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DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop

Do you feel compelled to write,  but something is stopping you from getting on with it?

Do you feel you have a story to tell, or simply something 'to say' but don't know how to start, or how to continue?

Are you looking for a deeper connection to your self, or a sense of fulfilment?

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Here are Sandra's Notes Along the Way on the Diving Deeper process and how to support each other through our commenting (NOTE: commenting and constructive criticism guidelines live in this room! ).
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  Sandra : Inspirational Ambassador

Diving Deeper: Notes along the Way #1 - The Blank Page

Sandra said May 5, 2007, 7:16 AM:
 


Mayumi_for_email


“When a man talks from his heart, in his moment of truth, he speaks poetry.”
~ Ray Bradbury

The desire to express ourselves, to tell our stories, is inside all of us. The desire may be loud and raging, or it may be a “still, small voice”.  When we listen to this voice, when we give that voice expression, it brings something so much more than the stories, it brings strength, energy and a deep sense of fulfillment to all areas of our lives.

Most of us are looking for what is often called our authentic voice, or our authentic 'self'. We are, I believe, looking for a felt experience of authenticity. I believe the path to this experience requires great courage, blind-faith even. It requires us to face our inner demons, to look at ourselves with child-eyes, over and over again. It requires us to let go of our ideas of who we are; it requires us to let go of our ideas of  what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'; it requires us to begin again, and again – and again.

Writing can be your guide along this path. If you are willing to trust your voice -  for you do have one, and it is quite unique -  if you are willing to follow it rather than control or manipulate it according to how you think it should be, you will  ”feel yourself being quietly drawn by the deeper pull of what you really love” (Rumi). And who knows what you will find along the thread? It may not be an easy journey.

”[I]t seems to me, the act of writing with serious intent involves enormous personal risk.  It entails the ongoing courage for self-discovery.  It means one will walk forever on the tightrope, with each new step presenting the possibility of learning a truth about oneself that is too terrible to bear.”
~ Harlan Ellison

The blank page as been called the greatest challenge to man/womankind.

Each time we sit down to write, we are called forth to dive into the unknown. I encourage you to experiment with not planning or thinking about what you are going to write about. Thinking is not the same thing as writing.

Prepare your writing space, do whatever you need to help you begin to ”dream the dream” (Stephen King): a few stretches, a walk in the garden. A cup of hot Darjeeling tea, perhaps. Sit down, breathe deeply put your fingers to the keyboard, or the pen to paper, and begin to write.

”Whosoever desires to explore The Way -
Let them set out - for what more is there to say?”
~Farid ud-Din Attar

Go forward, without pausing to reconsider or edit as you go along. This is not automatic writing, but writing with the power of presence.

Stay open and alive. Invite the 'witness' state, invite a larger awareness to enter your personal consciousness.

Be curious: What do you see, feel, hear, think? What are the sensations in your body? Thoughts are sensations. Include everything, and if the critic's voice is loud, include that too, as you write. You don't have to do what the critic tells you to do, but you can honour that its voice is part of your experience. Whose voice is it? Your mother's? Your teacher's?

Keep writing, with gentle pauses. Are you breathing?

 ”Do not try to see the words when you stop, just see the pictures better,” said Jack Kerouac. I would add: feel more. Listen deeper - with your whole body.

Resistance will come up, but see if you can keep going. 

Louise Bogan's poem, The Daemon, is about  “… the angel that each person on earth is believed to be born with, the one who guides the life and destiny of the child on earth. In the piece she questions this greater soulful force about going forward in life. The daemon answers he quintessential question with the ancient answer:

It said, 'Why Not'
It said, 'Once More.' “

(from Clarrissa Pinkola Estés Introduction to the 2004 Commemorative Edition of Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces)

Like Estés, I believe the soul wants stories. The truth ”too terrible to bear” will only cease to paralyse us if we give it expression. Perhaps the truth is a jewel, a diamond in core of our being. You will not find out unless you dive in and write.

We have deep inside ourselves a listening self as well as a voice. Let the voice speak, in whatever shape it wishes: fantasies, poems, dreams, nightmares, the many stories of our own lives. Let yourself listen, be listened to. Tell everything.

Let your whole being be an 'instrument for experiencing'. Writing is a way of playing this instrument. What is your song today?
 
Share your journey with us. We need to hear your stories.

Tikkun Olan is ancient Hebrew for “repairing the world” or “repair of the world soul”. It is similar to the concept of soul-yoga - a commitment to awareness, a commitment to bring attention to repair the world that is right before you, in whatever way your soul calls you.

”..by reaching out to the world, as a more and more individuated soul, one also repairs the ravel of oneself - for whatever of the world has gone awry and can be aided, is sometimes in similar needful condition in the personal psyche as well… the inner life strengthens the outer life, and vice versa. And it is stories that can unite these two precious worlds - one mundane, the other mythic”
~ Clarrissa Pinkola Estés


To recap, here are the first and second guidelines for Diving Deeper:

1. Begin: Dive in, toe or head first. Don't wait for inspiration. Face the empty page. Feel your body, and start to write.

2. Keep going: keep breathing, keep writing. Even if the voices of your writing Ogres are deafening, let yourself be drawn along the thread, no matter how tangled or circuitous or pointless it might seem. Do not second guess yourself. 

As William Stafford says so beautifully in  “A way of writing, Writing the Australian Crawl”:

”.. receptive, careless of failure, I spin out things on the page.
And a wonderful freedom comes.
If something occurs to me, it is all right to accept it.
It has one justification: it occurs to me.
No one else can guide me.”




