wishBIG ecamp Giveaway

I'm giving away one spot for wishBIG ecamp, which starts next week (February 19-26), and is going to be an extravaganza of creative goodness with me and seven other teachers. To enter for a chance to win a free spot, please leave a comment on this post with one of your wishes, hopes, or dreams. I'll choose a winner randomly on Wednesday, February 15 Tuesday, February 14 (yep, that's Valentine's Day!) at 5:00pm (ET).

What am I sharing at wishBIG ecamp?

I'm debuting a new workshop, "One-moment Memoirs," at ecamp, and I'm quite excited about it. I had so much fun putting it together, and I can't wait to share it with you. My workshop includes several video posts, a virtual reading of one of my own one-moment memoirs, and a fun, accessible, step-by-step process to emopwer you to write your own one-moment memoir.

So...What are one-moment memoirs?

That moment when you're washing dishes, and you see your own hand holding a little metal bouquet of silverware, and for a second you think it's your mother's hand.

That moment when your beloved touches your cheek, and you know in your bones that something fundamental has shifted.

That moment when you hear the loud summer buzz of cicadas, and a line of poetry floats into your mind, begging you to capture it for later.

That moment when the sun slants just so, or the clock ticks too loudly, or you get the phone call you've been waiting for. Those moments big and small, those moments that matter, those moments that you want to live inside of, or make sense of, or share with others.

Some experiences beg us to write about them, but we often feel overwhelmed when trying to capture the whole story at once. One-moment Memoirs helps you take a relaxed yet focused approach to telling life's big and small stories in bite-sized pieces.

In this workshop we'll explore the art of short-form storytelling, also known as "flash creative nonfiction" (which also happens to be the prefect size for blog posts). Using writing prompts and exercises designed to help you connect with the heart of your story, we'll dig into the details of a single moment. You'll use these to write your very own one-moment memoir in two to three pages.

I'm excited to debut this workshop as part of wishBIG ecamp, where I'll be joining seven fabulous creative souls for a week of online workshops and virtual campfires for ecamp. Who else will be there? How about Rachel Awes, Stacy De La Rosa, Miranda Hersey, Connie Hozvicka, Vivienne McMaster, Amy Palko, and Chrisy Zydel. Nice lineup, eh?

Leave a comment (with one of your wishes, hopes, or dreams for a chance to win a free spot at ecamp. (Winner will be chosen at random at 5:00pm on Feb. 15 Feb. 14) Or if you just can't wait, you can see all of the wishBIG workshops and register here!

(Note: By registering for ecamp through the links from my site, you help to  support my work. Thank you!)

Creativity & Quiet (In The Word Cellar)

A few weeks ago I wrote about creativity and time, about such inconvenient facts as these: 

Ideas don't come down the conveyor belt in perfect succession, spaced apart just so. 

. . .

Creative work needs time and space to breathe.

This week I've been pondering the silence that our creative spirits need.

** ** **

Creativity craves a chapel.

"A chapel," writes Pico Iyer, "is where you can hear something beating below your heart."

This is why I need to write in silence: no music, no background chatter, not even a clock ticking too loudly. I need to be able to hear the words trying to come through me. I need the quiet so I can hear the melody of the language.

This isn't to say that one can only write in literal silence. I could, if given the chance, write to the sound of the ocean surf. I know writers who do some of their best work while sitting in a café listening to music through their headphones. For each of us, there are sounds that allow us to tap into the chapels of our creativity, sounds that enable us to hear the rhythm of our hearts and something beating below that. We need whatever version of sound or silence permits us entrance to the stories waiting for us to tell them.

Eudora Welty said it beautifully. She wrote that she hears a literal voice when she reads and when she writes.

It is the voice of the story or the poem itself. The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me through the reader-voice. I have supposed, but never found out, that this is the case with all readers ― to read as listeners ― and with all writers, to write as listeners. It may be part of the desire to write. The sound of what falls on the page begins the process of testing it for truth, for me. Whether I am right to trust so far I don’t know. By now I don’t know whether I could do either one, reading or writing, without the other.

My own words, when I am at work on a story, I hear too as they go, in the same voice that I hear when I read in books. When I write and the sound of it comes back to my ears, then I act to make my changes. I have always trusted this voice.

