Writing is a solitary business. Writers build offices, private “caves,” or special hideaway places to where they can retreat and live in worlds they create and with people they birth. These absences might be for a few minutes, a few hours, or become the hibernation of an entire year, depending on the writers and their projects.

Plenty of writing pundits offer advice on this solitude. Some will declare that such time away is necessary and must happen if a writer is to succeed. Other experts will shame writers declaring that withdrawal into a special, private place is self-indulgent nonsense and unnecessary. Other authors – best-selling trendsetters – use their success to guide and direct authors for or against this solitude. Right or wrong, what is the “write” way? 

There is no one way despite all of the voices who declare they know.

I would like to offer that the solitude is a writer’s singular choice. Personally, I believe every writer needs a designated space designed for that writer where creation and imagination are the primary purpose. Just as the office worker has his or her own desk and space (even a cubicle), so does the writer require a designated space. This special “corner” announces “this is my work,” and must be respected. This special place gives a writer a sense of purpose and a private place to meet that purpose. As I said in the beginning, writing is a solitary business and should be treated as a business.

But I must also insist that though the writing work is done in solitude, writers cannot afford to live their lives alone. I don’t mean the kind of singleness that comes with living alone. Your living status, marital status, or sexual need isn’t what I mean by alone. Writers require contact. Writers need people.

And how, you ask, does that meet up with the solitary writer?

You see them in the coffee shop, libraries, on the grass under a tree — the writer working on a laptop, or writing in a notebook, earbuds or headphones on. These are solitary writers but they are not truly alone. They come out of their writer caves to mingle, to find like folks and get understanding smiles, to listen to stray conversations, and generally to observe behaviors. Writers need input to keep their work interesting and the best way to get it is to emerge into the world and be with the very people that end up as characters in the stories and novels readers come to demand.

My attitude is authors need people. They don’t always WANT them, but they – we, me – NEED them. People are fodder (sorry, not flattering, but true). And writers want to observe and listen in their solitude place, separate and alone. That doesn’t mean no socializing because writers certainly know how to “get down and dirty” with the rest of the world. But writing can only be done alone (even sitting in a crowd of people, the headspace is solitary).

(Beloved writers who are fun-loving cut-ups)

Wait, you say, there are writers who chose to be alone and without people!

Yes, there are writers who opted out of public life and chose seclusion instead: Bill Watterson (author of Calvin and Hobbs), Emily Dickinson (author of many books after death), Harper Lee (author, To Kill a Mockingbird), and JD Salinger (author, Catcher in the Rye). Add to the list William Faulkner and Edgar Allan Poe. Some will want to argue that they were solitary and reclusive because of fame, but for most of these writers, this would be patently untrue. And if you don’t believe they mingled despite their hermit lives, then you would be wrong.

Perhaps writers are life’s lurkers. They keep to their space and fringe walk with others. 

So here’s my advice to you. Create that private sanctuary, the cave, the office or even just a corner, were the writer in you can imagine and create. In in a house with kids and pets, you need a quiet singular place to call your own where magic can be born. Then use it. Sit yourself in this space but do not petrify there. Go out and be in the world. Interact. Observe. Remind yourself what the pulse of the world feels like. Listen and feel the rhythm of many voices, young and old. Mingle, breathe, touch. Be one with your living world and then be only from it.

Writers need input. But in the end, writers MUST have solitude. It is who we are, it is what we are.

We are the Solitaries and we are proud!

Thank you for stopping by. Let me know your habits and share what you’re working on. Now I’m off to find some people to listen to and spice up my book’s conversation!

I remain, Yours Between the Lines,
Sherry

So there I was late last night (early this morning), not ready for sleep and wanting to watch something on TV that made me feel good.  I didn’t want any blood and gore, no downers, nothing depressing. So I scrolled through the on-air guide…(just go with me here)…It (scary)…The Bad Son…Trainspotting…Shadow Dogs…The Wicker Tree…Rise of the Planet of the Apes…The American…U 571…Deer Hunter (uh, no)…The Crow…Reservoir Dogs….Pollock…Prometheus…

Okay, I sighed. Heavily. Disappointed, I was about to turn off the TV when there it was! Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Yes! I changed the channel, settled back in my recliner and let myself be magiked away.  How is it I could find this youthful movie so much more preferable to anything else?

The simple answer is that Harry Potter’s first movie has that “certain something.” The more complex answer for me is that the movie offers one delicious emotion we all crave, despite the target audience, something we always gravitate to — hope.

Harry Potter movies (including the later, darker ones) send a message — that even in the darkest hour, there is always hope. And so in the middle of the night, I raised weary eyes to an HD screen and felt myself entertained, uplifted, and filled with hope.  Each of the main characters were just starting on their journey and despite knowing how they would end up (yes, I read all the books and have seen all the movies), I wanted to start over with them again. I wanted to re-new the thrills, the discoveries, the silliness. I wanted their innocence. I needed to renew what they found in each other – hope. 

When I finally turned out the light and closed my eyes seeking dreams (I never made it to the end of the movie, but love and hope won out in the end), I had to smile. Besides being a kid at heart and knowing I could watch that first Harry Potter movie over and over, the reason I feel this way is how inspired I always am by these characters, their infectious joy and their capacity to hope. This is what makes the Harry Potter stores great – this certain something from these characters that remains with us, long after the tale has ended.

