Well, even if the Summer Solstice wasn't this weekend, , with the heat we've been experiencing, there's no denying summer is
officially here! I hope you have the time of your life this summer, whatever you have planned!
And I wanted to give you this heads up that the Summer Writing Retreat is this Saturday, in the event that you'd like to come -- and are able to. Full details below. And whether you can come or not, I wanted to give you a few summer writing prompts to start this new season's official start off write! (I know, I know -- I just couldn't help myself. That happens sometimes, as you probably know by now....) As my dad used to say, "yuck, yuck!"
Here's a visual of one of the summer places I'll be writing about at the retreat this Saturday -- The Gleason Hotel at Chautauqua Institution, where I will soon be. I've spent a week in the same wonderful room with its sunrise-over-the-lake view for a number of summers now, and can't wait to be
back! (Ruby Deux, my red car, looks pretty good out front, don't you think? Especially since she's eight years old now -- and still going strong!
Are you
a "go back to the same place each summer" kind of person? Or a "somewhere different every time" sort? Or do you prefer a mix of both?
Whatever your answer, I hope you enjoy the opportunity to write about one or more of your own special summer places from years past. (Or imagine one or more of them for one of your characters.)
Scroll on down to get started, and if you would like to come to the retreat this Saturday, you'll find all the details just below.
Love and light, Maureen Upcoming WordPlay
SUMMER WRITING RETREAT (Writing as Renewal / Creating New Writing /
Tools for a Writing Life) Renew and delight yourself. The Summer 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, June 20th, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
TO REGISTER: To register securely online with your credit card, click here. To pay with a check via mail, email info@wordplaynow.com for instructions.
More WordPlay opportunities here.
WordPlay Now! Bonus Summer Writing
Prompts
PROMPT 1: Write about arriving at a new place you (or a character) have never been before. (We so often have this experience in the summer.) What was the experience like? What sensory details
do you remember? Did it feel foreign? Or did you feel right at home? If you want some inspiration, check out this beautiful excerpt from Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. PROMPT
2:Write about a place that you (or a character) has gone back to many times? What is this experience like? What sensory details do you remember as you imagine/anticipate being there again? For inspiration, here are a few lines from Jeffrey Harrison's poem "The Place":
After years of going back to a place you love, you may have so many memories of the place that whenever you think about it you become calm and still as the lake at evening when the hills and trees are mirrored there. You can imagine your way back any time, following trails you know by
heart....
...And when you think of actually going back, you can already feel how that place in you will go rushing out to meet the real
place,
...each layer of your memory adding a bluer gloss to the lake’s surface and polishing the leaves until they shine.
from Jeffrey Harrison's Signs of Arrival, which you can read about here and purchase here.
|
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! |
|
|
|
