writing Archives - Page 49 of 82 - Trisha Sugarek, Author, Playwright & Poet

Motivational Moments… for Writers! #1

Writers! Start your day with a little writer’s jump-start. You can do it!

Procrastination is just a word. Write one new word, one new sentence. Breath! That sentence should make you want to write another.

What? Why? When? How? Where does that sentence lead you? Breathe. It doesn’t have to be perfect…it’s the first draft. That’s what re-writes are for.

‘Writers aren’t exactly people, they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.’

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

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‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’ Trisha Sugarek

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! In April, a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) May’s author is Jordan Rosenfeld. Michael Saad, Canadian author, will be June’s author. Robyn Carr is July’s author.

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Writers! Leave Yourself Open To Stories!

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you know that I am a proponent of keeping yourself open to life, stories, and snippets of tales.

I recently heard this question asked of a West African chef, “How did you feel when you heard a fat, rich, white woman (cooking show) claim that her recipe had been handed down from generation to generation in her family? When actually the dish (Shrimp and grits) has been cooked on the west coast of Africa for hundreds of years?”
The answer?
The chef/host who was giving an intimate dinner party in his home in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa (each syllable drips with mystery, doesn’t it?) smiled and said, “Gratitude that our cuisine lives on and is enjoyed in the United States.”

And Gumbo is another example. Louisiana claims it originated there. A poor man’s dish. Ingredients: Fish/seafood from the river out back, tomatoes and other veggies from the garden, a roux from pork drippings,(from the pig pen out back) butter and flour. Again, Africa via France and brought to the south with the Cajuns.

When I heard this conversation (above) what this writer’s ears heard was: “MamaBelle, cook up some of your shrimp and grits as a side dish for my guests!” The fine lady, from the mansion on the hill, had walked down to the kitchen house to talk about the menu for her dinner party. MamaBelle had been the head cook on the plantation for decades but still had knife-sharp memories of arriving in Georgia, bound in shackles, barely surviving the trip on the slave ship from West Africa. Put on the block for auction, teeth examined, hips examined (for breeding) stripped naked. Being marched miles and miles to the plantation. Working the fields until it was discovered that she was of better use in the kitchen. Living through the horror of her children being sold off when the Masta’ needed ready cash. Continue reading “Writers! Leave Yourself Open To Stories!”

‘Women Outside the Walls’ by Trisha Sugarek

Many years ago I visited a state prison for men in Illinois. My first time ever, in a prison, doing research for one of my plays. I was there to see a confessed murderer, Bill, and was writing his story. (Cook County Justice) I sat in the reception area, very nervous and scared; much like Kitty in the beginning of this story.

I was deeply moved by the nameless women around me who had come to visit their men. One woman told me that she was visiting her son and had been coming once a month and every holiday for thirteen years. During another time in her life she had faithfully visited her husband for fifteen years while he served out his time. Many of the children I saw had spent their growing up years in a visiting room behind bars.

The entry process that I write about [and went through] is accurate in this story. Most notable about the visiting room was the frustration, anger and fear, thick in the air. In the visiting room, the rage and disappointment emanating from inmates was palatable.

There seemed to be two types of prisoners; ones like Bill who kept their heads down, caused no waves, and spoke in a monotone. Or the other type who were aggressive, ‘in your face’ bullies and troublemakers. Always running a hustle. As I sat there interviewing Bill, I was struck on a visceral level about how these women coped year after year. How did they come to be here? Was it a simple matter of choosing the wrong men? Did they grow up with the same dreams most women have about living with a good husband and raising wonderful children? As I sat there, I wondered: where did it all go so terribly wrong?

Praise for Trisha Sugarek

Women Outside the Walls~~ ‘Step inside the sisterhood of the women with men behind bars. These women all come together in the waiting room and then visitor’s room at the prison while waiting to visit their men. They all have one thing in common and that’s the fact that they love their men. This is an honest book, which means that it’s not always a happy book. It will touch your heart in ways that you wouldn’t expect and is a book well worth spending the time to read. You’ll come away with a new respect for women in this situation and a bit more understanding of why they continue supporting the men they love, no matter what.’ ~~ Fresh Fiction

‘Love can see people through the roughest times. This novel, Women Outside the Walls, from Trisha Sugarek takes the reader along as she explores the nature of women outside the prison walls who are trying to get by as their men are serving time. Finding an unusual friendship through their tough time, more plight comes their way and challenges what they have left as independent women as one of their daughters goes missing. Women Outside the Walls carries a positive message, and shouldn’t be overlooked, very much recommended.’ ~ Midwest Book Review

Available at: Amazon.com and all fine book stores

Available in e-books
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My Interview with Charles Bukowski, Poet, Drunk, Reprobate, Genius

I would pay a lot of money to interview the great authors of our time. Steinbeck, Bronte, Hemingway, Austen, Twain, London, Service, John McDonald, Robert Parker. But at the top of my bucket list would be Henry Charles Bukowski {1920-1994}. So I asked myself would it be so very strange or inappropriate to pretend what it might have been like? Post an interview with ‘Hank’ Bukowski even though he’s been dead almost twenty years? The answer was no!

