Last month, I facilitated my first writing workshop, one that included an atypical group of writers. Those who sat around the table weren’t budding undergraduates or emerging writers in an MFA program. They weren’t even a group of Moms on the run, searching for tips on finding time to write (my imagined first audience). The people I led in workshop were of an older generation, men and women from a retirement community, who came together simply because they love to write. And, they needed a guide.
I’m a good forty years younger than most of the folks at the table, and on that first day I wondered what I might have to share, really. How I might relate. Sure, I write daily, have a few stories out there, but my stories – and my style – must be so different from theirs.
During our hour together, they read their stories and then we talked about creative fiction versus non. I got all fired up: stood up and started waving my arms and talking too loud. It was a necessary display in some ways, because one person was having trouble hearing. Still, I might have waved my arms regardless.
What I learned, then, is that age nor difference matters. Writing brings people to a common ground and good stories are ones we can relate to, in theme and in character, even if not in exact details.
Once I saw that they were eager to come back, I gave them an assignment for the next time we meet.
And, as something different here (and to keep me on my toes there), I’ll be posting our monthly writing prompt. This assignment is yours, too, if you want it.
The Prompt
Last month, Sarah Baughman wrote a post about moving to a new place, and about nostalgia, and she explained for me, in just a few sentences, why I return again and again to a certain time or place in my past:
I’ve lived on four continents in my adult life, more than I ever thought I’d even see. It has been my good fortune but also my heartache. A character in one of John Cheever’s many strange and wonderful stories says, “When you’re in one place and long to be in another, it isn’t as simple as taking a boat. You don’t really long for another country. You long for something in yourself that you don’t have, or haven’t been able to find.” The statement rung partly true but also puzzled me until today, when I realized that in my case, the things in myself I always look for are, in fact, the pieces of myself which have surprisingly grown and taken hold in all the different places I’ve lived, and which will never leave me.
Think about a time or a memory that you return to again and again. Write about that event/experience/person you left behind. If you’d like to write this as fiction, consider embellishing the story or creating a new character in place of yourself.
If nothing else, go read Sarah’s post.
You can’t help but be inspired.
* Photo credits: kakisky and cohdra on morguefile.com and Zaprittsky on flickr.com
Pass it on.
Good for you, Christi! As someone who is much nearer to needing a nursing facility, I’m so glad you’re in there, showing your chops and witnessing theirs. I hope some fireball like you comes to guide my writing journey onward during my twilight years.
Happy 4th of July!
Ha ha! 🙂 Thanks, Vaughn. Some of those folks at the table got that bright-eyed look, too, after I started waving my arms around. I’m guessing I’m not the only fireball in the room. Which means I’m definitely in the right place.
Thank you for sharing this, Christi! What a great group of people and I couldn’t agree with you more about the desire to write bringing people together, no matter what the other differences are.
Very nice! I love the description of your enthusiasm and glad you got all fired up. *smile* Keep stoking that fire.
Thanks, Dot 🙂 I really think I will learn so much in this experience, and that excites me as much as the opportunity to guide them along their own journey.
Christi, it is said that we get more than we give from helping others. Whether to express themselves in writing or to encourage another to follow a dream. You seem to have gotten so much more from this experience 🙂
When the student becomes the teacher. That is a wonderful moment. Embrace it !!
You’re so right, Florence!
What great fun ! I am a RN that worked for over 30 years with the elderly.
We had many opportunities to talk and listen to their stories. There are a lot of prompts just for the elderly …. but the best one I ever had for just women is discussing the household chores when they were young…if they worked, what THEIR mothers did…
I would start with recalling my mother teaching me the correct way to hang the laundry
sheets on the outside, then clothing, and inside “intimates”…therefore, 5 lines for hanging the clothing. There are so so many quirks to laundry…joining each piece with a clothes pin or each piece separately, type of clothes pin, and shirts by yoke or tail of shirt…and lots more.
The most interesting was the hierarchy of the clotheslines that are a pulley line from the house … a lady felt she “trumped” everyone when hers was from the second floor .
I am now in a senior center writing group and we find that we use the same prompts anyone would…words from the dictionary, the news ,
and I took a senior college writing class and we used:
“Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within” by Natalie Goldberg.
I just love that book. I loved “Writing Down the Bones” but this second book
has is more “senior” friendly for me…
I hope you continue with working with older people …
most of us feel in our minds to be in our thirties, it’s our bodies that feel “older”.
Looking forward to your prompts.
Peace,
Siggi in Downeast Maine
Siggi,
Thanks so much for popping in & leaving your comment. You’ve given me some great ideas to take to the group (& I plan to check out Natalie Goldberg’s second book. I’m so glad to hear you have a group of your own as well. Storytelling is good for the mind & the soul.
I just knew you’d be great — what a unique, rewarding experience. I look forward to being “in” on the class with your shared writing prompts. 🙂
Thanks, Sarah 🙂