Writing Workshop

I took my first writing class yesterday.  It was called Writing for Self Discovery.  I felt so shy.  I was nervous to read my stuff out loud.  I was reminded about a book I had read earlier–Stephen Pressfield’s The War of Art.  In it, he talks about the difference between an amateur and a professional.   An amateur gives in to fear.  A pro pushes through the fear.

I have to turn professional.  I have to keep putting one word in front of another, day after day, year after year.  I’m almost sixty-seven.  I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid.  But fear of writing badly stopped me.

Of course, my early writing will be bad.  My early paintings were downright embarrassing.  I still shudder when I recall the barn Lynn commissioned me to paint for her parents.  But I kept painting.  And the muscles got stronger.

I will keep writing and expect to eventually get better.

The writing teacher, Maureen, writes poetry.  I don’t  “get” poetry.  I think I’m too literal for poetry.  If I were a poet I’d have to make all the lines rhyme.

Every morning I force myself to write three pages, as recommended by Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way.  Some days I can barely think of anything to write.  So I just start rhyming.  Don’t do it.  It becomes a sickness.  I have a friend, Herb, who used to read signs backwards.  He warned me NEVER to start doing that or I wouldn’t be able to stop.  I texted him about my rhyming sickness.

Here is what he texted back to me.

“I thguoht id ekat eht emit ot ekam siht egassem emyhr.  I deen ot ees a esrun ot kaerb em fo siht esruc.”

Three pages, with a fountain pen.  When I begin to write about all the things I’m grateful for the writing flows and I can go on for even four or more pages.

Blah blah blahing away.  I never go back to reread my morning pages.  I started this practice in June.  At that time we were still living in our Palm Harbor home.  Then the summer of condo happened.  Now we live in a high rise.  I can walk to the library.  And to my writing classes.

I haven’t felt like sewing at all since the move.  I will keep my wool for a year.  If I haven’t begun making purses again by next September, the bins get taken out of the closet.  We need all the storage space we can find.

Somewhat related blog posts:

The Artist’s Way

Adventures with wool continue.

I manifested a condominium​!