Writing With Abandon

Reflections and ramblings about life as an educator, writer, reader, knitter, and over-thinker. Trying to do the writing only I can do.

Tag: Georgia heard

  • On Doing the Writing Only I Can Do

    I crack open the notebook I used for the Quoddy Writing Retreat this past August, led by Ralph Fletcher and Georgia Heard. The notebook I haven’t touched since landing back in Miami, even though I made promises — to myself, to my writing group — to set aside time to write. My streak of Tuesdays got away from me sometime in the early fall. Life happened, as they say.

    But Ralph told me that writing will always wait for you. If writing is important, it will come back to you. The muse will come knocking.

    I hope writing has been patient, as I’ve set her aside these past many months. I hope she doesn’t mind me picking her back up, dusting her off with the fabric at the bottom of my t-shirt.

    Because it’s the third Slice of Life challenge I’ll be participating in, and this time around, I have an even larger community doing it with me.

    I’m skimming these pages and gems are jumping out at me, quotes from Ralph and Georgia and other published writers. I’ll jot them here, in hopes I can return to them on the days when slicing just feels too hard. Reminding me that I’m in great company.

    ***

    Do the writing that only you can do.

    “Tell your stories. You own everything that happened to you.” – Anne Lamott

    Write with abandon.

    “It is, really, about heart; about a human being looking at life through her own lens and thinking and feeling it through and then making something – even something very simple – that says something new and truthful – something that reaches out to the reader in a spirit of commiseration.” – George Saunders

    “Be you. Be all in. Fall. Get up. Try again.” – Brené Brown

    “The bigger the issue, the smaller you write.” – Richard Price

    Let the image do the work for you.

    Revision is like chiseling away at stone, at clay.

    “Revision is not a way to fix a broken piece. It’s a way to honor a great piece.” – Ralph Fletcher

    The notebook is a playground.

    “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” – Joan Didion

    ***

    It’s with these writers at my back that I embark yet again on this challenge. I will write with abandon, “just have fun with it,” as my dad says. I’ll do the writing only I can do!

  • My Day

    Tea with Eleanor, Campobello Island

    What is it about inspiring stories that make one tear up? I think all of us in the tea room were welling up as we listened to the stories the docents told of Eleanor Roosevelt’s childhood, dedication to human rights, and fierce independence and bravery.

    This afternoon, on our second day at the Quoddy Writing Retreat for Teacher Renewal with Ralph Fletcher and Georgia Heard, most of us headed out on a little field trip to Campobello Island across the bay to have “Tea with Eleanor” and tour the cottage where the Roosevelts spent most of their summers.

    As I rode in the back seat of Ralph and Jo Ann’s car, our phones switched to Atlantic Daylight Time. We drove out to Herring Cove Beach, collected pebbles and sea glass, then it was over to tea, where I learned so much more than I ever had about Eleanor. (Fun side note: one of my favorite books as a kid was A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt by C. Coco De Young.)

    One of those new facts was My Day, her 500-word daily news column that she wrote 6 days a week for 27 years, only missing a few days after her husband’s passing. The original Slice of Life, I think (and the inspiration for today’s post)!

    I left the session with the delicious aftertaste of gingersnaps and tea lingering in my mouth, and a desire to learn more. Next we went to tour their cottage, where we saw the desk at which she wrote all of her thousands, maybe millions, of letters.

    At 72, Eleanor renewed her gun license
    The Roosevelt Cottage
    Eleanor’s writing desk
    Dining room with the kid’s table behind
    In the nursery
    A dream view

    Now it’s off to the one supermarket on Lubec to get a bottle of wine to share, and dinner with Ana by the water to watch the sunset!

  • Uninspired

    It’s Tuesday, slice of life day, but I’m feeling uninspired.

    I’ve just gotten back after an afternoon at Sojo Spa Club with a close friend, where we hopped from hot tub to hot tub and sauna to sauna, stepping into the cold plunge waterfall whenever we got too hot.

    And New York is hot right now. 95 feels like 97, the air thick, though at least there’s a slight breeze.

    I’m here for a couple weeks, staying in my childhood bedroom-turned-guest room, until I head to Lubec, Maine for the Quoddy Writing Retreat with Ana and Ralph Fletcher and Georgia Heard (so soon!).

    On a day like today, where I’m feeling uninspired to write, I start to wonder if I’ll feel like that on this writing retreat. I have a kernel of an idea for what I’ll work on while I’m there, but I’m not sure if I’ll feel inspired to write about that once I get there. The imposter syndrome sets in. I’m not good enough for this retreat! And, what if I have writer’s block the whole time?! (My writing partner, Ana, would tell me to flip it: “What if you don’t? What if the whole time, you can’t stop writing?”)

    My body feels extra relaxed after the spa. Phoebe is lying down at the foot of the bed. I wonder if she’s too hot with all that fur. My mom is on a work call in the next room. The fan spins overhead, the white noise I grew up sleeping to. The shutters are mostly drawn but the light comes in through the window. It’s dark to keep it cool.

    I’ll wait a bit longer and then take Phoebe out for a slow walk.