Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. If this is your first visit: hooray! This is the just right time for you to start.
Before you read the lesson, allow the prompt of the day to seep into your mind. Don't actively seek the words yet, instead allow it to just be there, settling into your mind, as you go through the lesson itself.
You may also choose to allow today's audio session to guide your process:
Tomorrow's Teleconference Writing Session will be held, as usual, at 8:30 AM Pacific time and will go until right about 9 AM Pacific time. It may be accessed by dialing (712) 432 3100 conference code 440137. I look forward to connecting with each and all of you!
Today's prompt is "multiple choice" style. You will learn more about this at the end of the lesson -
"When I come back to my true hunger, infant-like, I notice....
"When I come back to my true pleasure, infant-like, I notice....
"When I come back to my true rage, infant-like, I notice....
One of the ways actors like me improve our performances is in applying the notes Directors, Producers, Director's helpers and the like give us about our performance.
It is equivalent to the red slash marks a teacher leaves on a piece of writing. As an actor, I welcome notes. I want to become better and I want collaborate with the Director.
The most helpful notes, to me, are the ones which ask insightful questions and require that I dig around more in my character which invariably draws me back to myself as well. I have always considered that a "theatre bonus prize" of sorts.
I was working on VDay one year when our Director, Caroline, had her friend, Kristina watch the show as a fresh set of eyes. She has directed a lot of shows and has a gentle yet probing spirit.
She asked me a great question, prefaced by a compliment.
In the middle of the monologue, my character gets so upset she gets up and leaves the room but decides to come back and finish it after all.
"What brings you back into the monologue? What does the interviewer ask you that brings you back? I want to see that from you."
I had made up a bit of the exchange between me and the interviewer, who is never heard by the audience, she is only heard in my mind. In my performance my response wasn't deep enough for the audience to see.
It is important I give them that moment and give them that moment truthfully rather than simply throw something into my performance because Kristina said I should.
As I often do, I used writing as a tool to figure things out.
I knew I needed to become close to the question, to let myself feel my way into and through the question using both writing and also by giving my whole mind to it.
I think of it as taking of my shoes with my writing and allowing my feet to feel the mud and the grass and the grit and the dew.
I sat down and journaled in character to walk barefoot in the question Kristina asked.
"What brings me back?"
I stepped into third person: "Sophie" (the name I made up for the character in my monologue) "what brings you back?"
We started with the mundane, surface response, which is sort of like the unconscious way most of us answer questions the first time around.
Here is a question I can ask myself to show you, right here, what I mean.
I may find myself wandering into the kitchen once again in the middle of the evening. I unconsciously stand in front of the largest appliance in the room.
I open the door to the refrigerator and a question comes into my mind, spoken by an invisible interviewer.
"What made you open up the refrigerator door again? What brings you back to the refrigerator?"
My response, automatic, "I am hungry."
"Really? Didn't you just eat a large meal ninety minutes ago?" comes the observation from the Invisible Interviewer.
When I walk around barefoot in a question, it means asking metaphorically as well as literally. "What are you hungry for right now?"
That is an evocative question: one which causes pause and reflection. I would realize the hunger isn't for food, the hunger is for something else. Connection, companionship, approval, appreciation – the response could go anywhere.
"What brings you back?"
In effective performance, as in effective writing, something needs to be shown to the audience (and in writing, to the reader.) The audience needs to see that something clicked into place in the character, something moved the character to return, to go back, to stop fighting-and-flighting and intentionally do something, in this case, my character isn't too wild about doing.
Even in writing that last paragraph I can find yet another lesson for myself from this character – from this one monologue that was great at making me feel perturbed that whole V-Day season. For the six weeks or so I rehearsed both this character and the words this character speaks in this monologue hung out on the edge of my consciousness. They made me more than vaguely uncomfortable.
No wonder I was more grouchy than usual.
There is a reason I am wrote this then. Maybe that reason is you.
Maybe you have some writing that sits, unfinished or a chapter you know you need to re-work but it never feels quite right. You may squirm in your writing seat or avoid it completely.
I am going to sit across from you, your invisible interviewer and gently ask, "What brings you back?"
Is that first response really it? What truly brings you back?
Take some time to walk around barefoot in the question. Allow it to move through your body.
"What brings you back?" Allow that question to sit deeply in your subconscious. Give it room to roam, untethered, while we get our feet just a little bit more muddy.
Sometimes we don't want to think of what brings us back. We find ourselves groaning and growling to a halt - even with our writing.
Sometimes we make that growling to a halt wrong.
Today, let's try out something new, courtesy of these poetic words from Marge Piercy.
"She grunts to a halt.
She must learn again to speak
starting with I
starting with we
starting as the infant does
with her own true hunger
and pleasure
and rage...."
Last week we spoke of writing from the space of a beginner.
This takes that concept of being a beginner and integrates it into one's self.
When we practice and learning to speak from our own true hunger, pleasure and rage: when we return to it as if it was brand new and we were brand new, different associations may be made rather than the trite, well worn ruts we have fallen into unconsciously.
I was playing with these concepts this weekend and wrote:
My hunger looks like the tunnel's mouth in my rearview mirror, coaxed through it - finally, after decades of good will.
She wears hunger like a muu muu's lei: ever present adornment, always longing for the coolness of the refrigerator to keep it fresh.
The color of my hunger is red with blue veins, heart like, It thumps and has chains like an angry diva bride of Marley's ghost.
Her pleasure rolls over her skin, a spent wave from the center of the ocean. It licks first her toes, surprising her into laughter from that place in her body where kindergarten memories live: almost primal, almost reflex, always eye opening.
These are concepts and phrases that effectively brought me back. The idea of playing with them more brings me back. It helps me understand myself and whenever I choose to step into a "fictitious" scene in either my non-fiction, my poetry, or pure fiction, I will find more depth there.
And Now, You Write:
We are going to use a multiple choice style prompt today. When you write, see how many of the senses you are able to weave into the writing. The prompts each end with "I notice..." allow yourself to walk barefoot in what you notice. What is the texture the soles of your feet feel? What is the temperature? What makes you look up and see around the setting, and when you look up, what do you see?
Using your senses will draw you deeper into your writing experience.
I want you to give yourself space to feel these three prompts as you go into your time of writing.
Then begin to write, allowing the first prompt to choose you. You may choose a second prompt when the first prompt "runs out of steam."
"When I come back to my true hunger, infant-like, I notice....
"When I come back to my true pleasure, infant-like, I notice....
"When I come back to my true rage, infant-like, I notice....
Add a link to any blog entries you write which relate back to our writing prompts. We would love to read your words.
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