Welcome to my First Newsletter: Being Generous & Being Lucky
Grab yourself a warm drink, take a seat, pull out a notebook and a pen and let's have some conversations about writing - and do some writing too.
A Bit About Me
I’m a writer. I’ve published seven novels, five for adults and two for young adults, all of which are contemporary. I’m currently working on my eighth novel.
I love cats, the winter, the place where I live - New England - and coffee shops (more on that and the inspiration behind this newsletter below).
I’m a mother to three little humans, who inspire me and floor me in equal measure - and teach me just about everything I need to know about living creatively. I’m also lucky enough to be married to a guy who believes that writing is important work, which is perhaps the greatest gift of my life.
Why The Writing Café?
From the moment I started writing (as an adult, anyway), I took myself to coffee shops. I’ve always found it easier to work away from home. I love the low hum of conversation and the hiss and thwack of espresso machines. I love that special state of flow you can enter when you’re both alone, in that bubble of concentration, and surrounded by people. Coffee shops are where I’ve written my best novels and met some of my best friends.
I also think there’s an interesting energy in coffee shops, that they bring together an eclectic group of people who are open to meeting others.
I’m drawn to the old fashioned notion of a ‘Literary Salon,’ a place where people used to gather to discuss literature and to share their work. The informal setting encouraged deep discussions and made people feel at home.
I hope that here, in this virtual coffee shop, we will meet to talk about books and writing, to share our work, and become friends.
Teaching & Writing
I write and mother full time now, but have a long career in teaching English and Creative Writing. Through my MFA, I specialised in the novel and in the teaching of writing. For me, writing and teaching go hand in hand.
I actually think that many of us who live creatively are driven by a desire to share - to teach - to say: ‘Hey, look what I found or worked out or understood about this way of living and working in the world.’
This desire to share what I know and love and find helpful, in the hope that you might love it and find it helpful too, lies at the heart of my newsletter.
I’m reminded of Twyla Tharp’s comment about how the best way to be lucky is to be generous. I think what she meant is that by giving generously of yourself and your art, you put yourself in the way of others who share those values and that that those connections will go on to enrich your own life and creativity.
I’m always looking for new ways to find those connections and I hope that this newsletter will allow me to be both generous and lucky!
“Generosity is luck going in the opposite direction, away from you. If you’re generous to someone, if you do something to help him out, you are in effect making him lucky. This is important. It’s like inviting yourself into a community of good fortune.”
Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life
(By the way, Twyla Tharp’s book on creativity is brilliant):
What to expect from THE WRITING CAFÉ:
Writing workshops, exercises, tips and prompts.
Thoughts on living creatively and living well.
Craft ideas gleaned from novels. I do a video series called ‘Writing From Fiction,’ also currently on Instagram and soon on YouTube. I’ll post some of these videos here.
Motivation from all kinds of places including from artists working in different fields (Twyla Tharp is a choreographer and dancer, for example).
A section on my current recommendations: books, pods, shows, movies, workshops and more.
General encouragement and friendship, as I know how much that’s sometimes needed for those of us who take this slightly off the beaten track path in life.
My No.1 Writing Tip: Just Five Minutes
This is a good one as we head into the new year. A small, manageable goal that can become the habit of a lifetime. I did a little video about it on Instagram:
Few of us have the luxury of writing full time - many of us are parents and have day jobs. And yet, the longing to write still burns in us and we somehow feel incomplete when we can’t do it.
When I was going through a really busy period of my life, career wise, a writer friend said to me: ‘Just find five minutes a day, that’s all it takes.’ So I set up a timer - at any point in the day when I had a small window of time, often early in the morning or late at night or during a lunch break - and wrote for five minutes. And here’s the magic part: I always ended up writing for longer, because, having got over the hump of sitting down to write and beginning, which is always, always the hardest part, I wanted to keep going. So much of creative work depends on momentum.
