private or public. Ask appropriate people - who often aren't friends or family - and be clear what kind of feedback you need. And the stuff that comes unsolicited and is of ill intent? Discount it and keep going. Have you heard Brene Brown talk on this? She is a source of constant courage for me...there are lots of edited versions online but this is a good quick jump to her key 'man in the arena' talk about shame, vulnerability and fear around creativity...
I spent so many years in exactly this place. I think my breakthrough came finally when I made a list of the books and poems I most loved and looked at what they had in common (forcing myself not to think about their writers' fame). For me, they all had land and family at their heart, quiet simple things. And it really hit me that if I just set out my own place and people with as much clarity and purpose as I could, then it just might interest other people. (It also took a dream visitation from Seamus Heaney telling me the same thing to really get me over the top and into a book of my own...but that's another story!). I wonder if an exercise of that kind might interest you to try?
It’s a nice idea and I remember spending time doing a similar exercise from a Julia Cameron book where she got you to analyse your favourite movies and links between them. One thing I spotted straight away was what I could call the Producers Narrative, when an innocent person is drawn into a risky, possibly illegal venture and some bad consequences happen but they find that what they gained makes the journey worth the struggle. For all its hokum there is an incredibly touching song in the musical, when Max thinks he’s been left alone to face the music and Leo has betrayed him, but then Leo shows up in court and says how much Max’s friendship has given him. ”No-one ever made me feel like someone, ’til him.” It gets me every time. Another song that has a similar effect on me is ”Something Good” from The Sound of Music, where Maria wonders how someone with her terrible self-esteem could have got to this place where she’s found a wonderful love. ”Somewhere in my wicked, miserable past, there must have been a moment of truth.” And finally, Kurusawa made a wonderful movie called Ikuru, which is about a meek civil servant who suddenly puts his life on the line to make sure a children’s playground gets built in postwar Tokyo. He becomes fearless because he’s dying of cancer and wants to leave something concrete behind. It is utterly compelling and quite beautiful. So for me, it always seems to be this journey out of your comfort zone, when you’ve never believed in yourself before or taken any risks. It gets me every time.
Oh my. I need to find this Kurusawa film this weekend - thank you. Do you know the Michael Frayn book A Landing on the Sun? A British civil servant is reluctantly paired with a female academic and what happens in their relationship in a little office hidden away in Whitehall is absolutely joyous and heartbreaking all at once...
No, that one is new to me, although I once read a very funny novel called Nice Work by David Lodge with a similar theme - a female humanities is grumpily forced to shadow a Brummie factory owner and it is loathing at first sight. At first….
Yes. I want to take some time on this... my mind went immediately to a few poems, stories I love. I want to sit with this and see what common threads there are.
I love that idea of your ideas as creatures or people deserving of care and encouragement to get them past a forbidding figure. There are many ideas, but only one internal gatekeeper. Perhaps we could all simply overwhelm our censor with a rush of ideas large and small...?
Hi, I don't recall how I came across your substack but I'm happy and apprehensive. Where to start? It seems such an amazing place filled with warmth and inspiration. I'm a creative with a full-time job which keeps me away from what I love doing; -painting, writing, being.. I've always written down my thoughts, kept a diary, had notebooks filled with quotes and since hitting 50 and opting to invest my time more wisely, have discovered or rediscovered a love of poetry, prose, the written word which can evoke so much. Apologies if this is the wrong place to post a 'hello' but I opted just to jump in: Feel the fear and do it anyway as they say.
Sheona! I'm trying from now on to only be here on Wednesdays... but!!! I just saw your wonderful message come through and I couldn't wait three days to respond to it. I'm sitting here with my diary - have only just started a new book in the last month after taking a year-long break from any kind of writing (beyond a few paid commissions). It's not discussed enough how being a published author finally can often take you as far away from writing for the first few seasons of a book being out, as having a non-writing job...
...and so you and I are the same age and in much the same place, with regards to deciding/testing out how we can find time and space for a creative life, a creative practice, when there is so much that will always be also needing our time.
Those notebooks of yours are so rare, so valuable. Gaps of months, of years? They don't matter. That you have sometimes (ever!), in this late stage of capitalism, made private time to write for no audience, no employer, no money: that is such a radical and powerful act. My heart feels large to have had your message find me just as I am, once again, at the start of a new journal, a new life stage. There are so many of us out here, and I love that this free space is a place where we can test out our stories.
So. I'd love you to not wait, not hesitate, but just pick one of the prompts in the archive and write for it. Don't polish it, don't rewrite. Just get a first one done so I can curate it and you can experience how it is to look at your words presented online in a different visual format to what you wrote it in. Which is what publication is, really, at its heart: our words in a setting beyond open to potentially millions of people, but usually only read by a few. But to those few it can be a story that has real use to them.
The theme that has the most responses by far, because I think it is at the heart of what all of us (writers and no-writers) spend are lives responding to, is Voices Around Us:
I'll next be adding stories to the book archive on Wednesday - perhaps treat it as a deadline (even though this project will keep running as long as I have time and health to offer it, or until Substack squeezes out fully free projects all together!).
So very glad to have you join us here, and look forward to learning more about your life through the prompts you respond to.
I know you through Hagitude, and just found my way here. I wrote my 300 words for the most recent prompt but before I could post it, I became paralyzed by fear. Fear seems to be a constant companion these days. The past half decade I’ve been very much the hermit, retreating from the world and the the sight-lines of those who might feast on my vulnerability. The idea of publishing something personal with my name on it in a place presumably accessible by a google search and upon which I have no control over whether it stays up a month or a year from now makes me feel nauseous like I need to go lay down. It turns out one part of me very much likes the safety of hiding. Yet another part longs to share the depth inside me. These parts are in quite the war.
I don’t want to simply override the fearful part, because that usually leads to a backlash, I've learned. But I’m curious what words you might have for how to bring that part more onboard?
Hello Olivia. It's a real joy to have you and others from this year's Hagitude program come and join me here - as readers, but also I hope as writers too.
I think you've said something very acute - and true of many others in our community here too - when you say:
"It turns out one part of me very much likes the safety of hiding. Yet another part longs to share the depth inside me. These parts are in quite the war."
Perhaps let these two parts have a written fight on a page? Argue and then reason it out?
And perhaps - as an experiment - my reply might usefully take this form too...
The voice of fear: There is a risk of unwanted attention if I have anything personal published in my name on the internet....
Published author: True. I've had some really harsh reader reviews that disturb the quality of the day. Although it's also true to say that worse things happened to me back in the days when I was just connected to 'friends' on Facebook, and a disagreement broke out... Do you have a particular person or group you are actively at risk from if you are findable online? That's always a serious & overriding consideration. Otherwise? In my experience, mainly good comes from sharing one's stories.
Voice of fear: If I publish personal stories my friends and family will be upset...
Published author: If you say things on a social media channel or at an in-person, friends and family are often quick to take issue with an opinion. But usually those who already know us are strangely uninterested in what we write and publish. They often only engage with it once it's achieved some form of public recognition. They're not our audience, and we shouldn't ask them to be. We're sharing our work - short or long - not to settle scores or seek praise, but to start and join conversations with people and places beyond us.
Voice of fear: What if I publish something finally and NO ONE responds.*** I'm worried that I will have to give up my dream of becoming a writer then. That I will have tried and failed...
Published author: Lots of work comes out to very little response, so it's best - as my mentor advised me - to be motivated by the possibility of it connecting you to one new and exciting or useful person. In any piece of well-intentioned work that we share it's like switching from 0 to 1: there's suddenly potential for something good to happen if not immediately then years later, in a way you can't predict at the time of writing and publishing.
[***And of course the way I've designed this project is to ensure that anyone who dares to share a story that meets my community guidelines WILL get a response from me! And often now from other members of the project too!]
Does this give you enough to do some useful private work on how you're feeling? And remember - you can publish here with a first name and a last name that is a pseudonym. It's a safe way of testing out how you feel once you've done it - as distinct from anticipating it...
Emma! Thank you twice over - for reading the book, and for joining us here (and with such generous words about what I hope will be a long-term offering from me to whoever finds it!).
So looking forward to receiving some stories from you. If you'd like your full name included, just remember to let me know it when submitting your words for the first time as I can only see your first name here. If you'd rather just use a letter for the surname that's fine too.
Thank you for replying to my enquiry and for taking the time to do so. It has been very helpful to learn of how you approached this. I should have mentioned that I have been a 'befriender' in the community as well as doing the work I mentioned in the actual hospice. It seems so obvious that this is the role that naturally leads to scribing.
It's also very useful to learn that it is not necessarily something people want done in order to leave something for family members, but more to do with their own feelings and thoughts about their unique lives and the way in which we each come face to face with our own mortality.
Thank you, also, for enclosing the link to The Guardian article which I shall certainly read.
I suppose it is a case of explaining why I feel writing may offer a way for some people to find that ease or greater preparedness for death. As you say, the talking is probably the true salve, and the possibility of writing some of these thoughts is a way to open the conversation.
Thank you for your kindness, and I shall let you know how I get on.
It has meant a lot to me to read your response. You have a way of caring for your reading community that gives many of us courage.
I've wanted to ask you for a long time now, about your work as a hospice scribe. I would like to return as a volunteer at my local hospice. I have beena ward volunteer, mainly helping the ward clerk with small admin tasks, flower arranging, cleaning etc.
They do not have a scribe, and I would like to approach them with this idea. I wonder if you might tell me how you, as a scribe,
explain the details of your role and the ways in which you would become "assigned" ( probably not the correct expression) to particular patients. I know it is a delicate environment and
so the practicalities of inviting a scribe will help me in my approach to the hospice manager.
I send you and your dear Mum my love and gratitude.
It's great that you already have a long-standing link to your hospice: you won't have to approach them cold as I did mine so long ago.
Does your hospice have a befriending service? Where they train volunteers like yourself to give occasional in-hospice or at-home respite for the patient's carer or to give the patient company? This was my initial way in - and meant I was under the auspice of the counselling team, receiving group supervision. I then asked if they'd consider me for this bespoke role, given that I'd be abiding by all the rules of right conduct that this other training/service had.
Once they agreed, they made sure all the nursing and counselling and chaplaincy staff knew about my offering, so could suggest it to any patients or family members as something that might help the patient in preparing for their last weeks or days. I would then get 'called up' - given details of a person and their address.
I also sometimes based myself in the hospice day centre to offer this kind of conversation more informally with those present.
More and more hospices have this kind of service now, and some people doing it do quite elaborate projects I think. Most of my work was very simple - the act of having the conversations was enough for most people to ease their anxiety and feel prepared for the end. They didn't often want me to produce anything for their family members (as I'd assumed they would want).
So. Try drafting a short paragraph in which you use questions or short statements to describe what your service might offer and why it might be helpful. I'm sorry I don't have anything saved from that time or I would share it with you.
Here is an article from just last week in The Guardian by one of their journalists who is also now doing this kind of volunteer work. I haven't read it but it may have something of interest to you in it...
I just wanted to say a big thank you for all that you do, for all that you give and in particular this section here that I have finally found the time to read through. So many of the questions I might ask have already been addressed here and so I have a good idea of where and how to start in my new pursuit of an age old dream.
Touched, truly. This project does require a LOT of time and thought...but oh my I get back so so much more than I give out. Each time someone like you joins - not only with your stories but with your generous reading of/comments to other contributors - well, that is a soul version of compound interest! x
I was going to ask a question, dear Tanya, and then I lost myself in the spirit of generosity that elicits such open and enquiring contributions from folk with stuff to say ... I marvel at the way you reach out with the key, pop it in the lock for people, and turn it before pushing a door open for them. It really is remarkable. I've popped us onto Substack to explore community building around the values at the heart of the Encouragement Manifesto and I'm hoping to nudge myself into a rhythm of writing - but also into being brave enough to ask others to write for us in the way that they have for you (and us too when I check in on our own archive). You've created a vibrant community and a rich archive (though that always sounds less alive than it is) ... a great model to aspire to.
In the meantime, I have scribbled a story - 70+ thousand words, a start, a middle and an end ... so, a writing question, if I may? Editing ... Stephen King says "to write is human, to edit is divine' ... but, I'm not sure where to start. How do you begin to edit ... what stays, what goes? How do you know what you are aiming for? Sorry, it's a boringly technical sounding question now I read it back.
And your novel in first draft: what an achievement that is already - to have told a long story. So few people will ever get to that place.
Editing was - for me, like King (whose advice I took!) - a sublime experience. The end result was that, I mean: a sense of lift, of grace, of making in the third and last draft something close to what I'd hoped I might make, that was more than the sum of its parts...
...but I arrived at that structure by way of a too-short and superficial first draft and a too dense, too confusing, too long second draft: 50k to 90k to 80k.
For me, I was in the unusual situation of course of having an editor to give me comments on each stage of my work as I was commissioned on a title and a very short proposal.
But I still had to do the problem-solving on my own, as an editor can only really make suggestions or ask questions about what feels to them unclear or missing.
The best book I read about how to approach edits, and in what sequence, is called The Artful Edit by Susan Bell.
Another book that I found fascinating, even though it's about novels and I'm a non-fiction writer, is one that's only really of interest to process geeks (like me!) and it's called The Bestseller Code. An editor and an AI specialist have analysed the elements of bestselling novels. I read it between first and second draft of TCFS and it helped me understand how some simple changes to structure and style might help me reach a wider audience for the story - important given the type of connections and conversations I wanted it to bring to my life.
The kind of questions my editor and agent asked me after first draft that were most helpful were often ones I bridled at initially. When they wanted more information on things I wasn't myself so interested in! When they were confused by what I felt was clear. Doing it on your own it's harder to get to those perspectives, but try to find a trusted BETA reader who will do that for you. Not tell you whether they liked the story or not, but to give you a list of things that they loved initially... then a second list of things they were confused or unclear about.
I love it ... I talk in passing of generosity and there it is, writ large. You are fab! The Artful Edit is going to swallow up some of this month's pocket money before the day is out. I have Stephen King's 'On Writing' on that same list. Thank you.
I have shared the draft with a teeny handful of readers who've been kind enough to show interest as I've been writing it as part of the #2badpagesaday challenge. I really like that point about not focusing on 'whether they liked the story or not' (because the brain naturally seeks out and tunes to the compliments). I have a friend who I did a couple of Encouragement Sessions with; she is an editor and proofreader so she has generously offered to review it with an editor's hat on. More scarily, I have shared it with a contact who is an agent (he used to run an independent publishing company) who has said he'll let me have it straight about whether it has commercial 'legs'. I say 'scary' ... I'm actually relaxed about that as it was never intended to be other than a challenge to myself to get on and tell a story. But it will be super interesting, of course, to get his feedback. I'll stop blethering now; thank you for indulging my question and offering such properly useful insight. Barrie x
Hi Tanya, I hope I find you well and thanks again for creating this space that allows me to come out of hiding. The bubbling cauldron of words inside are now ladled out and allowed to cool down and seen with a more discerning eye. The monthly story archive exercises have enabled me to unleash a body of words I didn't know existed in me. I look over the pieces of work I have written and there is a visceral, organic texture to them; exclaiming feeling like splurges of paint thrown at a canvas. It has built up my confidence, enabling me to rewrite, reshape and edit my work until it feels right. It has been a journey of discovery for me being part of this now 1000 strong writing community.
Trying to use social media properly is a big stumbling block for me. I have ideas for things I would like to try out on social media but lack the knowledge.
The idea of writing memoir had never occurred to me, but your beautiful book introduced me to a new art form that has helped me to reorganise the way I see and value my lifescape.
It is a thrill to see each of your contributions come in, and to see that energy which had me choose you as one of my Ilkley mentees last year continue to build and deepen. You have such a distinct prose-style and sensibility: I love watching it develop here.
Re the social media side: I don't have much free time to talk you through the small tweaks you could make to your twitter profile right now - but would be happy to offer you a one-off half hour zoom on that in the new year. My main thought is that you need to change your profile (done with the account area on twitter) so that it has a photo, a banner pic and a username without the numbers. Choose either your real name or a handle that signal your main interest in being online (I began as @lidowriters when I was new arrived and working at the pool on my scrolls - this enabled me to get more often followed back when I tried to connect with pools and swim writers). Here on Substack is a wonderful free format for giving yourself space to put structured pieces of work online, and even if you have no followers for a long while (I had only a few for the first months of my scrolls), then you are still putting your work in a public space where it can be found or linked to...
Thanks for really useful comments Tanya. I will take you up on your offer of a zoom call next year. I thank you for that.
I find working within a 300 word framework tightens up my grip on my word flow. It's the perfect medium for me to respect every word and piece of punctuation.
