What did I learn about writing this week?

A colleague and I recently published a piece in SIGNAL Journal about the award-winning author, Guadalupe García McCall. I reread our interview with her and found her description of her call to write most compelling. It taught me that I have to listen to those urges. If not, the pull may not return. Once, I would read literature and be compelled to write something. That strong feeling rarely visits me these days.

Here is Ms. McCall’s response to our question about her typical writing day:

 "Writing is something I do almost every night …. When my everyday life is forgotten and  my mind is quiet, the words come to visit me. I know it sounds weird, but I go to sleep   at a regular time, and, then, most often than not, my eyes pop open in the middle of the   night and I hear the call. A piece of dialogue, a great line, an enchanting word will whisper in the darkness. I try to go back to sleep, but the words keep repeating themselves in my head. They keep lingering in my thoughts, until I absolutely have to get up and write them down. It's the only way I can go back to sleep, when the words are written, they are quieted and they let me rest. So I write a lot at night. It keeps me sane, I guess."

Want to read our article?

Our article about Guadalupe García McCall can be found in an excellent volume of SIGNAL Journal on first time authors guest edited by Toby Emert.

 Rodríguez, R. J. & Hinton, K. (2014). Guadalupe García McCall: A Storyteller of Cultures and Odysseys. SIGNAL Journal, 37(5), 17-21.