Keeping the Balls in the Air

Hello.  My name is Amy and I’m a YES-aholic. 

If you’re looking for someone to care for your llamas while you’re away, build cardboard pagodas for the school food carnival, or teach thirty first-graders to sing and dance like monkeys…then YES, I’m your girl!  I’ve served on boards, coordinated critique groups, established organizations and launched everything from books to water balloons. 

I also run my own architecture firm, captain a couple sports teams, part-time single-mom my kid, president the PTO and turn nouns into verbs.  I have seven siblings, a host of lovely friends, and stacks of unread books for which I never have enough time.  And in the cracks between all those things to which I say YES, I write. 

I’m guessing this sounds familiar. 

Not-Writing

School has just started here in Virginia, and like many teachers, I’ve been asking my students what they did this summer. So it seemed appropriate to write about my summer, and how I learned the value of Not-Writing.

My summer has been framed by two Highlights workshops with the fabulous Patti Gauch: one in May, the other this October. Between May and October, I was supposed to write the entire first draft of a new story. 

No worries, right? 

I'm a huge proponent of the Butt in Chair school of writing: You write whether you feel like it or not. You hope the muse shows up, but if she doesn't, you don't sit at your desk, weeping softly and consuming large amounts of ice cream. You write. Finally, the muse feels so left out that she actually shows up. 

Imagine my surprise when I discovered how well I wrote when… I didn’t write. Here's what happened:

Why Slog When You Can Collage?

Not long ago I had a conversation with a writer friend (I’m looking at you, Heather Petty) about the book I’m currently revising. Okay, mostly it was me despairing about my ongoing revisions and her listening patiently. And then she said this:

“If you are slogging through the writing, it will read like slog. You need to find the fun again.”

A few weeks later I stumbled across a post on author Jennifer Crusie's blog in which she described using collage to brainstorm her books.  

     As a costume designer, part of my process included creating a concept board (also known as a mood board, inspiration board or design board)- a collage of images and fabrics that could be used to communicate my design ideas/concept to the rest of the production team.