Val Murray July 23 says she holds intimate experiences back. Maybe this is always at the heart of difficulty with memoir? It took me years to realise that most of my work had its roots in personal and sometimes painful things I think perhaps this was a way that helped me write some of it though. Not memoir at that time but something more distanced written in a voice that wasn’t mine. Those voices helped me shape memories and difficult things yet still hold them at a distance. That’s not to say that when I published a memoir Not The Sky that I wasn’t still processing hugely painful experiences. It’s just that I had more of a track to try them out. Little steps perhaps? Just a thought
First, thanks for doing this. Love hearing what you and the others are sharing and want to impulsively order all the books and get overwhelmed by them all, which is also part of my problem. I feel that my writing is all over the place, For the last several years I have written about my yearly gynecology exams which includes comments from a personified, snarky middle-aged vagina and tied this into other areas of my life, written pieces for a memoir based on pictures as well as other pieces just based on life or a prompt, and then more place based nature writing, I try to be forgiving and just celebrate that I am writing and having fun, but sometimes it would be nice to have a project, something cohesive.
Definitely want to do the list of books/authors. The first author who comes to mind is Abigail Thomas, she is really able to let her humanity shine through without apology. She wrote Three Dog Life about her life after her husband’s traumatic brain injury, Safekeeping, which is a book of short vignettes that make up a life, and What Comes Next and How to Like it.
It's lovely for me to receive your and others' stories, and so now I wanted to test out how a thread on here works too. Based on my first few hours of having it open, it's adding a good new dimension - thank you! In a few weeks, I will try to make a list of recommendations that come out of this thread so we can all come to them in our own time. Your rec of Three Dog Life will go on it!
That frame for experience that writing about your gynecology exams gives: that interests me a lot. I find that my best work happens when I begin with time/duration/weights/measures as a frame for experience. Loved your first story by the way, and would love to see more from you on existing and future themes.
If you ever want to read a bit about the gynecology exams, you could use my email since it does not fit the format of this forum. Thanks for the thoughts on creating a better structure for writing!
Hi there, I am wondering what might be some good blogs to submit my essay (4500 words) on the mother wound, childhood trauma? I thought you had a spot for submissions but I am not seeing it... Thank you for any guidance :-)
Hello Amber. I only take 300 word non-fiction pieces to the three seasons of prompts within this project. I haven’t myself ever written longer-form pieces like the one you’re trying to place, so I’m not really aware of any suitable online platforms you could approach. The only one I can think of, I know of only as an occasional reader - have no knowledge of the commissioning process I’m afraid. But you might like to start there and see if it becomes a useful starting point for you: Aeon - they have a well-respected online journal, which is much read. Very best, Tanya
I am so sorry to hear about your health scare and hope you are well on the mend. There is absolutely no hurry. I just wondered if the system had changed and now I know it won't be a problem.
I also wanted to say how much I enjoy your prompts. So much deeper than the usual ones. Also any women writers who come to my group will be encouraged to join your group.
Thank you Rosie. There are so many great Substack projects offering journalling prompts - I felt I could contribute to the ecology of what was on offer best with this 300-word depth themes. Lovely to feel you’ve noticed the different approach and got something from it. xx
I think what you are doing is wonderful and it has inspired me to set up a Women's stories sharing circle in North Wales where I hope women will not only be encouraged to write but to use their creativity in whatever way they choose to tell their stories.
One of the things that I am finding most helpful in developing my writing is the 300 word limit. It is hard and I find myself longing to keep some of the detail but when I have done it I realise that I am expressing the essence of the story which would be lost in a longer piece. I am only at the very beginning of my writing for this project which brings me to my question.
The first piece I posted was acknowledged and commented on very quickly but I have recently added two more pieces to Memory Games and Bonding which have not been acknowledged and I am wondering if it is still ok to write for the earliest themes? I hope to catch up eventually but want to go from the beginning so am hoping that is still an option Many thanks Rosie
This is wonderful to know, Rosie: a fine project you will be offering.
I’m having to take longer to curate pieces than I used to: partly volume of new stories coming in, also a sudden very serious health scare. I was off in an ambulance with a big bleed early in Feb and have scan this week which will be start of finding out what I’ll be dealing with.
I’m working on curating stories today and tomorrow and will start with yours! My usual day is Wednesdays now - with a weekend session if my energy allows - so I’m aiming that the very longest wait would be six days for feedback. And I’m always happy you have these gentle reminders as very occasionally my good system for flagging new story notifications lets me down
Hi Tanya my name is Nicola Veal. You would have know me as Nicola Clay. I believe we were childhood friends in Holsworthy school. Your mum took me under her wing when my mum died, I was 10 then. I am very new to writing and found substack by chance and now have found you. Serendipity is a wonderful thing. I would love to be able to talk with you. If this is at all possible please message me through Instagram. I own a shop called Miss Muffets in Tewkesbury. I have messaged you. I'm a bit blown away by this coincidence I have a story to tell and am very much looking forward to joining your substack community. And I'm ordering your book right now! You were always destined for amazing things and what a wonderful insightful gifted person you grew to be. Sending humble love and peace x
So wonderful to read this message from you last night and then the one on Instagram. I’ll continue to use Instagram for making arrangments to meet up, but this one now is to say do - yes please! - start writing for this project. As I said yesterday, I remember you at eleven practising for that drama exam and being so in awe and admiration of you for knowing and caring about words beyond what we had put in front of us at school. My real engagement with books and art came much much later. And to have a friend from my primary school years write for this project is such a soulful feeling. In what has been a really difficult few weeks for me - an ambulance trip, and an urgent scan coming up - this from you has given my spirits a huge boost. xxx
I can't wait and feel humbled to share my stories for the first time in a safe space with my very first school friend and I never forget you x 🙏 To old times and hopefully new ones. Wishing you a safe recovery x
Love that - to old times and new. I’ve got my scan next week and the gynae appt week after. As long as I’m not suddenly into treatment for something after that I will be on the next train to you if you’ll have me visit! Would love to see your deli as part of our starting to catch up. But you’re welcome here in Lewes too. Xxx
Thanks Tanya for your insights into shaping a piece of work. I feel that I am still tinkering around the edges, trying to mould the right shape.
The shape that you created gave it a bolder, more impactful vigour. The larger font size makes it more striking. The deeper, darker title pronounces itself to the reader. The centralised position of the text, with indents either side gives it light and air. Bold paragraph breaks lets you linger with the words, emotions, and meaning of each paragraph. It injects a freshness into the piece that is easy on the eye.
I hope that makes some kind of sense.
I read a short piece from Jon Fosses', Aliss at the Fire. Wow! one big chunk of writing without sentences, but it has a certain power over you; being pulled along by a long train of words.
I just feel that every word, sentence and piece of punctuation sculps the meaning and emotion of a piece of prose.
Still no word from MagNorth, but coming up in April MagNorth are covering a Calderdale year of Culture. As I live in Calderdale, it may appear then.
What a wonderful, generous project this is. My oversized imposter cloak is threatening to bind and trip me, but I think perhaps this is a place in which I can wriggle out of it and share words from within in a more meaningful way. Thank you.
Vanessa! I’m so glad you have found this space and might feel able to take off that heavy coat while you’re here (and for good perhaps?). My apologies for being later than usual to acknowledge you as a new arrival - I’m supporting a small family who have suffered a sudden and shocking bereavement, so have been away from my messages. I do hope you will write for the project this coming year. xx
Hi Tanya,Thanks again for all of your support over the last few years. I am seeking advice, on the topography of a piece of writing. The way it can be presented to full effect. I am so impressed with the way you have shaped my piece on Board Perfect. I compared it with the piece I sent you. The differences in the line arrangements gives a totally different effect. I read the two pieces and they have a different impact upon the eye. Have you any guidance on this aspect of writing?
First a disclaimer: I don’t have the two versions here on screen to compare, so it may be that my line breaks - if different to yours - happened by error or with an eye on how your piece worked on screen given the very specific online format the project has.
I try usually to keep the formatting which contributors use with regard to line breaks/paragraphs. But do like to give it a light editorial pass if I feel the meaning will be clearer for the next stage of readers with a few changes. If I’ve ever felt a piece needed more work or I wasn’t clear of its meaning, then I’ve gone back to authors.
All that as context to this project specifically.
Now to this as an aspect of craft. You’ll know, like I do, some famous texts that have density of prose on the page as part of their formal purpose - Ducks, Newbury Port; the My Struggle series by Knausgard; Fosse’s Septology. Those and more. But my feeling is that unless that kind of textual density is necessary to the story, then most pieces long and short gain from some white space around key… movements? I know there are style guides that prescript more precisely what constitutes a paragraph, but I work more at the level of action/idea. What is a line or a series of lines trying to do? Which ones belong together absolutely and where might a break help the reader understand a passage of time or feeling or understanding? It’s a lovely extra dimension I enjoy attending to, just as much as the sound of a piece, and my constant checks to make sure I haven’t repeated words unintentionally.
Although our styles are different, we share - you and I - a richness of texture and sound in our writing: I feel that breaks in the text make the reader more able to engage with that quality…
This is all written fast in response to your question so I may be back with more!
What changes worked for you? I’d be interested to know...
Hello Tanya. I've submitted twice to your writing prompts now, but am still very much trying to understand substack and where / how to access resources already here. I note your list of resources in different media which I have started to work through, thank you for that! And I tried to search a few key words in this thread, to see if there had already been any conversation about structure. I couldn't quite find what I was looking for, but apologies if it is already here and I've just missed it - please redirect me if so!
My issue is: I want to write a memoir. I have read so many (including the authors you recommended to me!) and have a sense of the wide range of different forms that exist. I wish to write about a one year time frame (my pregnancy and first few months postpartum), and have a sense of the broad structure - prologue and 12 chapters, three per each trimester - and the themes I would like to bring to each chapter (each addressing a common fear that women experience in pregnancy). Generally with a sense of imagery and points I wish to cover, I can sit down and create something that all comes together. When I used to write academic essays, I would read everything, make a document of notes, read over those again, and then sit down and compose. Over the course of two degrees I never could manage to make a more detailed point by point draft work for me, the thinking and structure somehow happens in the process of the long form writing. But I've never tried to write anything this big, and I'm struggling, finding that my usual approach does not work here - the material is too vast, so I don't have that overview in my head before I sit down to begin. I've had many attempts at getting my first chapter out, and I get about 800 words in and just don't really know where I'm going, what I should be including, rejecting, how it's going to all tie together. I work in very small timeframes right now out of necessity - maybe x2 40min sessions per week. Do you have any advice about what I can do to move past this block? Thank you, Zofia.
Hello Zofia - I read this from you with deep interest (admiring the writing that you’ve shared here as I do). The project you describe already has a good and fruitful structure but as you say, you’re not finding the writing process responding as it has in your academic work. This is all absolutely true of the barriers that came up for me whenever I imagined writing a booklength work. Because of the odd way my memoir got commissioned - an advance given on a very short sample (less than 3000 words) and no real outline (a deal that was then announced in the bookseller!) I had so much pressure to deliver that I had to find a way through.
I think what worked for me might - with adaptations to your circumstances and temperament - be useful for you too.
As someone like you who had an academic training before any other kind of writing experience, I always wrote from first line to last, so painfully precise that I didn’t even really create multiple drafts. I knew I couldn’t produce my memoir like that but my long-ago MA of 10,000 words was the longest thing I’d ever done and now I needed to get to around 70/80k (the scrolls I did were 100,000 but never intended for publication, so these didn’t I feel help me).
My great breakthrough at second draft stage was to create separate word docs for each possible chapter or scene. It was a way of putting blinkers on to produce enough material that I then had plenty to move around/rewrite/take away when it came to the more structural and completely different third draft.
I had an editor commenting at each draft stage of course and you might not have (most first time memoir writers have to do the first draft alone). So here’s a potted version of what mine advised me to do that helped me so:
- don’t worry about tenses/points of view/consistent style across the whole piece in the first draft. Just tell your story to yourself. If some chapters need to be third person to get it out, go for it. Others might be addressed to someone.
- don’t pin too much of your structure around quotations from other people’s work as you may not get permission to use them. Or if you use that as a way of getting your material out, be looking in later drafts to fade that out and focus on your story, your voice, your material.
In terms of writing time - I think it’s better in a first draft not to spend too long at it. I did short sessions three days a week to produce a first draft in 9 months. The second draft required five hours a day, five days a week to get a second draft in 4 months. The final draft that many people here have read was radically different and done in 28 days straight, working 8 hours a day sometimes longer - but by then I had my muscles and my vision for it in place.
This is another reason why I have the 300 word limit in this project. It’s not only to make my offer manageable for me to administrate - it’s because I believe the practice of writing strong short form pieces helps us build a way to get into a longer form story by building it up in scenes, beats, stages.
Do let me know if anything shifts for you in the coming months. I will be so interested to hear about your progress.
Tanya, thank you so so much for this! I am so grateful for your time and words and encouragement!! It helps a lot to know that you had a similar background, and also to know that you were working from short sessions to produce your first draft too <3
Over the past few days I have tried separate word docs for separate scenes and it has definitely already helped me more material out that I can then think about bringing together - I'm hopeful this may be a big breakthrough for me too!
I will most certainly keep you updated on progress. Thank you again xxxx
Hello again Zofia. Your name is the one that has come up for the free one to one phone mentoring session, from those who responded to the Why I Write prompt back in October. If you would still like to share a conversation with me (we can work out a time and other details later) then could you please let me know in next few days? I’m starting season 4 this Thursday all being well and I’d like to include news that you are recipient of the session. Tanya
Wonderful! I will look forward to it too! I will be getting Issue 1 of Season 4 out either this week or next, and I will include a mention of you being the person chosen for mentoring in that. I will then be back in touch in first week of February to give you more info on what a one to one mentoring session can be. It would be best to do that by email so when you get a moment, could you send me a message to editor@selkiepress.com? If you’ve got some particular things you’d like us to cover in our call, do include that in your message. Thank you again for being part of this project. Txxx
Recently there are less and less accidents happening. My wife told me that it is like this, because I’m healing. I feel that it is one of the reasons. On the way I’ve found you. Or more precisely: this place made by you. Among the chatter of stories I’ve felt familiar, and not unwelcome. Today I’m saying hello and thank you for making all of this. Mind you if I take a look in search of words, meanings that I’ve once had and lost out there.
Me, I was once forbidden to write, and more than once to speak for myself. Since then I’ve employed myself to do it for others, for a living. I’ve created blunt commercials for dubious enterprises and redundant corporate communications for the last two decades. I hope to reconsiliate with my heart after all of it. And never come back.
PS: English is my second language, I hope to not offend anyone with this fact.
Hello Victor - thank you so much for joining us here. I was intrigued by the title of your own Substack, and have just been reading your pieces there - and have followed as a result. I was particularly moved by the 100 Subscribers one - I’ve never had large online communities by most metrics, and yet there was an odd grief when my largest one (Twitter - 8.5k followers) stopped working due to EM’s changes. It had been the slow and steady work of 7 years to go from 0 to 100 (which was still enough to get attention for my first project, which then led to other opportunities ever since), and then to 1000 and beyond. And I never chased numbers but connections - so the follower number was based on carefully reading each new person’s own social media rather than just accumulating meaningless follows to my name. That’s why I started again with 0 over here in 2021, in the year before my first (and perhaps only) book was published - to build a project that just might become a safe space for other late starters like me to experiment with sharing their work.
English is your second language? I shouldn’t have known, and if I had I wouldn’t have minded anyway. I admire and yes, envy a little, everyone who can move between languages, as I feel trapped in one tongue. I read as much as I can in translation but that not at all like being able to have even a simple conversation in another language.
I hope you’ll write for some of the prompts, and I will follow your substack with interest.
Thank you, you are needed, as strange as this sounds. But I reckon that you know this well. Never forget about it, build and tell your story so it can be heard and connect others. That's what counts, not the numbers.
I will certainly be visiting and writing here. Your book is on my kindle, so I guess that the second part of this reply will follow when I will know more than the fragments from here.
Thank you for giving my book a try. It’s such a determinedly unfashionable one - about life, death, work, community, art, class, family…. I’m always suprised and glad when people are prepared to give it a go!
Fashion get's out of date every season. Things you mention must go on though. This inevitability is, should be, interesting as only truth can truly be.
I'm getting myself together as I write. In no small part thanks to your thoughts.
I’m not sure if this is a good place to be asking you this, but in my uncertainty, here goes! I’ve also sent a similar enquiry to Sharon.
As you know, I’ve loved this last year working through Hagitude, and discovering places - your thread there, your Substack here, and more lately my own embryonic Substack - where I can tentatively, and gradually more bravely, step forward as a writer. I’m still filled with gratitude.
One of the lovely Hertfordshire Hags who has become a friend was speedily reading through posts before the threads were taken down. She asked me if I’d be prepared to post some of my writing on my own Substack so that people (if my readership grows!) can share and read it. To be honest, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but on reflection, I rather like the idea.
But it wouldn’t sit right with me to just go ahead without knowing what your and Sharon’s views are on this. I know the writing is ‘mine’ as it were, but the prompts were yours and Sharon’s and I’m all too aware of the difficulties and pitfalls writers face, especially at the moment with the emergence of AI and the grip of social media. I wouldn’t like to take it for granted that it would be OK without considering your thoughts. As I said in my message to Sharon, I suppose I am really asking for your blessing, but I also have deep respect for the fact that you might not feel you can give it.
