The Truth About Bodies in Motion – Writersfest Part I

A fool can always find another fool to admire him.
― Tanis MacDonald

When you traffic in falsehoods, rev the engines. Leave shoes all over the house for fast escapes.
― Tanis MacDonald

But if there were two of me, who would you ignore first?
― Tanis MacDonald

I was very happy that I got to Kingston in time for my first workshop (for the first time since I’ve been going to these retreats!). The workshop was The Truth About Bodies in Motion, facilitated by Tanis MacDonald, writer, poet, reviewer, and professor. Here’s the blurb for the workshop:

In this workshop, we will work with the pleasures and the problems of being a body in motion, and shift towards writing about our bodies in all their beauties and oddities as nature writing. What is the beauty of a hawk in flight seen through the lens of a panic attack? How does foot pain change the act of urban foraging? Bring your breathing, grousing, observant bodies.

Tanis MacDonald always has an interesting take on whatever topic she’s presenting in her workshops. She began by having us think about our bodily changes and experiences, and how we write about them. Sometimes we suffer from chronic conditions that make it seem like we’re living as an under the radar disabled person – we cannot function normally, but we don’t suffer from a recognized disability.

There is a temptation to think about the person as their condition, and once we do we are unable to see beyond it. You know your truth – the changes in your body, the aging of your body. One day you can do something, another day you cannot.

The simple act of going for a walk can bring great pleasure, but for someone with a chronic illness it can also present physical problems and these two things clash up against each other. What is it like to write about it? Many readers won’t want to read about it; many others will.

We are used to writing about bodies outside of nature. There is room for all of ourselves – changing bodies, rebellious bodies. Agism, sizism, sexism, racism – these are all things we deal with on a daily basis, and yet they’re seldom written about.

Think about all the things you love to do and how your body’s changed, so you no longer have access to the way you used to do things. You’re having to shift who you are. Think about reading about it.

Consider the body with a perceived difference – the disobedient and rebellious body. Think about rebelling against a cultural norm, where you have to look or act a certain way to be accepted. Getting all of your body experience onto the page – the joys, inclusion, love – is as important as the pain. It isn’t always like that.

When writing about the truth about your body, find a metaphor to commit to and come back to it as much as you can. Use something fresh, not cliché Fresh, natural and a surprise to the readers gives them that “Aha!” moment.

What else is going on in your life besides the pain and struggle? Use details so that it’s not something that happens in isolation, the reader is a part of it. Use old stories, hidden metaphors.

Pain is a private language.
– Roy Lichtenstein

How can we make our private pain public on the page so it’s believable? The moment you write it down you make it public. Read how others express pain on the written page. Check out Falling for Myself, by Dorothy Ellen Palmer or Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, by Sonya Huber

Exercise: We were given 5 different prompts and then told to pick our favorite and write a short piece about it. The prompt I chose was, “What is it like to occupy a “disobedient” or “rebellious” body: disobeying what? Rebelling against whom?”

My body is no longer the same. It was already becoming disobedient – aging when I wasn’t looking, growing soft and slowing down. And then it grew cancer cells that needed to be excised. How dare my body do this to me? I was supposed to be young and healthy forever! But instead I woke up in the recovery room in the hospital, a bag attached to my abdomen to collect my waste, and my whole world was changed. Simple movements that I always took for granted – sitting up, rising from my bed – now felt like Sisyphus pushing that rock up the hill. I’d try, and try, but things didn’t work the same, and I’d have to try again. The relief of the surgery doing what it was supposed to was overshadowed by the reality that bag on my abdomen.

Next we were asked to pick our least favorite prompt. This time, the one I chose was, “What are your experiences of beauty, grace, and/or power in your body?”

This is my least favorite because I’ve never felt myself to be beautiful or graceful. So I can’t write to those. I have, however, felt power, as any fertile woman can. We hold the power of life within us, whether we choose to exercise that power or not. I grew my daughter under my heart for nine months, making me powerful with the act of creation. Her birth was by caesarean section, they had to cut me open to release her, but there was a kind of power in that as well as we both emerged from the experience triumphant. They laid her on my chest for her first meal while I was still in recovery and all the pain was forgotten. I was more powerful in that moment than I’d ever been in my life. The power of motherhood extends beyond childbirth. A mother will do things she never thought possible for her child. She will take risks and use her power to ensure her child thrives. She will sacrifice her power for her child.

