"3 Exciting Ways Creating Art Enhances Writing" Published 🖼️🎨

 Super excited to share my new article that was published today at Women on Writing! Check it out. 🥳

 

3 Exciting Ways Creating Art Enhances Writing

By Melanie Faith

 

Have you always wanted to try (or get back to) painting, drawing, making videos or music or fiber arts, dancing, sculpting, photographing, making jewelry, making hybrid work, pottery, or another art form but felt like it was out of your reach, you didn’t have enough time or the right skill level? This article is for you! You have great company. Including me. 


As a creative writing teacher and author, I didn’t consider myself a visual artist and I didn’t allow myself the time until recently to explore, dabble, and create the other things I really wanted to make. 


It took me a lot of years to realize one of the reasons. Art class in sixth grade was required for all students. How I loved noodling around with the supplies and chatting to classmates at our art tables, making jokes and attaching feathers and sticks and other items to our mobile projects, getting charcoal smears on our hands as we tried our hands at drawing of a vase of flowers and then our classmates’ profiles. It was just like elementary-school art, only better, because the lessons were more challenging and covered diverse types of art. Then something unfortunate happened. 


Seventh grade art was an invitation-only club. And I didn’t get an invitation to join. I’m pretty sure that’s the point at which I stopped even trying to just make things for the fun of making them. The exclusion of it settled: art-making is for others. 


So for years, I carried cameras and photographed all matter of artsy things without calling myself a photographer or trying to get published. I visited museums and student art shows and doodled in margins of journals but never showed anyone. I never talked about it (like I told oodles of people about my writing), and I never took classes. Sometimes, I grabbed scissors and glue and made collages from old magazines that I put on my door to amuse myself, but I never considered just how happy it made me to create these things, just how contented and relaxed I was in the making process, because I didn’t think I was talented at it.


Eventually, I started to take baby steps. I started to share my photography, first with friends and then submitting to magazines. A few years ago I treated myself to a “real” sketchbook where I could stretch out across the page and make bigger marks. I gave myself more space to make, and it enhanced my writing life.

  

I’d love to encourage you to explore whatever arts appeal to you as well. Don’t wait for permission or until you feel it’s comparable to a famous artist or even to the quality of something you’ve seen a friend do. Begin now. See what you can do. No stakes, no pressure. 


Let’s take a look at how practicing an art—any art—can deepen and inspire your writing process. 


It boosts play and discovery.


I’ve long been a fan of serial cartoons, one-panel comics, and graphic novels. I love the multitude of options for telling a visual story well. As a young kid, I devoured Cathy, Frank and Ernest, Peanuts, Hägar the Horrible, and Garfield in their daily installments in my parents’ newspapers (and made a scrapbook of them one year), and once I started teaching and graphic novels became part of the high-school curriculum, I discovered afresh the amazing story and character possibilities in comics through Persepolis, Maus, and Scott McCloud’s craft book, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. I began doodling a little caricature of my face and my waving hand that I enjoyed adding to cards for friends and my nieces. This year, I finally gave myself a fun new challenge—to write a 3-page comic I called “I Could Have Been Veronica.”


I worked for about a month, from conceiving the story to hand drawing the panels, to revising the story and drafting twice before the third, final, draft. And had the best time! Is it professional? Nope! I’ve got some (okay, many) slanting lines, and I redrew more times than I’d like to admit (here’s looking at you, waving hand that looked gnarled and pair of tap shoes that were a terror to draw in scale), but did that ultimately matter? Not one jot. I spent many pleasant afternoon and evening breaks with my colored pencils, pens, and notebook, adding to the three-pager until it was time to share at my blog. 


It halts perfectionism, the inner editor, and the competition-fair mindset.


The important thing was never that the comic should be perfect or professional quality. The goal was to get lost in the joy of seeing how I would create this three-page comic. To evolve and stretch the limits of what I could draw and say within the tiny frames. To relish the moment of creating for prolonged, short bursts. That is, the goal was not to compare it to anything I’ve read and adored in graphic novels, comic strips, and cartoons, but to make my own something. A pure, untainted, joyous flow of creativity. Making art for the sake of making it. Very satisfying.


It facilitates joy. (Who couldn’t use more of that?!)


