I usually look forward to winter as a time for cocooning and getting a lot of writing and reading done. Alas, so far this winter weather has only beckoned me out of doors. I took my journal the other day and sat at a picnic table overlooking the ocean at Summerland, a lovely little burg just south of Santa Barbara. People walked to and from the beach in their shorts and flip flops. If I didn't know better I'd think it was August. 

Focusing on my master's work and workshops and coaching has been tough! Even so, and as much as we need our seasonal rain, I'm hoping the summer breezes stay a while longer.

And believe me, writing is work. Approach your writing as a job. Schedule it and put discipline behind the effort. Writing is also art, so make space for creation. Sometimes your writing requires an hour of staring out the window, or walking a couple of miles on the beach to work out the scene that is formulating in your head.

Finally, writing is craft. So you have to work at getting better at writing not just by writing, but by reading and learning from other writers. Attend workshops and conferences. Take a writing course. Then practice what you learn.

How do you make time? There are any number of techniques for scheduling writing time. First, look at your life and decide what you’re willing to devote to it. Are you willing to give up TV on weeknights? No? Then maybe it’s the second round of golf each weekend. Maybe you can get up an hour earlier each day. When my daughter was very small, I used to get up at 5:30 a.m. and write for an hour, before the rest of the household was awake.

It really does mean sacrificing something. And I might add if it’s not a sacrifice, it’s not worth doing. Writing has to mean something to you. A good gauge of that is what you are willing to give up to pursue it.

Chuck Palahniuk, who has written 14 books, including Fight Club, talks about his “egg timer” method in this essay on “13 Writing Tips.” Set an egg timer for an hour or half-hour and then write until it chimes. It’s a way to force your brain into writing mode.

I use a variation of this: I pour myself a cup of tea and promise myself I won’t stop writing until the tea is gone. Usually I stay at my desk well past the last sip and finish whatever I’ve started. Soon I’ve written a blog post or another scene in my novel or a chapter of my memoir.

I’d love to hear of other techniques that work for you. Let me know and I’ll compile them into a future post. Now, it’s time for another cup of tea.

So, a word about platform. Essentially, it’s what you’re known for.

Do you have expertise in a particular subject, say, quantum physics, or training pug dogs? You can use that experience to create a platform. Blog; speak in your community, or, if possible, at state and national conventions; offer to lecture at the local public library; write op-ed pieces for your community newspaper. All of these things build your brand, fill out your resume and establish you as an expert in your field. Then if you write a book, you can point to that exposure as evidence of your “saleability.” Publishers today rarely take a chance on an unknown author. The more you can do to build a fan base, the better off you’ll be when you approach an agent or a publisher with a book proposal.

Today, blogging is the most expedient way to build a fan base.

The key, though, is to develop a theme or purpose so that you can offer your readers something valuable. Nonfiction writers – especially those who have a following already – will find it easier to establish a blog. Whatever it is you write about – be it antique clocks or the hip-hop music industry – it will likely lend itself to a blog that can be updated two or three times a week, if not daily.

For fiction writers, developing a theme can be tricky. I suggest writing a blog as one of the characters in your book. It doesn’t necessarily have to follow the storyline in your novel. You know the character; create some new scenarios for him/her to respond to, and let that voice populate your blog. You could even write it from several different characters’ voices, essentially creating a new online story.

To be effective, a blog needs to be written every day, or, if that’s not possible, at least every other day. In cyberspace, people expect something new every time they return to your site, so to be relevant and effective, you have to blog regularly. And you have to have something useful to say every time you blog.

In addition to being timely, the very best blogs have great writing, contain content that can’t be found anywhere else, provide something no one else does (information, a service or a product), are relevant, and provide links to other sources.

“Build your audience on the Internet (or otherwise) before you approach an editor or agent,” literary agent Doris Booth advises. “If you can say 25,000 or 50,000 people visit your blog every month, and they are all talking about and sharing what you’re writing on the subject of, say, Yo-Yos, then you are a much more attractive candidate to become published. Build your audience as a speaker or a journalist with a huge following, in any way you can. Celebrities get published because they have vast, already-established audiences. It is harder to build an audience if you’re a novelist, but not impossible. Visit the sites of successful authors such as Gayle Lynds, Heather Graham, and James Patterson and see how they draw attention to their work.”

