And Now, You Write

And Now You Write: Dive More Deeply into What You Know - Audio Prompt Now Available from today's writing session.

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.

 

Listen to the Audio for today's lesson and write along here:

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!

 It started during a seemingly innocent coaching conversation.

I sat in a coffee shop with Jocelyn and her husband, Mark. They were speaking quite candidly about their current situation.

The picture being painted was quite grim.

We discussed solutions. I mindmapped the discussion as it unfolded to see if I could get any further delineation by moving my pencil creatively as they spoke their words.

Jocelyn explained her pattern. She would get close to clarity. She would consistently live towards fulfillment or solution but would discover after a few weeks that somewhere along the line she had fallen off track.

She never really noticed she was heading in that direction until she was far from her original intention.

I noted the quality of her voice getting more and more childlike until she closed her dissertation with, "I don't know".

I looked at my mindmap. I had drawn a circle with an arrow pointing downward with the words "I don't know" in the middle.

"How often do you do that, Jocelyn?"

She looked blankly at me, "How often do I do........?"

I responded, "Speak in circles and end in 'I don't know'."

She sat quietly as she considered my question. "Wow. I do that..... a lot!"

William James observed "Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being."

People paint their circles pointing downward by capping sentences with declarations like Jocelyn's unconscious use of "I don't know". Her subconscious mind hears this declaration and believes it.

Her circle of belief and intention continued in the downward spiral each time she followed the well worn pattern.

However, as Jocelyn's friend and coach, I know that she DOES in fact KNOW!

We devised a strategy. Each time Jocelyn said "I don't know" she would replace it with someting affirming.

Then we took it one step further. Each evening, Jocelyn took a sheet of paper and labeled it with an area she wanted to increase clarity.

She set a timer for five minutes and wrote, "I know….' and allowed her pencil to move across the page. If her pencil slowed, she wrote "I know" again – as many times as necessary – until her five minutes were completed.

Three years ago, I wouldn't have written about personal subjects as much. I was more "into the rules" than I am now. I had the belief everything had to have an obvious lesson, one "nugget" that I guided people toward and tied it up with a bow – an a-ha – an awareness that wasn't there before due to my writing and my life-coach-self.

I thought I knew what I was supposed to write: what was expected, what people wanted from me.

I realized several nuances after I wrote the essay below.

I could write the nuances for you here, sharing with you exactly what I found OR I could invite you to find the nuances that work for you.

I could ask you, "What speaks to you in this essay? What connects your heart to the heart of this story?" and "How will you live differently because of these words?" and "What do you know now that you didn't know before?"

On the first day of Samuel's fourth grade year. I wanted to make sure he was ready and the process went without a hitch so we were outside, ready and waiting, ten minutes early. This year, we had an extra treat. Katherine was waiting with us.

Each year until now she has been at school extra early and wasn't able to see Samuel off.

This year was different. She had a few days left until she went to Massachusetts. At times it feels like we are idling until the big day but Samuel, his year is already revving.

He gave his sister the chair he usually waits in, "Because it's your first time with us, you can sit there, Katherine," he said, as he sat on a wooden chair rather than the overstuffed chair. "Tomorrow you can sit here," he said, indicating his wood chair.

He wore his nervousness in the flicks of his fingers.

Yesterday I continually viewed the movie loop of three years ago, when Samuel was beginning first grade. I remembered the Sunday before that Monday, when he took off running from church at a much faster pace than you might ever imagine.

He made it about six blocks before I called for back up. I couldn't reach him, I didn't know what was wrong, I was crying and breathless and had no idea this was foreshadowing of what was to come. My little boy was holding on as tightly as he could and trying his darndest to run away from what he didn't know how to name.

This year, he hoped for some semblance of stability while knowing he has come a long, long way in these three years. He knew he had many changes ahead and he doesn't run away from them except for in his hands and his verbal review I can see him whispering to himself.

His older, confident sister sat beside him. She woke up early specifically to be present at this event. Samuel felt loved and special. He had his brand new Super Mario Wii backpack on his shoulders.

When the bus arrived nearly fifteen minutes late, he bounded aboard and I said, "Have a great day!" (always four words, he requests, always four words) he didn't even look back, though he has learned to verbalize a response. He got into a seat behind one of last year's friends.

A new year has begun.

Everything will be just fine.

What "movie loops" of your life do you continually revisit?

How has the ending changed over time?

Prepare to Write:

Today we will celebrate all that you know.

If you choose, you may also explore an area you would like to gain clarity using the same technique as Jocelyn.

Write across the top of the page:

"I celebrate my knowing" or

simply, "I know..."

Remember, all it takes is moving the pencil across the page, beginning with the words, "I know."

If your words begin to slow, simply re-state "I know" and continue writing.

Now let's begin – start by simply writing

"I know"

"I know"

"I know"

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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I am so grateful to be writing together with you.

If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."

Are You Ready to Woo Your Muse? Write with us - writing audio prompt is available, too #ANYW2010

Today's Writing Prompt: Where are you, Muse? I know you are with me when.....

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.

 

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!

 

Write along with the audio now:

 

It surprised me to discover we have two weeks left.

Only two weeks left of "And Now You Write."

There are several reasons to be excited about this: let's try this one on for size.

