I have a Designated Writing Zone in my house. I’ve written many thousands of words in it, and I’ve even blogged about it. But sometimes I need other voices, other rooms. Fortunately Portland has many places where you can park yourself for extended periods of time to work on your manuscript. Here are four I recommend:

Backspace Cafe — This cafe is also an all-ages music venue, so if you arrive in the afternoon and stick around into the evening, expect to experience a shift in the atmosphere. Plus there’s a gaming section, so if you’ve made your wordcount goal and want to reward yourself with some time in World of Warcraft, you totally can.

Press Club — When a restaurant names its menu items after authors, you know they’re the sort of place you can linger with your laptop. The Press Club also has a fine selection of literary and arts magazines, so if inspiration lags, you can be inspired by the works of others.

Southeast Grind — This coffeeshop, which serves the ever-popular Voodoo Doughnuts among its other snack options, is open twenty-four hours. Need I say more?

Sterling Room for Writers, Multnomah County Library — You need to apply to use the Sterling Writers Room, but the application is short and you can fill it out online. You can write elsewhere inside the Central Library, too, of course — but it’s pretty cool to write in an official Writers Room, right?

There was a time when I made a practice of rereading my old email on a regular basis — when I got, and sent, significantly fewer messages. The exercise was not unlike rereading old journals, but instead of being a record of private fears, it was a way to examine how I presented myself to the rest of the world, or rather the subset thereof that I was emailing. I haven’t done it in a very long time.

Today as I reread, more than anything else I felt like I was getting a sense for how long it actually takes me to complete a book: researching, drafting, revising, the back-and-forth of editorial comments, copyediting, and, eventually, promoting the finished product.

It was both daunting and comforting.

Daunting because so far it’s always been a more drawn-out process than I wish it were.

Comforting because there’s clear evidence that it is a process which does, eventually, conclude. Though by the time it does, it’s already started again for the next book.

It also happens much farther below the waterline than it once did. And as I saw in my rereading, it takes place largely in emails rather than blog posts. Precisely because I can’t predict how long it will take me to go from idea to book, I no longer like to post a lot about the details of where I am on a project.

But every so often I feel compelled to assure the folks who read this (and remind myself? probably) that I am writing. And not just blog posts, either. Going to turn off the Internet and write some more now.

Several times over the past few years, I’ve heard about writers — some of whom are my friends — going on extended writing retreats, being extremely productive, and generally feeling renewed, inspired, etc.

I myself have been very lucky to be able to attend the annual BG Literary retreats. But as amazing as they are, they’re only for a weekend. The retreats I was hearing about lasted at least a week, sometimes significantly longer.

And every time I heard about one of these longer retreats, I’d think: “Wow, I’m so glad they got so much done! That’s so great!”

Okay that’s a lie.

I mean, I did think that, because I’m supportive of any and all strategies that result in more writing from people whose work I like.

But I would also seethe with jealousy. ”No fair!” I would think. “How do they just get to take a big chunk of time and go somewhere secluded and lovely to write?”

2. Revelation

It took me an astonishingly long time to realize that they could do it because they planned to do it. They considered their schedules and other commitments, budgeted time and money, found a place, and carved out a block of time to focus on writing.

3. Decision

Huh. I guess I could do that, too. 

So, I’m gonna. Not immediately. But come November, I will spend ten days in an undisclosed location. If you’ve been reading for a while, this is not the Usual Undisclosed Location, but rather an unusual undisclosed location.  While I am there I will write.

4. Conclusion

Once I figured out that I was a grownup, and as such could actually exert a certain amount of control over my capacity to hermit myself up for an extended period of time to write, it wasn’t hard to plan exactly how, where, and when the hermiting would happen.

The hard part was giving myself permission to plan.

I’m indebted to the artist who put this up in my neighborhood. The gritted teeth, the grim expression — it’s like that, yeah.

You want your writing to process, like with Pomp and Circumstance and fancy outfits. But sometimes what you get is more like processed, as in meat, and you’re trying to assemble ill-favored scraps into something appetizing.

In other news, I’ve just changed web hosts, and a few things seem to have gone missing in the transition. If you’re looking for something on sararyan.com and you can’t find it, please to let me know.