I imagined I was sitting with him, in a corner booth, in some neighborhood watering hole. Old die-hard drunks sit up at the bar minding their own business. I can see tree roots growing from the seat of their pants into the seat of the bar stools. Wet, green tendrils curl around the stool legs. They don’t speak. They stare into their empty glass or into their own smoky reflection in the mirror on the back wall. What do they see? A long-lost heaven? A nearby hell?

Bukowski has already finished his first drink and signals the bartender for another. I am paying of course. (viewer discretion advised ~ language)
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The Interview:

Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?

CB. Anywhere they’ll leave me the hell alone. I’m not particular.

Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write?

CB. A fifth of bourbon, a couple packs of cigarettes. Quiet. Enough paper, which can be a problem when I’m between jobs.

Q. What is your mode of writing?

CB. A pencil or pen, I don’t care. Paper. My Remington typewriter if it’s not in pawn. Sometimes the bartender will let me have the left over stubs of pencils from around the bar. Many years ago, this drunk in a suit was sitting next to me, over there at the bar. He was complaining that his company had bought something called a ‘computer’ and they were making him learn how to do his sales reports on it. He hated it but he said, ‘I fear that it is the face of the future, Hank.’ Goddamn machines, taking over the world and us bit by bit. I’ll stick to my pencil and paper.

Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?

CB. Listen, girl, I wish there were more times when I didn’t ‘feel creative’; didn’t need to write. Occasionally when I’m f—ing or I’m blind drunk, or both, I can take a break and forget.

Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?

CB. Legitimate writers don’t procrastinate.

Q. How does a writer begin? How do you write, create?

CB. You don’t try. That’s very important: not to try, when it comes to Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It’s like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it.

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?

CB. I’m lost right now. Wait fifteen minutes…..(he stared into space) nope, still lost. Does that answer your question?

Q. Who or what is your ‘muse’ at the moment?

A. Ha! You’re funny. Let’s see, junkies, slant-eyed women, barkeeps, dogs, cats, mocking birds, my landlady, bums, women….oh yeah, women most definitely. War, rain, politicians, pigs, beautiful young girls as they walk by, Jane, the shoeshine man, booze, my father, gravediggers, whores in Mexico.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

CB. I don’t remember…a long, long time ago.

Q. How long after that were you published?

CB. Decades. I sent my stuff to every sex rag, publisher, and agent I could find. It was always rejected until one day It wasn’t. I’d sell my blood so I could buy stamps.

Q. What makes a writer great?

CB. You can’t have rules. No woman who is so important that she gets in your way. No job that can keep you from what you have to do. Knowing that sometimes when you’re drunk you are a better writer.

Q. ….and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?

CB. There’s never ‘no book’ for me. It might not be down on paper yet, but it’s always there. When my head gets so full it might explode then I find a pencil and write it down. I don’t give a shit if a book is ‘finished’. That’s what publishers are for. I just send them my stuff and if they print all of it or some of it, I’m happy. The thing that I won’t let them do is change anything. Not a word. It drives ’em crazy.

Q. What inspired your stories and your poetry?

CB. Mostly the streets of L.A. And don’t call my shit ‘poetry’. That’s what the suits call it so people will buy it. “…my poems are only bits of scratchings on the floor of a cage…” Mostly I just write what I see and how I feel about it. And I see a lot of sick shit. And I don’t feel so good about it.

Q. Is there anything else you’d like my readers to know?

CB. Yeah, a few things: ‘We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men’s crapper of the local bar.’ and……

‘There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.’ and….

‘The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting’……. and finally,

‘I don’t like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.’

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MY features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: World Traveler, Tal Gur. June: mystery author, Manning Wolfe.

Check out more Motivational Moments…for Writers!

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To Purchase

Interview With Author, Jordan Rosenfeld

TS. I met this writer on Facebook and was instantly intrigued by her wacky photos and obvious joie de vie. She writes fiction and also non-fiction on the subject of writing.

Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.

JR. I do have a wonderful office in my home that I painted in bright bold colors that reflect me. I write there most often, though I’ll write wherever if need be.

Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)

JR. No, for me personally, rituals often detract from just getting down to business. Unless you count eating corn chips by the handful?

Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?

JR. I dropped out of Acting school but made it all the way through beauty school, go figure.

Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?

