Thursday, January 13, 2011
Writing ,Writing and More Writing
So....okay...looking through my years and years of handwritten journals, i keep running across the Phrase "Oh, if I only had time to write about this" or "Gee, I wish I had time to really just write and write and write...",....stuff like that...there is a constant stream of yearning to write...put words and more words onto paper and tell stories, and record ...well...record ME...my life..my thoughts.,....(are we our thoughts?)
It seems I have always wanted to not only be a writer, but I've always wanted to write...and ,if the journals are any evidence, i have done a lot of it: writing, I mean...and as I go through the stacks and notebooks and boxes of stuff we are now unpacking, i am realizing how much other stuff I have produced as well, besides the journals: stories, poems...more stories...ideas for all sorts of things....i have lots and lots of writing already done!..Not finished...but essentially and substantially done. It's a pleasure to make these discoveries....i am proud of all I've put on paper. And on my computer blog as well.
It's not difficult to actually call myself a writer, based on all the stuff I have actually written.
Now it's important to me that I actually learn how to do it well, and it would also be good if I produced some publishable things . So, part of this time is for my beginning a real submission period: getting my writing out there. My meagre attempts to get some poetry published some years ago actually did yield about three or four of my poems being accepted and put into print...in small journals no one ever heard of...but still , there was some acceptance out there. And now it's time for more...more.
My much-anticipated Winters Writers Workshop with Adair Lara began a couple of nights ago, at the lovely house that Adair owns and shares with her husband Bill. I believe that part of the large building is rented out to friends,etc. but the part that Adair and Bill live in is spacious, comfortable, and incredibly familiar: it felt homey and ,as I said, familiar from the moment I walked in....it felt like Peter and I lived there: the books, the art, the large screen HDTV, the comfy furniture and lamps, the warmth of it, the creativity. It felt so so so familiar...so comfortable.
I had a one-on-one meeting arranged with Adair, before the 6:45 start time, so I was by far the earliest to arrive, and she invited me right away back into her large kitchen...i needed to clear my thinking and get my bearings as far as how to proceed in this new experience ...and she was very helpful: she listened, truly listened....and we shaped a few ideas about projects I both wanted to already do, and ones that were possible...she was helpful. And when we went around the circle once the workshop began, it was those ideas i told the group about.
This group of people...what can I say? It's like I have died and , yet again, gone to heaven, it is so perfect...like so much of this entire San Francisco time of my life: it is perfect. The folks in it - some 12, I'd say - are smart, interesting, well-read, fun and funny, easy to be with, accomplished in so many varied professions...and did I say smart?? So many book titles , of things people were suggesting be read, and of things they themselves have written, were flying around the discussion, i had trouble writing them all down....and Adair is all business: no chitchat allowed: it's all about the writing. We can - and will - chat on our breaks...and over cups of coffee after the workshop, over dinners and , I suspect, lots of cocktails, if we evolve the way we possibly could evolve as a group. It is a personable lot. Oh, and did I say smart as well? This is a smart gang.
We are assigned a new writing partner each week - so I will end up working with 12 new people in all - and this week I have the good fortune to be working with a man about my age, maybe slightly older, named Chuck H. who is so truly interesting and the writing he has sent me so far is so good, so hearty and deeply thought and felt. We've given each other three new pieces, based on pre-workshop exercises Adair suggested, and I have sent him a couple new things quickly revised from blog entries that I want to submit to local papers. And because we have all been advised to use the Track Change function on our MACS, i am learning an entire new thing about my computer's word processing abilities...and that is swell...so truly useful.
So, for a week, we send our writing partner everything we write. Plus, Adair gave us three or four things to write for next Tuesday...based on articles and ideas she uses to get our minds going...plus, she has already sent one , what she calls, "prompt", which is an order to drop everything else and write for 15 minutes about the topic she gives us. She sent one this morning. It was fun. And I sent Chuck that as well. PLUS, we all had to choose 5 specific dates on which we will give her and her alone pieces of writing we want her to critique and work with. So, clearly, at least around my house, there is a lot of writing going on. Heavenly. Wonderful . Exactly what I have been wanting for so long. Ecstasy.
