Author Crush Month: Erin Bow

When I emailed Erin Bow about participating in this year’s Author Crush, I told her that what caught my attention about her writing was her amazing use of descriptions. She has a lovely lyrical quality to her writing and the ability to create vivid pictures which set just the right  tone for the story. Checking out her website, I learned that she has published two books of poetry as well. Ah, makes sense.  Her debut YA novel is called Plain Kate.

Writing: make space for it.

Part one:  A Room Of One’s Own, or why I work in a pole dancing studio

Two years ago this week, by the Grace of God and the money of Harry Potter, I got to quit my day job and make the big leap to writing full time.  I’d sold two books to Arthur A. Levine books at Scholastic, and now I just had to write the second of them.  It was a dream and, like most dreams when you come across them in the waking world, it was terrifying.

But still, I had it good.  I was that rarest of things: a full-time writer.  And, even rarer, I had a stay-at-home husband (also a writer) to look after our two little girls, who were then three and one.  I counted my blessings and I set about to write.

And I failed.

Well, not completely.  I wrote dozens of pages of notes and free-form scenes for a new book, only to lose them when the bag with my laptop and its external backup was stolen from a luggage rack.   I mourned.  I sulked.  I tried to start again, and failed.  I started a different book, trying to write it at the kitchen table, or at the desk jammed in beside my bed.  I got very, very little done.  My lap was usually full of daughter; my head was full of cooking and laundry and all the other things that needed doing.  Eventually I settled into the routine of taking the older kid to preschool and writing in a nearby coffee shop for the two hours she was there. In that way I eked out about half a book in just one year.

If you want to keep the bills paid, by the way, this is not fast enough.

And then the idea came to me:  I need an office.

And with the idea came the Guilt. I know lots of writers with neither space nor time. None of the amazing writers in my beloved writers’ group has an office. The people I know online: mostly kitchen tablers. Come on, said my internal voice: how much more perfect do you need things to be? What if this frustration about writing at home is just an excuse? What if you get this one next perfect thing and the frustration doesn’t lift?

What if you’re just not a writer?

The best and hardest thing I’ve ever done for my writing self: ignoring that voice.

I put out feelers and searched want ads for some time. It was a bit tricky, finding something both affordable and accessible by bike: I rejected dozens of leads; I despaired. But finally an ad popped up: a dance studio that gives classes in the evenings, with an extra room to rent. Wants tenants during the day. Right downtown. A nice high-ceilinged room with big window looking out over main street. Cheap, or at least reasonable. Perfect.

Perfect? Poles. The dance studio is in fact a pole dancing studio. The main space has a half-dozen brass poles mounted to the floor and ceiling. When I went to see it I confess I was, um, surprised.

But I rented it anyway.

And I love it. I got a desk from Goodwill, a couch off the curb.  An old kilim rug, some Salvation Army curtains.  A beautiful stained-glass lamp found in a junk shop. But it is not makeshift – it is mine. A space furnished purely for joy. The things in there are things  I’ve chosen for comfort or beauty or some emotional resonance. The glass bird I fiddle with when my hands are restless. The brass bowl with the cloisonné butterflies where I put my keys. The wall with the icon and the map of Tenochtitlan and the porcelain birds that were my great grandmother’s and the bundle of dried grass from the hill by the monastery where I wrote my first book and the back cover of a magazine from 1942 advertising the Waterman “Commando” fountain pen ($5).  It is almost a poem made physical, and walked into, every day.

And in this office, I write.

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Part Two:  Be wild and ruthless and possibly get a ridiculous hat

So, these are my take away lessons on how to write more and be happier doing it.

1. Claim a space

If you are a writer, or if you want to be, you need to make it important.  You need to make a ruthless and wild-eyed commitment. Say: my writing is as important as my job, as important as my classes, as important as my (gasp!) kids. It deserves a space of its own.

You make time for taking the kid to swim class, don’t you?  Make time for this. Don’t wait until the kids go to kindergarten, or until you’re retired, or whatever. Do it now.

People may actually be shocked. (Especially if you work in a pole dancing studio.) But do it anyway.  Find a space – either a literal space or a block of time – in which you are a writer.  Acknowledge that “Yes, I have other roles and responsibilities, but I don’t do them here. Here, I’m a writer.”

To this end, write long hand, or turn off your wifi, or both.  My office has no wifi, no phone, and no doorbell. Of course, I also have no will power. Maybe you’re in better shape there. If not, there’s always Freedom! Don’t multitask. Multitasking, like the cake, is a lie.

Here’s the real secret about this: you will have less guilt if you separate writing like this. It will get rid of that niggling sense that you shouldn’t be watching a sitcom because you Should Be Writing. When you’re in your writing space, write. When you’re not, don’t. Let the guilt go.

2. Furnish a space

Not everyone needs – or realistically can get — a literal room. But as you claim a space for writing, you can furnish it so that the writing feels welcome there.

I mean, let’s face it. We don’t sit down inspired and burning with words. (If you do, I don’t want to hear from you.) The worst part of writing is those days when you sit down and you’d rather surf the internet, you’d rather scrub the toilet, you’d rather chew off your own foot than write. There are times in my writing life when this inertia is tremendous.

The whole trick is to get started, and for that, it helps to have a space that cues the muse that it’s time to show up. My muse is recalcitrant and needs cues from all the senses. The schedule – the quality of the light in the window. The brass temple bells hanging from the door. The glass bird and smooth stones for my hands. The white tea in the blue cup. The music – I have one sound track for each project. The lemongrass candle.

If you don’t have a room, you can still get most of that: sounds, smells, tastes, times. Try them. Court yourself closer to the writing in the way a church courts us to come closer to God. Ritualize your space and refuse to feel silly about it. My office is painted bordello red and has black trim. It is absurd. The absurdity of it makes me happy. Buy a special writing hat and let people stare.

If you’d like to learn more about Erin and her books, hop on over to her website http://erinbow.com/ for a book trailer, more office pics, and other interesting tidbits.