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Guest Blogging for the IWWG

Learning to Balance New as Guest Blogger

As a guest blogger for the International Women’s Writing Guild (IWWG), I recently wrote about how I balanced the news of two mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton in a single weekend. It all goes back to a sing-song activity I learned on Romer Room as a girl.

The Posture Basket Song went through my head the other day as I took my morning walk for no apparent reason as I saw the American flag at half-mast. I had to do a little investigative work via a Google search, but was able to glean the odd combination of images and sounds once I got to YouTube.com. I knew that my Guild sisters would appreciate my thinking. Want to learn more about the Guild? Look here: https:iwwg.org

Want to feel more balanced in your daily round as a writer grappling with violence in the news cycles? See more below.

Marisa

The Strength of We Women Vessels

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TinMan’s Gratitude Grows Flow

Register Emotion with TinMan’s Flow

TinMan is literally rusted in place when we meet him along the Yellow Brick Road. He knows he needs help, but is literally and figuratively stuck in place until help arrives. And arrives it does in the form of two travelers going to Oz with problems of their own. Haven’t we all had a sense of grinding writer’s block that seems to freeze us in anger, fear, or resentment?

Want to grow your flow? Take a cue from the TinMan, who used appreciation to lead to flow.

Grab the Oil Can of Helpers

Just like us, Dorothy and Scarecrow are vulnerable. TinMan is no exception. They find  him rusted shut. Yet, TinMan is tenacious in his quest to speak and repeats, “Oil Can!”, in muffled speech until the Scarecrow recognizes the TimMan’s need for oiled joints. Upon application of the oil, TinMan is grateful to be moving again. He may be creaky, but his radiant smile shows his gratitude to his peers as he links arms with Dorothy and Scarecrow and dances down the road. In a sense, we all have had experiences like TinMan. We stay stuck until we find a critique group or writing mentor or online workshops to help move us forward on our creative trail. It all begins with the willingness to ask for assistance along the path. One great resource is found in the International Women’s Writing Guild’s Digital Village. Learn more about the Digital Village here: https://www.iwwg.org/digital-village/

Risk Heartbreak for Experience

In the last scene shot in Oz, Dorothy, her friends, and Glinda are all on the platform where Professor Marvel’s balloon has just launched. Glinda lets Dorothy know Kansas is as close as a few clicks of her heels. She begins her tearful goodbyes. As she hugs TinMan, he exhibits a flow of painful emotion, which most of us would call grief. Now I know I have a heart, cause its breaking. Dorothy hands him back his oil can so he won’t rust up again. In doing so, we know he and his friends will go on with their duties in Oz. He has come a long way from his frozen state to one of deep flow. My how he’s grown for the better.

Your Turn

Who can you ask for help in a writing project – or in any life matter – to regain your forward momentum of flow? Take out your journal and list friends and family who would be willing to lend a hand. Then, risk the awkwardness to write on the subject of your choice once again. You need not share the early work with anyone. Simply write to get back into flow.

Here’s to growing your flow,

Marisa

 

 

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Risk and Reward: Being a Beginner Boosts Creativity

Enter Creative Flow by Starting Anew

When your words leap from the page to the stage it creates courage.

Sometimes to get to a greater level of creativity, you take risks to find rewards. And I speak from a newfound love of script writing. I just retuned from the 41st International Women’s Writing Guild’s (IWWG) Summer Conference. A member since 2009, I have missed only once to serve as a bridesmaid in my youngest sister’s wedding. This year I went way, way out on a literary limb – a big risk for this poet, essayist, and professional business writer – to create, workshop, and stage my first 10 minute play.

 Surrendering to Reality

It is hard not to act like the proverbial kid in a candy store at this gorgeous writers’ conference. I crammed my pockets of time – all five sessions – with courses to feast upon all week. Or so I thought.  From a Pose and Pen yoga opener to a food-inspired workshop that spilled into the afternoon offerings of script writing for both stage and screen, and a final mixed-media and writing art class. I wanted it all. The first two days of the script writing classes were brain stormers. But when I began writing for the stage, I stepped out of the banquet line.  My schedule collapsed down to writing, editing, and revising the play. Blame it on exhaustion. I thought I could go full tilt, even participating in the evening open mic reading and going out afterwards with friends, then write when I got back to my room. However, my hopes took a cryptic turn when my keyboard hand placement was off and the play’s title read “G:PE” instead of “FLOW”. So I decided to begin in earnest after I slept a few hours.

Risk taking is a surefire way to promote creativity.
The Nuts and Bolts of Beginnership

What I learned from play veteran, Kelly DuMar, was script basics, which I applied at warp speed. I shortened the dialogue sequences to make the exchanges more natural. I agreed to the placement of a main character fainted on a chair instead of flat on the floor as it occurred in the actual event. Detailed stage directions got turned into further dialogue. And after workshopping the piece, I didn’t fight the Truman Capotesque move to kill my darlings – silent stock characters – by the instructor. I succeeded in this entire exercise, because I remembered that I was a student and as such was learning to create something radically different from what I typically wrote.

And With the Risk Came the Reward

To see my words leap off the page and take the form of a woman, a student, a dying man on a subway station floor, and a seated group of five instructors whose lessons carried beyond the classroom, left me awestruck. And to hear the audience’s applause as the experimental work came to an end was likened to an alarm clock. It jolted a slumbering part of my creative self. I was ready to venture forth and write and edit more of the same. The reward eluded the risk of failure. And it resonated deeply in my bones that this task had somehow brought me home.

Now It’s Your Turn!

What type of writing have you been putting off? I encourage you to step onto the stage of your heart’s desire and experiment with words. Try your hand at a personal essay. Or compose a poem using a traditional form for framework such as a haiku or a villanelle. Here’s to your creativity when taking on a risk to find your own reward!

Until next time,

Marisa