Writers! Let’s finish 2023 on a strong note. Join me and Charlotte Lit on Tuesday, November 7, from 6 – 8 p.m. for a Zoom class on where and how to publish your short pieces. We’ll survey the most exciting open calls and contests seeking your work now, whether poetry, fiction, nonfiction or hybrid.
Hope to see you there!
This summer is a milestone for many reasons, but as you may have noticed, I officially changed my last name from “Memory” to “Harris!” I was thrilled to learn that my one-sentence flash essay “Pedal, Pedal, Pedal” won Off Topic Publishing‘s June 2023 contest on the theme of “Moving,” and I was so grateful for the opportunity to debut my new byline.
This piece wouldn’t have been possible if not for the support of Ang and Marilyn, my fellow “Memwarriors.” In fact, this piece was inspired by my love of Ang’s own masterful and riveting one-sentence essay, “Girls Like Us,” which appeared in Exposition Review. I’m linking it here so you can read it, too, and also fall in love with this unforgettable piece.
Why not try to write your own one-sentence flash? For more inspiration, I’m reprinting an excerpt from my column in the July 2023 Women on Writing newsletter, “Writer, Stop and Smell the Roses.”
As someone born in July, I’m a summer baby through and through. With so much inspiration around me, new ideas are springing up like clover. But it’s SUMMER! Gardening, swimming, dining on the deck, watching the baby birds…. What’s a writer to do?
As I thought about it, I realized the answer was right in front of me, in the form of an acrostic for the word S-U-M-M-E-R. If you’re like me, and you’re also suffering from a bad case of SWD (Seasonal Writer Distraction), I hope the pointers below will help you too.
S. Soak It In. As my puppy Tulsi reminds me, summer abounds in sensory pleasures—sights, scents, sounds, textures, and tastes. There’s the evening primrose with its velvety blooms, the myrrh fragrance of my roses, the eerie melody of the wood thrush, the sweet tang of my black raspberries, and more. Ahh! This is the time of year to let these sensations wash over you, and later, jot down those metaphors that will invariably come to mind. And don’t let those new ideas get too far away before acting on them.
U. Be U. Enjoying the summer is all about finding what works for “U.” While I should get back to my edits and revisions, I know that I must also reward myself along the way. After all, a dangling carrot is much more effective than a stick. For every hour spent on more difficult work, I’ve resolved to give myself the gift of 10 minutes to work on something new. And to satisfy my inner planner, I’ll set a mini goal or two for the summer, such as learning a new word or trying out a new style of sentence. But this is what works for me, and you are certain to find your own system. Whatever it takes, let “U” be “U” this summer.
M. Move. We writers know only too well how easy it is to park ourselves in front of a computer or notebook for hours. This is as bad for the mind as it is for the body. Think back to the frigid temperatures of January and how you longed for warmer weather and if you’re able, get moving. Take a walk around the yard in the morning. Breathe in the fresh air and revel in the scents of the season. Something as simple as lounging on the porch swing and feeling the sun on my face is all it takes to refresh my body and mind. Find a way to engage with the outside world and stretch your limbs, even for a few minutes. Your writing—and your health—will thank you for it.
M. Marvel. Awaken your inner child. Take some time every day to wonder about the world around you with fresh eyes. I like to imagine that the rustle I hear every morning as I walk by the bamboo grove comes from a family of fairies. Or that the dragonfly that just flew by shimmers with wings of stained glass. Whether it’s on your deck, in the woods, or at the park, spend some time marveling at nature. If you’re a poet, draft a new poem every day for a week. And if prose is your specialty, try to write a poem anyway, and use the language in your fiction or nonfiction.
E. Enjoy the Moment. Not only should you cherish the delights of summer, you should seize them too. As an example, I recently spent an entire morning laboring over the ending to a short story that just wasn’t working. Reluctantly, I took a break and heeded my husband’s call to witness one of our bee colonies swarm to their new home. Boy was I glad I did! This magical moment stirred my creative soul and generated a new metaphor that gave my conclusion that special little oomph. Don’t let your work keep you from experiencing the special moments of summer. They may never come again, and they may be just what you need.