If you have a moment to get back to me, I’d be most grateful and would love to read what you think. Love to you, Sue xx
Sue! This is wonderful - to know you're ready to start sharing your writing more widely. Sharon needs to speak to your Hagitude pieces , but I can say already that anything you've written for this project you are free to republish on your own channels. What I do ask with pieces written for the various opportunities I provide, is that you and other contributors always run a credit line at the top or bottom of the piece. In the case of pieces from this project, that would be as follows:
First published in Tanya's Shadrick's The Cure for Sleep series on Substack
Thank you very much for getting back to me so quickly and for your blessing! I appreciate it very much and will certainly run the credit line as you suggest.
Sharon has given her blessing too and I will credit anything that originated from a Hagitude prompt accordingly!
I’m looking forward to getting going now… I’m very grateful for your encouragement too! Love to you and good wishes! Sue xxx
Beloved Tanya - as i sit weeping with you in the closing ceremony of Hagitude, I too who have a small world due to caring for my adult son, would happily invite you to my kitchen for a cup of tea. And as someone who has also been out of touch with my body, I am weaving this into my small New Moon community and would gratefully share it with you. Thank you for all you are and all you have given me and the world
Oh Sarah-Jayne - how moved I am by this, how grateful. I went very early this morning to answer the many also-beautiful offers of homes to visit that came through on the Hagitude forum after our closing call... and clicked on the button to go through... and a system message came up: 'Your subscription to this forum has ended.' We all knew it would happen and that we must be glad for the rich year we shared there... and yet it was still strange to see it really was over. So that you've found me here means a lot. I hope you will write for this project - all themes from the last three years stay open for your words.
And perhaps one day I will indeed by at your kitchen table and we can talk in real time and place. How wonderful. xxx
Hello Tanya, thank you for responding, it was in reference to what you had initially written in the chat. How would I kick start myself to start writing? There is a part of me which is really wishing to and another part that is hiding in the corner, anything you offer would be helpful! Thank you x
There are books and books and books on how to start writing and not stop - many of them dear to me & which you may know already too (The Artists' Way, Bird by Bird, Still Writing by Dani Shapiro, Writing Down the Bones) - but I always felt they couldn't directly help readers into the experience of being published. Of seeing their words on screen in a forum where others might encounter them. So that's what this project is for. So I guess my short answer - offered to you as I might have a playground dare if were the same age, at the same school - is simply this: look through all the themes here in the project and...
1. Find one that gives you the most powerful feelings. Perhaps a lump in the throat, or tears, or a surge of high spirits ('Now THIS is something I know about and have something to say on').
2. Write a fast first draft, keeping the 300-word limit loosely in mind, but not word-counting or worrying as you go.
3. Read it aloud. Now go back through and edit out anything that doesn't need to be there. Read again. Paste from your document into the comments field of the post you're replying to and submit!
You know with this project that you will be read with real attention by me, and that I will take time to curate your words so they look good onscreen. You then may start receiving comments from others in the project who see your piece. It's the best way to see if you get more of a good feeling than a bad one by showing some of yourself and how you write.
Not necessarily writing related but really trying to channel your spirit today as I attempt to take the next step in a work related direction. I’m a children’s nurse/teacher and am desperate to become a Mindfulness Practioner. I’m stumbling along and holding on to the idea that it’s much worse to NOT follow my path. What do I have to loose, if not now, when? And yet it’s so tough! So not a question here ,just musing and trying to take some strength from you!
I love how we all help each other feels braver on here - so many of us are trying to make changes to how we live, not only how we write. You know from my book that I grew into this new life of the last 8 years quite slowly, beginning with those occasional on-request hours with hospice clients, done around my paid work and caring for small children. Sometimes a complete career break is necessary for physical or emotional wellbeing - or it's the only way (funded by loans or grants) that we can achieve the qualification we need. But sometimes we feel an external pressure to be on a full-time change of route so our social identity still makes sense to those around us (and ourselves). I began and did not complete two types of professional retraining after the near death - counselling and teacher training - until I realised what I wanted to be couldn't be signed up for but could only be grown by myself.
One thing I do know: From that one wonderful meeting we had, and the work you've shared here, your presence is so gentle and inspiring that clients would be fortunate to have you as a mindfulness guide. xxx
Thanks Tanya….it does really help to share our stories. Maybe the struggle just now is more similar to yours than I perceived. It’s that idea of knowing what exactly the future looks like perhaps. With nursing and teaching there’s a clear path but not so in my next mindful venture. But perhaps like you I’m feeling compelled and it’s strong. Convincing others is the tricky bit and that needs a level of confidence that is there some days and gone on others.
Sometimes the act of sharing boosts the confidence as it has here. I’ve now approached my manager for funding and had a positive response. Now for the next step .
Can’t tell you what it means to be not only writing but considering my next (probably final) career change. We really are capable of more than we imagine aren’t we….I know because I’ve seen your example…inspiring me!
I hope you'll let us all know as you move through the next steps. It will be so lovely to be part of those helping you celebrate your changing role... xx
Hello Liberty. I'm happy to say more, but the thread isn't making it easy for me to see what area you'd like to know about! Can you say what you're curious to hear more on? x
Gosh Tanya, thank you. Thrilling and scary all at once! I've been - am still - a bit emotionally frozen, too much going on etc etc, so I'm actually using these stories and prompts to try to coax my creativity back out. Thank you for your continued support, it really does feel like you're right there xxx
I really am: always here in a literal sense in this space at the start or end of every weekday, whether I'm with my Mum in Cornwall or here in Sussex. And also always interested in and concerned for your creative journey - admire you very much, think highly of you. xxx
I just recently finished your book, TCFS. It inspired a lot of my own writing about my relationship with my mother. I'm writing a memoir about growing up in the south of the USA, Florida, around rebel flags, guns and too much alcohol. I have 65,000 words written. I'm at the point of needing an editor, maybe developmental help. Do you have any suggestions on what to do next? I was thinking of taking a memoir writing course and getting some eyes on it in that container...Thank you for any insight <3 Amber
Hello Amber and thank you so much for reading my book. It's a good feeling to think it kept you company in another country as you began your own memoir. To get to a first draft of that length is a massive achievement already - my first draft of 50,000 took seven months, my second of 90,000 took four, and the final version that you read of 80,000 was another month of working every day. The three drafts are SO different from one another, although some paragraphs and chapters sustained throughout.
Developmental editors can be worth every penny. A friend of mine paid for one, and then got her book deal through them rather than through her agent who hadn't been able to place it in its pre-developmental edit form.
I don't offer that kind of mentoring/tuition at present, but I can recommend wholeheartedly the following very fine memoir specialists:
Kathryn Aalto (she has many US based student, being American herself).
I also love the book The Artful Edit by Susan P Bell. This will give you great techniques for doing some edit work yourself before or alongside any courses or mentoring you undertake.
I know all three women and their writing. You would be in good company with each of them.
Hi Tanya. Inspired by your seminar for Bath spa students I would like to contribute a piece about gestures of a long lost relative. How do I send this to you?
Jo! How wonderful! You simply paste your words into the comments of the post you are responding to - in this case the latest gestures one. I get a notification of all new comments (as with this one now) & if the study is under 300 words & mets the other community guidelines I then curate it properly on thecureforsleep.com - using a reply in comndvts to give your unique link. Will look out for it! X
Recently at the workshop in Ilkley you mentioned a Robert Frost poem, quoted it a little, but at great speed and I missed it. Can you remember which of his considerable poems it might have been? many thanks x
Thank you again for sharing that wonderful phone conversation with me. Really special memory. And I hope not the only time we'll talk like that...
The Frost quote is not from one of his poems, but a letter, and is as follows (I've copied it out at the start of so many of my notebooks from my early 30s onwards: always help me stick with uncomfortable feelings...)
“A POEM…BEGINS AS A LUMP IN THE THROAT, A SENSE OF WRONG, A HOMESICKNESS, A LOVESICKNESS. IT IS A REACHING-OUT TOWARD EXPRESSION; AN EFFORT TO FIND FULFILLMENT. A COMPLETE POEM IS ONE WHERE AN EMOTION FINDS THE THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT FINDS THE WORDS"
– Robert Frost writing to Louis Untermeyer in 1916
For Season Three of The Cure for Sleep with Tanya Shadrick…
As you know, I’m wanting to begin featuring pieces from the story archive, and hope also to share some thoughts from their authors.
I’ve been trying to create a form for this purpose, but it’s getting too complicated. Instead, if you’d like to be featured, please may I ask you to give the following information here in comments?
Where are you based (country or county is fine)
Your bio (no more than 50 words; written in third person)
A link to your website or social media – only if you’d like that to be included
(Remind me of) The piece you’d like featured
Where are you in your creative journey right now – and how does writing for this story-sharing community support that? (no more than 100 words)
Is there anything else you’d like to say about how you came to join this community? (no more than 100 words)
Hi Tanya, love to you and your mum right now, all of your family x.
The Form:
Where are you based (country or county is fine).
West Yorkshire, UK
Your bio (no more than 50 words; written in third person)
Late 50s and trying to kick-start her own Third Life, before it’s too late!
A link to your website or social media – only if you’d like that to be included
N/A. Working on it …
(Remind me of) The piece you’d like featured
Mirrors - My mother’s face one
Where are you in your creative journey right now – and how does writing for this story-sharing community support that? (no more than 100 words)
The Cure for Sleep platform is so inspirational, and so typical of Tanya’s generosity of spirit. I’ve enjoyed seeing it grow and spread since those early days, and to read these beautiful, poignant and delighting tales. It encourages shy writers to entrust too, to lay bare what has been hidden, to dare to speak the words. Such a nurturing and supportive space has inspired my own writing, has encouraged me to start to tell my own small stories.
Thank you so much for this Sally. I can't wait to feature you - and I'm thinking that I might do an edition where I feature you and two other of my Ilkley festival mentees who write for the project...
I will let you know via here in advance of 'your' monthly issue!
Where are you in your creative journey right now – and how does writing for this story-sharing community support that? (no more than 100 words)
I have only just begun my writing journey and Tanya's story-sharing community has provided me with a safe and nurturing space to do so.
Is there anything else you’d like to say about how you came to join this community? (no more than 100 words)
I came across Tanya in one of Sharon Blackie's podcasts and was immediately drawn to her experiences and her book, TCFS.
Tanya's words spoke to me and called up a deeply buried long held desire to write. Tanya provided the platform, gave me the inspiration and support and encouragement to expose my words to the world.
Good morning Tracey! Yes, very glad to include you in a future newsletter. Likely Season 4, as I'm starting this season with people who have been writing since the start of the project - but yes, very happy to celebrate your part in our collective undertaking! Txx
Hi Tanya, how do you switch off in between your writing time? That was one of the reasons I stopped few years ago - I couldn’t turn my brain off. I started to miss appointments, be late for school pick ups, switch off during conversations, burst into tears out of the blue and generally feeling unwell and ungrounded. Few friends simply gave up on me. My long suffering husband wanted to be supportive but …. and on and on it went. Not sure what would have happened if it wasn’t for lockdown. I had to stop as i had no more space in my head and in the house anymore. Different priorities took over. But now I feel that I’m being sucked into the same vortex and, for some reason, it is much scarier this time. How do I turn that tap off? My dad was a poet (still is) and I remember very well what it was like to be next to someone, who’s miles away in spirit. One of the reasons, I consciously never wanted to be a writer. Too much baggage and insanity. It’s funny how all those things happen.
This feels so familiar to me from my own experience: it's only now, this summer, after seven years of constant effort to move my writing from tiny private diaries to a small local outlet and now an international one, that I feel able to....take a break. I've gone from my large Moleskine diaries of the last 7 years (that incredibly I kept up even while writing the mile on scrolls in public!) and have small palm-sized reporter pads that I'm only making occasional notes in. For me, starting so late, I think I had to make it the soul and centre of my life, mentally, emotionally, even while my actual hours were more often devoted to the care of others. If I hadn't kept that space life would have crowded it out, killed it off. But now I've found a form for my way of seeing/being, I'm easily able to move between writing and being fully attentive to whatever is not-writing. It's a relief, and a joy, and yet I don't regret the seven-year apprenticeship in which I made it non-negotiable and not-a-hobby even while it didn't at first pay anything. It was my vocation and I honoured it. There are some lovely examples of writers with true longevity who lived a very balanced life, not always away in their thoughts. My favourite of these is the late American poet William Stafford, who didn't publish until his mid 40s but then went on to become one of the most prolific poets ever. If you can get his book on teaching writing, do: it's such a wise and gently companion - it's called The Answers Are Inside The Mountain...
Thank you so much, Tanya. It makes so much sense. I never was able to keep a diary as it never felt safe to put my own thoughts on paper. Even now, it feels strange and unsettling.
After asking the question and thinking about it for a while I realised it’s all about structure and discipline. Having slots of time for everything. I’m very chaotic and messy person who tends to either struggle to focus or go into hyper focus and forget everything else. I do know I have to change that. The age and hormones don’t help either but at least I’m an empty nester now (most of the time anyway) with few more hours on my hands. Would love to meet up with you one day. I think we have a lot in common. I’m just outside of Bristol, halfway down to your childhood home. Bear that in mind, next time you’d like to break your journey 🤗
I would LOVE to visit. I do agree that organisation helps keep space for what needs to be honoured in our lives. There will still be times - during our or our loved ones' acute illnesses or emergencies - when we have to put aside entirely our passions: and yet the structure we put in place in the everyday helps us return after unavoidable breaks. I'm not naturally organised, but the pressures of time and illness meant I had to develop ways to create order to get my writing done. Which is easier to share by talking about that writing about - so we can keep it for when we can meet!
I've got a 120,000 word first draft on the computer. But now. The next step. How to take that step back, see the threads and the motifs and how to (re)structure. Trying to summarize what I have written concisely is such a challenge. If I don't know how to condense the story in a couple of paragraphs, how can I make someone else see what it is about? Writer friends who have read chapters, love it. But is that enough?
This took me til my third draft (first was 50,000 words - almost like a summary after the first half; second was too long at 90k; third was 80k and the right form just suddenly - after some good editorial feedback too - just leapt to my eye).
If it's of any use to you re the chapters read to friends. I had some trusted people to read chapters too, and they loved them. They sounded good read aloud to me too. "I'm good at this after all" I began to think. But then I had a very painful wake-up call after I'd send away the second draft and before I got my notes back: saw, all of a sudden, that good chapters, good scenes, aren' t the same as a narrative arc, a story with pace and meaning. Now not all stories or even memoirs need that. But I wanted to write a quite old-fashioned (?) whole life memoir, and to meet the requirements of a good story. So I had a lot to work on. But once I saw what was missing, I was able to rework my material. Long answer but I think it's this kind of thing that means so many of us stop at the first or second draft. I'd love you to come back onto the thread with an update on your progress with this...
I think for me now, it is right to step back a bit, work on a solid summary and then try and go back to it again. I see people mentioning 80k as the standard but I'm not sure if I can bring the number down. It's been a pressure cooker writing this and now it feels a bit less urgent because the story's out there (on my pc) and not just 'in' me anymore. I will have to consider the arc if that's clear enough throughout. Will see where it goes .... but I am committed to finding the right shape and form for this.
The 80k is yes, a bit of a publishing standard, but I agree absolutely that stories need the space they need. And of course we all know that some of the most iconic recently-published books bust straight through and far beyond that word count - To Paradise, the My Struggle series, Ducks Newburyport. Because I write in quite a tight style, I was worried - conversely - at the point where my memoir was commissioned whether I could get anywhere near 80. Because I was commissioned to write mine before I'd done a first draft, I remember asking what was the very shortest book they'd take from a debut author in this genre. We signed a contract on 50k! But the story in the end required a further thirty thousand. So you're absolutely right I think to be guided by your/your story's intrinsic sense of what's needed at this stage.
What keeps bringing me to a halt is getting the balance of honesty and vulnerability right. I know I need to write this as it happened (I’ve already abandoned one attempt because what I was writing didn’t feel honest enough to me), yet if I write it as honestly as I want to it leaves me very vulnerable. I don’t come over well for the most part of my memoir, I’m not proud of how I was, but if I’m to write honestly about my life I need to be able to own it for what it is.
This is what makes the drafting process so fascinating - or it did for me because this book of mine was my first and only attempt at a long thing. I still don't come across well in my mine, and I think the reader can work with that - Plath called it her 'not niceness' and when she set aside trying to sound like the genteel lady poets being published in the 1950s, she found her form and subject both. I felt vulnerable writing mine, but I don't feel that way now it is published strangely. I haven't had enough time to analyse or understand that. It just feels true to say. Have you read Doris Lessings' autobiography - I have an instinct you will find her directness and toughness about herself and her wants/motivations/actions interesting...