And with the new shelving Peter has put in our bedroom, i have a true writing area now....with room for all the stuff I have already written to be catalogued and stored for easy access..and room as well for all the new writing i am doing and it's great. I have come to San Francisco, home to my writing self.
It seems I have always wanted to not only be a writer, but I've always wanted to write...and ,if the journals are any evidence, i have done a lot of it: writing, I mean...and as I go through the stacks and notebooks and boxes of stuff we are now unpacking, i am realizing how much other stuff I have produced as well, besides the journals: stories, poems...more stories...ideas for all sorts of things....i have lots and lots of writing already done!..Not finished...but essentially and substantially done. It's a pleasure to make these discoveries....i am proud of all I've put on paper. And on my computer blog as well.
It's not difficult to actually call myself a writer, based on all the stuff I have actually written.
Now it's important to me that I actually learn how to do it well, and it would also be good if I produced some publishable things . So, part of this time is for my beginning a real submission period: getting my writing out there. My meagre attempts to get some poetry published some years ago actually did yield about three or four of my poems being accepted and put into print...in small journals no one ever heard of...but still , there was some acceptance out there. And now it's time for more...more.
My much-anticipated Winters Writers Workshop with Adair Lara began a couple of nights ago, at the lovely house that Adair owns and shares with her husband Bill. I believe that part of the large building is rented out to friends,etc. but the part that Adair and Bill live in is spacious, comfortable, and incredibly familiar: it felt homey and ,as I said, familiar from the moment I walked in....it felt like Peter and I lived there: the books, the art, the large screen HDTV, the comfy furniture and lamps, the warmth of it, the creativity. It felt so so so familiar...so comfortable.
I had a one-on-one meeting arranged with Adair, before the 6:45 start time, so I was by far the earliest to arrive, and she invited me right away back into her large kitchen...i needed to clear my thinking and get my bearings as far as how to proceed in this new experience ...and she was very helpful: she listened, truly listened....and we shaped a few ideas about projects I both wanted to already do, and ones that were possible...she was helpful. And when we went around the circle once the workshop began, it was those ideas i told the group about.
This group of people...what can I say? It's like I have died and , yet again, gone to heaven, it is so perfect...like so much of this entire San Francisco time of my life: it is perfect. The folks in it - some 12, I'd say - are smart, interesting, well-read, fun and funny, easy to be with, accomplished in so many varied professions...and did I say smart?? So many book titles , of things people were suggesting be read, and of things they themselves have written, were flying around the discussion, i had trouble writing them all down....and Adair is all business: no chitchat allowed: it's all about the writing. We can - and will - chat on our breaks...and over cups of coffee after the workshop, over dinners and , I suspect, lots of cocktails, if we evolve the way we possibly could evolve as a group. It is a personable lot. Oh, and did I say smart as well? This is a smart gang.
We are assigned a new writing partner each week - so I will end up working with 12 new people in all - and this week I have the good fortune to be working with a man about my age, maybe slightly older, named Chuck H. who is so truly interesting and the writing he has sent me so far is so good, so hearty and deeply thought and felt. We've given each other three new pieces, based on pre-workshop exercises Adair suggested, and I have sent him a couple new things quickly revised from blog entries that I want to submit to local papers. And because we have all been advised to use the Track Change function on our MACS, i am learning an entire new thing about my computer's word processing abilities...and that is swell...so truly useful.
So, for a week, we send our writing partner everything we write. Plus, Adair gave us three or four things to write for next Tuesday...based on articles and ideas she uses to get our minds going...plus, she has already sent one , what she calls, "prompt", which is an order to drop everything else and write for 15 minutes about the topic she gives us. She sent one this morning. It was fun. And I sent Chuck that as well. PLUS, we all had to choose 5 specific dates on which we will give her and her alone pieces of writing we want her to critique and work with. So, clearly, at least around my house, there is a lot of writing going on. Heavenly. Wonderful . Exactly what I have been wanting for so long. Ecstasy.
And with the new shelving Peter has put in our bedroom, i have a true writing area now....with room for all the stuff I have already written to be catalogued and stored for easy access..and room as well for all the new writing i am doing and it's great. I have come to San Francisco, home to my writing self.
Labels: SF Writing
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