Two weeks is a short amount of time. It is do-able. It is the "Sure, I can commit to two weeks!" when seven weeks sounds like such a long, long time.t

For those of us who have been writing consistently, it is about staying the course.

For those of us who are new, it is time to devote ourselves to the course.

For all of us, it is time to find our muse and and to court our muse, actively. To be awake to our muse's directives.

It is akin to the life force Martha Graham describes so famously:

　

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is a divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

our Muse is powerful, like Jodi's Goddess of Now.

We need to agree to be host to our Muse, our life force. We must allow this presence, this willingness to open ourselves so much that it simply becomes who we are, who are being every moment of everyday. We need to issue an invitation to our Muse daily. We need to have a writing and creative life that invites our Muse to flex her creative might, to bring out words that have meaning, that have joy, that are passionate and insist on being written. Weasel like, will never let you go and never allow you to let go of the act of writing, never let go of the beauty in your words, the truth in your words, the YOU in your words.

A poem I wrote several weeks ago:

Where art thou, Muse?

Hidden in a haiku line or

woven into a pantoum's sweater

There, your shadow is showing

underneath the essay's hook

I read of you in that three

year old letter I thought
I had mailed or lost

I think I heard your call

in the song of the journeying

bird or perhaps on that worn,

leather patch on the bikers back pack

Yesterday I felt your presence

in the graffitti scrawling, slopping

on the women's room stall

My pencil hesitates to move

to stay this bumpy, nearly

invisible course

It is easier to claim

it is too dark to see

I wonder was it you

who left? That's the

song I sing but

a new verse wants to

be written suddenly breaks free

saying it was I who turned

my back on thee.

Where art thou, Muse?

For the next two weeks, our call is to be host to our Muse consistently and lovingly.

This has the foundation of being the most productive writing time you have ever had. Remain open to that over the days that come. If you find yourself feeling stuck, go back to one of the lessons, randomly, and write from the prompt, again.

Try a weekend prompt, perhaps, which you haven't attempted yet.

Simply write.

Write.

One thing I learned about Martha Graham when I studied her life several years ago: when she was choreographing a new dance, she would surround herself with meaningful quotes and readings just as we do here. Let's repeat her words before we begin to write. Allow her words to fill you, from the soles of your feet to your belly and then up your spine into your arms and fingers and hands as you write.

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is a divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

Today's Writing Prompt: Where are you, Muse? I know you are with me when.....

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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I am so grateful to be writing together with you.

If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."

Today's Writing Prompt: What compells you to write?

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.

 

Listen to the audio as you prepare to write.

Today'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. You may be a part of it  by dialing (712) 432 3100 conference code 440137.  I look forward to connecting with each and all of you!

One of the reasons I teach about writing from prompts is because I do a lot of writing from prompts. It works, it works, it works to move that pencil.

I have discovered more about myself from prompted writing than I can even catalog here.

Today, I wanted to tell you about a story from my childhood I discovered through a very simple prompt and how writing about it continues to move a-ha's, awareness and forgiveness through me.

If all we could do today was forgive one person and say thank you to another person, think of how the world would change. Yesterday, after I wrote this lesson, I bumped into a woman who is still able to illicit an enormous angry response in me, three years after an incident which I, at the time, deemed "unforgiveable." I think writing about forgiveness was actually the invitation for her to appear. I had thought she needed to ask me for forgiveness, but I was compelled, an hour after I saw her, that it was I who needed to seek forgiveness from her.

Even though what she did wasn't good or right and even though I wouldn't necessarily change what I did in response, I still feel compelled to seek forgiveness from her. I am still processing through this and I know from all these years of practice that just taking a prompt and writing it will be a potent way to get to the heart of the matter.

Here is a simple prompt I wrote from about a year ago: "Write about something you made as a child"

I clicked the OneWord.com  timer and started writing. This is what came up.

When I was a child I tried to learn to sew.

Mom always finished my projects.

My speed, or lack thereof, frustrated her.

It made me feel not so very good, couldn't finish stuff, wasn't good enough or was too slow or whatever.

She would always scoop up my project and complete it HER way, which made me hesitate to start anything OR once I started something, I hesitated to put anything down to complete later.

I wanted to finish things my way.

= = =

The timer stopped and I continued with my awarenesses.

Wow. This tells me a lot.

I was unprepared to discover how many people share similar stories from their lives – both as the child and as the parent. I have had similar occasions with my children. Thankfully I am usually conscious enough to stop much of the time, but when I cross the line the experience tickles my gut. I sometimes ignore the tickling and keep moving forward, anyway.

This simple, innocuous, one minute prompt engaged the memory.

My job is to continue to grow the memory with words so that it becomes more fleshy yet stays simple and precise enough to retain its grit and finds a place to land in the memory of readers.

Yesterday I wrote at the One Minute Writer about calling the police and today I wrote about growth.

Here is what it prompted:

In what way have you grown the most in the last year?

Here is what flew from my fingers:

I have grown as an artist. I have grown in my skills and grown in my listening.

I have grown as a mother.

I have grown as a traveler.

I have learned to be hungry and not have to rush in and push that hunger away. I have been more hungry this year than in many of the past years and - this is actually a good thing. Odd, it may sound odd, but it is empowering, too.

Creatively, my painting. Ohh, my wordlessness. (Funny for a writer to say that, but wordlessness is such a gift.)

