Fairy Tales and Other Stories of Our Lives

Lately I’ve been living in fantasy. Not all the time (thank goodness!), but the Young Adult (YA) books I’ve been reading take me to some places that don’t exist (and several that do, like San Francisco and Paris) for some pretty wild adventures. The novels are by Irish author Michael Scott (http://www.dillonscott.com/). I picked up the first one, which turned out to be the second in a series, The Magician {The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel} (Delacorte Press, 2008), and winged through it in about a day-and-a-half. The next day, I ventured out and purchased book one, The Alchemyst (which I’m reading now), and book three, The Sorceress (maybe I’ll take a break in between, with a non-YA book before picking this one up, or maybe not). Those of you who devoured the Harry Potter novels are likely to enjoy these as well. But that’s not the point of this blog entry…

Witnessing such incredible imagination woven into a series of stories set in contemporary times, using mythic and legendary characters as well as fictional ones, led me to several thoughts, which I list below and will attempt try to explain further.

1. I believe that imagination is the primary tool of a successful writer.
2. Imagination fires our storytelling.
3. All creativity is storytelling, in whatever form the artist chooses to express it.
4. There are no new stories. What is new is how each individual tells her/his story.
5. Telling our stories is healing because there are no “new” stories: by choosing to tell our story our way, we – and our readers/listeners – discover the universal thread between them and all humanity.
6. In this way, there is the potential for both the teller, the reader/listener and the planet to heal.
7. Because of this healing potential, it is critical that all people find ways in which to tell their stories.
8. In his excellent book, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers & Screenwriters, Christopher Vogel says, “All stories consist of a few common elements found universally in myths, fairy tales, dreams and movies. They are known collectively as The Hero’s Journey.”
9. We are the heroes of our own lives.
10. Everything in these lives is fodder for writing our stories.
11. To tell a story is to witness.
12. We witness our own lives, the lives of other people, the life of the planet and the universe. It is incumbent upon each artist (and we are all artists) to show the world how s/he sees the world.

Whew! Lots to chew on there, eh? Yet I have a feeling most writers know all this. Why else do we write?

On the other hand, artists are good at battering themselves with self-doubt. How many guilt trips can a writer fit into one day (to paraphrase some old jokes)? There’s the I didn’t write today (or yesterday… or for the past week…) trip; the I wasted half-an-hour on Free Cell or Spider Solitaire on the computer when I could’ve been editing that poem guilt (I confess to this one!); or the I’m spending all this time on reading (or whatever) when I need to be submitting my work guilt trip. It goes on and on. So it’s tough to pull a reminder up in our heads that we are on a mythic journey ourselves and that we have precious words to fashion together, as well as other creative work to accomplish.

In Your Mythic Journey: Finding Meaning in Your Life Through Writing and Storytelling, Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox advocate, “To be a person is to have a story to tell. We become grounded in the present when we color in the outlines of the past. Mythology can add perspective and encouragement to your life. Within each of us is a tribe with a complete cycle of legends and dances, songs to be sung. We were all born into rich mythical lives; we need only claim the stories that are our birthright.” Perhaps that is a starting-point for many: figuring out their tribe and its legends. If we have little more than a few fragments of our tribe’s mythology available to us, then we make it up. Imagine it.

Years ago, I led a workshop at the International Women’s Writing Guild summer conference titled “Reading and Writing the Fairy Tale – with a Feminist Twist.” As I researched the topic in preparation for the six sessions, I was struck by the connection between fairy tales and other categories within the folklore genre. Some take on different formats (poetic verse, bardic) and are labeled Epic. Legends, prose in the present or recent past, are supposedly true (or hold a grain of truth). Myths come out of the distant past and they tend to be reflect social norms or values; they are also likely to be sacred and try to explain how things came to be. Fairy tales evolved out of these traditions and include heroic characters with archetypal attributes (the Warrior, the Mother, the Crone, etc.).- just as other folklore categories generally do. For me, what sets the fairy tale apart from these others is the imagination involved. The teller of the tale creates her/his own story, usually complete with magical characters, objects that might take on human attributes, and journeys taken in the name of valor and/or love. In today’s world, this might seem simplistic but it’s the plot of any excellent movie or book, if you look deep enough.