As a writer, I want my readers to know this feeling from me. Somewhere in the tale, there must be a golden thread, a feeling my characters will always promise to deliver no matter the obstacles or odds.  I want my readers to come back, craving that certain something from me, and knowing they will find it. Just as I knew Harry would give it to me.

JK Rowling had to find it in herself. Broke and practically homeless, she followed a dream (literally) and spent 10 years holding on to hope that her characters would be published. I think that’s why the theme is so very potent in her stories. She had faith and hope and so do Harry and his friends. They give it over to us, in every book, in every movie. And we come back to it simply because we like how it makes us feel.

I urge you, as writers, find your certain something and be generous. After all, “it” is what created the Patronus, saved Snape’s soul, and defeated Voldemort. Hope.  More than love, this little “something” is worth reaching for at any hour, repeatedly.  I think that’s the real magic.  Every time I open a book, watch a movie, listen to a bit of classical music, I am reminded of that which is behind the art that thrills me:  that certain something. You have to have it to be magic. You have to have it to be memorable. You have to have it to succeed. 

When I find it from an author, I stick with that author. I’m hooked, just like finding Harry Potter on late night TV. The magic never dies and it’s memorable. I’ll stay up all night for you if you give me a book that will stay with me.

Something special. It is the hook your readers want. JK gave us Harry and Harry gave us hope.

Go find yours. Readers are waiting.

Thanks for stopping by.

Yours Between the Lines,
Sherry

I struggled with this post for Memorial Day. Today, we should be remembering our fallen servicemen and women, those young and old men and women who sacrificed their lives in service of freedom and protection. I smile with pride as I hear the national anthem played during sporting events and as I see tributes to servicepersons on television. There are parades and fireworks and I see active duty personnel being welcomed everywhere.

I am proud of these images and moments. But I am sad, too. Most of today’s youth, even the middle age population do not really understand the military or what it means to serve. Yes, there is a much more open and accepting view of the military (unlike how we treated our servicemen and women after Korea or Vietnam), but when you ask a teen about war, most only have a video game reference. I shudder and cringe when I think how war is seen as “shoot-em, kill-’em, get up and shoot again.”  Few understand that when you get shot while servicing your country, most never get up. Those that do, are never the same and many will never be whole again.

Too few of our youth are visiting military museums, going to memorials or even places in this country where battles were fought. There is something sobering and heart stopping to stand in a field where your own countrymen fought and died against other of your countrymen over a need for all men and women to be free. Now imagine that feeling on a foreign beach as you watch your brother and sister service members shooting at an unseen enemry only to fall into the mud or the sand and never to move again. 

There is nothing video game-ish for me about war or the heroes who serve and do so in order to prevent it. So what can we do to help enlighten our children, our peers, our populace?

As an author, I understand not being able to actually go where wars were fought and won. Or lost. I understand not being able to have the money to experience a live truth. But as an author there are other ways to shed this video-game-parade-happy view of those who have fought and died. There are road trips and History movies. There are walking trails and there are books.

There are so many memorials that are free. I would encourage everyone to try a memorial cemetery and read the names of those who have served and died. There are free military museums everywhere, in every state. And there are some who charge only a nominal fee to view real history from still living people.

I’ve been overseas and have walked in the shadows of terrible battles. I’ve been where Jews were indiscriminately cremated or where service members were slaughtered just because they were Americans. I have walked Arlington and Gettysburg and watched a dogfight between warring nations. So I have that experience.

And I’ve also read. There is a huge amount of military literature available that can give a variety of viewpoints about those who served. Not the salacious stuff you see out there with half naked, helmet wearing guys (ala Fabio) on Indie covers about romance (sorry fellow Indie authors). Those books are great for escape but not what I’m talking about here.

In fact, you’ve probably read military fiction and didn’t realize it. Much of it is historical, speculative and even military science fiction. Some of it was satire and even black comedy. But much of it was based on fact or knowledge and worth your time to understand the depth of service. You can’t write what you know unless you gleam some knowledge. You don’t have to have lived it to understand or know about it.

There’s fun stuff like H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds (1898), or Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1869). How about Slaughterhouse Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut? Don’t forget the famous 1961 novel Catch 22 by Joseph Heller or a personal favorite, King Rat by James Clavell (1962). There is a terrific historical military fiction in The Bridge Over the River Kwai (1952) by Pierre Boulle, and even something very special in The Hunt for Red October (1984) by Tom Clancy. A personal favorite is Starship Troopers (1952) by Robert A. Heinlein (and no, it has nothing to do with giant bugs on alien planets).

If you want something a little more “today” try Dauntless by Jack Campbell, Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose, or Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden (the book is a definite must read over the movie). Or try Flyboys by James Bradley, or a most moving account by Jake Tapper in The Outpost.

Memorial Day is a good day to hold your families close and cherish your ability to have that cookout, go to that parade or watch those fireworks. It is a good day to kick back with a game of golf or a quiet lounge by the pool. It’s also a good day to read a truly important book.

Whatever you do on this Memorial Day I urge you to shed your make believe views of war and of those who died in them. I hope you will have your bbq and remember you do it freely because somewhere some man or woman in uniform, voluntarily served and died for us, so we could have the ease and choice to choose chicken or hamburger, a movie or a boat ride.

And take your familities to see the real remnants of war and battle. Help them to see the reality that was and is war and what sacrifice actually means. And when you hear the National Anthem again, let it fill your heart with words that mean so much to me, “land of the free, and the home of the brave.”

Because of those who died.

Yours Between the Lines,
Sherry
Proud to be a retired, US Air Force non-combat veteran.