I’ve tried to write a memoir several times, but I feel my life is still a work in progress and I don’t see clearly how to shape it into a compelling and coherent narrative. Unlike Tanya, I don’t have a single experience that I can define as a gateway into the story of my life.
Have you read Fierce Attachments by Viv Gornick? It's frequently placed high on the best 50 memoirs of all time... and yet nothing eventful happens. There is no inciting incident. She begins - as you may already know of course - just in her apartment block, with her mother, describing the other tenants. And from this a whole compelling life story follows...
This is exactly what I need, thank you. I've been struggling with the same question. I have a story, but unsure how to anchor it without that inciting incident. Ordering book now.
I want to write it but I'm scared it will come over as too dark and depressing, when in reality it is a story of hope (and funny at times). I also worry about balancing the tempo of the narrative throughout the book, so that it flows and is enjoyable to read.
Yes, this feels familiar to me. I've kept my second draft of my book as a reminder of this. It's very dark, and also unclear. Confusing even to me its writer when I read it back. I simply wasn't ready to tell it straight, or to take away the welter of painful details to leave the real bones of my life and relationships that would communicate meaning to readers. But writing the first draft (9 months) and second (4 months) made me into the person who could handle lightly and rightly the dark matter for the third and final version (one month). I wish could now apply this clarity and discipline to my physical life! This book called The Artful Edit really helped me work on my drafts while I was waiting for my editor's structural feedback...
I'm usually a quite practical person. But I was so desperate for a creative breakthrough that I - one night - ask before sleep if Ted Hughes would appear in my sleep and talk sense to me. He only arrived in my dream long enough to eat all my food. But Seamus was with him, and stayed to ask me about what I wanted to write and why did I? So even though it was a product of my own desperation only, it had the feel of truth and did get me writing. Have fun trying to conjure someone up!
I have a contentious relationship with my family members. They are in denial, or genuinely in the dark, about many parts of my life. I worry that writing my experience would make them really angry, defensive, and even horrified. And would heighten my own anger.
If you've read my book you'll know already that several key people in it aren't in my life, and so I couldn't discuss their part in it the way I could with my husband, my mother (even that wasn't an easy thing to do of course). If the book or article has a publisher then you often get serious editorial and then legal help as I did to make sure you are not liable to risk. But the emotional work of 'diving into the wreck' as Adrienne Rich called it - well yes, that it a challenging experience. I'm glad I've undertaken it, but it was hard work. Had lots of swells and sumps of feeling. One of the essays in Melissa Febos' brilliant new short craft book Body Work is very very good on all this, if you havent already read: I think it's called A Big Shitty Party (a Billie Holiday quote!). A version of it online here (but whole book is an important addition to my craft library):
I think I feel that I don't have a "story". Or maybe that my story is the wrong way round - my life is shrinking rather than growing. I don't have a struggle to look back on, my struggle is right now, and there's no lesson to it, no message. I have a series of memories - I'm into the 60s with my 100 things (there are days when there is nothing that I am capable of loving, and I have chosen not to worry about that), but I don't see a way of pulling that into a continuous narrative. And maybe that's OK. I think what I admire most in TCFS is your decision to take your creativity seriously - and asking how you did that is not really a craft question, is it? It's more of an existential question.
Hi Tanya I love this project and feel ready to contribute to Season 4 but I'm not familiar with Substack and although I've read the guidelines I can't quite figure out where I upload my piece and don't want to do it wrong and upset anyone ha ha! Apologies that this is a practical question. Best wishes Wendy
Hello Wendy! Thank you so much for joining us as a writer here - you have indeed worked it out and I’m looking forward to reading your piece that has come through when I’m next online tomorrow morning. Expect to hear more from me before the end of tomorrow. I love it when a new voice joins the project! Tanya xx
I would like to understand more about the writer's voice please Tanya. What it is exactly and how we can work on creating one (if that is the right way to put it).
Hello Peter. I’m in the Alps with patchy signal this week so have only just been able to get into Substack today. Before I respond more fully on my return home on the weekend, may I ask if you are asking here about thoughts on how to avoid that - or are you saying you already do feel sure you are avoiding your writing being described that way? I always like to check a persons meaning before I respond…
Hi Tanya, Thanks for your email. I am writing autobiographical blogs for AuthorsElectric where I am trying to avoid being 'maudlin' by using humour, indirectness and distancing in the best way I know. I have had some positive comments from fellow bloggers but need some other feedback. Hope you had a good holiday in the Alps. Best wishes, Peter
Thank you, Peter. I had a lovely rest. It sounds like you have a good range of tools already to hand for writing the personal in an engaging way. Any of us writing about real and difficult things are easy targets of course for having our work dismissed as 'misery memoirs' or 'navel gazing'. And while it's good for us to have a range of techniques to give shape and purpose to the difficult things we sometimes need to write about - to always keep the reader in mind - it is also important I think that we don't hold back from being serious and sincere when that is where the story takes us. It's never nice to have our work be criticised in those terms (someone made sure I was aware of at least one online reader review saying that about TCFS!)...and yet, it comes with the territory. I've had far far far more reviews and private reader messages thanking me for the difficult things I've shared than I've had harsh criticism. Melissa Febos' new short collection of four essays on life writing - Body Work - has a great and emboldening essay on the subject of navel-gazing/misery memoir: you might want to give it a read given your interest in this aspect of writing the personal...
I think we are sharing conversations over on the Hagitude community too? If so, thank you so much for joining this space as well.
That's such a core question you ask here: absolutely at the heart of the great challenge of sustaining a creative practice which is public-facing as opposed to entirely private (I think you know that I see the wholly-private as entirely worthwhile, but that for myself - after twenty years of diary-keeping, I yearned to feel part of a conversation about stories and how to live). So: once one feels a need to share stories publicly, then comes the fear, the worry, the uncertainty over how to find readers/a community of likeminds.
The saboteur in our heads is very loud!
Keeping going in the years when no one knows who you are is hard but also beautiful. It gives our lives such tone, such form, such grounding. And its a huge subject, more than I can address fully in a reply on here.
What I can say is that I kept going in the time before I had the kind of community you and i are sharing here now by collecting quite different books than I had before. Ones that focussed on process. On connection. Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking. Anything by Seth Godin, including his renowned blog - he talks about 'shipping the work'. Watch a short video called The Gap by Ira Glass on Youtube. And these Paris Review My First Time short videos with writers remembering how they kept going in the years before the book that made their names. Sheila Heti's and Tao Lin's are probably the best two in this respect, and Christine Schutt's:
And being in these kind of online communities, of course. I did the whole first year of my mile of writing on less than 200 twitter followers... but it was enough to meet the people who would change the course of my life: it's how newspaper and radio found me; how the people I would work with met me...
But often we don't get to tell our main story first, if you know what I mean? My book about the near-death and how it changed my views on how to live only came about years after I did quite tangential projects that gathered interest like a tumbleweed moving across a large landscape. At the core of what moved me was my big life event and its effects...but what brought readers to me was much smaller, more local stories.
Hello Tanya. Thank you for all the time and energy you put into supporting people here. I'm also enjoying your contributions to Hagitude enormously and find both spaces really affirming. Please can you share something about how you keep yourself safe while sharing intimate parts of your story? I've done a lot of work on boundaries recently after discovering at the age of 50 that my boundaries were paper thin. It's a fascinating and helpful process, but I have't yet managed to integrate my new knowledge into my creative work. I've found myself hiding behind research and science and evidence-based knowledge and ignoring my own gentle emotional intelligent knowing. I now feel drawn to relax back into my essential self and listen to the guide inside. She's waiting patiently in the shadows to show me the way - but how much to share, how raw to be... Whose is this internal voice that says 'who do you think you are, no-one cares about your story / stop being self indulgent / your experience isn't special / stop attention seeking / I can't believe you told people THAT' Is it my own voice trying to protect me, or another critical voice from my childhood? What tips can you offer to craft authentic meaningful edited work - and feel safe when it goes out into the world?
Rachel, I've been away from emails for a while, so sorry my reply is coming a few days later than would otherwise be so. What a wonderful question to bring to the thread. Thank you for asking it.
I too hid in the language of academia for a long time, and then in my diaries (my only creative practice for two decades) even though it was only for me and my husband to read, I still often prefaced or ended any though of my own with a quotation or reference to someone else.
(I'm rereading Ferrante's Neopolitan Quartet this week, and there is a wonderful passage towards the end of Book Two when Lenu - the rare girl who is allowed to continue her education and become a university graduate, as no one in that time and place was - reflects on what is has earned her, and what it has cost. And the limits of all that painstakingly acquired language, culture, knowledge. Do give those books a look if you get a chance - they speak so so strongly to all of what you're saying here).
That internal voice which says 'Who do you think you are/who would care about your small town/life/place'. It's not entirely mistaken - there's a really excoriating reader review of my book on Amazon that will last as long as the book's online presence! - which says all this and worse about my story. Go find it and read it - it's by an American reader. It hurt - like a splinter of glass - and then... it didn't. Because in showing and sharing my real self [more on that below] much more good has come to me then bad.
How did I finally push through that same thing in myself? Simply by making a list of all the books, all the poets/poems, whose work speaks strongly to me, and feels necessary, courage- and hope-giving. Looking through them, returning to them, and realising that the mining towns & neighbouring farms of 19th century Nottingham, that the villages of 'Wessex', that the Shad Valley, that Salinas Valley, that the Yorkshire Moors... all these and more only exist in my imagination, and feel important, because an author made them important to me through their lived experience of them...
And isn't that the most exciting, empowering thought? That there is a small but significant chance that things you write and share about your place, your people, your inner experience of those, might be read by people FROM there and from far beyond it. As you are reading me?
So that's the most powerful way I've found to make the work.
The crafting, the shaping, that comes later. And just like a dancer can't dance on stage with what looks like effortless without the invisible hours of barre exercises and stretches, so our shared version of raw experience comes after lots of experimenting with unpublished stuff.
My book hits people hard as raw, as fearless, as full of nakedly-revealed shame and failure and desire. And it IS honest and unsparing - I'm hard on myself and fairly kind on others and their motives. (Because to blame others for my actions is not, in my opinion, the purpose of memoir). BUT, it isn't raw and unstructured confession or catharsis. Parts of the first and second drafts were - and other parts were too obscure, too evasive. But the published version arrives at a perspective and acceptance I couldn't have at the time. This is the work that is worth sharing with others, that just might be of use beyond myself.
I felt very exposed in publishing the book - but only in the worldly sense of knowing that it and I were open every after to media and reader reviews. But I didn't feel I'd written anything I'd regret. I didn't feel I had any blindspots - I worked those out in drafts, and by sharing them with well-chosen people.
So. For now, to begin, you just need to start - as the cliche goes - to dance like no one's watching. To sing like no one's listening. Because to begin with, they aren't. Read your own words out loud to birds, to gravestones in a cemetary (I've done both!). Record yourself reading them, and make yourself listen til the recorded you (which is what others hear) is as or more familiar to you than the voice in your head. Externalise without an audience, in other words. Get things out in the open.
Then, later, when you are working on something longer in that voice you've given strength and volume too? Well there are people like me here waiting to share more resources with you to help you on the later stage of getting ready for publication.
One note of caution. If you already have a facebook or instagram account with some followers, it can be tempting to start putting personal writing out on those channels. But if your family or friends are among that number you can find yourself getting criticism or silence that sets you back years or forever. Find channels like this one (that's why I've made it by the way) where you will get only encouraging feedback from others who are on the same journey of finding a form for their stories.
And here's a lovely little animated talk by the American broadcaster Ira Glass that I recommend to everyone who is beginning to move into finding a voice for their stories and making work that might one day be shared. It's called The Gap, and it's about why we need to keep going in the obscure early years (and why most people quit):
https://youtu.be/91FQKciKfHI
Thank you for your kind words about what I'm doing here. It's so appreciated.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful and generous reply. There's lots there for me to think about. x
Pleasure. And I'd love to hear from you back on this thread if you make any process discoveries in your practice that you'd be happy to share with others here in the project: you're not at all alone here in wanting to find a voice beyond your academic training. I'd love too if you would write for this month's theme which is on the Voices Around Us! x
I've just finished your book. I was directed to it via Simple Things to Instagram to my local bookshop where it was sitting waiting on the shelf for me. I read it in two days. I took myself to the beach, to sit beside my sea (that is not really the sea, but a promise of the sea out east) to finish it today. I smiled when I read that in Wild Woman Swimming you advised that it was to be read "outside - may it go waterlogged, sun-buckled and wind-chapped" - as this is how I always christen the books that are my Important Books. My Important Books are not pristine but are spine-cracked, with frayed corners and sand wedged into every crevice.
About half way through reading the cure for sleep I knew it had become an Important Book to me. (As well as being weather-battered, Important Books can be identified as those books that I wholeheartedly recommend to friends and family, but only reluctantly lend in case it should not find it's way back to me.) Fresh from reading it, I don't think I can yet say exactly the specifics of how it is one of my Important Books, I will need a re-read to articulate it fully. I want to re-read it immediately, but I think better to read it in a few months time when my life feels a little less portentous and noisy.
I have never been a more-of-a-comment-than-a-question sort of person (in truth, not even just-a-quick-question sort of person) but here I am, crashing into this generous space you have created, where mainly I just want to say thank you. Thank you for your words, and thank you especially for writing "Because it would be enough, more than enough, to be a person occupied for the rest of my life by what might look to others only an idiotically simple gathering in of small and obscure moments: the collecting of stories from ordinary people like me." This, this is so very key to who I want to be. I will sit with these words, and with the "THE SCULPTOR'S ADVICE FOR ART AND LIFE", borrow them a little, if that's okay, as I try to write ordinary stories of ordinary things and ordinary people.
I hope you are well. And again, thank you so very much for your book.
What a beautiful message to receive - your kind words about reading my book but also the gift you’ve given of you, as a reader & writer yourself. Such a vivid sense of you got from those words. I’d love to see & hold other of your Important Books to learn how they’ve spoken to you.
I’m just arrived with a great friend of the Wild Woman - who I know only because of that one meeting with Lynne. We’re going to walk along the Dart this morning, then teach memoir together all weekend.
I hope some of the prompts on here will interest you to write for - I’d love to see how you respond to them…
Txx
I love that you christen your Important Books, "spine-cracked, with frayed corners and sand wedged into every crevice," and that you and Tanya both take them to "the sea." I only have a river with rocks and grass nearby, but.... gonna do some christening! Thanks for the inspiration!
So good of you to engage with people like this, Tanya. I've written bits 'n pieces of a spiritual memoir for many years and it just wasn't coming together. So I set up a blog and started posting stories from my personal experience relating to wider Nature, accompanied by photos that I've taken personally. Working on the website inspires me, though I hold intimate experiences back. I think an arc is showing up and perhaps could download the entire thing and start crafting a central plot but am still resisting it. Why do I resist what I really want to do? Feels like the jist of the story is still too mushy.
Hello Val. Thank you for your kind words, and I'm sorry it's been a few days between your comment and my reply (the heat here in UK is slowing me down!).
It's great that your writing already has a public form as a blog - anything that 'exteriorises' our writing/thinking moves us on so much further and faster than years of wholly private notemaking (though that has its roles too in so far as developing our own deep themes and rhythms of prose). Some of the most successful authors working online currently - James Clear and Seth Godin - both began by committing to a blog practice with clear self-commitments to 'ship the work' (in Godin’s phrase). Quality is desirable but most important was the practice of getting the words out to a public - however small - at the time they chose.
I've learned the hard way that resistance can lead us down a rabbit hole of introspection: why do we do it? Why do others? But it's much more effective to simply move forward with a new habit based approach. You can read about this for free on James Clear's brilliant website.
I think you may know that I edited the online swim diaries for the late Lynne Roper after her death? Like me she'd always wanted to be a writer, and like me she held back. Lots of complex reasons. Unlike me she did leave it too late, and never got to the do the fascinating, demanding process of looking at her accumulated blog archive to get the pleasure of reading it aloud, editing it for sense and place and arc as I got to do on her behalf. I so hope for you that you get to enjoy that next stage of shaping your work.
Remember too that your project doesn't need to have a narrative arc. My memoir is quite unusual in having that these days when more and more nature, spirituality and familial memoirs work instead with a calendar year, or cycles of the moon, or are fragmentary arranged by some theme. Soft is okay! Gentle is wonderful! Try to have fun seeing what tone and form your material wants to take!
Also have fun reading 'the olds' - do some of the spiritual memoirs from the deep past offer a form or a tone that excites you when it comes to shaping your own contemporary material?
These kinds of perspectives can all turn your work into serious play rather than being oppressed by a sense of dutiful 'shoulds'.