I could go on and on about fairy tales, about the fact that they weren’t initially invented to entertain kids but for adults’ enjoyment (and to enable them to satirize the societies in which they lived); about how they evolved into a mostly children’s genre; about how feminists sometimes dub them as anti-woman but, looked at as reflections of their times, they paint a different picture—including one that affirms that women were the ones who first embraced the genre and brought it into their salons and other peoples’ lives. But again, not my point here.

The point is IMAGINATION.

If you let your BRAIN (critic) go, let it release your MIND (memories, creativity) to play—MAGIC happens. Just sit down with pen and paper, or laptop running MS Word, and tap into Creative Mind.

Here are a few prompts that might help that along-

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YOUR TURN:

~~ What are some of the fairy tales of your childhood that you can recall? Did they sometimes send a message that perhaps doesn’t ring true for you today? Can you re-write them? Give them a different ending? Try it, à la Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (Macmillan, 1994) and Once Upon a More Enlightened Time (Macmillan, 1995), both books by James Finn Garner (I particularly loved Garner’s revision of “Cinderella,” ending with Cinderella rejecting the sex-crazed prince and opening her own clothing co-op, selling only comfortable, practical womyn’s clothing!). Don’t worry about whether or not you’re remembering the story exactly as it was told or read to you. Just start with “Once upon a time…” or “In a village long ago…” or a similar fairy tale, belief-suspending opening. Write.

~~ Fairy tale characters are flat. They have no depth. These stories express conflict through action and/or symbols. Choose some common object that might symbolize a goal of a character. You can gild it with gold or make it the enchanted diary of an ancient witch. Maybe it’s encrusted with gems or hidden in inaccessible mountains or seas. Let the object steer your story. Like the The Magician {The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel}, perhaps you might set the basic story in modern times with the ancient magical object the goal, for whatever reasons your character(s) desires attaining it. Aren’t we all seeking the Holy Grail in our own ways? Start with the object and write.

~~ Write a poem inspired by a fairy tale. Perhaps it might be easier to focus on a particular fairy tale figure. For example, did you ever think back on Red Riding Hood’s rash decision to go traipsing off into the woods alone? To speak to a wolf? Could you ask her the question, “What were you thinking?” Or how about all the women in these stories that are just waiting for their Prince? What if the prince turns out to be a real toad – like after the marriage, it’s not so “happily ever after”? Many writers have successfully created poetry from some aspect of a fairy tale. Examples: “Against Cinderella” by Julia Alvarez (http://www.proaxis.com/~calyx/excerpts.html); “Gretel in Berkeley” by Eve Sweetser (www.endicott-studio.com/); “Fairy Tale” by Ron Padgett (http://poets.org.com/ – search the author’s name or the title); “The Witch Has Told You a Story” by Ava Leavell Haymon (also http://www.poets.org/). Others you might find in books, a couple geared toward children: “Once Upon a Time She Said” by Jane Yolen (Seeing the Blue Between: Advice & Inspiration for Young Poets compiled by Paul B. Janeczko, Candlewick Press, 2002); “Ginger Bread Boy,” a haiku by Jane Yolen (also in Seeing the Blue Between); “Cinderella’s Diary” by Ron Koertge (Writing the Poetic Life: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry by Sage Cohen, Writers Digest Books, 2009). If you can’t think of where or how to start, pick a well-known character and start with “What were you thinking, Cinderella (or Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, etc.), when you…” and go from there. Start! Now.

