When your day job is totally separate from your writing, it’s sometimes more possible to sit down at your computer and escape the thoughts of the day. But when your day job exists on your personal computer (if you’re freelance, that is), it’s all too easy to let the blog writing voice take over.

If you’re a freelance writer, you may be used to switching gears. But what if the language you use as a content writer finds its way into your literary lexicon? How can you separate the two and preserve your own voice?

1) Give Up Ground

To help yourself spatially understand the difference between your work, often the simplest solution is to work on them in different places. You could do your freelance work in a co-working space and your fiction writing at a personal desk in your home. Or, if you have fewer resources, write in different areas of your home even if all you do is sit in a different corner of the room.

Psychologically, this will help you switch gears and get into writing mode because you’ll recognize the space where work happens. My only suggestion: avoid doing work in your bedroom, because you will want to take a nap!

2) Divide Your Time

The perk of making your own schedule means that you can choose when you write. You may have to give up something, but dividing up time can often help you take inventory of your work as a whole. It could be as simple as freelance work in the morning and early afternoon, essay or novel writing in the late afternoon or evening. Some writers also strictly do their personal writing on the weekends or dedicate an hour in the morning while they are still fresh and unaffected by their email inboxes.

3) Join a Writing Group That Will Hold You Accountable

Think you don’t have time to write? A writing group that expects your pages every week will make you think again. When you have a writing group that will hold you accountable in person or online, you’ll write faster than you ever thought possible. It’s pretty embarrassing to show up to workshop with no pages, so you’ll make time for the writing that you want to make happen.

4) Read or Do Writing Exercises Before Writing

Get yourself mentally unstuck by taking a breather to read an enjoyable book. It may also be helpful to do a freewriting exercise with the first line generator and a timer. Write whatever pops into your head, and don’t stop writing until the timer goes off. What you produce may not be world-changing, but at least it got you out of the content writing voice for a little while.

While it may not seem like it, there are upsides to having a writing-related day job. When you get great bylines in your dream publications, they often build your self-esteem and give you the confidence to write even more. But the truth is that whatever career path you choose, writing is a deeply personal endeavor and every writer is different in their approach to their routines. Find what works best for you and stick to it, even if the naysayers try to say you’re wrong. Only you know what works best for your writing.

Kayla Dean has written for publications like Electric Literature, Ploughshares online, Darling, and Bella Grace. She has an MA and BA in English. You can find her on Twitter @kayladeanwrites.

The post Four Tips for Moving Between Fiction and Non-Fiction Writing Voices appeared first on DIY MFA.

There are the skeptics, those writers who want you to think that the world of writing is closed to outsiders, that you might as well not bother pitching prestigious magazines. Others have been burned by glossies a few too many times, and think that because they couldn’t get into a magazine no one else can either.

So what is aiming high? It’s attempting to get your foot in the door at your dream publications even if you’re worried that large submission inboxes and lack of  literary pedigrees will prevent you from being accepted.

Here’s the truth: while it’s sometimes a longshot to pitch high-end publications like the New York Times or Tin House, it’s always worth the effort to pitch and submit your work to these outlets. Here’s why.

Submitting Helps You Grow

This is practically my motto. After enough rejections, you tend to get used to hearing No. And it’s not as bad as it seems. Editors won’t judge you if your pitch or submission doesn’t land perfectly. Just because they pass doesn’t mean your pitch was the worst email on the face of the earth, despite the sinking feeling in your stomach. Sometimes editors say no because they just ran something similar, have a specific editorial vision, or they already commissioned enough pieces for the section.

Sometimes editors will give you feedback. No, they probably won’t read through line-by-line, but editors will likely give you a jist of why they passed on your submission. It’s helpful to know if an editor you respect enjoyed reading your piece even if they can’t commission it. And you’ll go forward thinking of yourself as a serious writer because you’ve sent your work to these publications. Submitting your work to prestigious outlets has a way of making you feel that you’re putting in the proper dedication to it.