(Some information in this blog appeared in my 2010 book Navigating the Rough Waters of Today’s Publishing World, Critical Advice for Writers (Quill Driver Press), available on Amazon.)

I recommend you do one every month, and I will be writing in detail on each at the beginning of the month from now on. By the end of the year, you’ll be better positioned to sell your work, or at least answer the question, “What is your platform?” when an agent asks.

1. If you haven’t already, start a blog. Yes, I know. Everyone and his dog has a blog. But it’s one of the fastest ways to build a following. (See Why Should Writers Blog?, Jan. 13.)
2. Engage social media. It doesn't have to be Facebook, though Facebook is the social network with the most users. There are a number of sites for writers that offer ways to promote your work. Check out redroom.com, shewrites.com, fictionaut.com, and the new Writers Agents and Editors Network site founded by super-agent Jeff Herman and his wife, Deborah. Even goodreads.com – which is focused more on readers – offers promotional pages for authors.
3. Speak out. Become an expert in your field and go out and talk about it. If you’re a nonfiction writer, offer to speak to groups who are interested in the topics you write about. Give a free lecture at your local library. If you write fiction, offer to do a virtual chat with book clubs. The more you speak, the more you’ll be seen as having expertise in writing. And if you’re not comfortable speaking, sign up for a local Toastmaster’s course. I guarantee it will bring returns in spades.
4. Teach a class. Do you have a community college in your community? Admittedly, education dollars are more limited than in previous years, but teaching a local adult ed class is a great way to become better known in your community (and to sell books!).
5. Volunteer. With a school, a writing program for kids, anyplace where you can offer insight and information to young writers. This is so important! We are responsible for bringing up future literati. Take it seriously.
6. Review others’ books. On your own blog or on reader sites like Goodreads or Amazon. This is another opportunity to give a little and gain a lot later.
7. Self-publish an e-book. It is becoming simpler by the day. If you have a novel or nonfiction book that’s complete, well-edited and ready for prime time, pay a little bit of money to have a great cover designed, format it so it reads well, then make a .pdf file and upload it to Amazon’s self-publishing service. You can’t lose.
8. Send out a monthly e-newsletter. This is one way to keep you and your book in front of people who don't do social media. There are several really good services and they are not expensive (I’ve used both ConstantContact.com and Ratepoint.com). The advantages are worth the investment of time in learning their platforms and designing a pleasing template.
9. Join a writers organization. I recommend national organizations, like PEN Center USA, the Authors Guild, the Writers Guild of America, West, and others. Each has different criteria for membership, but if you qualify, belonging is well worth the nominal yearly membership fee. I belong to both the Authors Guild and PEN Center USA. The free legal and contract advice alone is worth it. 
10. Launch a virtual book tour. There are two kinds: You can do a phone or Skype meeting with a book club or a media personality. Easy peasy. Or you can set up a virtual book tour where an interviewer asks you questions in a closed teleseminar. There’s a great explanation of both here.
11. Add value. It's not just about you. If you’re using social media, pass on some information other writers can use. A link to a particularly good article on self-publishing or how to write a query letter. What to ask an agent if you are offered representation. Ways to structure a novel. Whatever you can offer in the way of added value, do it. And refrain from the obvious sales job. People don’t like to be pitched on social media.
12. Pay it forward. (With thanks and a nod of the head to my friend Catherine Ryan Hyde, who wrote the book Pay It Forward.) Listen, if you want people to help you, you have to help others. If you’re in the position to help a new writer, do it. A little friendly coaching, taking time to offer some sage advice over coffee, whatever it is, it’s time well-invested. You never know when that person may be in a position to help you and your career. Believe me, people remember. Pay it forward.

This past semester I have focused instead, though, on poetry, and one of the things that surprised me is how much writing poems has affected how I think about and approach the writing of my memoir.

Writing poetry – at least for me – requires a deepening of time and space. A pause, a respite, a lengthening of presence, so that the words that arrive come from a deep place, a place of unseen possibility and unknown potential. They allow for an unlocking of dark places, places that have been embedded in emotion and experience.