Hope any of this is useful to you! Tanya x
Dear Tanya, You've really boosted my confidence and thank you so much for this advice! I'll look into James Clear and have already ordered your book on Amazon. I feel ever more certain that I have something to impart. I'm of an age now to see how I'm navigating from ego to soul, through story and metaphor, and how that shift on a personal level holds wisdom on a cultural level. Please stay safe in that searing heat, Tanya. We had it here in BC, Canada last summer in a heat dome that caused terrible grief. These symptoms of collapse are everywhere and, I feel, a clarion call for the human species to mature. Hope to talk again. All Best, Val (Victoria BC)
It's my pleasure, Val. And I'm touched to think you have ordered by book. I do hope it speaks to you. What you are thinking/writing about is the most important story of our time and the decades ahead. Do feel free to keep using this thread if there are craft questions I can help you with as you start work now on shaping your existing material into a new format.
Hi Tanya.
I would like to write more about my Dad and his life, but even though it is four years after he died, I still find it painful and difficult to find the words. I wrote a 3000 word assignment for my course about one aspect of his death and it nearly broke me. Your 300 word prompts have been a creak in the door that I have just about managed. Do you have any advice about how to write about painful events and how to create that distance so the pain doesn't overwhelm you? I think you mentioned in a conversation that you need a gap of 7 years, but I can't remember if that was advice someone had mentioned to you or whether I dreamt it.
Thanks again for you so generously creating a caring community to talk about these things here.
With best wishes, Vanessa x
Oh Vanessa, I remember so well our mentoring call last year when you spoke so movingly of what your father meant to you. I couldn't even do that for years after I lost my beloved grandmother in traumatic circumstances. As I say in the book it was a sorrow that stopped my throat. I don't think there is any set time in which we find ourselves able to write about our lost loved ones: I haven't read it yet but I know Clover Stroud has written a fine book about losing her sister, quite soon after the shocking loss. For me, it was I think seven years before I put a few lines about my grandmother into one of my first published pieces - and those same lines are now in The Cure for Sleep another seven years on, but fully expanded into a deep meditation on what she was to me. I think the added pressure of writing for an assignment would have made that 3000-word essay you've just done incredibly demanding. But I also think that you will find yourself returning to it and reworking it in another season in ways that will mean a great deal to you. If any of my prompts here give you small and safe ways to keep approaching that huge loss in a gentle way, then I'm very very glad.
In terms of advice? No easy words to salve the pain of writing about loss. But I do always think of this Robert Frost quote:
“A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”
My complicated loss of my grandmother was, as I say, a physical pain in my throat that stopped language. For a long time. But from that pain grew an articulation of loss that now speaks to others. I feel sure your words will find the same path from you to others who need them. Txxx
This is such a beautiful and moving response, with your kindness shining through as always. Thank you for your words and advice. xxx
I love this Robert Frost quote!
Tracey x
My question for you: how did you distance yourself enough from your own life for the memoir to be 'crafted' rather than just an outpouring of thoughts and emotions?
And my answers in return: I've started to write again, after not writing anything for myself for about 15 years. I hesitate whenever I read other people's work as I very often love it more than my own. Do I have anything to say that hasn't been written more eloquently by someone else? The way I get around that is just to write, and to try not to overthink it, even if I know it is imperfect, or would benefit from some breathing space and editing.
I am writing for myself, for the pleasure, and relief, of it. Whenever I have to write for someone else (e.g. in work), I find myself constrained by their expectations (imagined or real).
As I'm writing short snippets, I have a lot in my head that doesn't make it into the writing. I wonder if the subtext in my head is making it onto the page, if that makes sense?
I do get stuck with technicalities. In my most recent piece, I tried to write it quickly, without overthinking, but I did try a few different ways of sequencing it. I was describing three periods in time, within 250 words and it felt confusing to me, so I thought it would definitely confuse a reader. After a few tries, I still wasn't sure, but thought it was good enough. I don't think I'd click 'Post' ever, if I felt my writing had to be more than that.
That's an interesting question. I think because I'd kept diaries for decades, a lot of the raw stuff had already gone through a long process of being put onto a page. But I still wasn't at all ready - or experienced! - in telling a long personal story, even at the point where I'd signed a contract to write the book you've now read. And so I learned - after being a lifelong painful perfectionist, who only ever did slow first/final drafts of uni/work documents - that it really is true you need to just get a shitty first draft down, even if it peters out into raw confession or almost more like notes for a story. Rest times between each draft bring perspective too. What details don't need to be there for the story to communicate meaning? It becomes like making an instrument, a boat, a sculpture. First you put it all in, then you take it away.
There came a point for me where I really understood at last that other people's published work had been through their hands many times, and also the hands of many other people - agent, editor, sales, copy eds, proof readers. That the beautiful work that moved me so had been a group effort - it wasn't all on me. But the story, the memories, were. Which is why what you're doing by sharing those short pieces as part of my project here is so powerful for your progress. There's much more I can say on this, drawing on what I learnt from an old and long out of print book that changed my life: How Writers Journey to Fluency and Comfort. I have some notes on that which I will share with you when we walk next.
The short work I'm seeing is superb. Remember that I went straight from having non-fiction 'essays' of no longer than 600 words published straight to this book. The leaps can be big and fast, once you are committed to moving from private writing to public...
Yes I want to write - there is something within me that wants to come out, I’m just not quite sure what it is! Hard to focus and concentrate on finding IT.
Writing by hand doesn’t work for me so I’ve been writing little short notes on my phone, easy as I always have my phone.
I suppose I fear people I know will mock or laugh at what I write
I had that happen in my 'first life' - a few close-to-me people showed interest in my diary-keeping and asked to hear bits. I deliberately chose outward-facing stuff, not the introspective...and their responses fully set me back another decade...
...but here's the thing. Some of those very same paragraphs and sentences went almost completely unaltered into this book of mine that is being on the whole well received by critics!
And my big learning, that I teach to my children now, is to be really good at asking for feedback if you want to sustain a creative life, private or public. Ask appropriate people - who often aren't friends or family - and be clear what kind of feedback you need. And the stuff that comes unsolicited and is of ill intent? Discount it and keep going. Have you heard Brene Brown talk on this? She is a source of constant courage for me...there are lots of edited versions online but this is a good quick jump to her key 'man in the arena' talk about shame, vulnerability and fear around creativity...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-JXOnFOXQk
I worry my ideas are silly and no one will find them interesting
I spent so many years in exactly this place. I think my breakthrough came finally when I made a list of the books and poems I most loved and looked at what they had in common (forcing myself not to think about their writers' fame). For me, they all had land and family at their heart, quiet simple things. And it really hit me that if I just set out my own place and people with as much clarity and purpose as I could, then it just might interest other people. (It also took a dream visitation from Seamus Heaney telling me the same thing to really get me over the top and into a book of my own...but that's another story!). I wonder if an exercise of that kind might interest you to try?
It’s a nice idea and I remember spending time doing a similar exercise from a Julia Cameron book where she got you to analyse your favourite movies and links between them. One thing I spotted straight away was what I could call the Producers Narrative, when an innocent person is drawn into a risky, possibly illegal venture and some bad consequences happen but they find that what they gained makes the journey worth the struggle. For all its hokum there is an incredibly touching song in the musical, when Max thinks he’s been left alone to face the music and Leo has betrayed him, but then Leo shows up in court and says how much Max’s friendship has given him. ”No-one ever made me feel like someone, ’til him.” It gets me every time. Another song that has a similar effect on me is ”Something Good” from The Sound of Music, where Maria wonders how someone with her terrible self-esteem could have got to this place where she’s found a wonderful love. ”Somewhere in my wicked, miserable past, there must have been a moment of truth.” And finally, Kurusawa made a wonderful movie called Ikuru, which is about a meek civil servant who suddenly puts his life on the line to make sure a children’s playground gets built in postwar Tokyo. He becomes fearless because he’s dying of cancer and wants to leave something concrete behind. It is utterly compelling and quite beautiful. So for me, it always seems to be this journey out of your comfort zone, when you’ve never believed in yourself before or taken any risks. It gets me every time.
Oh my. I need to find this Kurusawa film this weekend - thank you. Do you know the Michael Frayn book A Landing on the Sun? A British civil servant is reluctantly paired with a female academic and what happens in their relationship in a little office hidden away in Whitehall is absolutely joyous and heartbreaking all at once...
No, that one is new to me, although I once read a very funny novel called Nice Work by David Lodge with a similar theme - a female humanities is grumpily forced to shadow a Brummie factory owner and it is loathing at first sight. At first….
Yes. I want to take some time on this... my mind went immediately to a few poems, stories I love. I want to sit with this and see what common threads there are.
And now I'm wondering... who will visit my dreams?
Now there's a future thread waiting to happen! Which writer would we each have as a dream guide, if one could be reliably summoned before sleep?
This must be related: my ideas are shy and need coaxing to come out past my censor.
I love that idea of your ideas as creatures or people deserving of care and encouragement to get them past a forbidding figure. There are many ideas, but only one internal gatekeeper. Perhaps we could all simply overwhelm our censor with a rush of ideas large and small...?
Hi, I don't recall how I came across your substack but I'm happy and apprehensive. Where to start? It seems such an amazing place filled with warmth and inspiration. I'm a creative with a full-time job which keeps me away from what I love doing; -painting, writing, being.. I've always written down my thoughts, kept a diary, had notebooks filled with quotes and since hitting 50 and opting to invest my time more wisely, have discovered or rediscovered a love of poetry, prose, the written word which can evoke so much. Apologies if this is the wrong place to post a 'hello' but I opted just to jump in: Feel the fear and do it anyway as they say.
Sheona! I'm trying from now on to only be here on Wednesdays... but!!! I just saw your wonderful message come through and I couldn't wait three days to respond to it. I'm sitting here with my diary - have only just started a new book in the last month after taking a year-long break from any kind of writing (beyond a few paid commissions). It's not discussed enough how being a published author finally can often take you as far away from writing for the first few seasons of a book being out, as having a non-writing job...
...and so you and I are the same age and in much the same place, with regards to deciding/testing out how we can find time and space for a creative life, a creative practice, when there is so much that will always be also needing our time.
Those notebooks of yours are so rare, so valuable. Gaps of months, of years? They don't matter. That you have sometimes (ever!), in this late stage of capitalism, made private time to write for no audience, no employer, no money: that is such a radical and powerful act. My heart feels large to have had your message find me just as I am, once again, at the start of a new journal, a new life stage. There are so many of us out here, and I love that this free space is a place where we can test out our stories.
So. I'd love you to not wait, not hesitate, but just pick one of the prompts in the archive and write for it. Don't polish it, don't rewrite. Just get a first one done so I can curate it and you can experience how it is to look at your words presented online in a different visual format to what you wrote it in. Which is what publication is, really, at its heart: our words in a setting beyond open to potentially millions of people, but usually only read by a few. But to those few it can be a story that has real use to them.
The theme that has the most responses by far, because I think it is at the heart of what all of us (writers and no-writers) spend are lives responding to, is Voices Around Us:
https://open.substack.com/pub/tanyashadrick/p/the-cure-for-sleep-voices-around?r=1fj7x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I'll next be adding stories to the book archive on Wednesday - perhaps treat it as a deadline (even though this project will keep running as long as I have time and health to offer it, or until Substack squeezes out fully free projects all together!).
So very glad to have you join us here, and look forward to learning more about your life through the prompts you respond to.
Tanya xx
Hi Tanya,
I know you through Hagitude, and just found my way here. I wrote my 300 words for the most recent prompt but before I could post it, I became paralyzed by fear. Fear seems to be a constant companion these days. The past half decade I’ve been very much the hermit, retreating from the world and the the sight-lines of those who might feast on my vulnerability. The idea of publishing something personal with my name on it in a place presumably accessible by a google search and upon which I have no control over whether it stays up a month or a year from now makes me feel nauseous like I need to go lay down. It turns out one part of me very much likes the safety of hiding. Yet another part longs to share the depth inside me. These parts are in quite the war.
I don’t want to simply override the fearful part, because that usually leads to a backlash, I've learned. But I’m curious what words you might have for how to bring that part more onboard?
Hello Olivia. It's a real joy to have you and others from this year's Hagitude program come and join me here - as readers, but also I hope as writers too.
I think you've said something very acute - and true of many others in our community here too - when you say:
"It turns out one part of me very much likes the safety of hiding. Yet another part longs to share the depth inside me. These parts are in quite the war."
Perhaps let these two parts have a written fight on a page? Argue and then reason it out?
And perhaps - as an experiment - my reply might usefully take this form too...
The voice of fear: There is a risk of unwanted attention if I have anything personal published in my name on the internet....
Published author: True. I've had some really harsh reader reviews that disturb the quality of the day. Although it's also true to say that worse things happened to me back in the days when I was just connected to 'friends' on Facebook, and a disagreement broke out... Do you have a particular person or group you are actively at risk from if you are findable online? That's always a serious & overriding consideration. Otherwise? In my experience, mainly good comes from sharing one's stories.
Voice of fear: If I publish personal stories my friends and family will be upset...
Published author: If you say things on a social media channel or at an in-person, friends and family are often quick to take issue with an opinion. But usually those who already know us are strangely uninterested in what we write and publish. They often only engage with it once it's achieved some form of public recognition. They're not our audience, and we shouldn't ask them to be. We're sharing our work - short or long - not to settle scores or seek praise, but to start and join conversations with people and places beyond us.
Voice of fear: What if I publish something finally and NO ONE responds.*** I'm worried that I will have to give up my dream of becoming a writer then. That I will have tried and failed...
Published author: Lots of work comes out to very little response, so it's best - as my mentor advised me - to be motivated by the possibility of it connecting you to one new and exciting or useful person. In any piece of well-intentioned work that we share it's like switching from 0 to 1: there's suddenly potential for something good to happen if not immediately then years later, in a way you can't predict at the time of writing and publishing.
[***And of course the way I've designed this project is to ensure that anyone who dares to share a story that meets my community guidelines WILL get a response from me! And often now from other members of the project too!]
Does this give you enough to do some useful private work on how you're feeling? And remember - you can publish here with a first name and a last name that is a pseudonym. It's a safe way of testing out how you feel once you've done it - as distinct from anticipating it...
Dear Tanya,
Thank you so much for this amazing resource and facilitating this place for all of us to feel safe to share our work.
I loved TCFS and I know it will be one of those books I dip in and out of regularly.
I'm in the very early stages of getting things on paper and I'm finding so many answers to my questions here.
Your attention to detail and links to interesting articles/poems/novels etc to read on the other pages have been invaluable.
So thank you again, I just wanted to join the community and send you love as you care for your mum.
Emma x
Emma! Thank you twice over - for reading the book, and for joining us here (and with such generous words about what I hope will be a long-term offering from me to whoever finds it!).
So looking forward to receiving some stories from you. If you'd like your full name included, just remember to let me know it when submitting your words for the first time as I can only see your first name here. If you'd rather just use a letter for the surname that's fine too.
Dear Tanya,
Thank you for replying to my enquiry and for taking the time to do so. It has been very helpful to learn of how you approached this. I should have mentioned that I have been a 'befriender' in the community as well as doing the work I mentioned in the actual hospice. It seems so obvious that this is the role that naturally leads to scribing.
It's also very useful to learn that it is not necessarily something people want done in order to leave something for family members, but more to do with their own feelings and thoughts about their unique lives and the way in which we each come face to face with our own mortality.
Thank you, also, for enclosing the link to The Guardian article which I shall certainly read.
I suppose it is a case of explaining why I feel writing may offer a way for some people to find that ease or greater preparedness for death. As you say, the talking is probably the true salve, and the possibility of writing some of these thoughts is a way to open the conversation.
Thank you for your kindness, and I shall let you know how I get on.
It has meant a lot to me to read your response. You have a way of caring for your reading community that gives many of us courage.
With gratitude and love,
June
Touched. Thank you xx
Dear Tanya,
I've wanted to ask you for a long time now, about your work as a hospice scribe. I would like to return as a volunteer at my local hospice. I have beena ward volunteer, mainly helping the ward clerk with small admin tasks, flower arranging, cleaning etc.
They do not have a scribe, and I would like to approach them with this idea. I wonder if you might tell me how you, as a scribe,
explain the details of your role and the ways in which you would become "assigned" ( probably not the correct expression) to particular patients. I know it is a delicate environment and
so the practicalities of inviting a scribe will help me in my approach to the hospice manager.
I send you and your dear Mum my love and gratitude.
June
Hello June!
It's great that you already have a long-standing link to your hospice: you won't have to approach them cold as I did mine so long ago.
Does your hospice have a befriending service? Where they train volunteers like yourself to give occasional in-hospice or at-home respite for the patient's carer or to give the patient company? This was my initial way in - and meant I was under the auspice of the counselling team, receiving group supervision. I then asked if they'd consider me for this bespoke role, given that I'd be abiding by all the rules of right conduct that this other training/service had.
Once they agreed, they made sure all the nursing and counselling and chaplaincy staff knew about my offering, so could suggest it to any patients or family members as something that might help the patient in preparing for their last weeks or days. I would then get 'called up' - given details of a person and their address.
