Writing Classes and Books

I'm at a writing workshop on jumpstarting creativity. My goal is to push through whatever has blocked me as a writer for the last six years. My sense is that it's stress and all the tension I've built. I believe that muscle tension easily blocks energy and everything else, and I bet that it encourages sticking with habits that ease a need for something else. What I'm doing, thanks to free Wi-Fi, is writing this entry as the class progresses. I wanted to try something new, and this is good practice.

So far we've tackled word lists, and the idea of a word deck. Definitely Magnetic Poetry without the magnets. I should put up more magnetic boards for playing with what I already have. I might feel more connected with my grandma, who died earlier this year. It's hard to let go of a role that you've had all your life. I guess trying to find particular parts of speech and put them into lists, which are for putting together into something else. I guess the goal is to put together plenty of ideas for breaking through writer's block. Taking a collection of words and making them your own sounds like a great idea for poetry, which I've been stuck on for two years without question.

What does it mean to jump-start? Getting up and finding random words kills two birds with one stone; it gets you moving around a little bit - which makes for a little goal to work toward - and thinking about what's around you. This is inside the Writers League of Texas office, so we got to look around the library collection. And make up words. I thought of "politimania," but I couldn't think of a color or a shape. I thought of a pocked texture because of how unpleasant the whole campaigning experience is for the citizen who just wants to be left alone. Hmm... Maybe trying to create words for things I see around me, and for the campaign. Quite a project, but it might be fun.

Ah, introduced to a school of writing: ekphrasis. Writing based on art, another piece of writing, and evidently other things. Our teacher, Scott, says it's big in poetry. Probably helps to use something you've never seen before; makes it more likely you'll create new ideas. I guess fanfiction is ekphrastic art; the challenge is to be true to the original while making something true to your imagination. Yet there's the challenge of making others think that the actions in your story are true to the characters. I wonder if this will help me with finishing the Criminal Intent stories I have in progress, or work on the ideas that I never started but which keep catching my attention.

I just found out about this Blanton project where short stories and poems are based on art. There's a reason for going and checking out what this is like. Maybe going regularly will be worth a bunch of poetry or even an interesting short story. Now I might just go buy a few postcards or books to help. Or maybe I'll sit in front of M.C. Escher pictures. We have a few at home, but maybe I should get more to see what comes from those images. Those distorted, contradicting images may just fit with the novel I'm working on; the character feels trapped between different roles in her life, and needs to get away from how she's been thinking and what she's been doing.

It's fun to rewrite a poem in a group, and I think I'll work on that with a writing group - whenever I make the time to work with one. Maybe I'll start one if I can't find one. Scott suggested using this at a cocktail party. I wonder how this would work at a UT luncheon or a birthday party. I had a fun line to begin with, from David Wevell's poem "Death Valley":

"the pigs
must die, the poor

vomit air

inherit God"

It came back to me as:

"the women
must live, the poor

swallow air

imbibe trees"

How do you imbibe trees? That's an interesting mental image to work with, period. Maybe I'll find a poem or a short story out of that revision. Definitely worth some laughter. My parents might create some interesting images with those prompts. Instead of fill-in-the-blanks, it's replace-a-few-words. It was also pretty quick, which might be good for getting something onto the page to work with later. I think I was thinking of my novel with the first fill-in-the-blanks exercise. Ditto for the second one, which might actually help me revise the ending. The tone of the first was more prose, but the second sounds more poetic - yet still in her voice. Maybe this exercise could work a few times a day, and see what happens when I hit the revision stage. I'm reminded of Dad's editing suggestion: "If you're not sure, cut it out. That goes for boyfriends, too."

Wonder what my maternal grandmother would say. I'm told she was quite the editor, and I know I would've benefited from her guidence. Hey, I'm already sort of a grammar stickler, and I might have developed better a understanding of where our rules came from and what's happening with language if she were still here. Of course, Granddaddy might have some nice, pithy lines that I could use just as I have the ones that have come down from Mom to me.

Well, I've just been introduced to a weird idea: take a poem, insert blank lines, fill in those lines, cross out the original, and add new lines. I think I've got the start of something focusing on the frustrations of the entire presidential campaign. Everything has lasted too long, and I wish sorely for a "None of the Above" option on the ballot. I'll see whether I come up with something based on what I wrote. Worst case, I got some frustrations out of my system, or at least brought them to conscious awareness. Although it's not so fun to be reminded of your allergies. Wonder if one of the health magazines will take grown-up poetry? Maybe my allergist's office would appreciate something creative to post on their walls.

This entry is feeling much more like a journal entry than a blog, but I guess I need to get through this odd stage before I get my creativity going again. Scott said we should bring a dictionary, but I grabbed my thesaurus just to be different. Maybe I have to guess at definitions based on the synonyms, but I like seeing what else things can be called. (Still want that t-shirt with "What's another word for thesaursus?" on it.

Speaking of new words, Scott just suggested using poems from languages that are unfamiliar to you to inspire something new. This trick is called "Translitics." I definitely don't get Swedish or Polish, which shows that I've hardly been exposed to either. (And I'm a quarter Swedish. Wish immigrants could have made sure that the mother tongue survived into the following generations; I'd know at least two more languages.) I'll have to play with this one for a while to see what happens.

Well, I think this was well worth the money. Hope he does another one of these.