There is a linkage through the body, One thing changes and everything changes. What if you’re in an accident, and you survive, but your body has changed irreparably? What do you have to live without doing? The temptation to think you are cured is strong, but it’s not true.

When a milkweed pod splits open, is it empty, or has it fulfilled its purpose? It’s all contained and then explodes open, scattering the seeds. Consider how you might want to change your way of writing.

Tanis was very up front about her own bodily changes, describing how it’s impacted both her writing and her life. She does not shy about writing about uncomfortable subjects. Her book Straggle contains essays on such things as what it’s like to take a walk when you have chronic pain, or having a panic attack when you’re alone in the woods.

I don’t know that I’ll be writing about chronic pain or disabilities on a regular basis, but should one of my characters be facing physical limitations, I feel like I’ll be better equipped to write about it.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
The word for last week is . . . quiet.

There was only one workshop Sunday morning (well, there was a second one but it was on writing about food, which is not my thing, but it would have been kind of fun to take the ferry over to the island where the workshop was being held) so after that was over I packed up my bags and headed for home.

I arrived about lunch time, and after unpacking there was laundry to do and the hubby and father-in-law nicely left the grocery shopping for me to do as well (normally I do this Friday mornings). LOL

Kingston was filled with people, and people tend to deplete my energy, so the first part of last week was spent re-charging my batteries. But I hope you noticed I got all of my blog posts up on time, and I didn’t have to stay up late to do it. So I guess that new leaf that’s starting to sprout didn’t wither completely away after all.

NEW WORDS:
2847+615+295+986=4,753
UP: 856– words

Gee, there’s a surprise. I’m up about as many words as my installment for Winter’s Child. Go figure, eh?

I think there’s only two more episodes to go in Winter’s Child before it’s done. I’d like to make it longer, but there’s only so much I can do to drag it out. Joey can’t last forever when it’s so cold out. LOL

And NaNoWriMo is coming up fast. In September you think you have all the time in the world, then suddenly it’s October and NaNo begins at the end of the month. And no, I have no idea what I’ll be working on this year. I have two different ideas for flash stories like I did a couple of years ago, but one of them requires a lot more research and I just don’t know if I’ll have time for it. Or, I may just go for something completely different. Maybe a brand new story that has nothing to do with any of my other books.

Yeah, that’s just what I need. Another unfinished book to add to the pile. *sigh* But I’ve got a NaNo hoodie and a tee-shirt on their way for inspiration, so whether I get an idea or not, I’m doing it. Hey, it wouldn’t be the first time I started without a clue as to what I’d be writing. :-D

Goals For Next Week:
Keep up the good work with the blogs; find an idea for NaNoWriMo

EDITING:
0 Hours

Oopsie! I knew I was forgetting something. Yeah, I think I’m going to have to go back to list making and keep putting “editing” at the top of my list. I have a bunch of other stuff that needs to be done as well, but I really have to do Elemental Spirit first. It’s the last book in the series, and then I can feel free to move on and start editing other stuff.

Although . . . maybe if I tried editing something else as well it might spur me on to take a whack at Elemental Spirit. Work a bit on E.S., then something else, then back to E.S. If nothing else, it might get me going.

Goal For Next Week:
Just stop talking about it and do it for crying out loud!

POETRY:
Last week’s form required a bit of a longer example than I’ve been doing lately, but it was still a fairly simple one to write. Maybe I should try for something a little more challenging this week, eh?

Believe it or not, I actually did start printing some of the poems I need to add to my big book o’ poems. Okay, so maybe it was only half a dozen or so, but it’s a start. And I’ve been adding dates to them, as best I can. I really need to start doing that as I write them.

The problem is, then I go back and re-write them and then that date’s not quite current. I suppose I could always add a revised date though. It just seems like a lot of work. But it would be nice to know whether a poem is a current one or an old one, and just how old a one it is. I mean, I’ve got poems dating back to high school.

Goal For Next Week:
Find a new form to share; work on the extra forms. Print poems to update big book o’ poems.

CRAFTING:
There was a stitch-in at the library last week, and I actually got some stitching in while I was there. Sadly, that’s the only stitching I did last week.

