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Posts by Carly Sandifer

Jul 31

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Write what you don’t know and what you do

You’ve heard the writing adage, “write what you know.” Writing about what you know has a benefit of giving your writing a sense of authority — the level of detail and accuracy that makes readers feel confident and immersed in the story or ideas.

But I especially like to write about what I don’t know. For one thing, I’m a learning junkie, so I get to feed my curiosity while I write. And when it comes to some forms of writing, we don’t know what we know until we engage in writing, which is an act of discovery.

Think about how you can blend what you know with what you don’t know.

Think of your experiences and knowledge as an element or starting point. A place you know well might be your setting, but everything that happens could be brand new. Use what you know, the details and images, as a way to free your imagination. Then trust your creative powers to invent something new.

Here are two advantages to embracing the unknown: You’ll widen your writing possibilities. You aren’t limiting yourself. Think of yourself as a writing explorer. You’ll bring a fresh perspective. You might see something in an original, creative way that reveals a new spin, plot twist, or original idea.

Jul 29

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How to use a timeline to build emotion and meaning into your memoir or novel

While writing my memoir, I found that a timeline of key events in my characters’ lives helped me excavate memories and find context. I recently added another element to my timeline that has helped me advance the emotional beats of the story as I revise. And it works for fiction as well as memoir.

Because writers must go beyond the events of a story or life to include the meaning behind the memories, I realized that a key part of a timeline could include notes about the significance, emotion, and outcomes of character milestones.

As part of my timeline, I list ages and family milestones: births, deaths, major illnesses, turning points, and historical events. The new addition of emotion and meaning behind those events helped me find more opportunities to add conflict and resolution to my scenes. Read more

Jul 25

Revise your poem with this writing checklist

So many facets of writing craft go into making a poem or story flow and resonate with readers. The complexity of fitting all the pieces together into a meaningful whole is exactly what I love about the challenge of writing and revising.

I’m creating a list (a work in progress) to remind me of what I want to think about when I write and revise my poetry. Maybe these points will help you in your writing or if you’re called on to critique a friend’s poetry.

  1. Does the title help advance the poem’s story?
  2. Is the first line compelling?
  3. Does the first line reveal what I want the reader to know? Does it ground them in the meaning of the poem, hint at what’s to come? Read more

Jul 23

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Five tools and tactics to increase writing productivity

Everyone I know seems to suffer from lack of focus these days due to information overload, apps, and gadgets that compete for attention. That’s especially bad news for our brains and our ability to get work done, writing and otherwise.

Here are a few of my favorite tools and tactics to stay focused. If you want to amplify your productivity, consider if these would work for you.

Shut down anything that pings. Anything that interrupts is bad for productivity, so if you want to focus on a project, turn off any notification or alert functions on your phone and computer for e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook.

Close excess windows. Set times for research and times for writing that are separate from time spent on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. I’m most focused on my writing when I close everything but my Word file.

Create urgency. Stay on track by using a timer. You might like the Pomodoro technique, in which you use a timer to break down periods of work into 25-minute segments called “pomodori” (from the Italian word pomodoro for “tomato”), separated by short breaks. To learn more, check out the Pomodoro website and free PDF. Read more

Jul 18

How momentous events lead to compelling personal writing

What are the big events in your life? Big, life-changing, world changing events can be turning points and crucial material for writing a memoir, autobiography, or essay.

Some of the most compelling stories I’ve heard from students in my memoir classes have been about events, including 9-11, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the Apollo 11 mission in which Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong made history by being the first men to walk on the moon.

Writing about the big moments in history grounds your stories in time and place and adds historical context. When I began writing my memoir, I created a timeline with dates and ages of key characters, including significant events in my family and in history. Read more

Jul 16

Warm up for writing with poem sketching

I’ve known artists who begin a painting by making a sketch. I see this as a form of experimentation or a rough draft to get a sense of what could be. As a writer, I practice my own form of sketching by playing with words on a page to see what images and ideas rise to the surface.

I first began this form of poetic sketching after reading the book “Poemcrazy” by Susan Wooldridge. I’d type random words in rows on a page, cut them up, and place them in a jar. Taking a handful of words, I’d see which words resonated and how they could be arranged to create a whole. This form of poem making reminds me of how I view writing poetry as a puzzle to solve, figuring out the best way to fit words together to form a pleasing whole. Read more

Jul 10

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Recent entries in my commonplace book

I collect words and sentences like some people collect salt and pepper shakers, stamps, or paintings. I love words and sentences for their sounds and ideas. My commonplace books are home to poems, quotes, and snippets of text that inspire me. If you’re interested in learning more about commonplace books, read, A twist on the writer’s journal: The commonplace book.

For a glimpse at recent entries from my commonplace book, check out the excerpts below. Then feel free to share something from your commonplace book.

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” – Cesar Cruz Read more

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