The Buddy System for Women Writers
Writing is a solitary activity, by definition. You need a different impetus to carry you forward from that which got you started. Writing courses and groups such as Women and Words can help you to begin. To help you to go forward, and get on, you might like to consider setting up a buddy system.
This is a concept borrowed from America, home of self-help and co-counselling, of coaching, mentors and role models. It shares something with all of these and is equally useful to women who in spite of talent and energy consistently under-achieve. This isn’t the place to analyse why. Some of us, we’re told, are frightened in case we fail, and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some of us are scared we might succeed. Crashing through a glass ceiling, feted and famous, will we know ourselves? Will we be loved and appreciated for who we are, and not for what we’ve done?
Are women such complex creatures? Yes, too often. Socially programmed to put others first. Self-programmed to self-destruct. Listening to the inner voice that whispers: “Not quite good enough.” For whom? For what? Kill it, as Woolf advised us to kill the angel in the house.
The buddy system is designed for women to overcome, together, such problems of self-esteem that interfere with progress. In Women and Words, some of us are using it to grow. We’ve chosen writing buddies who have replaced harsh self-assessment with benign evaluation by a trusted and significant other.
Women notoriously experience difficulty in putting themselves first. Yet to do so is a necessary precondition for changing self-perception. With a buddy, we learn that we can do it - hand in hand, and step by step. We can find our self - discover, uncover, recover. We can learn what we want and how to get it. Learn to be writers.
This seems easier for men. They appear to have access to something from which women are, seemingly, debarred. Why? The easy answer is the support and encouragement historically available to male high-flyers through the old boys’ network. The elaborate back-up of mothers, sisters, wives and girl friends; of secretaries and PAs. Men take such help for granted; add to it deliberately by seeking out role models and mentors.
Women can do the same. Getting your hands on such support will optimise strengths and counteract weaknesses. Some help is available - from books and other traditional sources; or from Internet chat rooms for writers and dedicated websites Nothing replaces personal contact. Women want it all: face-to-face exchanges; telephone calls; group commentary; brainstorming, workshops, and seminars. One-to-one fits most snugly with female learning patterns.
A creative writing group like Women and Words (York City) delivers its message of self-improvement through open workshops, and through work in progress where writing is shared for constructive criticism. However well intentioned, this can be intimidating.
Yes, we’ve got guidelines to ensure a secure environment to offer up work for comment and analysis. Yet even the best-run group occasionally fails an individual member. Too many faces overwhelm; the still, small voice is silenced. Personalities intrude, or a meeting doesn’t gel.
Sometimes a folder or folio system is added so that work can be circulated among sub-groups specialising in playwriting, the short story, etc. A particular genre such as sci-fi or erotica may demand more time than a general meeting can allow. A writer working seriously for publication wants ongoing advice and individual support. This isn’t available often enough or in sufficient depth, however frequently the group convenes. There may be a lack of consensus as to what constitutes work ‘of a publishable standard’; a shortage of expertise on content or format.
Sometimes work is too personal for group sharing: a diary, or letters; autobiographical writing on events too raw, too recent, for mass exposure. Our self-esteem is closely linked to self-expression. One negative response, and we retreat, lying fallow far too long.
In such cases, the best support - objective, reliable and well informed - still comes from other writing women, but by other means. The buddy system was devised for two people working to achieve predetermined goals, like writing a book of prime importance to each. Together they make agreements on how to overcome personal difficulties in sustaining ongoing and steady commitment to the chosen work. They learn to put themselves first, and their work. Such development of ego is necessary; men know that. It doesn’t make them better writers than women; it does make them writers more often.
The predisposition to create exists in us all. Why, then, choose a woman as buddy? You don’t have to; but it makes good sense. Women often have more insight into a friend’s best interests than their own; they are natural enablers. The buddy system turns this ‘weakness’ to strength.
Where does writing come from? You could answer, everywhere and nowhere. I prefer to believe that it arises from our own experience, from something interior or external that is shaped by our imagination, by how we think, who we are and what we do. In other words, from identity and from acculturation. A woman’s sense of self, her place in society, will always be different from a man’s. While a male perspective can assist writer-reader communication in unexpected ways, another woman is partisan as a man cannot be.
