Writing Camp Fieldtrip: When I am Present and Connected....

At our WritingCamp fire today, we focused on presence and connection. I needed to go to Hart Park and see if I had left my Poet Sign Post there and I decided, since I was there, I should connect it back to writing camp. I took along my camp chair and wrote for several moments.

I love that Emma took some photos. They add a pleasant touch AND I love when Emma said, "Mom, are you trying to look all pensive?" and I answered, "No, I am being pensive."

I love my children!

Preface note: the gunshots I mention are in reference to a Sheriff's office firing range which is adjacent to the park where I feed ducks... no cause for excess alarm, dear reader.

When I am present and connected the gunshots are silent. I hear birds, some with fuller bellies because I was here. Braving the fog I connect to the green amidst it, the decomposing leaves continuing to be of service by fulfilling their current purpose of feeding the soil, becoming one with the soil, not resisting their death and rebirth but actually contributing to it without a litany of questions and why's and the too often tortuous quest for meaning.

The gunshot jolts me, makes me leap a little in my blue camping chair. I am present to all sounds, including it. I shake it off, my head shakes "no" and my pencil waits, putting the blessing back into its tip.

I hear a bossy mallard female announcing something, or perhaps starting a sentence using the quack of a Southern Belle who has been shocked by something and prefaces her speech with "I declare!" A mallard couple in front of her flies off. Perhaps she quacked, "I declare, you two get a nest!" Maybe that was it.

I settle more deeply into my chair and look at the ducks swimming close to the shore where I sit. They don't mind my lack of food for them. We wrap each other in companionable silence and mutual respect. We understand there may be gun shots and there may be bossy other-ducks and we will live through it, especially with the help of our journeying companions.

Writing Prompt:

