USING WRITER’S NOTEBOOKS FOR

MINDFUL, GOAL-DRIVEN WORK

Narrative Bend 2 Session 9

Mini-LessonSeveral years ago, J. K. Rowling gave a speech to the graduating class of Harvard University. Can you imagine how excited those graduates must have been to have the opportunity to hear the best-selling author of Harry Potter?

Well, on that day, she surprised a lot of people with her message. She said, “On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure.”

It turned out that J. K. Rowling wanted to talk to the students about failure, because in her life as a writer, she has learned a lot about pushing on with her learning and her practice, even when it felt like a real struggle.

J. K. Rowling must have looked at all those college graduates and thought that the biggest gift she could give them was her honest story of learning to face hard tasks, not avoid them.

Some people think of work- and especially of hard work as a negative thing, but we don’t have to be those people.

When I read her speech, it made me think that it is so much more inspiring to think about the hard work behind people’s success than it is to imagine that their skills come easily to them.

Some people think that the best writers or fastest runners are people who were just born with incredible talent.

But the truth is that in every field, the people who become pros are people who figure out how to work at it.

Albert Einstein, the genius mathematician, liked to say, “Genius is 1% talent and 99% hard work.”

You have proven that you are not afraid of hard work when it comes to improving your writing. You have started to learn a lot of important lessons from your mentor author, Jim Howe, and it’s not because you put a copy of “Everything Will Be Okay” under your pillow.

You are learning from Howe because you are finding parts of the story that you admire, noticing how parts affect you, and then trying some of those techniques in your own writing.

This is a solid first step. But if you really want your writing to get noticeably better, you need to deliberately practice writing in ways that you admire.

Today I want to teach you how to use your writer’s notebook as a place to deliberately practice the techniques and skills you want to see in your writing.

Teaching Point

Imagine a basketball player practicing layups in a gym, or a ceramic artist practicing his craft at a pottery wheel.

Now, imagine yourself, practicing a particular writing skill. Instead of using gym equipment or pottery tools, you use your notebook, and your notebook becomes filled with your efforts to do that one thing better, better, better, over and over.

So if you’re not yet successful at making characters come to life through realistic dialogue, you work on that in lots of places in your notebook -- not just in one draft but in several drafts. You’ll work at this skill for a while, then pull back to look over your work and think, “How is this working? Do I like what I just did?”

The key thing is to keep trying, keep practicing, and each time you give it another go, you do it a little differently, a

Let me show you what I mean by showing you a bit of my writer’s notebook, where I can practice doing something I spotted Howe doing in “Everything Will Be Okay.”

Look at the anchor chart for How to Write Powerful Personal Narratives: Writers zoom in on the small but powerful details that really capture big moments and feelings.

Mentor Text

Do you remember Howe did that so powerfully?

Smoky is inside a big old pretzel can with a hose attached, clawing at the can’s sides as my brother pumps in the gas...

I have a personal narrative in my notebook that I wanted to practice this on. It’s the story of one of the first times my friends and I had permission to go to the playground without an adult. My mother made us promise not to climb the trees at the playground, and of course that’s exactly what we did.

So I decided to work at trying to capture the tiniest details of the moment.

“Don’t look down, just keep climbing- you’re almost to the top, Randy urged.” I swallowed and snuck one quick look.

Julie was still at the bottom of the tree, holding my dark blue sandals with one hand and shielding her eyes, with the other, as she looked up at me.

So, how did I do? I’ve definitely added some details- where Julie was standing, what she was doing with her hands. As I reread it, I wasn’t convinced that these are the tiny details I was noticing in that moment, stuck high up in the tree. So, I tried again...

My First Try

My Second TryThe tree swayed slightly, and I tightened my grasp on the trunk. A rough piece of bark dug sharply into my forearm, but I didn’t dare move.

“I think I need help getting down,” I shouted, my voice high and tight. I thought about my mother’s clear warning to stay out of the trees that bordered the playground. This must be why.

“Hold on,” Randy called. He circled slowly around the tree and then walked towards Julie, talking to her in a low voice. I couldn’t hear him over the rustle of the tree’s leaves. Suddenly, he grabbed Julie’s arm and pulled her away from the tree. “Run!” Randy commanded, and they made a dash for the gate.

Did you see how I made myself try Jim Howe’s technique of zooming in on the small details when the moment is really big?

To do that, I really had to put myself back in that park and replay the scene in my mind. I could feel myself clinging to the tree trunk for dear life, I could feel the tree bark scratching under my arms, and I knew I had to include those precise details.

I think they show how frightened and alone I felt. So my next step would be to continue this same work in another place in my story.

Look between your chart on Powerful Narratives and your mentor text to pick out a technique Howe uses that you want to try. Make sure you have marked places in the mentor text where Howe uses that technique.

Keeping the annotated text before you, open up your notebook to one of your personal narratives and write at the top of the page today’s date and the strategy you want to try.

Then practice using that strategy in as many places as possible- but remember to do it purposefully, like I did. I didn’t just throw any ol’ sensory details into my draft, I only added ones that made sense to the moment and my point of view. Do that now.

Choose a Strategy to Practice

ReviewDo you remember what I told you earlier- how J. K. Rowling gave that speech about the benefits of failure? The truth is, failure only benefits you when you get up and try again. It’s not the falling down that helps you grow, it’s the getting back up, and writers have to do that over and over again.

Right now, look at all the writing tools available to you- the charts hanging in the room, your mentor text, your notes, the narrative checklist. As you do that, think about a technique you want to try or get better at- and take a risk. Don’ pick out something you already know how to do. Pick the thing that you wish you knew how to do.

Work TimeTurn to the next blank page in your notebook. At the top of the page, write what it is you want to try and put a box around it. That is your goal for now.

Work toward it, again and again, until you can say, “I am a writer who knows how to do ____________. I do it often and do it well.

Tonight, start a new draft or use excerpts in your notebook to practice smaller bits of writing, while keeping your goal in mind. Work those muscles.

If it feels like it’s getting too hard, remember J. K. Rowling- and don’t let yourself abandon the work you set out to try.

Know that great writers are not born and great writing does not emerge with a magic ‘poof.’ Great writers and great writing come from hard work and the courage to keep trying. Tonight, write with courage.