R. Relax. The idea of summer is synonymous with napping in a hammock and paddling down a lazy river, but if you’re like me, you’re probably very busy trying to juggle it all—pets, gardening, family gatherings, and of course, writing. The extreme heat of summer can be exhausting, especially with more than twelve hours of sunshine, and it’s important that we take care of ourselves. Don’t feel guilty about taking a breather every now and then. Not only will it make you feel better, it just might improve your writing too!
If you like what you’re read so far, I hope you’ll check out the entire July WOW newsletter. It’s full of terrific writing advice and markets galore.
In the meantime, here’s wishing you a S-U-M-M-E-R to remember, full of endless joy and writing inspiration.
As a busy freelancer, wife, inveterate reader, dog owner, and caretaker of a cherry orchard, I’m frequently asked how I find time for personal writing. Well, I’m about to let you in on a little secret.
I don’t schedule it. That’s right. I used to make appointments with my muse, sit down at my desk, and just prayed she showed up. Sometimes she did, and trust me, I was duly grateful. But these planned events felt a little forced. The muse, after all, depended on me. And I had to be in the moment to make it work.
As a former manager, I built a career around appointed times, calendars, meetings. So scheduling time to write just made sense. But now, since leaving the traditional work place, I’ve taken the liberating step of letting my muse schedule herself.
WHAT?
I can hear the protests, the murmurings around the world. I can even feel the wobble of the Earth at these words. I’m sure you’re wondering how I can possibly make time to write without a formal reservation.
Here’s what I do. Now I’m driven solely by the creative instinct. I write only when I have something to say. And when I do have a new idea, sometimes, brace yourself, I actually refuse to let myself write.
WHAT, WHAT, WHAT?
I know it sounds nuts. Even perverse. But in the words of the great poet Ovid: “What is allowed has no charm; what is not allowed we burn to do.” (Amores, II, xix, 3). The act of abstaining from writing actually fans the flames and lets my idea stew inside my head. When I finally do sit down to write, the words stream onto the page with new vigor. I encourage you to try this approach yourself. Next time you feel as if you “should” be writing, do something else instead, such as pull weeds, walk the dog, or even do the dishes. You might be surprised at the results.
Over the past few months, I’ve been fortunate enough to serve as a regular columnist for Healthline, and my most recent piece, M.S. Can’t Stop Me From Gardening, appeared last month. I also recently learned that my long-form essay, “Private History of Deviled Eggs” earned honorable mention in the 2022 Alex Albright Nonfiction Contest and will appear in The North Carolina Literary Review in 2023. Another long-form essay, “My ‘Haunted’ Lamp” will be released as a podcast on Episode 3 of PenDust Radio in September, so please stay tuned.
Wishing you a happy summer of writing – and abstinence as needed!
Writers, what does your true love say to you?
First Day: Alone in your cozy writing nook, a partridge in a pear tree, you love every word of your new essay. It’s just perfect. Then you realize you’re 500 words over the limit for the contest you want to enter. Yikes!
Second Day: Like those two turtle doves, your initial love for your essay has migrated to sub-Saharan Africa for the winter, maybe forever. You hate your essay now. As you read over it, you realize it’s not very good at all. Is there anything worth keeping?
Third Day: Absolument! Your three French hens remind you of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Give yourself a break. Besides, there’s no time to start anything new.
Fourth Day: Or is there? The four “calling birds” in your backyard clamor for a new tune. Start over, the blackbirds sing. Start over! Start over! START OVER!
Fifth Day. You have no energy to begin something new. Your five golden rings may be just brass, but your essay is the best you’ve got, so you decide to polish it up the best you can.