There’s Always a Chance You’ll Get Accepted

Don’t believe me? It’s true! Jamison Hill writes about what it was like to write, submit, and receive an acceptance from the New York Times Modern Love editor Daniel Jones, who called his essay “lovely” even though he was rejected in the past. Since there’s a lot of talk about the Modern Love column changing writers’ lives, it’s no surprise that Hill was shocked and pleased to receive an acceptance he never saw coming.

To increase your chances of getting accepted, it’s always a good idea to have multiple people read your piece before you send it to a dream publication. While they won’t judge you negatively for a strong submission that doesn’t quite make the cut, you want to make sure that every sentence pulls its weight, your word count matches what the section requires, and you don’t have embarrassing typos that make you look lazy. For an essay of any magnitude, it can’t hurt to find a workshop group or take an online class to work with others also trying to get a stellar byline.

You May Regret Not Trying for A Dream Publication

What if you decide not to go for your dream publication and instead submit your work to a journal that you’re not proud to be a part of? You may receive an easy acceptance, but your work may not garner the readers you hoped for in another outlet. It’s likely, especially if this is a story close to your heart, that if you don’t try to submit your work to a prestigious outlet, you might wonder if it would have been accepted if you were less afraid. Don’t let this be you.

Take a chance on your writing and submit. You never know.

Kayla Dean has written for publications like Electric Literature, Ploughshares online, Darling, and Bella Grace. She has an MA and BA in English. You can find her on Twitter @kayladeanwrites.

The post Why You Should Aim High When Pitching Nonfiction Essays appeared first on DIY MFA.

Say it with me: let’s get back to the work we love. Here are some ideas to get you writing again this summer.

Set a Timer and Write Something

Whether you have thirty minutes or three hours, set a timer and see what you can write in a set amount of time. Close your social media. Shut down the video games. Silence your cell phone, and get to work. If you find this difficult to do, use Stay Focused to block apps of your choosing so you don’t feel tempted to bounce over to Facebook to see what’s going on with your friends. While you could also require yourself to write a set word count, it may be easier to write a vomit draft. In this scenario, whether you write a paragraph or an entire essay you’ve succeeded.

Another helpful method is the Pomodoro Technique that lets you break down your work into more manageable chunks. Write for 25 minutes and take a five minute break. This will make a longer piece of writing seem less intimidating because you can break up your work with space to breathe.

Stop Letting Your Paid Work Encroach On Your Writing Time

If you have paid content writing or feature writing piling up, by all means get it done. But don’t let it cost you time on your personal projects. Even if you can only give up 30 minutes a day for your writing, find a way to do so. Find a short block of time each day to free yourself from style guides and brand voice to write like yourself. If you’re not a freelancer, this won’t apply to you, but it’s always helpful to create a boundary between your work life and your writing life.

Write Something Short

Pretend that you have to write a micro-essay that can’t exceed 200 words. Can you do it? Challenge yourself to write about a true event in your life. Remember, it doesn’t have to be the most shocking situation, but you can make it interesting with your own perspective and experiences. For a great example of micro-essays, check out Elsie Road Magazine’s Instagram highlights and this Ploughshares essay about micro-forms.

Break Out the Pen and Paper

Writing on a Google Doc may be a lifesaver, but it can also be the problem. If you aren’t getting the work done that you hoped for, shut your laptop, hide your phone, and get writing in a notebook. This may feel old-fashioned, but you may find your inspiration returning after only a few paragraphs on paper. I use the material I generate on paper to begin writing on the computer.

Write Something For Yourself

When I’m obsessing over an assignment or an essay in progress, sometimes the best thing I can do is ignore it for a moment and write something for me. Don’t think about pitching it. Don’t think about publishing it. Just write something personal for yourself, even if it’s slightly terrible and only belongs in a diary. This may be just what you need to rebuild your confidence in writing and find that unique voice that only belongs to you.

Getting off track in our writing lives can be frustrating and even embarrassing, but there’s no reason our procrastination needs to be a permanent condition. With a little self control, dedication, and focus, it’s possible to shatter the hold you’ve placed around yourself and create the work you hope will come to life.

Kayla Dean has written for publications like Electric Literature, Ploughshares online, Darling, and Bella Grace. She has an MA and BA in English. You can find her on Twitter@kayladeanwrites.

