Blog – Jennifer Mattson

Get Unstuck and Start Writing Again

Jennifer Mattson — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 23:18:31 +0000

Feeling stuck? Love to write but aren’t sure how to get back to it? Spring, a time of renewal, is the perfect time to reaffirm your intention to write more.

Many of my students mistakenly assume that “real” writers don’t get writers’ block. But getting stuck is a normal part of the writing process. Inspiration comes and goes. The trick is to keep writing even when it’s not flowing easily. In my years of teaching, I’ve found that the key to Getting Unstuck is the ability to Begin Again. No matter how long you’ve been away from the page, you can always start anew.

Just as a runner might be a bit rusty if she hasn’t put on her running shoes in a few months, the practice of writing requires routine, patience, and warm-ups before diving back in. Sometimes all you need is to start.

If you haven’t written in months, or perhaps years, it might not be pretty the first time you sit down to write. Let go of your expectation that it has to be perfect, or even good, and let yourself enjoy the act of writing itself. Remember, we write because we want to, or we feel we need to—how it turns out is out of our hands. Like the weather, some writing days will be sunny, others cloudy, others downright stormy. In order to get unstuck, we have to let go of trying to control the outcome.

When my students are stuck, I advise them to set the bar low. Try writing for 15 minutes or filling a quarter of a page to build your writing muscles back up. You might want to get off the computer and grab a pen and a favorite notebook, curl up on your couch with a cup of tea, and have some fun!

As is true with any creative practice, you can’t be a productive writer without having an understanding of your own habits. Thus, knowing where we like to write, when we are most inspired, and how to create a routine is just as important as having something to say.

If you feel stuck, here are some questions to ask yourself to find out what kind of writer you are:

Where do you like to write? (at home? at a cafè?)
When do you like to write? (morning, night, mid-afternoon?)
How do you like to write? (pen and paper, computer, old-fashioned typewriter?)

At its core, my method comes down to the Buddhist approach of letting go of perfection—looking at writing practice as you would a yoga or meditation practice. The real work starts when we can be okay if the writing doesn’t show up exactly as we want it to, and still keep coming back to the page day after day.

WRITING LIFE: Joan Didion and Me by Jennifer Mattson

Jennifer Mattson — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 19:41:04 +0000

Hippocampus Magazine, October 1, 2017

One cannot talk about writing essay, without first talking about Joan Didion.

Of all her essays, ‘Goodbye to All That,’ has a special place in my heart. The iconic piece is the final entry in her 1968 classic, Slouching Towards Bethlehem which borrows its title from the famous Robert Graves autobiography of the same name.

‘Goodbye’ has inspired countless tales of women writers “loving and leaving New York,” including, most recently, a best-selling anthology edited by Sari Botton.

The essay, which continues to remain relevant today like so much of Didion’s earlier work, is a testimony to its longevity, and the intimate relationship the author inspires with her readers, especially women.

While ‘Goodbye to All That,’ appears to be about her decision to pack up and leave New York for California (something I recently did), I would argue it is essentially a coming-of-age story about the meaning of “home.” For Didion, home can be a place, a city, a feeling, a person—or wherever we find ourselves. The essay is a nostalgic look at where we (author and reader) have been, and where we are heading.

For many young female New York writers like myself, Didion has been a guiding literary light. As we grow from girls into women, and readers into writers, it is easy to see how we, too, are the heroines in our own lives and stories.

***

I discovered Joan Didion late in life. Or should I say, I rediscovered her. She was always one of those authors I wanted to like. As a college English major in the 1990s, it was hard not to be drawn to her. She was already iconic, a literary rock star—cool, fashionable, a beauty who knew how to write. One day, I made a pilgrimage to my favorite bookstore, sat down on the floor, and opened a book of her essays. I remember reading about California: the politics, the water, and the Manson trial. My first thought was I don’t get it. It just seemed so dated. My 19-year-old self was not ready for Joan Didion.

