Well, yeah…

I belong to a women’s group that meets monthly on the Tuesday night    [Continue reading]]]>
The Creativity Workshop is coming to an official end – and this is where those graduation speech sentiments come into play: the end of something meaningful, but more importantly, the launch pad for something newer, more exciting, bigger. blah blah blah.

Well, yeah…

I belong to a women’s group that meets monthly on the Tuesday night closest to the full moon. Last night we did one of those rituals where you pull a seemingly random card out of a deck, read what the accompanying guidebook says about the card, and make connections to your own life.

We used The Celtic Tree Oracle: A System of Divination. The cards themselves are beautifully rendered – each depicting a different tree that represents a certain mythic concept described more fully in the text.

Sometimes I’m pretty prosaic, so my first thought was, “Oh, good, trees. I’ve been writing about trees.” My first Creativity Workshop story turned out to be a love story – between a house and a tree. My last CW story, Timbre – the one I’m working on right now – focuses on people cutting down trees in a suburban neighborhood. It’s a hate story, I suppose.

I pulled the Ash card. In Celtic cosmology, the Cosmic Ash “connects the three circles of existence… which can be variously interpreted as past, present and future, or as confusion, balance and creative force.”

I’m not so sure yet about balance, but I’ve certainly moved from confusion to creative force – and back again – with my writing in general, and through the challenges of this workshop in particular.

“The Ash can be seen as spanning both microcosm and macrocosm, the little world and the great world… Since the Ash itself carries ‘keys’ (winged fruits), choosing this card is a key to a more universal comprehension of how all things are linked, everything being connected; earthly and spiritual; yourself and the cosmos; lowest and highest. Your deeds form part of a far greater, even endless, chain of events, and your own inner pathways have their reaction in the outer world.”

This resonates with my belief in and respect for the interdependent web of all existence so I’m nodding and smiling while reading/typing the above quote.

But the prosaic kicks in again, and these words stand out in flashing lights for me: Deeds ==> chain of events. Inner pathways ==> reaction in the outer world.

I suppose these are obvious to everyone else, but right here and right now, they are the focusing guideposts I need for completing Timbre and moving forward. What can cutting down a backyard tree set in motion? What can refusing to cut a backyard tree set in motion? Who is affected, and how? How can I entice you, the reader, to care about it?

I see a more nuanced, original story evolving from a fallen tree as part of a cosmic chain of events that reverberates through the universe — or at least through the cul de sac. The story is getting deeper, richer and I can see roots (sorry!) of a larger, interconnected web of — what? deception, possibly, nastiness, most definitely — growing beneath the surface.

So, yes, I will finish this final CW story. And, yes, I will move forward with a tangle of ideas that wiil, I hope, weave themselves into a larger narrative, a bigger universe. NaNoWriMo 2010, can you hear me?

I just looked back at my original intent for this final segment of the Creativity Workshop:

Taking the mythic journey through the heart of darkness, er, suburbia.

I am so there.

::w00t::

[And another shout-out for the fabulous Merrilee Faber for getting this whole inspirational writing workshop rolling. Thank you, and thanks to everyone who slogged along for the journey. It’s been real. ]

It turns out there’s a market segment willing to shell out big bucks to get big butts.

Seriously?

The article provides TMI about flat-bottomed women    [Continue reading]]]> A gets extra credit for directing me to this clunker in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (and on the front page!): Goodbye, Girdle: Curvy Stars Spark A Raid on Padded Panties.

It turns out there’s a market segment willing to shell out big bucks to get big butts.

Seriously?

The article provides TMI about flat-bottomed women desperate to add curves to their bums – some surgically (the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reports nearly 5,000 butt lifts were performed in the U.S. in 2009 at up to $15,000 a butt) and some via padded panties, available at trendy boutiques as well as at Walgreen’s and Target.

These women are obviously not writers. It is impossible to sit with your computer, yellow pad or Moleskine notebook for hours each day and have this, er, problem.

