Thursday, March 31, 2016

Writing as Part of the Path

A story often is more than what we see on the page on our hands in our minds. This story is like that. This particular story I'm talking about is how this thought came to be, which is not what I'm writing about here. Now.

It is enough for now to say that I came across the photo below with the search terms "writing" and "mandala." I'm not going to write more about why I was using those terms to search - no, not now. There is something in process and this, right now, is about what I found.

This photo, while it is not a mandala (or maybe it is in a different way), had a significant impact on me when I saw it. Even though it is not at all what (I thought) I was searching for, it was what I was searching for.

Later, this may become more clear. Or not.

For now. This photo reminds me of the path I'm traveling and the place of writing (and more) on this journey. Exploration.

Photo from Jenna Avery

Monday, March 21, 2016

workshop photos


More Corporeal Writing photos from the spring "Reinventing Revision" workshop with Lidia Yuknavitch and bunch of other wonderful beings. (photos by Domi J Shoemaker)




Corporeal Writing - Spring - Reinventing Revision

At this moment I cannot tell you why this workshop was so important.

Except that it was. It was face2face. Other writers breathing the same air, reading the same words, sharing, going into it together, speaking truths and insights and micro stories within the larger stories.

Words. My words their words our words.

Trust.

Exploration.

Explosion. Budding. Building.

More for which words have left me.

Working through the vision and re-vision and the revision of re-vision.

Facing ourselves and each other through writing.

Finding gems and tossing some out and getting to the pieces within, where the real stories lie.

And more. But now, sleep.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

yes to corporeal writing

Not much more to say. Yes. One day in the Corporeal Writing spring/revision workshop. Revision in new ways. Entering the writing, entering community, entering through the pathways of the body.

Words.
Images.
Instinct.
Insight.

Revision like you've never done it before. This, on top of the revision workshop with Ariel in the Literary Kitchen, I feel fully provisioned to get through another edit of the bigger project.

Yes.

This.

Power in writing.

Powerful writing.

Friday, March 18, 2016

This starts .... not quite now ... soon




the face2face Corporeal Writing spring adventure begins in
well
not too long
first i have to get there -- i will
leaving soon

Writing
Revising
Going deeper and wider and, perhaps, in a new direction
or two or three or

diving
without a net
into the waters of stories within stories within
with trust
and excitement



Monday, March 7, 2016

8 * 3 * 6

I wasn't sure where my original title, "Loves and Losses and Missing Time," was leading, but it jumped up there so I went with it.

What I intended to write as I looked from my last post to now was about lost time. Not lost time, but time filled with things to do. With passions and permission, with commitments to others and to myself, with responsibilities and with new ideas and ideas waiting to come to fruition.

 It had been two weeks since I'd written here about my writing.

My writing is still moving forward.

I have a new thing I'm doing with setting some minimum goals. One is a daily intention. One is a weekly goal, which I can divide up any way I choose or can; that goal I have exceeded every week since I started tracking it.

The third thing I'm tracking (with a goal) is how much I write in a week. Although I've found with writing, that when I'm in the final week of preparation for a play, I don't write. Or I don't write much. So while I have set a weekly goal for writing, I have also discovered that the number within a week needs to be flexible and the time carries over. So that my weekly writing goal is actually an "even it out goal" with the intent of making up missed time within one to two weeks of the "lost time."

So far, so good.

Last week the only writing I did were a few final edits to a piece I submitted for the writing workshop coming up in two weeks. It wasn't a zero writing week but it was below my hoped-for minimum. But last week I had to attend a run through for an April play, prepare for a sign through for the play I'm interpreting this week, and I was preparing to interpret a poetry recitation competition. So my linguistic brain was in high demand, as was my time due to rehearsal and research and preparation.

This week I do have a writing date for two hours, which I will keep, Even if I'm writing about how I don't have time to write, I will write. I will try very hard to not write on that topic. But I will write. For two hours.

Otherwise this week I am interpreting a play on Thursday (for which I feel mostly ready, although I want to do a little more work on the hip hop song and digital detox acoustic piece) - and I'm preparing to interpret the state championship poetry recitation finals.

Writing. Is happening. Along with theater and the annual poetry event.