A woman can share our perplexities, and their communication; understand our passion, yet help us to be dispassionate. For in writing you must find a means to convey and control emotion before it distorts or destroys intention.
The writer, after all, is God: no longer a participant. Such a thought is both empowering and disabling for women. We do not readily identify with a God that most religions obstinately portray as patriarchal. To write is to be God, the creator, and not the creation.
Women have another, shared, dilemma: the dual nature of our creativity. Motherhood is commonly held to be our main function, something for which we are genetically programmed even when opting out. If we are not mothers, we may find others judging our creativity to be of a lesser kind. If we are, that role will clash with the demands of being a writer. Such conflict may arise on a mundane level such as simply finding time. Or it may fester in our subconscious because the dominant male element in society continues to challenge our right to be both.
Sisterhood was a means whereby women helping women recognised what was mutual between them, and celebrated what was different. Sisterhood offered that which we seldom got unconditionally from our menfolk - safety, trust, and equality. All these are virtues we insist on from our friends.
Sisterhood was a means whereby women helping women recognised what was mutual between them, and celebrated what was different. Sisterhood offered that which we seldom got unconditionally from our menfolk - safety, trust, and equality. All these are virtues we insist on from our friends.
In choosing a woman to be your writing buddy, you stay with what is known and friendly. You can expect intimacy of mind and emotion - the intuitive comprehension lacking from professional and academic worlds. Sometimes female judgement is subjective; sometimes objective. Women value both. Women also understand that the work in progress is as important as the finished product. Their logic and intuition lead to such uncommon insights as this from Patricia: “Panic makes me calm.”
Women still score higher than men on caring and sharing. Caring is a means whereby you demonstrate the value another person has for you. A buddy will extend that caring to the work you do. Sharing implies generosity and women are the majority among the volunteer workforce.
We give our time and our commitment readily; like to impart information garnered; to proffer different views of women’s writing gleaned from Virago, Raw Nerve and the Women’s Press; from Mslexia and Diva.
We eagerly share techniques that work for us, like CIPP and CIS, patterning, word games, Dorothea Brande, creative visualisation, focus and affirmations.
All this explains the whys and wherefores of the buddy system. You’ll either want to do it, or leave it alone. You may already have a ‘buddy’ in mind - some friend, tried and trusted, whose full worth and true potential have been under-utilised too long. A buddy-in-waiting, as it were. You might even have two; it’s permitted.
Once you’ve opted for a buddy, choose her with care. She can be your best mate, or someone you barely know. She must be a person whom you can trust to stick to this commitment for as long as it’s required. She must be close to hand. My sister is my best friend and the cleverest editor I know; but she lives in America. We e-mail each other often about writing, and want to collaborate on a book, but we can’t be buddies.
Selection isn’t always straightforward. For some, it works better if you’re in the same field. You have a shared language; you agree on what constitutes proper poetry, a marketable script, etc. For others, divergent interests or attitudes aren’t necessarily a hindrance, but offer new perspectives.
Selection isn’t always straightforward. For some, it works better if you’re in the same field. You have a shared language; you agree on what constitutes proper poetry, a marketable script, etc. For others, divergent interests or attitudes aren’t necessarily a hindrance, but offer new perspectives.
Use preliminary meetings to define goals. Express these concretely, e.g. 250 words three times a week; one chapter a month; specific research in the British Library; close editing of a finished manuscript From now on, when you meet, stick to the business at hand until you’ve done what’s needed.
Learn to state exactly what you want to achieve, however scared you are of saying it aloud. Then commit to it. Within this long-term objective, define short-term goals in your reach that contribute to your ultimate success. For example, my poetry buddy Joanna and I are working together on individual, themed collections. My subject is flight, and hers is portrait poetry. I prefer free verse; and she is working to strict rules of form and metre. When we meet, we discuss one poem only. We are both only pages away from a finished book.
Set target dates to avoid procrastination. Each is timetabled for one stage of the process. You can always reschedule if major delay is forced upon you. Like a burst appendix or an unplanned pregnancy. However, the intention is that the later of your two, individual target dates ultimately becomes the joint target date. Meetings continue until all individual goals have been met. Now start over with a new goal and deadline.