Yesterday I went to Target, and came out with two summer tops, one on sale for $8.60, one for $10.00, and two bags of their organic blue corn tortilla chips with flaxseeds (the best packaged tortilla chips around, IMHO.) I forgot completely to look for Booty Pops while there, but I now know they are available online in black licorice and caramel nude for $19.95 a pair – plus shipping and handling.

I’ve never been much of a trend-setter, but I am so there with this butt thing. I figure if I put on one of my new halter tops, open the chips and sit at my computer to write and eat for a couple of hours, I’ll continue to be ahead of the curve, so to speak. I can work on maintaining my own personal butt, which I had even before it became trendy – and none of this silly Booty Pop business for me.

Seriously.

Exactly one year ago today, Nancy Drew Too rolled out its first blog post! It’s my blogaversary! It’s a birthday!  I followed my writing buddies Kathan, Darksculptures, and Dayner into the blog pool and we started swimming. In the deep end.

Little did I realize at the time how much y’all would    [Continue reading]]]>

Exactly one year ago today, Nancy Drew Too rolled out its first blog post! It’s my blogaversary! It’s a birthday!  I followed my writing buddies Kathan, Darksculptures, and Dayner into the blog pool and we started swimming. In the deep end.

Little did I realize at the time how much y’all would mean to me as we plowed forward and shared our writing adventures, hopes, dreams, frustrations, doubts, and, of course, our fabulous writing. Bless your hearts and thanks much, darlin’s… Likewise to everyone else who has graced this blog with your presence and comments.

In keeping with the tradition of my first blog post (what is it about these summer colds?), I’m gonna go take some cough syrup and blow my nose now and hope to come up with something clever for the Year In Review when I feel better. Namaste.

So where am I with my Creativity Workshop goals, my One Story Per Week plan? I’ve already admitted that I didn’t write a single word during my vacation. My bad. But I do have a couple of semi-stories in the hopper from my ‘Breaking the rules/breaking the law’ segment — again, more    [Continue reading]]]>

So where am I with my Creativity Workshop goals, my One Story Per Week plan? I’ve already admitted that I didn’t write a single word during my vacation. My bad. But I do have a couple of semi-stories in the hopper from my ‘Breaking the rules/breaking the law’ segment — again, more than I’d have if I weren’t slogging along in the needs-extra-help-and-time section of the workshop. So I figure I’m ahead of the game, at least my game, and I’m okay with my limited output.

And now, here I am in Segment Three: ‘Taking the mythic journey through the heart of darkness, er, suburbia.’ I’m plowing right ahead with a couple of tales of suburbia, the slice of American life with which I am most familiar — though I try my darnedest not to fit in here. Today’s Friday Flash may or may not find its way into one of my stories. I have lots of ideas for stories here, and many of them are interconnected. We’ll see what happens.

I do want to learn something about Joseph Campbell and his take on the mythic journey to see if that can enrich this series of stories — and my writing in general. Since I think Bill Moyers is the best journalist in the US, I want to watch the PBS series of interviews between Moyers and Campbell, and thought I’d start those before beginning this series of stories. But we’ve had major thunderstorms here for the past couple of days which has impacted internet/cable/phone service and I’ve not been able to download much of anything that requires speed.

So I’m plowing forward without Campbell, and I’ll let him catch up with me sometime in the future. And if any of you has any recommendations for books/videos/whatever that you’ve found useful about Campbell’s work, by all means let me know.

FINALLY, I’d like to give the talented, energetic, dynamic, gifted, inspirational (I know, too many adjectives — but she deserves every one, and more) Merrilee Faber kudos and gratitude supreme for cooking up the Creativity Workshop in the first place! Whether you are involved in the CW or not, take some time to go to her site and read some of her posts and hints, and the guest writers she’s invited to post during the workshop. Lots of inspirational food for thought there.

Thanks, Merrilee — and everyone who’s shared their thoughts and writing through the Workshop!