Welty is also known for saying that she listened for stories. 

Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it's an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.....

I don't know how Eudora listened for her stories when she was on her own. I don't know if she sat in silence, but I know that she didn't have the same temptations I face when I sit down to write on my laptop. She may have been distracted or tempted away from the page by many things, but she never had to fend off the siren songs of the Internet.

Oh Lord, this little white box on my lap and its magical, invisible companion, WiFi. Was there ever anything so marvelous and so terrible? I love this white keyboard (and my high school typing teacher) for the gift of being able to capture my thoughts in nearly real-time. I love the connection this device gives me to the world, real connections that break the bounds of anything virtual. It is ease and comfort and connection, all wrapped up in silicone and hard drive. And yet...

I know that when I hop around the Web, watch YouTube videos, surf the TV set, I turn away and feel agitated. I go for a walk, enjoy a real conversation with a friend, turn off the lights and listen to Bach or Leonard Cohen, and I feel palpably richer, deeper, fuller, happier.

Happiness is absorption, being entirely yourself and entirely in one place. That is the chapel that we crave. ~Pico Iyer

I like the chatter. I like tweeting and updating and commenting and posting. I even believe them to be one way I feed my creative spirit. But too easily I can get caught up in the noise of it all, in the twitchy, buzzy, fuzziness that doesn't make me happy, that doesn't deepen my thoughts.

If I want to write more consistently, I know that I have to invite in the quiet that I crave. I could go for a walk, or sit in the dark listening to music, as Iyer describes. I could read. (I constantly have to remind myself that reading is part of my creative process. I think I'm still incredulous that something I love so much could be so good ― even necessary ― for my artform. But really, could it be any other way?)  I could stare out the window and daydream. All of these things restore me to myself, which, in turn, restores my creativity to me. 

It turns out that I need silence not only when I'm writing, but in the spaces in-between the acts of creation. The silence is part of the "time and space" that our ideas need to breathe.

I sense that I have so much more to write about this. But my cat is currently banging a kitchen cupboard door, which is his noisy way of asking for what he craves (the food inside). Also, it is late, and if there's one other thing I need as much a silence, it is sleep. And so I'll stop here, but I'd love to know: What does your creativity need? What is your kind of silence? What is your chapel?

Sources:

"A Chapel Is Where You Can Hear Something Beating Below Your Heart" by Pico Iyer, originally published in Portland, Winter 2012, reprinted in The Best Spiritual Writing 2012, Philip Zaleski, editor

One Writer's Beginnings, by Eudora Welty

{In The Word Cellar runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Read other posts in the series here.}

My Words (a reminder to myself)

I wrote this whirling whorl of an essay and first posted it just over two years ago. Tonight something made me look for it and re-read it. I'm glad I did, because I needed a good jolt in the creative spirit. I'm constantly needing to remember to write, to start, to let my words do their thing. It's good to remember the snap and sizzle when I let the words fly. If you read it, I hope you'll get a good creative jolt, too. (And tell me: What do you words do)

** ** **

My words have been buttoned up in tight tuxedos, choking on champagne, cliché, and caviar. My words are tired of these too-tight high-heels that manage to look sensible, not sexy. My words have been holding their breath, corseted and small. My words have been making small talk but missing the flirty banter at the other end of the bar. My words ache to wear a sexy red dress that shows off a fair piece of décolletage. My words want to sprawl atop a piano. Or maybe my words prefer a seedy bar and a sequined halter top, just because they've never done that sort of thing before. Beer is an acquired taste, a bitter fizz and pop on my words' tongue. My words want to whisper in the dark, play it fast and loose, run across a field of wildflowers with a bottle of whiskey and Tom Petty singing sweet-yet-dark in the soundtrack sky. My words need to laugh, need to shoot up, need to let the bottom fall out. My words have never scandalized anyone, but they are still trying. My words are a carousel in the desert heat. My words drip honey onto hot buttered toast.

My words pick locks, jump out of planes, know exactly how to touch a man to make him moan. My words know First Aid. My words will never tickle you, because tickling is cruel, not fun. My words want to ride a fast horse. My words take a long, hot bath and then an ice cold shower. My words heard a strange noise in the night and whimpered. My words learn something new every day. Yesterday it was the term crepuscular, which sounds clinical but is actually something beautiful. My words try to speak French. A Cuban woman once mistook my words for Spanish. My words never flag. My words are in love. My words shake their fists and yell at the sky. My words miss you. My words have traveled to every timezone on the planet and never had jetlag. My words always say please-and-thank-you-very-much. My words will sing you a song. My words saw you standing there.

