Wednesday Inspiration for Writing Campers

When I open my eyes to writing camp, I see the spaces and places writing campers have started exploring. I see a writing-zip-line, where writers learned to just let go and not worry about the “hows” or “wait, does this make sense?” that the sometimes the “normal” writing workshop filters cause. I giggle because I can see the new word combinations bubbling up through me and recognize this is what happens when we write, separately together, around the campfire.

I also see the women naturalists and explorers I have been discovering myself. I feel their urging and presence beside me, pointing the way and allowing me to make the discoveries. They don’t fill every nook and cranny of my mind with their fillings, they allow me to find things for myself and return to them with curiosity. In doing so, they help ignite my fire for life, the “Zest” as Annie Alexander said, which I then return to Writing Campers.

This delights me.

I come to writing camp today to discover, how I can be of best service to the Writing Campers. This is all about them – there processes, their discoveries. I hope when we come back I will discover more writing on blog posts or facebook so I may see some of the moments, resting on pillows in their individual writing tents and cabins. What is happening, there, away from the campfire when the sparks are still fresh. This is something I miss, the energy of “after” the campfire where I know some of the words which have the most oomph and the most lasting triumphs finally make it through.

Beauty Quote:

"These hours of beauty have meant so much to me, somewhat in the writing,

but much more in the long incalculable hours and days out of which the

writing has risen like the blue smoke out of woods, that I want to

share them with others." --Fiona Macleod

Sunset Writing Camp Comes to Bakersfield, August 5, 2010

Details will be forthcoming - the time to mark your calendars is NOW for Sunset Writing Camp in Bakersfield.

When: Thursday, August 5
6:30 until 30 minutes post Sunset/complete dark (whichever comes first)

Where: A top secret location within the Metro Bakersfield area. Once you register, you'll find out our secret location. :-)
Cost: $7

What to bring: Yourself, Your notebook and pens... pencils, crayons, cameras, musical instruments, folding chairs, water bottles, and good humor are welcome, too.

Camp Writing: Inside My Personal Campfire from Sunday morning

I started writing today at a little bit after 7 AM. I was in the Dana Point habitat conservation area and will write, now, directly from my notebook so I am not sure if it is in first person or what person.

There is a slate grey wall of fog and tumbleweeds like I remember from 1977 when we first moved here. I hear a fog horn. I see a buoy and boats. It is chillier here than my dress looks. We don't match. I don't care.

A train whistle sounds as two women (more appropriately dressed than me) amble up and peer into the windows at the interpretive center. They are runners. One of them sounds British. Carol Carter floats into my mind. "We'll figure it out" says an American voice. I wonder what is to figure. I scope out WritingCamp locations. That is what I am to figure. Anything else sort of drops away.

They built a spot here for sitting which I use to sit and write. It is perfect for that - I love writing amidst the shrubs and bunnies and birds. They are restoring the habitat which, for today, is still grey and not quite awakened. I scan for spots to sit and write and perhaps get a photo of myself sitting and writing. As so often happens, I wish I had a remote control so I could get comfortable and then set the timer. (Some day.) There amidst the black eyed susans I attempt to take a photo but only my knees are victorious.

I hear a bird or a rodent, very staccato rat a tat tat and a sea lion calls. People talk along the path. A sole runner moves. A man tells the trail story to three friends who listen, attentively. They discuss knee surgery. Perhaps two generations, both women with sensible ponytails refusing to give their different shades of brown over to grey. The elder man continues to offer head land narrative.

A muscular woman in pink tank top puffs and pants as she jogs uphill, her devotion to running apparent by the triangular patch of sweat on the small of her back. I want to move forward but find I enjoy it too much when people fall out of my direct line of view and I have the momentary delusion that it is only I, the fog horn, and the sea lion enjoying this sanctuary this early on this final Sunday morning in July.

Still more voices come and then don't. I hear car doors open, and close. I wish the staccato rodent voice would speak again and only another runner's feet respond. I find myself admiring this runner. Silver toned long hair, pulled back, burnished skin. Quite lovely. Maybe a year from now I will be brave enough to look like that, like her.

Campfire Writing: Summer Session 12:30 Campfire

I offer you two related writings of the same and different vein.

One of starting and stopping and critiquing and starting and oh-so vulnerable to stopping-and-thank-goodness-I-didn’t.
 
Please read along.

I have the privilege of leading the Summer Session of WritingCamp right now – and oftentimes when I have such a blessing I land in a funk – it is the oddest phenomenon.

I feel completely pumped up and then, c-r-a-s-h… and something I wouldn’t have admitted in the past.

I write, though, always, and from mid-day writing camp session camp session prompt I got this:
 

When I touch this treasure from the Earth I understand how tokens of love offer themselves up for love’s sake alone. They offer themselves up, shouting a silent, “Here – here I am!” and those who are aware lift them up and out of their homes.

Sometimes a photo is taken, sometimes a poem is written and the token is returned.

 Other times, like this time, the token is plucked from its home and brought in Coryn’s baby-faced purse across the dry desert to Dagny’s and set on an outdoor table to my purse to the lip of this potted plant, another treasure from earth that I, unfortunately, neglected.

