The Best Writing Spot: I like to be closest to the snacks – Rebecca Scherm
Author and U of M writing teacher, Rebecca Scherm gave an wonderful interview on Stateside last month. Her articulate answers and powerful responses about her characters in her first novel, Unbecoming, inspired me to get her book.
- Ann Arbor-based writer Rebecca Scherm on Stateside to talk about “Unbecoming,” her first novel.
I also chuckled when Scherm admitted she writes usually at the kitchen table, rather than a fancy desk.
“I like to be closest to the snacks.” – Scherm
I knew it wasn’t just me! Nothing beats a kitchen table for writing!
My great-grandmother’s, 1930s porcelain kitchen table lives in our kitchen, and remains my favorite writing spot. It took a lot of convincing to get my mom to give Natalie and me that family heirloom, and we’re lucky to have it.
I think one of the best ways to get to work is clean off your kitchen table, grab some snacks, read a bit of a book, and get the pen moving or keyboard keys clicking.
My wife recently went into the attic of her dad’s garage. She was searching for a specific photograph, and she ended up on an unexpected treasure-hunt of looking through tons of family albums for hours.
When’s the last time you went looking in a closet that you rarely peruse and got lost on a hunt?
The artist’s road is often faced with roads blocks, discouragement, and self doubt; but opportunities are as simple as saying, “yes!”
It’s easy to want to tell the muse, No. It’s too easy to wait for opportunities to come to us.
So let’s consider a quote from the Art of War:
“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”― Sun Tzu
The number one reason to go book a short tour, write a song a week, paint every day and post it to the internet, collaborate with another songwriter, etc. is because by doing stuff, you are going to find more stuff!
Go open the box. Get creating.
“The Hunt of the Red Fox”
We follow your long trail
from a distance; prints
across a snowy landscape,
that weak shield blanketing
the black hills of the Dakotas.
Sharing these binoculars,
we watch you creep, stop,
wait; tilt your head; wait.
In warm burrows made
under three feet of snow,
field mice are stirring…
Ears hone in—you leap!
Then, descending, like a
red submarine, a white
teethed torpedo, tail’s
bloody colours wave.
Hopeless are the odds
of catching a critter,
but a fox doesn’t know
the meaning of defeat;
simply the taste of one
small meal at a time. Not
now. Empty-mouthed,
you reappear, shake off
the snow, and plot a new
hunt before we have found
words to express our awe.
If we shared that instinct,
that fearless persistence,
that dedication…could
our chase be satiated?
Written Dec 5-17, 2013
Notes:
Line 16: Shakespeare, Henry 3 allusion
Inspired from “The Fox” video
Grand ideas and the Artist-in-Waiting
“I’m waiting until I have enough money to make my masterpiece, but I don’t know how I’ll afford it,” says the artist-in-waiting.
Grand ideas are great, but only one person can see it. You.
Think about a a smaller project you can release tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Who can see that? Everyone. (And maybe that brings you closer to the grand project later.)
Get working.
In the book Band:Smart, Martin Atkins tells bands, “100 people in a 50 capacity venue is a riot; 100 people in a 1200 capacity theater is a funeral.”
Which is why artists need to remind themselves that size matters!
And numbers matter too. Either small or large can be successful, as long as it’s the right room.