I also sometimes based myself in the hospice day centre to offer this kind of conversation more informally with those present.
More and more hospices have this kind of service now, and some people doing it do quite elaborate projects I think. Most of my work was very simple - the act of having the conversations was enough for most people to ease their anxiety and feel prepared for the end. They didn't often want me to produce anything for their family members (as I'd assumed they would want).
So. Try drafting a short paragraph in which you use questions or short statements to describe what your service might offer and why it might be helpful. I'm sorry I don't have anything saved from that time or I would share it with you.
Here is an article from just last week in The Guardian by one of their journalists who is also now doing this kind of volunteer work. I haven't read it but it may have something of interest to you in it...
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/05/what-being-a-hospice-volunteer-taught-me-about-life-and-death
Do let me know how you get on - I'd be interested to talk more if you get the go ahead.
Txx
There are more people
Hi Tanya,
I just wanted to say a big thank you for all that you do, for all that you give and in particular this section here that I have finally found the time to read through. So many of the questions I might ask have already been addressed here and so I have a good idea of where and how to start in my new pursuit of an age old dream.
This gift from you just keeps giving.
With gratitude
Tracey xx
Touched, truly. This project does require a LOT of time and thought...but oh my I get back so so much more than I give out. Each time someone like you joins - not only with your stories but with your generous reading of/comments to other contributors - well, that is a soul version of compound interest! x
I was going to ask a question, dear Tanya, and then I lost myself in the spirit of generosity that elicits such open and enquiring contributions from folk with stuff to say ... I marvel at the way you reach out with the key, pop it in the lock for people, and turn it before pushing a door open for them. It really is remarkable. I've popped us onto Substack to explore community building around the values at the heart of the Encouragement Manifesto and I'm hoping to nudge myself into a rhythm of writing - but also into being brave enough to ask others to write for us in the way that they have for you (and us too when I check in on our own archive). You've created a vibrant community and a rich archive (though that always sounds less alive than it is) ... a great model to aspire to.
In the meantime, I have scribbled a story - 70+ thousand words, a start, a middle and an end ... so, a writing question, if I may? Editing ... Stephen King says "to write is human, to edit is divine' ... but, I'm not sure where to start. How do you begin to edit ... what stays, what goes? How do you know what you are aiming for? Sorry, it's a boringly technical sounding question now I read it back.
Warmly
Barrie
Touched by your words here, Barrie. Thank you.
And your novel in first draft: what an achievement that is already - to have told a long story. So few people will ever get to that place.
Editing was - for me, like King (whose advice I took!) - a sublime experience. The end result was that, I mean: a sense of lift, of grace, of making in the third and last draft something close to what I'd hoped I might make, that was more than the sum of its parts...
...but I arrived at that structure by way of a too-short and superficial first draft and a too dense, too confusing, too long second draft: 50k to 90k to 80k.
For me, I was in the unusual situation of course of having an editor to give me comments on each stage of my work as I was commissioned on a title and a very short proposal.
But I still had to do the problem-solving on my own, as an editor can only really make suggestions or ask questions about what feels to them unclear or missing.
The best book I read about how to approach edits, and in what sequence, is called The Artful Edit by Susan Bell.
Another book that I found fascinating, even though it's about novels and I'm a non-fiction writer, is one that's only really of interest to process geeks (like me!) and it's called The Bestseller Code. An editor and an AI specialist have analysed the elements of bestselling novels. I read it between first and second draft of TCFS and it helped me understand how some simple changes to structure and style might help me reach a wider audience for the story - important given the type of connections and conversations I wanted it to bring to my life.
The kind of questions my editor and agent asked me after first draft that were most helpful were often ones I bridled at initially. When they wanted more information on things I wasn't myself so interested in! When they were confused by what I felt was clear. Doing it on your own it's harder to get to those perspectives, but try to find a trusted BETA reader who will do that for you. Not tell you whether they liked the story or not, but to give you a list of things that they loved initially... then a second list of things they were confused or unclear about.
Tan x
I love it ... I talk in passing of generosity and there it is, writ large. You are fab! The Artful Edit is going to swallow up some of this month's pocket money before the day is out. I have Stephen King's 'On Writing' on that same list. Thank you.
I have shared the draft with a teeny handful of readers who've been kind enough to show interest as I've been writing it as part of the #2badpagesaday challenge. I really like that point about not focusing on 'whether they liked the story or not' (because the brain naturally seeks out and tunes to the compliments). I have a friend who I did a couple of Encouragement Sessions with; she is an editor and proofreader so she has generously offered to review it with an editor's hat on. More scarily, I have shared it with a contact who is an agent (he used to run an independent publishing company) who has said he'll let me have it straight about whether it has commercial 'legs'. I say 'scary' ... I'm actually relaxed about that as it was never intended to be other than a challenge to myself to get on and tell a story. But it will be super interesting, of course, to get his feedback. I'll stop blethering now; thank you for indulging my question and offering such properly useful insight. Barrie x
Hi Tanya, I hope I find you well and thanks again for creating this space that allows me to come out of hiding. The bubbling cauldron of words inside are now ladled out and allowed to cool down and seen with a more discerning eye. The monthly story archive exercises have enabled me to unleash a body of words I didn't know existed in me. I look over the pieces of work I have written and there is a visceral, organic texture to them; exclaiming feeling like splurges of paint thrown at a canvas. It has built up my confidence, enabling me to rewrite, reshape and edit my work until it feels right. It has been a journey of discovery for me being part of this now 1000 strong writing community.
Trying to use social media properly is a big stumbling block for me. I have ideas for things I would like to try out on social media but lack the knowledge.
The idea of writing memoir had never occurred to me, but your beautiful book introduced me to a new art form that has helped me to reorganise the way I see and value my lifescape.
It is a thrill to see each of your contributions come in, and to see that energy which had me choose you as one of my Ilkley mentees last year continue to build and deepen. You have such a distinct prose-style and sensibility: I love watching it develop here.
Re the social media side: I don't have much free time to talk you through the small tweaks you could make to your twitter profile right now - but would be happy to offer you a one-off half hour zoom on that in the new year. My main thought is that you need to change your profile (done with the account area on twitter) so that it has a photo, a banner pic and a username without the numbers. Choose either your real name or a handle that signal your main interest in being online (I began as @lidowriters when I was new arrived and working at the pool on my scrolls - this enabled me to get more often followed back when I tried to connect with pools and swim writers). Here on Substack is a wonderful free format for giving yourself space to put structured pieces of work online, and even if you have no followers for a long while (I had only a few for the first months of my scrolls), then you are still putting your work in a public space where it can be found or linked to...
Thanks for really useful comments Tanya. I will take you up on your offer of a zoom call next year. I thank you for that.
I find working within a 300 word framework tightens up my grip on my word flow. It's the perfect medium for me to respect every word and piece of punctuation.
Steve.
Val Murray July 23 says she holds intimate experiences back. Maybe this is always at the heart of difficulty with memoir? It took me years to realise that most of my work had its roots in personal and sometimes painful things I think perhaps this was a way that helped me write some of it though. Not memoir at that time but something more distanced written in a voice that wasn’t mine. Those voices helped me shape memories and difficult things yet still hold them at a distance. That’s not to say that when I published a memoir Not The Sky that I wasn’t still processing hugely painful experiences. It’s just that I had more of a track to try them out. Little steps perhaps? Just a thought
So helpful Gail - & I will enjoy looking fur your book… xx
First, thanks for doing this. Love hearing what you and the others are sharing and want to impulsively order all the books and get overwhelmed by them all, which is also part of my problem. I feel that my writing is all over the place, For the last several years I have written about my yearly gynecology exams which includes comments from a personified, snarky middle-aged vagina and tied this into other areas of my life, written pieces for a memoir based on pictures as well as other pieces just based on life or a prompt, and then more place based nature writing, I try to be forgiving and just celebrate that I am writing and having fun, but sometimes it would be nice to have a project, something cohesive.
Definitely want to do the list of books/authors. The first author who comes to mind is Abigail Thomas, she is really able to let her humanity shine through without apology. She wrote Three Dog Life about her life after her husband’s traumatic brain injury, Safekeeping, which is a book of short vignettes that make up a life, and What Comes Next and How to Like it.
It's lovely for me to receive your and others' stories, and so now I wanted to test out how a thread on here works too. Based on my first few hours of having it open, it's adding a good new dimension - thank you! In a few weeks, I will try to make a list of recommendations that come out of this thread so we can all come to them in our own time. Your rec of Three Dog Life will go on it!
That frame for experience that writing about your gynecology exams gives: that interests me a lot. I find that my best work happens when I begin with time/duration/weights/measures as a frame for experience. Loved your first story by the way, and would love to see more from you on existing and future themes.
If you ever want to read a bit about the gynecology exams, you could use my email since it does not fit the format of this forum. Thanks for the thoughts on creating a better structure for writing!
Hi there, I am wondering what might be some good blogs to submit my essay (4500 words) on the mother wound, childhood trauma? I thought you had a spot for submissions but I am not seeing it... Thank you for any guidance :-)
Hello Amber. I only take 300 word non-fiction pieces to the three seasons of prompts within this project. I haven’t myself ever written longer-form pieces like the one you’re trying to place, so I’m not really aware of any suitable online platforms you could approach. The only one I can think of, I know of only as an occasional reader - have no knowledge of the commissioning process I’m afraid. But you might like to start there and see if it becomes a useful starting point for you: Aeon - they have a well-respected online journal, which is much read. Very best, Tanya
Thanks Tanya 😊
I am so sorry to hear about your health scare and hope you are well on the mend. There is absolutely no hurry. I just wondered if the system had changed and now I know it won't be a problem.
I also wanted to say how much I enjoy your prompts. So much deeper than the usual ones. Also any women writers who come to my group will be encouraged to join your group.
Look after yourself Warmest wishes
Rosie
Thank you Rosie. There are so many great Substack projects offering journalling prompts - I felt I could contribute to the ecology of what was on offer best with this 300-word depth themes. Lovely to feel you’ve noticed the different approach and got something from it. xx
Hello Tanya
I think what you are doing is wonderful and it has inspired me to set up a Women's stories sharing circle in North Wales where I hope women will not only be encouraged to write but to use their creativity in whatever way they choose to tell their stories.
One of the things that I am finding most helpful in developing my writing is the 300 word limit. It is hard and I find myself longing to keep some of the detail but when I have done it I realise that I am expressing the essence of the story which would be lost in a longer piece. I am only at the very beginning of my writing for this project which brings me to my question.
The first piece I posted was acknowledged and commented on very quickly but I have recently added two more pieces to Memory Games and Bonding which have not been acknowledged and I am wondering if it is still ok to write for the earliest themes? I hope to catch up eventually but want to go from the beginning so am hoping that is still an option Many thanks Rosie
This is wonderful to know, Rosie: a fine project you will be offering.
I’m having to take longer to curate pieces than I used to: partly volume of new stories coming in, also a sudden very serious health scare. I was off in an ambulance with a big bleed early in Feb and have scan this week which will be start of finding out what I’ll be dealing with.
I’m working on curating stories today and tomorrow and will start with yours! My usual day is Wednesdays now - with a weekend session if my energy allows - so I’m aiming that the very longest wait would be six days for feedback. And I’m always happy you have these gentle reminders as very occasionally my good system for flagging new story notifications lets me down
Txx
Hi Tanya my name is Nicola Veal. You would have know me as Nicola Clay. I believe we were childhood friends in Holsworthy school. Your mum took me under her wing when my mum died, I was 10 then. I am very new to writing and found substack by chance and now have found you. Serendipity is a wonderful thing. I would love to be able to talk with you. If this is at all possible please message me through Instagram. I own a shop called Miss Muffets in Tewkesbury. I have messaged you. I'm a bit blown away by this coincidence I have a story to tell and am very much looking forward to joining your substack community. And I'm ordering your book right now! You were always destined for amazing things and what a wonderful insightful gifted person you grew to be. Sending humble love and peace x
So wonderful to read this message from you last night and then the one on Instagram. I’ll continue to use Instagram for making arrangments to meet up, but this one now is to say do - yes please! - start writing for this project. As I said yesterday, I remember you at eleven practising for that drama exam and being so in awe and admiration of you for knowing and caring about words beyond what we had put in front of us at school. My real engagement with books and art came much much later. And to have a friend from my primary school years write for this project is such a soulful feeling. In what has been a really difficult few weeks for me - an ambulance trip, and an urgent scan coming up - this from you has given my spirits a huge boost. xxx
I can't wait and feel humbled to share my stories for the first time in a safe space with my very first school friend and I never forget you x 🙏 To old times and hopefully new ones. Wishing you a safe recovery x
Love that - to old times and new. I’ve got my scan next week and the gynae appt week after. As long as I’m not suddenly into treatment for something after that I will be on the next train to you if you’ll have me visit! Would love to see your deli as part of our starting to catch up. But you’re welcome here in Lewes too. Xxx
Sounds fab I would love to have you visit. X
Thanks Tanya for your insights into shaping a piece of work. I feel that I am still tinkering around the edges, trying to mould the right shape.
The shape that you created gave it a bolder, more impactful vigour. The larger font size makes it more striking. The deeper, darker title pronounces itself to the reader. The centralised position of the text, with indents either side gives it light and air. Bold paragraph breaks lets you linger with the words, emotions, and meaning of each paragraph. It injects a freshness into the piece that is easy on the eye.
I hope that makes some kind of sense.
I read a short piece from Jon Fosses', Aliss at the Fire. Wow! one big chunk of writing without sentences, but it has a certain power over you; being pulled along by a long train of words.
I just feel that every word, sentence and piece of punctuation sculps the meaning and emotion of a piece of prose.
Still no word from MagNorth, but coming up in April MagNorth are covering a Calderdale year of Culture. As I live in Calderdale, it may appear then.
Steve x
What a wonderful, generous project this is. My oversized imposter cloak is threatening to bind and trip me, but I think perhaps this is a place in which I can wriggle out of it and share words from within in a more meaningful way. Thank you.
Vanessa! I’m so glad you have found this space and might feel able to take off that heavy coat while you’re here (and for good perhaps?). My apologies for being later than usual to acknowledge you as a new arrival - I’m supporting a small family who have suffered a sudden and shocking bereavement, so have been away from my messages. I do hope you will write for the project this coming year. xx
Thank you Tanya, I’m so sorry for the loss and sadness you must all be dealing with and hope that you have love and support on equal measure. xx
Hi Tanya,Thanks again for all of your support over the last few years. I am seeking advice, on the topography of a piece of writing. The way it can be presented to full effect. I am so impressed with the way you have shaped my piece on Board Perfect. I compared it with the piece I sent you. The differences in the line arrangements gives a totally different effect. I read the two pieces and they have a different impact upon the eye. Have you any guidance on this aspect of writing?
Great question, Steve, thank you!
First a disclaimer: I don’t have the two versions here on screen to compare, so it may be that my line breaks - if different to yours - happened by error or with an eye on how your piece worked on screen given the very specific online format the project has.
I try usually to keep the formatting which contributors use with regard to line breaks/paragraphs. But do like to give it a light editorial pass if I feel the meaning will be clearer for the next stage of readers with a few changes. If I’ve ever felt a piece needed more work or I wasn’t clear of its meaning, then I’ve gone back to authors.
All that as context to this project specifically.
Now to this as an aspect of craft. You’ll know, like I do, some famous texts that have density of prose on the page as part of their formal purpose - Ducks, Newbury Port; the My Struggle series by Knausgard; Fosse’s Septology. Those and more. But my feeling is that unless that kind of textual density is necessary to the story, then most pieces long and short gain from some white space around key… movements? I know there are style guides that prescript more precisely what constitutes a paragraph, but I work more at the level of action/idea. What is a line or a series of lines trying to do? Which ones belong together absolutely and where might a break help the reader understand a passage of time or feeling or understanding? It’s a lovely extra dimension I enjoy attending to, just as much as the sound of a piece, and my constant checks to make sure I haven’t repeated words unintentionally.
Although our styles are different, we share - you and I - a richness of texture and sound in our writing: I feel that breaks in the text make the reader more able to engage with that quality…
This is all written fast in response to your question so I may be back with more!
What changes worked for you? I’d be interested to know...
Hello Tanya. I've submitted twice to your writing prompts now, but am still very much trying to understand substack and where / how to access resources already here. I note your list of resources in different media which I have started to work through, thank you for that! And I tried to search a few key words in this thread, to see if there had already been any conversation about structure. I couldn't quite find what I was looking for, but apologies if it is already here and I've just missed it - please redirect me if so!
