Getting REstarted: The Guilt of NOT Writing

I can't believe that my last post was in April. But then I can.

Under the best of circumstances, it's tough to find time for many of the things we love to do (there are so many!). Working part-time (I've been retired from my NYS job since December 2002) took a good chink of time out of my writing/art activities, and then there were the usual things to accomplish as a family member, friend and part of the general population. On top of that, I was planning the WomanWords retreat (which came off beautifully) and getting ready to attend a week at the International Women's Writing Guild summer conference this month. All of this lead to NO blogging and consequent guilt for not getting to it.

You'd think my guilt over not writing much (well, not writing enough, in my own estimation) in recent years would've been sufficient fuel for my Inner Critic. All those short stories, poems, essays, plays and who knows what else... lost forever. And then I decided to start a blog. Another thing over which I could ruminate for not having written. At least I was creative in coming up with something else about which to feel guilty. Evil Critic was dancing for joy.

I wanted to be the writer consumed with her work. I wanted a place in the woods on a lovely pond or, better still, oceanside, away from the busyness of the world, soothing surf and hovering gulls the only sounds, out of earshot of televisions and phone calls; where I couldn't see the spider webs growing at the intersections of ceilings and walls, or dust bunnies nesting in corners and on bookcases and end tables (not all because I sometimes actually did write either). Of course, I know these are ideals which become excuses, so I still eked out time to draft enough work to qualify me as a writer (especially if there was a deadline-- I'm good with real deadlines), something I was proclaiming as I stood in front of writers who trusted that I could tell them how they too could tell their stories.

Well, I'm not consumed. I love to write and I think I have something to say, but none of that exactly eats at my innards. I didn't have a horrific childhood. We were lower middle class, tottering sometimes on the edge of upper lower class. I'm a Baby Boomer: my father worked (he was somewhat of a workaholic); my mother didn't, at least not until Dad died when she was 43 years old and went to work for New York State as a file clerk. Dad was the son of Polish immigrants. He fought in the Good War and came home to take a few courses at Albany Business College, quitting to enter the working world. We didn't even have a car in the family until my younger brother George got a license and a Ford Falcon at age 17. Neither George, our "baby" brother Bill or I were abused or neglected. Some might say, why bother to write at all-- isn't this kinda bland stuff?

Ah, but I have stories. My nose sniffs a faint scent of something familiar and a memory emerges. My hands explore a texture and I'm traveling back in time to a place I haven't seen in years-- maybe it doesn't even exist anymore, except in my own mind. I come across a picture in a cookbook of a long-ago favorite, something a grandmother or aunt cooked or baked, and my tongue longs for it, my mouth waters. I have eyes and ears. I have a heart and a brain and a good imagination. All of these add up to a great recipe for pen-to-paper, fingers-to-keyboard. The problem has always been with Me.

After the dinner dishes were done, which was after dinner had been prepared and consumed (this kind of consumption I am very good at)-- which might've been after a few stops on the way home after work, which might've been after leaving the office somewhat later than expected-- I was reluctant to sit down at the computer to write. Oh yeah, when the kids were young, there were other things going on as well. Once I get started, however, if it's a really good start, then I'm driven to keep going (OK, I can get consumed under the right circumstances). I lose track of time. It's 2 or 3 a.m. before I finally stop typing (with reluctance, eyes drooping, chest filled with exhaustion). Try getting up at 5:30 for work after that. I am my father's and mother's daughter and that middle class work ethic sometimes hounds me: get up, get there, do the best you can at least 98% of the time. Your best doesn't happen when you can barely keep your eyes open, at least not in a government office. When that happens, there's another sort of guilt than sets in. Same Critic, shifted into a different gear.

Not that this blog wasn't (and still is) a great idea. I've come to believe that one of my inspirations for writing is an incredible community of writers that surrounds me, both locally and at some distance, the latter a result of attending the IWWG conference since 1995. I love organizing and following through on all the intricacies of making writing and creativity workshops and retreats happen, whether or not I'm the person facilitating the sessions or I've brought another IWWG person to the area for that purpose. Sometimes I think I get more excited researching and pulling together agendas and handouts for sessions than when they happen-- I am imagining how this prompt or that exercise will tweak somebody's Muse into action. Starting a blog to prompt writers (or wannabe writers) back to their pens and computers is a natural extension of all this.

