Monday, November 20, 2006

The Rapture of Being Alive

People say that what we’re seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
Joseph Campbell

When the desire to write shrivels and threatens to die, try sitting quietly and waiting for am image to emerge from the
unconscious. Close your eyes and let something bubble up. A room, a memory, a dream. Write about it. If nothing happens, take a walk and pay close attention or find a photo or an object that moves you and begin writing. Start with the concrete--
with are you seeing, feeling, touching, smelling, hearing. Move on from there. Consider the rapture of being alive, alive to the senses.

This post is in answer to Judi's question about what to do when the creative juices aren't flowing.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Writing Sweet

Pat Schneider, author of Writing Alone and With Others, and many other books as well as the founder of the Amherst Writers and Artists method, suggests that the discipline of writing does not arise best out of obligation but will always arise best out of love. p. 51. “Rather,” she says, “than thinking of going to your writing desk as the ‘ought’ and ‘should’ work of your life, think of it as a longed-for pleasure, as a hot fudge sundae, as that which pleases you, delights you, that which you love”

Prompts:

Write about what you did for Halloween. Did you dress up? Eat sweets?
Write about a Halloween costume from childhood, yours or somebody else's.