When I take my current writing project and wrap it in companionable silence, I (hear, see, know, feel, understand....)

~~~

And no, I didn't find my poet sign post. I am sure whoever scooped it up is enjoying it...

And another PS - If you would like to be a part of our brand new, once-a-week writing camp program, registration is open and until Saturday, there is a special early bird price for registration.

Writing Camp Tip #1: Take Notice of What Appears in Front of You and Write it...

I love facilitating writing camp and am consistently looking for supportive materials to make camp better and better. Recently I purchased a book, Keeping A Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth. I hadn't considered a nature journal just of my everyday life around Bakersfield.

I realized a lot of what I do IS Nature Journaling, but with a new session of Writing Camp beginning, I wanted to be more intentional. Last night as I drove to my rehearsal for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and noticed the sun was setting in a different place in the sky, I knew nature itself was calling me to begin.

It inspired one of the most elemental lessons (and assignments) of people attending writing camp:

Take notice of what appears in front of you ~ and write it.

Sunset appeared to have happened over Taft today. It was large, ominous. If it had a voice, he would sound like James Earl Jones and would say, "Julie, silly girl," no... the Sun wouldn't speak like that.


The sun would say, "Julie, there is no need to be alarmed. I might move from side to side and place to place along the horizon, but I'm always here, in the sky. I always rise to the East and set to the West. I am usually a red-orange-a yellow. Today I am Amber colored, like a well ripened pumpkin.


The sun hovered above the hills as if to be sure I saw it, I heard it, I took notice.


I took notice.

I took notice.

Take notice of what appears in front of you ~ and write it.

The Next Session of Writing Camp with Julie Jordan Scott begins this coming Monday, January 17 via Teleconferencing and/or recorded sessions so you don't even need to leave home.

Visit WritingCampwithJJS.com to learn more and register for Camp.

I choose....

IN response to today's prompt for "And Now You Write"

Today I choose joy, I choose openness, I choose to write.


I choose to write into this moment, whether I am writing my Artist statement for La Femme or a tweet at the Poet Party or a musing essay about the days to come - the "all's aboard energy" of writing creativity.

I choose to write into this moment in text messages and micropoetry, in framing my life and my visual poetry, in my moments of transcendent love, I choose to remember through writing. I choose to take my writing and make it into tangible soul. I choose joy when I giggle with my children, when I share of prayers for Katherine, when I recollect in gratitude lists and accomplishment lists and review my goals - my intentions - my possibilities.

I choose to be open, to let the words pour forth. I will be doing a lot of word pouring in these next days. I elect to check the mark of "Sure! I'll do it!" I choose to bare first fruit of creation. Daily. Hourly. In-the-moment-ly.

I choose to write for you. For me. For those to come.

I choose.

I choose.

I choose.

I will live the question now when I write this....

This writing came from participating in "And Now You Write" - you may visit and write along on the blog. There is an audio prompt and community waiting for you to participate. Click here to connect there.

My contour drawing from "And Now You Write" looks like this:

I see bruises the tree bears/bares in my drawing: they look like targets. Her natural growth, cut off. Is this where my fear is stillborn? No heart beat, no healing, no breath? Unable to be expressed?

The hearts on parade, a person - a metaphor.

Silence fills the room as I lose myself in the image.

What do I need to do, who do I need to be as I move beyond wandering in the desert of how?

I vocalize the desire - I make a list. I complete unfinished business. I know I can, believe I can. I love the wrinkles.

I know I reach into communities beyond thir core. I know I am able to seek like hearted and sole/soul spaces. Use contacts. Make requests.

Accept the world as friendly.

Let go of being a burden.

Embrace the vulnerability of sap leakage... it is sticky sometimes, it just is... not bad, not good, just us...

Rumbling under my skin....

(Hot off the tip of my pen from the prompt at "And Now You Write): 

I will write what is rumbling under my skin - writing on an angle, outside the lines because that is what works today. It isn't the prescribed way, it isn't "because Julia Cameron said," it is because this is the way my arm fits as I hold the pen, the phone, the chimes. The wind blows outside my window. It is chilly. I hear the leaves applaud. I take a drink of coffee. A lusty gulp. I listen to the leaves. I break my own rule (and it is JUST fine...)

I will write what is rumbling under my skin... it is and will be just fine....

I am inspired by......

This writing was prompted by "And Now You Write". If you have never been there, check it out - and feel free to join the community there.

I am inspired by the light as it slanted just so, calling me to write. It is as if it waves hello to me, flirts with me, invites me to sit and drink tea. "What do you think, Julie?" or "What does this awaken to you?" or "What song plays when you see me, looking at you like this." Sometimes I grab my camera to capture how my skin looks in this very flattering light.

I am inspired by him, the one whose voice echoes on the phone stuck between my shoulder and my ear. He is just waking up, stressed a bit, and I am encouraging him. Possibly. We discuss means of inspiration and giggle. He is suddenly thinking of new methods and means as am I. This is what happens when two creative people get together early in the morning.

