“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
Quotables: To Be Read
On Retreat: from one shoreline to another
Yesterday, I returned home after four days of a retreat with women and words. We talked of Permission and all that word can mean when we apply it to writing; we discussed stories and vulnerability and our natural desire to connect with each other; we made space for ourselves and held space for each other. And after our final dinner, it was clear that saying goodbye would not be easy.
What I love most about retreats is the community that grows from them. But I also love the quiet time allowed in order to reflect. Coming together feeds our creative spirit; retreating into solitude is crucial for our creative mind, body, and soul as well.
Each day I walked along the shore and took photos, mesmerized by the strange and beautiful landscape and the way it mirrors our work: rocky at times, sunshine in the distance, full of change and discovery within each rise and fall of the tide.
While out on the shores on the West Coast, my essay on another kind of retreat, swimming along northern shores in Lake Superior, was published on The Sunlight Press. Lake Superior and this particular beach is a favorite place of mine, but rarely do I jump in and swim (it’s average water temperatures are too cold for this Texan!). Except this one summer. And that swim proved to be more than necessary than I imagined. Read “You Have Come to the Lakeshore” on The Sunlight Press HERE. Many thanks to editors Beth Burrell and Rudri Bhatt Patel!
One last thing, a quote from Dani Shapiro that my writing retreat co-leader Elin read while we gathered outside one sunny afternoon:
We are in the ocean, yes. We are constructing the very thing that holds us. . . . If beginnings and ends are shorelines, middles are where we dive deep, where we patch holes, where we risk drowning. This is no time for half measures. We must meet the page with everything we’ve got. . . . What will today bring? I hold my breath, dive down. Come to the surface, gasping, empty-handed. I catch my breath, then dive again. Maybe this time. I reach for treasures in this underwater landscape. Ones that only I can see. Ones that, should I discover them, will be mine and mine alone.
Wherever you are today, take a moment for retreat–a walk on the shore, a moment near a window with the sun pouring in, five minutes in silence at the end of a busy day. Who knows what you will find.
Grant Yourself Permission to Create
In a fews days, I fly out to teach with Elin Stebbins Waldal at our first retreat, Veritas Rustic Writing Retreat for Women. This year, our theme is on Permission.
Early on in our preparations, Elin and I divvied up the days, brainstormed ideas surrounding permission and writing and what holds us back from our own creativity. I offered to present on granting ourselves permission to fail and to succeed.
For the last several months, I’ve dogeared pages in my books, researched articles, saved links to essays; I’ve gathered perspectives and explored the ideas of failure and success.
“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
~ Mary Oliver
In that time, I’ve also been taking a closer look at my own creative aspirations, figuring out what feeds my creativity or what flattens it. I’ve sent out submissions, filed away rejections, quietly celebrated a publication here and there. I have embarked, head-on, into new adventures and wondered (…worried) what it will look like if/when I fumble and fall.
Not surprising, all my prep work to teach at this retreat is giving me insight into my own experiences in failure and success and helping realign my perceptions on permission to embrace both. Every page in a book I mark with a tab is saved for the workshop and for myself; each video I discover to share during a writing activity becomes another message from the Universe to pay attention.
Moving toward the unknown–a new story, the first lines of a difficult essay, a creative pursuit of any kind–is never easy. The journey is filled with excitement and fear, sometimes (usually) a little pain. We make mistakes–we have to make mistakes. We have tiny successes. We experience days when every action seems moot. But all of it–every rise and fall–is necessary.
“Don’t be afraid of mistakes; they tell you what you are trying that you don’t have control over. They suggest that you are venturing into new territory where you’re not yet sure what you are doing. They’re a sign that you are stretching yourself.”
~ Paul Skenazy on Brevity
What stories do you long to pursue? What creative opportunities are you pushing aside because of time, fear of failure, or what your mother would say? What is the risk in letting it pass you by? What is the risk in diving in?
Grant yourself permission; you may be surprised where the journey will lead.
Looking for online writing opportunities?
Flash Nonfiction II: Write, critique. Rinse, repeat. April 7-May 18, 2019. We meet online for 6 weeks and engage with lessons on voice, memory vs. memoir, omissions on purpose, and more. We write, we critique, we don’t stop for the inner editor. While flash nonfiction may not be your main form of writing, working on your short game improves your long. Only a few seats remain & registration closes April 4th. Read student testimonials and sign up HERE.
Study Hall: #AmWriting. Next session: April 7th, 3:30-5pm CST. Once a month we gather online to talk craft, read essays, stories, or poems. And we write write write. By the end of one session, you’ll have tackled 5 different writing prompts–and had fun! Registration is required. For the April session, sign up HERE by Friday, April 5th.
