Category Archives: Inspiration

Confessions of a Workshop Junkie

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In a few days, I’m taking the boat to Key West to attend “How the Light Gets In: Literature of the Spirit,” the 2015 Key West Literary Seminar. I’m looking forward to sitting at the feet of some great writers, a privilege no matter what my age. There is so much to learn about writing, our world, and the life of the spirit from reading and hanging out with writers, so I’ll settle back in the red velvet seats of the San Carlos Center on Duval Street and listen to Coleman Barks, Billy Collins, Mark Doty, Patricia Hampl, Jane Hirshfield, Marie Howe, Pico Iyer, Wally Lamb, Barry Lopez, Robert Richardson, Marilynne Robinson, and Steve Stern.kw_beach

“Our hope,” writes program co-chair Pico Iyer about the 2015 seminar, “is to talk about essentials—what lasts and what is at the heart of us—through poetry, essay, fiction, and even silence; to push words as far as they can go and then to respect what remains when they give out.”

These Key West seminars are immensely popular and sell out right away. In fact, the 2016 seminar (“Shorts: Stories, Essays, and Other Briefs”) is already sold out with a waiting list. So I’m must not be the only one who enjoys the literary treat of listening to writers, who have worked hard at their craft.

Following the seminar, my friend Mary and I will participate in Jane Hirshfield’s poetry workshop. Jane is a rock star in the poetry world and someone whose work I have admired for a long time, so again I’m so happy to have this opportunity to stretch my poetry wings in new directions, as I get to know Jane.

Rebecca McClanahan

Rebecca McClanahan

Last summer, Mary and I signed up for Rebecca McClanahan’s literary nonfiction workshop offered by Hamline University on the St. Olaf College campus in Northfield, Minnesota. Again what a pleasure to absorb what Rebecca had to say and to try my hand at many of her writing challenges.

Besides my poetry, I’m attempting to write a family memoir. “Now why I can’t I just sit at my desk and write the dang thing,” I ask myself. “Why am I always going off to hang out with these other writers in workshops?”

My mother was a good role model for me in this department. She continued to study art and learn from other artists right into her nineties. It kept her going. Art was her passion. So I’ve made writing mine. These other writers inspire me and give me great pleasure. They send me back to my desk with new ideas and with writing that I would never have done without them.

As I prepare to teach my own workshops here on Sanibel in late January, I hope that I can bring some of the same inspiration that these writers have given to me. We’re all great writers, each in our own way. The words we put upon the paper express our deepest desires, our unique histories and experiences, our longings, our loves and our losses. They record a moment in time that comes along only once.

Our words connect us to each other—the famous and the not-so-famous—we’re in this game together. So onward to the next workshop!

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Writing Challenge: One of Rebecca McClanahan’s writing challenges for those of us writing nonfiction is to “create a self on the page.” She says, “Part of what draws a reader into a nonfiction work–in particular a memoir or personal essay–is the sense that a flesh-and-blood character stands behind the words. Use the first person “I” to introduce and describe the person behind the words. To do this, you’ll need to acquire enough distance so that you can present yourself as a character on the page.”

Give this a spin to get yourself into your 2015 writing chair.You can refer to yourself as “he” or “she” and describe yourself as if you were a character in a story. A good experiment in humility–not a bad way to start the year.

P. S. See my earlier post, “The Size of My Life,” for a wonderful poem, “My Life at Sixty,” by Mary Junge, in which she creates “a self on the page.”

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I hope 2015 yields much good writing for you! Or I should say just “writing”—don’t worry about the “good” part. Put some words on paper—and feel good about that. Or take a class; attend a workshop. Try sitting at the feet of those writers who have honed their craft and gained some recognition in the process. Remember they got there from time spent at their desks, laying words on paper, like bricks in a wall. It’s never too late. Forget the fame part. Listen. Learn. And write. That’s my intention.

Happy New Year!

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“Our task as writers is not only to pay attention to our world but also to use the materials of the world in extraordinary ways. To do this, we must uncover the subtle design, the “figure in the carpet” that is woven into even the most everyday events. Often we must proceed without knowing what form the work will finally take. We write our way into the question, into the mystery. Writing begets more writing; meaning grows on the page.”   Rebecca McClanahan  (from her website).

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My Love Affair with W. B. Yeats

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I had not heard from Mr. Yeats in years. He was buried in my bookshelf with other old friends, tucked away in closed pages, long gone. Or so I thought–until this past October when I visited Ireland, a country in love with writing and with its writers–especially with William Butler Yeats.

In the interest of compression, the story goes like this: My husband and I were leaving the National Museum of Ireland where we saw the Cashel Man preserved in the Irish peat bogs. He was buried during the early Bronze Age, 2,000 BC, making him 4,000 years old!  (They had bogs; we have blogs.)