It wasn’t until I starting teaching essay writing about five years ago that I was able to connect with her writing. In an effort to put together a syllabus for my class 6 Weeks, 6 Essays at Grub Street, I finally picked her up again, starting with Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

And this time, 20 years later—when I read “Goodbye to All That,” from start to finish—I cried my eyes out, because I understood. I cried because there was a truth in what I read. I cried because her truth was my own. I, too, was That Girl, even if I was all grown up.

“It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.” Those are the kind of lines that stay with me now. It is how I feel about New York, about past relationships, and about writing itself. You just don’t see it coming, and by the time you do, it’s too late.

“I can remember now, with a clarity that makes the nerves in the back of my neck constrict, when New York began for me, but I cannot lay my finger upon the moment it ended, can never cut through the ambiguities and second starts and broken resolves to the exact place on the page where the heroine is no longer as optimistic as she once was.”

I got it now. I was older. I had changed. I had suffered loss and lived enough to relate to her concerns. We were traveling on the same path, Joan and I.

I could understand regret and nostalgia, and could see how Didion was reflecting back the anxieties of a particular time while questioning her own role in them. As a more experienced writer, I understood the way she created a narrative and built her stories sentence by sentence, carefully using details, facts, and her own observations. As an author, she was asking questions, observing life, and recording it on the page, just as I was doing myself.

That carefully crafted narrator and persona felt just like me: emotional, moody, self-involved without realizing it. I could identify with this voice. Finally, I could relate.

After Slouching, I read The White Album, and by that time it seemed to me I had found my literary mentor. And I began to think of myself not only as a writer, but as an essayist.

***

When I found out the Authors Guild was holding a dinner in honor of Joan Didion last April, I knew this could be my last chance to meet her. After reading The Year of Magical Thinking, I was acutely aware that Time Was Running Out. I might, at least, have the comfort of knowing I had been in the same room with her before her death.

My excitement peaked as I walked up the stairs of the Edison Ballroom, past novelist Scott Turow who was telling a reporter that his next book was “set at the International Criminal Court at the Hague.” I checked in next to Gay Talese, and walked into the cocktail area before dinner. Women in long dresses were drinking champagne. Men, young and old, were wearing tuxedos. At the bar, I struck up a conversation with Hannah Tinti, who was excited to see John Freeman. It was magical. I was an outsider, but tonight I was on the inside. It felt like “home” in the most Didion-esque sense.

Soon, I was seated and the formal dinner began. I sat through speaker after speaker—but no Joan. Writer Roxana Robinson, who gave a beautiful tribute to the author, later told me Didion wasn’t feeling well and the Guild had actually known for some time she would not be attending.

All that anticipation for nothing.

I realize now I myself was engaging in magical thinking, and that Joan and I were not meant to cross paths. We shall likely never meet.

Not meeting her was disappointing but, in some small part, liberating. It reminded me that the work, not the author, is the real teacher. There are so many questions I would love to ask Didion over dinner, the kinds of answers I know I’ll need to find in the pages of her books.

On my own, I am slowly re-reading Didion’s work and learning the art of the essay. While others will likely remember her foremost as a “Writer,” for me, she is, and will always be, a kindred spirit, and a fellow New Yorker who opened my eyes to the power of narrative, self-reflection, and ultimately, essay as a literary form.

Originally published in Hippocampus Magazine

Book News: 642 Things To Write About Me

Jennifer Mattson — Sat, 16 May 2015 21:27:11 +0000

I have some good news, I want to share… I’ve just written, along with 15 other writers at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, the next 642 Things to Write About Me. This is the latest in the popular series out from Chronicle Books and out in bookstores everywhere. Stay tuned for a sequel later this year.

In addition, I am working on proposals for two books – a non-fiction wellness book and a memoir. If you are an agent or editor interested in my work, feel free to contact me.

Asia Rising: Chinese writer wins 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize

Jennifer Mattson — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 22:04:34 +0000

HONG KONG — Bi Feiyu was named the winner of the prestigious prize Thursday for his novel Three Sisters, an exploration of Chinese family and village life during the Cultural Revolution.

It is the third time in the prize’s four year history that a Chinese author has won.

The judges said Three Sisters “moves seamlessly between the epic and the intimate… illuminating not only individual lives but an entire society, within a gripping tale of familial conflict and love.”