It matters less and less that I’m not naturally talented in the visual arts I’ve chosen to enjoy (I will pick up what I need to know through making things, exploring, reading about them) or that I wasn’t seen long ago as a good candidate for art club (that was so 7th grade!). I like to make things now, want to make more in the future, and that’s enough. Whatever I make will encourage my perceptions, challenge and inspire me, and engage the side of myself that likes to reflect and dream. Refreshing.  


Join me for my August Art Making for Authors class, which begins August 2nd. You’ll get a chance to break out some supplies and practice the kind of projects you’ve been wanting to make. You can pick any form of art you fancy for each assignment, and we’re not looking for perfection or comparison—we’re looking to savor the making process.  Learn more and sign up at: clickety-click.

 

In Tune: Writing about Music in Fiction! 🎶

I’m crafting some exciting new projects for 2024, including a delightful 4-week online writing class at WOW! for February.

Introducing: IN TUNE: Writing About Music in Fiction!

If you’re looking to treat yourself to some writing motivation or looking for the perfect holiday or birthday gift for the writer in your life, look no further! This class will rock! 🤩🎸🥁

Course description:

“Fiction is filled with references to music: from high-school dances and music-school students, singers, music teachers and lessons, garage bands and musical instruments to records, rock concerts and folk/indie festivals and coffee-house performances, opera and musical-theatre performances, and so much more. Many of us spend our happiest hours with music in the forefront or background of our lives as soundtrack. There’s a type of music-inspired prose for as many musical genres as you enjoy.

Whether you’re writing a scene or story about a music practice, a novel with a musician or music fan as a protagonist, or just want to know more about how musical fiction works and/or add musical references, vivid characterizations of vocal performance, or music-centered scenes or references to your writing, this course will explore how music culture, sound, setting, POV, and more are portrayed within fiction to enhance and inspire your own rhythmic, compelling prose. Knowing how to read musical notes isn’t required for this class—just the desire and sincere appreciation for both music and literature and to add another tool to your literary toolkit.

Students will choose one novel with a musical plot to read independently, and the instructor will provide excerpts from music novels as well as handouts and a weekly writing assignment to get the muse melodically flowing! Join us for this new course that’s sure to strike a chord.”

To the great joy of writing and music! Sign-ups open now! Clickety-click: IN TUNE: Writing About Music in Fiction!

My Photography Chosen for J. Mane Gallery's Juried Exhibition: "Eat" 📸

I’m so pleased that 5 of my photos were chosen as part of J. Mane Gallery’s latest juried exhibition. The theme is “Eat.” Among them are these 2 photos that were so fun to take and make. 📸😊

See my other 3 photos and all of the amazing art by talented artists at: J. Mane Gallery “Eat” Exhibition.

If you’re in the market for an awesome online writing class, check out my similarly themed Food Writing for Fun and Profit (starting Friday, October 6th).

To art and food!

"Four Reasons Food Can Spice Any Genres You Write" 🍝

Wonderful news! 🥳My article was published by Women on Writing today! Check it out, and then give the writing prompt a whirl. 📝


Four Reasons Food Can Spice Any Genres You Write

By: Melanie Faith

 

Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash.

It’s just about autumn in the US, which is an important weather shift in the seasonal states. Humidity dissolves as leaves turn into a crayon-box bonanza of shades while it remains sunny, bright, and crisp enough for a walk in a cozy, knit sweater and a mug of steamy tea after.  Another signal of the time shift is the shortening of days and the lengthening of my appetite.

 

While I enjoy eating all year ‘round, there’s something special about the chill in the air and the darkening of the evenings that increases my appreciation for sweet and savory flavors. Bring on the ooey-gooey cakes and breads, the creamy mac and cheese, the hearty, saucy spaghetti Bolognese!

 

No matter the season, the rituals of eating; snacking; food buying, storage, and preparation; meal clean-up; and food sharing surround our days and can be integrated into our writing to enrich our work.  Let’s look at four reasons why adding food writing to our repertoire can deepen our writing:

 

Food connects us: Nothing reminds us more of our communities and the cultures we belong to than food.  References to the recipes, meals, and snacks your protagonist grew up eating and still makes can provide shorthand for so many parts of your character’s background and life, including but not limited to her family of origin’s geography, socioeconomic status, and more. Certain foods will instantly be connected in readers’ minds with a particular state, region, cultural heritage, or country, while other foods and beverages are universal to many communities—which will give your readers other insights into how your unique character fits into a larger trend or social sphere or, conversely, how they might rebel against it.  Including meals or restaurant scenes can also demonstrate how your character interacts with others, what she feels comfortable saying or not saying, what she wants to share in public compared to her private thoughts, and so much more.

