Today
Today, I met with the two folks I’m co-collaborating with on our Wild Goose Contemplative Writing experience. We talked about contemplative writing, what it was, how on earth we create a meaningful experience in 50 minutes. We laughed. Fully understanding we were in this together, we brainstormed. Our resulting plan is awesome. Perhaps because we followed the principles of contemplation in creating them: being open to movement of the Spirit, working horizontally in community, acting with joy.
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Today, I prepared a writing path for the July Writing Room at 100 Men Hall. I won’t be there this Second Saturday—it happens during Wild Goose, after which we’re going on a grand adventure in North Carolina. But I’m Writer-in-Residence at the Hall. Second Saturdays in Bay St. Louis are when I offer what writing experience I have to the gathered group. I won’t leave them high and dry. July, without me, they will be deep-diving into using the five senses to create a riveting scene. I wish I could be there with them, but putting together the exercises—and illustrative excerpts from Richard Wright’s The Man Who Lived Underground—fed my soul.
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Today, I prepared to lead the Contemplative Writing Group on Zoom tomorrow night. The CWG is an offering of the School for Contemplative Living. The group grew out of the August workshop at Dillard University led by Alisha Johnson Perry and me. But members of the group lead our Sunday gatherings, and I volunteered for tomorrow. I can do whatever I want, whatever seems to offer a contemplative experience. I adore this. The thinking through of it. The imaging how it will go but not actually doing the exercises because I want to be part of the group when we all encounter it for the first time. I am so happy this is part of my life.
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I complain, whine, bitch all the time about where my writing “career” sits. As in, dead in the water. My work gets gratifying recognition in contests, but not an agent or small press will touch it. “It,” you may ask. I’m talking about The Bone Trench and In the Name of Mississippi. I’m sure Jazzy and the Pirate, too, if I sent it out. When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women—which was recently named a semifinalist in Black Lawrence Press’s Big Moose Prize even though NOT ONE BETA READER HAS LAID EYES ON IT—might stand a chance, but you can see why my expectations are low.
That’s not the point. The point is my writing life is as full and fulfilling as it has ever been. Wild Goose. 100 Men Hall. The Contemplative Writing Group. I love each of these. Surely there is a balance between creating new works—I’m writing a memoir called Me and Mine: Coming to Repair—and feeding my need to be in community. I could beat myself up about ignoring this for years as my neck was bent toward my “get a novel published goal,” but where do you think the foundation came from to participate at Wild Goose? Teach at 100 Men Hall? Lead the Contemplative Writing Group? It’s years of doing these things I love that leads to doing what I love. What more could I ask for?
100 Men Hall, Big Moose Prize Winners, school for contemplative living, Second Saturdays, When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women, Wild Goose Festival
Jean
Love This
Ellen Morris Prewitt
I’m so glad! ❤️
Emma
Ellen, so good to hear that we all just need to ‘keep on keeping on’, and that writing is not so much about publishing as it is about mining the soul. I miss my writing groups. hope to start going to 100 Men Hall soon!!
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Emma, that would be wonderful to see you at 100 Men Hall! ❤️ It’s such a good group.
Marie A Bailey
Well, there you go. Such things have been on my mind as well: focus on getting published vs writing for the joy of it. Because of the tension between these two, I’ve focused on neither, not since I self-published my short story. And now this post of yours is making me think a bit differently about the tension. Writing for the joy of it (such as writing on my blog or you participating in community-level writing groups) provides (almost) immediate gratification whereas getting published is delayed, sometimes severely delayed, gratification. I don’t have time to “delay,” so I’ll be taking your post to heart. What’s that phrase, “Don’t postpone joy”?
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Focusing on neither—that sounds so much like me! I really like your idea of balancing available gratification to offset what we have so little power to achieve. This morning, when things had cratered again, I used this blog post to remind myself that so very shortly ago, life seemed so promising. That made me start focusing on what was good in my life, what I could affect, where I could move forward. It really helped. Thank you for your comments that help me see my own words more clearly.
Joanne Corey
So, as it happens, I was listening to a presentation this afternoon by Dr. Kyle McCord of Atmosphere Press. https://atmospherepress.com/ They are a competitive hybrid press, offering editorial, design, production, and marketing services – for a cost, in return for 80-90% royalties to the author. A poet-friend of mine, who has published with several traditional presses over several decades, chose Atmosphere to publish a novella in verse. [Full (abbreviated) disclosure: Atmosphere offered me a contract on my full-length poetry collection, which I deferred for reasons too complicated to discuss in a comment. I’m in the process of re-editing the manuscript but haven’t quite decided whether I will accept their offer or not. It’s complicated.]
My point is that it might be worth looking at Atmosphere and submitting one of your manuscripts to them to see if they are interested. Yes, it’s expensive, but you would retain control of your content and your timeline in a way that isn’t possible with agents and traditional publishers. There are other hybrid publishers out there, too, although some of them are scammy. I do trust Atmosphere, though, because of my friend’s experience.
Meanwhile, I love that you have so many fulfilling writing activities going on and are spreading the joy of writing to others.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Joanne, thank you so much for this suggestion! And to have a personal recommendation from someone who has had traditional publishing experience means so much. I’ll look them up. And I hope your road to publishing the poetry collection uncomplicates. Thank you, again. It’s good to be part of a writing community. ❤️