Upon accepting the award, Bi warned “we should not forget the Cultural revolution, at any time, and if we forget what happens in Three Sisters, our fate will be the same.”

The author expressed his gratitude “for the change in the direction of history… I should even like to thank myself and the ordinary people, who, like me, have conscience, dignity, courage to do good, and a passionate love of the future.”

Shortlisted writer Manu Joseph reflected on the growing ascendency of Asian literature today; “I think because a lot of Asian writers are writing in English, readers are going to be exposed to a very different point of view and more importantly, very different subjects.”

The shortlist contenders for The Man Asian Literary Prize included Manu Joseph’s Serious Men, The Thing About Thugs by Tabish Khair, The Changeling by Nobel prize-winner Kenzaburo Oe, and Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa.

The $30,000 cash prize includes a $5,000 award to be split between the book’s translators Sylvia Li-chun Li and Howard Goldblatt.

Bi expressed his hope that the “English reading public would now pay a little more attention to Chinese literature.”

“Twenty years ago, a lot of Chinese writers were imitating Western writers like Joyce, Kafka and Borges,” he said. “But in the last ten years, Chinese writers have entered a period of true Chinese-ness.”

Essay: Tiger Mom, Crouching Child: A View from Asia

Jennifer Mattson — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 22:00:02 +0000

HONG KONG — From my writing desk in Hong Kong, I have been reading with morbid curiosity, and some distaste, the current online controversy sparked by Amy Chua’s new book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

The title itself, excerpted in The Wall Street Journal “Why Chinese Mom’s are Superior“ is enough to outrage even the most mild mannered soccer Mom, but the truth is, this debate gets to the root of the larger national conversation about China’s growing dominance on the world stage and in the classroom.

It is not a coincidence the fury comes as President Barack Obama is “looking to assure Americans that they should not fear China’s economic rise” following Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent high-profile visit.

Chua has clearly hit a nerve by claiming her tough, immigrant “Chinese” style of parenting — no play dates, TV, computer games and to be “the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama” — yields results Western parents covet but are too “weak-willed” or “conflicted” to enforce.

“Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best,” she claims.

Envy, one of the seven deadly sins, is especially dangerous when it relates to one’s children. Claiming to be a better, more determined parent in this age of Mommy wars is just asking for a fight, which is exactly what the author now has on her hands.

Her extreme, hard knocks, black and white approach to parenting, however, lacks two critical components: balance and some common sense.

The real issue isn’t cultural or even Chinese, it’s personal and, ironically, hyper American. After all, this Tiger Mom is a Chinese-American mother recounting her experience raising two daughters, Sophia and Louisa, in New Haven not Shanghai. She is more outlier, than mainlander, though her thesis implies otherwise.

Her attitude, fueled by a certain amount of egotism, reflects those of over demanding, American parents who dedicate large amounts of time, money and energy to their children’s future success, meticulously plotting their path from private nursery school to the Ivy Leagues.

In the end, Chua loses sight of the fact that good parenting is based on a certain amount of strictness, or structure, coupled with individualism. That kind of balanced view is what is missing from her book and perhaps this greater discussion surrounding what it means to be successful in the first place.

When Chua argues “tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America” she is right on both counts.

The problem is that by emphasizing rote repetition and memorization over individual creative thinking, choice and expression, she may well be raising high achievers but not, necessarily, leaders or innovators who can “think outside the box.”

And in that sense, Chua’s children may well inherit some similar challenges many Chinese students now face competing in the global market.

She argues her two young daughters, Sophia and Louisa, will have the discipline necessary to achieve their goals, having spent hours diligently playing the piano and violin, without the frivolous distractions of, say, summer camp and school plays.

But you have to wonder, what are the chances there would even be a Microsoft or Facebook had Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg not been able to play on their computers, fail on their own terms, (that is, drop out of Harvard) or generally choose their own extracurricular activities.

I think we all know the answer.

See more at: http://www.travelwireasia.com/2011/01/tiger-mom-crouching-child-a-view-from-asia/#sthash.Jf13Mkq6.dpuf