Today’s writing prompt:
Wrong Number.
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If you could invent something . . . Prompt #353
If you could invent something to make your life easier, what would it be?
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Favorite time of year. Prompt #351
Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter.
In-between seasons.
Write about your favorite time of year.
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You think you know them . . . Prompt #350
“You think you know them,
these creatures robed
in your parent’s skins.”
Writing Prompt: Read the excerpt. Copy it in your notebook, if you want. Then see what comes up for you and Just Write!
Excerpt from the poem, At the Lake House by Jon Loomis
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Brad Yates Inspires Action
Note from Marlene: I have been helped and inspired by Brad Yates and his Tapping Videos. I hope you enjoy reading about his New Year’s Eve experience in Paris.Guest Blogger Brad Yates: Walking with a blind man
From time to time we hear stories – or see videos – of differently-abled people doing remarkable things. We may find these stories to be inspiring… and sometimes we might even find them challenging, as we confront how we may have allowed lesser hurdles than theirs to limit our lives. We can allow ourselves to be shamed by these, or let them serve as wake-up calls to stop making excuses. Naturally, I’d guide folks towards the second option.
Most of the time, these stories come into our awareness in a fleeting way, and not a personal one. More often, it’s someone we don’t know and will likely never meet, making it less likely to stick.
Our 2017 ended with an up-close-and-personal encounter. 🙂
My family and I spent the holidays in Europe, where I did workshops in London, Dublin, Prague and Paris. It was a fantastic trip, filled with wonderful experiences, many of which involved meeting fantastic people. This is one of them…
We had chosen to be in Paris on New Year’s Eve, and decided to check out the Main Attraction – the celebration on the Champs-Élysées. We had taken a boat tour along the Seine, and returned to the Eiffel Tower just after sunset, arriving just in time for the spectacular hourly light show. From there we walked up to the Arc de Triomphe. It was still early, and people were just starting to gather. The roads were starting to close, and there were heavily armed and armored police – which was both intimidating and reassuring. The Arc was lit up with test patterns for the light show that would take place just before midnight.
It looked like it was going to be quite an event … but it also looked like it would be very crowded … and it was raining … and we all agreed that we’d rather head home and watch it on TV while sipping champagne, which we wouldn’t be able to do there.
So we headed down into the nearest metro station, which was packed. We noticed a woman holding the arm of a blind gentleman in his late-twenties, who made his way past us up to the glass doors at the edge of the platform as his guide disappeared, apparently having only been there to help him get to this point.
My French isn’t great, but I could tell he was asking for some assistance. I don’t recall which of us explained that we didn’t understand, but he quickly responded in English. (We would later discover that he spoke five or six languages fluently!). He explained that the glass doors in this station made him nervous, and was hoping for some assistance when the train arrived and they opened. The crowd in the station would make lots of folks nervous, even if they could see everything going on.
It wasn’t long before a train came … and passed us by. Then another… and another. Then there was an announcement on the loudspeaker, and people started leaving the platform. Our new friend explained that this line was being closed at this station. He asked where we were going, and when we told him, he suggested a different line that also stopped at this station, and where to take that to get to another line to get to our desired destination. Even though he had never seen a metro map, he knew the different lines, where they stopped and where they connected. The alternate line he suggested would also take him in the right direction, so he latched onto Christy’s arm and suggested we head to that platform.
Not long after we got there, there was another announcement, and people again started leaving. The whole station was being shut down. Our new friend said there was another station further down the road – at the Place de la Concorde, where we could find a train we needed. Although he was on my wife’s arm, he was the guide to the clueless tourists. A very different take on “the blind leading the blind.”
As we walked along the Champs-Élysées, we learned that our new friend was named Hossein, and was from Iran. He was very friendly and charming and asked a little about each of us. When we said we were from California, he mentioned he hoped to go there someday and we’d find him swimming in the rivers. He said he loved to swim – “faster than a fish” – and had competed in tournaments.
I was impressed. Far from feeling limited by his lack of sight, here was a young man who had studied engineering, was traveling the world, learning languages, getting to know people, doing things that could intimidate lots of sighted people (like going into crowded metro stations), figuring out complicated metro map… and apparently really living a full life.
He also wasn’t afraid to ask for help – something so many of us struggle with. Obviously, it was something of a necessity, which may be why he had learned to do it so matter-of-factly and pleasantly.
Eventually we arrived at the next station, and he insisted we leave him at a certain spot, as we would be going on different trains. He warmly shook hands with my son and me, and kissed my wife and daughter’s hands. Then began gently saying, “Excusez-moi…,” looking for the next person who could help navigate the way to the platform. We felt comfortable leaving when a Metro staff member came to assist him.
