Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Traci Skuce

Hunger Moon (Book)

You’re Not Doing It Wrong (Workshop)

Betsy Warland

Prentice Hemphill

Writing with Patience and Deep Inquiry, with Traci Skuce – Full Transcript

Intro:

Well, hey there, writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. 

Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page. 

This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state. 

Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show. 

Rhonda:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. Today I'm here with my friend Traci Skuce and I want to introduce you to Traci. 

So I want you to run out right now and get her short story collection Hunger Moon, which was released by New West Press in 2020. I absolutely love this book. It was a finalist for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. Her essays and short stories also have appeared in literary magazines and journals throughout North America. 

And she is the founder of The Writing Journey, which is a writing school for fiction and memoir writers who want to finish their stories and get them out into the world. And what I think is special about Traci and what we're going to talk about today is kind of this sense of, I'm going to, well, you say you describe it as like spiritual beingness at the heart of what you do. 

So why don't we kick off with that? Like, well, first, tell me how did you get into writing? And how did your approach to writing shift if it did over the time you've been writing? 

Traci:

Yeah, well, I started writing when my son who is now almost 30. So weird to say that. But when he was an infant, someone gave me Writing Down the Bones. And I had sort of entertained the idea of writing prior to that. But the constriction, it seems to me, of having a child and the limited amount of time really kind of galvanized it for me. 

And I did the writing practice that Natalie Goldberg kind of champions in those books. I'd sit down and I'd fill notebook after notebook for years I did this practice. And I hoped that by doing that practice, something would just emerge like a whole, whole cloth poems and whole cloth stories would just kind of emerge from that practice. 

Now I'm going to just bookmark that for a second and say at the same time I was starting a very committed yoga practice. So the reason I'm telling you this is because I think that they inform each other. And I went to the local Y in Victoria with my son, put him in the childcare, which I would volunteer alternately for childcare hours. And I would go to yoga classes and it felt so good to be in my body. It was so, you know, you know, as a single mom, it's so stressful. And so this was like a place where I could feel my body and kind of unwind a little bit of that stress and tension. 

Anyway, fast forward and I got really frustrated because those stories and poems and so on did not just arise out of my notebook. Occasionally they did, just enough to keep me going and encouraged. 

And so eventually in, you know, 2013 I went and did my MFA at Pacific University down in Oregon. And I had some really good mentors and I worked, I worked in a way which felt like I could then see my story. I could see how to pull stories together in a way that I couldn't before because, you know, it was sort of just like many beginning writers, I think we just hope we're gonna figure it out. 

It actually took having a mentor to really, you know, allow me to see, oh, you know, and work with the material, work with my material in a way where I was like, following a formula, but could see what wanted to emerge from the material itself. So that was a huge shift for me. 

That was how I ended up writing Hunger Moon, coming through that program and being able to essentially read and see and revise my stories in a way that worked. 

Rhonda:

Wow. Yeah. So can we talk about some of the work that you do? Like, so you have a program called The Embodied Story Intensive. 

Traci:

That's right. 

Rhonda:

And I wanted to ask you about this because I was talking to someone yesterday, in fact, it was my trainer at the gym… I was like, I've always thought of myself as just a head, and even when I'm writing poetry or a story, I'm so in my head. 

And so I'd love to hear your perspective on what embodied writing means and how you access it if you're someone like me who just basically has lived all your life thinking, oh, my body is just the thing that carries my mind around. 

Traci:

And that's such a byproduct of our culture, right? Like disconnecting the body from the mind because then, you know, for whatever and all the reasons. But what I mean, so embodiment to me is this experience of living through the body. And we could say that in a very rudimentary sense in terms of writing, we're told to invoke the senses, right? 

I mean, you're great, sort of like, invoke the senses, but I like to think of embodied writing as an access to the layers of consciousness that exists within the body. So that includes the mind, right? It's not like it's divorced from the mind, but that we have like in yoga, there's what are called the koshas, they're the layers of consciousness. They're always depicted as kind of like nesting bowls. But they're, you know, it's obvious, it's interpenetrative, like they're not just separate. 

And I think that's really what I'm getting at is like, we aren't separate from the world around us. So an example would be like, moving your character through setting, say, and there's the embodied experience of movement. So I think a lot of writers actually leave movement and presence of bodies out of stories, unless they're writing murder, but that's, that's a different conversation. But they're always like, who's in the room? Where are they in the room? What's going on? 

Yeah, the kind of choreography of movement and not that you have to break down every single movement of people but like there's movement of body so there's that layer. There's the somatic experience the character is having of moving so a really good example would be like giving them a sprained ankle or whatever where they're struggling right because oftentimes so as people who feel like they're just in their heads you can think about pain in the body, right, because you're probably that's your body calling attention to it. 

