Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Even if it’s not your tradition, it’s a day to be grateful and count your blessings.
I’m having guests, house guests and cooking a turkey dinner. I’m thankful for all of it.
I will blog again next Thursday, so follow me here.
Have a blessed, joyful day.
For writers, reading is a way of life. We read early and often. We read, we write. We check our media contacts, read newspapers or magazines online or in hard copy, then read a text of something similar to what we are working on in our own writing. If we stop reading, it’s deprivation.
It’s a paradox that by emptying our lives of all that text and distraction, we are actually refreshing the wellspring. By absenting ourselves from all the media, we get in touch with our inner selves, which is where all the creativity comes from. By keeping the inflow to a minimum, the outflow improves. Our true thoughts and feelings will begin to penetrate and come out in new writing, running freely. I knew a playwright who would take off his shoes and socks and stand in a running stream with a paper and pencil to literally get his flow going.
If you find not reading difficult, and many writers do, here are some suggestions:
.listen to music that has no words
.sew
.repot plants
.cook a complicated, time-consuming recipe and then
.invite friends to dinner
.watercolor
.rearrange the kitchen
.exercise
.meditate
.dance
After a number of these activities, sit down and write again. Notice any differences in your feelings or content. Your writing may benefit.
Follow me here on Thursdays.
There is going to be an in-person reading of prose and poetry at Grand Hall, Workshop 13 Cultural Arts and Learning Center in Ware, Massachusetts on Sunday, October 23 at 2 pm. If you’re in the area, do drop in. It’s right down Route 9, which is glorious fall now. Grand Hall is at 13 Church St. , Ware.
See Workshop13.org for more details.
It has been awhile since I did an in-person reading, but if you are in Western Massachusetts on Sunday, October 23rd, I encourage you to come. The attached flyer has the details.
I am grateful to the Massachusetts State Poetry Society for two awards in their National Poetry Day Contest:
My poem “Fairy Tale of Eternal Economic Growth” was awarded third prize by the Amy L. Dengler Award.
My poem “On Listening to Stravinsky’s Pulcinella” was awarded third prize by the Celebration of Life Award.
I’ll be blogging on Thursdays. Follow me here on WordPress.
How does blogging differ from writing? I guess when I sit down to write a poem or prose piece, I have a more formal block in my head. I think the main thing is that blogging is more spontaneous. You could argue that blogging has changed formal writing. But if you can write, you can blog.
The conventions of writing and blogging are very different. Run-0n sentences and asides don’t work in a blog. Short declarative sentences do.
Print stories are often written in the third person, especially nonfiction. Blogs are mostly in the I, first person.
In books, footnotes are frequently used to tell the backstory on your topic. They take up space. Hyperlinks serve a similar purpose in blogging. No one has to read them unless they click on them and they take very little space.
I enjoy blogging as a variation to my poetry. I will blog on Thursdays about the writing process. Follow me here at WordPress.
I’m writing to you from my summer home in New England. As a retired college professor, summer is my favorite time. It always represented freedom to me.
I love fresh vegetables, beautiful flowers, farmer’s markets and stands, swimming in cool lakes.
But my favorite thing to do is to go to a local bookstore that’s located in an old mill with a stream running by it. I feel like my creativity flows more easily with the flowing stream. I knew a playwright who would stand in the stream and write with a pen and paper to get the creativity flowing?
Now that summer is coming to an end, I will look for new inspirations for my writing. What do you do for inspiration?
I will be blogging regularly one Thursdays again, with announcements, as they happen, on Tuesdays. Follow me here on WordPress.
Eileen P. Kennedy Author 