Featured Writer: Christina M. Wells
On creating space to write and writing advice.
Hello all,
Welcome to the 42nd edition of Women Writing! Before Substack, I had a very infrequent newsletter in which I shared with readers the goings-on in my literary world. I’m reminded now about it because I always wrote one around the solstice, although I am a little late this year.
In Finnish tradition, the summer solstice, or Juhannus, celebrates the longest day of the year. It also happens to fall on my mother’s birthday (Happy 91st, Mom!). Juhannus was originally a pagan celebration to celebrate Ukko, the god of weather and the harvest. Bonfires are lit and boisterous activities drive away the evil spirits. Wildflowers are collected and made into beautiful crowns. One traditions has young women place seven flowers under their pillows on Midsummer night so they will dream about their future soul mate. I always love how connected the traditions are to nature, reminding me that we are all connected. I have lovely memories of celebrating Juhannus as a child community events, running with sparkles in my hand and writing in swirling letters in the sky. Many Finnish Canadians still celebrate Juhannus with parties, dances, concerts, or more quietly at their family camps around a fire. Whether you celebrated Midsummer or not, I hope you enjoy fine weather and an abundant harvest, whatever that looks like for you.
Thank you to fellow author and book coach Christina M. Wells for today’s feature. I hope you are inspired by her writerly experiences.
About the author…
Christina M. Wells is a writer and coach who lives in Northern Virginia with her wife, their dog, and their three cats. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and was a finalist for the 2022 Conger Beasley, Jr. Award for Nonfiction. She has published in the Northern Virginia Review, Crab Fat Magazine, bioStories, Big Muddy, Sinister Wisdom, Collateral, and Quarter After Eight, among other magazines. Her work is also in several anthologies: Hashtag Queer, Volume 3; Is It Hot in Here, or is it Just Me?; Real Women Write: Living on COVID Time; and its follow up publications, Beyond COVID: Leaning Into Tomorrow and Seeing Through Their Eyes. She has an MA from University of Arkansas and a PhD from University of Maryland. She taught English for over twenty years and is now a fiction book coach trained by Author Accelerator. You can find her at bychristinamwells.net.
“It's not always realistic to work at a specific time because of other obligations. I suppose what I'm saying is that writing is a kind of floating workday appointment that I have with myself.”
On a writing routine …
When I'm writing a long project, like I am now, I set a specific page count that I want to draft per day. I also journal most days and consider that a way to practice writing and think about how I say things.
While I sometimes think morning is the best time for writing, it's most important that I hit the page count or word count I've decided. It's not always realistic to work at a specific time because of other obligations. I suppose what I'm saying is that writing is a kind of floating workday appointment that I have with myself.
On writing spaces …
I have a desk set up in what is otherwise our guest room, and I consider that corner to be my office. That’s where I most often write, but I also find myself writing in other parts of the house.
We have a lot of color in our home, and in the office/guest room, there are lavender walls. I sometimes refer to this as the “Grandma room” because my grandmother always wore various shades of purple. To me, the various colors in the house have their own ways of capturing natural light and mood. For some reason, I find that helpful when I’m writing.
I also love music, but I don’t often listen to it when I’m writing. If I do, it needs to be instrumental so that I’m not distracted (or dancing, which also can be a form of distraction).
On writing communities …
I belong to several writing communities. One is the National Association of Memoir Writers. Another is Story Circle Network. In SCN, I’m in a small Works in Progress group that is particularly meaningful to me. We’re not a critique group; we check in with each other at different times during the week for different purposes that relate to writing and reading. We support each other’s efforts in writing and in life. The people in the group mean so much to me.
I also recently certified as a fiction book coach with Author Accelerator, and I’m finding that while that provides a community of coaches, it also provides a community of writers. I don’t think we can ever have too many communities of writers. . .
To that end, I often find myself at people’s workshops and readings. Recently I heard a friend give an amazing workshop for the Amherst Writers & Artists, another organization I’d like to explore.
On challenges …
Mostly I feel like minutia gets in the way of writing. There’s a part of the brain dedicated to things like going to the pharmacy, making doctors’ appointments, cleaning bathrooms, hiring a plumber, etc. None of it is especially interesting, and sometimes it takes up more mental space than it does time.
Like a lot of other people, my relationship to time is complicated. I had a serious illness recently and went to the doctor a lot more than usual. I also had several surgeries. This took up a lot of time and bandwidth that could have gone into writing. On the other hand, some of those appointments frankly saved my life. Would I have liked to have been writing? Yes. But having a life so that I can write is extremely important. . .
