Reveal: A Be Present Retreat

Spending time in the Pacific Northwest with my friend Liz Lamoreux has been one of the most grounding and joyful experiences of my life. Liz really gets what it means to be a creative soul seeking to be present in the moment and open to what life brings us.

She's hosting a Be Present Retreat this fall. The theme is Reveal. And I think you should go! Here's how Liz describes the retreat on the website:

Spend three days exploring the theme of reveal through workshops that will help us to uncover our inner whispers and look at where we stand on our path.

We will gather in the Pacific Northwest woods, along Puget Sound on the Key Peninsula (a little over an hour south of Seattle), to experience community, dive into play with photography and words, and give ourselves permission to be present while in a nurturing, meditative environment.

It's going to be beautiful. Just check out these workshops:

Open to Exposure: Revealing the Wonder of Our Inner Lives with Madelyn Mulvaney

Revealing The Heart and Soul (with Words) with Susan Wooldridge

Revealing the Wisdom of the Quiet with Liz Lamoreux

There will be Polaroid photography, poetry (the fun, accessible kind - not the scary, intimidating kind!), meditation and yoga, and the magical kind of community that appears when creative souls gather in a beautiful place. (Just check out what past retreat participants have to say. Their comments blow me away.)

Liz has brought so much magic and community into my life. I'm thrilled that she's sharing those gifts with the world. Does it sound like just the thing you need? There are a still few spots available, so check it out and sign up!

Columbus & Doing True Work (video post)

A story about Christopher Columbus, the funny nature of memory, and staying true to your creative work. Please chime in in the comments and let us know how you stay true to your creative vision.

Columbus Day from Jennifer McGuiggan on Vimeo.

Three Lessons on Writing (In The Word Cellar)

I just started the third semester of my MFA program. Here's some of what I've learned so far. (And scroll down for a giveaway!)

Lesson One: Write with your body

At my first on-campus residency last summer, I realized that I'd been writing almost completely from my head. I'd been ignoring the five senses on the page, writing about my observations and interior life nearly devoid of sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. When I heard people read work that mesmerized me, I realized that they were describing things in the physical world. Fancy that!

This simple concept revolutionized my writing. I started writing not just with my head, but with my eyes, nose, mouth, skin, and ears. I discovered a lyric writing voice I'd never suspected I had -- or  that I'd even wanted. I fell in love with this new way of writing down the world.

Lesson Two: Choose your own story (and your voice)

By my second residency last winter, I was practicing my new voice and playing around with various writing styles and topics. I'd written a few lyric essays that were related to each other, but I didn't have a real direction with my work. When I realized that I'd need at least 75 pages for a final collection in order to graduate, I panicked. Those 75 pages didn't have to be related, but wouldn't it be nice if they were? It was time to choose a direction.

On top of it all, my advisors were encouraging me to write about a true story from my life that I did not want to write. "I'm just not interested in telling that story," I'd say.

They'd counter with: "But there's so much good stuff in there!"

I knew they were right: There is good stuff in there. And I knew I wanted a cohesive collection of 75 pages for my portfolio. So I started writing that story. I wrote 30 pages. I hated most of them. I hated the process of telling that particular story in that particular way.

But I'm so glad that my advisors encouraged me to try it, because those 30 pages showed me exactly what I didn't want to write, which finally illuminated what I did want to write.

I realized that my lyric essays had been trying to tell a similar story as those pages of memoir, but I hadn't seen it until I took a detour. By showing me what I didn't want to do, those 30 pages illuminated the story I did want to tell and how I wanted to tell it.

The only way to keep writing (and to keep making art of any kind) is to be true to our creative visions, to honor our passions and quirks. Sometimes it takes a detour to show us our true path. That's just part of the process.

In the end, you get to choose the story you tell, and how you tell it.

Lesson Three: Let the writing take over

I got back from my third residency last week. While I was there, the message all around me was this: Go deeper. Be wilder. Let the writing take over. Stop worrying about appearing normal to other people.

Within a few days of receiving this message from the universe, the first challenge to it smacked me in the chest and sent me to my knees. Circumstances conspired to make this going deeper and being wilder seem too risky. I contemplated scrapping my soul-baring lyric essays and instead writing about coffee or kittens -- anything to avoid letting the writing take over. Anything to avoid telling my story in my voice. Anything to avoid going deeper.

For two days I cried to friends and teared up when anyone asked me how I was. I looked for loopholes, tangents, escape routes -- anything to avoid the work of my artistic calling: to be true, no matter the consequences (real or imagined).

I don't know what going deeper and wilder will look like. I'm excited and afraid. I'm also utterly convinced that there is no other way forward.

*  *  *

Giveaway
Ask a writing question. Be entered to win a copy of Lanterns.

For the rest of July, anyone who emails me a writing question or leaves one in the comment will be entered to win a copy of Lanterns: A Gathering of Stories. I'll choose the winner randomly, and there's no limit to how many questions you can ask.

Leave your questions in the comments of this post or email them to jennifer{at}thewordcellar{dot}com. Small questions and big ones. Vague questions and the very specific. Questions on the writing life, the writing process, and the craft of writing. Send them all!

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

Re-entry

in my front yard

I'm back home from my third MFA residency and feeling much like the above photo: even my top speed is slow right now. I realize that I missed posting an In The Word Cellar writing column while I was gone. I'm sorry about that.   Edited: Another look at the calendar shows that I didn't miss an In The Word Cellar column. I'm relieved about that, but now I'm a little concerned about my ability to count the weeks in a month. Look for one in the coming week.

The world of the ten-day writing residency is an alternate universe with a jam-packed schedule from breakfast until well after dinner. It's a wonderful whirlwind of lectures, readings, and workshops that leaves me simultaneously filled-to-the-brim and depleted. I'm working on re-entering my regular daily life by doing laundry, cleaning out my email inbox, foraging for food, and uploading old photos to Flickr. I may try to read this evening or just watch a good black-and-white film with a pizza and some popcorn. See you next week! (Feel free to leave me some sugar in the comments. I've missed you!)

Thoughts From an MFA Residency (Day 2)

You sit in the workshop, the reading, the lecture, the energy of all these writers heating up the space. There is, shall we say, a frisson in the room. You feel the buzz zing into you, that hopeful sure feeling that yes yes yes you are a writer too and you are bursting with words and ideas. You tell yourself to remember this optimism when the inevitable crash comes later in the week.

The crash comes sooner that you expected. A few hours later you listen to the readings and think of the theory and poke around in your own tired mind, sure that you will never write anything as good as anyone else, sure that nothing you've written is worthy, sure that there is more to learn than you could gulp down in a lifetime. You remember telling yourself to remember the other feeling, that other voice. You dismiss such joy as naive and innocent, simultaneously wondering if maybe that's too harsh of a critique, if maybe that other voice (the shiny happy one) was the wise one. Maybe this stingy doomsayer is the naive one.

You recognize that exhaustion and caffeine have a lot to do with what voice shouts or whispers in your head. There's still tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And more tomorrows after you leave here. In that is all the hope and despair you'll ever need.