Language and place need each other.

Without place, every sentence is from nowhere.

~BK Loren, "What It Is That Feeds Us"

It's all right if we do nothing tonight.

You and I have spent so many hours working.
We have paid dearly for the life we have.
It's all right if we do nothing tonight.

from "The Ant," by Robert Bly (Read the whole poem here.)

The Best Spiritual Writing 2012 Discussion on BARC

Sometimes, when writing really informal posts like this, I want to start off by saying, "Hi, there," which immediately makes me want to say, "Hi there, ho there, neighbor," which I think is a combination of catch phrases from Ned Flanders (Homer Simpson's neighbor) and the mysterious neighbor Wilson from the old show "Home Improvement." And then that phrase brings to mind the evergreen and ever-so-sweet, "Hi-ho, Kermit the Frog here!"

So... Hi there, ho there! Jenna the blogger here with a quick note to tell you about an online discussion I'm co-leading as part of the Best American Reading Club (BARC), an online book club focusing on anthologies. Last month's discussion focused on The Best American Essays 2011, and next week we're looking at The Best Spiritual Writing 2012.

If essays (and the occasional poem) about the ethereal make your insides feel all aflutter (as they do mine), please hop on over and join in the discussion starting on Sunday (2/19). Everyone is welcome. We'll be posting a loose weekly schedule so you'll know when we'll be discussing which pieces. That means you can play along even if you don't read the whole book upfront.

I'm especially looking forward to discussing "A Chapel Is Where You Can Hear Something Beating Below Your Heart" by Pico Iyer, an essay that I mentioned in my recent post, "Creativity & Quiet." And I hear that my co-host Sarah and I both have a bone to pick with the book's introduction, so that should be a lively time.

Hope to see you over there, neighbor.

wishBIG ecamp Giveaway

2/14/12 Update: The winner (chosen by random.org) of the spot for wishBIG ecamp is tawnya, who wished for "inner peace instead of ... inner worry." Congratulations! Please send me your email address so I can get you registered for ecamp. Thank you to everyone who shared a wish, dream, or hope here. I'd love to see you in camp, too, so please consider signing up. The fun starts next Monday.

I'm giving away one spot for wishBIG ecamp, which starts next week (February 19-26), and is going to be an extravaganza of creative goodness with me and seven other teachers. To enter for a chance to win a free spot, please leave a comment on this post with one of your wishes, hopes, or dreams. I'll choose a winner randomly on Wednesday, February 15 Tuesday, February 14 (yep, that's Valentine's Day!) at 5:00pm (ET).

What am I sharing at wishBIG ecamp?

I'm debuting a new workshop, "One-moment Memoirs," at ecamp, and I'm quite excited about it. I had so much fun putting it together, and I can't wait to share it with you. My workshop includes several video posts, a virtual reading of one of my own one-moment memoirs, and a fun, accessible, step-by-step process to emopwer you to write your own one-moment memoir.

So...What are one-moment memoirs?

That moment when you're washing dishes, and you see your own hand holding a little metal bouquet of silverware, and for a second you think it's your mother's hand.

That moment when your beloved touches your cheek, and you know in your bones that something fundamental has shifted.

That moment when you hear the loud summer buzz of cicadas, and a line of poetry floats into your mind, begging you to capture it for later.

That moment when the sun slants just so, or the clock ticks too loudly, or you get the phone call you've been waiting for. Those moments big and small, those moments that matter, those moments that you want to live inside of, or make sense of, or share with others.

Some experiences beg us to write about them, but we often feel overwhelmed when trying to capture the whole story at once. One-moment Memoirs helps you take a relaxed yet focused approach to telling life's big and small stories in bite-sized pieces.

In this workshop we'll explore the art of short-form storytelling, also known as "flash creative nonfiction" (which also happens to be the prefect size for blog posts). Using writing prompts and exercises designed to help you connect with the heart of your story, we'll dig into the details of a single moment. You'll use these to write your very own one-moment memoir in two to three pages.

I'm excited to debut this workshop as part of wishBIG ecamp, where I'll be joining seven fabulous creative souls for a week of online workshops and virtual campfires for ecamp. Who else will be there? How about Rachel Awes, Stacy De La Rosa, Miranda Hersey, Connie Hozvicka, Vivienne McMaster, Amy Palko, and Chrisy Zydel. Nice lineup, eh?

