Volume VII, Issue 2 January 8, 2018 Dear ,
I've heard it
said that, if you want to figure out what truly makes you happy, think about what you loved when you were ten years old. For me, that was camping.
Look what Richard and I gave each other for Christmas!
(A picture really is worth a thousand words, isn't it?) Here we are near Jekyll Island, Georgia, where we escaped a few days after
Christmas to play with our new toy, whom I've christened Betsy, after the heroines of two of my favorite book series when I was a kid.
Going away over the holidays disrupted my typical "Start on January 1st" New Year's beginning, but I decided that
was a good thing.
It gave me the opportunity to reframe New Year's. Why not choose your own day to start a healthy new habit; point yourself toward the "true north" of a new, exciting challenge; be truer to your ideals?
Why stop at one New Year's Day a year, if you need extra "fresh starts" to get yourself to the finish line?
It also gave me the opportunity to mull over my "Word-of-the-Year." This is
at least my fourth year of taking on this practice, using Asheville business coach Christine Kane's free online tool. This year, my word is "true", which made me think of, among other things, Hemingway's words about writing "one true sentence." (You can scroll on down to read more of his advice, as he's the featured writer this
week.)
And this gave me the idea to create something new: a "one true sentence" writing game. I
hope you'll play it along with me, !
You have nothing to lose but the
time it takes to write one sentence a day for 30 days. (That's how long researchers in this kind of thing have discovered it takes to start a new habit.)
And what will you gain? Perseverance. Patience. Progress toward your writing goal. Courage. Confidence. Clarity. Camaraderie. And Acknowledgment: I'll be listing the names of all who complete the "One True Sentence" game on my website and in the zine, along with links to any books, blogs, websites, etc. you'd like shared. And you'll get a small "mystery prize" too, that honors your accomplishment.
Here's what to do:
- Start on any day of January you like, or even February 1.
- Write one sentence (More about that in this week's prompt below), then go to www.facebook.com/WordPlayNow/
- Scroll down to the post "DAY I OF THE "ONE TRUE SENTENCE" THIRTY DAY CHALLENGE. JOIN THE FUN!," where I've posted my first day's sentence.
- Click "Comment" and post your sentence.
- Repeat daily for Days 2 - 30. Each day's sentence must be written that day -- no fair stockpiling sentences.
- If you miss a day, post again on the last day you shared a sentence, then keep right on going. (For example, if you miss posting on Day 5, post again on Day 4, and then continue on to 5 the next day.
(Though you are very welcome to start back at Day 1, if you want the full glory of writing 30 days in a
row.)
- You can start over as many times as you need to. No shame, no blame. We all "fall off the wagon" sometimes. What you're practicing is jumping back on the wagon. You still get
where you're going!
- Have fun! Your sentences can all be part of one story, essay, poem, etc. that you're working on, but they can also be separate and unrelated. The game here is to write and share one sentence a day for the joy of it -- and the discipline. See what opens up for you as you are "true" to your desire to
write.
Hope to see you on Facebook, if that's a place you're comfortable. If not, I hope you'll try this at home, with or without a writing buddy. Be true to you!
Love and light,
Maureen
P.S. This week, I put the prompt right below, to make it easier for you to get started
writing your "one true sentence" a day. Don't forget to scroll down to read Ernest Hemingway's advice! There are a few spots left in Upcoming WordPlay offerings too.
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 "true."
PROMPT:
Be true to your desire to write, starting with "one true simple declarative sentence," like Hemingway. Or one true complex declarative sentence, if that's more your style. Or one true compelling imperative sentence. Or one true
provocative interrogative sentence. Or one true passionate exclamatory sentence. Your true sentence may even have a lie in it.
The point is, write a sentence.
Writing one true sentence may make you want to write more, but you don't have to. You may find it helpful to write some not-so-true, or not-so-inspiring sentences to get the running start you need to get to your own true sentence, but you don't have to.
Try writing at least one sentence a day for 30 days, and see what it feels like to gain momentum, to engage at least a bit in your writing in such a steady way.
Upcoming WordPlay
(Fulfilling
Writing Dreams & Goals; Creating New Writing; Revising & Polishing Your Writing)
ONE SPOT LEFT!
This class is designed to fulfill your writing dreams and projects. You’ll set goals and support structures and watch your writing flow! You’ll
also get feedback on your work (any genre) and learn revision tools and methods. Each week, writing prompts will generate material for new writing or further a piece in process, whatever your preferred genre. Through examples of accomplished writers, you’ll learn techniques to aid you right where you are in the process.
