Writer's Workshop

Lynda Barry

 Today, I had the good fortune to attend a Lynda Barry workshop: Writing the Unthinkable.  I think she has been doing this workshop for a while.  I see others who have taken it talking about it.  She is interested in what an image is in a deeper way and the process of writing with a pen or pencil on paper and how the brain is engaged when we do this.

She shares a process she uses to access memories and hone them into a perfect short story just about the right length for a comic strip.  It seems to work very well.  Many people read their seven and a half minutes stories and they were fresh and tasty!

My Wonky Spiral

 Part of the exercise is to sit and make a spiral on a blank page while she recites Rumi and reminds us we are in our bodies.  The poem is beautiful and I was grateful to be introduced to it.  She recited it about four times for us and I will carry it with me now and it feels like a gift.

Thanks you Lynda Barry!

Waves on the beach

THE DIVER'S CLOTHES LYING EMPTY

You're sitting here with us, but you're also out walking
in a field at dawn. You are yourself
the animal we hunt when you come with us on the hunt.
You're in your body like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you're wind. You're the diver's clothes
lying empty on the beach. You're the fish.

In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.
Your hidden self is blood in those, those veins
that are lute strings that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of surf, but the sound of no shore.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (Rumi)

Rumi