I Am A Writer Again

 

Writing (Photo credit: jjpacres)

 

The past couple weeks? I have been writing, reading and researching.

 

It is true that pain inspires art and I had such a low night recently that I just started to write again. As I started writing I started reading things I’d written before.

 

Then I wanted to get those things published so I started doing research and rejoining writing communities.

 

Then I started reading other people’s writings, and then critiquing and joining conversations.

 

Then I actually sent an email to the editor of an upcoming anthology. Now I am putting my work up for critiques.

 

Sometimes I don’t feel like a writer and I feel like writing is pointless. Then something happens…I listen to new music with inspiring lyrics, my dad gives me a compliment about how he likes my poetry…

 

And I feel like a writer again…and then I write.

 

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• Adventure To Find Myself. (brianbbaker.com)
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• The Exposed Writer: Connect with other writers (ywwscribe.wordpress.com)

 

Are You Inspired by Pain or Bliss?

When I ask this question, I don’t mean are you generally inspired by one or the other…I mean in terms of creative and artistic expression…

What inspires you to express more, pain or bliss?  What do you do when you feel overwhelmed or stimulated with one or the other?

If there’s any unbalance, how can you harness your emotions to fuel the creative process?

Do you have any tips or concerns in expressing your creativity in a balanced way?

This Week In Artistry

This week I did a lot of writing. I read some of my old poetry, my journals, editing files and submittables. I read poetry by other writers as well. I did a small bit of editing, but I did a lot of writing new poems. It was extremely enjoyable, I also did a lot of reading my poems aloud and creating a voice that can create a performance. I toyed with recording some of it.

I also recorded myself singing and just changed the melodies to a few songs.

I did one computer painting.

I did one numerology chart.

I did some expressive, ecstatic dance with my daughters.

I did some painting with home-made paints.

I probably took some pictures.

I also viewed a lot of inspirational art…crafty and fine art. I listened to a lot of new music and some old classics as well.

How did you create this week?

Real Music Alert: John Frusciante Releases

If you don’t know John Frusciante, and you consider yourself a lover of music, quickly do yourself some research and get on board.  As a refresher, John Frusciante is the former guitarist of Red Hot Chili Peppers.  Over the past 10+ years he has released several solo albums of various genres and styles that are among the most interesting, unique and enduring songs of any currently living artist I can think of.  John Frusciante is truly a musical gift.  His new EP has now been released in Japan, and I suppose fans from Japan posted some of the songs on Youtube.

I am always pleasantly and completely surprised by each of Frusciante’s albums.  I am super eager to listen to the LP that comes out in September.  If this sounds a bit odd to you…give it a chance, you will feel your musical education expanding quickly.  Listening to his whole discography will help, but I think wherever you start, you will want to listen to more and more of his music to understand his artistic contribution.  Here is a statement from the artist himself:

Hello people,

There are two new John Frusciante records coming out. The first is an EP entitled Letur-Lefr, and the second is an LP entitled PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone. I sing, play the instruments and am the engineer. The EP features a few friends on vocals, mostly MC’ing. The LP has one feature, the rest of the vocals being my own.

I consider my music to be Progressive Synth Pop, which says nothing about what it sounds like, but does describe my basic approach. I combine aspects of many styles of music and create my own musical forms by way of electronic instruments.

The tracks on Letur-Lefr are from 2010 and PBX was made in 2011. Letur is a compilation, a selected portion of music I made that year while PBX was conceived as an album, the songs having been recorded in succession. The records are very different from each other, so prior to the release of the LP, I will make available a free download of a song called Walls and Doors. This song pointed the way towards PBX, but was recorded 7 months earlier. I always took it for granted that Walls and Doors would be part of the record, but as it turned out the record was better off without it.

Letur-Lefr will be released in Japan on July 4th, in North America on July 17th, and in the rest of the world on July 16th. You can pre-order the EP, which will be available on vinyl, CD, cassette and in 32 bit, FLAC and MP3 digital formats here.

PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone will be released in Japan on September 12th, in North America on September 25th and in the rest of the world on September 24th. Like Letur-Lefr, PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone will be available on vinyl, CD, cassette and in multiple digital formats.

We will provide a pre-order link for PBX sometime in early August.

- Thanks, John
@johnfrusicante

 

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Visual Inspiration

These photos of Danxia landforms are amazing.

English: Danxia ‪中文(简体)‬: 丹霞山 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They are real, untouched photos of a rare geological occurance.

内容介绍：丹霞山阴元石 原创者：zhuwq自拍 创作日期：2003年7月。 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They remind me of one of the books in the Wraeththu Histories by Storm Constantine.

At one point a character Lilu leaves the dimension of the story with another member.  Something she did was just so dangerous it caused her to materialize in another dimension.  In this dimension things were very different.  Colors were different, the earth, the sky, time itself.  The characteristics of the environment led to something distinct in the story and a distinctive change in the characters involved.

I think it would be great to use these images to imagine a sort of persona they support and encourage.  I can imagine a place that looks like it is connected to the rest of the earth, but is detached from gravity and a portal to other worlds.  Or it could be that this particular space was so full of gravity that those who stepped foot on it would become transfixed and immobile.  They would eventually sink into the ground or wander off never the same.

Here’s my poetic prescription:

did you hear the sprinkling of fairy dust around your ears

as you drifted heavy and bundled on the choppy waves?

did you look up to see another dimension than the one you existed

in before you became heady with your vata mysticism

and phantasmic with your bipolar passion?

did you look up into the dark sky and imagine the glare of the color spectrum

bold and solid, glistening and magical in the distance with its metallic taste

making your lips feel salty and sticky and loose?

did your spine erupt in motion as the crisp, cold currents caressed

your instant kundalini awakening, killing the body that housed it

sending it bursting into the air and bringing more brilliance and color

to the glittery visions that blinded that body and that mind from survival?

~~Siri Mera Kaur

My New Creativity Schedule

Like I’ve already mentioned I’m on the verge of poly-artistic mastery.  Here I talk about how I’m into dance/movement,  writing, visual arts, theater/performance and music.   I mentioned that if I don’t regularly explore these aspects of myself I suffer emotionally and physically, spiritually as well.  I may not have mentioned that, but you could’ve connected the dots.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to come to a balance with my creative self and I have given myself a schedule to reel in my focus on my art.  I’m pretty lenient with all this, except the writing.  Here’s my new goal:

Sundays- Reading, writing, big visual arts project(could be letter writing, several mini-art pieces, ATCs, something recycled/upcycled or taking pictures…no computer work), Yogic dance.  Sound healing.  Ceremony.  Gather inspiration.

Mondays- Journal in the morning and evening.  Creative meditation.  Music.  Dance class.  Read.

Tuesdays-  Journal.  Music.  Dance class.  Monologue.  Creative Ministry.

Wednesdays-  Journal.  Writing w/ started works/reading/critiquing.  Gather inspiration.  Monologue.

Thursdays-  Dance class.  Crafty.  Revision.  Healing Art.

Fridays- Work on vision board.  Fabric art.  Photos. Free dance.  Voice.

Saturdays-  Spoken word.  Submission/research.  Spiritual Art.  Sound healing.

Yes, I am intending to be creative everyday, and in my journals, I will track what I’ve done each day, to help myself and others see how this works, if it works and what comes of it.   A lot of this I’ll be doing with my daughters and I designed this around their needs.  Some of it I will carve out opportunities to do on my own.   Some of this is purely for pleasure, some of it is for work and some of it is spiritual.

All of it is me. 

I’d love to see any of your creative schedules or have you join me.