I marked off each day on the calendar and watched the days stack up and my notebooks fill and my writing practice grow stronger. And as with all habits, it became a need, something that my. heart and mind and soul and body had to do to feel that the day was complete. It’s a habit I’ve kept for over twenty years now. Even on the hardest day: just five minutes, to remember who I am as a writer, and that it matters.
Give it a go, feel the joy of beginning and the energy of the momentum that beginning brings. Just five minutes.
Writing Prompt
I’ve been re-reading Natalie Goldberg’s wonderful Writing Down The Bones. I’ll be sharing more from her in a future newsletter but here is one of her writing prompts. It’s a great writing warm-up. Write without stopping or looking back. See where your imagination takes you.
“Visualise a place that you really love, be there, see the details. Now write about it. It could be the corner of your bedroom, an old tree that you sat under one whole summer, a table at McDonald’s, in your neighbourhood, a place by a river. What colours are there, sounds, smells? When someone easel reads it, she should know what it is like to be there. She should feel how you love it, not by your saying you love it, but by your handling of the details.”
(Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down The Bones, P20-21).
Adapting Writing Prompts For Your Fiction
I often use writing prompts as inspiration for my fiction. Taking the prompt above, I’ll write about a place I love and then think about how it might relate to a character or a setting in the novel I’m working on. Or, I’ll write the prompt itself from the point of view of one of my characters - in this case, I’ll visualise a place that they really love. You can adapt most writing prompts as material for your novel.
This week, I heartily recommend, for…
Motivation: The Netflix Documentary about Diana Nyad, called NYAD. A masterclass in persistence and perseverance, against SO many odds - and pursuing your dreams, no matter how old you are. Here's the trailer.
A creativity boost: Rick Rubin’s new book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being. A lovely lens shift from creativity being about ‘doing and making stuff’ to being about how you show up in the world. The book is organised into lovely short chapters so you can dip in whenever you need a creative pick-me-up.
Learning how to convey achingly authentic relationships: I just rewatched Marriage Story, written and directed by Noah Baumbach (co-writer of Barbie). It’s just brilliant. Such an honest portrayal of marriage.
The soul. Kate Bowler’s Podcast, Everything Happens. I’ve been listening through the archive while I repaint my kitchen cabinets and it is full of the most incredible conversations about loss and love and grief and the messy, beautiful business of being alive - which, in my opinion, is the stuff of all good writing. Kate also has the warmest, most engaging voice and the most infectious laugh.
The body: As someone who often forgets to live fully in my body, yoga has been a salvation. It’s the only form of exercise I know that brings to together my heart and soul and mind and imagination - and the flesh and bones and muscles and all the other bits of my body. I’m not one for competitive, strenuous, body-sculpting type yoga though, which is why I love Adriene Mishler’s yoga videos on YouTube. If you haven’t found her yet, she does a wonderful 30 day series every January. This year, her theme is FLOW. She’s gentle, kind, funny and inclusive.
Those who read with little ones: A gorgeous picture book I’m reading with my 4 year old: Brave Little Bear by Steve Small. Such a beautifully illustrated, sweet, moving story of family and courage.
Happy writing, friends. Thank you for reading.
Love,
Virginia
P.S. Let me know how you found this newsletter, what you particularly enjoyed and what you’d like to see more of. And do share your recommendations, I’ll add them to my list!
P.P.S. I’ll leave you with a quotation that made me think this week:
"To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time."
Leonard Bernstein, Composer
Coming Up In Two Weeks Time:
What sanding, filling, priming, painting, painting some more, glazing and rehanging more kitchen cabinets that I can count, over the past six months, has taught me about the beautiful, messy, complex and protracted process of writing a novel.
More tips, inspiration, exercises and prompts.
So, keep your favourite mug to hand and meet me at THE WRITING CAFÉ, same place, same time, next week.
Thank you so much for The Writing Cafe. I love your generosityin sharing with and encouraging others
Happy New Year and welcome to Substack! The Twyla Tharp book has been on my TBR list for too long! Thanks for the reminder!