This works better if you plan backwards from final objective to first step. Write down your objective and, in reverse, define each goal, each stage, until you reach Step 1. Make it small and manageable. When it’s accomplished, move on to Step 2, Step 3 ... and beyond.
Say you’ve decided that this year you’ll enter your novel for the Lichfield Prize. Plan backward from the closing date and from the specified length and subject. Step 1 could be: “Write a synopsis”; Step 2: “Present your characters”: Step 3: “Explore location”, and Step 4: “Write Chapter 1.”
What’s important is to schedule Step 1 for a specific date and time. Your first exchange sets the tone, and determines what you get from it. The buddy system only works when you’re ready to make changes in your writing life; to realise your potential and increase your skills.
You are entering into a contract to give and to get positive support. You must be willing to open up and take risks in order to do so. You have to explain what each wants from a buddy, and women don’t find it easy to ask for what they need. You have to explain what your work is about, and this is difficult for writers, who live largely in their minds and rely on intuition.
You are entering into a contract to give and to get positive support. You must be willing to open up and take risks in order to do so. You have to explain what each wants from a buddy, and women don’t find it easy to ask for what they need. You have to explain what your work is about, and this is difficult for writers, who live largely in their minds and rely on intuition.
But if your buddy doesn’t understand what you want to do, how can she help you do it? How will she recognise when it’s been done? Do your best to prepare her, so she can do best for you. Run through or rehearse what’s unfamiliar. If you want to write for Coronation Street, should you watch an episode together? If she’s wants to write experimental drama should she drag you off to fringe theatre? Agree on this beforehand. Set boundaries. Lay down rules.
For all subsequent meetings, the following rules apply. As my old teacher used to say: “Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.”
RULE 1.
Hold weekly meetings, timetabled for at least one hour at a regular time.
RULE 2.
No socialising, no idle chitchat. Each person gets exactly half an hour. Make it worthwhile.
RULE 3.
Take it in turns to go first. Don’t rely on memory. Write it down.
RULE 4.
For the first five minutes of your time, report on what you did, or didn’t do; what resulted; problems or break-throughs; a change of direction, etc. Or try creative complaining: mean, low-down and dirty.
RULE 5.
Your buddy is there to listen, and to cheer you on, not to cheer you up.
RULE 6.
For the next twenty minutes, brainstorm. Where are you? Where do you want to be? Come up with inventive solutions, outrageous suggestions; write them down. Do this on a big sheet of paper you can pin over your desk.
RULE 7.
For the last five minutes plan your next meeting. Put the date in your diary and on the calendar. Don’t rely on memory. Make notes on what you’ve agreed together for the week to come. This is your writing directive. Follow it.
One final suggestion from Women and Words in Dover, New Hampshire. Try a resource party annually. Set aside a day for it. Everyone brings something to eat, and a writing problem for solution. You’ll work in twos or threes. You might even take along your own particular buddy.
© Jenny Argante, with rules added by Sheila Bolsover
RULE 1.
Hold weekly meetings, timetabled for at least one hour at a regular time.
RULE 2.
No socialising, no idle chitchat. Each person gets exactly half an hour. Make it worthwhile.
RULE 3.
Take it in turns to go first. Don’t rely on memory. Write it down.
RULE 4.
For the first five minutes of your time, report on what you did, or didn’t do; what resulted; problems or break-throughs; a change of direction, etc. Or try creative complaining: mean, low-down and dirty.
RULE 5.
Your buddy is there to listen, and to cheer you on, not to cheer you up.
RULE 6.
For the next twenty minutes, brainstorm. Where are you? Where do you want to be? Come up with inventive solutions, outrageous suggestions; write them down. Do this on a big sheet of paper you can pin over your desk.
RULE 7.
For the last five minutes plan your next meeting. Put the date in your diary and on the calendar. Don’t rely on memory. Make notes on what you’ve agreed together for the week to come. This is your writing directive. Follow it.
One final suggestion from Women and Words in Dover, New Hampshire. Try a resource party annually. Set aside a day for it. Everyone brings something to eat, and a writing problem for solution. You’ll work in twos or threes. You might even take along your own particular buddy.
© Jenny Argante, with rules added by Sheila Bolsover
posted by Jenny Argante @ 10:27 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home