Volume IIII, Issue 36 September 7, 2015 Dear ,
Happy Labor Day! I hope you are not working too hard today. (Unless you want to be, that is.)
Did you catch my veiled reference to the word "labor" in the subject line? I was going to ask, "Where do you like to labor over your writing?" but thought the better of it. Although writing can be a splendid labor of love, and we often do work pretty hard to birth stories, essays, poems, and books, somehow I have never found "labor" a word I raise my hand to sign up for. Not unless it's my idea, anyway. How about you?
This weekend,
though, I have been thrilled to labor over giving my writing (and WordPlay) space a do-over. Here's the before and after. What do you think?
I am pretty thrilled to see what some serious purging and containerizing -- and $160 some dollars spent at IKEA -- can do. And I'll be even happier
when my two-drawer white file cabinet that will wheel in and out from under the long white table arrives.
All that labor, with help from some very good minds who helped me see simple solutions my complicated mind couldn't find, has given me a space I love being in, one in which I know, not only where to find
everything I use regularly for writing and WordPlay, but also where to put it away so I can find it next time!
But the best part of all is that I finally have what I have been longing for ever since my husband and I moved to this house five and a half years ago -- a writing place with a window to gaze out of. Without
giving up the space I have for my computer that I use for my business operations.
Because while, as you'll read below, I love to write in bed, sometimes, to write happily requires a chair with a printer right nearby, and
the "spread out" space I need for almost all my projects at certain stages of their development.
Where do you do your best writing? If you don't know, it's time to find out For while it's true that we can write in many different places,
it's also often true that some places feel much better to us than others. And finding -- and/or setting up -- that just-right space is worth the labor. Check out the prompt below if this sounds good to you.
Love and
light, Upcoming WordPlay
FALL WRITING RETREAT
(Writing as Renewal / Creating New Writing
Tools for a Writing Life)
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 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 3rd, 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, please click this secure
link. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
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. $418 (plus tax) includes retreat, lodging, two breakfasts and Saturday lunch.
WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, November 13 – Sunday, November 15, 2015* 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.
Find out more here.
More WordPlay opportunities here. WordPlay Featured Writing Where You Like to Write
(from Chapter 4, "Where")
Some people can’t write at home, because they can’t ignore the work waiting to be done all around them. My student Judy Feldman was a case in point. She came into class frustrated several weeks running because she
hadn’t written. As other students shared writing they’d done in various locations outside their homes, she got the message. She took herself out to a beautiful new bookstore café—twice. Sipping cappuccino, she wrote a short story
so strong and convincing that everyone in class thought it was autobiography.
Some people can’t write when they’re not at home, snug in their own familiar chair. For them, the visual stimulation or the distractions of street noise disrupt their train of thought. Like Virginia Woolf, they believe in the importance of having “a room of one’s own.” (Although 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.)
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 had 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 bunch 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 treated myself to a laptop for my forty-eighth birthday, I found that, while being able to take my work on the road was undeniably useful, the greatest pleasure it provided was its bedability.
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 is your pretty darn nice place to write?
(P.S. If you don't know, see prompt below.)
This essay is from Spinning Words into Gold. Learn more (or order a copy) here. 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 "where."
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 yourself to experiment. Take on finding a spot that's perfect for you.
PROMPT:
Begin with two lists (Spend no more than 3 minutes making each of them):
- List everywhere you can think of where you remember writing.
- List everywhere you can think of where you could write. (Allow yourself to be creative here. Think outside the rooms and public places you've already written. Wander mentally through your home, and nearby locations.)
Now, look over your lists and pick from one to
seven places to write this week, if only for ten minutes. Note how you feel in each place. Ask yourself if there's a spot (or several spots) that would serve you and your writing. If so, as Jean Luc Picard would say, "Make it so!"
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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