Trusting the lack of words and leaning into it.

I have grown, that way.

= = =

Neither of these moments of quick writing is necessarily brilliant writing – but it is a fruitful beginning, a just right seed.

The first prompt: about my mother finishing my project for me, is enormous.

Today: months after the writing from the first prompt, I wrote a poem about - guess what - my Mom's sewing machine and how it is so much a part of my memory and my experiences with her.

Listen to the words I wrote:

Mom and Her Pfaff

Mom didn't wear much
perfume or make up it was
her sewing machine that
adorned her like her
ubiquitous peach lipstick

Mom confessed it was
the cutting out she hated
the destruction before
the creation before the
machine's whirrrrrrrrr

I sought fancy details
(the very ones she abhorred)
ruffles, tucks, tweaks and slippery
fabric were famous for delaying
the revered final stitch

Later she stiched flowers onto
my wedding gown which I wasn't
so wild about, I didn't see her
bowing to my fancy, they were
her love and honor sewed in - -

The time the gong chased
me from my kitchen cabinet Mom
followed Sue's frightened prsence
sans sewing machint, that time
Only withered windex, comet, Tide...

Post spectrum discovery she
sewed Sam's shirts in a Motel 6 room
Her voice the foot pedal, "He needs
to learn. He needs to know.
You need to be......"

On Hawthorne Avenue, only late at night
when her dailiness was past
machine went to table top

her quiet, dutiful, necessary
love: useful, wearable art
sewn stich by stitch

= = = = =

Today we are going to take some of the energy that comes from childhood, incompletion and growth and weave them into our writing and our prompt.

Consider for just a moment, something you made as a child....

Consider for just a moment, something you wanted to do as a child that remains undone....

Consider for a just a moment, how you have grown since this time last year....

Don't stress the "thinking" before you start writing just allow the thoughts and images to float up and around you. Let's take a moment for engagement with these possibilities: What I made in Childhood, What did I want to do as a child?, growth....

In our prompt today, you may choose to write about childhood or long-ago-hopes and dreams or celebrate recent growth and discoveries... or perhaps your spirit wants you to go elsewhere. In writing, as in life, you may go virtually anywhere with words once you begin.

Today's Writing Prompt:

 Today I am compelled to write about.....

 

 

Add a link to any blog entries you write which relate back to our writing prompts. We would love to read your words.

 

 

 

 

If this is your first visit, you may "officially" JOIN OUR ADVENTURE IN WRITING -

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(Required fields are bold)

 

 

Email Address *
First Name
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I am so grateful to be writing together with you.

If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."

 

 

 

Audio Writing Prompt from And Now You Write: How about some barefoot writing today?

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.

If this is your first visit, you may "officially" JOIN OUR ADVENTURE IN WRITING -

Sign up here to receive daily lessons.

(Required fields are bold)

Email Address *
First Name
Last Name

 

 

I am so grateful to be writing together with you.

If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."

Today's Writing Prompt: Bountiful: What do you see, hear, feel, smell, taste, touch, know of "bountiful"?

Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. 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.

Monday Morning's Tele-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 I offer you some pure, unedited, raw, "throw it on the page and present it" kind of writing I splattered on the page a while back.

It illustrates a couple things:

1. Amidst the rambles, beauty (and great nuggets of gold) may be found.

2. Writing anything is better than nothing.

3. Daily writing practice is a brave endeavor.

and what else? Find out by reading and then writing.

What does this illustrate for you?

And more importantly - what is your perspective on "Bountiful..."

Today's Writing Prompt: Bountiful: What do you see, hear, feel, smell, taste, touch, know of "bountiful"?

Read... and then... write...

The writing prompt that day was "Bountiful".

I felt sort of ambivalent about it yet it kept knocking on my writing mind so I leaped in as I sat down at 750words.com and here is what came out, almost unedited for your... entertainment.

Today I am writing bountifully. Bounty. Bountiful as in applesauce, a favored topic from yesterday
when I did write my words but I didn't write those words into a keyboard. I feel my shoulders holding my arms high as I don't have the proper ergonomic table but hell if I am giving up on this. I will tappity tap tap my way beyond the 750 words if it is the final thing on my epitaph:

She died typing 750 words (bountifully) to erase away that horrific proclamation at the top of September's page. Sheesh. Really? Me? She who reached 750words on many more than 100 consecutive days? She who has written more than 100,000 words on that site so far? Don't they give some sort of grace for traveling in people's homes where there is no internet available to you? Don't I get some leverage for that rather than the big old goose egg?

And why am I wasting all my words in worrying about that, anyway?

Bountiful, applesauce. Friendship. We are bounty, my friends and I. Water. Projects. Unfolding.

I wrote for some reason, randomly, in my notebook as the sun rose today: "Finding your place.  Place in the natural, creative world." Concord was pencil making. Two factories. My chest hums at the thought of being in a pencil making capital. A pencil making capital that shares the name of my birth city, only on the other coast. Concord.

The sun started her daily ascent. She never complains about it like I complain about clearing the kitchen counter or lamenting the sore that has formed (inadvertently) on my ankle.

Back to bountiful writing. Bountiful writing. Bountiful writing. Bountiful writing. Bountiful writing. Bountiful writing. I feel my pencil slowing. I watch its movement, seemingly without me it writes. Projects. Space. Time. Quality.