My issue is: I want to write a memoir. I have read so many (including the authors you recommended to me!) and have a sense of the wide range of different forms that exist. I wish to write about a one year time frame (my pregnancy and first few months postpartum), and have a sense of the broad structure - prologue and 12 chapters, three per each trimester - and the themes I would like to bring to each chapter (each addressing a common fear that women experience in pregnancy). Generally with a sense of imagery and points I wish to cover, I can sit down and create something that all comes together. When I used to write academic essays, I would read everything, make a document of notes, read over those again, and then sit down and compose. Over the course of two degrees I never could manage to make a more detailed point by point draft work for me, the thinking and structure somehow happens in the process of the long form writing. But I've never tried to write anything this big, and I'm struggling, finding that my usual approach does not work here - the material is too vast, so I don't have that overview in my head before I sit down to begin. I've had many attempts at getting my first chapter out, and I get about 800 words in and just don't really know where I'm going, what I should be including, rejecting, how it's going to all tie together. I work in very small timeframes right now out of necessity - maybe x2 40min sessions per week. Do you have any advice about what I can do to move past this block? Thank you, Zofia.
Hello Zofia - I read this from you with deep interest (admiring the writing that you’ve shared here as I do). The project you describe already has a good and fruitful structure but as you say, you’re not finding the writing process responding as it has in your academic work. This is all absolutely true of the barriers that came up for me whenever I imagined writing a booklength work. Because of the odd way my memoir got commissioned - an advance given on a very short sample (less than 3000 words) and no real outline (a deal that was then announced in the bookseller!) I had so much pressure to deliver that I had to find a way through.
I think what worked for me might - with adaptations to your circumstances and temperament - be useful for you too.
As someone like you who had an academic training before any other kind of writing experience, I always wrote from first line to last, so painfully precise that I didn’t even really create multiple drafts. I knew I couldn’t produce my memoir like that but my long-ago MA of 10,000 words was the longest thing I’d ever done and now I needed to get to around 70/80k (the scrolls I did were 100,000 but never intended for publication, so these didn’t I feel help me).
My great breakthrough at second draft stage was to create separate word docs for each possible chapter or scene. It was a way of putting blinkers on to produce enough material that I then had plenty to move around/rewrite/take away when it came to the more structural and completely different third draft.
I had an editor commenting at each draft stage of course and you might not have (most first time memoir writers have to do the first draft alone). So here’s a potted version of what mine advised me to do that helped me so:
- don’t worry about tenses/points of view/consistent style across the whole piece in the first draft. Just tell your story to yourself. If some chapters need to be third person to get it out, go for it. Others might be addressed to someone.
- don’t pin too much of your structure around quotations from other people’s work as you may not get permission to use them. Or if you use that as a way of getting your material out, be looking in later drafts to fade that out and focus on your story, your voice, your material.
In terms of writing time - I think it’s better in a first draft not to spend too long at it. I did short sessions three days a week to produce a first draft in 9 months. The second draft required five hours a day, five days a week to get a second draft in 4 months. The final draft that many people here have read was radically different and done in 28 days straight, working 8 hours a day sometimes longer - but by then I had my muscles and my vision for it in place.
This is another reason why I have the 300 word limit in this project. It’s not only to make my offer manageable for me to administrate - it’s because I believe the practice of writing strong short form pieces helps us build a way to get into a longer form story by building it up in scenes, beats, stages.
Do let me know if anything shifts for you in the coming months. I will be so interested to hear about your progress.
Tanya xxx
Tanya, thank you so so much for this! I am so grateful for your time and words and encouragement!! It helps a lot to know that you had a similar background, and also to know that you were working from short sessions to produce your first draft too <3
Over the past few days I have tried separate word docs for separate scenes and it has definitely already helped me more material out that I can then think about bringing together - I'm hopeful this may be a big breakthrough for me too!
I will most certainly keep you updated on progress. Thank you again xxxx
Hello again Zofia. Your name is the one that has come up for the free one to one phone mentoring session, from those who responded to the Why I Write prompt back in October. If you would still like to share a conversation with me (we can work out a time and other details later) then could you please let me know in next few days? I’m starting season 4 this Thursday all being well and I’d like to include news that you are recipient of the session. Tanya
Oh my goodness, I would love that more than anything!
Wonderful! I will look forward to it too! I will be getting Issue 1 of Season 4 out either this week or next, and I will include a mention of you being the person chosen for mentoring in that. I will then be back in touch in first week of February to give you more info on what a one to one mentoring session can be. It would be best to do that by email so when you get a moment, could you send me a message to editor@selkiepress.com? If you’ve got some particular things you’d like us to cover in our call, do include that in your message. Thank you again for being part of this project. Txxx
Recently there are less and less accidents happening. My wife told me that it is like this, because I’m healing. I feel that it is one of the reasons. On the way I’ve found you. Or more precisely: this place made by you. Among the chatter of stories I’ve felt familiar, and not unwelcome. Today I’m saying hello and thank you for making all of this. Mind you if I take a look in search of words, meanings that I’ve once had and lost out there.
Me, I was once forbidden to write, and more than once to speak for myself. Since then I’ve employed myself to do it for others, for a living. I’ve created blunt commercials for dubious enterprises and redundant corporate communications for the last two decades. I hope to reconsiliate with my heart after all of it. And never come back.
PS: English is my second language, I hope to not offend anyone with this fact.
Hello Victor - thank you so much for joining us here. I was intrigued by the title of your own Substack, and have just been reading your pieces there - and have followed as a result. I was particularly moved by the 100 Subscribers one - I’ve never had large online communities by most metrics, and yet there was an odd grief when my largest one (Twitter - 8.5k followers) stopped working due to EM’s changes. It had been the slow and steady work of 7 years to go from 0 to 100 (which was still enough to get attention for my first project, which then led to other opportunities ever since), and then to 1000 and beyond. And I never chased numbers but connections - so the follower number was based on carefully reading each new person’s own social media rather than just accumulating meaningless follows to my name. That’s why I started again with 0 over here in 2021, in the year before my first (and perhaps only) book was published - to build a project that just might become a safe space for other late starters like me to experiment with sharing their work.
English is your second language? I shouldn’t have known, and if I had I wouldn’t have minded anyway. I admire and yes, envy a little, everyone who can move between languages, as I feel trapped in one tongue. I read as much as I can in translation but that not at all like being able to have even a simple conversation in another language.
I hope you’ll write for some of the prompts, and I will follow your substack with interest.
Very best, Tanya
Thank you, you are needed, as strange as this sounds. But I reckon that you know this well. Never forget about it, build and tell your story so it can be heard and connect others. That's what counts, not the numbers.
I will certainly be visiting and writing here. Your book is on my kindle, so I guess that the second part of this reply will follow when I will know more than the fragments from here.
Have a great week there!
Thank you for giving my book a try. It’s such a determinedly unfashionable one - about life, death, work, community, art, class, family…. I’m always suprised and glad when people are prepared to give it a go!
Fashion get's out of date every season. Things you mention must go on though. This inevitability is, should be, interesting as only truth can truly be.
I'm getting myself together as I write. In no small part thanks to your thoughts.
Oh thank you! I’m smiling too!
And if you have time, it’d be lovely to know what you think (of stuff you haven’t read before!) xxx
Hello Tanya,
I’m not sure if this is a good place to be asking you this, but in my uncertainty, here goes! I’ve also sent a similar enquiry to Sharon.
As you know, I’ve loved this last year working through Hagitude, and discovering places - your thread there, your Substack here, and more lately my own embryonic Substack - where I can tentatively, and gradually more bravely, step forward as a writer. I’m still filled with gratitude.
One of the lovely Hertfordshire Hags who has become a friend was speedily reading through posts before the threads were taken down. She asked me if I’d be prepared to post some of my writing on my own Substack so that people (if my readership grows!) can share and read it. To be honest, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but on reflection, I rather like the idea.
But it wouldn’t sit right with me to just go ahead without knowing what your and Sharon’s views are on this. I know the writing is ‘mine’ as it were, but the prompts were yours and Sharon’s and I’m all too aware of the difficulties and pitfalls writers face, especially at the moment with the emergence of AI and the grip of social media. I wouldn’t like to take it for granted that it would be OK without considering your thoughts. As I said in my message to Sharon, I suppose I am really asking for your blessing, but I also have deep respect for the fact that you might not feel you can give it.
If you have a moment to get back to me, I’d be most grateful and would love to read what you think. Love to you, Sue xx
Sue! This is wonderful - to know you're ready to start sharing your writing more widely. Sharon needs to speak to your Hagitude pieces , but I can say already that anything you've written for this project you are free to republish on your own channels. What I do ask with pieces written for the various opportunities I provide, is that you and other contributors always run a credit line at the top or bottom of the piece. In the case of pieces from this project, that would be as follows:
First published in Tanya's Shadrick's The Cure for Sleep series on Substack
https://tanyashadrick.substack.com/
Really is wonderful to see your writing developing in this way. xxx
Thank you very much for getting back to me so quickly and for your blessing! I appreciate it very much and will certainly run the credit line as you suggest.
Sharon has given her blessing too and I will credit anything that originated from a Hagitude prompt accordingly!
I’m looking forward to getting going now… I’m very grateful for your encouragement too! Love to you and good wishes! Sue xxx
Huge smile. Excited for you xxx
Beloved Tanya - as i sit weeping with you in the closing ceremony of Hagitude, I too who have a small world due to caring for my adult son, would happily invite you to my kitchen for a cup of tea. And as someone who has also been out of touch with my body, I am weaving this into my small New Moon community and would gratefully share it with you. Thank you for all you are and all you have given me and the world
Oh Sarah-Jayne - how moved I am by this, how grateful. I went very early this morning to answer the many also-beautiful offers of homes to visit that came through on the Hagitude forum after our closing call... and clicked on the button to go through... and a system message came up: 'Your subscription to this forum has ended.' We all knew it would happen and that we must be glad for the rich year we shared there... and yet it was still strange to see it really was over. So that you've found me here means a lot. I hope you will write for this project - all themes from the last three years stay open for your words.
And perhaps one day I will indeed by at your kitchen table and we can talk in real time and place. How wonderful. xxx
Hello Tanya, thank you for responding, it was in reference to what you had initially written in the chat. How would I kick start myself to start writing? There is a part of me which is really wishing to and another part that is hiding in the corner, anything you offer would be helpful! Thank you x
There are books and books and books on how to start writing and not stop - many of them dear to me & which you may know already too (The Artists' Way, Bird by Bird, Still Writing by Dani Shapiro, Writing Down the Bones) - but I always felt they couldn't directly help readers into the experience of being published. Of seeing their words on screen in a forum where others might encounter them. So that's what this project is for. So I guess my short answer - offered to you as I might have a playground dare if were the same age, at the same school - is simply this: look through all the themes here in the project and...
1. Find one that gives you the most powerful feelings. Perhaps a lump in the throat, or tears, or a surge of high spirits ('Now THIS is something I know about and have something to say on').
2. Write a fast first draft, keeping the 300-word limit loosely in mind, but not word-counting or worrying as you go.
3. Read it aloud. Now go back through and edit out anything that doesn't need to be there. Read again. Paste from your document into the comments field of the post you're replying to and submit!
You know with this project that you will be read with real attention by me, and that I will take time to curate your words so they look good onscreen. You then may start receiving comments from others in the project who see your piece. It's the best way to see if you get more of a good feeling than a bad one by showing some of yourself and how you write.
I will be so thrilled to see your first piece!
xx
Wonderful advice thank you Tanya ✨️
Not necessarily writing related but really trying to channel your spirit today as I attempt to take the next step in a work related direction. I’m a children’s nurse/teacher and am desperate to become a Mindfulness Practioner. I’m stumbling along and holding on to the idea that it’s much worse to NOT follow my path. What do I have to loose, if not now, when? And yet it’s so tough! So not a question here ,just musing and trying to take some strength from you!
I love how we all help each other feels braver on here - so many of us are trying to make changes to how we live, not only how we write. You know from my book that I grew into this new life of the last 8 years quite slowly, beginning with those occasional on-request hours with hospice clients, done around my paid work and caring for small children. Sometimes a complete career break is necessary for physical or emotional wellbeing - or it's the only way (funded by loans or grants) that we can achieve the qualification we need. But sometimes we feel an external pressure to be on a full-time change of route so our social identity still makes sense to those around us (and ourselves). I began and did not complete two types of professional retraining after the near death - counselling and teacher training - until I realised what I wanted to be couldn't be signed up for but could only be grown by myself.
One thing I do know: From that one wonderful meeting we had, and the work you've shared here, your presence is so gentle and inspiring that clients would be fortunate to have you as a mindfulness guide. xxx
Thanks Tanya….it does really help to share our stories. Maybe the struggle just now is more similar to yours than I perceived. It’s that idea of knowing what exactly the future looks like perhaps. With nursing and teaching there’s a clear path but not so in my next mindful venture. But perhaps like you I’m feeling compelled and it’s strong. Convincing others is the tricky bit and that needs a level of confidence that is there some days and gone on others.
Sometimes the act of sharing boosts the confidence as it has here. I’ve now approached my manager for funding and had a positive response. Now for the next step .
Can’t tell you what it means to be not only writing but considering my next (probably final) career change. We really are capable of more than we imagine aren’t we….I know because I’ve seen your example…inspiring me!
THANKS xxx
I hope you'll let us all know as you move through the next steps. It will be so lovely to be part of those helping you celebrate your changing role... xx
Hello Tanya,
All of the above I would dearly love for you to expand on. This is completely new to me and open to explore. Thank you.
Hello Liberty. I'm happy to say more, but the thread isn't making it easy for me to see what area you'd like to know about! Can you say what you're curious to hear more on? x
Gosh Tanya, thank you. Thrilling and scary all at once! I've been - am still - a bit emotionally frozen, too much going on etc etc, so I'm actually using these stories and prompts to try to coax my creativity back out. Thank you for your continued support, it really does feel like you're right there xxx
I really am: always here in a literal sense in this space at the start or end of every weekday, whether I'm with my Mum in Cornwall or here in Sussex. And also always interested in and concerned for your creative journey - admire you very much, think highly of you. xxx
Hi Tanya,
I just recently finished your book, TCFS. It inspired a lot of my own writing about my relationship with my mother. I'm writing a memoir about growing up in the south of the USA, Florida, around rebel flags, guns and too much alcohol. I have 65,000 words written. I'm at the point of needing an editor, maybe developmental help. Do you have any suggestions on what to do next? I was thinking of taking a memoir writing course and getting some eyes on it in that container...Thank you for any insight <3 Amber
Hello Amber and thank you so much for reading my book. It's a good feeling to think it kept you company in another country as you began your own memoir. To get to a first draft of that length is a massive achievement already - my first draft of 50,000 took seven months, my second of 90,000 took four, and the final version that you read of 80,000 was another month of working every day. The three drafts are SO different from one another, although some paragraphs and chapters sustained throughout.
Developmental editors can be worth every penny. A friend of mine paid for one, and then got her book deal through them rather than through her agent who hadn't been able to place it in its pre-developmental edit form.
I don't offer that kind of mentoring/tuition at present, but I can recommend wholeheartedly the following very fine memoir specialists:
Kathryn Aalto (she has many US based student, being American herself).
https://www.kathrynaalto.com/
Lily Dunn
https://lilydunn.co.uk/
Lulah Ellender
http://www.lulahellender.com/
I also love the book The Artful Edit by Susan P Bell. This will give you great techniques for doing some edit work yourself before or alongside any courses or mentoring you undertake.
I know all three women and their writing. You would be in good company with each of them.
Hi Tanya. Inspired by your seminar for Bath spa students I would like to contribute a piece about gestures of a long lost relative. How do I send this to you?
Jo Baker
Jo! How wonderful! You simply paste your words into the comments of the post you are responding to - in this case the latest gestures one. I get a notification of all new comments (as with this one now) & if the study is under 300 words & mets the other community guidelines I then curate it properly on thecureforsleep.com - using a reply in comndvts to give your unique link. Will look out for it! X
Hi Tanya, hope all are well.
Recently at the workshop in Ilkley you mentioned a Robert Frost poem, quoted it a little, but at great speed and I missed it. Can you remember which of his considerable poems it might have been? many thanks x
Thank you again for sharing that wonderful phone conversation with me. Really special memory. And I hope not the only time we'll talk like that...
The Frost quote is not from one of his poems, but a letter, and is as follows (I've copied it out at the start of so many of my notebooks from my early 30s onwards: always help me stick with uncomfortable feelings...)
“A POEM…BEGINS AS A LUMP IN THE THROAT, A SENSE OF WRONG, A HOMESICKNESS, A LOVESICKNESS. IT IS A REACHING-OUT TOWARD EXPRESSION; AN EFFORT TO FIND FULFILLMENT. A COMPLETE POEM IS ONE WHERE AN EMOTION FINDS THE THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT FINDS THE WORDS"
– Robert Frost writing to Louis Untermeyer in 1916
Gosh, that is special, thank you.
I often struggle with poetry (oh those metaphors...), but I'm trying really hard with a handful of poets, RF being one of them.
It was so lovely to speak together, plenty more discuss!
All best Tanya, take care x
For Season Three of The Cure for Sleep with Tanya Shadrick…
As you know, I’m wanting to begin featuring pieces from the story archive, and hope also to share some thoughts from their authors.
