A Question-and-Answer Session with Rebecca Frost and Linda Shapiro

Linda and Rebecca are the founders of Dancers Who Write, a reading series showcasing the literary talents of writers who are also movers.

The View: How was the Dancers Who Write series born?

Rebecca Frost: Our project was conceived somewhere alongside the fall soccer games of our de facto godniece in common. Linda and I, who knew each other from myriad connections in the dance world, would show up to watch the games in chilly weather, intermittently, independently. In between cheering for preteens’ near scores, we’d talk, compare notes, stamp our feet. Turned out we were both writing a lot and had no idea the other was as well.

Linda Shapiro: As a published freelance writer on subjects ranging from dance to the research of University of Minnesota faculty, I had been thinking that I needed an outlet for my newly hatched fiction. As a choreographer, I always had plenty of opportunities to present my work in various stages of development. I wanted that for my writing.

I’d also been thinking about other dancers I know who write and have published or performed their text-driven work, and thought there might be more waiting in the wings. So we chatted a bit about the possibility of a modest series somewhere and started doing some investigating. Todd Boss graciously offered us three evenings in his Verse and Converse series at Nina’s Café in Saint Paul (January, March, and May 2010). They were successful enough that we wanted to continue into the summer at the Bryant-Lake Bowl—to see what would happen in a Minneapolis venue, and, as the Nina’s events were free, to see if anyone would actually pay to hear dancers read their stuff.

Bev Bachel

The great thing about the new year is the chance for a “do-over.” What you didn’t get right—or done—last year, you can try again this year. This is especially true for writers. It seems that every novelist, poet, playwright, and memoirist I know longs for the big T: time.

But no matter how much more we desire it, we’re each given just 1,440 minutes each day. As a college professor once said when I complained about having to read ten novels in ten weeks, “It’s not how much time you have, it’s what you do with it.”

Here are some tried-and-true tips that can help you make the most of your time.

Go for your goals. You won’t be able to complete anything if you commit to everything. Be willing to say no, even when it means disappointing others. That way, you’ll be able to say yes in a big way to the goals you consider most important and the tasks that will help you achieve them. No, I can’t go out to dinner. Yes, I will see meet you for the movie that’s set in the same era as my historical novel. No, I can’t write a lengthy response to that e-mail. Yes, I will spend 15 minutes making a list of my main character’s flaws.

Break them into bite-size pieces. Going for your goals all at once is like trying to swallow an apple in one bite. Instead, break them into chunks that you can easily accomplish. Take one Loft class. Make a list of three agents. Write seven paragraphs. Doing what you set out to do, even it it’s just getting out of bed when your alarm goes off, unleashes an adrenaline rush that can help fuel you through your next to-do.

Get started. One of my favorite writing tools is the kitchen timer. The next time you find yourself procrastinating, set the timer for 15 minutes and start doing. When the timer goes off, stop. Or continue. It’s your choice. And regardless of which you choose, you will have gotten an important start on whatever you’ve been putting off.

Make use of the margins. If you’re like most writers I know, it’s hard to find time to write. There are work, kids, household chores, and more, all screaming for attention. Rather than waiting for a day off or an evening when you’re home alone, start making use of the margins, those small pockets of unexpected found time—when you’re on hold, when your gal pal is late for coffee, or when your teenager refuses to get off the phone. Take advantage of the small, and you’ll be surprised at how much you’re able to scrawl.

Track your numbers. Tracking your numbers every 30 days will help you make better decisions. There are many different numbers you can measure: minutes spent writing, word count, queries sent, queries accepted, poems written, and freelance-article income are just a few examples of the types of numbers that should be guiding how you spend your time, energy, and creativity.

Good enough, move on. Rather than agonizing over whether the protagonist in your novel should be wearing an amaranthine sweater or one that’s aubergine, call it purple and move on. As my friend and fellow writer Carolyn says, “Done is better than perfect.”

So, whether you long to finish your novel, journal more consistently, or make more money as a writer, now’s the time . . . ready, set, restart. It’s the best way to make the most of the coming year.

