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.
Our writing prompt today is from you as much as from me. We are seeking to collect inspiration from the images in this precise moment. I am looking at a pink, blue and green striped notebook with the words "Peace and love" written on it. That, alone, may become an inspiring image to write today. Before you read the lesson, take some time to visually observe the area surrounding you. Don't actively seek the words to describe them yet, just notice quietly and then come back to the words (and the audio, if you listen to it) of the lesson.
Listen to the audio of today's session and write along with it:
Daily Writing Teleconference Sessions will be held through November 3 as usual including weekends 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 we are going to talk about a concept that is dear to me, one that I refer to regularly and one I am actually going to spend a lot of time with in my personal life today: filling our creativity treasure chests.
The lesson illustrates a method for being more alive through using inspirational, creative "springboards" for writing imagery. Image is defined like this: "A representation in words of a sensory experience or of an object that can be known by one or more of the senses."
We will consider what you use as springboards for writing, especially as it relates to sensory images.
We will be doing that today by focusing on "images" in our writing, especially images gleaned from stepping into our lives and being in the flow of what surrounds us and then writing it. I wanted to kick us off with a quote about seeing, since that is where many of us relate most strongly to images.
It was Edgar Degas who said, "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."
Theodore A. Rees Cheney refers to images in writing in this way: "In creative nonfiction you almost always have the choice of writing the summary (narrative) form, the dramatic (scenic) form, or some combination of the two. Because the dramatic method of writing provides the reader with a closer imitation of life than summary ever could, creative nonfiction writers frequently choose to write scenically. The writer wants vivid images to transfer into the mind of the reader' after all, the strength of scenic writing lies in its ability to evoke sensual images. A scene is not some anonymous narrator's report about what happened some time in the past; instead, it gives the feeling that the action is unfolding before the reader."
If you are on the live call or listening to the recording, Close your eyes to the images as I share them vocally. Create pictures in your mind of the word images I speak. This will bring you and your life and your heartbeat to the writing. When you use imagery as a writer you connect directly to your readers. It is part of the "showing, not telling" that draws readers into the process, that allows readers to create their own visuals connecting them more deeply to your words.
Look into your mind heart as you listen to these words unfold.
It was one of those mornings that sitting at my desk wasn't going to work. I needed to move. It was a spontaneously gleeful yet also intentional walk. I stepped out the door, tucking index cards and a pen into my pocket in case any inspiration appeared while I was on the journey.
I knew it most likely would strike – loudly and often.
Off I went, joyfully accepting the cold air biting at my skin and embracing the calming rhythm of my feet moving along the asphalt.
It took almost no time for the first lightning bolt to strike. I scribed messily as I walked, laughing at my own need to capture the thoughts as well as my slightly judgmental witness of my waving scribbles.
"What is inspiration if not scraggly?" I thought. One of my habits is to "notice and narrate." I will see or hear or taste something and in my mind I am writing as I think. My thoughts form into lines of essays or poems, as if I was doing writing practice except not writing it down. By bringing index cards, I took this habit and made it concrete. I have found repeatedly that writing something down takes the clutter from my mind. It also helps me to understand and integrate inspiration itself.
In what ways do images inspire you?
Consider for a moment what inspiration looks like to you –
Start with the face of inspiration.
Does the face of inspiration look human, angelic or does it take an animal or plant form?
Does it come in weather, like the lightning bolt of inspiration?
Does the face of inspiration arrive musically – in the form of a flute player or a cherubim playing a harp?
Let's go back to the story, listening again for any images which pop up for you.
"I arrived home forty minutes later with a pile of index cards, some with two or more possible topics carefully collected for future reference.
I patted myself on the back for allowing the spiritual nature of flow to partner with the business of concretizing these ideas and hints of inspiration for others as I filled my creativity treasure chest.
The next morning I prepared for my writing practice and remembered the cards.
"The perfect springboards!" I thought. "Ah, what a bonus for being so intentional", I boasted to the center of my being.
The cards were nowhere to be seen. They were not on the desk where I left them.
Where had they gone? "Oh no, oh no, oh no" I thought…."Gone, wasted, the walk's treasures vaporized!"
I had been so deliberate and now, somehow, all that delectable intentionality: nothing more than vapors remained.
I didn't have the energy to think much less speak an expletive. I simply sat down with my notebook and started writing the requisite three pages.
My walk came alive again through my words and my memory, even without the index cards prompting me. In a moment, I was back to the pacing, pounding, pattering the asphalt of Alta Vista Drive. I was greeting the large white dogs with their ferocious barks and their tails wagging in a curious counterpoint as I greeted them "Sweet ladies hello!" which invited them to a smiling, happy tail wagging stillness.
I was once again crossing the wide thoroughfare and into the formerly wild park now tamed and oddly framed by an array of green belts and brown belts and newly planted trees.
I felt the crisp air enter my lungs, chilling my teeth as it passed through me and into me as my arms danced, swinging across my chest as if to beat in some cosmic warmth.
I was right there, once again, raising my face to the sun rays, invoking peace into my center with a smile upon my face.
The images were kept alive in my heart and because of that their re-creation was simple. I only thought I needed the scribbly, wavy words on index cards to remember.
We are going to write from a Word Pool today.
For those on the Live Call, we are going to use Mind-Heart Bubbling to create a Word Pool inspired by the experience of "Images of Inspiration."
For those of you studying on your own, consider these images of inspiration – hear them, speak them, read them and allow them to fill your being with their presence and energy. Notice the images of inspiration surrounding you, even if you are sitting at your kitchen table as I am right now. There is inspiration everywhere when we open our hearts to what is there, to simply what is so.
Light * Crackling Electricity * Sunrise * Children's Laughter * Footprints in moist soil * a bird hovering in a tree * clouds lightly etched upon the sky * a trumpet playing * a harp playing * a dancer *
Give yourself a moment to add your own words to the word pool:
Ready?
Now we will use the words in the wordpool as visual inspiration for our writing. You may also weave as many of the words and the scenarios they suggest as springboards to your writing.
Prompt: I am inspired by......
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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