The post How To Get Back To Writing Creative Nonfiction When You’ve Lost Your Way appeared first on DIY MFA.

If we trace the history of the creative nonfiction essay to writers like Montaigne, who in the 15th century wrote about everything from friendship to death, it becomes clear that we read creative nonfiction to get inside the mind of a writer. A skilled writer can make disparate things seem connected, even the most commonplace of experiences. But that tends to be an issue when we’re all writing about the same life processes and situations.

How do we write about experiences that most people have with a unique angle? How do we find new ways to talk about things that have been talked about for thousands of years? Here are some words of advice for doing so.

Focus On The Details

Whether you’re writing about addiction, finding love, or living in New York, chances are it’s been covered already. Just take Leslie Jamison’s recent memoir The Recovering or Sloane Crosley’s essay collection Look Alive Out There, both 2018 releases. Still, there’s room for writers who have a unique take on an experience or who can, quite simply, write about something beautifully.

Part of writing about an experience is reflecting over it: Alexander Smith writes in On Writing Essays that “a quick ear and eye, an ability to discern the infinite suggestiveness of common things, a brooding meditative spirit are all that the essayist requires to start business with.” Heather Thomson connects this to her own writing “recognizing that every experience, in some way, has the potential for meaning.”

Something that may help you write about a common experience is focusing on the details. What minute, concrete example can you focus on from a particular day in your life? How did your experience with the situation differ from what you always expected? Can you find an element of your experience that challenges a cultural narrative?

Find Your Connection

As you’ve undoubtedly read, keeping a journal is extremely helpful for a writer. It’s a safe space to experiment with storytelling and form as well as a private creative outlet that doesn’t demand revision or perfection. Sometimes writing it out for myself helps me determine if an experience holds deeper significance that could be explored in an essay. Starting with a short passage written for ourselves can be a helpful beginning point.

Something you always want to ask yourself when you’re writing is what significance it holds for you. Why do you feel compelled to write about this experience? Once you find that why, write more. Write as much as you can. What happens in early drafts is a lot of throat-clearing that can be revised or even cut. Keep writing to open up to vulnerability. Sometimes that is where we find our best words.

Read Essays and Books That Treat Similar Subject Matter

Want to write an autotheory memoir? Read Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts. Interested in writing about your college years? Essays in Marina Keegan’s The Opposite of Loneliness may help you generate ideas.

Use resources like Goodreads or websites like Literary Hub to find book criticism that makes it possible for you to find books within your genre or category.

Fit In Unique References

Something I’ve noticed about a lot of modern essays is that they tend to deftly integrate pop culture or obscure references. Invoking things related to but outside of your experience should never be forced, but sometimes our interactions with obscure academia, older texts, music, or even internet culture can enrich a narrative. While your personal essay should be driven by your voice and experiences, you’re more than welcome to quote others and consider their thinking next to your own.

Although writing an essay that incorporates the unexpected may seem daunting, it’s possible to write creatively about your experiences even if they are commonplace. Taking the time to practice your writing will always help you in your writing career.

Kayla Dean has written for publications like Electric Literature, Ploughshares online, Darling, and Bella Grace. She has an MA and BA in English. You can find her on Twitter@kayladeanwrites.

The post How To Write About Commonplace Experiences In Creative Nonfiction appeared first on DIY MFA.

Whether you’re writing an emotionally challenging story that implicates a family member, or simply including them in your narrative, you’ll need to answer this question: What do you do when a piece you’re passionate about includes stories that implicate your family?

Here are some tips and resources to help you make it happen.

Write First

You may wish to ask a family member if they consent to being portrayed in your narrative. But this doesn’t always need to take place. Depending on the type of story you wish to write, this may not even be desirable. Instead, start with writing your narrative before you let everyone in your work. Sometimes it’s best not to reveal your work until you’re ready. This will serve not only to take the pressure off you, but also to help you determine if you feel ready to write this piece now.