JR. I write whenever I have time. Waiting for the muse leads to a lot of waiting for me. Perhaps in the luxurious leisure time of my twenties I “waited” for inspiration, but I had no real distractions other than books at the time so the wait was short.

Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?

JR. Write one sentence. Continue reading “Interview With Author, Jordan Rosenfeld”

Time For More Famous Quotes

It’s been quite some time since I gave my readers some of my favorite quotes from famous writers…those people that inspire me to be a better one. Maybe this weekend, after reading these, YOU will write something new or go back and rewrite something old or write a piece of poetry that you were afraid to lay down on paper.

Or maybe these quotes will just make you smile…

‘I keep six honest serving men. (They taught me all I know); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.- Rudyard Kipling (I can’t let this go by without commenting on Kipling’s colloquial term of ‘honest serving men’. He spent decades in India.)

‘I have this feeling of wending my way or plundering through a mysterious jungle of possibilities when I am writing. This jungle has not been explored by previous writers. It never will be explored. It’s endlessly varying as we progress through the experience of time. These words that occur to me come out of my relation to the language which is developing even as I am using it.’- William Stafford (I am particularly fond of this quote.)

‘In Ireland, a writer is looked upon as a failed conversationalist.’- Anonymous

‘Make ’em laugh; make ’em cry; make ’em wait.’- Charles Reade

‘No tears and the writer, no tears and the reader.’– Robert Frost

take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the beginning. ~Charles Bukowski

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‘Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.’- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

‘This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again.’- Oscar Wilde

‘Thought flies and words go on foot.’- Julien Green (this is why I type 80 words a minute)

‘What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.’- Logan Pearsall Smith

‘Writers aren’t exactly people, they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.’

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

‘The truth is, we’ve not really developed a fiction that can accommodate the full tumult, the zaniness and crazed quality of modern experience.’- Saul Bellow

‘Writing is one of the easiest things: erasing is one of the hardest.’- Rabbi Israel Salanter

‘The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.’ – Charles Bukowski

1.Creative.Write.BookCoverImage — Journal/Handbook by Trisha Sugarek

and I’ll finish with a not-so-famous quote:
‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’   Trisha Sugarek
……that is, when I’m not beating up the writer in me with a large stick in the shape of a pencil.
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DON’T MISS BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!   In April, a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) May’s author is Jordan Rosenfeld. Michael Saad, Canadian author, will be June’s author.

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Pumping Out Experiments

Huh?

I want to talk about a few of experiments that I have pumped out over the past few years. Five years ago I published an eclectic collection of ten minute plays. At that time, it was all the rage for theatre companies to produce them, usually in a group for an evening’s entertainment. The ‘G’ rated short plays in the collection were very popular with young actors and educators. This experiment did pretty well; sales plunked along at a decent rate. Then I had another brain storm (oh, no! not another one).

Since teachers have NO budget for the arts, why not write and publish individual short plays for the classroom. Small casts, no set, no costumes. And CHEAP!

The experiment: I wrote two and published them on amazon.com. Within a week, they began to fly off the shelves. It’s several years later and there are now twenty-seven of these short plays. Twenty of them deal with real life issues for today’s teen.

I had been toying with the idea of publishing a Journal for Creative Writing. I had noticed that the post most frequently visited on my blog was ‘How To Write A Play‘. I decided to turn the journal into a handbook about writing. Maintaining the 275 blank pages for the writer’s work, I added tips on how to write a play, poetry, fiction, how to get started (that first sentence) and more.

Have all my experiments been an over-night hit? No…failure must be the spur to achieving more. Some of my ideas have been abysmal rejects. But indie publishing is very economical so why not try? And indie publishing opens other doors.

It all begins with trying, with an experiment. Who would have guessed that my ‘little play books’ would take off like they have. So don’t be afraid to experiment with a writing idea. What have you got to lose?

http://www.amazon.com/Trisha+Sugarek

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DON’T MISS BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! In April, a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) May’s author is Jordan Rosenfeld. Michael Saad, Canadian author, will be June’s author.

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Melting away the shame…

One early, wintry Sunday morning I found myself sitting in the waiting area of an Illinois State Prison for Men. I was about to visit a confessed murderer. I was writing his story for a stage play I was developing.

I felt like a fish out of water. Over dressed, out of place, and very conscious of the other women around me. Probably much like how Kitty felt, in my future book. The only males in the room were young, probably sons and nephews of the incarcerated men we were waiting to see. And here was an odd thing, everyone’s shoes were untied. I found out later, and by personal experience, that the other visitors knew the drill. The CO’s (correctional officers) would search our persons which included removing our shoes for inspection.

