Dear ,

Some days, I shake my head in wonder at how I ever got so lucky as to get to do the work that I do—With words, which I have loved from the beginning. (I don't even remember learning to read. It was, like breathing, involuntary.) And with people. Beautiful people like you. And like the people in the photo below.

Maybe you'll relate to this: For many years of my life, I felt like a total oddball. What I thought about, how deeply I cared about things that seemed meaningless to the people around me, set me apart, at least in my mind. And then I signed up for a poetry class at CPCC with Irene Blair Honeycutt in which I not only, at last, found kindred spirits, but also the perfect articulation of just how lonely I often felt in a poem by Mary Oliver called "Trilliums": ". . . Oh, I wanted//to be easy/ in the peopled kingdoms,/to take my place there,/but there was none//that I could find/shaped like me. . . ."

It's been nearly thirty years, and I still relish time spent in community shaping words into things of beauty that speak to the human experience, whether it's poetry, fiction, memoir, nonfiction, or essays. One of the places this happens is around this table at Covenant Presbyterian Church on Thursday evenings. And it's easier for all of us because we are a community, committed to each other's success.

This is one of my beloved Under Construction classes (minus one member, who couldn't be with us last Thursday), where we share encouragement, inspiration, and support of each other's writing. You got to meet Michael A. Clark in this zine a few weeks ago. That's him in the pale grey sweatshirt, fourth from the left. And this week, you'll meet Charles Murray, to Mike's left. But each one of these writers helps all the rest of us to grow in wisdom and knowledge, to think out of the box.

Take Charles. He pulled us in one week with one of his essay's titles, "The Frivolous and Vain." 

Yes, I'd heard of Michel de Montaigne, and I did remember that he was associated with the writing of essays, but I didn't associate these words with him. And I didn't realize, as Charles puts it in his essay, featured below, that "His critics thought him merely self-indulgent." [I've been accused of that. Maybe you have, too. Maybe you accuse yourself of it when you don't sit down to write even though you want to. This is one of the reasons any essay (or any other writing) is so much easier in community. How wonderful it is to be with people who think you should sit down to write. Often!]

Charles reminded us that "Montaigne was seeking a new literary form in which he could try out or test, essay (accent on the second syllable) ideas without being completely committed to them." While a lot has changed since the 1500s, when Montaigne was pushing the boundaries of literary form, the value of essaying ideas has, if anything, increased over the centuries.

And Charles came up with a theory about what Montaigne would be up to if he were writing today that I will let you discover on your own. (I don't want to spoil one of Charles's punchlines, or your reading pleasure.)

And speaking of you, if you don't have a writing community in which to share your "essaying" of ideas, in whatever genre(s) you enjoy, please find one. The North Carolina Writers' Network Fall Conference is a wonderful place to start. (I would love to see you there. Come say hi, and I'll introduce you to some of the writers I know. But hury.The deadline to preregister at a discount is this Friday, November 26th.)

Another opportunity is the Coastal Writing Retreat I'm leading at Sunset Beach in mid-November. Again, I would love to have you. You'll feel the energy and ease of essaying in community. I promise. But do act soon if you'd like to come. Details here and below.

For now, though, enjoy Charles's writing and this week's prompt, and thank you for being a member of my writing community via the Word-zine. I love picturing you reading and writing as I tap out these words.

Love, light, and happy essaying,

Maureen

Upcoming WordPlay

WordPlay Success Story

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What Charles says about WordPlay

I first connected with Maureen Ryan Griffin and WordPlay about four years ago when attending one of her introductory poetry workshops at the public library. Approaching retirement, I wanted to explore various possibilities for how I might spend my time once I stopped working. Up until then, I had had a yen to write but always told myself I didn't have the time. Once I encountered Maureen, however, I was immediately infected by her you-can-do-it enthusiasm and realized I didn't have to wait for retirement. I quickly joined her Thursday evening Under Construction class and have been a regular member ever since. Looking back, I am amazed at just the sheer quantity of writing I've produced in the last few years which simply wouldn't have happened without the encouragement and support of this writing community. Creating and nurturing such communities is exactly what WordPlay does.

Featured Writing

“Welcome to The Frivolous and Vain”

Reflections on many subjects
in the spirit of Michel de Montaigne.

Charles Murray​​​​​​​

Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book; You would be

unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a

subject. So farewell.

                                    ~ Michel de Montaigne (1533-92)

If Michel de Montaigne were alive today, there isn’t any doubt that he would be a blogger. There is something that feels so contemporary about his writing. After all, he practically invented the personal essay as we know it, and, with a few notable exceptions, his famous Essays are brief, packed with wit, and eminently quotable—just what we’d want in good blog posts. As a literary innovator himself, I think he would have quickly seen the potential of any new forms of publication and given them a shot.

His critics thought him merely self-indulgent, but Montaigne was seeking a new literary form in which he could try out or test, essay  (accent on the second syllable) ideas without being completely committed to them—in other words, writing as laboratory, a means of approaching in small, tentative steps, a better understanding of the world and himself. In fact, the real subject of his book, he asserts, is himself, and this is very much in the Renaissance spirit that invests greater authority in the experience of the individual versus blind acceptance of traditional institutions and conventions. Despite his coy disclaimer that his subject is merely “frivolous and vain,” Montaigne clearly had faith that discerning readers would profit from his rumination on the multitude of subjects found in the Essays, if only to find there an amiable companion for one’s own journey.

So Montaigne is my inspiration and hero, not because I aspire to write with his astonishing eloquence, but because I’d like to be such an amiable companion, not shackled to any specific subject but who might, as in a conversation with friends after a few beers, throw an idea or two against the wall to see if they stick. Granted, this might at times appear closer to the spirit of eighth grade boys than the ponderings of a great sixteenth-century master, but I hope it is at least occasionally entertaining.

Check out Charles' blog here: 
https://thefrivolousandvain.wordpress.com/