At this time I will be taking an extended sabatical from maintaining this blog.
I have completed a non-fiction project which can be found at www.yournextchange.com
Thank you to all of my readers and supporters for your encouragement and feedback.
Keep writing, Fenna
A few years ago a friend of mine told me about her first session with a marriage counsellor. Part way through the session the counsellor asked, “So, why is it your job to make everyone in the universe happy?”
When she caught herself sitting there trying to figure out what answer would make the counsellor happy she had a full body epiphany. She was so busy trying to make everyone else happy she had no clue what would make her happy. Or fulfill her. Yikes! Major insight. And even after all of her effort the folks around her didn’t seem too happy. At least not with her.
As we laughed I quipped, “time to leave Nice Street.” Since then we catch each other suffering from what I’ve come to call “terminal niceness.”
I thought my fear of leaving Nice Street was that I’d end up on Nasty Street and that definitely didn’t sound like a very nice place to live!
But I’m discovering that the most meaningful Streets are somewhere between Nice and Nasty. And I find them by writing.
This month I find myself writing about leaving Nice Street. Below is my first verse of a piece in progress:
When I moved from Nice Street I
stopped colluding in the fiction that
only the letting of my blood
would suffice. I placed one blistered
foot on stones barely solid. Commanded
the other: Come. Beginning I was heat.
Jumble of bone. Mineral dust.
——- (still writing …..)
What would you name the street you live on? Metaphorically, of course.
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I know why I have a thousand good ideas to write about and a thousand and one reasons for not actually writing.
It’s because after the tool gathering, fact finding and yet another class in technique there is a point where I just have to get quiet and do the work.
That’s when the undigested bits of past embarrassments, traumas, and angers form a sticky sludge to taunt me. Yet again. Even though I thought I’d buried them thoroughly the last time they even threatened to rise.
It’s the place I least like to go. It’s the place where some of my best writing comes from.
It’s the place where I discovered my heart elbows. Here’s the poem.
Every decade its own mystery
Just shy of my sixth decade
I wonder what could possibly
shock me now.
Then an astonishing roil of grief blind sides me
at the death of someone
I thought I only held hatred for.
The sharp startle of how my life didn’t improve
the day after I heard.
How fuelled by a deeper sense of safety hate intensified.
When I realize all my excuses about my unlived life
have also been dragged into that grave and hidden,
I recognise the final act of terrorism.
I’m left bewildered at the edge of a gaping pit
unstable.
All the might have beens
a slippery afterdeath.
Instead of peace I still walk around with my
heart-elbows out
—–
Where does your best writing come from? I’d be interested to know. Please leave a comment below.
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In 2005 I made a long overdue decision to leave a steady paycheque and cobble together a living as an independent.
Immediately, fears of every ilk and lurk joined forces to paralyze me. My mind was screaming, “have to, should, must, now, goals,” and my body was saying, “just curl up under your nice, warm blankie.”
When my emotions drag me into those kinds of stuck places I turn to images to pull me out of the vortex. I gather a stack of magazines, flyers, old photographs etc and flip through them, tearing out whatever images I resonate with. When I have a reasonable pile of images and words I collage them onto a 12 x 18 piece of paper.
Then I step back and look at my creation. Every time its beauty amazes me.
Each time I learn something about myself.
You Don't Have To do It Alone
That time the words “you don’t have to do it alone,” leapt out at me. I was shocked when I realized I believed that independent meant without any outside input or help. Couldn’t even ask questions. Yikes! No wonder I was paralyzed. I’d set myself a wicked witch impossible task and couldn’t even accept the help of a fairy godmother!
Now I’m an independent who is open to information from a wide variety of sources and I simply reserve the right to make the final decision.
Now I’m not saying that Deb Clay is a fairy godmother, but she sure helps me out a lot when it comes to my creative efforts. She is a persistent encourager, editor, web designer and suggester of meaningful projects. Like the one we are doing together this year. Two completed poems a month, each, and publish in 2012.
Browse her web and blog at http://www.dlclay.com You’ll find it encouraging.
Who is your persistent encourager when it comes to your creative projects? I’d be interested to know. Please leave a comment below.
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In 2005 my first chapbook of poetry, Songs My Shadow Sings Me, was published by ifpress. Last year in 2010 I published my first personal development book called, Your Next Change: Guidebook for the Stuck Places.
So what?
A couple of months ago someone called me a writer.
So what, again?
Well, I suddenly realized that my inner response was to shrink inside myself and say something highly intelligent like, “ah, well, not really.” Yet I have two published books, lots of other writing published, and binders full of writings-in-process.
So, who’s not a writer?
I’m not famous. I don’t trap strangers at parties so I can nauseate them with stories about my writing. My writing hasn’t made me a millionaire. I may never make the Ellen DeGeneres show.
But quietly, randomly and persistently I have been a writer for five decades. From feedback I’ve received some of my writing has impacted others. I know it has impacted me. Writing is how I figure out my world. Writing is how I share what I’ve figured out. Sometimes I find out I’m on track. Sometimes I find out quite the opposite. I keep writing.
So I decided that 2011 is going to be the year of Fenna Writer. Then I promptly bought the domain name. I named this blog after my poetry book as it seems my shadow is still singing me.
Are you a writer? I’d be interested to know. Please leave a comment below.
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