During the recent writing retreat led by KaBooM we focused on entering our writing through the senses, and invited a visit from the muse by setting up sensory stations for participants to enjoy. We offered images and textures, and images that were textures in the form of Mary’s quilted paintings. Bells and rattles and rhythm instruments made a variety of intriguing sounds. Tastes including fresh fruit, dill pickles, chocolate, and lemon marmalade also held a wonderful aroma. Other scents, most in containers covered with plain brown paper, included:
- A tin of brown shoe polish
- Tide laundry detergent
- Rubbing alcohol
- Murphy’s Oil Soap
- Joy dishwashing liquid
- Campho-phenique
- Desitin diaper rash cream
- Lavender soap
- Homer Formby’s Tung Oil
- Garlic powder
- Almond extract
- Oregano
- Coconut extract
- Crest toothpaste
- Colgate toothpaste
- Cedar
- Herb vinegar
- Molasses
Are there associations that arise as you read these lists? Are memories stirred just by thinking about these sensations? It’s a reminder of how deeply imprinted sensory experience is.
One participant spoke of how powerfully a sensory cue brought back slices of life—enough to reshape his writing plan for the day. I too have found that certain scents do more than remind me of another time of life; they actually take me there once again and put me in touch with what I might otherwise have forgotten.
Those memories are multi-layered with all kinds of sensory information. The scent of cold cream can show us a bedroom from long ago, the sound of a school bell may evoke the scratch of a new sweater, a taste of home may place us amidst the voices of people long gone. Our deep remembering is brought to life by recalling the memories of the senses, memories carried in the body as well as the mind. Writing gains power when we put them on the page.
We encouraged everyone to explore and follow where their senses took them. It’s an experience that doesn’t end with the close of the retreat, and we invite you to take part as well.
Members of KaBooM enjoyed a lively session during LexArt’s Arts Showcase Weekend on Saturday. We talked about forming and sustaining a writing group, setting goals, writing grant proposals, and taking on a publishing project. The group of hardy souls who braved a wintry morning asked smart questions and brought great energy to the discussion. We had a wonderful time!
Yet amidst the rich conversation and advice about starting something new, a companion idea pulled up a chair.
No matter how carefully we plan, a new project means acting before we fully know what we’re doing. It’s wise to gather information and plan carefully, but preparing to launch something new is not the same as learning how to do it. That happens only when we take the plunge.
There’s a limit to what we can anticipate. Situations we don’t expect will arise, surprises good and bad will appear, and we can’t iron out all the details before we begin. This isn’t exactly a revelation, but it’s easy to lose sight of when we’re doing all we can to prepare for a new endeavor.
The intention to bring something new into the world entails meeting its unknown challenges, whatever they will be. Perhaps the best advice is to have a support system of insightful people who care about the outcome. A group of friends to help deal with the obstacles keeps us moving down the road.
Lately I’ve rediscovered the value of morning pages, a tool that Julia Cameron describes in The Artist’s Way. The idea is to write three pages in a journal upon waking, spilling whatever comes to mind in stream-of-consciousness writing without analyzing, censoring, or questioning whatever finds its way to the page. You just keep writing without pause.
What usually happens for me is that the disarray of daily life comes out, with its untended details and unresolved issues. Beneath those are the more substantial concerns, which show up too. The emotional leavings of recent events filter through, self-doubt makes regular appearances, and there are the perennial issues that appear again and again in different contexts. Everything gets put on the page and released as the pen keeps moving.
As a result, my mind becomes clearer. Without the low-level noise of background thoughts it’s easier to concentrate. In sweeping out the clutter of concerns, creative space opens up. Morning pages don’t count as getting my writing work done, but they help clear the way for accomplishing what I want to do. They don’t even have to be done in the morning to be effective.
Morning pages are one way to empty ourselves in order to make room for creative work. What ways have you found to open the space within for your writing?
This week between Christmas and New Year’s is a potent time for figuring out what we’ve learned from the past year and preparing to move forward into the new one. Plans, ideas, challenges–what do we focus on for our creative goals, and how do we set priorities for seeing them through?
Writers need to be both artists and worker bees. We need vision and inspiration, and we also need good tools and work habits. For help with both, here are a couple of excellent websites:
Lisa Sonora Beam writes about Goal Setting for Creatives, with pictures of her own gorgeous planning journal for inspiration.
On Zen Habits, Leo Babauta has a terrific post about cultivating new habits. He also introduces his new site dedicated to helping with keeping those resolutions for the new year, called 6changes.
May you have a happy, inspired, and productive New Year!
The turn of the winter solstice is upon us—hallelujah! We’re reaching the farthest extreme of how short the days will grow, and how long the nights. The return of the sun begins, even with winter yet to endure.
