Making It Happen

There’s this paperback book on my shelf entitled Write It Down, Make it Happen: Knowing What You Want—and Getting It! (by Henriette Anne Klauser, A Fireside Book, Simon & Schuster, 2000). I bought it when Mandala Center, our original WomanWords meeting site, was selling out as its owner, Rochelle Brener, prepared to move to Sedona. The book was on sale and the title made me laugh. I was strong in the belief about writing for healing and empowerment by that time, but boldly making this statement seemed a little far out. I was envisioning writing about winning the lotto or knocking several years off my age (hmmm… 30 was a good age, or what I remember of it…).

Still, I acquired the volume to shelve with my library of other books on writing and writers, and it’s printed on one of the extensive lists of book resources that get handed out at journal writing workshops when I lead them.

Last September, at the WomanWords Retreat, I led a fiction writing workshop. That wasn’t my original plan. I’d wanted WomanWorder Jan Tramontano to do that. Jan writes lots of fiction (as well as poetry, memoir, grants and whatever else comes her way) and had already had work accepted for publication. Me? I had some short stories, a couple of which I’d entered in competitions (which I didn’t win), a couple rejected (nicely) by a few literary journals. Oh—and the middle-grade novel that hadn’t yet gotten out of the third-edit stage. When Jan learned she had a schedule conflict and couldn’t attend the retreat, I didn’t feel qualified to take over that slot. But there wasn’t another choice—not on the almost non-existent budget for the retreat.

And so I designated myself as the fiction workshop leader and started preparing for it, however inadequate I felt. Even though I’d read plenty on the subject, had participated in many workshops, had worked-to-death the how-to-create-real-characters scenario, and had a slew of unsubmitted stories, I went out and bought yet another book on the topic, The Plot Thickens: 8 Ways to Bring Fiction to Life (by Noah Lukeman, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002). I poured through its pages, learning perhaps a few new things but not much—but feeling affirmed in the knowledge that I do know something even if I didn’t have that fiction publication credit.

And I decided to make the workshop fun, perhaps expecting that if the ladies were enjoying the cutting-and-pasting/designing-the-bookcover aspects of the session, they might not notice that Marilyn, their esteemed leader, was a bit of a fraud. I called it Character Collage—Writing Fiction from What You Know, and it literally included picking out images of people and places, imagining their stories—and then collaging a book cover with those images prior to any writing. First, however, there was information to disseminate about creating characters and place—and, never one to approach this sort of thing “off the cuff,” I knew I needed good notes and good handouts. Without going into detail about the workshop, I have to say that organizing the materials, researching for handouts (and quotes—I’m big on quotes), envisioning how women might work with the materials, writing down the program plan, and then actually facilitating the session at the retreat—these all made it happen.

And incredibly, less than six months later, I wrote and submitted a story accepted by KNOCK!, a new literary journal out of Antioch University Seattle—and they also will publish another of my fiction pieces in their Fall issue. Did I make that happen by writing it down for the retreat? No… well, maybe. Perhaps part of it is seeing your dream in print, feeling the words move from soul to mind to paper, knowing that believing is half of it and then you get to work. Maybe I just, subconsciously, made the shift from allowing my Inner Critic to label me as “a fraud” and moved more permanently into the space of knowing that I can write fiction. (It also helped that I had sister writers in my Wild Women Writing group insisting that I submit the first story! Check out Writings to read some of their work!)

What I’m trying to convey to you, readers and writers, is that writing it down-- journaling your dreams and desires, or transforming them into fiction or poetry or music lyrics or screenplays, or anything creative—somehow changes the way you see them, makes attainment appear more possible, breathes new life and energy into how you approach your true life’s work. I don’t have to imagine winning the lottery to know that abundance is what I’m really looking for—but writing it down might teach me what true abundance is: not what I can buy, but what good I might do with it. And in learning that, my life changes and I live accordingly.

Blessings,

Marilyn

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TRY THIS EXERCISE:

Imagine yourself as the person you’d like to be five years from now, having achieved at least one of your dreams—a famous novelist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, editing your own newsletter, illustrating children’s books, selling music compositions & lyrics regularly to country-western stars (maybe even performing them), whatever comes to mind. Be specific about the benefits—and perhaps the negatives-- of becoming this person, and include details about where you are: place, people, noises, smells, etc.

Now write about it—but write as though it’s already happened (e.g., “I’ve just signed my 150th book at Borders and my agent is telling me we have to leave now if we’re to make it to the next event on time; but there’s this white-haired, shy-seeming old woman whose been patiently waiting in line who looks as though she might…” or “The audience is hushed as I read the first lines from my latest best-seller, Love at the Mongrel Pool Hall, but I’m simply wondering when I’ll next have time to write…”

After you put down the pen, ask yourself what you learned about yourself. Maybe there’s even a character in this for a story—if so, write it. Save this piece, put it in your journal, refer to it as months or years pass. Has your dream remained the same? Have you grown in other directions? Do you have another dream to write?

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Life is a narrative that you have a hand in writing.
-Henriette Anne Klauser, from Write It Down, Make it Happen

Stories are necessary, Like food or water, stories have always been of supreme importance to the human race. They speak to us on a primal level, and they fill a need. Life can seem aimless, structureless, unjust, without resolution. Stories are the antidote to life: they offer purpose, structure, justice, resolution—not to mention romance, suspense, conflict, adventure. They offer meaning. If our lives cannot always have it, our stories can.
-Noah Lukeman, from The Plot Thickens