It was a really lovely way to put 2017 to bed, and we were all touched by the experience. It is my intention that his example of not making excuses will continue to inspire me in this New Year. I hope it might do the same for you as well. You deserve a great life.
Note from Marlene: Are you waiting to write? What’s holding you back? If you can envision it, you can do it, especially with inspiration from Tapping with Brad Yates.
Brad Yates is known internationally for his creative and often humorous use of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). Brad is the author of the best-selling children’s book “The Wizard’s Wish,” the co-author of the best-seller “Freedom at Your Fingertips,” and a featured expert in the film “The Tapping Solution,” He has also been a presenter at a number of events, including Jack Canfield’s Breakthrough to Success, has done teleseminars with “The Secret” stars Bob Doyle and Dr. Joe Vitale, and has been heard internationally on a number of internet radio talk shows. Brad also has well over 700 videos on YouTube that have been viewed over 19 million times, and is a contributing expert on the Huffington Post.
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Poems for Coffee Anthology
As Ellen Bass says: “Writers and coffee go together like coffee and cream, or coffee and donuts.”
Do you have poems in which coffee plays a role? If so, this anthology is for you!
Deadline for Submission: February 28, 2018.
World Enough Writers seeks poems for its Coffee Poems Anthology edited by Lorraine Healy to be published Winter 2019.
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“At the Ice Rink” by Alison Luterman . . . Prompt #349
Today’s writing prompt is a poem by Alison Luterman. When the prompt is a poem, you can write on the theme or the mood of the poem. Or use a stanza, a line, or a word to inspire your writing. Just Write!
At the Ice Rink
I came here to fail
and to fall
but not so well
as that man careening over the ice
sliding into the wall
as if into second base
shambling up, grinning, like a great bear,
and taking off again,saying, over his shoulder,
“You’ve got it backwards.
Learn to fall first,
then skate.”I end up clinging
barnacle-like to the sides,
inching around the perimeter like a caterpillar.
Wall-hugger. Nothing has changed since I was eight
and my parents paid for skating lessons
in hopes I would become more balanced.Now as then I am wobbling, terrified,
feet frozen like blocks of wood at the ankles.
Not loose-limbed and easy like Hilary
who rides the ice like a North wind scouring the plains,
nor deft and graceful like Ruth
picking up her feet and kick-gliding
in time to the ’70’s pop muzak.But what can we do
when fear throws its rustiest pickaxe
dead ahead in our path?Mince. Inch. Stumble. Pray
for the grace to fall
and not be rescued, pray for the scramble-upfor the liberating laughter that knowsit is not in our control.
There is the center, gleaming like a fish-eye.
Little girls spin on it, twirling their bright skirts.
It shines under its white scars like a destiny.—Alison Luterman As a child, I used to creep onto the stairs when my parents had guests over and eavesdrop on the grown-ups. A creak of the stairs would invariably give away my position and I’d be chased back to bed, only to reappear at the next opportunity, hiding and listening. I wanted to be where the interesting conversations were happening. I still want that. Only now the conversations happen all over the country, all over the world, with friends, friends of friends, and complete strangers. Our stories rub up against each other and expand and change in ways I could never have imagined when I was young, and they now include rocks, weeds, fruit trees, cats, stars, and myths from all over the world, as well as all kinds of people.
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Alison Luterman and Patience
Guest Blogger Alison Luterman writes: 
January 2018Happy New Year! A few weeks ago I read something on-line about the concept of a “word for the year” and being a sucker for all things woo, decided to try it. Someone had used the word “Delight” and her career exploded into a lovely confetti burst of rainbows and candy canes.
Sounds good, I thought. I’ll take “Delight” too. But wait! It turns out that you can’t just choose a word willy-nilly. It’s more like the word chooses you. The next day as I sat scribbling morning pages it came to me in a sickening flash of insight: my word is Patience; unsexy, old-fashioned Patience. Not the ever-popular Abundance or Adventure or Sex Goddess, (even those are all very good words and you’re welcome to them). But as soon as I saw my pen writing “Patience,” I knew: It’s what I need most.
Like most writers I tend to live in my head where conception occurs simultaneously with the fantasy of fulfillment. Meaning, I can get a Big Idea for a new play or musical or book of poems and at the same time imagine the finished product, and the opening night party. Even knowing that somewhere between the germ of an idea and whenever a production actually sees the light of day lies an ocean of work, much dumb luck, and the budgeting of time and work and money to live on while doing the work—and I know all this—still, each time I get swept off my feet by the next entrancing vision.
So the only way to move forward is step by step. Much as I would have liked to instantaneously undo the last election, and much as I’d like to wave a magic wand and have all my creative babies realized and successful, the reality remains a lot of work, some of it tedious, much of it invisible. Hence, Patience.