"The Lake Isle of Innistree"As we left,  we saw a notice for a Yeats exhibit next door at the  Irish National Library. “Oh my gosh,” I said to my husband, “we  have to go in.”  And there, as if Yeats too had emerged from the bogs of my memory, I found him still alive.  I heard his sonorous voice reading  “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” His words were music. The images of Innisfree were projected onto transparent screens:  the bees, the clover, the land. I listened as  other Irish poets read more of his poems. I was transfixed. One of my favorite poets, the complicated William Butler Yeats, whose poems sent me spiraling as a college student, was here alive and well. For the next hour, we made our way around the exhibit, visiting smaller rooms with multiple inter-active exhibits that captured his loves, his marriage, his politics, his interest in the occult, his writing, and finally his death and re-burial in Ireland. As we left, I knew that my love for Yeats had never really been lost.

If you won’t be making a trip to Ireland anytime soon, you can visit the Irish National Library exhibit and take a virtual tour. Go to The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats.

A few weeks after we returned from Ireland,  I opened my e-mail to find  that Yeats was still speaking to me. There in my mailbox was his poem, “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” (Poem-a-Day, Academy of American Poets). Go to a Video Homage to “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” for a lovely reading of this poem.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve met many times with my friend, W. B. Yeats, reading his poems and biography and tracking him down on the internet.  I discovered a favorite poem, “When You Are Old,” one of his best-loved poems, written when he was quite young. As an extra bonus, I found a wonderful love story related to “When You Are Old”  from the Favorite Poem Project (founded by former Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky) about a young woman, her grandfather, and her husband-to-be. The lovely video shows how one poem can connect several people and give meaning to each of their lives. Click here to watch it:  “Yeats, When You Are Old,”  Favorite Poem Project.

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When You Are Old

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

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Writing Ideas: Take the phrase “My Love Affair with _________.” Try out different words to fill in the blank: “My Love Affair with the Ocean,”  “My Love Affair with My ’62 White Buick Convertible,” “My Love Affair with Chopin or Elvis.” Don’t think too much about it. Just write for at least ten minutes. There’s passion there–and longing. I know.

Or take the lines: “But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you/ And loved the sorrows of your changing face.” There’s plenty there to fill a few pages of your writer’s notebook. Go.images-9

We Have To Do What We Have To Do

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I’ve been thinking about the prompts (jumpstarts) I’ve been adding to these blogs. They are meant to be little exercises for limbering up the writing muscles. If I can do one of these a day for ten minutes, then in one week I would have seven pages of a notebook and seven more observations or details than I would have if I ruminated about my writing and waited for an inspiring idea to float into my brain.

Yet I often hear myself saying: “But I don’t really want to write about parakeets (see the last post) or whatever the prompt might suggest.” A little moment of rebellion starts up in my brain. Some voice is asking, “How is this going to help you write what you really want to write? That novel, that short story, that great poem?” Another one says, “It’s too late.” Another one says, “You have too much to do.”

imagesRecently I started taking piano lessons again. When I said to Hannah, my new teacher, “I don’t think I can play that. Maybe when I was twelve and just learning, but now my brain feels like concrete.” She stopped me. “All you have to do is try the six things I write down in your book each week. It’s my job to take you to the new place,” she said.

So where is that writing teacher who will take me to the next place? Right here, inside of my own head. There is another voice that says: “Tell me everything you have to say. I want to hear it. And by the way, hurry up! The clock is ticking.” That voice also says: “Once you get some words on paper we’ll work on it and get it to be that novel, that short story, that great poem.” That voice keeps saying, “You know you told me you want to do this. Let’s go.” (Maybe it’s my dad’s voice. He used to stand in the dining room listening to me practice the piano and then clap like crazy after each song.)

If we can listen to the voice that questions why we would write for ten minutes every day about some topic, then why can’t we believe in some of those other voices (like Hannah’s) that say, “Just do this. I’ll help you get to the next place.” All I have to do is try a prompt or jumpstart and write for ten minutes. It adds up.

It’s like practicing the piano, who knows where I will be able to go?  Maybe I can play “To a Wild Rose” for my brother by the holidays.

Wait! I can hear him groaning in the background. He had to hear me practice that piece for months for my first recital. I won’t let that stop me. It’ll be fun to torment him again like when I was twelve, and he was eight. Sorry, Glenn, we have to do what we have to do!

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If you’ve forgotten how “To a Wild Rose” goes, here’s a version played by someone who can really play.  (Just click on the highlighted song title.)

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Writing Jumpstart: For ten minutes, write down what all those voices are saying about how you shouldn’t be writing. Then rip up the page or mark through the words or simply turn to a new page. Now write down all those other voices that are saying, “Go for it.” Listen to them and write what they are saying, for another ten minutes.

