I just couldn’t move on. I have always considered myself a compulsive journal keeper. I've been writing since pre-puberty somewhere between a few times a week - to one big end of the week catch up. Months have gone by this past year as I stare at the end of my turquoise Moleskine and I just wanted to get to that last page and have it be over. But I couldn’t – it felt like my brain wasn’t working in the same way. I suddenly was scared of my past. I was scared of memories, photos, and mementos setting me off. I now think I was in a deep protective mode – I had no interest in the past because … [Read more...]
Writing Prompt: What are Your Life Gifts?
There are certain things that are woven into the fabric of your life that become part of who you are, but because they seem so inevitable it is hard to think of them as a gift. One of my friends experienced a rift in her life - when she was a child her mother decided to leave her husband in the US - and she took her daughter and resettled in Portugal. Leaving San Diego, California behind as an 8 year old, and starting her life again in Lisbon with her mother was a strange process. Not knowing the language or customs, not having any friends or people to go to for comfort radically changed … [Read more...]
Metamorphosis a Writing Prompt
When you Google the word "change" and ask for images, you get pictures of butterflies. These miraculous creatures undergo a metamorphosis that boggles the mind, from a caterpillar to pupa to butterfly. Change implies that we are many things at once and there are not clear boundaries. Being in flux means that we hold different viewpoints, and some that are in conflict. We are not whole because we can not be contained. Our edges seep between being a man/woman, natural/synthetic, right/left, living and dying...the list goes on. Anyone who thinks they are one thing are in for a big surprise, … [Read more...]
Embracing the Crazy Wisdom in Your Writing Practice
Overnight the buds popped on the trees and the jacarandas are exploding with brilliant lavender blooms. Spring fever is here and - oh - there's a fat robin red-breast...welcome to working with a Spring fever. The phrase that keeps coming to mind for me is "Crazy Wisdom" (coined by the founder of Shambhala Buddhism, Chögyam Trungpa) which refers, according to Steven Goodman, "to someone who seems to be intoxicated with an un-bounded, luminous, loving energy." It aligns with the concept of the sacred fool, or as personified by the famous picture of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue - the … [Read more...]
Maintaining Your Practice: Your Life is a Writing Prompt
The last few months have been difficult for me as I try to help my family through a devastating illness. I have been in three different hospitals in two states and it reminds me of another sage whose life was cut short, John Lennon. Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. So how do you maintain a writing practice during chaos, illness, overwork, stress and change? One way is to treat your life as a writing prompt. At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota I took copious notes. Between appointments with my family I wrote down exchanges between couples sitting … [Read more...]
Writing Small: A Craft Exercise
I just finished a very short and contemplative memoir, Ongoingness: The End of Diary by Sarah Manguso. Easily read in one sitting, it is about the author contemplating 25 years of her diaries/ journals. For Manguso, when she holds the mirror up to her writing, she feels a need to record as a hedge against forgetting. There is a subtle and shifting line between the diary as a sketch vs. the diary as a neurotic attempt to "hold on" to moments. It reminds me a bit of Yoko Ono's book of poems/ art, Grapefruit (196os) which contains her conceptual/ Fluxus thought pieces- whether she is writing … [Read more...]
Creativity: Finding Your Secret Sauce
In a Perfect World, Far, Far Away... The fantasy...to be important enough to be no longer beholden to email! In this alternative universe you aren't hitting refresh for the next job offer or money-making opportunity, a party invite or chance to socialize, glued to the daily news because you need to know what is trending today. You are complete, whole, full, and focused on your project and bulletproof to distraction. We are living in an age when we believe that we can "optimize" our way to anything - super performance, the cleanest diet, the most revolutionary exercise. We are in an … [Read more...]
Playing 20 Questions to Get to the Soul of Your Creativity
Above my desk is this index card. How We Spend Our Time is How We Spend Our Lives There are so many things competing for our time and attention. I know I can heat up a can of soup OR make my own. Heating up the can definitely fulfills the need to get something in my belly but lacks the sensual pleasure of chopping fragrant fresh herbs, dicing up a nice mirepoix, smelling the savory flavor of onions caramelizing in butter. Consciously making a decision about what brings us pleasure is a constant calculation. As a writer who also owns a business based on the art and craft of writing I often … [Read more...]
Five Questions for Your Creative Practice in 2016
The Ritual is the Reminder There have been an incredible amount of articles and studies published on how ritual and expressive writing can help people get over emotional upheavals such as anxiety, depression, loss...the list goes on and on. I don't know about you, but as I get older I always feel like I do not have enough time and my energy levels seem to be more sensitive than ever before. Perhaps that is why writing and ritual are such great bedfellows. The two can work together to create a meditative space, carving out some alone time to savor gratitude or process hardship. Know … [Read more...]
The Mind/ Body Connection: Just Relax
The words that make me immediately tense up: "Just Relax." If it was that easy, I would be a surfer or own a marijuana dispensary. But instead I am a writer and at the end of my five week Stunt Writing practice, and I have found that I love the fire in the belly, the tension, the striving. I enjoy drinking strong coffee that puts me on edge. Feeling my shoulders hover up by my ears is nothing new, as my body contorts to take on the stress. I have a never-ending "to do" list that might as well have a line item for enjoying myself, planning fun things, and breathing. I'm a planner, pure and … [Read more...]