I am inspired by the pencil sharpener on my desk. It reminds me to sharpen a supply of pencils so I may be ready whenever the lightning strikes and moves my pencil across the page, almost involuntarily.

I am inspired by the coldness of my feet. They feel strange and I hear their invitation to put on some slippers. I will walk, when I am done, into the bedroom and grab the fuzzy pinkness. They remind me of times when I was caught out in the rain, which makes me think of Katherine. I hope she is warm enough. I hope she has warm socks and scarves and all the gear New England requires.

I am inspired by Constance the throw away Cat who I see through my window. She is sitting on my desk, outside, while I write, inside. She surveys the scene which includes me. I fed her earlier but lately none of the food I put out delights her or brings her much satisfaction. I think she is bored with her companion, Bob-the-Tomcat who has adopted our porch alongside Constance. He may be holding on too tightly, like many human males do. And some human females. Constance must be the quintessential feminist cat. This thought makes me laugh. I think a poem about Constance the Feminist Cat would be humorous.

I remember, then, that there is a poetry prompt - two, actually, which I have yet to answer, so I am inspired to end this free write and head over there. To a different prompt, a different form, a different space.

Today, I am compelled to write....

At "And Now You Write" today I gave this prompt...Today I am compelled to write...

and the following is what came off my pen:

what's next, what is right in front of me. My cell phone, a tall cool drink, my glasses. Two textbooks, including one that wears tiny wire rimmed glasses and peers down a bumpy nose, sneering. Ugly.

At that observation, my pen surrenders. Gives up, stops being able to be used as it is normally used. as a pen.

I am unperturbed. I listen to smooth jazz and watch the woman next to me, her foot bouncing in its black hush puppy shoe. I finagle the pen so I hold only the thin ink reservoir and continue to write albeit precariously.

Never say there is not devotion present here.

Today I am compelled to write where I did go rather than where I didn't.

I recognize a favorite James Taylor song morphed into muzak. It frightens me, slightly. I heart ice clunking into a cup. No voice croons, "don't let me be lonely tonight" but I hear lyrics, longing, only heard inside my head.

I am compelled to write of legacy. What will I leave behind? Notebooks some would rather seen burned. I keep writing. I think of my photos and pray if I were to leave before October 31, someone would save my Flickr photos, all getting close to 10,000 or some outrageous number like that.

I keep writing. I will always, always, always keep writing.

I will buy stencil letters, Furniture. brooms, pages upon pages and turn frustrated junkmail into art. I will paint my chairs, turn them into art, sculpture, inspired places for sitting. I hear a long ago self-talk thread, "You'll never amount to anything" which if I admit it, I love hearing. I secretly love the romanticism of gauntlets being tossed at my feet. Maybe I was a knight's helper in a past life (if I believed in past lives) and loved the ceremony of it. The poetry of it. Tossing the gauntlet down, staring the opponent in the eyes.

Brad tossed a gauntlet at my feet, I rose 44 feet in the air in a monumental FUCK YOU to pick up the gauntlet and jauntily toss it over my shoulder.

Ginn tossed a gauntlet, "I invited you because you are such a great storyteller" and underneath that, between the lines of that, "You suck as a poet." I picked up that gauntlet and threw it so far and so long and so hard, there was no room on that stage for any other poets. Not for a long shot and then some extra shot or twelve or eighty seven.

"I know, I know, I know what you're thinking. I look like your Mom. Well, get ready to discover the things your mom, YES YOURS thinks about and perhaps, sometimes even writes poetry about when YOU are not looking."

I command a room, a page.

Before I committed suicide I called, was it, my Mom? I called my sister at some point, something I have hardly done since. We've never been back there since that time in 2001. Crazy. 9 years. I am compelled to write of grief and loss and creating family where there once was none.

I read "Sorry greets me at my front door."

I am compelled to write the confession, "I want to be someplace urban!" I want catalogs of grit and grime unsurpassed, unsupressed. Today, I will practice more. Gratefully woo myself.

And today, I am compelled to write drivel.

Yes, beloved, nonsensical, whimsical and at times what is the word? Sentimental drivel. Gonna make, some sentimental drivel...

Today I felt my belly, my ever strengthening core. Literally felt it with my left palm against my abdomen. It is getting tougher. It hurts well. Tomorrow it should hurt even more nicely after yoga. It hurts, in fact, just as I might hope.

Today I will write backgrounds. Paint backgrounds, add to my pile of stuff for Art Everyday month. I will allow myself to fritter away some moments, on purpose. Dangle my hand in the water, allowing myself to get cold and wet and continue to write, even when the pen is broken for any words, any words I write here are NOT broken. My words, my love, my vision is alive.

I am compelled, today, to write "I want my missing notebooks back!"

I read Susan Glaspell's name. She wrote plays.

I long for conversations with women. I long to connect women with their stories, going backward and moving forward, like Sam's query into whether or not I have written our story of "the scent of popcorn hung in the air."

Maybe that will be one of his Christmas presents!

I am compelled to write love. I am compelled, today, to write.

There are so many writing seedlets here. How grateful am I? So grateful.