Don’t Hold Back

When you write a first draft, it’s often helpful to engage in what’s called word vomit. This may not be your method, but writing as much as you can as honestly as you can may show you the blank spaces and blind spots in your memory. It may also enable another view of the situation you didn’t even realize you had.

Writing has a way of revealing our unconscious feelings, and forming the narrative as soon as it comes to you may reveal what’s important. If you find yourself writing about the rocky relationship with your brother, you may be on to something that could be the basis of the theme.

Early in Hunger, Roxane Gay mentions her father went with her to a hospital visit. This is just the first of many family references. Because the book spans from her childhood to her present life, she inevitably mentions her mother and brothers as well. Although Gay demonstrates the extent of a far-reaching familial love, there’s still an element of pain and resentment when Gay thinks of the weight loss programs her family imposes on her.

Think Legally

When writing a memoir, it’s important to think about how your portrayal of others will be received. As Robert Wood at Standout Books explains, “No matter how strong your feelings, it is vital not to attribute anything which is not hard fact to an actual person. This doesn’t mean you can’t let loose, it just means you have to phrase certain things as opinions. Instead of declaring a person’s motivations, you must instead present evidence of their motivations.”

It may be problematic to say that writing a story including your family should require you to know what stories are yours to tell, but in shorthand it’s a decent rule to follow. If you’re simply dealing with a family member who feels a sense of privacy about their life, it may be possible to write in a way that honors that. But, when dealing with injustice, you aren’t obligated to follow this rule.

Michele Filgate wrote a piece for Longreads called “What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About”, an emotionally difficult piece about her mother, who was complicit in the abuse she experienced from her stepfather. This piece is deeply rooted in family relationships so difficult that Filgate chose to publish even though she could face legal challenges. Sometimes publishing a narrative comes with risks, but taking the chance can be worth it. Filgate’s essay is one of the most popular essays on the site, and she recently sold an anthology based on the essay to Simon and Schuster.

Whether you’re writing a memoir about your childhood or simply mentioning a family member in passing, books like Hunger tell us much about how to navigate writing about life with grace, truth, and candor.

Other Great Resources:

Writing About Home and Family

Kayla Dean is a Vegas-based writer, who has written for publications like Electric Literature, Darling, and Bella Grace. She has several stories and essays in the works and also blogs about writing and creativity on her personal website. Currently at work on a literary nonfiction thesis, she will receive her MA in English Literature this May. You can find her on Twitter@kayladeanwrites.

The post How To Write About Family in Creative Nonfiction appeared first on DIY MFA.

There are more opportunities now then there have ever been: you can submit to literary magazines, pitch to editors at almost any publication, apply for writing residencies, and, if the opportunity presents itself, go to graduate school for everything from Writing to English to Publishing. Never mind the fact that there are countless Facebook groups, Tweets, courses, and mentors online that can help you find these opportunities, hone your skills, and get your writing published. You can also choose to create your own website, newsletter, or Medium channel. Not to mention freelancing in other forms of writing.

How do you navigate calls for submissions, a day job, and your personal life without losing sight of your writing goals? While I do make writing resolutions every year, I find that these still aren’t enough to get me through the weeks and months.

My system is a healthy mix of Google Sheets, notes on my phone, calendar reminders, and a paper journal that helps me keep my sanity. Let’s get to the details.

Organize Opportunities

My latest project is breaking up calls for pitches, editor contacts and writing residencies into three different spreadsheets. I also have one for current pitches. Each has a column for items like Story, Publication, Date, Rate, and Status. I also try to keep track of the number of days it takes for editors to follow up with me. I’ve found that I almost always hear back from editors only after I follow up with them a week later.

Check and update these periodically. Also, make sure you have access to these items through your phone or tablet. If you see an opportunity and want to make a quick pitch, it may benefit you to have your ideas and contacts at the ready. You can also work on them if you have idle time at school or your day job.

I also recommend keeping track of the different resources you come across. Right now, my inbox is full of newsletters and groups I signed up for, but I also have helpful resources flagged on my phone and computer. I’m planning to organize these into one place so I have a one-stop resource of groups, freelancer networks, and helpful articles.

