Friday Dispatch: Write One Sentence

Swoopers and bashers and so many ways to begin

Attention Writers, Writers Who Haven’t Written in Ages, Writers Who Long for Community, Writers Looking for a New Way to Tell an Old Story, and Writers Who Don’t Think of Themselves as “Real” Writers…

There are TWO SPOTS LEFT for the Mini Memoirs group. Today is the deadline to register!

Is there a moment in time that won’t let you go? Come write it down – over a few weeks, in bite-sized pieces, with a warm and supportive community of fellow travelers.

Not in a place where a group makes sense, but could use some writing mojo? Check out the p.s. at the end of today’s Dispatch.

“Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done.”

~ Kurt Vonnegut

Friday greetings,

Write one sentence, I tell her. Just one. After that, you can decide about writing another. Or you don’t have to make that decision right away. You can sit with that one sentence and let it have all the time it needs.

Write one sentence, I tell him. Just one. Write what you taste in your mouth – spicy chicken wings, or peanut M&Ms, or wintergreen toothpaste. What is the flavor of regret? What does truth taste like? Write that.

Write one sentence, I tell them. Just one. It can be long or short, serious or silly, fact or fiction or some fantastical mash-up of the two.

Write one sentence, I tell myself. Just one. Start here. See? That, too, is a sentence, This, too, is a sentence. Sentences are comprised of words, parts of speech, all the things you never learned or forgot from English class. What do you hear in your head as you type? Who is the speaker and what differentiates them from the writer?

Write one sentence, I tell you. Just one. Forget about whether it’s any good.

Write one sentence, I tell the empty room, the highway south, the wide open field. Let yourself roam and ramble. Fall in love with non-sequiturs and run-on sentences. Court them as you would a new lover, all limerance and early spring.

Write one sentence. Read it out loud several times, with an emphasis on a different word each time. See how it sounds, feels, flows or falters. What does it show, tell, describe, convey?

Write one sentence, I tell the singer, the song, the velvety dog ears, the hard nap, the creased cheek.

Write one sentence. Write the same sentence 10 times in a row until a new sentence knocks on the door. Answer the door.

Write one sentence, I tell the silence. Break the silence. Consider what this feels like, this breaking. Is it a cracking open or a betrayal or a great headlong relief that ushers in a deeper level of honesty and connection.

Write one sentence, I tell a friend. You are worthy of new beginnings.

Write one sentence, I tell a child. You are worthy. That’s a complete sentence.

Write one sentence. If it falls flat, so what?

Write one sentence. Practice your scales. It’s not glamorous. Glamour can be great and all, but when it comes to writing one sentence, pfffffft. Give me the ground. Give me grit and gravel and gorgeous mundanity and halting heaviness and painstaking, miraculous details.

Write one sentence. Are you a swooper? A basher? A little of both, depending on the day or what you’re working on?

Here is what I want you to know: One is not good, one is not bad. One is not right, one is not wrong.

Here’s what else I want you to know:

The more you write, the more you learn about yourself as a writer.
The more you write, the more you learn about yourself as a human.

If you’re not sure how or where to start, start by writing one sentence. Have at it. And please – let me know how it’s going.

Shabbat Shalom and love,

Jena

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p.s.

Do you love the idea of writing one sentence, or any sentence for that matter, but still feel stuck and/or uninspired and/or too busy and/or in a deeply internal place and/or vulnerable about what might come out and/or [insert other reasons here]?

Enroll in my 6-module eCourse over on Teachable for just $99. Getting Words on the Page is designed to be FUN, kind, inviting, warm, generative, accessible, and imminently doable, no matter where you are in your writing journey.

Start anytime and go completely at your own pace. Here’s that link again.

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