Sixth Day. Okay, so you won’t actually cut anything. You’ll just trim the hedge a teeny bit, taking care not to disturb the six Canada geese-a-laying. You gently prune a few words here and a few words there. But is it enough?
Seventh Day. It is not. However, you refuse to cut the most precious part of your essay. Even if they say that all writers eventually “murder their swans.” Well, that’s for other people to do. Their swans are not as precious as your swans.
Eighth Day. Your cereal milk has soured, and doubt sets in. Wallow in your pity for a while and then get back to the barn with the other maids. You’ve got serious work to do.
Ninth Day. Cutting is actually easier than you thought. The delete key clicks like Ginger Rogers’ heels, and your heart dances with delight. You don’t miss those swans at all.
Tenth Day. Your essay isn’t the same. Now you fear it’s terrible. Ten lords leap in and take it away. You’re happy to see it go.
Eleventh Day. The pipers bring your essay back, and they’re not playing a dirge. When you read your essay again with fresh eyes, you realize it may be better. Leaner, more concise, and more compelling. Hurray!
Twelfth Day. Take a deep breath and submit your revised essay. The world may not love it, but who cares? You do. In your mind, it’s just perfect. And in the end, that’s all that matters. After all, new ideas drum on and on…..
Wishing you the happiest of holidays and a very productive New Year of writing! As you look ahead to 2022, consider joining me on Tuesday, January 11 from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. via Zoom for How to Move from the Slush Pile to the Rush Pile. In this special class hosted by Charlotte Lit, we’ll cover the art behind successful submissions and how to move from the “slush” pile to the pile editors rush to accept. We’ll discuss how to find the best fit for your writing, tips on putting your best foot forward, and a little secret to boost the number of marketable pieces in your portfolio. We’ll also talk about the nuts and bolts of submission: cover letters, biographies, tracking and more, such as how to stay motivated as you cast those precious pearls out into the world.
Cost: $45 Charlotte Lit members, $55 non-members. Register here online.
I don’t keep up with the news as much as I should but occasionally a little sound bite from the living room, where my husband watches TV, invades my study. The snippet “Less Drama, More Mama” recently made its way into my head, and as rhymes do, it lodged there.
Giving up the “drama” of politics makes sense for Kellyanne Conway, a mother of four, but the opposite is true for fiction writers. Our mantra should be “Bring on the Drama, Mama!”
When we pen short stories, drama is absolutely essential. It raises the stakes for our characters and magically captivates our readers. For example, if we’re writing a story about a young mother coping with a painful separation, we can’t make her circumstances too easy. Suppose she holds out hope that her husband will come back. The worst thing in the world would be for Sam to just walk back into the house with his suitcase and say: “Mary, I’m home!”
It’s not that we’re being cruel. It’s not that we want to watch Mary suffer. But we have to be realistic and understand that in real life these things don’t work out so perfectly. We want our reader to care about Mary and root for her. The best thing we can do for Mary is to increase the drama even more. We should have her discover that Sam has not only been cheating on her with his secretary, they’re now living together. And although Mary dreams of helping support her two kids by opening a bakery, her loan application gets turned down. To make matters worse, the bank repossesses her car! Poor Mary.
Not so fast. Because we’ve seen glimpses of Mary’s extraordinary baking talent and her compassion for making muffins for an elderly woman in the neighborhood, we don’t feel sorry for her. In fact, the reader has every reason to believe that Mary has it in her to survive these events. We like Mary and because Sam is a selfish lout, we believe she deserves a good life without him.
The fiction writer increases admiration for Mary by watching her react to events that might crush the average person. For example, when Sam refuses to co-sign a new loan, we show her react by baking more muffins. That’s when it dawns on Mary that due to the pandemic, a business in a public building would be a very bad idea right now. So she decides to start her bakery at home, and not only does she make enough money in one weekend to get back her car, she’s far too busy to miss Sam anymore.