And then, so there's that movement in through somatically and physically through space or setting. And then there's also the process of like relation, I would, I would say embodied writing as a kind of relational experience. So you're relating or your character is relating to the world around them in that they're noticing, so noticing sensorily, but also that there's experience that's rising up from the body into the awareness. 

So like on a very simple level, let's say walking through the forest, it's remembering another time that you walked through that forest at that spot. or even connection to your curiosity about a greater connection to, I don't know, the mycelial network down below your feet. So yeah, it's just like expanding the awareness of life and connection to life, I would say, and that it comes from being in the body. 

Rhonda:

Wow. Okay. And how do you bring this to the development of a story? Right? So I have an idea for a story, I have a character who wants something. And then how do I bring this idea of embodiment and embodied writing to the development of that story and where that story is going? Like, how do you approach that? 

Traci:

Yeah. Well, there's lots of layers to it. But one thing I've been thinking about lately is this idea of, because I've been reading student work, and I'm noticing that our tendency is to write about instead of writing from. 

Rhonda:

So, say more about that. 

Traci:

Yeah. So I think when we create a first draft, we do what Betsy Warland calls, create a lot of scaffolding. So yeah, and then we can go back. I would say that the embodied place – I mean, I guess I'm always writing from there, but what I see is mostly it can be applied in the revision, particularly in the revision stage. 

And I think part of it is like taking a moment to not feel you have to rush through. Like I think part of part of the problem with writers is that they think they have to get somewhere so they don't fully imagine the scenes that they're in. 

And then when I say writing from versus writing about is that you're no longer in the race to get to the finish, but you actually are inhabiting the scene and writing from the body from the perspective of the character. 

So, I mean, even in third person, there's just a more fulsome presence of awareness of the body, of attention to the scene and that you carry the story forward from that place. Does that make sense? 

Rhonda:

It does. Yeah, it does. I mean, so kind of staying in this, like, what I'm going to call a countercultural state, right? You talk about embodied, both embodiment as ourselves as the writer and then the writing, bringing that to the writing is, you know, being kind of antithetical to the current culture. What do you find most difficult about living as a writer and getting the writing done in the current culture? 

Traci:

Yeah, it's the pressure of well, you know, I run a business and I have this responsibility to other people and then I want to do my own writing and it's like this struggle of prioritizing as other people have. 

I do write. I'm so grateful for my younger self who set out on the practice of writing because I do write every day. But in the current culture, I think it's that, you know, I just went through a huge transition, divorce and all that sort of thing. And like letting go of this imagined timeline or rush, you know, to get to some sort of finish and let myself be in the story I'm writing. 

And until it's done and not – I know some people work well with deadlines and I also appreciate accountability. And I want my story to be fully imagined, fully come to its place of, I don't want to say fruition, but come to its place where it's like, oh yeah, I can stand behind every choice that I've made here. I don't feel like there are any holes in this story anymore. 

Because you weren't rushing it and you weren't, yeah because rushing, and this is the thing, right? I think part of the counterculture and what I work with my writers is there's a deep inquiry that happens when you're writing stories. 

Like you have to go into the depth of the psychology of the characters, even if, you know, like an example: if your character is cut off from themselves emotionally, you still have to kind of understand that relationship between the character and the cutoff fitness, like what created it, what supports it, what penetrates it a little bit, you know, like all these layers. 

So there's a deep inquiry that comes and I think that we don't know our stories when we set out to write them. Like we're constantly in relationship to them and I think what a lot of writers might find is that they don't like it takes longer than you want it to. 

Rhonda:

Yeah, both the drafting and then the revision. I'm always shocked by folks who feel that revision is going to be quick and easy. Like, yeah, it's so hard. It isn't. No, it is not just putting a comma in and moving a sentence around. 

I think that's very true because we have these documents, right? We can just look at, we're just like, well, it's done except for, you know, moving a few things. It really means to see again.

Traci:

And that's where I work mostly with writers is when they're in that process of revision and yeah, to bring them to a place of deep inquiry because it does make a difference. 

Rhonda:

Yeah, I feel like you can really tell, you know, where someone has done that patient kind of work with a story, and where someone kind of skimmed the surface, you know, so even in and I think that's very real, I read more, more and more genre work, right? 

Like, I'm reading a lot and I'm writing a historical mystery. So I'm reading a lot of historical mystery and even genre work, like these characters need to be fully realized with their dreams and their goals and their psyches, you know, need to go deep to find it. 

