Writers Reach

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Questions for Palm Sunday discussion

Respond by clicking on comments. If anyone wants to start their own blog, just click on blogger and follow the instructions. Let me know and I'll link to writers reach. Steve

Why do you write?

What are your best writing conditions? If you could set up the perfect place, tools, time, etc. what would it look and feel like?

Why do you pray?

What are your best prayer conditions?

What are the similarities and differences between why and how you pray and write?

14 Comments:

At 9:14 PM, Blogger Steve Sheppard said...

test...

 
At 9:06 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Everybody...

Aren't we high tech? Superb!!! I imagine we will still be in contact with each other through this site, far into the future from all over the world. Exciting!

Yes, one day Steve will be posting up info on the books and articles we have written. I'm planning at least one of us will become famous... well not in the scary sense, but the "I'm a writer and my book is at Tattered Cover," sense. Hooray and dream BIG!

"Goals are dreams with deadlines!"
- Diana Scharf Hunt


AMY

 
At 4:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Everyone,

Not that we need more things to write about, but as I've been mulling over these questions, I was struck (BAM!) by the relevance of the quotation that Vicki posted to the list about RESISTANCE! And when I think about both writing and prayer, resistance is often part of the equation.

Feel free to jump into that pond, too.

 
At 6:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ok --

This "why do you write" question is not an easy one, but it's one I ask myself from time to time just to sort of check my temperature. In some ways it's like asking "why do you like chocolate?" Just 'cuz I do!

But some times I write because I want to be loved, some times I write because I need to explore what I think -- I need to focus, I need to just un-reel my mind somewhere because it's getting cramped. I write because writing invigorates me, makes me feel alive, aware, connected. It's just how I experience the world -- five senses all huddling back together to compare notes between the pages of journal with a pen.

But I also write to communicate, to connect with somebody, somewhere, who might feel less alone because s/he resonates with something I've said. I write to tell the truth -- to myself, to a reader, to God.

I write to right myself, some days. Other days, it's just a bad habit that keeps me life, a place to hide out.

There's a start.

 
At 6:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My dream writing place would be a loft room with sky lights -- a big old, beaten up wood desk with squeaky drawers, a laptop, lots of book shelves, and a cozy, overstuffed chair. Plenty of silence. A forest outside.

I pray because I cannot contain my life and I cannot control it. I pray to remember that God is bigger than I am, God is overwhelming. I pray because He lets me talk to Him. I pray because confession keeps me humble and prayer makes gratitude rise up in me like a really good belch.

I pray because God is the best listener. He never interrupts, always asks probing questions, and doesn't try to fix things. I pray because my heart breaks a hundred times a day over things that only supernatural power can effect. I pray because it's the closet I've ever gotten to being magic. And though as Thomas Merton said, "Pray. It might not work," it almost certainly works more ON me than doing nothing at all.

My best place to pray in alone in a car on a long trip.

 
At 6:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Prayer and writing are both attempts to get in touch with forces I only minimally understand. They're attempts to be heard, to effect change, to keep my heart, my head, my life in some kind of plumb-line straightness.

I do them both alone, mostly -- though I've had amazing experiences praying in community. Both require communication -- give and take. Both are a form of meditation for me, a way to go quiet, focus attention, drop deep. Both are endless endevors. Every destination is a false summit that reveals another outcrop ahead that promises a challenge, a view, an understanding.

And I experience resistance to both. Restlessness. In fact, both prayer and writing are susceptible to the same kinds of distractions -- dirty bathrooms, extra half-hours of sleep, a mind wandering to that conversation I had with my boss, the things I need to do before leaving for vacation.

A rich writing life and a rich prayer life both seem to require discipline from me -- protected space and time, a sort of contemplative wildlife refuge where the buzz saws and traffic of life aren't allowed to intrude. It's too easy to cut down the trees and drain the ponds that create the environment for both prayer and writing to thrive. It takes work and sometimes sacrifice, not only from me, but also from those around me (namely my husband) for these species to keep from going extinct sometimes.

Other times, though, bulldozers couldn't keep me from carrying on.

Sometimes I wish I could develop these practices--writing and praying--like birds or squirrals that adapt to cityscapes. I think this adaptability has been one of my goals for this year.

 
At 12:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why do I write?

Great question! Let me count the whys...

I write because I have trouble communicating out loud in a manner that is clear and concise. I speak in circles, stories and faster than most people enjoy hearing. Writing allows me to choose the words and not run you over with a tangent of enthusiasm on something you really don't care to hear.

I write to sort. If I've written something,I've had to think about and organize it. Once I've written things down, I'm much better at explaining it out loud - staying focused and on task.

I write because God heals me through the process. After not writing for a few years- because I was writing so much soccer stuff- I came back to it about a year and a half ago because it was the only way I could handle a family issue. I couldn't keep laying it on my friends. I wrote to release anger. Can I hear a "Praise the Lord!" God has healed me in this context!! It wasn't just the writing and I really never thought my bitterness would end.

I write because like Nicole noted, I also want to tell the truth, I want others to know they are not alone in circumstances, struggles, joys, and choices which occur in our lives.

I write because I want others to consider the joy of knowing the Lord and its hard for me to shut up about God working in my life, and that he is there for each person to experience the same.