~~ Maybe you’re in the mood for an essay? Write about memories of parents or grandparents reading fairy tales or telling bedtime stories to you. Or about your first fairy tale book (was it your very first book?). Or about how Disney films based on fairy tales reflected the culture of the ‘50s, with the heroines always waiting for their Prince—and how that supported views of gender views at the time. If you were of those generations, how did it affect you? Or write about reading fairy tales to your own children, grandchildren, children at the library, etc.

~~ Read a few of the transformed fairy tales and bedtime stories written for today’s children, such as some of my favorites: Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood by Mike Artell, illustrated by Jim Harris (Puffin Books, 2001); Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson, illustrated by Kevin O’Malley (Lathrop, Lee & Shepard, 1994); Rapunzel: a groovy fairy tale by Lynn Roberts, illustrated by David Roberts (Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2003); and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by A. Wolf, written and illustrated by Jon Scieszka. Or go to http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/, a great site for history and texts of tales and more. If you’d like a site that can help you transform your personal stories into fairy tales, try http://www.storydynamics.com/, a site helpful for oral storytelling. Let any of these resources prompt your writing!

Note: The witch picture at the top of this blog is an Artist Trading Card (size of a baseball card) of my own creation. Aha! Another prompt-- create your fairy tale in pictures! or colors! or wild and crazy shapes!

Thank You, Rochelle

What does your writer/artist-community look like? This week, I’ve been thinking lots about my community, or communities to be specific, and find myself evermore grateful for all the support I’ve managed to find for my creativity over the years. This is not without effort, of course, because the world does not usually come crawling to kiss your feet. Maybe especially the writing world. In many ways, to be an artist is to go it alone – so to gather together, to create, a circle of like-minded or like-creative friends and acquaintances is not an abracadabra-it’s-here happening.

For me, first there was the group that poet-therapist Rochelle Brener led at the Capital District Psychiatric Center years ago, called Relatives Writing Workshop. These were the gatherings that brought me back to writing. To join, you had to have a relative or close friend with a mental illness. Finding this group – and Rochelle – in 1992 was a god(dess)-send, all the way through to its closure in 1995. It was Rochelle who handed me my first brochure for the International Women’s Writing Guild summer conference, which I finally attended in 1995 (and haven’t missed since). When I decided to create a writing group emulating the inspiring, supportive IWWG event’s atmosphere, it was at Rochelle Brener’s newly opened Mandala Center for Creative Wellness that WomanWords first came together. We continued to meet there for almost five years, until my friend moved to Sedona.

I think of all the networking – the communities – that have come out of that life-changing moment when I first saw the tiny blurb about Relatives Writing Workshop in some newsletter. IWWG led to WomanWords, WomanWords to meeting so many gifted women, who led me to the active open mic scene in the Upper Hudson/Mohawk River area of New York State, to the Hudson Valley Writing Guild. WomanWords also resulted in my organizing smaller writing groups- Wild Women Writing, Beach Writers, a 4-person poetry feedback group. Through writers and artists encountered in all these communities, I’ve gotten acquainted with others, attended workshops, friended folks on Facebook. The connections go on and on.

No wonder the WomanWords logo includes a spider web, symbolizing the ever-widening connections between women writers. It goes beyond women to ALL writers. Each thread affirms the spirit and enthusiasm with which we honor our words. Our stories are everyone’s stories, individualized and universal.

Rochelle passed away in Sedona two years ago this past March. How do you thank someone who gave you a gift you already possessed but needed to own? What do you say about a person who gave so much of herself to everyone she encountered, yet would tell you she received as much and more in return? You can’t “miss” an angel when you know she sits on your right shoulder always, and yet sometimes you’d love to hear her voice, get another e-mail from her with her latest poem or announcement about her activities.

Here’s a poem I wrote at a workshop with John Fox, author of Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making (http://www.poeticmedicine.com/), late last year. I believe the prompt was to write to someone asking their assistance with something, perhaps in letter or prayer form. For me, the result speaks to all Rochelle was, as much as it entreats her spirit for a little help in areas in which I could use it! (Still haven't figured out how to stop Blogger from destroying my poem's format, so this one's off too!)


