Volume V, Issue 4 January 25, 2016
Dear ,
OK, like many of us here in the Carolinas, including my grandson Rhys, the room you're most interested in these days is the one in which the Panthers game is playing. (And I quote, "Go, Pampers!")
It is pretty exciting to have your team heading to
the Super Bowl. I'm only hoping the fact that my brother Mike, who lives in Colorado, doesn't hold it against me if we beat the Broncos, which of course I'm hoping we will.
Virginia Woolf's long essay "A Room of One's Own" as well as E.M.
Forster's novel A Room with a View inspired this week's featured WordPlayer, Helen Gardiner-Parks, to find a perfect place to write in her own home.
And when, just for fun, she sent us her playful writing imaging me coming to help her set it up, my fabulous assistant, Morgan, thought it would make a great Word-zine piece. Because, after all, we have to write somewhere, right? And isn't a room with a view, or at least a room of our own, necessary? To read more about A Room With a View, or to purchase the book,
Plus, I am already dreaming about all the Sunset Inn rooms with lovely views that my coastal retreat participants will be enjoying next month! (Yes, you could be one of them. More here and here.)
But, well, as I say in my writing guide Spinning Words into Gold in my discussion of "Where You Write," a room of one's own is not always, as my mother would say, what it's cracked up
to be. Mario Puzo of The Godfather fame used a portion of his royalties to build himself a large, well-appointed studio in his backyard, only to find that he wrote much better at his kitchen table, smack in the middle of his family's comings and goings."
This week's writing prompts, again from Spinning Words into Gold, will give you some playful ways to think about where you could write.
But whatever room you choose to write in,
remember that giving yourself room in your life to write is every bit as important as having a room to write in. Go ahead. It's not too late. You deserve it. And so do your readers...
Love and light, Maureen Upcoming WordPlay
THE HEALING POWER OF WORDS WRITING RETREAT AT SUNSET BEACH
(Writing As a Healing Process)
What benefits can writing provide — physically, mentally, spiritually? Are some ways of writing more healing than others? And can we create quality literary work as we heal? In this retreat that incorporates recent discoveries in the field of mind-body-spirit
connection and Dr. James Pennebaker’s ground-breaking ideas on writing as a way to move through loss and grief, you’ll learn methods of writing that help navigate loss and grief on your life path of growth and wholeness.
WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, February 19 –
Sunday, February 21, 2016*
TO REGISTER: Contact the Sunset Inn at 888-575-1001 (if you would like to handpick your room, view your choices here first, then call). Because the Inn is holding rooms for you,
our participants, they are blocked off as unavailable online. Register soon by phone — this is a popular event and there are only 7 spaces available. -----------------------------------------------------------------
COASTAL WRITING RETREAT: Connect with Your Creativity at the Sunset Inn 2 spots left!
(Writing—and more—as Renewal and
Inspiration)
Renew yourself and reconnect with your own creativity, whether you are a practicing writer, closet writer, or as-yet-to-pick-up-the-pen writer! The techniques and prompts we’ll use will spur your imagination, and can be used to create nonfiction, fiction, and/or poetry—the choice is yours. $378 for the weekend beginning Friday, February 26 through Sunday,
February 28. The Coastal Writing Retreat includes writing sessions, two nights’ lodging, two breakfasts and Saturday lunch (hotel tax and Saturday dinner at a local restaurant not included). Want to extend your retreat? If you’d like to stay another day to write, or to just enjoy the beach, the Inn is offering to Coastal Writing Retreat participants the opportunity to stay Sunday night, February 28th, at half price. (Extra retreat sessions are a possibility too. Email info@wordplaynow.com if you’re interested.)
WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468 WHEN: Friday, February 26 – Sunday, February 28, 2016*
TO REGISTER: Contact the Sunset Inn at 888-575-1001 (if you would like to handpick your room, view your choices here first, then call). Because the Inn is holding rooms for you, our participants, they are blocked off as unavailable online. Register soon by phone — this is a popular event and there are only 2 spaces available.
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WRITERS' WORKSHOP: Every Picture Tells a Story Free!
Would you enjoy using visual images as writing inspiration? Come learn fun, easy methods to capture treasured family stories and create memorable fiction, memoir, and poetry. A variety of images will be provided; bring your own photos if you like.