So I wanted to ask you about the role in the writing life of what I'm going to call frameworks, guidelines, templates. Okay, so you talk about deep inquiry. I think a lot of writers, my experience is writers we're looking for, we believe that somebody has the secret. Do you know what I mean? Like somebody out there has figured it out. And I certainly felt this way. 

Like if I read all the books, right? I'm reading Story Genius and Story Grid, and Save the Cat Writes a Novel, and you know, every craft book I can get my hands on. I will find the secret formula. to the perfect story. And for a while it helped, different ones helped more than others. It probably helped me understand fundamental story structure. 

But there's a point at which I don't know that they're that helpful. And I'm curious what you think about it? I'm always trying to remind folks when people say, oh, but I just did Story Grid. And so now, here's where I am mathematically in the Story Grid framework or formula. Like, okay, but it's art, right? 

We remember that it's art, even you know, your YA urban fantasy or your cozy mystery, it's still art. So what's your perspective on frameworks, guidelines, formulas, you know, that kind of approach to writing? 

Traci:

Well, I think you're exactly right. You know, it's like, well, I just need to find my inciting incident. Once I find my inciting incident, you know, and I think what that does is it takes away from the fact that it is art and that deep inquiry, right? 

It's like, and I think it can be really paralyzing. So I have a woman that I'm working with who has been writing a memoir for a number of years and she's been really frustrated because she's received this advice, you have to write it this way, you have to write it this way. And I'm like, well, let's see what you have and figure out what the story wants. And she, anyway, through the process of working with me, she feels incredibly liberated. She has found the structure from the writing, not from me. 

You know, I think the idea of formula or template can be helpful to a point. because it can create a kind of structure, but then we may have to break the structure. Anyway, for her, it was like this huge liberating, it's been this liberating process because she can write her story in a way that makes sense, a) for her nervous system, mind, body, et cetera, and b) also to the story. So we can find the logic from the story itself. And I think that's where the richness comes from. 

So even in genre fiction, there's still, yeah, there's still motivations that need to be present and a humanness. I think this is the thing and really what I tried to, it's like, if we just wanted the template, we could just feed our story idea into AI and the AI could write it up. But the beautiful thing about writing and reading is to connect with this human experience. 

And I think that's what when I talk about embodied writing, that's really what it is. It's like the deep humanness of our experience, which can be light to us. But I think what this template idea does is it creates what you're saying, it's sort of this rush. It's like, if we get the answer, we do this with everything. We want to do this with diet. Oh yeah, change the answer please. Give me the math. Yeah, yeah. 

Rhonda:

And we don't want to do the work. I think what separates writers who actually finish and publish their novels is that they do the work. Like, the work is not easy. I feel like they do the work and also they learn how to sit in occasional discomfort. A hundred. Right? Like, don't have to like, okay, we don't know what to do here in Act Two. We don't have to panic about that. We can just sit in the uncertainty and the unknowing for now and then see what comes, you know? 

Traci:

Yeah. That's such an important thing to say and to remind writers. It's like... I was listening to Prentice Hemphill, who's my new hero, but they were saying that in somatic theory, when we experience chaos, which is different from trauma, just to be clear, but in that uncertainty, there's possibility. 

So if we can remember as writers that when we're in that uncertainty, there's possibility available to us. and something new can emerge. But if we clamp down on it too soon, because we're so scared of being uncertain, fair enough, like I am too, and then the possibilities for what's new and what's fresh to emerge are shut down, right? 

We reach for cliches instead. We just make assumptions about how something feels or should look instead of, this is again, part of that difference between writing from and writing about. Writing about is this assumption and writing from is like really feeling into it and deep knowing. Yeah. 

Rhonda:

Yeah, that's interesting because I think that, you know, for me, the frameworks, guidelines, templates, you know, everyone that's got a new book. They are kind of marketing vehicles, these things, right? So I think we need to bring our critical understanding to it as well. 

And just find, you know, go to it and use it as a prompt, but don't write the book that is, you know, fully templated, because then that isn't art. And now we're all reading, you know, the same freaking cozy mystery, you know, yes, like, wait a minute, I've read a story just like this before. And it's then not your very unique, very specific story that is yours to tell, that will connect deeply with another human being because you've entered it deeply. 

Traci:

Yes, yes, 100%. I'm with you. Like, you know, my sons used to say: Mmom, it's no fun watching movies with you, because we'd watch these Marvel movies, you know, and it's the same story generated with different characters. And that's what Hollywood has done. 