And then there’s teaching, which is my spiritual path, but like all spiritual paths, in addition to being rewarding and fulfilling, also lights up my growing edges, as we charitably call them in California, with painful clarity.
Here’s what I learned in teaching and coaching this past year: I’m great at seeing what’s missing, which is sometimes a useful superpower. With one client, I read her wonderful memoir-in-progress and said, “I love all these vivid tales from your youth, but I’m not getting the turning-point. When and how did you turn your life around?”
“Oh, I wasn’t sure if I should include that,” she said, before telling me the story of an important relationship whose demise signaled her awakening. We both saw immediately that this was where the plot pivoted and she went away inspired, knowing what to write next. This client and I work well together; she’s a lot like me, driven and fierce in her process.
But there are other students whose growth depends on gentle spacious encouragement. What would it be like to practice radical patience, not only in politics and writing, but also with beginning students, and in my personal life, with my husband and friends and family, and most of all with myself?
I think it’s an Indonesian proverb that says, “Go slowly, we’re in a hurry.” Patience doesn’t always come easily to me. But seeing as how the world is at stake I’m willing to take it on.
Alison Luterman is a poet, essayist and playwright. Her books include the poetry collections Desire Zoo (Tia Chucha Press), The Largest Possible Life (Cleveland State University Press) and See How We Almost Fly (Pearl Editions) and a collection of essays, Feral City (SheBooks). Luterman’s plays include Saying Kaddish With My Sister, Hot Water, Glitter and Spew, Oasis, and The Recruiter and the musical, The Chain.
Her writings have been published in The Sun, The New York Times, The Boston Phoenix, Rattle, The Brooklyn Review, Oberon, Tattoo Highway, Ping Pong, Kalliope, Poetry East, Poet Lore, Poetry 180, Slipstream, and other journals and anthologies.
Alison has taught at The Writing Salon in Berkeley, the Esalen Institute, and the Omega Institute, as well as at high schools, juvenile halls, and poetry festivals.
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What’s the latest? Prompt #348
Things are settling down at Cullen Corner after the Holidaze. I hope everything is going well for you.
It’s been quiet here on The Write Spot Blog on account of the holidays: Decorating, undecorating, traveling to be with family, having family here, watching Hallmark holiday movies, watching Doc Martin and The Amazing Mrs. Maisel ( highly recommend), the usual December-January busyness.
Since I last posted, I changed the title on the recently published The Write Spot: Discoveries to better reflect the contents.
New title, same contents: The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries.
Now, I’m working on the next anthology. I hope you are active with a project that you enjoy.
Today’s prompt: What’s the latest?
I’m loving all the wonderful reviews of Discoveries. Here’s the latest review of Discoveries.Review by Diana McCurdy in The Sonoma County Gazette, founded by Vesta Copestakes.
Book Review: The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries
Book groups proliferate so why not writing groups? That old beatnik, pre-hippie poet, Kenneth Rexroth said, “Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense: the creative act.” And with so much unease in our society, with threats of war, polarization of political ideologies, hurricanes and fires why not diffuse some of that negativity by creating? Let us write stories, and poems, and essays, perhaps to stave off some ruin and stay semi-sane at least.
Marlene Cullen is the creator of Jumpstart Writing Workshop. In a comfortable, non-threatening atmosphere, participants write and write and write. Their products turned out be so compelling that she wanted to share them with all of us. She has assembled a charming anthology entitled Discoveries. Discoveries is a compendium of all different kinds of creative acts and for each selection the creative process is described in detail.
Writers are given a “prompt.” At the end of each piece we are told exactly what the inspiration was. For example, one writer recounts a comic interlude with a recalcitrant Weber BBQ. The impetus for this was, “write about a leap you have taken.” At the end of each author’s section there is a mini-biography and some words of encouragement that describes their process.
Part of the delight elicited by this collection is the disparate range of topics. This little book includes something for everyone’s preferences. Subjects include old-fashioned laundry rituals, the great hot lunch, cold lunch school dilemma, hormones, romance, gloves and soap.
The ending segment reads like a lesson plan to start a writing group of one’s own. There are hints on what to do if your creative juices are stuck, a list of prompts and a generous bibliography. Entries are short and in our busy, very busy lives it is easy to pick up the book and read a few inclusive selections and then put it down for another day to discover a different author’s work. Available on Amazon.com,
Diane McCurdy was born in Santa Rosa. Her dad had ranches so she learned the value of hard work at an early age. She has a BA from SF State and an MA from SSU in English Literature and several teaching credentials, two grown children and three cats. She’s been all over Europe, Mexico, Hawaii and visited schools in Japan and China and stayed with relatives in Brazil. Diane has a lifelong interest in film. Her mother met her father when she was selling tickets at the box office of her father’s theater, the first motion picture house in Sonoma County.
