Volume VI, Issue 3 January 16, 2017 Word of the Week: breathe Dear ,
I hope this holiday weekend has given you a chance to catch your breath! If you're like me, the holidays can be busy, and reentering "ordinary time" can be hectic as well.
Richard and I used our long weekend to travel up to the D.C. area to visit with our daughter and her family. (Can't get enough of my grandsons, who, to echo last week's word-of-the-week, change before our very eyes. I thought our own children
grew up fast! We visited the National Air and Space Museum on Saturday, and Mount Vernon yesterday.
Rhys was mesmerized by these life-size statues of George Washington, his
wife Martha, and their grandchildren, Nelly (Eleanor Parke Custis) and "Wash" (George Washington Parke Custis). "Wash" was almost his exact same size. (Baby Harry, on the other hand, was quite unimpressed, sleeping right through it.)
We all enjoyed Mount Vernon, from the views of the Potomac River to our tour of the mansion to our blacksmith demonstration and interaction with livestock. My favorite experience was the conversation with "Lady
Washington," a very talented actress who embodied kindness and graciousness as she answered questions about her life with George and family.
It was a day to breathe in the past and savor the present. And knowing that I was going to be sharing the word "breathe" with you today, along with a mindfulness-based haiku by
WordPlayer Lyn Hopper, I crafted my own haiku to commemorate our day:
Here, together, we
breathe new life into the past
to carry forward.
Writing haiku is a wonderful way to catch your breath, as well as be mindful of your breath, and I was
inspired when I heard that Lyn has begun a practice of writing one haiku daily.
Want to try it? It's easy and just plain feels good. Plus, it's a great exercise to sharpen your writing skills. Scroll on down to check out Lyn's haiku and this week's prompt. (Don't miss the notice about February's
coastal retreats on the way.)
Love, light, and deep breaths, Upcoming WordPlay
COASTAL WRITING RETREAT
Connect with Your Creativity at the Sunset Inn
(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 17th through
Sunday, February 19th. 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 19th, 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 17 – Sunday, February 19, 2017*
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). Because the Inn is holding
rooms for you, our participants, they are blocked off as unavailable online.
*Also, please let the Inn know when you call if you are interested in staying Sunday night, February 19 at half price. The Inn will hold your reservation with a credit card.
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PROJECT BOOK RETREAT:
GET YOUR BOOK OUR 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
You’ll gain clarity, confidence, direction, momentum, and working knowledge of the steps you need to take and the procedures and pieces that are necessary (overview, synopsis, outline, and all that jazz), as well as an introduction to today’s
publishing world (major publishers, university presses, small presses, self-publishing, e-publishing, and print-on-demand). We’ll talk about marketing, too, whether you’re an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert. $378 (plus tax) includes retreat, lodging, two breakfasts and Saturday
lunch. Note: Class doesn’t include critique of your book manuscript, which is a separate service.
$378 for the weekend beginning Friday, February 24th through Sunday, February 26th. Includes Project: Book sessions, two nights’ lodging, two breakfasts and Saturday lunch (hotel tax and
Saturday dinner at a local restaurant not included). Additionally, for those who might like to stay another day to work on their writing, or to just enjoy the beach, the Inn is offering Coastal Writing Retreat participants the opportunity to stay Sunday night, February 26th, at half price.
WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, February 24 – Sunday, February 26, 2017*
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). Because the Inn is holding rooms for you, our participants, they are blocked off as
unavailable online.
*Also, please let the Inn know when you call if you are interested in staying Sunday night, February 26, at half price. The Inn will hold your reservation with a credit card.
More WordPlay opportunities here. WordPlay Success Story
"Maureen helped me understand how to achieve a pleasing flow
from one poem to the next in a book of poetry,
and I know my book is better because of her help."
Meet Lyn Hopper
Lyn Hopper lives in the mountains near Dahlonega, Georgia, with her husband of 40 years and a cat with serious attitude. She has just published her first poetry chapbook. Her poems have been published
previously in Summerfield Journal, Georgia Journal, Habersham Review, Poetry of the Golden Generation, The Reach of Song, The Stonepile Writers’ Anthology, and other works. She is an active member of the Georgia Poetry Society and two writing groups.
Lyn’s chapbook, The Hum in Every
Blossom, is available from Amazon here.
What Lyn says about WordPlay "Nearly three years ago, I had my first encounter with Maureen Ryan Griffin at the John C. Campbell Folk School. After a week-long class with her, I was thrilled to be selected for a profile in her Word-zine, and I wrote the following as part of my Writing Success Story.
All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. ~Dorothea Brande
“Everything you do is perfect,” insisted Maureen Ryan Griffin, my writing teacher at John C. Campbell Folk
School last September. And isn’t that true for all of us? We are perfect just as we are, and we must strive to be better. Holding these two thoughts simultaneously has always been difficult for me. But I’m getting there! And the writing workshop moved me closer. What a warm circle writers create when they work together under the right conditions. And Maureen created just the right atmosphere. (from a post September 24, 2013 in the blog “Only Moment: Mindfulness in Everyday Life” at http://quotesqueen.wordpress.com)
Since that time, I have taken more of Maureen’s workshops, returned to the Folk School to serve as her assistant for the writing class, and taken advantage of her expert guidance in putting together my first chapbook. Maureen helped me
understand how to achieve a pleasing flow from one poem to the next in a book of poetry, and I know my book is better because of her help. I will forever be indebted to her for pulling some words from a poem in the manuscript and declaring, “This could be your title!” My working title, Sun and Shadow, became The Hum in Every Blossom: a magical transformation, and much more interesting and reflective of the tone of the
book."
Awakening now Becoming present to life While breath still breathes me
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 "breathe."
PROMPT: Try your own hand at a haiku about any experience you've had in this New Year. It's easy! If you're not familiar with writing haiku, they are built on syllables: 5 in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the third. I
start with as few words as possible that capture the crux of an experience, then swap out words with different syllable counts, and play with the order of my words until everything lines up right.
Traditionally, haiku included references to the national world and a shift of subject, but contemporary haiku often captures the emotion and experience of a moment, with or without nature. You can learn more here: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Haiku-Poem
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 three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. One of her long-held dreams came true in July of 2015 when Garrison Keillor read one of her poems on The Writer's Almanac. 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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