Leave a comment (with one of your wishes, hopes, or dreams for a chance to win a free spot at ecamp. (Winner will be chosen at random at 5:00pm on Feb. 15 Feb. 14) Or if you just can't wait, you can see all of the wishBIG workshops and register here!

(Note: By registering for ecamp through the links from my site, you help to  support my work. Thank you!)

Creativity & Quiet (In The Word Cellar)

A few weeks ago I wrote about creativity and time, about such inconvenient facts as these: 

Ideas don't come down the conveyor belt in perfect succession, spaced apart just so. 

. . .

Creative work needs time and space to breathe.

This week I've been pondering the silence that our creative spirits need.

** ** **

Creativity craves a chapel.

"A chapel," writes Pico Iyer, "is where you can hear something beating below your heart."

This is why I need to write in silence: no music, no background chatter, not even a clock ticking too loudly. I need to be able to hear the words trying to come through me. I need the quiet so I can hear the melody of the language.

This isn't to say that one can only write in literal silence. I could, if given the chance, write to the sound of the ocean surf. I know writers who do some of their best work while sitting in a café listening to music through their headphones. For each of us, there are sounds that allow us to tap into the chapels of our creativity, sounds that enable us to hear the rhythm of our hearts and something beating below that. We need whatever version of sound or silence permits us entrance to the stories waiting for us to tell them.

Eudora Welty said it beautifully. She wrote that she hears a literal voice when she reads and when she writes.

It is the voice of the story or the poem itself. The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me through the reader-voice. I have supposed, but never found out, that this is the case with all readers ― to read as listeners ― and with all writers, to write as listeners. It may be part of the desire to write. The sound of what falls on the page begins the process of testing it for truth, for me. Whether I am right to trust so far I don’t know. By now I don’t know whether I could do either one, reading or writing, without the other.

My own words, when I am at work on a story, I hear too as they go, in the same voice that I hear when I read in books. When I write and the sound of it comes back to my ears, then I act to make my changes. I have always trusted this voice.

Welty is also known for saying that she listened for stories. 

Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it's an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.....

I don't know how Eudora listened for her stories when she was on her own. I don't know if she sat in silence, but I know that she didn't have the same temptations I face when I sit down to write on my laptop. She may have been distracted or tempted away from the page by many things, but she never had to fend off the siren songs of the Internet.

Oh Lord, this little white box on my lap and its magical, invisible companion, WiFi. Was there ever anything so marvelous and so terrible? I love this white keyboard (and my high school typing teacher) for the gift of being able to capture my thoughts in nearly real-time. I love the connection this device gives me to the world, real connections that break the bounds of anything virtual. It is ease and comfort and connection, all wrapped up in silicone and hard drive. And yet...

I know that when I hop around the Web, watch YouTube videos, surf the TV set, I turn away and feel agitated. I go for a walk, enjoy a real conversation with a friend, turn off the lights and listen to Bach or Leonard Cohen, and I feel palpably richer, deeper, fuller, happier.

Happiness is absorption, being entirely yourself and entirely in one place. That is the chapel that we crave. ~Pico Iyer

I like the chatter. I like tweeting and updating and commenting and posting. I even believe them to be one way I feed my creative spirit. But too easily I can get caught up in the noise of it all, in the twitchy, buzzy, fuzziness that doesn't make me happy, that doesn't deepen my thoughts.

If I want to write more consistently, I know that I have to invite in the quiet that I crave. I could go for a walk, or sit in the dark listening to music, as Iyer describes. I could read. (I constantly have to remind myself that reading is part of my creative process. I think I'm still incredulous that something I love so much could be so good ― even necessary ― for my artform. But really, could it be any other way?)  I could stare out the window and daydream. All of these things restore me to myself, which, in turn, restores my creativity to me. 

It turns out that I need silence not only when I'm writing, but in the spaces in-between the acts of creation. The silence is part of the "time and space" that our ideas need to breathe.

I sense that I have so much more to write about this. But my cat is currently banging a kitchen cupboard door, which is his noisy way of asking for what he craves (the food inside). Also, it is late, and if there's one other thing I need as much a silence, it is sleep. And so I'll stop here, but I'd love to know: What does your creativity need? What is your kind of silence? What is your chapel?

Sources:

"A Chapel Is Where You Can Hear Something Beating Below Your Heart" by Pico Iyer, originally published in Portland, Winter 2012, reprinted in The Best Spiritual Writing 2012, Philip Zaleski, editor

One Writer's Beginnings, by Eudora Welty

{In The Word Cellar runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Read other posts in the series here.}