I'm just going to go on my tirade here for a second. But I feel like Hollywood has infected our sense of what story is. Like the idea that there's only two or three ways to tell a story is ludicrous. Yeah, we are, you know, like let's bring diversity back to the cozy mystery, to fiction to memoir and so on, because I don't wanna read the same story over and over again. 

Rhonda:

Right, exactly. Yeah. And every writer, your profound uniqueness, yes, that's your gift, right? That's your gift. That's why you are writing a story that only you can write, so, yeah. 100%. Yeah. 

I mean, I think, when I look at a kind of screenwriting and it can be so frustrating to try to apply things from some, you know, again, a framework, where you're like, okay, the always perpetually escalating stakes. Well, okay, but my story is a more quiet domestic story. You know, it's still interesting. It still has depth. It's still profound. It's still, you know, necessary. 

But there's no car chases, you know, yeah, but up here. It's life and death in the sense of like quiet desperation, but it's not life and death in the sense of somebody chasing somebody off a cliff, you know? So sometimes I think writers can be led down the wrong path following those, you know? 

Traci:

Yeah, 100%. I call that being like, it doesn't have to be loud. You don't have to throw a bomb in there to make something happen. Really that deep inquiry. It's like, we all struggle as humans, like we're all struggling. So tap into the struggle of your own experience and then see how that translates to your character. Like, you know, even on a choice making level, it can be interesting, right? 

It's like, oh, I want this, but I need that and or whatever it is, right? Yeah, that sort of extraordinaryness of the ordinary. day-to-day human life, right? Yeah. I think that’s what we go to literature to find: we go to find connection, we go to find a kind of mirroring, we go to not be alone, we go to kind of go deeper into human experience. 

Rhonda:

So Traci, as you're looking at the students who come to you, the writers who work with you, what would you say are kind of the... biggest issues they're facing when they first reach out to speak with you? 

Traci:

Often they're frustrated because they haven't, they've been told they need to write their story this way and it's not working, right? So this is the thing with templates as well, or, you know, the thing we mentioned is that it creates a sense of, I must be doing something wrong because it's not working. Right. 

And so they come to me because they've reached a place where they're stuck, they can't take it to the place they need to go, where they feel it needs to go, or closer to their vision. So there's that. And then there's this, again, the sense of like, I get them to move more inward and right from a more embodied place. 

And I would say loosening up language. So we do this thing as writers, especially when we're starting, is we write how we think we should sound – and this is another piece of embodiment that I work with – like, we write how we think we should sound instead of accessing the voice of the character or the voice of the narrator, which is coming through us, right? 

So I work with them to find their own way of expressing themselves. I mean, they've got some of it, for sure. But oftentimes, it gets kind of stifled in this idea of how we should sound. 

Rhonda:

Oh, I didn't think I could say that thing. 

Traci:

Right. And I'm like, Well, that's the thing. Yeah, exactly. And also it's you saying it in the way that only you can, like somebody else would say it differently and that's the beauty of it as well. 

Rhonda:

Traci, you've got an event coming up in mid September. Can you tell me a little bit about it because it sounds really interesting to me and I'd love for us to be able to share that with folks who are listening. 

Traci:

Sure, I'm teaming up with Caroline Donahue and we are offering a 90 minute workshop, a free workshop for writers called You're Not Doing It Wrong. So debunking the myth of the real writer. And it's kind of that I really got that you're not doing it wrong. Yeah. 

And so you know, I think this is what we all we are deeply insecure bunch these as writers and to just recognize that we may need help finding our stories, but we're not wrong in the way that we're, you know, in what we're feeling and what the struggles that we have and so on. So we were we're going to debunk the myth of what it is to be a real writer. And we're going to offer some prompts and some reading and it's going to be a lovely, lovely 90 minutes. 

Rhonda:

Okay, great. Thanks. I will put the link to sign up for that in the show notes. Thank you. And I also would love to attend. I think that it doesn't matter how many books you put out, I think we are very susceptible to the idea that there's the one right, true way, you know? Yeah. And if we just find the way that works, you know, we've got it sorted out. 

So yeah, I think that's an important workshop. I'm glad you're doing that. I love that you're saying that. It is, it's like, so part of it is, it's like how is your way the way? 

Traci:

Mm-hmm, exactly. It's really the inquiry. That's, yeah, that's it. 

Rhonda:

And that's a little bit of a lifetime struggle really, isn't it? Yeah, like how is your way? Welcome to your life as a writer. 

Traci:

Or welcome to your life as a human. 

Rhonda:

Well, that's true too. I know. I'm so glad you were with me today. Thanks so much. 

Traci:

You too, Rhonda. Thank you. I really appreciate it. 

Rhonda:

Take care. 

Traci:

You too. 

Outro:

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. 

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