I wondered what would happen if people wrote for five minutes a day for five consecutive days, free-flow style. I wondered what would happen if people understood and used the power of just dumping their thoughts on the page without attachment, without editing, without worrying about grammar or content or style.
It was an experiment we carried out using live streaming as the context and writing prompts coupled with free flow writing, otherwise known as brain dumping, as the content.
It was an experiment that had a huge impact on the people who showed up and wrote either in community or who showed up individually.
After the success of our first five consecutive day session, I decided to gather on Wednesdays as well. I called this experience “Bonus Wednesdays” and we added Scope Trains after our 3 pm and 8 pm sessions so that people who chose to could share their writing immediately after the words were written.
It was scary and exhilarating. It was dynamic and life changing.
Our September session begins on Monday, September 19 AND our bonus Wednesdays are continuing throughout September. Live streams will meet on Periscope at 6 am, 3 pm and 8 pm. We will add Facebook live broadcasts as well, with times to be established.
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Put your notebook on a sequoia root or on a rock by the river or perhaps a haiku in the sand at Malibu
I hear from so many writers that they don’t write unless
they have the perfect spot in the perfect room with the perfect light and on
and on and on.
My solution to that – which will help in all your future
writing adventures – is to simply write where you are. Write everywhere. Carry
a small notebook or use your smart phone and write, write, write. Jot notes
about what you see or hear or how you feel. Note temperature, note drizzles or
dry, note how the sweater you are wearing scratches your arms.
Step into your character and write how she feels in these
surroundings: writing on the root of a giant sequoia, perhaps, or writing a
haiku with a stick in the sand in Malibu. Would she balk because she has to
have everything just so? Will she giggle? What is she wearing? What did she eat
for breakfast, is it upsetting her tummy? Is she writing in blood or with a
quill pen or with a mechanical pencil?
When you learn to write everywhere with whatever you’ve got,
you will have a new angle in making your writing fun.
Write everywhere. With anything. Saying whatever pops into
your head. Put those words into your Work-in-Progress-Word-Bank and move along.
If all you get out of this playful writing experiment is a happier
creative life, what will you lose in trying it?
This is a word cloud of my Butt in Seat Poem, #1 for the day
It has been a challenging day for my writing muse.
I have not been the kindest companion to her.
I finally got into a writing groove but what came was
poetry, not prose.
What came was silly and then historical and not like my
usual at all.
I think it may have been thanks to the post it notes,
whispering to my subconscious.
“poetry, tags, convert pages to the Writing Camp blog.”
My subconscious has delivered. I cannot remember the last
time I wrote two poems in a day. This is
different. This is welcome. This is a pleasure.
I worked on a couple of my newest mixed media pieces today.
I came up with a new strategy for one of them.
I created and completed and have more art simmering on my work
table.
Post it Note To-Do List Delivers: Poetry and More Poetry
The prose I have written is a grand total of about four
hundred words that felt like they took four hundred years to arrive on the page.
There is always tonight to write AND whatever words tumble
upon the page is fine, too. Normally I easily string 1,000 words along in under
an hour, but today whatever words percolate is fine by me.
Even when the words sound and feel ridiculous, any words are
better than no words.
This is my twenty-eighth post (of 31!) for the January Ultimate Blog Challenge.
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
This is one of my favorite projects for AEDM2012 yet.
Parts of this have been sitting, loose and floppy, and now
she is all…. Done! The frame was a completely boring, faded brown – which I
painted and then textured. The image
is of Adelaide Crapsey, who invented the
cinquain form of poetry atop an image of a Thesaurus page which is atop some
dictionary pages. Alongside Adelaide are one inch circle cut outs from an essay
by Eleanor Roosevelt.
The page with Eleanor’s speech was used in a writing camp
session – you can tell by the
circled words. One of the women at a past writing
camp used those words to prompt her writing, so the energy from women across
the generations just leaps from this simple piece of art.
Tell me about the energy in your current creative projects,
please!
“The care of rivers is not a question of the rivers, but a
question of the human heart.”
Tanaka Shozo
I haven’t spent much time this year visiting my river. MY
river. Notice how I call it that?
I went for a couple picnics this Spring, but there was no
lazy time of river wooing where I would sit beside the river and write and take
photos and scribble inlets of thought in my notebook praying they would make
sense later. I drove through with a couchsurfer or two.
We got out and they were amazed by the flecks of gold in the
water. Yes, we are the land of the gold rush. That isn’t just a folk tale, it
is how California came to be who she is today.
