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Today's Writing Prompt: When I forget to be afraid I......
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During our "Pre-Lesson Gathering time" today, I share about the "What does love want me to write" session. If you would like to visit that prompt page, you will find it here. Please, if you leave prior to today's lesson, come back. Love and Fear do sometimes go hand-in-hand, even if that is not said very often - I know it is so.
You may also listen to today's audio here:
It never fails to take me by surprise: the moment fear suddenly shows up when I am doing something seemingly innocuous, boom. It appears, begging for attention.
This morning I was driving home from the post office. I had taken Samuel his saxophone which he left at home and then, to the post office on Emma's behalf and as I sat at an intersection, boom.
Perhaps it was the way the light hit the building. Perhaps it triggered something in my subconscious mind.
Maybe it was a divine thing: I had cleared away enough garbage in my mind and it created space for the "right" ingredients to blend into Fear Soup.
I only panicked slightly.
Instead of letting the fear to drag my heart down a destructive path, my heart grabbed my fear and said, "Create, create!" so I did.
The strength of my writing practice and the consistency of my poetry meant I was able to take this moment and write into the fear rather than let the fear trample my urge to write.
Here is the poem that was borne:
I step back, silently
feeling the fear in my chest
my toes clinging
to the rubberized soles
in my plaid cloth shoes
I lift one foot up
the other foot twisted, slightly
I didn't want to get too close
Too intimate
Too anything
with the ghosts that
danced on the stairs,
there, underneath the
sign declaring "Auditorium"
Translated into
"Auditory" "Ummmm"
My breath stutters
"I don't
I don't want
I dont't want to
I don't want to write"
Yet I write into the
pounding pulse now
cradled in my chest
The ghosts stand, silent
Wait to be recollected
faces painted, faces clean
my own eyes and nose and
cheekbones among them
Duplicated and separate
there, as well, looking
looking out the window
above from left behind
years ago.
I see my lips moving,
I whisper -
"What am I doing here?"
I turn, drive away
leave the question
unlived
not willing yet
and praying I won't
praying I will
screaming I can't
crying I won't
get up the
nerve to look at
myself inside that
window again
This is what happens when I am fall deeply into any creative process. I consciously dive in and all of a sudden fear turns into exhilaration.
Listen to that again: fear becomes exhilaration.
It doesn't create lack creativity, it creates an abundance of creativity.
In this particular situation, it invited another round of playful experimentation. Between the time I write this and tomorrow morning's session, I will have consciously engaged with this fear and once again created from it.
I like to think of it as thumbing my nose at fear. Asking fear, "What is it you want to tell me? What is it you want me to create from you?" instead of turning and running away, I am turning and walking toward it.
Consciously and with more than a little excitement.
People are curious.
"Tell me about this," they are saying.
They want to know what comes next.
All I can say right now is I am not sure what comes now beyond the saying of "Yes."
I have fear, and I am forgetting to be afraid.
I have fear and because it is conscious, I am forgetting the nervousness, I am forgetting the twisted notions, the stuttering, the panic, the overload.
My stance is different and my words are different.
Let's read the final few stanzas again:
I turn, drive awayleave the question
unlived
not willing yet
and praying I won't
praying I will
screaming I can't
crying I won't
get up the
nerve to look at
myself inside that
window again
Last week we created a word pool as a community. Weave these into your writing from the prompt if you feel called to do so.
If you are working independently you may also create a list of possibilities before starting your free writing time.
Today's Writing Prompt: When I forget to be afraid I......
And Now You Write from Today's Writing Prompt: When I forget to be afraid I......
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To read and participate in continued creative collaboration with the poem which was written this morning, please add your words here or visit the Writing Camp Sanctuary with the link below:
http://writingcampsanctuary.blogspot.com/2010/09/collaborative-writing-from-prompt-when.html
Posted by: Julie Jordan Scott | 09/28/2010 at 10:03 AM