Tempting as it is to splash a bit of hard alcohol to my tea, VODKA is an acronym for the steps I follow when tackling a difficult writing project. I’ve used the technique for everything, from scientific journal articles to personal essays. It allows me to break big assignments into manageable pieces and places my creative self in the driver’s seat. 

Writing with VODKA

‘V’ is for Verify.

‘Verify the assignment and the format!’ teachers and professors tell me. I half-read, jump into research and writing, then discover I am writing about the wrong thing. My best, to date: reading “Three case studies, five copies each,” as five case studies. Verifying the assignment took two minutes of reading and saved four weeks of work. 

I also like to verify format. Scientific reports require a series of facts and conclusions, with little or no room for opinion. A five-part persuasive essay asks for opinion with an opening paragraph, three supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. A personal essay, while still governed by conventions, wanders a bit as it moves from personal to universal. Knowing what the product is supposed to look like gives my writing direction.

‘O’ is for Overcome. 

The Law of Inertia says, “objects at rest stay at rest, until external force is applied.” To move from thinking about writing to writing, I need an external force. Looming due dates do this, but waiting to write until the night before leaves me cursing myself, my writing, and the outcome. 

Now, I use free-writing as my external force. I set a 30-minute timer, sit with my iPad, then write as much as I can about the topic. My goal is to write without thinking, letting ideas flow directly from my brain onto the keyboard. I challenge myself to produce 1,000 words and give bonus points for odd ideas, run-on sentences, and unique images or descriptions. 

Free-writing does several interesting things. First, it gets a bunch of material on the page, overcoming the inertia of a blank page. Second, writing fast brings my filters down. Somewhere around word 500, Perfectionist stands aside and Crazy Typist takes over. Suddenly, I see connections and associations I hadn’t appreciated. I discover the piece’s what and why. 

Finally, for pieces that require emotional insight, free-writing helps me reach deep inside. An introvert, I avoid talking about myself. In the middle of a writing frenzy, true thoughts and feelings find their way onto the page.

‘D’ is for Draw. 

Some people move directly from free-writing to a more formal piece. I can’t. After I’ve dumped a bunch of ideas onto the page, organizing them into a coherent piece is overwhelming and overwhelm destroys momentum. So, I move from writing to drawing. 

I start by highlighting key ideas in my free-write. Then I put them on a post-it, 3×5 card, chalkboard, or digital board (Scrapple is a favorite). I move the boxes around, grouping like arguments and supporting details. 

It takes time to visualize where each piece fits. I like to lay things out, go for a 15-minute walk, then revisit the board and shuffle as needed. Visualization helps me see where additional detail or information is needed. Similarly, a post-it stuck in the corner, refusing to link with other ideas, doesn’t belong in the piece and gets thrown out.

Instructions to authors and genre conventions can provide helpful scaffolding for these drawings. For a five-paragraph opinion essay, I separate the introduction, supporting information, and conclusion into different sections. Then I organize the various pieces of each section. If, instead, my task is a personal essay, I group the ‘why am I telling this story?’ pieces in one place, details about the event in another, and lessons learned in another.  

‘K’ is for Kraft^®. 

Once I order all the pieces, I cut and paste them into Word. Like any cut and paste, the initial Word document is a messy assortment of bullet points and incomplete sentences. So, I add a little glue—connecting bullet points into sentences and sentences into paragraphs. I refer to this as the Kraft^® phase, squeezing a little cheese here and there until everything sticks together.

Processed cheese isn’t healthy for my body and unpolished sentences aren’t healthy for my essay, so I add a little Craft to the Kraft^®. I read the piece aloud, listening for places where the sentences aren’t connecting or a different word choice would improve connotation. Sometimes I read all the way through and then fix the rough spots. Sometimes I read and fix as I go. My goal is a document that moves smoothly, from the opening sentence, through the various paragraphs, to the epiphany and conclusion. 

‘A’ is for Audience. 

The last step is to tailor the piece to my audience. Is the piece persuasive or instructive, written for my peers, or the admissions board? I imagine how these people talk to each other, the language they use, word choice, sentence structure, and images. I work back through my piece, editing it to match this language. If I have time, I send the piece to someone like the person I am writing for and ask for feedback. My goal is not to obscure my voice, but to adapt it to the people I want to entertain, persuade, or inform. 

Whew! I’m almost done. I’ve Verified the assignment, Overcome inertia, Drawn connections between my ideas, Krafted an interesting essay, and tailored it to my Audience. Ideally, I let my piece sit for a week, then return for a final round of editing. And always, before I hit send, I run spell check and pass my essay through a grammar application like ProWritingAid or Grammarly. 

Then, I sit back with my tea and cream scone and celebrate. 

Kamm Prongay is a writer and veterinarian whose essays intertwine science, nature, people, and place. A child of the South, raised in the Pacific Northwest, Kamm spent time at sea as a Naval Surface Warfare Officer before coming ashore to pursue veterinary school, clinical practice, teaching and research. Kamm lives with her wife, Liz, and two curious cats in Portland, Oregon.