© 2007 by Sandra Jensen
  Catydid! : Path Finder

Re: Diving Deeper: Notes along the Way #1 - The Blank Page

Catydid! said Dec 7, 2007, 3:34 PM:
 

Before I 'dive in', I wanted to read your Notes along the Way so I'd know what the process was and how to engage it in my own writing.  I was relieved and happy to discover that I've been doing this kind of writing for a long time now - but in private, in isolation.  So much in isolation, in fact, that I rarely go back and read what I've written.

I realize from reading here that this is a little like digging a well, and never drinking the water. 

I perceived that writing as 'junk' writing or 'brain drain', and never went back to it to see if there was any value in it. 

Eureka! I get it! If I'm writing from my deepest depths, without the censor and the need for perfection or productivity, having discarded the word count aspirations or the need for applause - that writing has the most value.  At the very least, it has the most value as a seed for further, more polished writing.  Whatever is written out of my deepest truth is going to ring true for someone else.

Thanks for the epiphany. I've been struggling with this idea lately that my 'writing practice' is worthless.  I'm glad to learn I'm wrong - that the practice has immense value when I look at it from a different angle - and when I actually *look* at it after instead of stuffing it in a drawer and calling it 'junk'.
  Maya : mystery dance

Re: Diving Deeper: Notes along the Way #1 - The Blank Page

Maya said Dec 7, 2007, 3:55 PM:
 

Welcome Catydid!

Glad you are here. Here you can dive, wade in, treadwater, splash or learn the australian crawl!
There is plenty to experience. Even life buoy should it be required, and a few lifeguards.
Oh yes there is a hot tub, sauna, water slide and wading pool also.  Take your time and explore.

enjoy!
maya
  Catydid! : Path Finder

Re: Diving Deeper: Notes along the Way #1 - The Blank Page

Catydid! said Dec 7, 2007, 7:36 PM:
 

I love water in all its forms.  Good to be here, and better even still to be so well welcomed.

Thanks, Maya. :)
  Tom : Mesocosmic Traveller

Re: Diving Deeper: Notes along the Way #1 - The Blank Page

Tom said Dec 7, 2007, 6:54 PM:
 

Ditto on the welcome Catydid! You sound like a natural for DD, someone whose pen holds wisdom naturally, regardless what your mind thinks.

It's funny how we devalue things sometimes, based on what we've heard or read, common sense, or some weird dread. I used to be a voracious reader of everything, what I would consider a learner, but in later years have slumped to mostly just reading the same thing over and over again. Pretty awful, right? I just use it as a soporific, as I only read lying in bed before sleep.

For the last ten years at least I've read almost exclusively from a single novel. Over and over and over. Turn the last page one night, go back to the first the next. Thing is, it's Patrick O'Brian's twenty-volume sea saga. The ultimate modern master of prose. And the sea. It got into my bones, sank into my soul. His rhythms, truths, modalities; his humor and wordility, the sway and rhyme of his prose, his utter humanity. Somehow it soaked in. All that 'wasted' time, doing the same thing over and over, just as a way to avoid having to remember new characters or be disappointed in a lazy or pretentious writer, somehow ended up being good for me. Learn by depression. I'm ten times the writer I was before I did that. And I haven't been writing much at all, except for the last many months on DD. I read myself into writerness, and all by accident.

Anyway, I bet Sandra will be delighted that you showed up. Diving Deeper is supposed to be a workshop, with most of the input going into the assignments. Don't get me wrong, a lot of fabulous work is going on here, but I get the sense that Sandra wishes we would do more actual diving into the assignments, rather than playing around in the shallows, where there aren't any sharks. Or as least they aren't as big as down in scaryland, which apparently is your home sea.

Love, Peace, & Scarlet Begonias,

Tom
  Catydid! : Path Finder

Re: Diving Deeper: Notes along the Way #1 - The Blank Page

Catydid! said Dec 7, 2007, 7:34 PM:
 

Ohhhh, begonias!  Loverly. Thank you. :)

I absolutely adore you, and that's based simply on the fact that you are obsessed with a novel the way I get over novels sometimes - though not to the same degree.  Written on the Body? Read it about a dozen times before I was able to move on to something else.  That something else? A selection of short stories by the same author.

There's a lot to be said about the sea.  I love that it got into your bones.  More of us could do with a bit of that in what holds us up.

Thanks for the welcome.  Don't be fooled, though. I'm all teeth and armor and cynicism trying to be open and digging deeply and writerly.  Only trying.  Which is what counts, right?
  Tom : Mesocosmic Traveller

Re: Diving Deeper: Notes along the Way #1 - The Blank Page

Tom said Dec 7, 2007, 7:36 PM:
 

yep
  Sandra : Inspirational Ambassador

Re: Diving Deeper: Notes along the Way #1 - The Blank Page

Sandra said Dec 9, 2007, 1:22 PM:
 

Cat..

Eureka! I get it! If I'm writing from my deepest depths, without the censor and the need for perfection or productivity, having discarded the word count aspirations or the need for applause - that writing has the most value.  At the very least, it has the most value as a seed for further, more polished writing.  Whatever is written out of my deepest truth is going to ring true for someone else.

oh, can I quote you ? ;-)

Loving your presence here on DD…

Junk??? Ha ha!

At least it sounds like you kept everything, thank the Goddess! One or two members have burned most of a novel..  boxes of short -stories or bits of writing, Brings tears to my eyes. And yet I should talk..these days if I don't 'finish' a piece and feel satisfied with it fairly shortly after writing it, I tend to forget it forever. One day. One day… I'll go back and take a peek :-)

Love,
Sandra