Things I Learned at the Retreat, Part One

I am still learning.
— Michelangelo, age 87

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
― Mahatma Gandhi

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
— Henry Ford

I once did some editing work for an author who learned the art of novel writing through a correspondence course. Now there’s nothing wrong with learning through correspondence, there are many, many terrific courses out there, but she figured that once she finished the course, she knew it all – there was no need to learn anything else.

I beg to differ. I think there’s always something new to learn, especially as a writer. You learn, you grow, and your writing can’t help but improve. Like I said last week, I learned a lot at the retreat, a surprising amount as a matter of fact. So I thought over the next couple of Sunday posts I’d share what I learned.

The first thing we learned was to use a daisy. First, you set yourself a goal, then you take that goal and break it down into manageable bits. Next you draw a daisy, and don’t be stingy, make it big enough to write in. Write down your goal in the center of the flower and write down the actions you need to take to achieve it in the petals. You can have fun with it by colouring in each petal as you complete each action.

Then we learned about YET. We often get in the habit of seeing obstacles to our writing, that keep us from moving forward. But all we need to do to change that is to add the word yet to the end. “This novel isn’t going anywhere . . . yet.” Or, “This poem doesn’t make sense . . . yet.” You get the idea. Pretty easy, isn’t it? And effective, too.

And to round out the first evening, we did something they called “Freefalling.” We started with a guided meditation, and once we were relaxed and our minds were open, we were shown a picture of a fern frond with a curled end and told to write about it. Here’s what I came up with (unedited, of course):

Deep in the heart of the misty forest, past where the ginseng and ferns vie for the light, grows the rarest of flowers, the faery’s bells. Th air is soft, filled with the scent of the earthy woods. The delicate bells, strung along the stem like beads on a string, ring only once, for the birth of the fairy held in its curl, and then they fall to the ground, forever silent. The faery bud is the spiral at the end of the stalk. The delicate green of its colour belies the strength of the bud itself. The fairy lies inside, dormant, growing like a caterpillar in a chrysalis, and then suddenly it bursts the confines of its shell to fly free.

The meditation/relaxation before the prompt really helped get me into a creative mindset. I haven’t tried it on my own, but it’s on my list of things to do now that I’m home again.

I’m not sure what I did this past week instead of writing, but I know for sure I didn’t make my goal of writing every day. Is anyone really surprised by this? I think I’m deep in my annual pre-NaNoWriMo slump. I go through this every October – my creativity just seems to dry up until November 1 when it bursts free again. But at least I’ve got my NaNo choices narrowed down a bit – I’m still thinking about a flash anthology, and I have two ideas for SciFi novels, one of which might be a SciFi Romance.

Reading wise, I finished The Green Man, by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and I have moved on to The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman.

The Week Ahead . . .

I made a list of spices last week, just to see how many I have left. There aren’t a lot because I’m discounting the ones that don’t come powdered. Since I’m leaving salt and pepper for last, I think this week’s spice will be saffron.

I really need to get on that “writing every day” thing, especially with NaNo just around the corner. It would be nice to get into some kind of daily routine – it might even be back to the lists for me for some semblance of organization.

I’ve definitely abandoned the idea of a Kiranthus book for NaNo. He doesn’t really need his own story, does he? Meh, maybe he does, but that’ll be a NaNo for another year. I’m pretty sure it’s going to come down to between the two SciFi novels, I just have to decide which one.

Here’s to hoping for a busy week writing wise.

Once Upon A Time

Remember the Speculative Fiction workshops I mentioned I was signing up for? Well, I had the first one this week, on writing fairy tales. I’m with a great group of people and I think we’re going to have a lot of fun over the next eight weeks.

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to revive my Fiction Fridays for a while now, and I figured what better way to start that sharing the piece I wrote in class?

During the class we were asked to write an interesting thing about ourselves. Then we handed them in and the instructor passed them out again at random. The exercise was to write a fairy tale based on the incident we received. We had about 20 minutes or so to write. This was mine (unedited):

We lived a simple life in the wide ocean, and when I say simple, I mean boring. When you’re a mermaid, and a thirteen year old mermaid at that, it’s tedious to be confined to the grotto, or to only be allowed to swim back and forth along the edge of the kelp beds. under the watchful eye of our parents of course.

My sister Sonia was the first to rebel. We’d all heard stories of the little mermaid of course, and how she traded her voice for a pair of legs. So we knew the magic was out there. Sonia decided she was done being a mermaid. She wanted to walk on the shore, bask in the sun, feel the wind in her hair.

“It’s only a story,” our mother tried to tell us. “And in the original version she didn’t find her prince, she turned to sea foam.”

“Every story starts with a grain of truth,” Sonia said stubbornly. So certain was she that she stopped eating. She would rather waste away to nothing than live the rest of her life under the waves.

At last our parents gave in and took Sonia to the Hermit of the Sea. They came back alone.

“Where’s Sonia?” my sister Tanis and I cried.

“She’s gone where you cannot follow,” our parents said sadly.

Of course it wasn’t long before Tanis and I wanted to follow Sonia. After days of arguing my parents realized it was no use, and we were taken to the Hermit as well.

Now the three of us sisters live in a cottage by the sea.

After a few years I found I missed swimming and tried it as a human, but it was never the same.

I can't wait for next week's class - Steampunk!

Easier Said Than Done

As you can see by the lack of my wordage summaries, once again there was no joy in Wordville.

To be honest, it’s starting to get a little frustrating. I’ll open up my WIP and my mind goes blank. And the thing is, I know what’s supposed to happen next, I’m just lacking the words to make it happen.

I get lines of poetry appearing at random in my head, only to have them disappear as soon as I have a piece of paper in front of me.

And yet....I’m far from ready to give up. I keep trying because I know that sooner or later the words will be back.

To spur them on a little, I registered for a night school course. One of the local colleges (and by local I mean about an hour’s drive from here) is offering a whole bunch of interesting courses, but it was the one for speculative fiction that caught my eye. It’s actually a series of workshops - once a week for eight weeks, two hours long.

The workshops, starting March 14, are as follows: Writing Fairy Tales, Steampunk, Inspiration From Improv, Inspiration From Music, Adjectives and Adverbs, Writing Poetry, Writing From Dreams, and Alternate History. The way it’s set up you can take as many or as few as you like. I looked them over and there were a couple I thought were a little iffy, but I figured maybe they’d help me step out of my comfort zone so I signed up for them all.

I’ve taken a couple of night school courses in the past, a long time ago. One was at our local high school, run by a local author, and was pretty much just for fun. The other I took with a friend at a different college in the same city as I’ll be going to in a couple of weeks. It was a little more serious, although the instructor was not a writer herself. Still, I enjoyed both courses, even though I didn’t keep in touch with my fellow participants.

I’m sure I’ll enjoy these workshops as well. There’s nothing like being around like-minded, creative people to get your own creative juices going. And there’s always something new to learn, yes, even from the Writing Poetry workshop.

Wish me luck, and I’ll keep you posted.