WHERE: Plaza Midwood Library. 1623 Central Avenue. Charlotte, NC 28205
WHEN: Tuesday, February 9, from 6:00 – 7:30
p.m.
COST: Free!
TO REGISTER: To register online, please visit the Plaza Midwood Library website here.
More WordPlay opportunities here. WordPlay Success Story
"Maureen has helped me realize that I have wings, that I can trust them, and that I need to use them."
Meet Helen
Gardiner-Parks
Helen Gardiner-Parks’ current claim to fame is that she graduated from the same college as a certain woman who is campaigning to
be the 45th President of the United States of America. Her previous claims lie in being published in the Ranger Rick nature magazine as an eight-year-old and winning a high school writing prize from Burlington High School in Vermont. Helen is going boldly into this new year committing to you, her Wordplay community, to send her cherished pieces of writing out into the world where they might find new, equally cherished, homes. She counts on you to hold her to this
promise!
Helen lives to the north of Uptown Charlotte in a house variously full of human and creature animals, along with a reasonable amount of clutter and plenty of pet hair.
What Helen says about WordPlay
"Many years ago, when our children still squalled if I left the room, my partner graciously agreed to stay with them all day so that I could attend an event called a “Seasonal Writing Retreat” with a woman named Maureen Ryan
Griffin. Little did I know that my innocently placed bid on this particular church auction item would do so much to enrich my life.
The selling points of the event were threefold: writing, retreating, and staying close to home. Ever since the age of eight and a certain—very pink—strawberry-shaped notepad, to the endless composition books with which I am now surrounded, I have always journaled.
The retreat part was a no-brainer as a mother of three, and, wonder of wonders, the location was my family’s church—Maureen used to host her seasonal retreats at Piedmont UU Church in North Charlotte.
Not advertised in the very welcoming description she crafted for that church auction was my fear. I had never shared my writing with folks other than teachers, neither had I spent time in a circle
of people who actually called themselves writers, nor was I anywhere close to being comfortable with my own voice. But I wanted what I detected in the group around me, so I plunged into the sacred space created by Maureen and I have not looked back.
Fast forward more years, workshops, and classes than I can probably count (I do notice there is slightly less squalling at home now) and I declare,
“I am a writer,” when folks ask what I do. Maureen has helped me realize that I have wings, that I can trust them, and that I need to use them. So here I am—come fly with me!" Featured Writing
What Would Maureen Do?
by
Helen Gardiner-Parks
She would come in the front door of my home, look to the left, see my computer in the corner next to the dining table and tell me to take over the dining room, dammit—except she wouldn’t say dammit. She would tell me to move out the extraneous stuff from this room—the clock, the
resting-in-peace homeschooling materials. She would say, Helen, you must have a dedicated place to work. A room of your own. (A room with a view? I would ask.) She would tell me to clear the bottom of the china cabinet—put those things back where they came from, or so help me (has Maureen seen Monsters, Inc.?). Use the three stacks of empty crate shelves—once they’ve been emptied of the aforementioned homeschool leftovers—for files of folders of stories and bits and pieces of memoir.
Use the nearly empty filing cabinet as well. You have the space. Use it. Move the china cabinet over and affix the big bulletin board to the wall. She would say you can pin index cards and stick sticky-notes all over the wall now with impunity. Maureen senses that you need to be able to do things with impunity. You like impunity.
And then the fun would begin. You would get excited about pinning
and sticking with wild abandon and Maureen would suggest an organizational chart such as she uses in her office—strongly suggest, knowing how overwhelmed you get—to help you keep track of which pieces you have written, how complete they are, where they fit in the overall scheme of things. Good, good, yes, good. You can do this. You’ve got this. Maureen has the utmost faith in you; she always has.
To get it all in place, then—clock goes where? Right next to the door frame to the left of the entry into the kitchen. Yes. Yes. And the file cabinet can turn this way, facing me here sitting at the computer next to the window. I can’t see out the window and that may be a good thing but I can feel it there, breathing the light, heralding the activity outside. I like to know I could look out if I wanted to. Yes. Yes! Shift the cabinet of keepsakes and voila, space for
the bulletin board and space for me to See What I Have Created. A room of my own. Maureen would approve.
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 "room."