I started my ezines to always have an audience to whom I write. Subscribers, waiting. I picture them sometimes. My ezine arrives. They open it. They anticipate. I write something. They scoff or guffaw or puzzle or applaud. I need to remember this. Rewrite, Resubmit. Stretch my voice more, forget or don't forget, but take away the grip of that August - that August with heartbreak at its core. Three years ago. It is gone now. It is barely an echo or an etching. It is a teacher, Julie. it is
only a jailer of you allow it to be a jailer.

I heard a bunch of no, I heard the call of my cell phone. Text messages line up, waiting for my attention. I stay at the page. I write more about the sun which I transcribe here. The sun met
my eyes. Not piercing. More like stroking my shoulders, gently lifting my chin, hoping I would look up. I keep my head down. I gaze anywhere but not up.

Write - for one minute or five minutes or fifteen minutes. Play the time game and look for the point of diminishing return. Make everything about writing into a celebration, a place to splatter
paint or mold clay or throw a party. This isn't arduous this writing, it is a vow to sacred play. To dance. To take what you have and sing it. Or something like that. I keep typing because there is more there. Can you imagine it?

A drought and now this.

My writing is scattered.

My bountiful writing is settled in. It isn't settling, it is finding form, like a mattress that remembers and offers itself up to be forced into YOUR position. Bountiful writing is moving the pencil into peace. It is finding subjects to write about in every nook-and-cranny experience. It is in the eyes of
the stubborn preschooler and in the hands of the patient grandma. Bountiful writing lives in Bob the tomcat with oddly shaped ears. It is in the soft comforter of contentment that offers itself up to me, that covers me, gently. It tucks me in.

Bountiful writing is in the sunrise with its finger, lifting my chin, whispering "Witness life all around
you and report page to the page. Share your reports widely, unabashedly. Feel the cool almost autumn morning after a blistering summer and write that feeling, bountifully." This, my loves, is
bountiful writing.

The door shuts, twice, as people pass through it. Samuel shares his dreams with me. I share only
my dream of plentiful sleep.

I realize the a-ha's I have been having lately are glaringly obvious to the people who know me.

I watch the school bus swallow my son.

The timer cries out, releasing me and my pencil though I am not so sure I want to go.

Bountiful writing, each word.

Today's Writing Prompt: Bountiful: What do you see, hear, feel, smell, taste, touch, know of "bountiful"?

 

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And Now You Write: Today's task? To Write of Light

Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. 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.

PLEASE NOTE: There are no live writing sessions this weekend. We will be back on Monday for more writing tele-sessions.

It was several years ago now when my heart and my vision expanded on a normal, ordinary, work-a-day moment. It has never been the same ever since.

I sat at my kitchen table, stunned into silence.

What an amazing privilege to partner with other human beings through my life work, through the powerful experience of life coaching.

I had just hung up the phone after a particularly poignant, life changing telephone coaching session that moved me so much, I had to move my body physically.

It was as if my breath needed space. I listened when the sun beckoned me outside.

I inhaled deeply as I stepped outside my front door. The sun rays completely washed over my face as I tilted it toward heaven.

My arms lifted towards the sky without any effort or thought.

Every cell of my body agreed and rang out, "Yes! Yes!"

My feet moved without my consent, taking me for a mid morning walk. I smiled contentedly as I followed, not concerned with where I was going or anything beyond each time my feet lifted off the ground and re-connected with the Earth.

Around the corner waited a magnificent tree whose friendship was new to me. From its appearance, it had been on the planet for several generations. I have been in residence less than a couple hundred yards from it for more than a decade yet it was only days ago that we had been "properly introduced".

It had called to me during a walk with my then eighteen-month-old-son, Samuel.

Since our "formal acquaintance", I would nod to the tree as I pulled out of my driveway in the mornings. It towered over all the other neighborhood trees. As I walked out my back door I looked to the North. There it was again in all its evergreen glory towering over the homes and other trees.

It is time to witness the tree - to bring it to vivid reality for each of us.

Listen to the words and bring them to vivid life in your vision. This is YOUR vision, remember - so it doesn't matter how close yours comes to "my" tree, what is important is that you tap into your vision deeply.

The tree has a massive trunk which splits into four separate sections. Each section is as large as any of the other neighborhood trees. It has one fork and then two smaller forks in its trunk branchings.

I was looking up at its majesty when I saw something new.

I stopped in my tracks right in the middle of the street.

Paused.

Halted.

The jaw dropping silence was so deep I could feel and hear the reverberations of my heart as it clattered in my chest.

I tilted my head to an angle when I saw it.

The tree took a sunbeam into its branching and made the light three dimensional. It held the light as surely as I have ever held anything in my hands.

I had seen this three dimensional light before though only in photographs. I had never seen or felt it in person. It was as if I was being introduced, intimately, to light.

In this moment my new friend, this magnificent tree, held the ray of light in place especially and only for me.

I moved to a different angle and the light disappeared.

I went backwards and it vaporized.

I crouched down and it was simply no more.

I stood still, in the pulse of the moment, and the ray of light held me.

With shaking arms, I lifted my hands so that they would mimic the "V" shape of the branching. I wanted to physically connect with the beam of light.