So when I began to write poetry in response to exercises over the past semester, verses emerged that evoked ideas and experiences I had not been able to access while writing my memoir. Places and people came forth after decades of burial. And I began to consider the possibility of incorporating my poetry into my memoir, exploring a hybrid work, an experimental form.

One of the guest authors at our residency was the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Tretheway. She read some of the poetry from her forthcoming book (to be published in fall 2012), and also conducted a 90-minute question-and-answer session about her three books of poetry and her nonfiction exploration of the Mississippi Gulf Coast (where she was born) after Hurricane Katrina. That book, Beyond Katrina, incorporates her poetry into a nonfiction narrative about how Katrina affected her family. I’ve been toying with the idea of blending my own poetry into my memoir, which is my master’s thesis (read this blog to learn more about my master’s degree journey). One of the gifts of doing this program is the realization that a memoir can be an experimental work. It might incorporate poetry or artwork or photography. I want to explore all of those options, (keeping in mind the practical fact that it likely would make it harder to sell to a publisher).

I’m going back to writing my memoir in the coming semester, and hope to have a completed draft by June. Then I’ll spend my final semester polishing it and getting it ready to go out to agents. (Also this semester I have to write a 25-page critical paper. It will examine mother-daughter relationships in memoirs about childhood trauma. I’m looking at three memoirs in particular: Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face, Emily Rapp’s Poster Child, and Road Song, by Natalie Kusz.)

If you write both poetry and nonfiction (or even fiction) I would love to hear how one has affected the other in your experience. Does your prose become more lyrical and poetic?

I write about dialogue and characterization in November’s The Writer magazine (pick up a copy on the newsstand!). Passages from Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club, and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes show how dialogue can move the story forward while providing compelling and critical information about the characters.

Dialogue is one of the most powerful tools in your writer’s toolbox. It reveals character in ways narrative can’t. We can hear the Southern drawl or the German accent. We can see the petulance or pride, feel the reticence or ignorance, experience the fear or the frailty.

And if you can master subtext – revealing character through that which is not said – your prose will be stronger still.

One of my favorite writing teachers is novelist Davida Wills Hurwin, who teaches high school theater in Los Angeles. It was in one of Davida’s workshops where I fully grasped the concept of subtext.

She had two people act out a scene in which they were not allowed to say explicitly what the issue was between them. The set-up was they were a couple who had been married for a number of years: He wanted children; she didn’t. She became pregnant, but wanted an abortion. He fervently wanted her to have the child. In the scene, neither was allowed to directly mention the abortion. It was a very intense improvisation, which quickly got heated and almost out of control until Davida stepped in. The woman and man who were playing the parts got deeply into their characters, and let the emotion of the situation flow.

Another time, Davida had us act out scenes from a work in progress. I brought a scene from a YA novel I’d been working on about a young girl who is paralyzed in a car accident in which her mother dies. The scene is between the girl and her father. After reading the scene, Davida had two people from the workshop toss the notes aside and improvise. What happened surprised and amazed me. The young woman who was playing my protagonist put herself fully into the person of a 13-year-old in a wheelchair, in grief over her mom’s death, resentful of her own survival, agonized over her paralysis, angry at her dad for not being able to save them from their fates. I was in tears at the end, and I understood so much more about my character than when we began.

If we can bring those emotions to the surface in our writing, to make our readers feel them as acutely as we do, that’s the stuff of great literature.

Gather some friends and bring your characters alive with exercises like these. Your stories will be more compelling because of it.

And, I’m in the middle of moving to a new house this week, as well. Yeah, I know, I’m nuts.

If you’ve read any of my earlier blogs about my master’s degree program, you know I’m in a low-residency master of fine arts in creative writing program through Antioch University in Los Angeles. Low-residency means I spend 10 days at Antioch’s Culver City campus every June and December, and work online with a professor the rest of the time.

My emphasis is creative nonfiction, and my thesis will be my completed memoir, which I’ve been working on for about three years. This semester I decided to do something called “genre-hopping,” which means for one semester you can “hop” into one of the other emphases, which are fiction, poetry and a new one: writing for young people. So I hopped into poetry.

