practice | Rebecca Klempner

Some of my readers know already that I’m a big fan of National Geographic. For someone who studied anthropology for years, it’s pretty much like periodical crack. (Yes, periodical crack can be read both ways.) I dig the magazine so much, that I spend an hour or two every month reading it cover-to-cover in order to scribble over any non-G rated language so that my children can read the magazine and become educated world citizens without losing their innocence. To some people, that last sentence probably seemed like a paradox, but if you’re an Orthodox Jewish mother with a graduate degree in anthropology and children, it’ll make perfect sense.

Garrison Keillor’s Personal Geographic

Magazine The February issue has a delightful article by Gerrison Keillor, all about his personal geography. He meanders his way through time and space, describing the landscape of “his” Minnesota: here’s where he went on a field trip, there he had his first job, his cousin died on that spot.

Your Personal Geographic

I thought this was a marvelous exercise for a writer: take a map, add the landmarks of your personal geography to it, then write. Or, better yet, map the setting of your story. Add the landmarks of your characters’ lives. Where did they meet? Where did they lose something? Where did they find something? Now, write.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please share them in the comments below.

I’m going to offer some advice today that seems simplistic, so basic as to be ridiculous. Yet recently, I’ve experienced people who have neglected these 2 important strategies that are pretty much guaranteed to improve their writing abilities. So here I am repeating them.

Almost every book about writing offers the following advice. (The wording might vary according to the delicacy of the audience, but the meaning is the same.)

Okay, so you might need more than a chair. This guy isn’t going to get much writing done if he doesn’t pick up a pen!

1) PUT YOUR TUSH IN THE CHAIR.

By this, of course, we learn that if you tell us you want to write, well that’s a nice sentiment. But we know that you mean it if you sit at a desk, pick up a pen (or keyboard) and actually practice writing. Certainly weekly, and preferably daily, you need to write. A human being is only a writer if s/he is a person who writes. Continue reading →