With my hands lifted and my head back, I felt a surge of love. A receiving of energy. An awareness of standing squarely in place where truth and love and wholeness is conceived.

One of my feet involuntarily moved back to maintain balance as I became unsteadied by the grandeur of the moment as I bowed my head in amazed humility. My hands came down from their V with my thumbs resting at a spot that pointed to my heart. My eyes closed as a silent tear leaked from my eye.

Standing in the middle of the street, my chin rested almost on the tips of my fingers as I held the ancient pose which proclaims as it whispers, "Namaste".

Prepare to Write:

In today's lesson, the vision of light in a tree beams through the words to touch your heart.

Consider for a moment a vision of light in your life.

Energetically speak "Light" into your heart space.

"Light"

"Light"

Breathe the light into your heartspace, feeling it fill your body.

"Light"

"Light"

Now begin to write, describing your light in careful everlasting detail.

If your writing begins to slow down, simply re-invoke the movement by speaking. "I see" once again and go a little bit deeper each time.



Throughout the weekend, remember our writing today opened our consciousness to see light - in doing so, we will automatically be more aware of light.

Write the light, being very specific. Allow it to fill your heart and soul.

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Writing play on Friday Today's prompt = Words from Our Word Soup + "The story goes like this....."

Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. 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.

PLEASE NOTE: There are no live writing sessions this weekend. We will be back on Monday for more writing tele-sessions.

  

Today's Writing Prompt: It is Friday & Time for writing play! Writing Prompt includes our Word Lists + "The story goes like this...."

Audio Lesson:

 This week we have spent time taking writing risks and soaking in gratitude for "What's next?" and "What's up?" We have written using the Beginner's Mind and we have focused on writing the specifics of setting and place. We have worked on improving our writing skills and the a-ha's have been strong and steady.

We have covered a lot of ground with our writing.

I have often found myself to be the most productive when I follow up writing with that level of intensity with an entirely different level of intensity: that of writing play. Sometimes we forget about the power of playfulness, the power of delighting in the unexpected with a childlike curiosity and joy.

Today, we are going to play with word sounds, settings, tastes, colors and emotional states by taking random words and stirring them up into our own versions of Word Stew. For those people on the live writing session (the recording will be added after 9:15 am Pacific time) we will be adding more random words into our word pools. For those of you working independently, do the same thing. I have started you off, now you continue coming up with words. Ready?

Onomatopoeia- the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (as buzz, hiss)

buzz            splat            groan            oy            grrrrrr....

drip            zip                whine            fizzle        tweet

slurp            whine        crash

drizzle        snort

pop

5 places

a stable            a winding path            a balcony        a beach

a sanctuary    the ocean                    backyard            kitchen

a bus station    bath tub                    pine forest        rollercoaster

a meadow          bed

a convenience store

5 foods

lima beans                 chocolate       cinnamon roll        pumpkin cookie

enchilada                    coffee                tomatoe                applesauce

pork roast                    diet coke        swiss chard            

golden delicious apple

potatoe latkes

5 colors

lavender                    chartruese        black        fuschia

hunter green            pink                      burgundy

grey                                white                orange

amber                        peach

baby blue

5 emotional states

bored          ecstatic             sensual            flirty

curious        astonished        delirious

frustrated        delighted        furious    blissful

serious            malaise    amazed     surprised

giggly

Writing Prompt includes our Word Lists + "The story goes like this...."

  

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Discerning 'What is Missing" or "What is Next?" when written from a soul perspective. Today at #ANYW2010

Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. 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.

 If this is the first time you are here, we celebrate your presence as in just the right time. If it is before 8:30 AM Pacific time, you may even participate in our optional writing teleconference session if you would like. The call information is below.

Today's Writing Prompt: "When I put my ear down to my soul and listen to hear 'What is missing?' or 'What is next?' I hear.... 

Please feel free to participate in our next optional teleconference writing session which will be held today at 8:30 AM Pacific time.

Simply Dial-in here: Access Number: 1-712-432-3100 and enter the Conference Code 440137.

Yesterday we wrote of writing risk. We asked "What are you willing to risk writing?" It is a potent question, one which I "wrote" into via text message last night. That is how risk and writing work together. Sometimes it isn't the lengthy writing that causes us to quake, it is the small writing. The questions we haven't asked because we were afraid of the answers.

Sometimes it is on the positive side: Are we willing to risk being ridiculously successful?

Whenever we label these as "positive" or "negative" or having opinions about either the questions, our writing or our NOT writing, we risk missing out on the power of simply being with the questions, with living the questions, with writing our way into, as Rilke says, "Loving the questions themselves, like unlocked rooms or words in foreign languages."

If you haven't written from yesterday's lesson - I urge you to do so soon.

Today we are going to consider and write into gratitude, perhaps from a different place than you have in the past. Sometimes after writing like yesterday's, we back off. Unwilling to go past the breakthrough or back into writing which we may think is going to stir up more internal controversy.

What is it that invites me to look through the "What is wrong?" lense rather than simply pick it up and investigate, without opinion?

What if, instead, we choose to see whatever is from a perspective of gratefulness for being? What if we just write what is there rather than giving our opinions or judgments of what is there?