I was placed with a faculty member who is particularly demanding and requires his students to write in specific forms, trying them out and then discussing the poems extensively with the others in our mentor group. I had a goal of working primarily with the poems I had already written, so at first I was a little – okay, a lot – disappointed. What do I know? It turns out I really like writing in form. Sestinas, ekphrasis, sonnets, villanelles, terzanelles, postcards, prose poems, blazons, fugues. There is a virtual cornucopia of poem forms out there, and I am starting to dig them! There is almost a mathematical puzzle to many of them, and while I am no math genius (far from it), I appreciate the challenge. So I’m having fun, in spite of myself.

As for the field study, this is a requirement based on one of the tenets of the Antioch University mission, which is to engage in and promote social justice with your writing. You are supposed to do an internship with a nonprofit that incorporates your writing and helps the nonprofit in some way. I have been helping to establish an after-school interactive arts center in Santa Barbara, where kids will be able to drop in for workshops/instruction on any number of art forms for free. We are targeting at-risk youth, but the center will be open to all students, from ages 6-18. For my field study, I developed the writing program for the center. It took several months, but I finished it last week and mailed it off to my professor.

The online translation seminar has also turned out to be an interesting, challenging and fun experience. We are given a poem or short prose each week in another language and have to translate it into English. No, you don’t have to know the source language to do this (though I think it probably helps). So far we have translated a poem by the French poet Pierre Reverdy and a piece of a myth narrative written by the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. We are given the poem or prose in its original language, a short bio of the author and a glossary of all the terms in the piece. Then the trick is to translate the poem in a way that captures the intent of the poem but also makes sense as a poem in English. Again, it is somewhat akin to a puzzle, and I am enjoying it a lot.

As you can see, I’ve been busy, hence the few postings here. I’ll try to get back to a more regular blogging schedule. Or maybe not.

Late afternoon sky at Ghost Ranch

Marianela Medrano-Marra

Aine Greaney and Barbara Rockman

Pedernales - Georgia O'Keefe's favorite mountain

Our final night together; 90 women strong

Red rock at sunset

Breena Clarke, Marianela and Esther Cohen

Jayne Benjulian

Me and Elizabeth Kenneday

Afternoon moon over Ghost Ranch

Robinson was a featured guest at A Room of Her Own Foundation’s biannual women writers’ retreat at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico earlier this month, and I felt privileged to have the chance several times to chat with her over lunch or dinner. She gave a lively and very funny reading from Gilead one evening, but it was her lecture at a midweek gathering that really resonated.

Here’s what she said: Put more of yourself into your writing; make sure your words are beautiful; know the difference between solitude (your writing) and public persona (promotion); follow your mind wherever it wants to take you; and in every instance, go deeper. 

That last is most important: Access your deep mind, she said. It’s the only thing you have to do to be original. The difference between the extraordinary and the ordinary in any experience is the filter through which you see it. 

And, she warned, do not do what is being done now. Honor your own mind and stories. When you write you are doing something profoundly human, she said, and everything depends on how you use your amazing mind.

One of the essays I recently read for my master’s program in creative writing (at Antioch University in Los Angeles) is Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca’s essay “Theory and Play of the Duende,” (Poetry in Translation, translated by A.S. Kline, 2007).

So often writers speak of the Muse, the soft and gentle visitation that inspires one to write lofty and moving prose. The duende, as I understand García Lorca’s explanation, is darker, deeper, more malevolent, baser and more powerful. It is an avenue into our darkest psyches, which allows the release of art that is at once transcendent, sorrowful, grief-stricken and resplendent. I have felt brief glimpses of this in my own writing, and I agree with García Lorca that it engages on a level that is almost animalistic in nature, which is perhaps why when it descends upon an artist, be it writer, dancer, painter or singer, it is instantly recognizable as genius flowing from a place distant and dark.

I think that is the deep place Robinson is talking about. That place from which something emerges that you don’t recognize; you wonder, did that really come out of me? Yes. And there’s more where it came from. You have only to listen and let it emerge.