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In part one of A Day in the Life (of One
Writer on Retreat), Kim Winters shared with readers excerpts of her personal journal while attending The Write
Place/The Write Time, SCBWI-Illinois' writer's retreat. In part two, Kim reveals the powerful lessons she learned that
weekend.
Late last spring eighteen published and aspiring children's book writers (including yours truly) came together for
The Write Place/The Write Time, a SCBWI-Illinois weekend retreat held at the Cenacle Retreat House in Chicago.
A season has passed since then—a crazed season filled with end-of-the-school-year concerts, plays and graduations;
Girl Scout bug camp and Korean culture week; family birthdays, picnics, and parades; two laptop meltdowns (the latest not
yet resolved); two trips to the Bristol Renaissance Faire (one in costume, one in civvies); and, amazingly, thankfully,
writing.
Not all of the writing I managed to do is good. In fact, most of it stinks. But one of the most powerful lessons I walked
away from the writer's retreat with is that in order to harvest powerful prose, you need to thrash your way through a lot of
manure. Here are some of the other lessons I learned that fateful weekend:
1. Revision isn't a dirty word. It's about re-seeing the story from another angle,
another viewpoint. Much can be learned, says writer/retreat leader extraordinaire
Sharon Darrow, by rewriting a scene from another character's point of view. Write
a scene. Then re-enter the room, sit in another place, experience the moment through
someone else's eyes. I tried it and was amazed by what I learned. Through
re-visioning, we discover the story that must be told.
2. Do away with the shoulds. Sitting butt in chair for the hard work of writing a
novel, poem or story is difficult enough without should-ing on ourselves in the
process. Enough said.
3. Don't wait for the right time to write. Just do it. Make a date with your muse
and be there. Don't worry about how much or how little you're writing. And don't judge
the quality. Write something. Muscle through it if you have to. Celebrate when you're
done.
4. Honor Your Process. As hard as it is not to do so, don't compare your process to
anyone else's. If you're sitting butt in chair, if you're keeping writing a priority,
if you're reading like a writer, if you're seeing potential characters in the people
you meet everyday, you're a writer. Everything you write—each sentence, every
paragraph, every word, informs your writing. Everything you experience, the homeless
man on the street, a sick parent, your child's meltdown, the hijacking of your laptop by
cyber gremlins, informs your writing. Honor where you are because where you are is right
for you.
5. Find an inspiring quote and carry it with you. My current favorite was found in
the fourth-floor stairwell of the Cenacle Retreat House: "All the hardships that you face
in life, all the tests and tribulations, all the nightmares and all the losses, most
people still view as curses, as punishments by God, as something negative. If you would
only know that nothing that comes to you is negative. I mean nothing. All the trials
and tribulations, the biggest losses that you ever experience, things that make us say,
'If I had only known about this, I would never have been able to make it through,' are
gifts to you. It's like somebody had to—what do you call it when you make the hot
iron into a tool?—you have to temper the iron. It is an opportunity that you are
given to grow. This is the sole purpose of existence on this planet earth. You will not
grow if you sit in your beautiful flower garden and somebody brings you gorgeous food on a
silver platter. But you will grow if you are sick, if you are in pain, if you experience
losses, and if you do not put your head in the sand, but take the pain and learn to accept
it, not as a curse or as a punishment but as a gift with a very, very specific purpose."
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
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