I keep saying that I’d like to get my writing taken care of during the day, leaving my evenings free to work on my stitchery, but this hasn’t happened yet. One of the reasons for this is that while I often have the time to stitch, by evening my eyes are too tired to do this. I might have to set aside a time during the morning or afternoon for this instead.

Goal For Next Week:
Work on my zentangle; work on the kit I started.

WHAT I’M READING:
I finished Trashlands, by Alison Stine. And then I read Bad Luck Vampire, by Lynsay Sands in one day. Now I’ve started reading Never, Never, by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher.

I haven’t read anything on the Kindle since finishing Lattes and Levitation, by Christine Pope. It was part of a boxed set and it was so disappointing that I guess I’m a little leery of reading anything else from that box.

But maybe the rest of the books in the set won’t be disappointing at all. And if the next one is, then I can just delete the rest of the set. You know, as soon as I figure out how to delete stuff off my Kindle. :-D

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the non-binging of books.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Well, that new leaf survived, but just barely, I’d say. Time to start nurturing it into growing again.

Once again, the week ahead has only Tuesday with anything going on. In the morning is a regular stitchery meeting – I think it’s project day, the first of two meetings where we learn to make a woven basket. And in the afternoon our new fridge is going to be delivered. Woot! Can’t wait.

Winter’s Child is almost done. There’s only one, maybe two more installments to go. It’s both longer, and not as long as I’d hoped to make it. But overall, I’m really happy with it. I just hope the ending lives up to the rest of it. Guess we’ll see.

Then it’s time to look forward to NaNoWriMo. I have absolutely no clue what I’m going to write about this year. Another story a day deal? I had pretty good luck with that a couple of years ago. Or maybe I could delve deep into my vault of abandoned ideas. After all, Winter’s Child was once a story I’d abandoned, so obviously I’ve grown as a writer.

Or I could go with a second or third book of a series I did the first book for in previous NaNos. Of course, that just means more editing down the road. Or maybe, and here’s a radically idea, I could go for something completely new. *sigh* Obviously I have a decision to make.

I really need to get back on track with the editing this week. I did so well working on the hard copy, and now it’s all fallen apart again. Hopefully, but getting back into an office routine this week I’ll be able to get back into an editing routine. Even an hour a day would move things forward.

The poetry has been moving along at a steady pace, although the last few weeks I’ve been showcasing rather simple forms. Time for something a little more complicated I think, but it’ll depend on the amount of time I have available. I seem to be less distracted when I’m working in my office though.

I did get a handful of poems printed off last week, but I have a lot more to go. And then even when I finish printing them I still have to file them in my book, and then I have the monumental task of double checking to make sure I have them all. This is not going to be a fun job.

I believe I was filing poems in the book in alphabetical order, but I’m thinking it would make better sense to do it by date instead. That way, going forward I can just add poems as I write them to the back of the book instead of shuffling through it. Something to think about, anyway.

Again, the goal for this week is to get my writing out of the way during the day so that I can go back to crafting at night, but as I said, usually by the time I get to sit and relax after supper I’m starting to tire, and you usually need fresh eyes to stitch.

I’m still working on the satin stitch portion of my kit, but once I’m done that the rest should go quite quickly. There are two more in the series, but seeing as I have no idea what I’m going to do with them, I’m going to wait until after my zentangle sampler is finished to do start them. And I’d still like to get the sampler done in time to use it for my November stitchery retreat, so I’d better shake my needles.

I can’t believe I didn’t open my Kindle once last week. And I made myself waiting until I finished Trashlands before starting Bad Luck Vampire, which I read in one day. What can I say? I read fast and it was a really, really good book.

I am 11 books past my Goodreads goal of reading 50 books this year, so I think it wouldn’t hurt to slow down my reading a bit this week. We’ll have to see how it goes. I read a bunch of reviews of the tree book I started, Never, Never, and they weren’t good, but I like it so far.

Lots to do this week, but I’ll have plenty of time, barring Tuesday, to do it in. The big issue will be the weather. As you know, I’m solar powered. The last few weeks have been mostly sunny, but according to Environment Canada, the week ahead is supposed to be mostly overcast and raining. So I guess we’ll see how big a factor that is on regaining my momentum.

Wish me luck!