2012 has been a squeezer year: that time when I expect to
have bushels of time when what I get is a tablespoon of leftovers after I’ve
done everything else I’m supposed to do.
I imagine my favorite spots along the river miss me. They
wonder where I am and even more
importantly, when will I return.
I think of my calendar. The weekend after this one is
completely booked up now, a week out. The weekend after that I plan to go out
of town.
I think I need to take a mental health day during the week
to be with my friend, the water, the falls, the surprising coves and the
changing face of my beloved.
It will be intriguing to see now that I have set this
intention, how long will it be until I realize it?
I am thinking as you read you are daring me to make it soon
and make my time there well invested.
Be watching here, for more. Right now photos and in the
future photos: they will be here soon!
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did
you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion
Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost)
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I attended a twitter chat recently and met some incredible women there. One of the take aways for me was the concept of "practicing feminism."
I have been walking around living the question, "How am I practicing feminism today?" It has helped me consciously create opportunities to talk about equality of women in literary history or anything simple that is walking the walk of feminism and not just talking about it.
I have enjoyed it so much - and then I realized something that made me even more excited to practice feminism in a tangible way.
For the past fourteen or fifteen months I have been working
on a body of work called “Women’s Sphere.” Each work of art focuses on images
and language about women’s roles and how women’s lives have been played out
across the last few centuries.
I share images and language illustrating how things have changed and how things are still so similar to the way they were hundreds of years in the past.
When my daughter had a tea party for her fifteenth birthday,
I gave a little speech about for centuries women have gathered and used tea as
their “reason for gathering” but in small groups like this, women learned, contributed to politics and business, eduction, human rights and more. Mostly they gained power
and built power between women.
I had made such an effort to make it an ultra-feminine day.
I realized some people might not have gotten the woman –
power – feminism I was teaching these high school aged girls who had donned
gloves and hats and pretty dresses . One
young woman came dressed with a dress
shirt,pants and tie in a more masculine look which everyone welcomed, too.
I was reminded through Emma's tea party that my Women’s Sphere
pieces were primarily lamenting some of the “cultural expectations” of women
and seemed to downplay some of the glorious aspects of being a woman.
The stereotype is men get together to watch football games.
They scratch themselves, burp, tell stupid jokes and share stories of sexual
prowess.
The stereotype for women is we sit and gossip and talk about
fashion and glitz and glamour and who is looking better and who has the better
boyfriend or husband.
I was never into the whole glitz and glamour scene or the
gossip scene, but I have always loved very pretty, conventionally “girly”
things, so why should I assume these are not “Women’s Sphere?” objects to create?
I changed that this past weekend when I started taking my
painted papers and crafting them into flowers. I am having FAR too much fun and
after another evening at play, I have come up with some “second generation” flowers.
You’ll have to watch here as they develop. I figure they
will make a reasonably priced piece of art for women (and men!) to purchase
that will introduce them to the concept behind Women’s Sphere as well as share
about the papers
that have been repurposed and the woman represented in each
particular flower.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did
you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion
Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost)
every week day. Subscribe here now -
You know that restless, you’re sitting at your desk or
trying to get your household chores done but every move feels like it is being
swished around with a bunch of molasses?
I had that earlier tonight and remembered a thought I had
this morning. I said then I wanted to watch the day become night. I wanted to
focus on that transition in addition to the sunrise which I know exceptionally
well.
I told my family, “I’ll be back in 15 minutes!” and I went
three blocks from my home to the Panorama Bluffs where there are benches and
paths and trees and views. My notebook was with me and I brought along some art
inspiration I’ve been toying with as well as my phone for its camera and whew.
In just fifteen minutes I was able to experience more
creativity than I knew was
possible.
I wrote a list of today’s wins, today’s “couldas” (missed
opportunities primarily due to procrastination) and tomorrow’s “I wills” – the beginnings
of my possibility list for tomorrow.
I watched joggers and walkers and chatted with a Mom and her
curly haired toddler with deep brown eyes who was riding on a fancy
car-stroller toy and desperately wanted to tell me… something he was pointing
to was very significant.
I wrote a theater inspired sunset haiku:
Light's memory fades
Nightfall moves down left, just... so
Ponytail points east
And I headed home after fifteen extravagantly stretched
minutes.
How did I accomplish such serenity in this tiny little
mini-retreat on the bluffs?
A pure intention guided me ever since I wrote it
this morning: I wanted to try writing sunset haikus as a counterpoint to my
regular sunrise haiku practice.
I put my mini-retreat into a timed container.
Yes, I literally timed myself.