Trying hard not to stare, I observed the hopeful resignation on these women’s faces. They knew each other and murmured news and gossip to one another. I was definitely an outsider and did not belong. As I sat there an overwhelming urge to know their stories and write them down came to me. It was urgent that I find out what brought them to this place. They didn’t look like bad people. They were women you saw at the store, on the street, in an office, ordinary in every way; wives, mothers, sisters.

Now it was time to go inside. I remember heavy steel doors clanging shut behind us. It was a scary moment; I had just given up my freedom. Even though it was for a short time, my rights and freedom were in other people’s hands. I was assigned a table and sat down to wait for Bill. The suppressed frustration and rage in that room was palatable. Other than a short hug between loved ones, no touching was allowed. I’m certain that contraband was exchanged but I never witnessed it. The women were indefatigably cheerful in front of their men. It might have been a crowded city park, families sitting at picnic tables visiting, playing cards, giving their children snacks; save for the concertina wire at the top of the fence.

A year and a half later when I was in the final rewrite of my novel Women Outside the Walls I was working on the acknowledgments. One woman, in particular, had shared so much with me, about her life outside the walls. I wished to thank her but still maintain her anonymity. I asked her if I could use her first name and only the initial of her surname. Would that protect her, I asked, and keep her clients from knowing about her personal life? Her reply to this question was this:
“It doesn’t matter if your readers figure it out and discover that it’s me…your book has taken away all my shame…”

Shirley K. had stood by her man while he served ten years. Raising their children, supporting an unwed daughter and grandchild and working two jobs. Half way through her husband’s term, Shirley’s son was sentenced to life for murder. Now she was visiting two of her men in prison. She’s a hero in my book. She did nothing to deserve this kind of life. Never even had a traffic ticket. And that’s the common thread among these women. Married, raising their children; mid-stream America, right? Then their husbands or sons or brothers make a stupid decision and end up in prison.

I asked Shirley how she and the other women kept up a brave face when visiting their husbands. She told me stories about how after the visit was over the women, friends for years, had a designated rest area (down the highway a couple of exits from the prison) that they would meet at after visitation. That’s where they shared their tears, grief, anger, and commonality of spirit. But they never let their husbands see what they were going through. They were serving time in their own personal prison; doing their own time.

Little did I know that my novel about wives waiting outside the walls, while their men served out their sentences, would have this kind of impact. What I did know was, as I wrote the book, I met many women from all walks of life that had someone currently in prison or had that experience in the past. Most of my book is based on true stories told to me. As a writer it is not uncommon for me to have people, strangers, appear in my life to share and contribute something to my writing. It’s welcomed but uncanny.

Epilogue: Shirley’s son, convicted of murder and sentenced to life, had his conviction and sentence reduced to manslaughter and fifteen years. He was released in 2014.
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DON’T MISS BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! In April, a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) May’s author is Jordan Rosenfeld.

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Page 1 on Google! The Reward…After Four Years!

‘believe in what isn’t…as if it were…until it becomes…’

Four years ago my web site designer, Leon Adato, designed my web site and insisted that if I wanted to be any kind of viable force in cyber-space that I would have to write a blog. He said the results wouldn’t be over night and might take years, but my work would be noticed. It seems silly now, as I write this, but my first reaction was:

‘No! I don’t wanna! It will take me away from my writing. I have nothing to say. What would I write about?’ I threw a tantrum, basically. But it turned out that I had something to say….about the craft of writing. And then I discovered chatting with other authors was a hoot and began interviewing them (some very famous ones). And then I received requests to review books…and so it went.

The reward. Continue reading “Page 1 on Google! The Reward…After Four Years!”

An Interview * Author, Kathleen Grissom

TS. It took me awhile but, with a little perseverance, I finally caught Kathleen Grissom with a few free moments and she gave me the interview I have been nagging her for. Grin! Glory Over Everything, the sequel to The Kitchen House has just been released so this is perfect timing to visit Kathleen while she writes.

Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?

KG. I have a writing room above my garage, separate from the house. It is a wonderful space with lots of light, desks and bulletin boards galore. There, along with pertinent reminders, I post pictures of my research that shed light on my work in progress.

Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)

KG. For my first draft I always begin with a stack of fresh legal pads from Staples and a stash of Paper Mate mechanical pencils – my favorite. A glass of water is always at my side.

Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?

KG. I once raised Cashmere goats. I meant to spin the cashmere, but I had no idea how difficult and time consuming that was to do. After we sold the farm, the goats went to live on another farm with my goat mentor, a woman who knew more about goats than anyone else I have ever known. But I still have some fiber stored away in bags.

Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?

KG. I would not write a word if I waited for the creative spark to strike. Continue reading “An Interview * Author, Kathleen Grissom”

Writers! Start your day with a little writer’s jump-start. You can do it!

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