 

Speaking of which, food can create both bonds and tensions:  If one of your characters loves attending a weekly potluck she organizes and hosts once a month while another character lives for a quiet dinner for one at home to get away from the stresses of his day job and rejuvenates with the radio on while preparing couscous and a salad, you’ve already set up a way to show (rather than tell) extroversion and introversion. You’ve also set up a scenario where their differing styles could create conflict if these characters become friends, coworkers, family, or romantic partners. Characters can react strongly, or they might have inner hopes or misgivings about what is being served, about their dining companions, or about where the dining takes place. 

 

Food is also often connected with larger social issues that deeply impact many people both locally and globally—such as food instability, hunger, and ever-rising grocery prices—that you can shine a light on within your writing in nonfiction, poetry, flash, novels, and many other genres.

Photo by Atie Nabat on Unsplash

 

Favorites and aversions make us each unique. Including small details about what your character loves and loathes eating can strengthen your characterizations. Just like all of us, characters can have detested foods show up in their lives and have to navigate their distaste quietly or verbally, or they can absolutely love quirky regional favorites that their friends and family can’t stand or refuse to try. Conversely, we all love to share our favorites, and sometimes these favorite foods are eagerly adopted by those we love, spreading the joy. Writing that praises, describes, humorously disses, or delights in foods can connect with your audience’s own experiences of likes and dislikes.

 

Try this exercise!  If you write fiction: your antagonist has just invited your protagonist to dinner. Where will they go? What will they talk about? What is being served for dinner? If you write nonfiction, poetry, or other genres: jot a list of five of your favorite or least favorite foods. Pick one of the foods, set a timer for twenty minutes, and describe a time when you were served or served others this particular food. Use as many sensory details as possible to denote the food and reactions to it. Go!

 

 Care to learn more? I have a few spots left in my Food Writing class that begins Friday, October 6, and I’d love to have you and a friend join in the fun. Details at: Food Writing for Fun and Profit.

 

Learn about Freelance Editing! 🌻

Do you love language and helping others make their writing clearer and more resonant with readers? Have you ever wanted to launch your own freelance editing business and wondered how in the world to break in? Then this info-packed webinar is the one for you!

I’ll be giving an online webinar on Friday, September 15 at 1 pm EST. Cost is $39 and includes helpful handouts, a presentation with oodles of tips, and a Q + A at the end of the session.

More info, and sign up today, at: https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/classroom/MelanieFaith_FreelanceEditorWebinar.php

I’d love to see you there! 🥳

"Abounding Images: An invitation to Imagery Power: Photography for Writers" 🎉📸

So pleased that my article was published today as a Women on Writing Spotlight article. Check out the prompt I share as well:

“Abounding Images: An Invitation to Imagery Power: Photography for Writers”

By Melanie Faith

 

                I found three rolls of brand-new film in a drawer earlier this week that I’d forgotten I’d purchased. It felt a little bit like unwrapping a Christmas gift to myself. Eager to head into the great weather, I took my ‘90s Canon Rebel outside for a few nature shots. The heft of the camera body nestled in my hands just right. Working with a physical, clicky dial to blur the background and focus on the foreground was like stepping back into a favorite pair of blue jeans—comforting and the perfect fit. Need I say that I took the rest of the roll and returned to my desk, smiling?

                I’ve also been taking a lot of photos with my cellphone camera and find it a wonderful photographic experience, too. It is featherweight, and I can take as many pictures as I please. Cellphone cameras have come a very long way in the past ten years. Smart phones are equipped today with much better software and make sharper photographs than any of my first digital cameras. And they’re quite easy to use, and super handy. Rare is the person without a phone as a near-constant companion, which (of course) makes them absolutely the best for capturing inconspicuously as we go about our daily lives. And sharing cellphone photos is so easy it’s a dream.