Schedule a Time for Email and Social Media

Admittedly, I’m still working on this myself, but my goal is to turn off notifications on my phone so I don’t feel the need to respond to emails instantly. It can be better for your well-being and sanity to save these emails and Facebook groups for a specific time of day. I don’t recommend looking at a screen first thing, even though I’m guilty of it!

Segment Your Time

Whether you choose to segment your time by hours, days, or weeks, it may be helpful to identify your style. Are you a deft multitasker or are you more successful when you focus on one thing at a time?

If you’re a multitasker, break your tasks into small goals each day. Perhaps you work on one pitch, part of a story, and plug away at your novel all in one day. But maybe you segment days of the week for these tasks. For example, you might find success writing multiple pitches at one time, then reserving another set of hours for working on your book.

The reason for following these steps always stems back to determining what projects you want to work on. While you may have smaller goals to land a story or finish your latest assignment, a long term goal might include applying to a writing residency, finishing your book, landing a long-term freelance contract, or getting an agent. It’s important not only to make a schedule that accounts for these different goals, but also to keep an eye towards them without losing your sanity.

Kayla Dean is a Vegas-based writer, who has written for publications like Electric Literature, Darling, and Bella Grace. She has several stories and essays in the works and also blogs about writing and creativity on her personal website. Currently at work on a literary nonfiction thesis, she will receive her MA in English Literature this May. You can find her on Twitter @kayladeanwrites.

The post How To Set And Track Goals For a Creative Nonfiction Writing Career appeared first on DIY MFA.

Take this opening passage from Flaneuse by Lauren Elkin as an example (And check out my previous column for more about this book as it relates to writing creative nonfiction!):

“On a street in Paris, a woman pauses to light a cigarette. She holds up a match with one hand, its box and a glove in the other. Her tall figure aligns with the shadow of a lamp post, two forward slashes on the wall behind her as a photographer closes the shutter. She is fleeting; pausing; permanent.”

What’s so lovely about this moment is its physicality. We’re aware of Paris as a place and asked to consider it as a cultural archetype. But then Elkin takes us beyond that. She details the actions the woman must take to light the cigarette, giving the moment significance instead of delivering a reported action. The last line portrays the woman as a moving figure, and we are engaged.

This is just one example. There are so many places you can take writing about the body and physical space. Let’s get into the details.

Be in The Moment

Think about a great narrative you read recently, fiction or nonfiction, with a scene that made you feel engaged. What made it great was probably its immediacy, physicality, and inclusion of the senses. But there’s something more to writing about a moment. Sometimes it helps to imagine the moment several times as you are writing it. If you can, use tools to make you feel its immediacy.

For example, you can use Google Maps to stand on that street corner and feel the emotion of the place through you or your narrator’s eyes.

Bonus: when you’re taking a walk to inspire yourself, take this advice to heart.

Focus on Identity

Our bodies fundamentally affect our identities. The way we navigate in the world. The way we see ourselves. There’s so much more to writing about the body than simply making your readers be present. What about writing about illness, sexuality, trauma? As Ruth Ozeki says in this writer’s roundtable hosted by Literary Hub, “the body is filled with stories.” It’s definitely an element you can’t forget about when you’re a writer.

Ashley Perez also has great advice in this roundtable on writing about the body:

“As with other writing, narrow your focus. Determine what specific thing your essay is about. That one thing defines this piece of writing. Don’t worry that it defines you or all of your writing.”

In a single piece of writing, there is one you. Embody it. You may also find it helpful to research trauma, illness, or sexuality alongside your own discussion of your personal experience to inform your direction. Sometimes this step can impact the way you write the piece.

Don’t Dismiss Your Experience

In the back of your mind, you may feel that what you’re going through has already been written about. You may be surprised. Sometimes when we try to write about experience we encounter a wall of language, unsure of which figure could tell our experiences in the most compelling way. The body and language can be at odds, but writing about it is powerful.

