Hi all,
December already: the darkest month of the year for those of us in the northern hemisphere. It’s 4:30 here and already the sun is down and the trees are black silhouettes against a dull blue world. If it’s not raining (or snowing), it’s cloudy. If it’s not dark, it’s about to be. If it’s day, it won’t be for long. I’m not complaining (much); Christmas is an excellent up side. But doesn’t it feel a little isolating to be in the dark all the time? To be sitting at home with tea and a view out the window marred by your own reflection, waiting with bated breath until a reasonable hour to go to bed? Or is that just me?
What I need this time of year (not to mention every other time of year) is some connection, something to wake me up and get me interested in my writing again. For this purpose I make use of workshops.
One kind of workshop, the most common kind, is where you send in your writing ahead of time and everyone gets together to talk about that writing and what is wrong with it and how you can make it better. This is a very useful kind of workshop in certain circumstances. I like them fine.
But when you have the winter or some other kind of blahs, when you need to feel good about your writing again, when you need to be woken up, I recommend the generative kind. These are the ones where you get some prompts, then you all write in the same (zoom) room, then you read out your newborn writing to each other and everyone is nice because how could you expect such new writing to bear the brunt of actual critique? You couldn’t, and so everyone talks about what they like about it and you go home energized and sure you’re amazing.
Some advice, from an aficionado of this kind of writing:
Use a pen and notebook, if possible. I write most first drafts in my notebook anyway, so I realize that I’m biased, but pen and notebook feels more organic and allows you to see the other people without the barrier of a screen in the way. In zoom rooms this is especially important: if you write with notebook and pen you can keep your screen on the view of the other folks and feel almost as if you’re with them and writing together in a real room. This is an important part of the experience for me because writing with others is definitely different than writing alone (more on writing with others later). I always write by hand in Deepam Wadds’s zoom workshops. These are in the AWA style, which I really love. She is my go-to for this kind of writing. I often sign up for one of her workshops a week.
Go to be surprised. I try to go in with no expectations, no hopes for what I’ll write, and just let whatever comes come. Sometimes it’s prose, sometimes it’s poetry, but it’s almost always interesting. The surprise is a big part of the draw here. Carla Funk, for example, is always surprising me with her prompts. She does four-session suites on a theme three or four times a year, and I highly recommend them.
Go to check in with yourself. In these kind of workshops I often write what I need to write, which ends up being more journally than arty, a piece that isn’t for anyone but me, but that helps me figure myself out. So useful. I recommend not expecting that everything you write in a workshop will be meant to be published. Emily Stoddard is good for this what-I-need-to-write kind of prompt. She offered Hummingbird Sessions once a week or so, free fifteen-minute zoom sessions, and if you couldn’t make the session (or wanted to be able to pause her and write for longer on some prompts) there was a recording sent around after. She’s taking a break, but hopefully will be back at it in the New Year sometime, and in the meantime you can pay for access to all the recordings that have happened so far. She is also an AWA Method facilitator, and you can find more AWA workshops here. I’ve never been to a bad one.
Go for community. One of the best things about workshops is meeting other writers. They will almost always see something I don’t in my first draft. Fiona Tinwei Lam did workshops this year with Simon Fraser University Continuing Education called Deep Writing, where between writing we were put into little breakout rooms on zoom and got a chance to really talk to another writer about what was strong in our pieces. There won’t be any more for a while, but Fiona does other workshops as well, and she’s a great teacher. Look through her Events page to find some.
Go for new first drafts. When I counted, at least 23 of the poems in my book (Big Sky Falling, which is now out for sale and actually on shelves in some bookstores. I’m so excited) were first written in workshops of various kinds. Without the prompts I wouldn’t have written them. These new drafts need work afterward, of course, and I try to plan time soon after the workshop to do another draft or two of whatever seems to have legs. I don’t often do it, to be honest, and end up editing them much later, but when I do it’s easier to remember what I was going for or what I found in that short period of writing.
FROM THE SPIRAL NOTEBOOK
I often share workshop-written pieces here, because so much of my writing is done in workshops. This one was written with the prompt of the amazing poem “Blessing the Boats” by Lucille Clifton. Another reason to do workshops is you find new poets to love. It was in a Deepam Wadds workshop, for those who are curious.
Blessing
after “Blessing the Boats” by Lucille Clifton
May you love what is given
to you to love
with your whole body
with lungs and spleen
and appendix, if it hasn’t been taken out.
May you grieve and eat and see
with all of you too.
May you be lucky when you need it
and unlucky when you need that.
May enough unhappiness find you
that you can grow,
but not so much that you grow crooked
like a tree suffering
under too much wind.
NOTES
Please feel free to reply to this email, either by hitting reply (it will only go to me), or by commenting on the Substack website (there are little speech bubble things at the top and bottom of the letter) if you’d like to be part of a larger discussion. You can also “like” the post if you want.
Also feel free to pass this along to any friends who might be interested. They can subscribe, if they like, by hitting the big blue button that says “subscribe”.
And thanks, as always, for reading.
Thanks,
Kelsey
kelseyandrews.ca
From a Spiral Notebook: The Darkest Month of the Year
You are bringing me to poetry 😊