Bev Bachel is a full-time writer and author who’s enjoying her 2011 restart.

by Jonathan Odell

In life, you can either live out of your imagination,

or you can live out of your history. ~Stephen Covey

That’s what we adults do with much of our lives. We live out of our history, doing the things that have worked once upon a time. We obey the rules. We avoid the things that didn’t work while stubbornly refusing to imagine a new story for ourselves.

One of my favorite quotes about childhood is from Graham Greene: “There is always one moment in a child’s life when the door opens and lets the future in.”

by Emily Brisse

Early on in my life, I knew what I wanted to be: worldly.

experienced; knowing; sophisticated: as in the benefits of her worldly wisdom

I was the child who read Jane Eyre at ten (or tried to, anyway), convinced it would open up some corner of the universe. I was the teenager who read Jane Eyre again (this time actually) while nested between two branches of a tree, feeling that this was what people in love with the world did. At 21—after many more books, many more secret trysts with vocabulary words and foreign-language dictionaries, many more far-off yearnings, after finally a study-abroad term in Paris—I went east, to Maryland, my desire for worldliness a warmed stone in my hand.

by Lawrence Perlman

pensiero

The following remarks were made prior to a reading by Lawrence Perlman at Open Book October 6, 2010, from his novel The Last Layer.

Thank you all so very much for coming. Before I read a few passages from The Last Layer, I thought I would address the question that is more or less on all of your minds: “How did this guy, who spent his life in the real world—as a lawyer, law professor, and CEO—come to write a novel?”

by Clem Nagel

aptmetaphor

It was Earth Day 2010 . . . and was I prepared. Typical of me, I brought everything except the office desk lamp. Extra pencils, blank paper (in case someone forgot), name tags, paper clips, Scotch tape, roll of paper towels, Band-Aids, easel pad, masking tape, markers (I used to work for the YMCA), books, and my detailed class outline for each of the coming four weeks. I had been invited to teach a series of poetry classes. I arrived at the residential senior center community room half an hour early to get acclimated.

by Burt Berlowe

blatantnews

The epiphany came to me 40 years ago amidst the flashing neon, echoing chants, and quiet drizzle of a historic Times Square afternoon. In that powerful moment, as I marched with people from around the country who had come together to walk their antiwar talk, I moved from interested spectator to active participant in the peace movement.

In the days that followed, that transformative moment became story. I put on paper what I had observed, experienced, and felt, and imagined what might be the stories of the others who rode on the bus, camped in the church, and marched through downtown New York in an awesome display of commitment and purpose. Thousands of compelling stories were unfolding that day, and I wished I could somehow know them all and tell them to a larger world. Although I didn’t label it as such at the time, I was yearning to be a story carrier.

by Martin Cozza

You are lucky. You get to take off work and write for two months, thanks to a grant and to your spouse, who’s off for the summer and can watch the kids all day. You’ve started a novel, and it’s going pretty well. You rent a writers’ studio at the Loft, since you have to get out of the house. And you can ride your bike to the Loft—no parking worries. You have time! You have space! You have a project to work on! You are lucky! Yes!

by Athena Kildegaard

I first loved my husband in the fall of 1979, and I’ve been loving him again and again ever since. All that time I’ve written poetry, but until January first this year I’d written only a handful of love poems.

That curious pair of facts began to needle me in early December last year. Driving from here to there I thought about a love poem by Dorianne Laux I’d read that morning, how true and necessary it was and how unwrought it seemed. That thinking led me to wonder why I’d written so few love poems over the years. I realized that I was just plain afraid of writing them.

Interview by Dara Syrkin

During her 1999 Bush Fellowship for midcareer physicians, Maggie O’Connor dedicated 10 percent of her time to learning how to write. “I had terrible writer’s anxiety. I chose my college classes based on which ones required the fewest essays. English 101 gave me stomach cramps. I decided I had grown up. The time had come to deal with my anxiety about writing.”

Fear or no, Maggie embraced the newness of writing. “My dad started weaving when he retired. So when I set out for the Loft with my guts quaking, I had the reassurance that old people can learn. I sat in classes and introduced myself as a science and math jock who wanted to learn how to write. One of the wonderful things about being a beginner is that you are free to ask any question.