And here I am... back at it. The difference this time is: I quit the part-time job three weeks ago. I'm back from last week's IWWG conference, newly inspired, its Magic (the theme is always "Remember the Magic") having somewhat muted if not silenced the persistent Inner Critic. I am committing myself to at least once-a-week blogging on A Woman and Her Words and, believe it or not, I'm planning to start another blog in the near future related to my other passion, sacred space (stay tuned!).

In the meantime, let me get you writing...

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YOUR TURN

1. What do you feel guilty about? Something you've done? Something you haven't done but think you should be doing? Write about it. Ask yourself if the guilt is self-imposed and how. From a childhood religion? From strict parents? From some other source outside family?
2. Write about a secret. Any secret. Yours or one someone else once told you. Was it ever revealed? If so, what were the repercussions? Were you the one who told it? Did you feel guilty about it, or was it important that you tell someone (and why was it important)?
3. Write a letter to your Inner Critic. Tell him/her off, or try to bribe him/her into toning down the negativity for a while. Give reasons why s/he should do this. You might even give him/her a name (why did you choose this name?).
4. Imagine that your Inner Critic sits on your left shoulder and your Writing Angel on your right. If they were arguing over something, what would it be? Write the dialogue and the results.

Poetry as Memoir: Writing from Photographs

A photograph is one of the best writing prompts going. Subject matter doesn't matter, origin doesn't either. What does matter is that something in the photo attracts or repels you, enough so that it triggers a desire to write from it. It may bring back a memory. It could simply spark an essay on a topic about which you have an opinion. Maybe there's a short story possibility in what you see. And if the photograph is an old picture that includes family, friends and/or acquaintance? Same options, except I happen to think these types of pictures are especially loaded for memoir... and poetry that smacks of memoir.

I've always loved collage and, in recent years, there's a particular kind of this medium that's drawn me in: soul collage (www.soulcollage.com). It was developed by therapist Seena Frost, who uses it with her clients and has seen its healing affects. I won't go into detail about the process but you should know that it involves exactly what I mentioned above: selecting images that attract or repel you (actually, it seems that the objects select you) and putting them into a 5" x 8" collage on pre-cut mat board. Each collage becomes a card that might, if you choose to go further, be delegated to one of four "suits" in a deck of cards. You can think of the deck as sort of Jungian, or like a Tarot deck, from which you can select a card or two each day and ponder what it might "tell" you (how you feel, what might be bothering you, are you going in the right direction, etc.). It's an tool for introspection. The card becomes more than what you were seeing and feeling at the time you created it--what you "see" can be different each time you view it. Which is why they make great writing prompts.

My favorite "suit" is the Community suit. For this one, it's a little more than just letting a card pick you. There's a little planning involved, which means you bring pictures to the table--of friends, family members, old neighbors, pets and more. These are supposed to be the individuals who form your community, who might've been mentors, who had something to do with how you became the person you are today. In a sense, they are your support group. As with all soul cards, the suggested prompt is to start with, "I Am the One Who..." and speak or write from there.

It can be the same with any old photograph. Speak/write as though you are that person and something falls onto the page. We pour our memories into a piece not worrying about fact, more concerned with truth. After all, memoir is not autobiography (a person's factual life, start to finish, or at least up until the age of the author when written). Memoir is about your own recollection of things, your own perception. What shaped you wasn't just what happened to you but also how you perceived it and how you reacted. And, unlike its cousin autobiography, it can cover only a small period of your life. We don't tell lies-- but we can fill in missing information with our questions and mention our assumptions, pondering what might have happened or why others acted as they did.

