Williams’s prompt “Where is home?”
7. One of the images around the word “writer” that I held in
my coming-of-age years was of someone who could live and
work in total isolation and who did not need the reassurance
of others to keep writing. Because I knew that I knew that I
could never live up that image, I believed I couldn’t ever be-
come a writer. (I also thought I had to be male to be a “real”
writer.)
a) Think about what preconceptions and images the word
“writer” conjures up for you. What were the images you
held of “a writer” in your childhood? Are any of those im-
ages limiting you still? Write for ten minutes on this topic.
8. Write for ten minutes about where you grew up. If you grew
up in more than one place, as I did, write about each of those
places for ten minutes apiece.
9. Answer this question for each of the places you grew up: How
did that place contribute to your sense of yourself as a cre-
8 7
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 87
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T h e o P a u l i n e N e s t o r
ative person? Was your creativity encouraged and stimulated
there, or were you shamed for your creative impulses? Or was
it some combination of encouragement and shame?
10. Write about a place that you love for ten minutes. Go for the
detail. What about that place inspires you?
11. Write about a place that you loved when you were a kid.
12. Make a list of times when you’ve been part of a group or a
team. Pick a time when you had a transformative experience
with a group and write about that for ten minutes.
13. Make a list of times you felt isolated and another list of times you felt part of a community. Pick a time from each list and
write about them together.
8 8
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6
ginger Harper Died for
My sins
You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she
does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when
there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of
promise, you keep writing anyway.
—Junot Díaz
A month before the seminar with Terry, my grandma JoJo
died of a stroke. She was found in her drafting room taking
a nap, the magazine beside her open to an article on Islam.
Fresh dirt clung to her gardening shoes outside the kitchen
door—further evidence that she’d spent the last day of her
eighty-six years wel . I felt the loss of her acutely, though, for
she was someone who’d understood my lifelong yearning for a
big life of authentic expression; in fact, she’d insisted upon it.
JoJo showed me that an artist is a person who makes art and
a writer a person who writes and that your love of doing the
work exists separately from whatever value anyone else might
8 9
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 89
6/7/13 8:19 AM
T h e o P a u l i n e N e s t o r
place on the work. Now that I had decided to final y use my
sabbatical to pursue my dream and for MFA programs, I would
need to remember this lesson.
Growing up, I’d counted on JoJo to show up for me in all
the ways that my mother couldn’t—not because my mom didn’t
want to but because her love for a married man and her drinking
drew her away from the present moment, the place where chil-
dren dwel . When I looked into my mother’s beautiful blue eyes,
I saw a vacancy, a desire for something that was far away. My
mother was also distracted by running her business, which was
both a necessity and a passion, which pointed to one of the ways
that my mother and I essential y differ, although it would take
me decades to see and understand this as simply a difference.
While I see the world in stories and feelings, my mother sees the
world in numbers. When my mom and I talk, she wants to know
my numbers: the day’s temperature, my mortgage interest rate,
the reading on my car’s odometer, my weight.
JoJo, on the other
7. One of the images around the word “writer” that I held in
my coming-of-age years was of someone who could live and
work in total isolation and who did not need the reassurance
of others to keep writing. Because I knew that I knew that I
could never live up that image, I believed I couldn’t ever be-
come a writer. (I also thought I had to be male to be a “real”
writer.)
a) Think about what preconceptions and images the word
“writer” conjures up for you. What were the images you
held of “a writer” in your childhood? Are any of those im-
ages limiting you still? Write for ten minutes on this topic.
8. Write for ten minutes about where you grew up. If you grew
up in more than one place, as I did, write about each of those
places for ten minutes apiece.
9. Answer this question for each of the places you grew up: How
did that place contribute to your sense of yourself as a cre-
8 7
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 87
6/7/13 8:19 AM
T h e o P a u l i n e N e s t o r
ative person? Was your creativity encouraged and stimulated
there, or were you shamed for your creative impulses? Or was
it some combination of encouragement and shame?
10. Write about a place that you love for ten minutes. Go for the
detail. What about that place inspires you?
11. Write about a place that you loved when you were a kid.
12. Make a list of times when you’ve been part of a group or a
team. Pick a time when you had a transformative experience
with a group and write about that for ten minutes.
13. Make a list of times you felt isolated and another list of times you felt part of a community. Pick a time from each list and
write about them together.
8 8
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 88
6/7/13 8:19 AM
6
ginger Harper Died for
My sins
You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she
does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when
there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of
promise, you keep writing anyway.
—Junot Díaz
A month before the seminar with Terry, my grandma JoJo
died of a stroke. She was found in her drafting room taking
a nap, the magazine beside her open to an article on Islam.
Fresh dirt clung to her gardening shoes outside the kitchen
door—further evidence that she’d spent the last day of her
eighty-six years wel . I felt the loss of her acutely, though, for
she was someone who’d understood my lifelong yearning for a
big life of authentic expression; in fact, she’d insisted upon it.
JoJo showed me that an artist is a person who makes art and
a writer a person who writes and that your love of doing the
work exists separately from whatever value anyone else might
8 9
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 89
6/7/13 8:19 AM
T h e o P a u l i n e N e s t o r
place on the work. Now that I had decided to final y use my
sabbatical to pursue my dream and for MFA programs, I would
need to remember this lesson.
Growing up, I’d counted on JoJo to show up for me in all
the ways that my mother couldn’t—not because my mom didn’t
want to but because her love for a married man and her drinking
drew her away from the present moment, the place where chil-
dren dwel . When I looked into my mother’s beautiful blue eyes,
I saw a vacancy, a desire for something that was far away. My
mother was also distracted by running her business, which was
both a necessity and a passion, which pointed to one of the ways
that my mother and I essential y differ, although it would take
me decades to see and understand this as simply a difference.
While I see the world in stories and feelings, my mother sees the
world in numbers. When my mom and I talk, she wants to know
my numbers: the day’s temperature, my mortgage interest rate,
the reading on my car’s odometer, my weight.
JoJo, on the other
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