Calling All Writers: Tell Us About Your Writing Routine...

I am, as you know, deep into Bread & Wine, a collection of essays about life around the table that will be released about a year from now. Just an hour ago I sent off a messy, rough, rambling partial draft to my editors and agent--scary, exciting, nerve-wracking every time.

In my limited experience, writers and distance runners are very much the same in that they tend to be creatures of habit, heavily-routine oriented. Both runners and writers have the sense, I think, that there’s a little magic, a little alchemy to what they’re doing, and that if something is working, they absolutely don’t want to mess with it.

A few of my current quirks:

I don’t usually wear makeup when I write, even if I’m going to the coffee shop. It’s like I’m undercover, my non-public, non-painted self, and there’s something important about that.

I wear a snuggly hoodie, currently a Lululemon Cuddle Up, gray with a little bit of sparkly thread running through it. And I wear my glasses, not because I want to look smart, but again, because there’s something about being my non-public self.  If I wore jeans and boots, or a dress and heels, if I put on a full face of makeup, I think I would feel like I’m going out, like I’m there to connect with people.

But when I’m writing, I’m going for the opposite thing: that feeling of being totally unknown, invisible, present only to the page and the keys, like every cell and breath is pushing through my fingers and on to the page, a direct channel.

Increasingly, I either to go coffee shops that don’t have wireless, or I turn my wireless off. I’ve got my phone, of course, but there’s something important about my computer only being used for writing—not emailing, not Twitter, not blog reading.

Right now, I don’t write at home, generally, because there are too many distractions—toys to pick up, blankets to fold, cookbooks to curl up with in the name of research. In other seasons, I’ve written mostly at home, but this season I’m finding that it’s better for me to have writing time equal coffee shop time, a signal that it’s work time, creative time, separate from puttering-around-the-house time.

I think some of the write-at-home vs. write-at-the-coffee-shop conversation has to do with where most of the rest of your time is spent. When I was working at church, or when I’ve been traveling a lot, home is the best place to be for writing, the only place I want to be. But right now I’m home so much with Henry & Mac that it’s a good signal to my brain to get out & be somewhere else.

I write in plain old Word, but I do know that lots of writers use fancy programs—Scrivener? Something about a snowflake?  I’d love to hear what you use—what works best for you?

And I type everything—I never ever write with pen and paper. Do you? I make notes on Evernote, and write long rambly Word documents, and then I chop it all up into essays after the fact, and some of those divisions are more natural than others.

One other quirk: I always want to listen to music, and I often try, but ultimately, I find it’s incredibly distracting, and end up again with silence.

Tell me about your routine: do you write from home? If you do, is it always the same place in your home?

Do you have any superstitions or routines? Anything you always do or never do?

Music or silence? What kind of music?

What makes a good coffee shop to write in, in your view? What makes a bad one?

Baby Favorites

I'm by no means an expert on baby gear, and I'm not particularly picky about a lot of it, but there are just a few things I do really love. So whether you're a new parent or you're looking for a go-to list of things to bring to a friend's new baby, here are a few of our can't-live-without favorites:

Blabla kitty cat

Our friend Kelly gave Mac this sweet little cat, and it is his favorite, favorite toy--we don't leave the house without Kitty Cat. So soft and grab-able for little hands, and there are lots of really cute dolls to choose from.

Ergo baby carrier

We love the Baby Bjorn, but it very quickly wreaks havoc on the lower back. The Ergo is perfect for bigger and heavier kids--you can wear it on the front, the side, or the back like a backpack, and it's super-comfy for both parent and baby.

Hanna Andersson sleepers

I love these. I'm kind of a Hanna sleeper addict. Mac and Henry both wear them, they wore them in our Christmas card picture, and Mac wore the darling light blue & white striped sleeper home from the hospital. Love.

Baby Gap bundlers

Both Mac and Henry wore these every night for the first few months. I love how soft they are, and it's so great to not have to deal with snaps in the blurry, dark middle of the night. And like the Hanna sleeper, they've held up for both boys--no small thing.

Skip Hop play mat

Mac just loves this. He grabs the owls, he shakes the rattle, and he especially loves to stare at that crazy baby in the mirror while he's on his tummy.

Swaddle Designs blanket

This is my go-to baby gift. At a certain point, I bought a dozen to keep on hand, giving them to every new baby in our life. We have several, and we use them for newborn swaddling, stroller blankets, an extra snuggly layer on the boat, and on and on. They only get better with washes, and we just ordered a crib sheet made of their super-soft flannel, so that Mac's bed won't be so cold on these freezing winter nights.

Aden + Anais muslin blanket

 If Swaddle Designs are my old standby, these are my new love. Basically, they're the perfect summer/warm weather alternative to Swaddle Designs flannel. Perfect for swaddling or laying over a stroller to keep out the sun, and really cute designs.

What are your baby favorites? What have you especially loved for your babies, or what's your go-to gift to bring a friend?

Wild Geese

Some seasons call for a little poetry. This is one of those seasons. Not a bad one, by any means, but one of great intensity. This season feels rich and full, crammed with life and ideas and people and experiences. The day flies by in what feels like a flash, a gasp, and we sleep without dreaming, hard and not enough, and then we begin again, hurled out of a deep sleep with a baby's cry.

