52 Weeks of Writing

The first thing I remember writing was a poem for a class in high school. It was about a janitor mopping the floors in a silent hallway after all the students had left. I remember feeling a sadness for the building as if it could feel things the way we did. That was in 1979. So if we consider that as my first official piece of writing, I can say I have been writing for 44 years. But I know it has been longer. I don’t remember if I wrote anything before that poem. We often remember the ‘official’ ones. But I do know that I have always been telling stories, I told them mostly to myself and as I grew older and started teaching, I told them to others. I still love the stories. 

On a trip to Cappadochia we were taken to see the caves, led by perhaps the most boring guide I have ever met. We had entered this tiny cave with paintings on the walls. The guide in this very monotonous tone started talking about how the caves had been vandalized and then restored and what paint was used then and what was used now. I am a bit claustrophobic, more back then and it was too much. I stepped out and leaning on the edge of a balcony looked down at the valley below. A couple and their guide stopped next to me. The guide swept his arm across the valley below and asked the couple to imagine living there many many years ago. “Here to the left was where they grew potatoes, right there on the other side of the river, just over there” he said pointing to some flat land. The river that runs through the valley he said was where the women bathed and washed their clothes. “Look” he said pointing this time in the opposite direction. “That was the path they took to come down to the river. They would spend hours, all the women, washing clothes, talking about their day. The river was where they socialized.” And then the couple and their guide moved on. That was what I craved, a story. I didn’t want to see old stones or learn about how the government was working to preserve them or the paints one should use, I wanted, if only for a brief moment, to imagine myself living there, transported back in time. Stories can do that. They can take us back in time, they can help us rewrite our old stories, revise them, look at our lives from different perspectives, from a different age. Stories can give new meaning to our past, they can help us understand our present experience and when shared they can enrich other lives, take people to places they have never been and in a few thousand words can transport them into other lives, other experiences, help create a new understanding of the world and often they can make us more compassionate toward others’ experiences. 

I love writing. Writing is my sanctuary. When I write, all the other voices in the world grow quiet and I hear my own voice. As I write I begin to understand who I am, how I am and how I interact with the world. Amy Tan in her memoir talks about meeting herself in the writing. I love that. There are those moments when I’ve been writing for an hour or so perhaps and what I’m writing isn’t leading me anywhere, no stories are presenting themselves when suddenly I write something and there I am. I am often surprised to meet myself in the writing. At that moment there is as Amy Tan says “a profound truth”, something I understand clearly and completely about not just myself but about life and being human. I can’t back it up with science or even explain it but those of you who write know what I’m talking about. 

After failing to succeed in Business Studies, Communication Studies, Economics, all the areas of study my father insisted I should follow as that was where the money was, I received my BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from George Mason University in 1988 and an MA in Teaching English a few years later. I loved studying English. I love words, love books, but most of all I love the stories. Although my BA gave me a solid foundation, I craved more and over the years I have attended many writing workshops, writers’ groups, listened to too many podcasts, watched too many videos on how to write better. I have met maybe two teachers who really helped me develop as a writer. They were kind, compassionate and though published their primary need to write was not for publication, that sort of came with the work. I have come to accept tha the more ‘theory’ you learn, the less you write. The better you become at talking about literature the less you write. There are and I believe should not be strict rules on what you can or cannot do in writing. If that were so, nothing new could be written. I have listened to best-selling authors and some not so well known authors give their writing secrets. These are great for motivation and have been wonderful to listen to when I’ve felt like a failure, ready to give up writing all together. But they have never really given any true formulas that magically made me write because that is not possible. I have written and published two books on writing and a book of flash fiction stories in Turkish, I have worked with thousands of students over the past 17 years, writing with them, talking and sharing ideas about what we are writing and what I have come to understand is what anyone who wants to write needs most is a place to be inspired; we need a place we can come to for inspiration and motivation when we want to give up. Writing is easy. Finding a way to tell the story you want to tell while feeling like everything you write should go to the trash isn’t. That’s when you need a place to meet others like you, who are going through the same process, experiencing the same doubts. You don’t have to put yourself out there or be talkative and social. You just need that space to visit and write. 

My own need to be with others like me, who loved to write but just needed that special space, was what made me go out one day and rent a workshop space I called the Writing House. That was in 2012. As we grew I wanted to reach people who were too shy to physically be in a workshop, people who had responsibilities and ties that made it impossible for them to spend time going somewhere to write. I lived at the time, in Istanbul. The traffic was horrendous and just coming to the Writing house for a two hour workshop every week meant an added four hours in traffic. So in 2016 The Writing House went online and after the pandemic we have only online courses for writers in Turkish. 

Where Stories Begin is a writing community for English speakers. This is a true workshop space for anyone who wants to write. It is an online space, open for you 24/7. There are writing tasks I have gathered over the years, prompts and exercises I have tried and tested. They work. There are references to books and videos I have read and watched that have shaped my writing, given me courage to keep writing. I will share exercises and talks, ideas from writers that have inspired me.  In time I hope we will meet online and write together, share our work. You can come in whenever you have time and perhaps this space will enable you to make time to write. You can sit quietly in a corner and work at your own pace, you can share your work, read someone else’s work, share your thoughts. My hope is that this space will be your sanctuary, to write, to let your creative side come through, a space where you can tell the stories you’ve been gathering over the years. 

This is a space for just writing. That is all we do. So if you are ready come on in.