Journal with Impact: Personal Reflection “Who Am I?”

Workshop: Six Conversations for Writing Creative Journals

“One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.” Mary Oliver

“Who Am I” (b)

As we all know, time is elusive. Regardless of our age, we reach points where we stop to ask ourselves who am I, and what am I doing, and why? There are some major markers such as changes in relationships, or education, or jobs, that clearly require a deeper than normal evaluation. But sometimes even the chosen daily patterns can create situations where we need to stop and evaluate our goals and priorities and passions.

Just as we schedule maintenance checkups for our cars and our health, it’s good to examine whether we are en route personally, or if somehow time has swallowed us up in its own snowstorm.

In her book Just As I Am, author Virginia Hearn suggests three different approaches to the time questions and the possibilities that journey with us through all the threads in our lives.

What Time

1.     “What time is it in my life?” Write a paragraph or two in response to this question.

What Season

Another variation on time would be “what season of life am I in?”

2.     Make four lists—each on a separate piece of paper with these titles:

a.     It is too late to….

b.     It is too soon to…

c.      The time is right to…

d.     I need time to…..

What Priorities

3.     Another three-question list.

a. What do I want to accomplish in my life?     

b. What do I want to accomplish in the next three years?

c. What would I do if I had only six months to live?

Or for those of you who are visual observers, map out a set of clusters using any of the starting points above. Follow it as far as it goes, then pick out different ‘branches’ to write about. If you are not familiar with the cluster brainstorm, below is an example from a fiction workshop as an example. The center word begins the topic. Then draw lines to each main category. Then within a category connect sub-categories. Follow the threads for one or more until you run out. Then examine where you have the most material and where you have questions.

  Photography                   Dance                  Painting

                                                                 Art                                                     Collage

Music                              Sculptor                             

                                                                                                 Novelist                Literary    

                                                                               Fantasy

                                               High fantasy             Urban         Paranormal

Action Steps:

1.     Over a three-week period set aside a block of time to process each of the exercise questions above. Begin with whichever one draws you immediately.

2.     After you complete all three approaches, note where you were comfortable in your reactions and where you struggled.

3.     Take the one that was the most difficult to consider and write down the reasons why. Then after another week tackle it again.

4.     Did anything change for you? Process why, yes or no?

Share: Which question did you instinctively relate to first?

                                                            Read deep, marcy

Overview Setting: Language: Time

Workshop: An Introduction to Writing for Children and Young Adults

Language choices can strengthen settings by giving a flavor of time, whether between generations or geographically. Even within a small local setting there may be different dialects or inflections that indicate both historical and personal history.

In the mystery TV series, Death in Paradise, the island population is a mix of British and French on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint-Marie. Their words, phrases, and accents clearly introduce viewers to their background without giving a detailed explanation.

Within families the language can also mirror cultural decades and/or education. In The Adventures of Pearley Monroe, by Marci Seither, the fictional adaptation of a real pioneer family, the language shows the difference between the uneducated adults and the present school opportunities for the children. What do you notice about the language in the following two excerpts?

“I hate those miners,” Pearley blurted out with anger. “I hate Mr. Yates and Gold Bug Mine. It wasn’t Rose’s fault she came into the world too early, it is theirs. No one can bring her back.”

“Pearley,” said Pa. “We have to let this thing go into God’s hands, cuz our hands is jist too small for this load of grief. You hear what I’m sayin’?”

Jack Hodgins suggests when listening in on conversations take notice of the rhythms, favorite expressions, and sentence lengths. This is important for us as writers for the younger age group because their style and vocabulary is different from what we grew up with.

He also suggests when listening study:

             “ a) level, type, and breadth of the person’s vocabulary (education)

  b) diction level (slang? colloquial? precisely scientific?)

  c) implied emotional states; present circumstances.”

Regional, ethnic, educational, and socioeconomic will be a factor in what kind of vocabulary you use. And also for speech patterns such as: you know, eh, bien, por favor.

Action Steps:

1.    Write a dialogue between two or three different characters of different ages without saying their age difference.

2.    Make a list of sayings or slang phrases that are familiar to you. Can you match the decade they came from and why?

Share: Which saying is the funniest?

Read deep, marcy

Voice—Development Part One

Workshop: An Introduction to Writing for Children and Young Adults

“It’s about being who we are--that will determine what we do.” Jay Kesler

Even our dream projects have the ability to grind us down emotionally, mentally, and spirituality because of excessive demands, or time constraints, or unexpected urgent issues that upend our day. It’s easy to get sidetracked from our creative process.  And get sidetracked from finding our personal creative voice for our stories. There are whole books written on creative process, so here are just a few basic thoughts that might help focus you on developing voice and story over time. And although I’m only mentioning a few possibilities this blog became so long I’m dividing it into three parts and will post again on Saturday and Tuesday before we dig into specific categories beginning with Picture Books next week.