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dirtylove_coverP. S. Also if you don’t really want to write, then go do what you really want to do. I had a chance to speak with Andre Dubus III at the Sanibel Writers Conference last year. When I told him that sometimes I’d rather just go watch the sunset on the beach and not write, ever, he said, “Well, do that. Forget about writing, if you can.” That last phrase says it all.

(Andre Dubus most recent book is on my list of books to read. Great reviews!)

Deb Shelton and the Goodreads Poetry Contest

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I hardly ever send my poems out, but one day recently while looking at the Goodreads site, I saw an announcement for a monthly poetry contest. So I sent one of my poems: “The Space between the Words.”

I wrote this poem some years ago (June 2004) in honor of my good friend, Deb Shelton, who died at age 58, from breast cancer. On the day of her funeral, the words came to me as I searched for the answer to the question: Where are you, dear friend? Where have you gone?

DEBDeb was so full of life and laughter and love that it seemed impossible that we could ever lose her, but we did. We used to talk a mile a minute and ride bikes around the lake and go on about our children (our sons were about the same age.) So the poem lives on now as a reminder of Deb and how she came to occupy “the space between the words” in my heart.

This morning when I opened my e-mail, I found that the poem was one of the six finalists for the month of November. I am honored, but the poem is not about me. It’s about a good friend–and all those we love and lose–those we are honored to have as part of our lives.

If you want to read the six poems, here’s the link:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1552505-please-vote-for-the-november-2013-goodreads-newsletter-finalists

I think you’ll enjoy all of them. And of course, you can vote for your favorite! (But you have to do it today.)

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Writing Jumpstart:  Take ten minutes today to write about someone who isn’t here anymore. Go.

No Time to Write?

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by Arlene Mandell

Guest Author

You want to write. You love to write. BUT you’re too busy to write right now. And when you finally clear a space, you find yourself staring at a blank screen with nothing urgent to say.

Here are ten ways to keep creative ideas flourishing:

Arlene Mandell

Arlene Mandell

1. When you don’t have time to write a “proper” journal entry, jot down a description, for example, of the tiny fawn faltering as she tries to cross the road. Use an index card or a sticky note. Date it and toss it into a shoe box reserved for that purpose.

2. Grab a book from your stack of unread books. Open to the first page; read the first sentence. For example, from the introduction to Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach: “I write this sitting in my cozy kitchen on a wintry morning, my old cat dozing beside me on the warm, hissing radiator.”

3. Pick a quotation at random from Bartlett’s or another anthology. Here’s one of my favorites from Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Poetry As Insurgent Art: “Poetry is the truth that reveals all lies, the face without mascara.”

4. Visit an art museum on-line and wander through a current exhibit. As a former New Yorker, I often drop in at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the largest art museum in the U.S. I select the photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron, for example, one of the greatest portraitists in the history of photography, and learn that she was forty-eight when she received her first camera.

imgres-15. Copy this quote by poet Ellen Bass and pin it to your bulletin board: “You should know something at the end of the piece that you didn’t know at the beginning.” When you have a moment, read the last line of your latest poem, story, or essay.

6. Even if you’re wearing baggy jeans and a faded sweatshirt, wrap yourself in the glamorous shawl that’s too good to use. Add a squirt of French perfume. Dream of faraway places . . . then write a few lines from Tangiers or Tahiti. Time to pick up the children from school? Toss your notes into your shoe box.

7. Open any book of poems. Riffle through the pages till you come upon one you like and read it aloud. Here’s Mary Oliver from “For I Will Consider My Dog Percy.” Read it aloud, then repeat the last stanza: “For often I see his shape in the clouds and this is a continual blessing.” Let the words and sentiment linger.

8. Visit your local bookstore. Yes, this can prove expensive, so set a limit, say $20
and buy one new thing, a book (obviously) or a scented candle or a box of beautiful note cards. If the store has a café, sip a cappuccino and write a note to yourself from a beloved teacher or a boyfriend from long ago.

9. Before chopping vegetables for dinner, dig through your CDs for something you haven’t heard in a long, long time. Put down the knife, close your eyes and remember.

10. Find your oldest journal. Turn the pages till something explodes and demands an immediate update.

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I could go on and on, but by now you should have enough material to get you through some rainy days and dark nights. When you’ve completed all your grownup chores and double-locked the doors, take pen in hand. . . .

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Arlene L. Mandell, a retired English professor who lives in Santa Rosa, CA, was formerly on the staff of Good Housekeeping magazine. She has published more than 500 poems, essays and short stories in newspapers and literary journals, and in 24 anthologies.. Her echapbook, Scenes from My Life on Hemlock Street: A Brooklyn Memoir, is available free at  http://www.echapbook.com/memoir/mandell.
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