You can find her on her website.

The post How to Write an Essay: Tea with VODKA appeared first on DIY MFA.

I can’t encircle the trunk with my arms or see the top. Douglas Fir trees are like that. 500-year old giants, they stretch straight to the sky, snag clouds, and create their own weather. The bark smells of cinnamon and moisture, and if I am not careful, it will leave a scratch or two on my forearms. It would be easier to measure the circumference with a measuring tape, but then we couldn’t trade breaths, the tree and I.

A single tree holds enough wood to build three or four houses. If I press my ear to the trunk, I can hear the water going up, and feel the great heart of the tree beat in time with the wind. I am too close to count branches. I have to step back, way back, build distance. Only then can I see the tree, and hear all the species she houses and feeds.

Douglas Fir distance, I call it—the distance required for perspective, learning, and growth.

I love reading essays almost as much as I love Douglas Fir trees. I require an afternoon snack of tea and cookies for my body, an essay or two for my brain. But to read like a writer, I must move from mere consumer to student, and to do that, I need a deep understanding of an essay’s conventions, structures and expectations. 

When I Google “Essential Essay Collections” and get more ‘top 10, top 25, top 100 collections’ than my eyes or pocketbook can handle. Do I start with Montaigne or Didion, short form or long, formal or informal, personal or travel? If I read this author, what other authors do I ignore?

I need distance, Douglas Fir distance, to sort out which writers deserve my attention and space on my bookshelf. But how?

After several days of overwhelm, cross referencing various ‘must read’ lists, I find a solution. Combining Anthologies, ‘Best Of’ Collections, and a select few favorite authors lets me approach the richness of essay without feeling guilty about all the authors and essays I don’t have time to read.   

Anthologies

Essay anthologies offer an easy entry into the genre. Most collections provide examples of early essay forms and topics. Anthologies are also available in various subgenres, but I prefer more inclusive collections.

My first acquisition was Phillip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. In one (admittedly large) volume, I have 2000 years of personal essay examples on everything from ambition to education and death. Part I introduces me to early essayists, like Seneca, Plutarch, and Michel de Montaigne. The anthology also includes writers from multiple continents, and provides examples by form, including memoir, book review, humor, and lecture.  Complementing the rich collection, Lopate’s introduction highlights the key components of a good essay, conversational element, honesty, egotism, irony, and other questions of form and style.

Samuel Cohen’s 50 Essays, a Portable Anthology, is a nice compromise between size, price, and variety. At 503 pages, the text is one-third of Lopate’s, was updated in 2023, and includes some newer writers.

‘Best Of’ and Literary Magazines

Anthologies are great for understanding past writing trends, but don’t include new writers or diverse voices. To fill this gap, I look to current work. HarperCollins’ Best American Series showcases the best non-fiction from the preceding year. Series editors select works from online and print, then a guest editor chooses the final pieces for publication. The nonfiction has been so popular it recently expanded to include two other essay collections, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and The Best American Food Writing.

I also search for collections published by nontraditional houses. Two recent discoveries are Shapes of Native Nonfiction, a curated collection of non-fiction writing by 27 contemporary Native writers, and Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction, a collection of essays exploring the notion of genre and creative nonfiction.

Literary magazines (Orion, Brevity, and Hippocampus, among others) also include diverse writers, and help me understand what editors are accepting. I flag essays I like, and ones I don’t, then study them to understand why. 

Favorite Authors

The third section of my bookshelf is devoted to Shadow Mentors, writers whose work I read, reread, and dissect. I am picky about who gets these seats. These writers have a deep and broad body of work, create pieces that touch my thin space, remind me of the great joy and terrible aches of life.

My favorite essayists leave me wondering why I hadn’t seen a thing that way, or that I had felt exactly that way. I sample one or two pieces in an afternoon, analyze style, image, tempo, and voice.

Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking taught me to write about grief and loss with honesty and clarity. I also enjoy the breadth of Didion’s work. Her essays touch upon life and death, politics, and writing.

Shadow Mentors also inspire. When words elude me, I pick up Brian Doyle’s Joyas Voadoras. I marvel all over again how he moves from a hummingbird’s heart to a whale’s, then ties the two together with pancakes. 

Populate your bookshelf

I’ve touched on a few of the anthologies and collections that inspire me, and my author shadow mentors. But essay is an expansive form, and it will continue to branch. Populate your bookshelf with whatever works resonate, inspire, and delight. As for me, I am sitting with Brian Doyle’s One Long River of Song in one hand, and a cup of English Breakfast tea in the other. I’ll go back to work, just as soon as I finish reading.

Kamm Prongay is a writer and veterinarian whose essays intertwine science, nature, people, and place. A child of the South, raised in the Pacific Northwest, Kamm spent time at sea as a Naval Surface Warfare Officer before coming ashore to pursue veterinary school, clinical practice, teaching and research. Kamm lives with her wife, Liz, and two curious cats in Portland, Oregon.

You can find her on her website.

The post Essential Essay Collections appeared first on DIY MFA.