This amazing independent bookseller filled their store with twelve YA authors. They enlisted numerous zealously attentive teen volunteers to check in with us regularly to make sure we had everything we needed. The staff had read our books in advance. There was music by some of the authors, by a band fronted by a local librarian, by local kid and teen musicians. There were refreshments.

And did I mention we were on not one, but two marquees?

The readers came in droves. They bought books, yes. Some of them asked us about writing. Some of them told us what our books meant to them. Some of them read back covers, flipped through, looked up with shy smiles.

We smiled back.

Here’s all of us in front of the Granada marquee. (Names not in l-r order.) Me, Jesse Freels, Stephanie Bodeen, Kenny Knight, Rosanne Parry, Dave Anderson, R.A. McDonald, Inara Scott, Conrad Wesselhoeft, Anne Osterlund, Sherrida Woodley, and Neil Wolfson representing much-missed L.K. Madigan.

But as amazing as the day had been already, it got even better.

Some of us went out to the juvenile detention section of NORCOR. No photos from this part, obviously. We started with a panel discussion in front of the whole class, then broke into smaller groups.

Rosanne Parry and I were with three girls. I won’t tell you the stories they shared with us. I’ll tell you some authors they love.  Ellen Hopkins. Stephen King. Dean Koontz. They like drug books, to see characters struggling with addiction. They were smart and curious and funny, two of them starting to think about what they might do with their lives, the third not able, yet, to envision a future not dominated by the same issues that brought her inside. “But that’s kind of what I think can be great about books,” I said, trying not to be heavy-handed about it, but wanting to make the point — “It’s just, when you read, you can see more possibilities, right?”

She smiled.

And I’ve been realizing that when you do something a lot, the activity, whatever it is, begins to fit into your life in a different way. It becomes both less of a big deal and more of one; less because you do it so often that it’s routine, more because you affirm the importance of the activity with the time you devote to it.

A few years back, I railed against the notion that Real Writers Write Every Day; as though the numerous folks advocating the practice were, collectively, The Man, out to oppress me with their fascist ideas, man.

Well, for the last little while, I actually have been writing every day, for at least half an hour. Half an hour! It’s nothing. It’s a mere bagatelle, as my mom would say. And yet even that tiny amount of time is keeping the world of the book I’m working on nearer, significantly reducing my writing commute.

I am not one of them.

My inner critic, who resembles a very angry prosecuting attorney, starts second-guessing before my first guess is fully formed, doing her best to demolish the shoddy alibi that I have the temerity to be thinking of as a story. Frequently during a writing session, I spend more time trying to address her objections than advancing the plot.

I’ve just learned a technique for shutting her down. And I’m pleased to report that I learned it from Tina Fey.

Actually, I’d heard of the technique before — Ms. Katie Lane wrote a great piece about it in the context of negotiation. But it took Ms. Fey describing it as it’s used in improv to make me see its utility for writing.

You see, I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of Fey’s new book, Bossypants. Contrary to what you might expect, I wasn’t a big fan when I bought it. I’ve never seen 30 Rock or Mean Girls, and although I did admire her impersonation of the former Alaska governor, I have a nerd’s deep suspicion of anything or anyone too, you know, popular. But Bossypants makes the third time that I’ve come around to being interested in a celebrity creator’s work via encountering them talking and/or writing about their background and process. (The other two, for the curious, are Joss Whedon and Russell T. Davies.)

So one of the things you find in Bossypants is Rules for Improvisation. The first rule is “Yes, and.” This account of an appearance on her book tour quotes her explaining it in a slightly different form than it appears in the book:

The first rule, always agree. Say yes. Say, “yes, and” to things. For example, if I enter a scene and say, “I have a gun.’ And you say, “No, you don’t. That’s your finger.’ That’s terrible. Now we’re done. Saying “yes” means you’re basically agreeing to honor what the other person is creating. The next part is “yes, AND …” which means to contribute something on your own, like, ‘I have a gun’ and you say, ‘but you’ll never get the gold because I put it in my butt.’ I wouldn’t recommend THAT … but that’s the end, you’re contributing. It’s an exercise in being in the present. To follow your partner, to ask questions.

But Sara, I hear you protest, when you’re writing you have no improv partner! You’re just talking about what’s happening inside your head!