For the writer, the act of adding more tension to our story makes it fun to write. We don’t have to worry about “blank-page-itis” anymore because we’re suddenly enthralled with helping Mary develop the qualities she needs to thrive. The reader gets to see a little of herself in Mary, and grow along with her. The world is suddenly a better place. So bring on the drama, Mama!
Drama is just one of the topics that we’ll cover in my upcoming Charlotte Lit online workshop: Let’s Write a Short Story: Studio. What makes this course different is that every student gets a special “Story Worksheet” created by me just for this course. As we go along, I’ll be helping students fill out the worksheet step-by-step. This will enable students to thoughtfully construct each of the five essential elements of the short story before writing it. That way, when students start writing, which is the next step, they’ll have all the elements in place to captivate their readers, page by page. And they’ll receive help from me every step of the way. These lessons will help students generate even more stories well beyond this course.
“Let’s Write a Short Story” Studio starts on Sunday, September 13 and runs through Saturday, October 10. Enrollment is limited to just twelve students, so sign up soon to reserve your spot. What are you doing this fall? Raking leaves or fretting about COVID? I hope you’ll be writing along with me.
Great news! For several weeks this summer, I’ve been at work with my friends at Charlotte Lit designing an exciting new online class–my first ever. This class is what we call a “Studio,” which means that it offers deeply engaging, content-rich online modules and a combination of pre-recorded and Zoom live course instruction through a really cool platform called Wet Ink. The course runs from Sept. 13 – October 10, which will give students the rare opportunity to draft a full-length short story AND receive detailed feedback from me. It’s unlike any course I have ever taught, so I am really excited!
Most short story workshops throw students into the open sea without a life ring. What makes this course different is that students have the benefit of using a “Story Worksheet” created by me just for this course. As we go along, I’ll be helping students fill out the worksheet step-by-step. This will enable students to thoughtfully construct each of the five essential elements of the short story before writing it. That way, when students actually start writing, which is the next step, they’ll have all the elements in place to captivate their readers, page by page. And they’ll receive help from me every step of the way. These lessons will help students generate even more stories well beyond this course.
During our time together, we’ll also study model stories by masters such as John Cheever, Shirley Jackson, and Alice Walker, but we’ll also cover excerpts by contemporary authors such as Tessa Hadley and Ralph Hart. I’ll also share how this same technique helped me write “Golden Delicious,” a short story which earned first prize last year in the Starving Writers Competition sponsored by the Franklin County Arts Council. Studying the work of other writers will give students the opportunity to learn how to read a short story like a writer, another exercise that will deliver practical dividends throughout their lives. Even better, the principles we learn can easily be applied to the novel as well!
“Let’s Write a Short Story” Studio starts on Sunday, September 13 and runs through Saturday, October 10. Enrollment is limited to just twelve students, so sign up soon to reserve your spot. What are you doing this fall? Raking leaves or fretting about COVID? I hope you’ll be writing along with me.
We’re counting down the days until Saturday, March 7, the day of my special workshop, “DIY – Write a Short Story in a Day,” at Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro, and I could not be more excited!
Some people say that the best way to write a short story is to take advantage of that first burst of passion and write it all at once. We know that this is how Shirley Jackson conceived and wrote her beloved and intriguing story, “The Lottery,” and I suspect that many other writers use this same approach. We’re going to try this method ourselves, with the help of a one-of-kind short story writing kit I designed just for this class. From story triggers to the five essential elements of a classic short story, our students will have just what they need in one convenient (and cute!) little box. Everything but the typewriter (or pen and paper, if that’s your preference)!
I’m currently assembling all of the kits, and being an amateur “crafter” of sorts, I’m relishing every moment. When it comes to sewing, for example, it’s very important for me to have all of my materials — machine, rotary cutter, thread, fabric, thimble, even my ripper– by my side. Why should writing be any different? My hope is that our students will take these “tools” with them beyond the class and use what they learn to generate and pen an endless array of short stories.
