Just Write

Writing is magical

Writing is magical. Take some blank pages, write or type on them, and as if by magic, a story appears. It may be an incomplete story and it may feel fragmented, but it’s the beginning of Your story. Writing can be healing, especially when you write what you really want to say, rather than listing what you did that day, journal style.  The most magical writing is when you get so involved in your writing that you lose track of time, you lose track of where you are and even, who you are! The process of writing can be therapeutic. With this deep writing, you may experience a release of emotions, clearing the air, and seeing old things in a new way. — “The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Connections.” Personal Essay as Therapy Join Writers Forum on Saturday, March 12, 2022, 1-3 pm PST to experience the magic…

Sparks

Barbara’s Braid

Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Today’s Sparks is a pantoum. Barbara’s Braid By Karen Ely Weaving strands of amber honey Over, under, around and through Silky locks of shimmer sunlight Plaited patterns, three by two   Over, under, around, and through Brush strokes cultivate the threads Plaited patterns three by two A tapestry of golds and reds   Brush strokes cultivate the threads Silky locks of shimmer sunlight Plaited patterns, three by two Weaving strands of amber honey   Karen Handyside Ely was born and raised in Petaluma, California. She delights in difficult crossword puzzles, the Santa Rosa Symphony, and traveling with her husband, James. Karen has been published in The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries, The Write Spot: Reflections, The Write Spot: Possibilities, The Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing, and The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a…

Book Reviews

The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year

Reviews of The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year Review by Sande Anfang: The Write Spot founder and writing coach Marlene Cullen has been guiding writers through her Jumpstart workshops. I’ve been lucky to participate in some of them. Marlene’s motto is “Just Write,” as in don’t stop to evaluate what you’ve written during the drafting process—just keep the pen moving until the timer rings. In this collection, she has gathered a wide variety of poetry and short prose pieces from sixteen writers. If there’s a common thread that binds this anthology, it’s a grappling with the surreal nature of 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic. Being forced to upend our “normal” lives and adapt to changing threats, both medical and socio-political, has created an opportunity for deep investigation that finds catharsis, much-needed humor, and rich forays into family memories. There are inviting dips into the pool of…

Sparks

One Wish Now, or Three In Ten?

Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. One Wish Now, or Three In Ten? By Patricia Morris Patricia’s response to the writing prompt: Would you rather have one wish granted today, or three wishes granted ten years from now? Given that my dear friend of forty years died last week after a fast and furious 6-week illness, I will take my one wish today, please. No waiting for ten years for anything anymore. There are no ten years guaranteed, especially when, in ten years, I will be six months shy of 70 years old. That is a shocking thing to write, but that is my reality. Having only one wish, the pressure is on. To make it the “right” wish, the “best” wish, the “greatest good for the greatest number” wish. I could game it. I could make my one wish be to…

Book Reviews

A Painter’s Garden: Cultivating the Creative Life

A Painter’s Garden: Cultivating the Creative Life, by Christine Walker is one of my all-time favorite books. But don’t just take my word on it. Here are what other readers think. ***** The parallels between lessons in the garden, the studio, and life in A Painter’s Garden ring true. Christine Walker’s writing is intelligent, evocative, elegant, and articulate. She addresses universal truths about the creative process in an accessible and fresh way. And she renders very complex emotions in beautifully simple terms—weaving her experience of motherhood into an examination of her working methods in the studio, “feeling a cadence as measured as the breathing of a sleeping child.” —Eleanor Coppola is an American documentary filmmaker, artist and writer. She is the director of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse and other documentaries. Eleanor is  the writer and director of the romantic comedies Paris Can Wait and Love is Love is…

Book Reviews

Story Power

If you’re looking for a guide to the art of storytelling, look no further than Kate Farrell’s Story Power. Using examples and advice contributed by over twenty successful writers, Farrell shows us how and why they succeed at transforming life events into distilled, impactful stories. Each chapter provides tips, examples, prompts, and exercises to help you select significant events from your own life—early childhood to adult life, family secrets to family lore—and craft them into compelling oral or written narratives.  Story Power shows you how to find the layers of meaning in your stories as well as how to shape them using the basic elements of setting, character, conflict, narrative arc, and resolution. In addition to guiding the story creation process, Story Power dives into the age-old reasons for oral storytelling: self-discovery, connection, inspiration, influence, and passing on family or tribe traditions. In today’s social-media world, Story Power stands out as a resource to help us…

Guest Bloggers

Details Add Zing

Guest Blogger Lisa Alpine shares tips to spice up your writing. I encourage you to infuse your writing with detailed imagery, passionate feeling, poetic depth and evocative sensual description. Here are some writing suggestions I use when teaching Spice Up Your Writing at workshops globally. These writing tips will show you how to weave poetic description into your prose; cultivate the five senses in describing a place or experience; and develop emotional imagery. 1: Pick a scene from an event in your life that you know has a heart or seed of a story only you can write. Now blurt and spew! Messy is okay. You can clean it up later. Sometimes graceful, sometimes awkward, sometimes downright ugly. Tell the story. Understand what is really going on by exploring and uncovering the deeper currents of the river of life. 2: Set the scene. Describe the weather, doors & windows, environment, horizon. God…

Guest Bloggers

History Through The Lens of The Teller

Guest Blogger, Bev Scott, has an interesting perspective on bias of our history. She brings up provocative questions. The following is based on a session Bev attended at the Historical Novel Society Conference in June 2017 by James J. Cotter, titled “The Lone Ranger was Black: Reintegrating Minority Viewpoints into Historical Fiction.” “The title intrigued me,” wrote Bev. “Was the Lone Ranger modeled after Bass Reeves, the first black U.S. deputy marshal who worked thirty-two years in the Arkansas and Oklahoma territories in the late 1800’s?  He may have been.” History Is Biased The conference session addressed the issue of bias in our history. That bias impacts authors of historical fiction. Today we no longer view history as “the truth.” Rather, history is a story told through the lens of the teller. Did you love the Lone Ranger when you were growing up? I did. Audiences assumed he was a courageous (and white) lawman.  That’s…

Guest Bloggers

Understanding 4 C’s: Being a Successful Author

Guest Blogger Joan Gelfand writes: I never set out to write a novel. I mean, really? I had cut my literary teeth on Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Kurt Vonnegut, Gunter Grass and Wallace Stegner. I was satisfied being a poet, known to my local community. Writing a novel seemed terribly pretentious, a misguided idea. No. I did not start out to write a novel. I started out with a story that, after two years, and much encouragement from my writing instructor, grew into three hundred pages. I had written my first novel without planning to do so.  It was with that first novel that I began to understand that becoming a successful writer wasn’t just about writing. It was several years after my first attempt to find a publisher for that first novel that I understood the business of writing. I learned that the letter I got…

Prompts

I wasn’t the first . . . Prompt #288

Today’s writing prompts are inspired by author Julia Park Tracey, Alameda’s Poet Laureate. Part 1: Quotes from Veronika Layne Gets The Scoop by Julia Park Tracey. “I wasn’t the first reporter to arrive at the scene, but I wasn’t the last, either.” “A Victoria house — one of those multihued beauties with turrets, fish-scale shingles, gingerbread trim, iron railings, a weathervane, a trim of every description on widows’ walks and sun porches —a majestic painted queen from the late 1800s —burned like a marshmallow too close to the coals.” “You finally get a story, the story, and it changes before the ink is even on the page. And then it’s past, it’s history, and there’s not enough to cover for the following issue. On to the next assignment.” Note from Marlene: When you look at writing prompts, you can look at the entire quote, or take a section, or a…