I sometimes fall into this trap with one simple question. The question is so simple: "What is missing?" I first looked at this question from a negative stance:

What is wrong? How come I don't have… what is wrong with me that I can not do… what skill set have I fallen short on this time?

People who know my world view might be startled to hear this form of rant because… I am not that sort of thinker most of the time.

My fingers hesitated to finish that last statement. I paused after "I am not that sort of thinker…." And waited… the ending of that sentence could have been so many different things.

I could have said, "I am not that sort of a thinker – or am I?" I stepped into the hesitation, as you may now, with me, about yourself. Breathe it in, "I am not an opinionated, judgmental thinker - or am I?"

I think this is the thread that has the most colorful weave as possible. It might be better with, "AND am I?"
 
That same "otherwordly" element that held my fingers poised, above the keyboard, is now pushing me, playfully, again and hoping you will play along, too.

"I am not that sort of thinker, or am I? Am I a thinker who rants and raves of the accidentally discarded flotsam and jetsam rather than the intentionally created art all around me every moment?"

For whatever reason I am thinking of a Mom and fellow autism activist I met recently when I attended her support group meeting. I sat down and she started throwing information into my head without asking me a simple question, "What are you seeking" or "How may I serve you?" or "What brings you here?"

Her fine intentions spilled from my skin before they had a chance to land because she started throwing her (highly valued by her) opinions around before she determined why I was there.

Interesting.

Flotsam and Jetsam are too "missings" from my life until this morning because I didn't know, truly, what they meant.

They were fanciful twins-in-language was all, or so I thought.

I read this Martin Luther King, Jr. quote and knew I would need to create art from that poetic coupling of words:

"I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become

a reality."

Interesting, thinking of those words – the flotsam is the stuff that is discovered floating in the water after a boat has sunk. There is a random, without explanation disorderliness about the presence of flotsam. Jetsam, on the other hand, is purposefully discarded. It is actively tossed from a ship in

suffering. There is choice involved.

AND both flotsam and jetsam seem to have the same result at first glance.

Discarded, displaced and floating without a paddle or a sail, in the water.

So how does this relate back to the initial question,

"What is missing?"

My first attempt at writing about "what is missing" didn't include any thinking. It created flotsam and lots of tarnished energy all pointing back to what might be wrong with me. There is a hurried, "Don't look, don't see my responses!' element to it, a constant looking over the shoulder and butterflies in the stomach element. 

I made a choice when I allowed my responses to not simply be the unconsciously "What's missing" to be "negative", some "positives" appeared on my list. This surprised me. There are things that are missing for which I am perpetually grateful they are missing.

In my list making response to "what is missing" I swung back and forth between gaps which I can work on filling and gaps which invite celebration.

I tuned into this quote from Anne Sexton this morning. She wrote, "Put your ear down close to your soul and listen." So I did exactly that – I listened to what my soul had to say about the `What is missing?' question.

Let's invite our soul into our writing today. Let's ask our soul to pick up our thoughts and look at them from a variety of perspectives, to sniff and touch and rub at our opinions and labels.

When I put my ear close to my soul this is what heard in response:

"Nothing significant is missing. Nothing is missing I don't have the power to change if this is what is called for, I have the power to engage what is missing and the power to shift from seeing `missing' as a negative rather than just another clue to what is next for me in this phenomenal gift called life."

So what is missing? There is nothing missing that has a big, slash mark red mark. There is nothing missing that is discombobulating or overly messy in an unfun way.

Instead, engage with what feels like it is missing from a space of soul and gratitude. It will consistently bring growth and positive change.

Suddenly it doesn't have that same panicky feeling it did the first time.

Suddenly, I have written my way toward what is so rather than my opinion of what is so.

Powerful.

Passionate.

Purposeful.

Instead of being confused or disoriented or hungry, I am grateful for what is missing.

Prepare to write: Today we will write about putting our ear to our soul and listening there for our "what is next" and our "what is missing" - not from an opinion perspective but instead one that is curious, introspective and conscious.

We will retain the ownership of choice in our lives and in our writing.

Let's take a few moments to consciously breathe into today's prompt.

Today's Writing Prompt: "When I put my ear down to my soul and listen to hear 'What is missing?' or 'What is next?' I hear....

 

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And Now You Write wants to know: Today's Writing Prompt: What are you willing to risk writing today? Join us #ANYW2010

You may write with us whether or not you have written with us before. This is your perfect time to begin.

Today's Writing Prompt: What are you will to risk writing today?

 

Please feel free to participate in our next optional teleconference writing session which will be held Today at 8:30 AM Pacific time. 

Simply Dial-in here:

Access Number: 1-712-432-3100 and enter the Conference Code 440137

"If you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

Erica Jong

Ask your self the question as you
breathe in, deeply:

Today's writing prompt: What am I willing to risk writing today?

I am finding it fascinating, this exact journey we are on together, writing, living, growing, living, writing, together.

These past few days have been a wild weaving of past and present and future and if I knew any better, I would say I am risking losing control of all this writing in the process. The "Secret of Life" prompt brought me to an entirely new yet familiar space. I wrote into it and revisited a physical place, a la yesterdays prompt and then broke open a waiting a-ha.

There had been a gap there and then there was no gap. I know from sharing my life and words with many of you that this is not an exclusive-to-me phenomenon.