There are only 2 slots left in the class, so if you’re interested, don’t miss out! You can easily sign up by registering online or by calling (919) 545-8044 during regular business hours.
And if you can’t get enough writing inspiration, on April 25, I’m leading a workshop on Share Your Writing with the World – Revision and Submission, also at CCCC, which will be the perfect follow up to our March class. We’ll talk about markets for short stories and more, including flash fiction, creative nonfiction and essays, and poetry.
Hope to see you soon!
I love poetry for many reasons, but what I love most is how poetry can elevate the “ordinary” into something quite sublime. In fact, the most profound poems often come from everyday life—hearing the wood thrush, growing apples, or just the act of slipping on your favorite old shoes.
If you agree, and would like to learn more, please join us on Friday, February 14, 2020 at 9:30 a.m. until noon for a special workshop at the Joyful Jewel in downtown Pittsboro. What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day!
We’ll study poems by Ted Kooser, Jane Kenyon, Donald Hall, beloved local favorite Ruth Moose and more. Then, using wild new prompts, including our surroundings in the stimulating atmosphere of the Joyful Jewel, you’ll have a chance to pen at least three new poems of your own. You’re also guaranteed to leave with an inventory of ideas for many more!
So bring your favorite writing gear and get ready to fall in love (again and again!) with poetry.
Where: The Joyful Jewel in Pittsboro, N.C., at 44-A Hillsboro Street, Pittsboro, NC 27312.
Cost: $35. To register, visit The Joyful Jewel in person or call (919) 883-2775.
I hope to see you soon!
Submission is an exciting step in a writer’s life, and for some of us, it can be daunting. But it doesn’t have to be! If one of your writing resolutions for 2020 is to delve into the exciting waters of submission, why not get an early start? Join us on Saturday, January 4, 2020 from 9:30 – Noon at the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, Inc., 1817 Central Avenue, #302, in Charlotte to learn how simple (and fun) writing for publication can be!
Bring a polished piece of original work (poetry, short fiction, or nonfiction) and leave with all the tools you need to submit your writing and become a published author. You may even win a prize along the way. We’ll tackle market research for journals, newspapers, magazines and contests, submission systems, cover letters and short biographies.
Register here: https://www.charlottelit.org/event/submissions-and-contests/
I can’t think of a better way to start the New Year! I look forward to seeing you soon.
Love. You love every word of your new essay. It’s just perfect. Only a fool wouldn’t fall in love with it. Then you realize you’re 1,500 words over the limit for the contest you want to enter.
Hate. You hate your essay now. As you read over it, seeking places to cut, you realize it’s not very good at all. Is there anything worth keeping?
Accept. It’s what you’ve got, and there’s no time to write anything new. Or is there?
Start. Watch the cat scramble up the bank and into the woods. She is on the prowl this morning, looking for adventure. Maybe you should start something new.
Accept. Realize you have no energy to start anew. Go back and re-read your essay. It’s the best you’ve got, so work with it.
Prune. You won’t actually cut anything. You’ll just trim, as gently as you prune a bonsai tree. A few words here and a few words there.
Resolve. You will NOT cut the most precious part of the essay. Yes, even if they say that all writers eventually “murder their darlings.” Well, that’s for other people to do. Their darlings are not as precious as your darlings.
Doubt. Or are they?
Cut. Not just prune. You have no choice. Realize that you have to slay those darlings in cold blood. And you better do it right now before you change your mind. Leave that “undo” key alone!
Hate. Your essay isn’t the same at all. It’s terrible. So you put it away. You can’t bear to read it again without those darlings.
Accept. A few days later, bring back your essay, newly shorn of the darlings. Read it again. Realize, gulp, that it may actually be better without the darlings. Leaner, concise, and to the point. What were you thinking?
Love. The world may not love it, but you do. And that’s all that matters. Lick your paws and move on. New ideas are just around the corner….
Ashley Harris 