Category Archives: Writing Practice

Falling in Love All Over Again

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A couple of Thursday Writers* ago, my co-facilitator, Steve Montgomery gave us writers this prompt: “We fell in love again.” It’s taken from a poem by Ted Kooser, the first US Poet Laureate.

The idea of Thursday Writers is to write to the prompt, writing practice style—that is, go where the prompt takes you, write for a given amount of time (in this case, thirteen minutes) and when time’s up, read your writing aloud if you want to; no critique is given.

This is what I wrote from the prompt (some light editing for grammar, punctuation, etc):

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Does it matter?

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I’m not making New Year’s Resolutions this year; we all know how that goes. (By mid-February, or sooner, they’re dust in the wind). Instead I’m making a few changes to the time I traditionally do (or don’t do) things, and the place I do (or don’t do) them.

The first question: Does it matter what time of the day I write?

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From image to story to … Finding a wellspring in your writing

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“Words begin to flow when the writer is no longer thinking about words themselves, but rather is seeing in his or her mind some concrete image. An image, not an abstraction, is the deepest wellspring of writing.”

This quote comes from Pat Schneider’s book, Writing Alone & With Others, which I’ve been reading with my first coffee these mornings. Not a new book—it was published in 2003—it has been on my “to read” list for quite some time. What finally moved it from the “to read” list to my morning table was the reading of another of Schneider’s books, How the Light Gets In–Writing as a Spiritual Practice, which was my morning book just before Writing Alone and With Others. I highly recommend both books.

 

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