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Submission Tips
Writing Exercises
Message From The Editor
A Creative Writing Example
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Some Clarification
We have been through some of the submissions we have received and we need to be clearer about what we are looking for. Some have sent us scholarly pieces, more suited to journals or to a thesis. Others have sent us essays or opinions on medications.
This begs the question: What makes for creative writing?
If I write: "I went for a walk today, it took me past the hospital and it brought back bad memories", that is a kind of writing but not what we need. Instead, if I begin with:
"It was a grey day, one of many in this disappointing fall, and to get out of myself, I decided to walk through the neighbourhood to try and change my mood. My path brought me, unconsciously, to the hospital where I had spent so many months steeped in fear and failure."
Now we are in the realm of the creative, where we are painting a picture and creating a mood for the reader.
Another term for this is literary writing, and this is our mandate.
We have some excellent pieces, poems, vignettes, short stories. And we'd like a lot more. So if your first submissions weren't accepted, don't give up.
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Some Ideas:
Here are some of the subject areas we are looking for in story or poetry form:
Feelings of difference, isolation or loss, triumph or success while in the community or at work or at home.
Experiences with medications or hospitalization.
Realizing ambitions or dreams.
The birth of a child, the love of a partner.
Advocacy: being at the table with professionals, representing your community.
Overcoming histories of abuse, addictions
Starting all over again
Feelings about the state of the world, spirituality, and your place in it.
Reconciliation
These are just suggestions, not limitations.
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Getting Started:
Like anything else in life, if you want to be a writer, you have to practice, you have to write. It's much easier to think about what you'd like to say, and how well it would be received, than to actually put pen to paper. Your first attempts may not look anything like you'd hoped, but if you persist, you may well get there.
When I decided to write about my experiences in the psychiatric boarding home (Upstairs in the Crazy House), I didn't tell myself I was going to write a book, or I would have been too intimidated to start. Instead, I told myself I would write individual stories about the men and women I had met there. I made a list of those stories and events that were most urgent in my mind, then I took the one I thought would be easiest to start with and made another list of everything I would like to include in that story.
How I first encountered that individual, what he or she looked like, dressed like, spoke like, in what room, what that room looked like, and what was said. I might end up with twenty or thirty points I would like to cover in the story.
Then I had to think how to frame that story, how to start it, how to end it. How to make the person breath and take on life. Sometimes, I would close my eyes and take myself back to that moment, listen carefully to my memory, and when I emerged, tried to write it down.
That's the first draft. Then you work on the draft to make it better, editing it yourself, sometimes with help (suggestions) from others.
It can be painful to recreate times that were bad, it's a truism that we need some distance, some months or years to pass, before we can revisit and write about them. It also helps develop perspective, so that the writing is not so raw with grievance or anger that no one can read it.
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Another Hint:
Carry a notebook (and pen )
The note book should be small, flexible and portable, use it to write down ideas or thoughts as they come to you. Don't fool yourself that you'll remember -- you won't.
Make copies of your writing, and don't have all the copies in the same place.
Write the same time every day: whether it's first thing in the morning or the last thing at night, it's important to establish routine and discipline. Try an hour at a time, make yourself face the paper, and fill it..
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