Choosing Joy

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P1040244I am writing about a character who, in the first stage of her journey (of my journey with her), realizes that she no longer feels joy. It’s something she experienced in the past–when she fell in love with her first husband, when her children were born. But now she is just slogging through life. She doesn’t see how it can be any different. What I need to do (writing this) is figure out what wakes her up and makes her see differently–to see that she has a choice.

So I have been thinking about choice. Even though I’m writing fiction, I find myself thinking about the choices I make that I don’t think of as choices…that I think of as impositions, burdens, millstones around my neck.

What if, when one of these impositions or burdens or millstones appear, I stopped and thought. Do I have to pick that up? Is that mine?

What if I said no?

What if, when someone says something to upset me, instead of becoming upset myself, I asked for clarification?

Creativity is, itself, a choice we make. I get to choose how this character gets joy back into her life. I also get to choose my own moments of joy. Can I choose joy? What might that look like today?

 

 

 

Jhumpa Lahiri on the Writing Process

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I found this video at Aerogramme Writer’s Studio, and wanted to share it.

“We are graced and limited by our own pair of eyes.”

Writing with Witnesses

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P1040083Yesterday the Writing Lab had its fifth annual end-of-year party and reading. I wanted to post something–even though today has been a little crazy at my house–just to say “What an amazing group of people.”

We are a small but dedicated band of writers, all of us in some way associated with Everett Community College. We meet once a week for an hour and half. And we write. We are not a critique group, though after we write for 40 minutes or so, we are welcome to read some work aloud, and sometimes there is a very gentle critique. Mostly what we do is witness one another. In fact, one member, Louise, calls it “Writing with Witnesses.”

For a long time, when I was teaching alongside everything else I try to do, the Writing Lab kept me alive. I have a very sturdy habit of writing in a journal every morning, but writing for an audience, even a very small, intimate audience of 3 or 4 other writers is a gift.

If you’re looking for a writing group, you may want to think, first, about what you want from your writing group. Maybe you’re ready for critique, but if you’re not, you will still benefit from having some witnesses to your process. (Lauren Sapala wrote about this topic on her blog this week, too.)

Good luck finding your witnesses.

And thank you to mine (on the blog, too!).

 

Quotable

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penThis morning, in a contemplative mood, I have been rereading old journals–the big Lee Valley, bound journals go all the way back to 2001! I keep finding quotations and poems and amazing passages about my ideal life (I have been fantasizing about leaving the college for at least 10 years–that in itself is a revelation). I’m putting the notebooks in chronological order and replacing them on the shelf. I’m trying not to feel foolish…and slow.

“Listening to your heart is not simple. Finding out who you are is not simple. It takes a lot of hard work and courage to get to know who you are and what you want.” -Sue Bender

The shooting at SPU, where I taught briefly, is part of this despondency. I remind myself that I loved my students and got a lot back from them, that I learned as much from them as they ever learned from me. The key is not to recriminate, but to learn and grow, to keep doing the hard work and showing the courage to know myself and what I want.