One: Identify Your Creative Process

Creative Process in writing requires three parts: generate the material, shape the material (either to audience or form), and read/polish the material. Or create, construct and craft. All three need to be fed—all three interconnect.

One of Sarah Domet driving philosophies for her book, 90 Days To Your Novel, states, “If you do not write on a daily basis, or a near daily basis, you are not a writer.”  Yet, knowing how jumbled my own schedules have been over the years, I think the key is really consistency. Whether writing daily, bi-weekly, weekends, or for once a month mini marathons, once you choose what works within your life—make a commitment to it and don’t let go except for disaster interruptions.

James Scott Bell advises becoming “a snatcher of time.” He recommends taking a blank weekly calendar and darkening all the blocks that are obligations. Then look at the empties. Fill them up with writing appointments.

Time is a rich commodity. Take your creative pulse. When are you most alert to write new material? What can you nurture in slower stages of your day? Find your balance between create mode and critique mode and keep them separate.

Also be aware that there are often three main obstacles to goals that can effect your process. Perfectionism. Fear. Procrastination. Being stuck can also be part of the creative process too thought, so when that happens take time to ask questions to the answers you do not know. But sometimes we need to have a concrete time in order to write towards. Sometimes the story needs space to unfold and we need to give it the quiet and time to develop.

Action Steps:

1.      Keep track of how you use your unscheduled time over the next week.

2.     Pay attention to whatever obstacles block your creative projects. Perfectionism. Fear. Procrastination. Write down one action or shift in thinking that you use to overcome this attitude no matter what you are doing.

Share: How can you adapt this defense to your writing time?

Read deep, marcy

Mystery

"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth ... when the morning stars sang together?" God asks in Job 38:4,7.

The movie Tree of Life opens with this quote and opens into yet another theme—timelessness. How do we wrap our thoughts around this concept when the mystery eludes us and yet it is a fact in our daily lives? Even when we attempt an answer it only leads to more questions.

The movie repeats cycle themes, clouds crossing the sky in time lapse, the birth of a volcano, the birth of a child; all are measurable, all are timeless and all keep us open to mystery.

Jesus raised similar questions in His parables. He began with daily measurable activities: sowing seeds, watching the weather, harvests—cycle of life. Then He pushed beyond the surface to share hidden truths. Powerful, creative, and life-changing insights. And the most common immediate response to these metaphors was, “How is this possible?”

The questions, the search, the curiosity all lead us into the mystery of living here and into hereafter. Nature wraps around our daily lives as beacon and somehow as a guardian. It is bound up with our ability to learn to see.

“For the anxious longing of creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” Romans 8:22 NAS

Nature—timeless—expressions of God’s truth—mystery—open to conversation.

Journal Prompt:

Make a list of nature metaphor or themes that reflect a sense of timelessness to you. Choose one for your character and write a brief vignette when he first experienced that connection.

Share: Two of your metaphors.

Metaphors

Time as a metaphor can open up as much energy as splitting an atom. The possibilities seem infinite whether we approach it only in chronos time, or in kairos time. Combining both areas together can overwhelm our imagination with the result that we often return to clichés or common metaphors in order to communicate even the most basic characteristics.

Every day we live in both time dimensions. We march to chronos clock schedule. We hold our breath and our souls drink in kairos eternity. When we’re fortunate the two combine and give us a sense of timelessness. We are infused with a sense of purpose. And when our lives start to drift we hold onto those images to keep us on track. Often the very common images themselves are rooted in the ordinary and yet we see something far more.

In the recent movie Hugo this concept of time as metaphor is explored with extensive creativity, unveiling itself in multiple ways. The kairos time shines through the literal clock-ticking center. Keeping the clocks wound daily grounds the young boy Hugo into an everyday rhythm of reality. And living with the clocks keeps him connected to the memory of his father and the dreams of a new future. The clocks are so ingrained in his life that in some ways they become a picture of his heartbeat.

And still everyone will see this image through a different perspective. I came to the movie version without having read the novel. And I have not seen the 3D version. Others who have bring a different interpretation. In addition we all add our own personal ‘time’ attitudes to the mix. And the possibilities continue to explode into more metaphors.

Journal Prompt:

1. Have a conversation with your protagonist and ask how she feels about time. Is it an ogre waiting to devour her day or a beloved friend inviting her to adventure?

2. Make a list of words that reflect her perspective. Look for small opportunities to incorporate them either as description or turn them into new metaphors. Even if time itself is not a central theme in your story the attitude towards it can still be heightened for effect.

Share: How do you see time? J