Virginia Woolf suffered from depression, migraines, and fevers. Her work is filled with references to these moments in her life, but her essay “On Being Ill” beautifully illuminates why we should be writing about the body:

“Literature does its best to maintain that its concern is with the mind; that the body is a sheet of plain glass through which the soul looks straight and clear, and, save for one or two passions such as desire and greed, is null, and negligible and non-existent. On the contrary, the very opposite is true. All day, all night the body intervenes.”

In The Atlantic, Joe Fassler wrote about this particular Woolf essay alongside Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams. When writing his first novel, Fassler’s editor told him that he wrote the word “sweat” too much and included too many mentions of plum-colored bruises. The essay is about his “daily dramas of the body,” and it’s a must-read. He writes,

“I imagined myself the bard of swelling; I wanted to write toothache lyrics for swelling—to evoke the chronic panic of its deforming sculptural practice: it shapes you into something like you, but not you. I wanted to bring that aching knowledge to my nonexistent reading public.”

Whether you are writing about illness or the experience of existing in your body, an important step is simply listening to yourself.

Essay Recommendations:

• https://granta.com/kettle-holes/
• https://lithub.com/walking-while-black/
• https://hazlitt.net/feature/year-plagues

Books:

• Hunger by Roxane Gay
• The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
• Brain on Fire by Susanna Cahalan

Kayla Dean is a Vegas-based writer, who has written for publications like Electric Literature, Darling, and Bella Grace. She has several stories and essays in the works and also blogs about writing and creativity on her personal website. Currently at work on a literary nonfiction thesis, she will receive her MA in English Literature this May. You can find her on Twitter@kayladeanwrites.

The post How To Write About the Body in Creative Nonfiction appeared first on DIY MFA.

Creative nonfiction presents some great opportunities to write meaningfully about the places you’ve lived in and traveled to as well as place your unique stamp on a locale, even if it is well-known. Like Virginia Woolf in London, Balzac in Paris, and Joyce in Ireland, you can write about place, too!

Define Place

In his essay, “How to Write Creative Nonfiction: Writing about Place”  Dave Hood reminds us to expand beyond physical location by including elements like culture, language, values, and customs:

“In creative nonfiction, the place or location where the event or experience took place is more than just about the name of the place. It is also the physical location of the place, the physical attributes, such as the urban setting of crowds, pollution, public transit, traffic jams or the rural setting of open spaces, fewer people, fields, farms, and small communities.”

Don’t just treat the places you write about as a backdrop or an image. Place can be both setting and character, and the implications of that can be far-reaching in our work. When given its due consideration, place can make the early lines of a piece dazzle. Use this to your advantage by brainstorming sublime, unusual, or even pedestrian experiences to provide that ideal impetus for the beginning of your work.

Hood adds that writers should also consider the meaning and significance of a place for them, and includes a great checklist to print out and tape to your desk when writing about place.

Interweave Other Narratives Into Yours to Compare/Contrast

If you haven’t been somewhere, you can’t write about it as if you have. But you can approach writing about a place by summarizing, analyzing, and weaving narratives together from writers who have visited or lived there. Above, I mentioned seminal writers and the places they are commonly associated with. Read writers that are affiliated with the places you want to write about. What point of view did they lend to our understanding of that place? Did they unfairly obscure its reality or open the door to greater understanding?

Right now, the essay form is one of the most malleable there is: You can include other experiences, literary works, historical perspective, philosophy, or science in your narrative. While this may range depending on the publications you wish to write for, it’s possible to lend texture to your work by adding these varied cultural pieces to your own perspective while still relying on moments from your life as a lens. And of course always make sure to cite properly if you quote an author!

Take a Walker’s Perspective

Besides looking at photos, you may feel that you have to stick with your imagination to remember a place. But the vast range of resources online makes it possible for us to envision space beyond even our memories. Just as you might write about a place you’ve never been in a fiction piece, walk it in Google Maps. Has the place changed since you’ve visited? Does it look different in earlier views? This could be potential material.