                Whether you prefer making photos with an old-school film camera that takes film or film cartridges, taking pictures with your cellphone, or a combination of both, there’s something meaningful and meditative about the art of photography. Much like the craft of writing, we begin to see our surroundings, our daily lives, and even ourselves a bit differently, a bit better in some ways, by taking the time to focus on elements we might previously zip past on our way to the rest of our appointments and to-do lists. The fact that no two people see the same images in the same way nor interpret them in the same way enhances our development as artists.

                Making a photograph, like making a poem or a short story or a song or a chapter in a novel or an essay, is deeply personal. We have so many options that it’s exhilarating. We get to choose the subject. We get to choose the angle we take the image from. We get to choose the crop or zoom of the photo. We get to choose if we print the photo to make it a physical object in the world or if we keep it a digital file. We get to choose if we make the photo part of a series on a subject or if the photo is a one-off and stands alone. We get to choose light source and time of day and if we scan or upload the photo to software to alter its hues (hello, black and white!) or shoot in black and white mode or with b & w film.  

                It is in making these choices, often intuitively and in quick succession and very frequently learning and experimenting as we go, that we grow in other art forms as well.

Thinking about making a better photograph certainly continues to influence and encourage my poetry as well as my prose. Photography, much like writing and other art forms, focuses on the importance of the image, the resonance of created expression, and the great fun and challenge when we take the world as we experience it and offer a new creation that very likely will connect with other people who themselves make writing and other art.

                There’s no prerequisite needed, and I’ve had students who made visceral, beautiful, jaw-dropping photos from disposable cameras, phone cameras, underwater cameras, instant cameras, pinhole cameras, film cameras of many makes, and even from photosensitive photographic paper.

The field of photography is wide open to individual interpretation and vision. Begin where you are, with that little “Hmmm, that’s interesting” when you’re out on a morning walk, and see where it takes you. One snap, one click, one moment documented at a time.

 

Try this prompt: Make a photo today of an object someone else uses every day. Aim to show a special quality about this object—whether its shape, its size, its hue, its placement in the home or outside, or some other quality. After taking the photo, either write a few sentences describing this object, why you chose it, and who uses it OR create a character who uses this object and write about that character for fifteen or twenty minutes. What would happen if the character reached for the object and it was missing? Go!

  ***

 

The Power of Simple Joy, Camera Doodle, and Photography for Writers📸

This afternoon, I’ve given myself a few hours to rest. I started with some reading, some writing, then an afternoon nap, then some doodling, and now this post.

May has been bouncy and active in a good way, and it’s always refreshing to work in little pauses whenever possible for the simple power of joy—you know, those hobbies or spaces of free time that are the first to get shoved aside in a busy schedule.

Photography is certainly one of my places of simple joy. So is doodling, so I combined them and worked on this perfectly imperfect doodle of one of my film cameras, the Canon Rebel K2 I got for a song in 2019 or 2020 online.

This summer, starting July 3rd, I’ll teach one of my favorite online courses, Imagery Power: Photography for Writers. Just looking at this camera reminds me of the creative fun that awaits in the class—in which students are free to use any kind of camera (or a mixture of cameras) they fancy, from cellphone cameras to digital cameras to disposal cameras to photosensitive paper, to make their own photographic images and then write about them.

I’ll use this handy-dandy book, Photography for Writers, that I wrote as a class text and also have just written some new prompts that’ll be fun to take for a test spin. Teaching the class also inspires my own photographic process, and I’ll be doing the assignments alongside my students.

Have some time this summer? Care to tap into some simple photographic joy? No previous photography experience necessary. I’d love to work with you and a friend. Sign-ups currently open! More details: Imagery Power Clickety-Click.

As we think about summer, the time is perfect to pause and think about how to work in a little more time here and there, a little more time this week or as soon as possible, for these little pauses that bring you joy. To summer and much happiness ahead!

***

If you’re looking for an online class to jumpstart your creativity later in the year, I also have these two courses coming up:

An Insider’s Look at Launching as a Freelance Editor (NEW!) One-Day Webinar, September 15, 2023, 1-2 pm

Food Writing for Fun and Profit (starts October 6, 2023, 5-week class; sign-ups open)

My Craft Article Published Today 🏊

Super excited to have this article published at Women on Writing today!