It’s a season of grand celebration and then hunkering down. Not a bad pairing. I’m glad for the holiday lights that see us through these darkest days, but once they’re put away I welcome the most introspective time of the year.
As the world grows quiet, it allows the deep listening needed for creative work. Ideas and images have a chance to surface. The subtle stirrings of the imagination have room to take shape.
To prepare for those fertile days, it helps to consider what we’re listening for. What are we processing from the world around us? What is within us that seeks expression? What are we challenged to interpret? How will we act on what comes to our attention?
For the next few days, try to frame the question you want to ask about where your work is going. Then when things settle down after the holidays, listen for the answer.
One of the questions for me has been, “Where is the energy in my writing life, where is it leading me, and what form do I want to be working in?” Ok, that’s three questions. No matter.
What kinds of questions are you asking?
We’re still catching our breath from an exciting weekend! The book fair was fun, with so many readers and writers gathered in one place. Seeing old friends and meeting new ones made the day a real pleasure.
The book had a good day as well! We sold every copy we brought, gathered up all the others we could find at short notice, and sold out of them, too! We met a lot of people whose friends had recommended When the Bough Breaks. Thanks for spreading the word.
Here are some pictures from the big day:
Lynn sewing more books at the Ky. Book Fair
Wyn Morris stops by to chat with Leatha, Pam, and Susan
Pam, Mary, and Susan at the KaBooM table, Ky. Book Fair 2009
So we’re a day into National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWRiMo, and more power to all of you who are making the words fly. But for those of us who aren’t up to the challenge of drafting a novel by the end of the month, (maybe next year…) here’s another possibility.
Dawn DeVries Sokol is offering a prompt per day for her version of this month’s excitement: NaNoJouMo, or National Nonstop Journaling Month. She’s a lettering artist who renders a word to serve as the day’s inspiration with style and personality. And if the thought of another writing project sounds more like an energy drain than a spigot for new ideas, this can be a journal for doodles and drawings—lines that convey emotion without using language. Sounds refreshing to me, like taking up a dowsing rod to locate a new well of creativity.
These pictures were taken as the “Longest Short Story Ever Written in Lexington” event unfolded at Third Street Stuff. Everyone was invited to add a line, or several, to the story begun that morning at the Carnegie Center by Ed McClanahan. The tale grew at various locations in Lexington throughout the day. Listen to the WUKY radio report featuring Gail and Lynn.
Gail with the poster advertising Lexington's writing event
Pam adds to the story as Jan looks on
One more writer in the parking lot considers what to add before the writing pad moves on
The Herald-Leader article by Amy Wilson about the finished product, with photo by Pablo Alcala, are here.
I’ve been thinking a lot about connection lately. Since the release of the book and the launch of the website I’ve enjoyed meeting new people, both electronically and in person. I love that our website viewers and facebook fans come not only from cities across the U.S., but from four continents and several countries!
Sharing information, ideas, experiences, and perspectives was why we needed written language to begin with and why words fly through cyberspace today. Through writing we can know people distant in place and removed in history. When we’re lucky, the written word introduces us to like-minded souls, reassuring us that we are not alone in how we see the world.
A simple blog like this one can’t foster the same depth of connection as a work of art, but it’s a form that offers its own excitement. For a relatively small investment of time, reading or writing a blog is a chance to interact with a variety of people. It helps us find folks with whom we share something in common, including those whom we might not meet any other way. Those connections can even enable the building of communities through our reading and writing. And making a connection with another person is a gift, in whatever form it may occur.
Welcome to the launch of the KaBooM Writing Collective blog! This is the latest project of our writing group, and we hope it will offer a connection with other writers and writers groups. We’ll be sharing news about what we’re doing in our meetings, what we’re reading, what kind of projects we’re working on, and whatever else comes to mind. Our group has seven members, and you’ll be hearing from all of us.
For the past several weeks we’ve been focused on the publication of our anthology, When the Bough Breaks, which will be out on September 10. For this post I’ll share with you some of the steps in physically making the book, a process we’ve felt privileged to be part of.
We thought we were intimately acquainted with our book when we finished writing and revising it. We had pored over every line until the day it went to the printer. But with this publishing project designed as a hands-on venture, we were just starting a new chapter, so to speak. We were about to experience a whole new level of knowing a book.
Mary and Lynn collating pages
When the printed pages were delivered, our first task was to transform a roomful of boxes filled with paper into the recognizable innards of a book. There are many reasons to work with a writing group, and getting that job done was one of them. We collated the individual pages into six separate signatures, which are the small sections put together as if they comprised their own little book. They are later stacked and bound together to form the complete volume. That was a day spent with pages spread out on large tables, telling stories and trying not to lose count as we put boxes and boxes of paper in order. When the collating was complete, then the signatures assembled into books, we were ready to sew.
(Read more…)