Does the earth know, when she offers up her treasures, that someday I will write her gift into an entirely different life?

 I witness creation: I write it down. I would tell people I lead that is enough, more than enough, but what I tell myself is different. Is it enough? Is it?

 Later today I wrote a poem that started its life to be about the plant.
 
WITHERED

Today I have failed

I wipe away the ethereal spider webs

I pull away the withered leaves that

Once thrived and held their greenness high

My work is to love the world and

I failed at loving a plant

How on Earth can I love

The world when I forget

To water a plant, how did

God dare trust me with a child

A dog a home a lawn a poem?

 


 

Last night I got almost through the entire day without writing my 750words. I freaked out at nearly 11:00.  I rambled on spewing words such as “I haven’t written my 750words! I need to write them, oh my gosh! I am on an 86 day streak, I can’t miss a day now, oh my gosh”.

 

Cameron looked at me and said, “Why do you have to write. For bragging rights?”

 

The NO burst from my mouth before I even thought about it. I sat at the keyboard and wrote like a tornado of language.

“I can't believe I almost forgot about 750words. That is almost crazy but my mind was so fried, I am half way not surprised.

And Cameron doesn't get it. Bragging rights, he said, you want bragging rights. No, its a matter of discipline. I have done this for 86 consecutive days because I am disciplined and love to write. Period.

Enough said except for when it isn't.”

It is interesting. Cameron's bragging rights comment last night almost stopped me from writing today as I questioned myself, "Why do I write on 750words? Is it to brag about how consistently I write? Is it to compare and come out favorably?"

 

Is it to feel shitty about myself because I declare to be recovering from competitiveness but lo and behold, I am the queen of competition?

 

I am lost and I think about taking an aspirin, even as I am trying to minimize my aspirin or tylenol intake and cure my aches with exercise and diet. It is so interesting to watch my spirit tumble, kind of like when I was suffering (I almost said wallowing!) in depression and I would go to appointments with blow by blow clinical accounts of my own symptomology, interested in self study.

 

Am I a self-indulgent twit or interested in life self observer?

 

I get up from the keyboard to consider.

 

I putter about and no brilliant answer shows up on my page. No pithy phrase or interesting poetic aside appears.

 

I write because I write. Having goals to step into with my writing help me show up at the page, not because I will make money from writing those 750words, but because I know consistency and discipline continue to hone my skills.

 

To me it is like saying, “Do you breathe for bragging rights?” I write because I write. Period. And I love challenging myself. It feels good to challenge myself and then reach to the challenge.

Cameron knew as soon as he said those words he had struck a chord. I don’t think either of us knew how deep the strike went.

I can feel, though, the power of such a critique. Words like this are words that stop the fragile among us from continuing to write or sing or dance or sew or think in a “different than most others” sort of way.

Campfire Writing: July 22, 2010 8:30 AM

Sometimes I will write alongside the campers at the campfire. Today was one of those days. I feel compelled to take this writing someplace deeper - which I may do today or I may choose to do over the next several days. Read along here, at the blog, to see what I discover here at this session #WritingCamp.

Please note these are free writing samples - unedited, uncut, fresh off the pencil. They are not meant to be literary masterpieces. :)

When I open my eyes to writing camp, I see pine. I see height and weight and brown and green. I see these trees which long for my touch as much as I long for their shade in the Bakersfield heat. I feel the smile on my face stretch.

I see light, dappled and holy not unlike the light in a cathedral. These pines are my stained glass, tiffany inspired windows.

I come to writing camp today to discover what is next for me. The more I mention camp and just flow with it, the more it grows. This last writing camp with Kat in the home feels freeing and sad, holy and frustrating. I long to walk alongside people on hikes, exploring rocks and nooks and crannies of the wilderness of camp and the wilderness of their souls. I want more of this….

Coming Up: Bakersfield Writing Camp: Experiencing the Sunset

During this unique writing camp experience, we will gather and write for the 90 minutes preceding the sunset and then watch, witness and record the powerful transition from day to night.
 

What happens at Writing Camp?

There are similarities to other writing workshops. Everyone writes at least a little something. People share their writing with at least one other person during the session. Each Writing Camper is expected to support the others who are in attendance through thoughtful attention, listening and witness.

When: July 15. Gather at 7 PM, Write until 9:30 PM

Where:   We will gather at a Bakersfield location which you will receive when you pre-register by either emailing me at juliejordanscott@hotmail.com or calling me at 661.444.2735
Please pre-register before 5 PM on July 14 so I may adequately plan for everyone.
 
 Camp Tuition is only $10. Camperships may be available, simply ask.

What to bring: A notebook or paper along with pencils or pens. Since this is a camp experience, no computers, please. You may also bring a sketch pad, watercolor pencils, your camera - any sort of creative tool you use to gather images for writing and creativity are welcomed.

If you think you may need insect repellent, please bring that. Some campers like to bring blankets or chairs to sit on in addition to the human made or natural seating at Camp. Since this is an evening camp, you may not need sunscreen and since we will be actively watching the sunset, you may want to bring sunglasses.

I look forward to writing alongside you!