“5 Line Breaks to Inspire Your Poetry Writing”

By: Melanie Faith

 

I’ve been a practicing poet since I was 17. When I think back to the many styles of poetry I joyously tried in college and grad school and beyond, I marvel at how much my line breaks have changed and continue to evolve as I grow as a writer and with the needs of each successive project.

 

My first poems, handwritten on pale blue lined paper that I spent my weekly allowance to purchase at the local stationery store, had looping scrolls of lines across the pages, almost from margin to margin. By graduate school, while experimenting with haiku and tanka, the sparer I could make my lines the better. (I’m not a sparse-speaking person—surprise, surprise—so it was often a challenge.) Since then, my lines usually rest in the merry middle somewhere between languid, Whitmanesque flourishes and ultra-succinct compression.

 

Let’s take a closer look at line breaks and what they can mean to your own writing practice.

 

The Innate Break: This is what I call a line break that just feels right while drafting. Why’d you break the line there? You don’t know, and you’re not stopping to think about it right now. Your hand keeps the pen rolling or your fingertips typing while you focus solely on the words unspooling. You break the lines intuitively and only notice them later, when editing or writing another draft. There’s something to be said for letting the poem take the form it wants to take. A little like after learning to ride a bike—for the first draft or two it’s often not necessary to think consciously, “Should I break the line on this word or that one?”, just like you don’t think, “Right foot, make sure to pedal now. Okay, left foot, same deal. Pedal now.” There’s synchronous motion that happens in cycling and in drafting a poem. Letting that sensory flow go can lead our work to some great destinations.

 

The Emphasis Break:  Words that fall at the beginnings and endings of lines get extra emphasis for the eye and for the mind. End lines on thematic or precise word or phrase to emphasize key ideas. You can also take a poem that had innate breaks and, in the editing stage, make new line breaks on more precise images or diction choices.

 

 The Stanza Starter or Ender: Just like the opening and closing words in each line get a little extra attention from the reader, so do images or words that open and close a stanza. The stanza breaks, in fact, get even more emphasis due to white space. Whether while drafting or later editing our poetry, it can be a good idea to consider if the line you are breaking a stanza on is the best place to emphasize the poem’s theme or content. If not, consider breaking the stanza-breaking line at a new place.

 

The Form-Based Line Break: If you write poetry that has a set pattern or formal structure—such as a sonnet, villanelle, or terza rima—your line break will be based on a number of fun constraints, such as stressed and unstressed syllables, syllable count, and rhyme scheme. I have great respect for poets who find the constraints of pattern poetry motivating, although my poetic brain runs more to making my own line-break patterns. Neither style is inherently better or worse than another—they are both apt vessels for the poems you write. If you know that writing formal poems is your jam, I encourage you to try a few kinds of poems to experiment with the different end-line conventions each requires. If you usually write acrostics, try haiku. If you often write odes or limericks, try an Italian sonnet. If your last few poems were villanelles, try writing a sestina or a ballade.  There’s great variety in line breaks among formal verse that a poet could spend many years happily exploring.

 

The Variety Approach: Are you working on a chapbook or a poetry collection? Are you preparing a handful of poems (often three to five) to submit to a literary journal? In this case, it might be good to read the poems in relation to each other. Is there some variety in where and how you break your lines? Is each line separated at an optimal place and/or have you left some blank space somewhere on the page?  Also, sometimes placing poems with long lines next to poems with few lines and/or succinct lines can create a meaningful pattern for the reader and also inform any editing or new line breaks. You might also consider shuffling the order of your poems.

 

 

Use these line-break ideas as you draft, edit, or prepare submissions of your poetry. There’s no 100% right or wrong place to end a line and begin a new one, but with time, practice, and focus, and having these ideas in your pocket, you may well be surprised how quickly you up your poetry game. 

 

 Want to learn more? Check out my online poetry class that starts April 21st! Jump-Start Your Poetry Practice.✍️

My New Online Poetry Class 🎊

In the market for an online poetry class sure to get your pen moving? I’ve got you.

Sign-ups open for my Jump-Start Your Poetry Practice class that begins Friday, April 21st. I’d love to work with you and a friend. 😊👍

More info at: Jump-Start Your Poetry Practice class.