Volume IV, Issue 46 November 16, 2015 Dear ,
One thing just about everyone has in common when they begin to write (or dream of writing) a book is fear. In fact, Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame believes that whenever anyone is not doing whatever creative project is calling to them, what's underneath any and all of their reasons is "always and only
fear."
Fear of what? Well, see if any of these fears she mentions sound familiar: “They’re afraid they don’t have the talent, they’re afraid they don’t have the right, they’re afraid it’s already been done better, they’re afraid they’ll be rejected, or insulted, or criticized, or worse,
ignored.”
Fear is one of the many things we talked about at this past weekend's coastal writing retreat. And I think we all got a handle on some great strategies to keep our fear from interfering with our writing dreams. (Strategy # 1 is to accept that we have fear.) Look at all these
courageous smiles!
All weekend, we practiced what I believe contributes most to being unstoppable in the face of fear: being kind to ourselves (Strategy # 2), courageous (Strategy # 3), curious (Strategy # 3), and connected (Strategy # 4).
“You can’t let fear have control over your creative choices, or it will just shut them down, one idea after another,” Gilbert says. But, she believes, you can invite it to come along on all your creative journeys. You can accept as a "necessary companion" and offer it appreciation. (When's the last time you appreciated your fear? Have you ever? This is Strategy #
5.)
“Creativity will always provoke your fear because it asks you to enter into a realm with an uncertain outcome and fear hates that," Gilbert goes on to say. "It thinks you’re going to die.
“So anytime I start a new creative project, the fear rises, and the first thing I say to it
is, ‘Thank you so much for how much you care about me, and how much you don’t want anything to happen to me and I really appreciate that. Your services are probably not needed here because I’m just writing a poem.’” (When's the last time you talked to your fear? Here's Strategy # 6.)
Here's the link if you'd like
to see this video interview:
There
are two more strategies I want to share with you here, ones I learned from Annie Dillard's beautiful memoir An American Childhood: muster your courage (Strategy # 7) and be willing to look foolish, both in your own eyes and in the eyes of others (Strategy # 8). You can read an excerpt from Dillard's book that describes an instance when she did just that. It's one of my all-time favorite pieces of writing. (Maybe because it's such a stellar example of kindness,
courageousness, curiosity, and connection.)
I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it inspires you to test your own courage by taking on getting your writing projects out into the world.
Love and light, Upcoming WordPlay
WINTER WRITING
RETREAT
(Writing as Renewal/Creating New Writing/
Tools for a Writing Life)
Renew and delight yourself. The Winter Writing Retreat is an opportunity to create new pieces of writing and/or new possibilities for our lives. Enjoy various seasonal prompts; they 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, December 19th, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
TO REGISTER: To pay with a check via mail, email info@wordplaynow.com for instructions. To pay online with your credit card or PayPal, click here.
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CHECK OUT THIS UPCOMING OPPORTUNITY, TAUGHT BY WORDPLAY CREATIVE COMRADE WENDY GILL* THE ARTIST'S WAY: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Expanding Our Creativity;
Creating Joy and Fulfillment in Our Lives)
Are you ready to discover the joy of
creativity? Using the proven tools and structure of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, this course will spur your imagination and guide your journey toward creative self-expression.
Our 2-hour sessions include weekly check-ins, hands-on activities, and creativity exercises. The encouragement and support of this small in-person community (what Julia Cameron calls a “creative cluster”) will help you fully
experience the power of The Artist’s Way.
COST: $260 for 13 classes, if registered on or before December
20, 2015 (Early Bird Special)
$295 for 13 classes, if registered after December 20, 2015 WHERE: Downtown Matthews, NC WHEN: Session A: Thursday mornings, 10 AM – Noon, January 14 –
April 7, 2015 Session B: Thursday evenings, 7 PM – 9 PM, January 14 –
April 7, 2015
TO REGISTER: For more information or to register, please email Wendy directly at Wendy@ProfessionalCommunications.com.
*Wendy H. Gill was a special education teacher for 22 years. One of
her greatest joys as an educator was adapting stories, rhymes and songs to engage her students and instill a love of books. She left full-time teaching in 2000 to create a literacy enrichment program for young children. She is currently a writer, producer, and the owner of Professional Communications, a creative video production agency. Her poems and
essays have appeared in a variety of regional and national publications.