I had a gap in writing this poem. I shared the first stanza on the teleconference yesterday.

Her poetry tastes like aspirin

Angry and bitter, aimed solely

at taking away the insistent

banging at her temple...

 

"You suck: yes, you there

with pen in hand, don't bother

with water to wash me down,

my acrid flavor shall still

seep into the groundwater

of your veins and you,

supposed writing darling, will

forever know the truth...

You Suck."

It had been abandoned, orphaned in my journal. I wondered why I was unwilling to risk continuing? Was my "Little Overly Nice" girl overshadowed by the word "SUCK" thoughout?

I realized it was calling me to risk writing into a different gap. Here is what was born:

Her poetry tastes like cotton

candy, sweet and frothy,

sticky to her face, her fingers

not filling just... air, fluff...

she hears it in their voices,

"Your poetry is so cute!"

"Oh, I liked your poetry..."

their high voices filled with

the pink almost solid but

not quite there and she knows then

the truth of not wanting saccharin,

not wanting unsatisfying

Her poetry tastes like Coffee

and Special K with lo-fat milk

on a lazy sunrise morning

Dogs fester, rooster preens,

motorcycle hums. We wait.

Trash man rumbles past.

Man jogs up the street,

feet slap, skin sheen from

sweat, slowly, tuned in only

to his I-Pod, missing the natural

poetry show all around him.

She writes it down so someday

he may come to know....

It sounds odd and yet the truth shines through the words like a flashlight in a darkened forest. Patricia Schneider, respected teacher and writer said, "Trust the disconnections and the gaps."

What? When I find a gap, I am not supposed to immediately build a bridge across it? Am I not supposed to leap into the "AND" expressway and cross that bridge?

"Trust the gap" she suggests.

I was a little girl when my family would go canoeing and picnicking along the Delaware Water Gap. It was a beautiful expanse of the space, different from other parts of this much beloved river. It held a certain still, raw, ruggedness that called to me then – and now, looking at images of it, continues to call me into stillness.

I am going to share a description of the actual water gap and ask you to consider how this relates to your writing:

The water gap is a place where land collided, mountains grew and the flow from a variety of creeks was caught in the rocks and began the erosion process – all relatively simultaneously.

Today the river continues to create the Water Gap – and the mountains continue to grow and the water continues to be "caught" in a space of stillness and beauty.

"Trust the gap."

It means to trust the collision, trust the growth, trust the aftermath of the collision and growth – trust the stillness. Be with the stillness. Breathe with the stillness. Don't make it something "wrong" you need to build a bridge across.

Instead, "Trust the gap."

Remember to trust the collision, trust the growth, trust the aftermath of the collision and growth – trust the stillness. Be with the stillness. Breathe with the stillness. Don't make it something "wrong" you need to build a bridge across.

Teresa of Avila wrote of and experienced great stillness on a mystical level, a deeply soulful level which she called "Quietude" - which is where the stirrings of inner vision came to life. She reminds us:

"Mystical quiet is like a soft dream that
flows into ever cell, transcending ordinary
relaxation. You feel as if you are
suspended within the soothing sensations
of silence as it draws out of you all the
scars and bruises created by the loud,
harsh, sounds of life.

"You return to your five senses, renewed."

The understanding and integration of the quietude comes upon the return to the reality of the loudness of life, when the quietude can be revisited even in the noise, even in the cacophany as it presents itself, like we step into trusting the gaps instead of fighting them.

Writing into the stillness of the Gap is being in that paradoxical space of still-movement. Being in the stillness of the Gap is growing and eroding and blossoming – so much that it is outside of what can be perceived through the human senses.

I quote Julia Cameron again, saying, "Call yourself home to the part of you that is strong enough to continue. That is when the help comes – it bubbles up within us
and enters as lightly as wind stirring a curtain."

The gentle wind of your words are stirring your heart. Trust the gentle power there. Trust the gentle sweetness of sitting,waiting, listening – and adding the wisdom from the nudges, inklings and knowing in the heart. Today, choose to act in alignment with this knowing.

Today, choose your choose passionate presence in a deeper, more profound way.

Learn the perfection in the imperfection, the bridge that is the gap, the soothing sensations in the scars and bruises.

Ask your self the question as you breathe in, deeply:

Prompt: What am I willing to risk writing today?

I choose...

I trust...

I choose...

I trust...

What am I willing to risk writing today?

　

Repeat this question to yourself throughout the day - and step into both choosing and trusting -

Speak into the space, allow into your soul the rich truth, the depth of these statements:

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"And Now You Write": How Place and Setting Impact Your Writing #ANYW2010

Today's Writing Prompt:  "I will show you the place where I am ….." and then simply write.

You are welcome to join us at any time - write here, along with us, either on our live teleconference writing session or simply read the lesson and follow the prompt.

 

Please feel free to participate in our next optional teleconference writing session which will be held today at 8:30 AM Pacific time.

Simply Dial-in here: Access Number: 1-712-432-3100 and enter the Conference Code 440137.

Carl Zimmer wrote these words in his book _Soul Made Flesh_ "Emotions sharpen our senses, focus our brains, help us remember more clearly."

The places or settings which fill our writing do something similar – your writing changes according to both the space you are in and the place which provides the backdrop for your writing.