I write because at times I've felt very alone. Writers are supposed to be a bit anti-social, introverted, different thinkers. Yeah- I know this is a stereotype and had you met me at work- you would've never suspected I like to write.

I write because God has given me this ability. I write because I'd like to get better at writing and get paid a bit more often. Wouldn't we all like to live the life of a writer?

Its interesting for me to consider why I write and compare that with why I coach soccer (my profession).

Are some of the answers the same? I flat out have a passion for both activities but yet they are so completely different.

Why do I write? Why do we do anything? I think its important to consider. What is God's purpose for us? What is our purpose in doing things? Do these intersect, conflict, who knows.

Much as I said I write to sort... this post is totally unedited because yup- I've got a game, but I wanted to "make," the meeting.


Take care! More later.

 
At 9:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What are your best writing conditions?

Quiet. Nice chair. Laptop.
OR... I've found that being somewhere unusual, I call it harnessing the power of the coffee shop also works well.

I like writing in my apartment, but as you've heard, my kitchen table starts talking to me and the dirty dishes clamor for attention and the tv cannot be left alone for more than a few minutes.

I also write well when I am in other peoples houses and they are not there. I'm not a robber. I've house-sat a lot.

I like to write with pen and paper but typing is faster. I don't do well with nice journals because I am still afraid to mess them up. Yellow notepads are my favorite for specific projects and brainstorming.

 
At 9:25 PM, Blogger Steve Sheppard said...

(I accept the reality that it's us three posting, and that we are the hardcore shower-uppers to anything, and it will be one of us, Amy, who will be famous!)

When my brother was in Amway he would send voice mails out to his people, even thought there was only one left, saying "hey everybody, this is Todd, just wanted to let you know, I'm fired up about your futures, and we're red hot and rolling in '99!" No brother ever wants to see his big brother weak, and I've pretended weaker to save him at times.

I almost threw in the towel a month ago on writing. While we're on brother stories, here's one more. My little brother, when he was 5 or something, gave the babysitter a heart he cut out of colored paper and she kissed him. She was a "fox" (in 70s patois). He, then, cut out some twenty more shapes and things, smaller and simpler than the first, never able to reconstruct the initial impression or reward. I envy him for learning his lesson so young, the lesson that you can't recreate that first impression. I've been trying that all my life. One time a girl told me I was a great writer, and the rest is cutting-out-paper-shapes history. If only life were simpler than that.

 
At 11:36 PM, Blogger Steve Sheppard said...

Ideal writing conditions: Inspired. Anywhere I feel inspired to write something is a good place. Ideal writing place - not sure, but I've written in some cool places before. The Verb cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn was one. It personified the purest form of coffee house. Hardwood floors, dark, with dark little cubby holes and booths, a hand-written menu, gourmet triple-decker PBJ's on black bread, ridiculously nuclear punk metal thrash playing, a bulletin board covered floor to ceiling in papers and eleventy-billion staples, eight wifi nodes popping up on your laptop, dogs on leashes, chicks in their sundresses, smoking, shitty old bikes, bums, $8,000 Mac laptops, and the ubiquitous smell of two or three superb coffees in the air. I was there for five weeks, but never talked to anyone. I think I remember conversations, but they were only ones I imagined while I was there, or overheard, and projected myself into their shoes. New York is hard on you if you go there alone.

Seattle's better, and I think better things are coming from Seattle than from Brooklyn. If you go downtown to that swilly Pike market, where the moj-merchant fish tossers sell their over-priced salmon, if you go way in the back where lay people aren't supposed to go, you'll find a tiny old chowder bar called Ivar's. Take the red, duct-taped booth on the wall, the only one with the funny crank out window, and crank it out. You'll have good chowder, decent free wifi, and an amazingly secret panoramic view of Puget Sound.

 
At 7:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

FAMOUS?

I can accept the fact that one of the three of us will become famous.. but hey- why not ALL three. Again- I don't mean famous like household name... just known enough we get paid to write.
- Love the brother story.

 
At 11:53 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm with you, Amy. One for all and all for one!

And Brother Steve, though you can't re-create a first impression, you CAN go beyond its shallow waters and wade into the deep, scary currents where you don't know if you can swim (to toss out a thin-worn cliche in a land-locked state).

If, in fact, you've really spent the past few years or more writing for a girl who told you that you were a great writer, and for no deeper reason -- the hard news is that motivation deserved to die a horrible and violent death, wretched as it may have felt. With it, your writing would have only grown as far as her tether, not as far God intended it to.

Now you may feel left with an exploded hole or a vacuum, but it's really just a clean space, a blank page, a firmer foundation.

We can bury the writing gifts we've been given or we can risk pursuing them and making fools of ourselves. But if we believe that "to whom much is given, much is required," we really don't have a choice.

 
At 4:19 PM, Blogger Steve Sheppard said...

Thanks guys. Let's all three remember these days, when we're crashing Amazon's servers! Steve.

 
At 6:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Motivations can change. As mentioned above, a year and a half ago I was writing out of pure rage.

I just realized that as God uses prayer to change our hearts, He can also use writing, community, anything He chooses really.

Whenever we experience change, we also seem to taste some sense of loss, even when the situation changes for the better. Its okay to feel the loss.

Nicole touches on a great concept-- - RISK. With low risk is low reward. High risk = high reward. No need to be foolish, but you get the idea. Change is risky.

 

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