If you can access the place, it may also be helpful to simply take a walk. Although many of us do write on keyboards indoors, don’t limit yourself to your living room when considering narrative possibilities. What sights, smells, and sounds are out there? How do you feel as a walker on that street? What stands out to you? Asking questions are helpful to a city walker. Also, your unique perspective as a walker can lend a lot to your narrative. It may not feature as the main point, but can do a lot for your approach to the story you want. As Rebecca Solnit writes in Wanderlust: A History of Walking,

“Walkers are ‘practitioners of the city,’ for the city is made to be walked. A city is a language, a repository of possibilities, and walking is the act of speaking that language, of selecting from those possibilities. Just as language limits what can be said, architecture limits where one can walk, but the walker invents other ways to go.”

This is not entirely literal: writers are walkers, navigating their own path towards a narrative that works. Sometimes there are snags because we get lost and scrap material, but this does not have to be a bad thing. Solnit helps us understand that we are selecting from those possibilities and should shift to view writing as a freeing rather than frustrating exercise. This might also allow you to come up with new things to notice and new inventions that don’t rely on older realities.

Kayla Dean is an arts and entertainment writer in Las Vegas, where she has interviewed several celebrities for publications like Vegas Seven. She has several YA stories in the works and blogs about writing and creativity on her personal website, where she also hosts the Millennial Writer Series. She received her BA in English from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and will pursue her Master’s in English Literature this fall. You can find her on Twitter@kayladeanwrites.

The post How To Write About Place In Creative Nonfiction appeared first on DIY MFA.

Let me explain: when you’re writing a personal essay, every aspect of your personality doesn’t go into that piece. Readers don’t come away from one thing you wrote knowing everything about you. Yes, even if it’s the type of memoir that shares the most vulnerable secrets. You don’t know the author after you read one story about them.

Take Cheryl Strayed for example. If you haven’t read Wild, you at least know the story (or saw the movie) about her 1995 walk along the Pacific Crest Trail, a journey that helps her deal with the loss of her mother, a divorce, and drug use.

The deeply personal passages in this book would make you think that you know her, but this journey is only one part of her life. Today, she is a respected memoirist, novelist, and columnist who writes about so many other things besides this one story.

The takeaway is that there’s only one you writing an essay (ok, and probably a secondary self too). A writing prompt can help you figure out which parts of you that will be.

Here are three writing prompts to get you writing. I speak from experience when I say that these work:

1) The Myriad Self

This prompt comes from Dinty W. Moore, respected essayist, editor of Brevity, and editorial member of Creative Nonfiction. His book Crafting the Personal Essay is nothing if not a complete lifesaver. If you’re having doubts about making your real-life narrative sing, this book will dispel them and make you a better writer. The idea I mentioned earlier that there’s only one you writing an essay? That comes straight from this book. To find out which you is writing the essay, fill in descriptors below:

• I am a ___________ son/daughter.
• I am a ___________ eater.
• I am a ___________ friend.
• I am a ___________ when confronted with direct criticism.
• I am a ___________, but most of my friends never suspect this about me.

Next, choose one of the selves above and use that to write about whatever pops into your head. You can also choose a second self while writing. The goal here is that you let the two parts show who you are without forcing them to show your complete identity. You are also in conversation with your many selves.

2) 36 Hours

The New York Times has several helpful prompts, but my favorite is a prompt that encourages you to write about place. They name essays that convey the character of several New York neighborhoods, along with 36 Hours, a column that describes the best things to do in cities around the world in less than two days.

Taking after one of these features, get your notebook and write about your favorite place in town. If you can’t think of one specific restaurant or locale, write about the qualities of your local area.

To me, this prompt lets you see that where you live is more interesting than you give it credit. Sure, it may be that you’re not the only writer in your town. But you have a unique perspective on your city. This exercise may evoke memory by reminding you of something that happened in a particular place. You can also play with tone: it may be that you write the piece like you’re a travel writer advising your reader on the best places to go, but it’s also possible that the prompt will take you in a more personal direction.

3) Key Lessons

John Matthew Fox includes this writing prompt among the 50 nonfiction prompts guaranteed to inspire. Start by recalling an adage your family members tried to impart when you were younger. Examples include “live with a healthy mind and healthy body” or “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Consider that lesson and the ways in which you interpreted it both as a child and an adult, and respond to it.