~~Let the stories begin~~

Really great links you should click on:

• The Cosmos: Creativity And Healing (urbansoulflower.wordpress.com)
• The Kollaboration Blog expands! (kollaborationtoronto.wordpress.com)
• Do You Schedule Creative Time? (aniweda.wordpress.com)
• Art journaling (katieorse.typepad.com)
• lessons integrating art and dance (rollandpryor.typepad.com)
• Nurturing Creativity in Children with Visual Arts (lauradaub.com)
• healing journal prompts (isiahmead1.typepad.com)
• DANCE: Q&A with Ginette ‘Phoenix’ Marte (taniafuentez.wordpress.com)
• Ashley Everett: The Journey of Dance (andwepresent.com)
• Art Therapy and Meditation Art (firesurvivors.wordpress.com)
• Work in progress – devising week photos (theunhiddencollective.wordpress.com)

Feathered Friday, June 22nd.

The colors of this creative exploration are brown, night sky and dim light.

Instead of going for a walk during the day, I took my kids outside just before bed and I brought my camera.

This is what I saw…and this is what played while the faeries of the underworld watched the night-time magic I let stain my skin.

As we played in the dark and took pictures of the sky and trees and mushrooms, the colors and sounds brought something inside. It expressed itself in waves and color. It could not be heard but it was felt, like a wave of someone’s hands over your eyes when you’re barely conscious. You may not be able to respond, or articulate how you feel, but you know you have felt the energy of this person and their emotions, more than you have felt the palm of their hand. You have felt their spirit enter your space through something barely perceptible but profoundly energetic.

Something happens to people when we enter into colors and light and sound. We can siphon ourselves into situations that serve us better. This happens easier for children. They could be in bed, physically, but their restless minds can climb into a vehicle that transcends the walls of their apartment and dances across the den of the woman working on her computer. It could be dark and quiet, and she will feel that energy and she might see a small rainbow smear wave and whirl across the room.

The child could have felt her energy, as she breathed into the night sky. Her open heart could have released its love and flown up the child’s window. That exchange of energy could have been dancing beneath all the movements of mass for hours. And the child may grow up to remember the colors and light of childhood that came to be in the darkness and depth of bedtime. The child may remember the stories evoked in the feathers hanging on the window, or the songs imagined that came from nowhere but meant everything, meant the universe and life, and the people next door were all apart of the same story and that the story never ended, and that the story would always give hope and healing.

The child could go outside 20 years later and feel a part of him/herself, perhaps all of him/herself merging with creation and existence and movement in light forms, in the unseen. The child could catapult into dreams from childhood and experiences that couldn’t be understood or articulated before. The child could free himself and imagine that he was a feather, frilly and frisked by the wind, clear from boundaries, flowing through the atmosphere and its stories.

Related articles

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Must-Share Poetry, June 2012

English: Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natasha Trethewey signs a copy of her book Native Gaurd at the University of Michigan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The first step to writing, is reading.  To write poetry you have to read poetry.  These three poems have definitely inspired me as a writer and I intend to let them settle a bit more into my consciousness before I write my own response to each.  Which of these or any other recent poems you’ve read have inspired you creatively?  If you write a response to either of these please post a link in the comments and let me know how you feel about these poems even if you don’t decide to write a response.

Mani Canaday: The Most Dangerous Neighborhood In Phoenix

Bassey’s World: Apology To My Brown Boy

The New American Poet Laureate Natasha Tretheway,:  This one I’m going to repost for your poetic pleasure:

Letter Home by Natasha Trethewey

–New Orleans, November 1910

Four weeks have passed since I left, and still
I must write to you of no work. I’ve worn down
the soles and walked through the tightness
of my new shoes calling upon the merchants,
their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking
my plain English and good writing would secure
for me some modest position Though I dress each day
in my best, hands covered with the lace gloves
you crocheted–no one needs a girl. How flat
the word sounds, and heavy. My purse thins.
I spend foolishly to make an appearance of quiet
industry, to mask the desperation that tightens
my throat. I sit watching–

though I pretend not to notice–the dark maids
ambling by with their white charges. Do I deceive
anyone? Were they to see my hands, brown
as your dear face, they’d know I’m not quite
what I pretend to be. I walk these streets
a white woman, or so I think, until I catch the eyes
of some stranger upon me, and I must lower mine,
a negress again. There are enough things here
to remind me who I am. Mules lumbering through
the crowded streets send me into reverie, their footfall
the sound of a pointer and chalk hitting the blackboard
at school, only louder. Then there are women, clicking
their tongues in conversation, carrying their loads
on their heads. Their husky voices, the wash pots
and irons of the laundresses call to me.

I thought not to do the work I once did, back bending
and domestic; my schooling a gift–even those half days
at picking time, listening to Miss J–. How
I’d come to know words, the recitations I practiced
to sound like her, lilting, my sentences curling up
or trailing off at the ends. I read my books until
I nearly broke their spines, and in the cotton field,
I repeated whole sections I’d learned by heart,
spelling each word in my head to make a picture
I could see, as well as a weight I could feel
in my mouth. So now, even as I write this
and think of you at home, Goodbye

is the waving map of your palm, is
a stone on my tongue.

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A Friendly Writerly Update

Recently (a few months ago) I wrote a poem inspired by this song:

I then moved it from my Too Many Dreams To Sleep File, to my Poems To Work On File, when I felt I couldn’t really do anything with it, I put it up on Zoetrope and asked for a critique.  I got a great one, but I was really busy and didn’t come back to it for 12 days!  The person who critiqued my poem is an amazing writer and always puts amazing effort into reading and understanding and encouraging creative efforts.  He sent me a private message thinking that I was upset with his critique because I didn’t respond.  I feel so absolutely horrible for this.  Please don’t do this.  If I put a lot into a critique I would expect to know how the writer felt about it promptly and I totally understand why he thought I must’ve been put off by the response.  Artistic people are passionate and sensitive and put a lot of thought and meaning into reviewing or viewing or critiquing creative work.   I know I am.  I really try my best to really give an authentic and useful perspective when I share how I feel about others art.

So, I am making up for that long silence now.  I am not a full-time or even part-time writer.  I mean, its true that almost everything I do is writing, but if its not creative, like completely creative, it doesn’t exactly feel like writing to me, it just feels like articulating or reporting.  Somewhere along the way being a creative writer fell away from me.  I think it happened when my second daughter was born and I neglected to send a single submission in lets count… over 20 months now.   I don’t know when I’ll submit again.  I’m trying to improve and finalize a few poems and start a new cycle, but I also have a great somewhat long-term goal.

I’m going to seriously go after fiction writing.   I realize I’m not terribly horrible at it, though it has taken me awhile to feel comfortable with fiction, I’ve gotten some great feedback and recently I re-read something I wrote that has promise (here). I’ve never submitted any fiction in my life…ever.  My new goal is to send a story to the Main Street Rag…a super fantastic magazine.  Check out their submission guidelines for their next anthology: Fiction Anthology

So from now until mid September I’ll be working on the perfect piece of short fiction to send out. That’s a goal to keep me going. Do you have any lofty or not-so lofty creative goals? Declare your desires here. I’ll stalk you to make sure your on it and own it!

(P.S. My daughter found two feathers recently, another special feathered friday coming this weekend)

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Exploring Your Spirituality Pt. 1

Reblogged from Nanny Naturale's Yogi Care:

As children many of us are taught the religion or spiritual beliefs of our parents or culture.

Because of our upbringing we may not have connected deeply to our own process or preferences of spiritual practice.

Many people delve into spirituality in early adulthood or after a life-changing event that serves as a catalyst or awakening in considering new possibilities.

Read more… 459 more words

I believe spirituality is shaped by the individual. This does not mean you can't find a tradition, teacher or spiritual community to participate with, but essentially your spirituality is yours. It is an expression of your connection to the divine and that is for you to explore and define.