PROMPT # 1: Where You Have Written
When I heard Naomi Shihab Nye speak at Chautauqua in the summer of 2002, I was struck by the places her poems were conceived and/or written: in her own home, of course, but also in a hotel room, on a bus, in an airport, at a canoe rental shop, and on an airplane. Even at Niagara Falls. She told us that, unlike many people, she likes airport waits. They provide precious writing time.
Nye got me thinking of where I have written in the course of my life. I, too,
have written on a bus, a Greyhound ride from Pennsylvania to Arizona. And in a tent at Girl Scout Camp, and on a park bench in Paris, where a man in uniform charged me to sit. Then there was the Mercyhurst Prep School library, where I penned passionate letters asking that age-old teenage question, “Why don’t you love me anymore?” when I should have been studying. Perhaps the best place I ever wrote was on the lawn of the Glen Iris Inn in Letchworth State Park in western New York, because as I
sat there scribbling in my journal, a woman walking by asked, “Are you a writer?” I took a deep breath and answered, “Yes,” claiming myself as a member of the tribe. For fun, and perhaps a bit of enlightenment too, wander through your memory to recall where you’ve written.
List everywhere you remember
writing, from your earliest memory on up to where you are right now. Think back to what it was like to write in each place. It may give you some good ideas for where you can write now.
PROMPT # 2 Where You Most Like to Write
Whether we write better at home or away from home, many of us, like Mario Puzo, do have a favorite writing place. It’s great to have a comfortable spot to go to, one so
associated with pen, pencil, or keyboard that when we plop down there, words automatically flow out. Mine is definitely my bed.
I'd been thinking that this started in high school, as I sprawled on my blue-flowered bedspread and wrote bad e. e. cummings imitations. But one night in class, as we talked about the Where of writing, I realized it had been much sooner—when I was nine years old, in fact,
and wrote my first poem on an October night when I was supposed to be sleeping. (Hmm. Can I learn something from the fact that I seem to enjoy writing most when I’m supposed to be doing something else?) My habit no doubt became ingrained two years later when I wrote a number of poems while bedridden with shingles.
Many years later, when I began to write each morning upon first awakening, this
association became even more ingrained. When I got my first laptop, I found that, while being able to take my work on the road was undeniably useful, the greatest pleasure it provided was its bed-ability.
When my family makes comments about how nice it must be to lie in bed all day, I respond with an
injured-sounding “I’m working!” But the truth is, it is pretty darn nice. Pretty darn nice indeed.
Where do you most like to write? If you can’t answer that quickly and emphatically (“anywhere I am” is a fine answer), then you owe it to yourself to experiment. Take on finding a spot that’s perfect for
you.
PROMPT # 3 Where You’ve
Never Written Before
You have a favorite place to write. So why would you want to write anywhere else? Well, for one thing, it’s good to stay flexible, so that if circumstances in your future require a lot of travel, or time in waiting rooms, you will not be rendered write-less. Naomi Shihab Nye, for
example, spends much of her time giving lectures and workshops across the country. If she could only write at her favorite table, she wouldn’t be the prolific writer that she is.
There’s also the thrill of adventure that comes when we boldly write where we have never written before. (With a tip of the hat to the members of the Starship Enterprise.) I often ask students to write in a place they’ve never written before, and offer a prize to whoever comes back to class having written in the most interesting place, as voted on by the class. I don’t ask students to do anything I don’t do, so I’ve had to get pretty inventive as I
keep giving out this assignment. One afternoon, I took some bathing suits into a dressing room at a very exclusive department store and, instead of trying them on, I wrote.
There’s always a smattering of coffee shop and restaurant writing, and car repair shops are fairly common too—no prizewinners there. Virginia Brien took first place by writing, over a week’s time, in every chair in her house.
I had to try that one myself. I never realized how many chairs we had—six around the kitchen table alone. Chairs in the living room, chairs in my children’s rooms—it was fun to take a turn in each. I felt a little like Goldilocks, testing chairs in the bears’ house.
Another winner was Ellen Downs, who took the prize for writing while sitting, fully dressed, in her bathtub. Her
house is small, she said. And she had certainly never written there before.
List at least twenty places you could write. Make at least half of them places where you haven’t written before. Then pick one and go write there. Have fun! And over time, have a writing date in each of them.
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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