I'm writing the next book, and Aaron's recording the next liturgy. Late nights, stealing away at naptime for an hour at the coffee shop. A dear friend had emergency surgery last week. Another dear friend gave birth to a healthy baby boy last night. A friend went through a break-up, a friend had an accident, a friend is celebrating an engagement. I feel like my cell phone is a part of my body, waiting for text updates about a surgery or a doctor's report or a conversation. Travel, deadlines, a four month old. Creativity and laundry, nerves, sleepless nights. The feeling that there would never be enough hours in a day, no matter how many you had.

My mind wanders back to this line, "You do not have to be good..."

And this one: "let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

And this one: "your place in the family of things."

I have loved this poem for almost twenty years, and it still has things to teach me every time I approach it anew. My prayer is that it will do the same for you today, no matter your season.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

--Mary Oliver (Dream Work)

White Chicken Chili

This is one of those go-to dinners that you can pretty much always throw together: frozen chicken breasts, canned beans, broth, jar of salsa--although fresh is better than jarred. Fresh from the store, I mean, like from the produce section. If you’re making homemade salsa, that’s fantastic, but you’re in a different gear, certainly, than white chicken chili gear. By all means, make homemade salsa. But then definitely don’t dump it in the chili. It would be both show-offy and sort of useless, like putting on makeup before bed.

This is what you make on cold, weary nights, nights when you are so worn through and chilled to the bone that the only thing that will cure you is something thick, spicy, and eaten with a spoon.

A couple great things about this soup: first, it’s gluten-free and dairy-free, things that are very important in our house. This is a good one to bring to friends who just had a baby—warm, easy, comforting. Bring a big container of the chili, and then in another bag, the chips, salsa, cheese, avocado, etc.

And this is a perfect Sunday afternoon football meal—great with beer, big piles of chips. For crowds, I like serving traditional beef chili and this one, too—two big bubbling pots on the stove, counter full of bowls of toppings for both.

This is an endlessly versatile recipe, like all my favorite recipes are. You can add a can of corn or even corn with peppers. You can use tomatillo salsa, if you’d like, and a can of diced green chilis, and then it’s Chicken Chili Verde, which is lovely for a change. You could add a can of black beans, if you’d like, for a little color, and for their mineral-y, almost chocolate-y flavor. To make it even one step easier, you can use a rotisserie chicken, skin removed and meat shredded.

I wouldn’t add kidney beans, because that would make it too much like a plain old chili, and because, to be honest with you, I don’t like kidney beans. There really aren’t too many things I just don’t like, but kidney beans are one. For the record: I also don’t love ham, cinnamon or white chocolate.  But I digress...back to the chili at hand.

White Chicken Chili for 6

1-1.5 pounds chicken: breasts, tenders, or boneless skinless thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces. Cook in a large stock pot or Dutch oven over medium heat.

Add one container of salsa, preferably fresh. Or green salsa, as we discussed above.

Cook until chicken is almost cooked through, about five minutes.

Drain all 4 cans of beans. Add 2 cans as they are, and mash 2 cans with a fork or the back of a wooden spoon, then add them.

Add four cups of broth.

Bring to a rolling boil, then reduce heat to a simmer, stirring occasionally.

Simmer for at least 30 minutes, but, really, the longer the better.

Serve with cilantro, wedges of lime, sliced avocado, shredded cheese, chips, sour cream, and salsa.  I will warn you, however, that sometimes what began as a thoroughly virtuous soup becomes a very large meal consisting mainly of cheese & chips with a very occasional bite of soup. Or at least that's what I've heard.

Custom Canvas Giveaway Winners!

Thanks for sharing so many great quotes...a few of my favorites:

From Gillian:

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all. Shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things will fill from behind, from beneath, like water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”  --Annie Dillard

From Julia:

“You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”
-G.K. Chesterton

And from kottley:

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, 

"what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.”

― A.A. Milne

Great, great words. I might be calling my friend Holly for three more canvases. :)

And now, to the business at hand: with a little help from http://www.random.org/, we have 4 winners!

First, the Custom Canvas Winner:  Lindsey

Lindsay’s comment:

"For now we live between already and not yet, memory and hope; we live between the times. Until the promised future arrives, we will always be in transition...faith is faith precisely when it points away from itself toward its object- toward the God who is love, and therefore toward the promised future. Faith lives by the promises of God , and we are saved in no other way than by hope" Karl Barth

January 24, 2012 | Lindsey

Lindsey, please send me a message, so that I can connect you with Holly, and she can get to work on your custom canvas!

And the three Valentine’s Day canvas winners are Anna, Jessica, and another Anna, with these comments:

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case you fail by default. J.K. Rowling

January 24, 2012 | Anna

***

"Living Water, swallow me

Deepest River, wash me clean
Jesus Savior, more of Thee
Jesus, more of Thee

Come and ruin me with Your love
So no other is enough
Come and leave Your mark on me
Jesus, more of Thee

Deep is the stain inside of me
But deeper the River that washes me clean
I've been the one who cries in the night
But You've been the Friend of my life." - Watermark

January 26, 2012 | jessica brazeal

***

It is never wrong to do the right thing.

January 26, 2012 | Anna

***

For you three lucky girls, send me a message with your full name & mailing address, & Holly will send out your canvas in time for Valentine's Day. :)

Lots of good things coming up here: this spring we’ll do two book giveaways from friends I can't wait to introduce you to, if you don't know them already—Untitled from Blaine Hogan & 7 from Jen Hatmaker. I’m reading both right now & can’t wait to share them with you.

Later this week, I’ll post the white chicken chili recipe I made with my sisters-in-law last night, and next week, a few of my favorite baby things.

Until then: love, grace, good books, hard laughter, and lots of time around the table. XO