Writing Like Shooting an Arrow at Camp
No stakes, with your whole heart, and making time for what matters to you
It was a hot, still day in northwest Wisconsin. The grasses in the fields were yellowed from the sun and not enough rain. On the tennis court, sweat glistened on my face, red from the effort of swinging the racquet with all the force of a middle-schooler. I loved to play. I loved to win.
Across from the court were the archery targets, and I loved to shoot arrows straight into the colorful circle. I made the bulls-eye many times, arching the bow with my firm grip, narrowing my eyes to see where I was sending the arrow, then releasing it - ping! - sending it to its destination. It soared, it buzzed, it flew over the grass thick with chirping insects until it thwanged into the hay-stuffed target.
I spent a full month for nine summers of my youth away at camp. Jews do that, send their kids away for a month or two in the summer, for the sake of independence and confidence-building. I slept in creaky bunk beds in a cabin of girls my age, trudging up the hill in the dirt path to the wash house, carrying a bucket with my toothbrush and toothpaste and soap, a towel slung over my forearm.
It’s a long time to go away when you are young, especially if you love your parents. And I did. I was homesick for the first five years of the nine, writing painstaking letters to send in the mail to them. They wrote to me, too. Mom, every day, and Dad once a week. Dad typed his letters because his handwriting was unreadable, then signed it Love, Dad in that bubbly masculine scrawl. Mom’s writing was beautiful and elegant and utterly readable. Once a week, she sent packages, and I waited in line with the other lucky campers who had received something of weight, carrying the heavy manila envelope back to my bunk where I could spill its contents on the scratchy wool blanket and feel loved.
At camp, I learned to water-ski. I made friends. I lost friends. I sang at the top of my voice in the mess hall and pounded on the tables with all the other girls. I sat contemplative under an old, thick pine tree for friendship services. And though I missed my home and my family and the comforts of my life, when it was time to leave, I inevitably cried.
One middle-school summer at camp I read Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk, a 600-page coming-of-age novel about a young woman that is now known as a proton-feminist story. It won the Pulitzer. I didn’t care about any of that, though. I sat on my top bunk and peered at the pages, gripped by the story, despite the humid air thick in the cabin and my friends running in the grasses or sailing on Lake Pokegama. All my life, words have been a backbone for me, a path toward clarity, relationships, identity.
I learned to do and be so much at camp, when there were no stakes, or very meager ones. My life didn’t depend on making that bulls-eye. It wouldn’t make or break me. Even the tennis games - when at home, I joined the varsity team and every hit or miss mattered, at camp they didn’t. And so I could soar, I could experiment, I could fool around and I was no worse for it, no check next to my name to demote me to a lower station.
But now, in my fervent adulthood, it seems everything matters. Every essay I write and submit could be The One that makes my writing career or which deposits me flat on my face. Every book I publish is either the next best thing from author Lynne Golodner or the absolute worst career-wrecking piece of crap.
Or is it?
What if there were no stakes, like at camp, and we could just write to write, from our aching hearts?
I’ve come to believe that is the ONLY way to write, actually. As if nothing matters but this word and then the next one. To write because I LOVE writing. To pull back the bow and send an arrow sailing, my eyes squinted to see the target better and then - poof! - it hits the center and I smile and the crickets in the grasses seem to sing louder.
There are two reasons people say they can’t do something - they can’t afford it or they don’t have the time. As a business person, I hear this a lot, but I learned long ago those are never the reasons. Because when it’s something we value, we find the money and we make the time.
I’m a busy person - I juggle a coaching career, teach writing classes and I still have a couple of marketing clients in my business. Plus, I’m the mom of four and I love spending time with my husband. Oh yeah, and I’m a person, so I need to get fresh air on long walks and exercise and see friends. All the things.
And, I am an author. Not last in my list of self-descriptions by a long shot. How do I do it? I make the time for what matters to me. This month, I have started plotting out my third novel. The second is finished (yay!!) and I’ll be meeting with the cover designers next week to get the wheels turning on production, for this book to be out by August. I looooooove writing, so I cannot relegate it to some day. I start with what I love most and fill in everything else. Like that demonstration of pebbles in a jar and then pouring sand around it - have you seen it? It’s super cool and to me, sends a message of make time for what matters to you.
On The Pod
I’m full on into my month of podcast episodes, so please tune into the Make Meaning Podcast if you can! This week, I release episodes featuring April Davila (January 9) and Jonathan Whitelaw (January 12).
I’ve also been featured in a few myself. Check out Pen to Print, where I offer tips for starting the new year off right with writing, Author2Author and Invisible to Invincible.
Woman of Valor News
I’m heading to Hawai’i on Thursday, a trip I’d planned because my son is studying there this month. But I made it into a book tour trip and have landed 3 speaking engagements!!
I’ll be at Heart of Leadership Friday night in Surfbreak Honolulu, speaking about the experiences that led me to become a leader, plus about my novel. On Sunday, I am speaking to Honolulu’s Jewish community in a talk-and-writers-workshop about Mining Your Life for Story. And on Tuesday, I’m speaking at the library on the campus of University of Hawai’i-Manoa about the journey of creating Woman of Valor and what it’s like to be a woman writer these days.
If you want to attend any of my talks, check out the details on my events calendar.
(Have you bought the book yet? Seriously, why not? Give it a read, and tell me what you think!! And if you have read Woman of Valor and liked it, please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads!)
Thanks for reading the Rebel Author Newsletter. I write this weekly to offer tips and encouragement to writers who might not want to do things the way everyone else does. Take risks. Believe in your voice and the power it has to impact and inspire. I make this free to readers as a gift, but if you find value in these words, I’d sure love it if you’d become a paid subscriber. We’ll be having a live call for paid subscribers on January 31st at 4 pm ET, and I’ll be resuming book giveaways this month as well. Join the conversation!
Love, Lynne