Alive, Engaged, Stimulated. Let's write

“Every piece of writing… starts from what I call a grit… a sight or sound, a sentence or happening that does not pass away… but quite inexplicably lodges in the mind.”?

Rumer Godden

When we choose to engage with a creative writing practice, we are––happily––following our own imaginative ideas. We are sitting down to write because we have have a sense of something we want to explore.?No one is "telling" us to write. We?want?to listen to our own voice on the page. We want to put surprises in front of our eyes.?We?do not yet know what we want to express, but we want to be?expressive?because being creative makes us feel alive and engaged and stimulated and satisfied and more aware and more conscious of what's meaningful and important to us.

The quote, above, by Rumer Godden, reminds us that we have ideas. We don't always listen to them, but we have them. And we can choose to pay attention to them on the page with our pens.

What's stuck in my mind, this morning––which means I need to write about it––is a poem I read this week, by Gabrielle Calvocoressi.?"Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you" begins like this:

Do not care if you just arrive in your skeleton.

Would love to take a walk with you. Miss you.

I'm all in!?This poem grabs my heart and my mind––the idea that someone from my past who is gone might be called back by me for a walk. The poem pushes open the bright, unlocked door of my imagination and I'm excited to take an imaginary?walk with any number of loved ones no longer present in my life. Immediately, I'm prompted to finish reading Gabrielle's poem, and see how the walk she is writing about can illumine a path for me in my own writing experience. Other writers are often our best guides. We take a lamp, illumined by their creative writing, into the woods of our own.

Because I am a photo inspired writer, and because I want to inspire and guide you as well, I go into my photo files to scan pictures. I'm looking for one that I don't know I'm looking for. When I see it, it will stop me, arrest my attention, say,?yes, pick me, pick me,?Kelly. That is when I know my unconscious is doing the knocking. I listen for my intuitive knowing. And, here it is. My grown son is pulling my gardening wagon with our late dog, Suzi Q, in the later years of her life when her arthritis was so bad some days she could no longer go for a walk with us on her own four paws. We lost Suzi last July. Gabrielle's poem continues, evoking specifics of the relationship, in a direct address to the loved one she is speaking to in the poem. She's evoking the complex idea of how the living go on changing while the lost one is locked in memory:

. . . Miss you.

Would love to walk to the post office with you.

Bring the ghost dog. We’ll walk past the waterfall

and you can tell me about the after.

Wish you. Wish you would come back for a while.

Don’t even need to bring your skin sack. I’ll know

you. I know you will know me even though. I’m

bigger now. Grayer. I’ll show you my garden. . .?

So, is this idea drawing you in? Are you ready to write from your own personal photo? Do you already know, instinctively, whom you miss??

Here's a Prompt For Your Creative Writing

1) Go to your photo stream and find the photo of a loved one you want to take a walk with.

2) Place the photo where you can easily see it.

3) Begin your writing freely and spontaneously. You don't need to know whether this is going to be poetry or prose. Just let the writing come. I call this your "raw material." It's the fresh, unedited spontaneous spillage from your creative unconscious. This is what your self is hoping to illuminate to your self.

4) Let this be a letter, a direct address, to the being you are writing to. For example, in the case of my photo, I might write from me to Suzi, beginning with Gabrielle's fabulous title line: "Dear Suzi, miss you. Would like to take a walk with you" and then keep on writing without stopping, letting it be rough and unfiltered and unfancy and honest as it is: want to take a walk to the river with you without the wagon with all your good knee joints and hip joints. . .?

5) Let the writing keep going, and if you get to a stopping point, where the flow stops, poach another of Gabrielle's lines and let that spin you off: "I know you will know me even though. I'm . . . "

6) Trust your instincts, don't edit, be silly, strange or sentimental. Just write it out the way you need to write it out.

As always, consider sending me your cold draft or anything that comes to [email protected]. I'll be happy to see it, I'll be fascinated, and will send you comments. And consider joining me for my next free write on Zoom, and bring a personal photo to write from. I'll share a new prompt and guide you through the process of writing something that will surprise and delight you!

Will you write with me from your personal photo on Dec. 6 on Zoom?

Whether you are brand new to writing, or already write prose, poetry, memoir or plays, you will dive deep into surprise and insight and creative writing that will inspire you during our writing session.?

I look forward to writing with you Tuesday December 6!

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