On the best writing advice …
A long time ago, a graduate professor told me to continue writing while I waited for feedback. Considering how often we wait for feedback from instructors, editors, etc., I think this is an excellent piece of advice. It doesn’t mean being unwilling to take criticism, revise, or edit, but it does mean not turning over all of our agency to someone evaluating our work. Besides, if we all sat around waiting, we sometimes might go the better part of a year before hearing from an editor. Then the cycle would start again. . .
Other advice has been meaningful to me. The Blueprint for Fiction from Author Accelerator has been so helpful to me as I construct drafts of a novel. Also, the circles Christina Baldwin used for her Self as Source workshops were transformational for me as I moved from doing more creative writing and less academic writing. I’ve gotten a lot of good advice in different contexts.
On the worst writing advice …
When I was around fifteen, I went to a summer camp where all the kids were supposed to write and act in a play. The adult assigned to be our director hated everything I did, and I’m not exaggerating. What I don’t remember is getting any feedback as to why she hated it. She could have spent time teaching me about writing scenes or stage directions. She could have said something about the conflict or a character. All of that could have been constructive and educational. What I also remember is that she demanded that we all put something in the play that didn’t make sense to some of us. I still don’t understand why, and I’m middle-aged—a lot of things from when I was younger now have a clarity to them that this doesn’t. I suppose what I’m saying, then, is that the worst advice I ever got wasn’t really advice—it was disdain and instructions that didn’t make any sense.
This didn’t do anything immediately to change my feelings about writing. I think I went to other people for feedback and enjoyed working with my peers.
On advice from personal experiences …
If you send work out, carefully consider where a piece belongs and how it might be categorized. This is harder to me than it sounds. With nonfiction, for instance, I’ve found that I sometimes write narrative essays, sometimes write lyric essays, and at other times write things that are more than vaguely experimental. Also, sometimes my vision of a lyric essay is different from someone else’s. What I’ve found, though, is that thinking about how to categorize a piece saves some time when you send things out. It also can help you decide whether to listen to criticism or not, since some criticism comes not only from what you actually need to edit, but also from what people wanted or expected to see. In that case, work doesn’t necessarily need fixing—it needs to go somewhere else, though.
On a recent publication …
My most recent published piece is an essay called “I Saw the Lights,” and it’s in Quarter After Eight. It’s a lyrical/experimental piece with two timelines, each an exploration of unexplained lights and what they mean. I worked on this piece forever—I remember a writing group looking at an earlier version of it ages ago. I’m happy that a publication open to unusual or experimental choices picked it up.
Right now, I’m working on a novel. I think it will get classified as upmarket or book club fiction, assuming everything goes well. . . It’s more or less realistic, but it has a lot of social satire in it. Right now, I’m in the draft I call the 2.5 draft, and there will be more drafts to come. What I’m finding is that some characters seem to take over just a bit. I will think a character will be in the background, but as I write, it turns out that their actions and perspectives could be central to the whole book. There’s a lot of intuition at play with this work, even as I plan ahead. I also like the humor that appears in what is actually a very serious situation.
Christina’s online spaces …
Mini Memoir Retreat
If you’re in the Greater Sudbury area, join
and me at Fielding Memorial Park on Wednesday, August 14 from 9:30-4:00 PM for a full day writing workshop.Participate in writing prompts designed to uncover your story, craft discussions related to memoir, and focussed writing time. Bring a laptop or notebook and pen, and your lunch. We’ll provide coffee, tea, and snacks.
👉Register at https://bit.ly/4cuRKRn.
If you have any questions, please contact us at rekindlecreativity@gmail.com.
Happy writing!
Women Writing is a weekly newsletter featuring women who are doing the difficult work of writing. If you enjoyed reading the newsletter, please share it with a fellow writer. Let’s inspire each other!
Liisa Kovala is an Author Accelerator certified book coach. She is the author of Sisu’s Winter War (Latitude 46, 2022) and Surviving Stutthof: My Father’s Memories Behind the Death Gate (Latitude 46, 2017). Her short stories and creative non-fiction have been published in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines. Liisa is a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada, Canadian Authors Association, and past-president of Sudbury Writers’ Guild. Visit liisakovala.com.
What a great way to get to know you, Christina, for those of us who live far afield from you. I confess I have often been confused by your coaching programs and even your approach to the novel you are writing. Now I'm getting a better understanding, and I'll hope someday we can sit and compare our very different writing worlds.
Thanks for this, Christina. I I like the way you address the issues and go into detail about what works for you and what doesn’t. I've been a longform writer for years and would like to transition to shorter work, but I haven't yet gotten used to the start-and-stop of it. I've been thinking about rhythm and pattern in the way we work, and how that varies by project and by where we are in our writing life.