Volume III, Issue 35 September 29, 2014
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Don't you hate it when an important picture ends up all blurry like this? This is the only photo I have of me with all my "Geniuses"
from the "Write Like a Genius" class I taught last week at the John Campbell Folk School. Drat! Still, better a blurry picture than none. This was such a joyous moment -- right after the reading we gave that showcased some of the wonderful work my students produced this past week. Even a bad photo can bring back memories, in full detail, crisp and clear.
I can't ever think of the word "blur" without remembering how my mother always said, whenever I asked her anything about my childhood, "It's all a blur."
Perhaps this is one reason that I became a writer -- so that I don't ever have to say those words. Not only
do I have my most important moments down in writing, but also, the very act of writing helps me remember even more of them. See the prompt below for one method of getting down yours. And on the way down, you can read a prose poem called "Sweet" from my book that's coming out this fall -- Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong. The poem captures a sweet moment with one of my dear friends, who is also a writer, and I am so grateful that this memory will never be a blur!
It's glorious to have my head buried in writing in every spare pocket of time! And I am going to be so happy when I am holding a finished book in my hand... it's crunch time! I'll keep you posted...
Upcoming
WordPlay
FALL WRITING RETREAT
(Writing - and More - as Renewal / Creating New Writing)
Renew and
delight yourself. The Fall Writing Retreat is an opportunity to create new pieces of writing and/or new possibilities for our lives. Enjoy various seasonal prompts; they have not failed to elicit beautiful material that can be shaped into essays, poems, stories, or articles. After a communal lunch, you'll have private time which can be used to collage, work with a piece of writing from the morning, or play with a number of other writing prompts and methods. You'll take home new ideas,
new drafts, and new possibilities. $97 includes lunch and supplies.
WHERE: South Charlotte area. Details will be provided upon registration.WHEN: Saturday, October 11,
2014, 10 am - 5 pm.
TO REGISTER: TO REGISTER: Register online here. Or email info@wordplaynow.com or phone
704-494-9961 for details on registering via mail.
-------------------------------------------------------------- COASTAL WRITING RETREAT
Connect with Your Creativity at the Sunset Inn (Writing - and more - as Renewal and Inspiration)
Full details here. Register now if you want to come: just two spots left!
WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, November 7 - Sunday, November 9, 2014. TO REGISTER: Contact the Sunset Inn at 888.575.1001 or 910.575.1000 (if you would like to handpick your room, view your choices here first, then call).
-------------------------------------------------------------- COASTAL WRITING RETREAT: PROJECT
BOOK GET YOUR BOOK OUT OF YOU AND INTO THE WORLD (Writing; Publishing Your Book-length Writing
Project)
A hands-on workshop for any writer who would like to write and/or publish a book and 1) doesn't know how
2) doesn't get around to it
3) feels
a) intimidated
b) confused
c) overwhelmed
d) uninspired
e) all of the above Full details here. WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, November 14 - Sunday, November 16, 2014. TO REGISTER: Contact the Sunset Inn at 888.575.1001 or 910.575.1000 (if you would like to handpick your room, view your choices here first, then call).
More
WordPlay opportunities here. Featured Writing Sweet from the upcoming book
Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong Some days I know it's all sheer gift. Like this morning, walking the dog under a yellow umbrella, juggling a cup of coffee with the handle of said umbrella and the leash, happy fool that I am. All the people who drive by saluting me with a wave and a smile. Like tonight, over dinner, after whining to my friend Dede that I haven't been writing anywhere near as often as I'd like, how she says, "We could write
when we get together." "Let's write right now," I say, eager to work with an essay about my mother's sweet parsnips, having had a new idea for it two days ago I've been itching to play with. And though she's reluctant, she has no paper, only her work laptop, she meant next time, she says yes, but just for ten minutes. "Do you need a prompt?" I ask, and she says yes, so I riffle through my laptop bag for leftover handouts from one of my writing classes, come up empty except for a flier
from a writer's workshop I went to months ago. There's a poem on the back. "Here," I say, "close your eyes and let your finger land on a line and run with it." She wrinkles her nose when she reads her line: sweet with songs of indefinable and I ask if that will work and she says yes, and I say, "That's kind of cool because I'm writing something
about sweet myself," and off we go for ten minutes, right there in the noise of The Fortune Cookie, which is where we are because we love their Sa Cha Chicken and they don't care how long we sit. When our ten minutes are up, we read each other what we've written, and hers is beautiful, sweet indeed, on its way to a poem about the texts her freshman son
sends her from college, and mine needs a lot of work but is a beginning, and I am happy, and we agree that a little bit of writing time is enough to be a writer on those days when that's all there is. After all, Dede says, she just heard Gertrude Stein only wrote an hour a day. So much is good enough these days that didn't used to be. Earlier, the waitress cleared our plates and left the bill, topped by two fortune cookies in cellophane, and Dede reaches for one, pushes the small tray toward
me, says, "That one's yours." I crack it open and, no kidding, read, It is sweet. We laugh and laugh, so tickled, so amazed, so glad to be here. Whatever "it" is, yes, it is sweet.
* The italicized lines of poetry are from Mary Belle "Peg" Campbell's poem "Pine Lake at Twilight."
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt
This is WordPlay -- so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's
"blur." One of the best ways I've found to keep the best moments of my life from becoming a blur is to simply "list" them, as I did before I left the Folk School on Saturday morning. I plopped myself down in a rocker, wrote "I'm grateful for... ("I want to remember..." works well, too) and began listing moments and memories from the week, from Laura's impromptu chestnut gathering and roasting to the ingenious
rendition of "This Little Light of Mine" performed by a hammered dulcimer and double bass duo called "Singing Tree" to the female cardinal that flew into our studio one morning....
I can look back at my list anytime and have the whole week come flooding
back, in clear detail.
PROMPT: Open up a notebook at the end of any day, or any experience, and write "I want
to remember..." or "I'm grateful for..." Give yourself the freedom to write just a few words encapsulating an experience, or a whole flood of them, as in "Sweet" above. You may even want to try your hand at a prose poem.
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MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and two collections of poetry, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."
Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn -- and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours! |
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