Your voice changes, the mood changes. The atmosphere provides a Technicolor accompaniment to the words themselves.

Have you ever imagines what the musical "Oklahoma!" would be like if it were "Ohio!" instead? What if "Chicago", the play and movie, was instead "Phoenix."

What wouldn't work anymore if you picked these words up from their spaces and ploppedthem down squarely in entirely different locales.

The people would speak differently, they might move differently – the rules would be shifted due to the culture of the area.

It would be like the difference between lounging at home in your pajamas and going out in the community in a velour jogging suit. Both outfits are very
similar – but the jogging suit is more appropriate to wear out and about than your jammies are, even if they are very similar.

The behavior changes when we change the setting.

Let's go back to the pajamas in the living room versus the jogging suit at Starbucks. How do you act differently?

Perhaps some of you don't.

Think about that for a moment.

Speaking of your living room and Starbucks, here is something else
to consider.

The places we write also impact the words we choose, our pacing, cadence and rhythm.

Writers have been known to bring their writing gear out into the community. Natalie Goldberg often alludes to her "writing dates" with other writers. They
meet in coffee houses and restaurants and scribe separately together.

It is a perfect solution both for more extroverted writers as well as for the sake of accountability. If you have challenges with getting your work done,
consider meeting up with a buddy and writing together socially so that you can get your "with people" needs met and at the same time honor your craft.

I took yesterday's prompt to a spot beside the Kern River and wrote from the prompt, right there, into my notebook, as I sat listening to the river flow past. Listen to my words and imagine for a moment if I had written, instead, from my kitchen table or my porch:

Today the divine brought me into one of my favorite spots to write. A loud silent place, under a bridge, graffiti on the walls. I love it. I can't hear a thing there except the sound of flow. I see in my notebook where I wrote, "Come write with me you crazy person, write!" I suppose that was divinity saying, "Write this into an essay, Julie! Write it I dare you!" so here, I sit and I do.

When I was under the bridge with the water flowing I realized some people would label this little slice of heaven "smelly." Never, I say. Interesting smell. Sort of like decomposition and nature, changing form from one to another. I watch the trees sway above me and I realize I can't hear the leaves with all this flow around me. I call the sound of leaves in the wind 'God sounds' since so often I hear the divine in the rustling leaves.

Today I exchanged one version of God sounds for another. Sometimes we hear divinity differently.

Under this bridge I can't hear the Sheriff's firing range that was bothering me while I was above this spot. I watch as a leaf offers itself to the river and a blue dragonfly investigates the trees and settles on a large grey rock so I can see the dragonfly actually has a red body and its wings are blue. I look up and see some of last year's leaves freckling the green leaves and branches of a large tree above me.

I see a spider web bridging the river, too, echoing this spot where I am sitting.

Later, the web seems to have disappeared, playing a silent game of peek-a-boo with my pen.

I thought I was seeing destruction. I wasn't. I just needed to perceive from a different angle.

I stop to pause, noting my fingers first wrote a wrong word: angel. They meant ANGLE, as in moved differently to see a different perception.

"Now you see me, now you don't!" giggles the angelic spider web, so delicate yet so hardy.

Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote the children's classic, "The Secret Garden". Her work became a Tony Award Winning Broadway Musical with music written by Lucy Simon (sister of Carly Simon.) She said, "I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden." She writes in the garden and tunes into the setting as it literally seeps into her being.

Question:

Is there a place in your current life or in your past that the setting has seeped into your being? For Frances Hodgson Burnett, her garden became the inspiration and framework for the classic work which continues to sell well even nearly 70 years after its initial publication date.

One of the joys of working in theatre has been the actual building and painting of the sets. When we build the sets, we are literally creating a place from nothingness.

From this set, the entire story is built.

It creates a "concrete" place for the actors and the director and the technical people to realistically portray the lives of their characters.

I have learned to love this sacred time when we make the rooms or backdrop perfectly compliment the time period, the character's personality and creatively piece together what we have on hand and then create effects to fill in the rest.

One day I spent 12 hours in the theatre painting. There was on 4 hour shift standing 10 feet off the ground on a ladder, painting dot after dot after dot to simulate the pointillism method of painting developed by French Impressionist painter, Georges Surrat.

The background created a picture audiences could see – they could understand the character or George better because the audience literally became a witness to George's painting through the dot-dot-dot-dots everywhere.

The painting – the setting – became as much of a character as everyone else in the production.

As writers, part of your job is to fashion word pictures from "the thing air." Painting a picture with words is like inhaling the swirling heat from a mug of hot chocolate at a football game in a game in the middle of November. Everything is cold – except for the pieces of flesh quietly kissed by that swirl of heat and then your lips, tongue and throat feel the ripple of warmth from the cocoa which reminds you exactly what heat means.

Let's prepare to write:

Let's tie this all together.

For our writing today we will paint a word picture inspired from a quote from Anton Chekhov.

In your writing, "show" the reader your setting through creating vivid word paintings. Your setting for this exercise is either the place where you live
(and write) or the setting for your current project.

Here is the Chekhov quote:

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."

Now your task is to show your setting to us in your free writing. Write freely and see how many different important sensory details you are able to use.

Your prompt is simply "I will show you….." and then simply write.

Again, "I will show you….."

Please write until you hear my voice requesting that you stop.