More WordPlay opportunities here. WordPlay Featured Writing
An excerpt from
An American Childhood
by Annie Dillard
I was running down the Penn Avenue sidewalk, revving up for an act of faith. I was conscious and self-conscious. I knew well that people could not fly—as well as anyone knows it—but I also knew the
kicker: that, as the books put it, with faith all things are possible.
Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had. Day after day I had noticed that if I waited long enough, my strong unexpressed joy would dwindle and dissipate inside me, over many hours, like a fire subsiding, and I would at last calm down. Just this once I wanted to let it rip. Flying rather famously required the
extra energy of belief, and this, too, I had in superabundance.
There were boxy yellow thirties apartment buildings on those Penn Avenue blocks, and the Evergreen Cafe, and Miss Frick’s house set back behind a wrought-iron fence. There were some side yards of big houses, some side yards of little houses, some streetcar stops, and a drugstore from which I had once tried to heist a five-pound box
of chocolates, a Whitman sampler, confusing "sampler" with "free sample." It was past all this that I ran that late fall afternoon, up old Penn Avenue on the cracking cement sidewalks—past the drugstore and bar, past the old and new apartment buildings and the long dry lawn behind Miss Frick’s fence.
I ran the sidewalk full tilt. I waved my arms ever higher and faster; blood balled in my
fingertips. I knew I was foolish. I knew I was too old really to believe in this as a child would, out of ignorance; instead I was experimenting as a scientist would, testing both the thing itself and the limits of my own courage in trying it miserably self-conscious in full view of the whole world. You can’t test courage cautiously, so I ran hard and waved my arms hard, happy.
Up ahead I saw a
business-suited pedestrian. He was coming stiffly toward me down the walk. Who could ever forget this first test, this stranger, this thin young man appalled? I banished the temptation to straighten up and walk right. He flattened himself against a brick wall as I passed flailing--although I had left him plenty of room. He had refused to meet my exultant eye. He looked away, evidently embarrassed. How surprisingly easy it was to ignore him! What I was letting rip, in fact, was my willingness to
look foolish, in his eyes and in my own. Having chosen this foolishness, I was a free being. How could the world ever stop me, how could I betray myself; if I was not afraid?
I was flying. My shoulders loosened, my stride opened, my heart banged the base of my throat. I crossed Carnegie and ran up the block waving my arms. I crossed Lexington and ran up the block waving my
arms.
A linen-suited woman in her fifties did meet my exultant eye. She looked exultant herself, seeing me from far up the block. Her face was thin and tanned. We converged. Her warm, intelligent glance said she knew what I was doing--not because she herself had been a child but because she herself took a few loose aerial turns around her apartment every night for the hell of it, and by day
played along with the rest of the world and took the streetcar. So Teresa of Avila checked her unseemly joy and hung on to the altar rail to hold herself down. The woman’s smiling, deep glance seemed to read my own awareness from my face, so we passed on the sidewalk—a beautifully upright woman walking in her tan linen suit, a kid running and flapping her arms—we passed on the sidewalk with a look of accomplices who share a humor just beyond irony. What’s a heart
for?
I crossed Homewood and ran up the block. The joy multiplied as I ran--I ran never actually quite leaving the ground--and multiplied still as I felt my stride begin to fumble and my knees to quiver and stall. The joy multiplied even as I slowed bumping to a walk. I was all but splitting, all but shooting sparks. Blood coursed free inside my lungs and bones, a tight-shot stream like air. I
couldn’t feel the pavement at all.
I was too aware to do this, and had done it anyway. What could touch me now? For what were the people on Penn Avenue to me, or what was I to myself, really, but a witness to any boldness I could muster, or any cowardice if it came to that, any giving up on heaven for the sake of dignity on earth?
I had not seen a great deal accomplished in the name of dignity, ever.
~ Annie Dillard, An American Childhood, pp. 106-09 Read more, or purchase the book on 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 "fear."
PROMPT:
Make a list of times you accomplished something important to you despite being afraid, at least at first. Dig deep, and go all the way to when you were a kid.
Now, choose one of these times and write about them. Describe, as Dillard does above, what you accomplished and how it felt—body, heart, mind, and spirit. (Reminding yourself that you've done something already makes it much easier to do it again.)
Next, imagine how you will feel when you accomplish a writing goal that you care deeply about. Put down the date by which you'd like to have it finished, and write about this literary achievement of yours from the viewpoint of this time in the future, as if it's a fait accompli.
Lastly, choose a friend/writing buddy to support you as you write your way to your finished writing project.
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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