I’ve been trying to create a form for this purpose, but it’s getting too complicated. Instead, if you’d like to be featured, please may I ask you to give the following information here in comments?
Where are you based (country or county is fine)
Your bio (no more than 50 words; written in third person)
A link to your website or social media – only if you’d like that to be included
(Remind me of) The piece you’d like featured
Where are you in your creative journey right now – and how does writing for this story-sharing community support that? (no more than 100 words)
Is there anything else you’d like to say about how you came to join this community? (no more than 100 words)
Hi Tanya, love to you and your mum right now, all of your family x.
The Form:
Where are you based (country or county is fine).
West Yorkshire, UK
Your bio (no more than 50 words; written in third person)
Late 50s and trying to kick-start her own Third Life, before it’s too late!
A link to your website or social media – only if you’d like that to be included
N/A. Working on it …
(Remind me of) The piece you’d like featured
Mirrors - My mother’s face one
Where are you in your creative journey right now – and how does writing for this story-sharing community support that? (no more than 100 words)
The Cure for Sleep platform is so inspirational, and so typical of Tanya’s generosity of spirit. I’ve enjoyed seeing it grow and spread since those early days, and to read these beautiful, poignant and delighting tales. It encourages shy writers to entrust too, to lay bare what has been hidden, to dare to speak the words. Such a nurturing and supportive space has inspired my own writing, has encouraged me to start to tell my own small stories.
Much love
Sally Harrop x
Thank you so much for this Sally. I can't wait to feature you - and I'm thinking that I might do an edition where I feature you and two other of my Ilkley festival mentees who write for the project...
I will let you know via here in advance of 'your' monthly issue!
Tan xx
Hi Tanya
If it isn't too late, I would like to be featured please.
Where are you based (country or county is fine)
Brisbane Australia
Your bio (no more than 50 words; written in third person)
Tracey is an Intuitive Healer, offering a wide range of healing therapies and is now hoping to add a new form of healing, her own written words.
A link to your website or social media – only if you’d like that to be included
https://traceymayor.substack.com/
(Remind me of) The piece you’d like featured
Hands
Where are you in your creative journey right now – and how does writing for this story-sharing community support that? (no more than 100 words)
I have only just begun my writing journey and Tanya's story-sharing community has provided me with a safe and nurturing space to do so.
Is there anything else you’d like to say about how you came to join this community? (no more than 100 words)
I came across Tanya in one of Sharon Blackie's podcasts and was immediately drawn to her experiences and her book, TCFS.
Tanya's words spoke to me and called up a deeply buried long held desire to write. Tanya provided the platform, gave me the inspiration and support and encouragement to expose my words to the world.
Thank you for this opportunity Tanya.
Love to you and your family
Tracey xx
Good morning Tracey! Yes, very glad to include you in a future newsletter. Likely Season 4, as I'm starting this season with people who have been writing since the start of the project - but yes, very happy to celebrate your part in our collective undertaking! Txx
Hi Tanya, how do you switch off in between your writing time? That was one of the reasons I stopped few years ago - I couldn’t turn my brain off. I started to miss appointments, be late for school pick ups, switch off during conversations, burst into tears out of the blue and generally feeling unwell and ungrounded. Few friends simply gave up on me. My long suffering husband wanted to be supportive but …. and on and on it went. Not sure what would have happened if it wasn’t for lockdown. I had to stop as i had no more space in my head and in the house anymore. Different priorities took over. But now I feel that I’m being sucked into the same vortex and, for some reason, it is much scarier this time. How do I turn that tap off? My dad was a poet (still is) and I remember very well what it was like to be next to someone, who’s miles away in spirit. One of the reasons, I consciously never wanted to be a writer. Too much baggage and insanity. It’s funny how all those things happen.
This feels so familiar to me from my own experience: it's only now, this summer, after seven years of constant effort to move my writing from tiny private diaries to a small local outlet and now an international one, that I feel able to....take a break. I've gone from my large Moleskine diaries of the last 7 years (that incredibly I kept up even while writing the mile on scrolls in public!) and have small palm-sized reporter pads that I'm only making occasional notes in. For me, starting so late, I think I had to make it the soul and centre of my life, mentally, emotionally, even while my actual hours were more often devoted to the care of others. If I hadn't kept that space life would have crowded it out, killed it off. But now I've found a form for my way of seeing/being, I'm easily able to move between writing and being fully attentive to whatever is not-writing. It's a relief, and a joy, and yet I don't regret the seven-year apprenticeship in which I made it non-negotiable and not-a-hobby even while it didn't at first pay anything. It was my vocation and I honoured it. There are some lovely examples of writers with true longevity who lived a very balanced life, not always away in their thoughts. My favourite of these is the late American poet William Stafford, who didn't publish until his mid 40s but then went on to become one of the most prolific poets ever. If you can get his book on teaching writing, do: it's such a wise and gently companion - it's called The Answers Are Inside The Mountain...
Thank you so much, Tanya. It makes so much sense. I never was able to keep a diary as it never felt safe to put my own thoughts on paper. Even now, it feels strange and unsettling.
After asking the question and thinking about it for a while I realised it’s all about structure and discipline. Having slots of time for everything. I’m very chaotic and messy person who tends to either struggle to focus or go into hyper focus and forget everything else. I do know I have to change that. The age and hormones don’t help either but at least I’m an empty nester now (most of the time anyway) with few more hours on my hands. Would love to meet up with you one day. I think we have a lot in common. I’m just outside of Bristol, halfway down to your childhood home. Bear that in mind, next time you’d like to break your journey 🤗
I would LOVE to visit. I do agree that organisation helps keep space for what needs to be honoured in our lives. There will still be times - during our or our loved ones' acute illnesses or emergencies - when we have to put aside entirely our passions: and yet the structure we put in place in the everyday helps us return after unavoidable breaks. I'm not naturally organised, but the pressures of time and illness meant I had to develop ways to create order to get my writing done. Which is easier to share by talking about that writing about - so we can keep it for when we can meet!
Definitely! I’d love that very much xx
I've got a 120,000 word first draft on the computer. But now. The next step. How to take that step back, see the threads and the motifs and how to (re)structure. Trying to summarize what I have written concisely is such a challenge. If I don't know how to condense the story in a couple of paragraphs, how can I make someone else see what it is about? Writer friends who have read chapters, love it. But is that enough?
This took me til my third draft (first was 50,000 words - almost like a summary after the first half; second was too long at 90k; third was 80k and the right form just suddenly - after some good editorial feedback too - just leapt to my eye).
If it's of any use to you re the chapters read to friends. I had some trusted people to read chapters too, and they loved them. They sounded good read aloud to me too. "I'm good at this after all" I began to think. But then I had a very painful wake-up call after I'd send away the second draft and before I got my notes back: saw, all of a sudden, that good chapters, good scenes, aren' t the same as a narrative arc, a story with pace and meaning. Now not all stories or even memoirs need that. But I wanted to write a quite old-fashioned (?) whole life memoir, and to meet the requirements of a good story. So I had a lot to work on. But once I saw what was missing, I was able to rework my material. Long answer but I think it's this kind of thing that means so many of us stop at the first or second draft. I'd love you to come back onto the thread with an update on your progress with this...
I think for me now, it is right to step back a bit, work on a solid summary and then try and go back to it again. I see people mentioning 80k as the standard but I'm not sure if I can bring the number down. It's been a pressure cooker writing this and now it feels a bit less urgent because the story's out there (on my pc) and not just 'in' me anymore. I will have to consider the arc if that's clear enough throughout. Will see where it goes .... but I am committed to finding the right shape and form for this.
The 80k is yes, a bit of a publishing standard, but I agree absolutely that stories need the space they need. And of course we all know that some of the most iconic recently-published books bust straight through and far beyond that word count - To Paradise, the My Struggle series, Ducks Newburyport. Because I write in quite a tight style, I was worried - conversely - at the point where my memoir was commissioned whether I could get anywhere near 80. Because I was commissioned to write mine before I'd done a first draft, I remember asking what was the very shortest book they'd take from a debut author in this genre. We signed a contract on 50k! But the story in the end required a further thirty thousand. So you're absolutely right I think to be guided by your/your story's intrinsic sense of what's needed at this stage.
What keeps bringing me to a halt is getting the balance of honesty and vulnerability right. I know I need to write this as it happened (I’ve already abandoned one attempt because what I was writing didn’t feel honest enough to me), yet if I write it as honestly as I want to it leaves me very vulnerable. I don’t come over well for the most part of my memoir, I’m not proud of how I was, but if I’m to write honestly about my life I need to be able to own it for what it is.
This is what makes the drafting process so fascinating - or it did for me because this book of mine was my first and only attempt at a long thing. I still don't come across well in my mine, and I think the reader can work with that - Plath called it her 'not niceness' and when she set aside trying to sound like the genteel lady poets being published in the 1950s, she found her form and subject both. I felt vulnerable writing mine, but I don't feel that way now it is published strangely. I haven't had enough time to analyse or understand that. It just feels true to say. Have you read Doris Lessings' autobiography - I have an instinct you will find her directness and toughness about herself and her wants/motivations/actions interesting...
Thanks Tanya, I'll follow up on your suggestion re Doris Lessing.
I’ve tried to write a memoir several times, but I feel my life is still a work in progress and I don’t see clearly how to shape it into a compelling and coherent narrative. Unlike Tanya, I don’t have a single experience that I can define as a gateway into the story of my life.
Have you read Fierce Attachments by Viv Gornick? It's frequently placed high on the best 50 memoirs of all time... and yet nothing eventful happens. There is no inciting incident. She begins - as you may already know of course - just in her apartment block, with her mother, describing the other tenants. And from this a whole compelling life story follows...
This is exactly what I need, thank you. I've been struggling with the same question. I have a story, but unsure how to anchor it without that inciting incident. Ordering book now.
I want to write it but I'm scared it will come over as too dark and depressing, when in reality it is a story of hope (and funny at times). I also worry about balancing the tempo of the narrative throughout the book, so that it flows and is enjoyable to read.
Yes, this feels familiar to me. I've kept my second draft of my book as a reminder of this. It's very dark, and also unclear. Confusing even to me its writer when I read it back. I simply wasn't ready to tell it straight, or to take away the welter of painful details to leave the real bones of my life and relationships that would communicate meaning to readers. But writing the first draft (9 months) and second (4 months) made me into the person who could handle lightly and rightly the dark matter for the third and final version (one month). I wish could now apply this clarity and discipline to my physical life! This book called The Artful Edit really helped me work on my drafts while I was waiting for my editor's structural feedback...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Artful-Edit-Practice-Editing-Yourself/dp/0393332179/ref=sr_1_1?crid=11DURXT6T72V&keywords=the+artful+edit&qid=1653059664&sprefix=the+artful+edit%2Caps%2C65&sr=8-1
Thank you, that’s really helpful. I’ve ordered the book 👍 Can I also have a dream visitation from Seamus Heaney?
I'm usually a quite practical person. But I was so desperate for a creative breakthrough that I - one night - ask before sleep if Ted Hughes would appear in my sleep and talk sense to me. He only arrived in my dream long enough to eat all my food. But Seamus was with him, and stayed to ask me about what I wanted to write and why did I? So even though it was a product of my own desperation only, it had the feel of truth and did get me writing. Have fun trying to conjure someone up!
I have a contentious relationship with my family members. They are in denial, or genuinely in the dark, about many parts of my life. I worry that writing my experience would make them really angry, defensive, and even horrified. And would heighten my own anger.
If you've read my book you'll know already that several key people in it aren't in my life, and so I couldn't discuss their part in it the way I could with my husband, my mother (even that wasn't an easy thing to do of course). If the book or article has a publisher then you often get serious editorial and then legal help as I did to make sure you are not liable to risk. But the emotional work of 'diving into the wreck' as Adrienne Rich called it - well yes, that it a challenging experience. I'm glad I've undertaken it, but it was hard work. Had lots of swells and sumps of feeling. One of the essays in Melissa Febos' brilliant new short craft book Body Work is very very good on all this, if you havent already read: I think it's called A Big Shitty Party (a Billie Holiday quote!). A version of it online here (but whole book is an important addition to my craft library):
https://kenyonreview.org/journal/marapr-2022/selections/melissa-febos/
I think I feel that I don't have a "story". Or maybe that my story is the wrong way round - my life is shrinking rather than growing. I don't have a struggle to look back on, my struggle is right now, and there's no lesson to it, no message. I have a series of memories - I'm into the 60s with my 100 things (there are days when there is nothing that I am capable of loving, and I have chosen not to worry about that), but I don't see a way of pulling that into a continuous narrative. And maybe that's OK. I think what I admire most in TCFS is your decision to take your creativity seriously - and asking how you did that is not really a craft question, is it? It's more of an existential question.
Hi Tanya I love this project and feel ready to contribute to Season 4 but I'm not familiar with Substack and although I've read the guidelines I can't quite figure out where I upload my piece and don't want to do it wrong and upset anyone ha ha! Apologies that this is a practical question. Best wishes Wendy
I think I've worked it out! fingers crossed :-)
Hello Wendy! Thank you so much for joining us as a writer here - you have indeed worked it out and I’m looking forward to reading your piece that has come through when I’m next online tomorrow morning. Expect to hear more from me before the end of tomorrow. I love it when a new voice joins the project! Tanya xx
Oh this is wonderful news, thank you Tanya! Xx
I would like to understand more about the writer's voice please Tanya. What it is exactly and how we can work on creating one (if that is the right way to put it).
Thank you very much for your time.
Tracey x
'A soul version of compound interest! How wonderfully true Tanya!
Tracey xx
I have written blogs about challenging life experiences and seek to avoid them being misery memoirs
Hello Peter. I’m in the Alps with patchy signal this week so have only just been able to get into Substack today. Before I respond more fully on my return home on the weekend, may I ask if you are asking here about thoughts on how to avoid that - or are you saying you already do feel sure you are avoiding your writing being described that way? I always like to check a persons meaning before I respond…
Hi Tanya, Thanks for your email. I am writing autobiographical blogs for AuthorsElectric where I am trying to avoid being 'maudlin' by using humour, indirectness and distancing in the best way I know. I have had some positive comments from fellow bloggers but need some other feedback. Hope you had a good holiday in the Alps. Best wishes, Peter
Thank you, Peter. I had a lovely rest. It sounds like you have a good range of tools already to hand for writing the personal in an engaging way. Any of us writing about real and difficult things are easy targets of course for having our work dismissed as 'misery memoirs' or 'navel gazing'. And while it's good for us to have a range of techniques to give shape and purpose to the difficult things we sometimes need to write about - to always keep the reader in mind - it is also important I think that we don't hold back from being serious and sincere when that is where the story takes us. It's never nice to have our work be criticised in those terms (someone made sure I was aware of at least one online reader review saying that about TCFS!)...and yet, it comes with the territory. I've had far far far more reviews and private reader messages thanking me for the difficult things I've shared than I've had harsh criticism. Melissa Febos' new short collection of four essays on life writing - Body Work - has a great and emboldening essay on the subject of navel-gazing/misery memoir: you might want to give it a read given your interest in this aspect of writing the personal...
I think we are sharing conversations over on the Hagitude community too? If so, thank you so much for joining this space as well.
That's such a core question you ask here: absolutely at the heart of the great challenge of sustaining a creative practice which is public-facing as opposed to entirely private (I think you know that I see the wholly-private as entirely worthwhile, but that for myself - after twenty years of diary-keeping, I yearned to feel part of a conversation about stories and how to live). So: once one feels a need to share stories publicly, then comes the fear, the worry, the uncertainty over how to find readers/a community of likeminds.
The saboteur in our heads is very loud!
Keeping going in the years when no one knows who you are is hard but also beautiful. It gives our lives such tone, such form, such grounding. And its a huge subject, more than I can address fully in a reply on here.
What I can say is that I kept going in the time before I had the kind of community you and i are sharing here now by collecting quite different books than I had before. Ones that focussed on process. On connection. Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking. Anything by Seth Godin, including his renowned blog - he talks about 'shipping the work'. Watch a short video called The Gap by Ira Glass on Youtube. And these Paris Review My First Time short videos with writers remembering how they kept going in the years before the book that made their names. Sheila Heti's and Tao Lin's are probably the best two in this respect, and Christine Schutt's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fJ6AFcdh6A
And being in these kind of online communities, of course. I did the whole first year of my mile of writing on less than 200 twitter followers... but it was enough to meet the people who would change the course of my life: it's how newspaper and radio found me; how the people I would work with met me...
But often we don't get to tell our main story first, if you know what I mean? My book about the near-death and how it changed my views on how to live only came about years after I did quite tangential projects that gathered interest like a tumbleweed moving across a large landscape. At the core of what moved me was my big life event and its effects...but what brought readers to me was much smaller, more local stories.
I hope some of this helps...
(And I will go read your substack!)
Txx