I asked permission of myself first and then my
family. I was very specific, “Is it fine with you if I go up to the bluffs for
fifteen minutes? I want to write and take photos.” They are used to me both writing and taking
photos so it seemed 100% reasonable.
I took advantage of every single moment I was
there. Not a single second was wasted thinking negative thoughts or critiquing
anything. I was open and willing to squeeze the marrow out of the bones of
these fifteen minutes I invested.
When my timer went off, I packed up and headed
home. I honored my commitment to my family and myself. It was so gorgeous, I
wanted to stay longer but… I didn’t.
These fifteen minutes were transformative. I was able to
consciously survey my day in a short, non-judgmental and constructive way. I
was able to experience joy, beauty and hope.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did
you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion
Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost)
every week day. Subscribe here now -
School is back in session so who knows where you might find
me now!
I know, I know – these are silly photos and true photos as
well. Granted, I more than likely will not be riding any motorcycles in the
near future, but I will be feeling the delight of freedom, the joy of
connecting along my journey that I sometimes miss when I have my perpetual
entourage of kidlets with me.
Please don’t get me wrong: I adore each and all of my three
children AND when the time comes for them to return to school and me to return
to my life work, we are all content in a different way than when we are
together.
I will be continuing to offer teleclasses, e-courses and in
October I plan another “Big, Bad-Ass” program in the tradition of my wildly successful
42 Days of Passionate Prosperity and 42 Days of Writing with Passion from the
old days at 5passions.com.
Are you ready to stretch your wings and soar beyond where you've been until now?
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did
you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion
Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost)
every week day. Subscribe here now -
When I saw today’s prompt from the Blog Dare I knew immediately what I wanted to write but then I thought confessing to this as the source of my last big belly laugh might be taken wrong, but then I thought… many of us have silly little brother memories and after our The Great Southwest Road Trip, my daughters and Samuel and I will laugh about this for years.
We will probably share it with his future girlfriends, too.
The prompt was simply, I laughed so hard:
It started innocently enough. A slightly unusual smell would overtake the backseat of the car and slowly waft toward me in the front. Whichever sister was sitting next to Samuel would say, “Ewww, what’s that smell?”
If it was a color, the smell would be a faded mustardy yellow: sort of like Gulden’s mustard. It was overweight and putrid.
After it consistently happened several times the first couple days and was usually accompanied by squelched giggles from the little brother of the family, we figured it out.
Samuel was gifting us with Silent But Deadly Farts.
None of my children had heard this expression before. Samuel had quickly become a master of SBD’s.
Sometimes he even delivered them to hotel rooms. On one occasion when I was either out at the car or perhaps getting a cup of coffee, all three children were doing that famous sibling bonding on the bed. All three children were sitting up and happy under the quilt in the middle of rural Utah. They looked so nearly All American Family before times got weird when Samuel decided it was the perfect time to introduce his sisters to the famous “Dutch Oven”.
He created an enormous SBD and then lifted the quilt. The girls reportedly had to get off the bed because they couldn’t breathe with that horrifyingly bad stench eminating from it. Samuel laughed and laughed and then they laughed and laughed and then I came back in the room and we all laughed and laughed.
Come to think of it, he hasn’t done this since we got home.
A part of me hopes this is just an eleven-year-old-boy-smelly-fad-that-passed but another part of me misses the raucous laughter that came as a result.
My kids may not remember how gorgeous the view was while standing on Weeping Rock at Zion National Park. They may not remember the awe opening moments standing in Pueblo Ruins from the 13th Century at Mesa Verde. The legend of the Spider Woman in Canyon de Chelly may become a fuzzy “What was that again?”
The laughter from Samuel’s Silent but Deadly Farts will never be forgotten.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
I visited John Muir’s home in 2009. It was awe-opening. I could literally feel his presence there. I stood across from the desk where he wrote all his books. It buzzed.
He had such a passion for wilderness. I do, too.
When I was on vacation recently, I got an annual pass to any and all US National Parks. What does this mean? I will be visiting as many as possible. On Vacation I visited Zion, The Arches, and Mesa Verde. I live relatively close to Sequoia and Yosemite. Once kids are back in school I will go to both of them and in October there is a cool program at Zion I want to attend.
It is so cool how the National Parks weave eco-friendly practices into the park culture.
They made ME think and helped me change my practice with water bottles. No more bottled water, on with reusable bottles I can add filtered water to instead. Over and over and over again.
It seems the generation beneath me has so much gusto for all things eco-friendly. Grateful to move beyond consumerism to environmental awareness.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
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