Yes, and because I often experience what’s happening inside my head when I write as a debate between a creator and a critic, it’s useful to reframe the critic’s objections.

How do you mean?

Okay, let’s take an example from The Thing I Am Working On.

Inner Critic recently screeched that it made no sense how my protagonist was unaware of the existence of a particular aspect of the world. (Why yes, I’m being deliberately vague.)

Inner Creator responded: YES, she IS unaware of it,  AND that’s because she’s grown up on a houseboat and it doesn’t work on water.

Inner Creator’s explanation led me to figure out several more things about the world I’m creating.

Without “yes, and,” I could’ve been derailed. I might even have scrapped the premise entirely. (Much to the consternation of my agent, who’s been nagging — I mean, gently encouraging — me to finish writing this book for longer than I care to admit.)

My Inner Critic’s objections, despite what I sometimes think, don’t always come from a place of pure self-sabotage. Inner Critic often has a point. She’s excellent at identifying inconsistencies in character, gaps in world-building, consequences that Inner Creator would blithely ignore.  The trick — or one of them — is to use Inner Critic’s objections to push Inner Creator’s creativity that much further. Thanks, Tina Fey!

Discovering your own symbol system and identifying your ruling anxieties makes you less apt to describe yourself when you think you’re describing others, less prone to confuse your own idiosyncrasies with a worldview. It also frees up your mental energies for more interesting tasks. Once you get rid of the first layer of chatter in your head, you concentrate better and on deeper issues. [...] It was as a student of my own craziness rather than texts or songs or paintings that I saw how to create pattern amid fragmentation.

I’m glad I had the chance to meet her through her friend and agent Jennifer Laughran, and glad, too, that we spent some time together in the warm community of Portland’s YA authors. If you didn’t know her work, here: read Flash Burnout and The Mermaid’s Mirror.

I keep going back to these lines she wrote. They’re posted at Paper Fort, but I’m selfishly reposting them here so they become part of my own archives.

“There are lots of books out there about writing. How to begin … how to keep going … how to plot … how to create memorable characters … there’s probably a book out there on how to write interesting website copy. I should have looked for it!

It’s good to read those books, but don’t feel guilty if your process is different than what they advise. The main thing is to WRITE. Some days it might be 2000 words. Some days you might tinker with two sentences until you get them just right. Both days belong in the writing life. Some days you may watch a “Doctor Who” marathon or become immersed a book that is so good you can’t stop reading. Some days you may be in love or in mourning. Those days belong in the writing life, too. Live them without guilt.” — L.K. Madigan

Tonight I’m trying to take Lisa’s advice — the no guilt part, but the WRITE part, too. The fact that her words are helping to console me is its own testimony.

It turned out that I would also meet Cooper’s legendary editor, Margaret K. McElderry, who had presented her own Arbuthnot Honor Lecture in 1994. I didn’t know much about her, except that her name, as part of the phrase “A Margaret K. McElderry Book,” was on many books I loved. I’m sort of glad I didn’t realize the extent of her fame in the world of children’s publishing; I might have been too intimidated to speak.

As it was, I happily chattered at Cooper and McElderry, who were friendly and gracious. After Cooper’s eloquent lecture and the associated festivities were over, I gave them a ride to the airport. I remember pointing out various sights en route, including the jug-shaped strip club, which amused them both.

So the news of McElderry’s death hit me with a special poignancy. I remembered that Cooper’s lecture had to do with age, and the circle that connects writers and readers. I looked up the full text in Library Literature; you can too if your library subscribes. Here’s a bit from the lecture, “Time and Again”:

We make a circle linking the child we once were, all those decades ago, with the child who will read our stories. It never ceases to amaze me that we are able to do that. Most adult novels, except for really major works, have a relatively short life; they go out of print as they go out of fashion. But a good children’s book can go on for decades and decades; that circle of connection keeps sparking and resparking like an electric circuit, linking the reading child’s imagination with the book written before he or she was born. Linking the child of today with the child that we, the writers, used to be.

R.I.P. Margaret K. McElderry, who made so many of those links possible.

I found a 1996 article that describes her career and influence, published in Library Trends by Betsy Hearne. It’s a long article, well worth reading in its entirety. In PDF: “Margaret K. McElderry and the Professional Matriarchy of Children’s Books.”