What is Diving Deeper?

The main aspect of the Diving Deeper pod is that it is a workshop - meaning it’s not a place to simply publish our work, and have people say nice things about it, but rather a place to get inspiration and feedback and support to ‘go deeper’ with our writing and therefore our lives. It is not a place to sell ourselves or our writing, but a place to fine tune our craft and our way of being with ourselves and each other.

It is also a community of fellow writers and seekers and people who believe in giving back, so a huge part of being on the pod is actually reading other people’s creative work and sharing our response, and of sharing any tips about what supports the process or where or how to publish work in the ‘outside’ world.

The Diving Deeper approach is one I teach in workshops. I teach because I want to learn.

Diving Deeper is a method developed out of the Freefall technique taught to me by Barbara Turner Vesselago. Freefall is an extraordinary process, one which has turned many  from “I want to be a writer” to being writers.  Because the method so beautifully mirrors the spiritual and meditative journey I am on, for me the process is not just about writing, but about living: in the moment, honest and direct as we know how, as risk taking as we can be, deeply alive with all our senses to the world inside and outside.

Sandra Jensen
Cultivator

Here is our original ’pod description’. It also sits at the bottom of our pod ‘home’ page, but it gets a bit lost down there so it’s here with a few more details.

We may update the description from time to time, life is always moving and changing…  have a look every so often, and even if we don’t make any changes, it is good to be reminded why we are here:

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?

Sandra Jensen leads Diving Deeper writing retreats in Europe and North America. Her non-fiction work has been published in newspapers in Canada, the Whole Earth Magazine and Utne Reader. Her fiction has been published on Verbsap.com, The Dublin Quarterly, r.kv.r.y Quarterly. Word Riot, Versal, Common Ties, SFWP.org and Sou’Wester. She has written for the theatre, and is presently writing a collection of short stories.

Re: What is Diving Deeper? - Welcome to New Members

As I may be offline for much of the next few weeks, I wanted to place the 'welcome note' I send out to all new members here. It includes the piece above, and the following:

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DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop - Welcome!

If you have any questions about how the pod 'works' don't hesitate to ask.  Main thing is to jump in. Try out one of the assignments - many are only 15 minutes long. A good one is Truly Bad Writing - in fact I'd say it is almost a prerequisite for anyone joining the pod.

Here is a bit of orientation:

- Have a look at the Newsletters for details of what's most recent in terms of changes, plus any announcements since then.


- Please read the Pod description if you haven't already. It explains much of what this workshop/pod is about. 

- Sandra Jensen's NOTES ALONG THE WAY will explain the method behind the 'Diving Deeper' writing process.

- If you want to comment on other member's creative pieces, please have a look at  On Commenting / Giving Constructive Criticism - and, if you post a piece of your own creative work, please 'comment' on one or two other people's work. You will find your work will get more attention the more you give back to the community :-)

- The Tree House is for introductions or just to chat about yourself or your writing or whatever is going on for you.

- If you have any issues or difficulties with something on the pod, there is a Mediation Thread for you to share and be heard.

- Newsletters & Announcements - should be perused by all new members just to see what is happening.

- The Assignment Archive - a list of all assignments, and the 'instructions' on how to make this archive work for you.

If you respond to one of these assignments, please post these to the Responses to Assignments board as a new thread – except for screenplayscreenwriting assignments, which get posted in the Diving Deeper SCREENWRITING & PLAYWRIGHTING board.

- Diving Deeper PROSE is for Prose, fiction, non-fiction, creative writing etc not in response to one of the assignments.

- Diving Deeper POETRY - is for all forms of Poetry not in response to one of the assignments.

- Diving Deeper SCREENWRITING & PLAYWRIGHTING - a “craft room” and place to post this form of writing - including responses to assignments that are specific to these genres.

Remember that short excerpts are easier to handle in this digital format. And, there is so much wonderful writing here, you will find that your work is more likely to be read if you share it in bite-sized chunks.

AND… a basic principle of Diving Deeper is that we support each other with our comments, See the guidelines on how to comment.  If you post a piece of your own creative work, please make it a practice to then comment once or more on other people's creative work.

And check out the other boards, we have a wealth of resources for writers and other fun stuff going on.

Note: we are making a new policy to help maintain the focus of the pod: a member who does not at least view the pod once within a six month period will be removed. This only means taking a look, it doesn't mean to say you have to post anything. And if you are removed, you can always rejoin.

What is Diving Deeper? - commenting personally

Every so often when we read a piece here we feel to talk to the writer - rather than about the writing. Perhaps we are deeply touched by what is written, feel sure it's autobiographical and we want to share something to the person, rather than the writer.

Please, if you feel this impulse – stop, breathe, and take a moment to refocus your attention on the writing and NOT the person who wrote it. Recently I wrote a note to someone about this, and it does keep coming up so the moderators and I decided it might be a good idea to have a public post which we can link to when it comes up. Here is a version of what I wrote:

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I didn't want to 'comment on commenting' on the thread as it always takes away from the writer's work. One thing in DD we try to do is always treat the work as fiction, even if it is obviously not, and not write direct comments to the writer linking up the characters in the story with them as real people.

It probably seems weird for me to say this, given that there is such a huge 'healing' aspect to the DD approach – however I have experienced so often that the 'healing' happens when we focus on the work, and not the writer.

It is as if by somehow putting some air between ourselves and 'our story', and looking at that story as a piece of art, we are more able to let it go, or more able to integrate it - whatever 'needs' to happen.

 I've seen this occur time and time again, and experienced it for myself..

I also know of a woman who found she could not write for months after someone approached her (in a 'real life' workshop) and said, “I'm so sorry about what happened to you”.

The On Commenting notes, which are so important for everyone to at least 'skim', does cover this, and so do many of my Notes Along the Way.

How to 'refocus' – keep thinking about the -I- character in the story, or the main character:

e.g. If you feel sad about a person in the writing, just say this.  “I felt sad about what the -I- character went through”… “I feel the -I- character has some deep issues/ideas that I differ with, I'd love have these explored more in the writing” etc etc

Sometimes it takes a lot of care to phrase what you want to say so it's about the writing and not about the writer - but it's time well worth taking, in terms of supporting the person you are writing to, and also in terms of your own writing.

If you really feel a strong urge to say something personal, please email the writer first and ask their permission, and if they say 'yes', I'd do it privately, unless you both agree to do it publicly and please publicly state that you are both in agreement to the discussion, and link to this post so people know that it's outside of Diving Deeper commenting guidelines.

Love,
Sandra

What is Diving Deeper? - Tips & Tricks

We have a number of boards here on Diving Deeper - here are a few tips and tricks to help you along the way while you are reading, sharing your writing and commenting:

When you are reading on any of the boards, you can sort people's posts by most recent posts/ replies. Click on “discussions” at the top of the board, and then click recent - and you will get all the most recent posts made on any of the boards.
If you go to an individual board, you can sort posts by the number of replies that a post has received.

For example, if you go to the Responses to Assignments Board and click on “Replies” column (it will be in blue, and is a link) - it will sort the posts by the greatest number of replies first. If you click it again, it will give you the posts by the least number of replies (ascending/ descending sort). It is always interesting (to me) to see the posts that are sometimes not receiving comments - not because they aren't worthy of a comment, but because they are impactful or just have maybe been missed.
 
For the Mods: you can also look at all of the posts that a DD member has made - go to “Admin” and manage members - click on a member's name and voila  - all the posts they have ever made on DD. (I like this feature - helps me to keep people's posts straight, especially multiple posts, and that way I am less likely to miss reading something)


If you have any other tips or suggestions, please send them along to Sandra!