* For the benefit of participants, an audio
recording of the class will be made each week so that participants are able to listen to classes they miss and/or review material covered at any convenient time and place. These recordings are available throughout the class session, along with all handouts, in a shared Dropbox folder.
WHERE: Covenant Presbyterian Recreation Center, 1000 East Morehead Street,
Charlotte, 28204. Click here for map.
WHEN: Wednesday mornings, 10:00
a.m. – noon.
January 10, 17 and 31
February 14 and 21
March 7, 21 and 28
April 4 and 18
May 2 and 16
COST: $425
TO REGISTER: Please email us at info@wordplaynow.com, and we'll get right back to you with all the details!
--------------------------------------------------------------- (Preserving Family History; Writing for and about Your Family; The Art of Memoir) TWO SPOTS LEFT!
Our life stories are a precious legacy. Putting them in writing is a gift to all who know and love us—they can be treasured and enjoyed for generations to come. It is also a gift to ourselves. As
best-selling author Rachel Naomi Remen says in her book Kitchen Table Wisdom, facts bring us to knowledge, but stories bring us to wisdom. If you are interested in writing family and/or personal life stories—those significant tales of adventure, transition, love, loss, and triumph, as well as lovely everyday moments from times past or the present, come learn specific tools and techniques to retrieve and record them.
* For the benefit of participants, an audio recording of the class will be made each week so that participants are able to listen to classes they miss and/or review material covered at any convenient time and place. These recordings are available throughout the class session, along with all handouts, in a shared Dropbox folder.
WHERE: Covenant Presbyterian Recreation Center, 1000 East Morehead Street, Charlotte, 28204. Click here for map. WHEN: Thursday mornings, 10:00 a.m. – noon. January 18 February 1 and 22
March 8 and 22 April 5 and 19 May 3
COST: $275 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Connect with Your Creativity at the Sunset Inn (Writing—and more—as Renewal and Inspiration) ONE SPOT LEFT!
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. $418 + room tax
for the weekend beginning Friday, February 9th through Sunday, February 11th. 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
Coastal Writing Retreat participants the opportunity to stay Sunday night at half price.
(Extra writing 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 9th – Sunday, February 11th, 2018
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 our retreat participants, a number of them are blocked off as unavailable online. Phone to check on your choice.
*Also, please let the Inn know when you call
if you are interested in staying Sunday night, February 11th, at half price. The Inn will hold your reservation with a credit card.
from
Open Culture
Before he was a big game hunter, before he was a deep-sea fisherman, Ernest Hemingway was a craftsman who would rise very early in the morning and write. His best stories are masterpieces of the modern era, and his prose style is one of the most influential of the 20th
century. Hemingway never wrote a treatise on the art of writing fiction. He did, however, leave behind a great many passages in letters, articles and books with opinions and advice on writing. Some of the best of those were assembled in 1984 by Larry W. Phillips into a book, Ernest Hemingway on Writing. We've selected seven of our favorite quotations from the book and placed them, along with our own commentary, on
this page. We hope you will all--writers and readers alike--find them fascinating.
Featured
Writing
(They work for Nonfiction, too!)
1: To get
started, write one true sentence.
Hemingway had a simple trick for overcoming writer's block. In a memorable passage in A Moveable Feast, he writes:
Sometimes when I was
starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was
easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.
2: Always stop for the day while you still
know what will happen next.
There is a difference between stopping and foundering. To make steady progress, having a daily word-count quota was far less important to Hemingway than making sure he never emptied the well of his imagination. In an October 1935 article in Esquire ( "Monologue to the Maestro: A High Seas Letter") Hemingway offers this advice to a young writer:
The best way is always to stop when you are going
good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.
3: Never think about the story when you're not working.
Building on his
previous advice, Hemingway says never to think about a story you are working on before you begin again the next day. "That way your subconscious will work on it all the time," he writes in the Esquire piece. "But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start." He goes into more detail in A Moveable Feast:
When I was writing, it was necessary for me to read after I had written. If you kept thinking about it, you would lose the thing you were writing before you could go on with it the next day. It was necessary to get exercise, to be tired in the body, and it was very good to make love with whom you loved. That was better than anything. But afterwards, when you were empty, it was necessary to read in order not to think or worry about your work until you could do it
again. I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.
4: When it's time to work again, always start by reading what you've written so far.
To maintain continuity, Hemingway made a habit of reading over what he had already written before going further. In the 1935 Esquire article, he writes:
The best way is to read it all every day from the start, correcting as you go along, then go on from where you stopped the day before. When it gets so long that you can't do this every day read
back two or three chapters each day; then each week read it all from the start. That's how you make it all of one piece.
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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