Poetry, I find, is a great tool for putting some of those memoir/memories into a short piece that conveys specific images yet doesn't have to convey exact dates. You want details in a poem, but it's a place where metaphor and simile is particulary welcome. Maybe the picture that inspires the poem isn't even a picture of the people you choose to write about. Recently, in a poetry workshop led by Therese Broderick at Eastline Books and Literary Center in Clifton Park, NY, my eyes were drawn to an interesting picture in the magazine that Therese provided to each participant. In it, a woman was playing a violin outside of what appeared to be a public building in a country-like setting. A small crowd gathered around, listening. I noticed small details such as the fact that the woman had a detachable lace collar around her neck, although otherwise casually dressed, and that every male in the crowd sported some kind of baseball cap. But my attention kept going back to that musical instrument, which I saw as a "fiddle"-- which brought me to memories of a favorite uncle and aunt. Here's where that took me:


GHOSTS
by Marilyn Zembo Day

My husband calls from Willey Street. Honey, there are ghosts
here, he says, and I know what he means. Over the phone line,
I hear the crackle of shuffling cards, the echo of Uncle Charlie
calling Deuces wild; clattering dice tumbling across the dark wood
of a well-scratched kitchen table, Scrabble tiles snapping into place.
Laughter backs up shouts of May I, and the slow fizzing of caps
twisting clear of Budweiser bottles mists over my eyes.

No one loves a game more than a Willey or a Boyd. No one
enjoys a beer better either. In the basement making adjustments
on a boiler that will soon hum for new residents, Bill listens
for the rattle of pans in the kitchen, thinks he detects the scent
of frying brook trout and bass. A distant memory flickers:
he is supporting the backend of a rowboat as he and my uncle ascend
a steep Adirondack hill, intent on better fishing streams beyond.

My young husband huffs and puffs, barely able to keep pace
as he grasps at his slippery end of the craft. Charlie, 70-year-old
fisherman, carpenter, weaver of baskets, doesn’t break a sweat.
If you put his fiddle in hand, Charlie Willey might easily call
a mountain square dance as they climb, keeping time with passing
clouds, the flight of a bald eagle, the migration of deer, elk
and star-eyed wolves. I do not wonder at this man’s imprint

on a house he built, on a street he once owned, in a town in which
his name meant something. I don’t ask my husband if he heard
the click-clacking of Aunt Helen’s knitting needles or the quiet
whirr of her sewing machine upstairs. I imagine a gentler impression
like the steady skilled stitches of her embroidery, creating a pattern,
an umbrella-logo under which family sheltered and blossomed,
nourished in her garden, by books and warm homemade cookies.

At my aunt’s memorial service, her grandson Doug predicted
the unthinkable: Soon, he said, there will be no more Willeys
on Willey Street. Wrong, I thought. When you spend decades
in a house built with your own hands, its one-time green-shingled exterior
cradles your spirit. If new owners are worthy, perhaps walls will whisper
secret strategies to them: how to win at Jacks or Better, how to catch
the biggest fish, when to let it all go to just love and be loved.


YOUR TURN

1. Pull out an old family photo album. Choose three photographs and let them inspire some writing. If you don't know where to begin, become one of the people in the photo and start with I am the One who... Don't worry about exact data like dates and time or even place; the details can be about the expression on the person's face, what s/he was wearing, did s/he seem comfortable posing, what is s/he doing (if you don't know, imagine).

2. Grab some old magazines and thumb through them, pulling out a batch of pictures that either attract or repel you. Gather at least 10 of them. Create a collage with a few of the objects in the pictures. Perhaps one of them will provide a background for the collage. Try not to do too much thinking as you create; just do it. And don't worry about artistic composition. Once it's together, take a few minutes to decide what it is saying to you. From the jumble, can you find a memory? Of a person, an event, something that was important to you? Does a part of the picture you've created bring back smells and sounds of another time? Does something move you to imagine a relative's or friend's life? Write whatever comes.

3. Take your camera and yourself somewhere that you can take plenty of pictures. Go crazy with that shutter button! (Digital is best, if you have one, since you can download right away and not have to wait for development.) Choose one of your new pictures from which to write-- what made you snap that picture? what sensations surround the object(s)-- joy? sadness? pain? violence? where are you in all this (observing only? commentator on an issue? appreciating its beauty? chronicling a place and time?). Write whatever comes.