My words know when to be quiet. My words saw a hawk and called it an eagle. My words like to make an entrance. My words know all about cause and effect. My words mimic your casual affect. My words are Whirling Dervishes who live next door to Rumi. My words have fled the sand of the desert in search of water. My words are a sure-footed mountain goat with a little white beard. My words crossed the river. My words strip naked and streak across the page. My words will run in circles and all fall down. My words will keep you company. My words will shed a tear. My words will muster up a barbaric yawp and let it loose over the rooftops of the world. My words will spin you right round baby, right round. Like a record, baby. My words are your words. From California to the New York Island. My words hide in the shadows of a campfire. My words disco in the woods. My words will carpe diem. (Yeah, my words saw "Dead Poets Society." So did you.) My words strain at the seams, finger the hem of your dress, bite the soft pad of flesh on your upper arm. My words are hungry. My words don't know when to stop. My words are willful and ignorant, like a crab in the sand. My words are heavy ripe fruit on a tree. My words know how to count to one-hundred. My words are lullabies. My words are stars. My words will listen. My words know nothing about the ways of the world.

Super sweet discount code for Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing

Hello, creative souls! I put this out on Facebook and Twitter already, but I thought I'd post it here, too, in case you're not, you know, glued to my social networking streams. :)

Tonight at midnight (U.S. Eastern Time) I'll be sending out a super sweet discount code for Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing to the peeps on my mailing list. If you'd like to get in on this action, just sign-up before then and I'll make sure you get the deal.

My newsletter sign-up form is a bit hidden over on my Connect page, and I'm not sure everyone knows about it. I'm revamping things and will be making the sign-up more visible soon. I'm also sweetening the format of the newsletter so that every few weeks you'll receive something useful or encouraging for your writing life, such as stories, writing tips, invitations to inspiration, and other bits of creative loveliness. I respect your privacy and will never sell, rent, or share your information. And of course, you can unsubscribe at any time, no worries.

Remember, the discount code for Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing will go out tonight at midnight (9:00pm on the U.S. west coast). If you've been on the fence about joining in, now's the time to come on over.

Why is starting so hard? (a video & invitation)

A few posts ago I wrote a roundup of my upcoming courses and workshops. The next course, Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing, begins next Monday (February 6).

In this video I talk about the challenge of getting started with creative ventures (including video making!), and give you a glimpse into why I developed Alchemy Inspiration. I also talk about who it's designed for. (hint: want to write? feel stalled? feeling afraid? it's for you.)

It takes a lot of energy to start writing. This is true if you've never put pen to paper or if you've written a lot and "should" be an old pro by now.

Creativity needs kindling, something to spark the fire and get it going.

It needs time.

It needs courage.

It needs kindness, which can often be found in a community of like-minded souls.

And it needs trust. Trust in yourself, trust in your creative process. Of course, before you can trust yourself and your creative process, you need to know what that process is. You need to get acquainted with your own creative voice, with your muse, with the words bubbling up inside of you.

In Alchemy Inspiration you'll explore ways to listen for -- and hear -- those words bubbling up inside of you. You'll begin to recognize the stories aching for you to tell them. You'll play with words and delight in language. You'll uncover and experiment with your unique creative process. You'll learn to listen for -- and to trust -- your own writing voice. You'll give yourself the gift of time and space to write. (Maybe a little, maybe a lot.) You'll give yourself permission to play on the page. You'll allow yourself to be a beginner and to let the magic unfold without fear or worry or the need to make it "perfect."

It's going to be so good! Fun and accessible and inspirational. Friendly and supportive. Insightful and useful at the same time. (I love that combo!)

"Alchemy" can be defined as the "power or process of transforming something common into something special." In this course, the something common is words. The something special is your beautiful stories. Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing is about the magical transformations that happen within us and on the page when we allow ourselves to start stringing words together, delighting in language, and giving form to our stories.

I would love it if you joined us. Registration is open, and class starts next week. Want to come along? Want to start writing?