This writing prompt enables you to set the tone: you can be more serious, or have fun with a lighter lesson. If you pick the latter, you may have a humor piece on your hands.

Other Advice

Laptops are great, but sometimes you must shut off your technology and write with a notepad. I highly recommend having a writing prompt notebook or a simple legal pad. This helps me write with abandon; sometimes when I type on a computer it feels too much like a final draft.

Let me know how these work for you! And tell us: what are your favorite nonfiction writing prompts?

Kayla Dean is an arts and entertainment writer in Las Vegas, where she has interviewed several celebrities for publications like Vegas Seven. She has several YA stories in the works and blogs about writing and creativity on her personal website, where she also hosts the Millennial Writer Series. She received her BA in English from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and will pursue her Master’s in English Literature this fall. You can find her on Twitter@kayladeanwrites.

The post Three Inspiring Creative Non-Fiction Writing Prompts appeared first on DIY MFA.

Why does this relate to creative nonfiction? Because blogging (and, by extension, building a community) can be a starting point for those who want to enter the dazzling realm of nonfiction narrative. That can take different forms. Perhaps you want to write for literary magazines. Or maybe you want to take a go at pitching and writing for the web with editorial flair.

Either way, gathering a community around your writing could give you the chance to write for bigger audiences and teach others what you learned. So what’s a writer with a desire to write nonfiction to do?

Understand the Goal For Your Writing

Some publications want pitches, while other publications look for completed pieces written on spec. You’ll want to get an idea of the types of places you’d like to submit. Do they want short pieces under 700 words? Long narratives that take up 20-30 pages? And what are you compelled to write at this stage in your career? If you’re early on in your foray into creative nonfiction, short-form may be a safe bet for improving your practice.

When writing for your blog, it can also be helpful to think of yourself as a publication. What posts would make their home on your blog? What pieces would not work well with your style?

Keeping these ideas in mind may help you consider where and how you will share your work on social media. Also, it can help you consider what publications you want to write for in the future. Ask yourself: what do you want to be known for as a writer? Start gathering the names of publications that interest you and read them regularly. Reading often can have a positive influence on your writing and reveal underlying structures.

Structure Your Narrative for a Reader

The problem with a lot of nonfiction is that it doesn’t turn the focus away from the individual. There are plenty of writers who write personal pieces that don’t feel like creative nonfiction because they don’t turn the focus towards the wider world where the audience lives. Feel free to share your experiences, but don’t make the essay solely about yourself. Balance those personal aspects with bigger applications. This doesn’t necessarily have to take the form of advice. Many nonfiction pieces lack of resolution. Essays can meander or ask something of you that requires contemplation.

But what’s a rule of thumb you can always rely on? Write a compelling first-sentence even if it’s the very last thing you add to your final piece. And form is your friend. (It should go without saying that the 5-paragraph essay is not a desirable trope in the nonfiction genre!)

It may be helpful to bring in other experts, quotations, and references to make your work grounded in specificity. In my last post, I talked about how much research you need in a creative nonfiction essay.

Discovering where a reader fits into your piece can have wide-ranging applications. Although you may already share your writing on social or on a newsletter, the title and content can influence whether people will read it or not. Having doubts about what your audience will read? Try to vary the titles on your blog. Some can be how-to posts, but others can be pure narrative. The combination of both can often be enough to draw readers in to both your advice and your narrative.

Know When To Pitch Elsewhere

Although your blog is a wonderful place to share your writing, get out in the writing world by pitching your work. That starts with determining what types of essays you want to write and the themes that compel you.

It may take awhile to discover these themes, but those are often key to garnering interest in your work. Don’t worry so much about niche; worry more about the overarching aspects of your work that connect each article together.

Kayla Dean is an arts and entertainment writer in Las Vegas, where she has interviewed several celebrities for publications like Vegas Seven. She has several YA stories in the works and blogs about writing and creativity on her personal website, where she also hosts the Millennial Writer Series. She received her BA in English from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and will pursue her Master’s in English Literature this fall. You can find her on Twitter@kayladeanwrites.

The post How to Build Community Around Your Creative Nonfiction appeared first on DIY MFA.