INVOKING ROCHELLE*
by Marilyn Zembo Day

Teach me to listen, dear friend,
for the bubbling undercurrent,
the spring from which heart and soul
erupts, where words attempt to describe
a life, a vision, a world unseen by others
yet real in its gifts and inevitable losses.

Show me how to focus, to bring myself
inward, to scratch away unnecessary
scrabble that pulls me further from
streams of consciousness, threatening
to scatter me like white wisps of dandelion
to impotent corners far from my creative self.

Rochelle, bring me to your place of discovery,
shared with so many, that I might produce
even a fraction of what you imparted to a broken
weeping world: words, visions, confidence,
empathy, sympathy, joy — folded into star-studded
packets of poetry, prose, expressive arts.

Keep me from spilling into my tendencies toward
over-doing, spreading into multiple layers
of plans, workshops, appointments. Take me,
instead, into the silence I am learning
to cherish where you, my Muse, remind me

I am called
to create.

I ask this, my once and always friend,
in the names of all goddesses we invoked,
in honor of countless lives you enriched,
for warming light you brought to shadowed faces,

because your torch burns still, in our hearts.

Blessed Be.

*Rochelle Brener (1945-2008), writer, editor, poet-therapist, Senior Poet Laureate of Arizona, artist, photographer, mask maker.


Do I think this is the best of poems? No. But, for me, it is healing. It addresses the woman who showed me how to create real community and to sustain it. Remember that movie title, Pay It Forward? This is what I do, for Rochelle, for Judi Beach, for Hannelore Hahn, for every person (most of whom have been women) who inspired and supported me. And for myself, because my mentors have taught me that to nurture the world, one must first nurture and love one’s Self.

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YOUR TURN

• Make a list of your “communities” – groups of people in your life, however formalized or freeform they might be. Writing groups, co-workers, community action groups, art organizations, neighborhood friends, family, etc. Jot down notes about how each supports you. Note also if there are negatives, i.e., do they pull you down sometimes? call your goals pipedreams?
o Choose one group, one member of that group, and write a letter to her/him. Ask their help with something: a project, a personal matter, etc. (Note: all “letters” in this exercise are meant to be “Unsent Letters” although you could really mail them if you like.)
o Write a Thank You note to each community.
o Write a Letter to Self, promising that you will spend more time with the supportive community folks than those making you feel that you can’t write/create, that nothing you will do will ever be good enough, or that you should re-focus on the money-making side of life.

• I re-contacted my favorite high school English teacher years ago, after WomanWorder Judith Prest wrote about letters and meetings with her old English teacher at a WW session where our theme was “Mentors.” While Judy’s teacher has since passed away, I still occasionally have lunch with mine (she moved back to the Capital Region several years ago), often bringing books for the library in her community of Roman Catholic sisters.
o Write about someone who nurtured your desire to write or create art of any kind. Can you recall what s/he looked like? Her/his scent? Put it in the context of the period in time (what did the clothes look like? automobiles driven by this person, if any? anything that will put your mentor in a time and place). How were you mentored? Did this person have faith in your abilities when others didn’t, when you didn’t? Were you reluctant to accept help or encouragement? Do you know where your mentor is today?
o Write a letter to someone who nurtured your creativity. Thank them. Tell them how they did it and what you’re doing now with what s/he taught you. This person may not be alive today; or you might know where s/he lives.
o Write a letter to someone you think needs encouragement, especially in the realm of writing/creativity. Point out specific talents you’ve witnessed in her/her, and give them hope that they can enrich the world with their work. Make them want to make more art, to develop their talents. Tell them about what they may encounter on their artistic path and how to counter negativity.
o Often our mentors aren’t real people in our lives. They’re people in history or books, writers we’ve never met, subjects of news stories who’ve inspired. Write about someone you’ve admired from afar, real or unreal, living or dead—what they did/said that impressed you; how you might like to emulate her/him. This could be in letter form, if you like.