Feb Write Prompt
Author: mardra
Writing as Healing
I hope you agree, it’s better late than never to share my notes and lessons from last year’s “Writing as Healing” panel sponsored by Fine Lines.
We had a panel of authors who rocked my world.
First came Abigail, who requested to not have to go first, but did anyway. She bravely shared her truths, how the truth feels, and how she faces it. Then, Kathy shared her heartbreak, her honesty, and how writing helped her. How writing keeps her son’s name in the conversation. Suzanne gave us beautiful words among hard lessons. Her storytelling wove around the room and embraced us. She reminded us of the rewards after the pain. She asked us to be truthful, see the joyful bits, and inspired random acts of storytelling to share with the universe. Start that unknown conversation. Share and be shared.
All of our panelists emphasized that everyone has the chance to show purpose with words and live through the tough bits. By sharing her journey, each person has come to help others, others who have grieved, and those who need to remember. Life is fragile and precious.
When and What to Share?
When it comes to trauma and grief or whatever you’re working through, time does not equal readiness to share your work. Write for yourself first. Then, when you’re ready, polish. Be sure there is a message. Perhaps a resolution. When you hit send or publish, you have a responsibility to the reader, what is your gift to them?
Not a me-moir, (As memoirs are often described by agents and publishers.) too centric and full of unmanaged bits. You have to tame your story. Give this portion of your life an arc, a relatable beginning, middle and end. Fill it with language that moves. These things will make it a gift to the reader.
It’s Your Story
Your grief, stress, trauma or any life difficulty is real and yours and it is not to be compared. Write to release. Drink water. Breathe. Take breaks. Empower yourself with empathy and fill your soul with the stories of humanity.
Submission and Rejection
Don’t be crushed by rejection. No one is rejecting your truth or your experience. What is most commonly being rejected is form, style, and fit. Your story must fit into where you send it, and there are reasons you should know (by reading writer guidelines and copies of published materials) and reasons you can’t know, like there is already a similar piece set-up in publication or similar editorial factors that aren’t public, yet.
Letting Go
The most important lesson is to let go. For many of us, we let go by letting the words go. Giving them the freedom to surge from pen to paper or from fingers to keys, the words’ life is new but the pain’s energy dissipates, maybe never to disappear, but to release the power it once held. Writing is healing.
– Mardra Sikora
Dragon Slayers
It is now 3 a.m. Lightning and thunder pound my head. I am tired and can not sleep.
An awful dragon chased me
Our battle sounded like the thunder and looked like the lightning of my dreams. I heard my sword crash against the fire breathing monster’s neck, and I awoke to hear real monsters clash with Zeus’ bolts of fire in the sky.
The monster of my dreams aroused the emotional “donder and blitzen” that took place yesterday at our monthly Dragon Slayer’s meeting. Those flashes of insight and the sound of truth now stir in me to write once again.
Outside, Mother Nature’s rain falls softly. The natural thunder and lightning keep calling my attention to life’s rebirth, baptismal cleansing, and regeneration.
It’s never too late to start over.
Our discussion went from patience to parking lots, nuclear holocaust to Nikki Giovanni, a search for passion to paternalism, native desires to Nietzsche, individual courage to Camus, a creative swim to Schopenhauer, and a quest for real education to erudition. My mind became tired and excited as a result of our four-hour sharing. I feel there is much electricity in this group of writers. It is no wonder that Donder and Blitzen are now more to me than just two of Santa’s reindeer.
If Giovanni said there are no conversations, just intersecting monologues, what would she say about Sunday afternoon? Our sharing and discussion prove that good exposition and feedback occur when writers commit to their tasks.
No one really knows the mind and soul of another. Friend, husband, wife, child, do we really know who other people are? Probably not, but yesterday’s attempt was a huge beginning. Let the flow of written words never stop, as we follow our quest to write ourselves into our destiny.
“I can feel again . . . there but for the grace . . . it is the moments I like . . . memories last longer than experiences . . . suffer in order to create . . . passion and pride. . . courage to be . . . over the edge . . . eye of the tiger . . . it is a question of vision . . . a search for truth . . . be the rebel . . . personal battlegrounds . . . celebrate our 26 letters . . . a struggle to be authentic . . . .”
These glimpses of everyone’s participation are sparks for much contemplation and great composition. Don’t be satisfied to talk about them. Write them down. Develop them before they vanish. We must challenge our dragons before they disappear.
I try not to worry about the past.
What is done is done. Just let me learn from my mistakes and move on. I pray I don’t repeat the same errors. I hope to move to a higher ground. Then, if I make more mistakes, at least, they will be new ones.
I use to spend so much time worrying about the “boo-boos” I made, people I hurt, and opportunities I lost, that I only made myself depressed. When I learned that my unhappiness was only sublimated anger at myself, I decided I was not progressing by hurting myself, so I stopped it. I am only human. Yes, I made mistakes. I will make more, I am sure, but I don’t want to dwell on them. I choose to think of the future, to emphasize that aspect of my life, to accentuate the positive things I can influence. The little things I know will be affected by my attention.
Living is endless “being,” a continuous growth. There is no finish line; just life in a marathon and small victories tacked onto each other. An ending is a new beginning. I try to keep my eyes on the road and relax behind the wheel. Instead of going around and around in circles repeating the same mistakes of the past, if I can slowly, continuously, move to a higher level, my circles will become spirals. That is enough for me.
The only responsibility a river has is to flow to the sea. I don’t have to be anything else but the river I was created to be. My mission is to simply live what I am. If I am the Missouri, I don’t have to be the Amazon. If I don’t do what the Missouri is supposed to do, that is my only mistake.
Rivers don’t go upstream. I don’t have to push the current. The current will flow by itself. The river’s job is simply to be patient, take the curves and bends as they come, and ride, ride, ride to the sea.
The Greeks said happiness was attaining perfect balance and moderation in all things. When I am not happy, I find that parts of my life are more emphasized than others. Often, I notice my unhappiness comes about when I am thinking only of myself. When I want something so badly that I crave nothing else, when I am obsessed by possessing something, when I am greedy, then my displeasure with life is at its highest point.
When I quit worrying about the getting, when I begin thinking about the giving, my happiness returns. When I am aware of serving others or something larger than myself, when I volunteer my time, when I let good things pass through me to someone else, my happiness returns. It is not the taking that is important; it is the touching. It is not the getting that counts; it is the giving.
If someone asked me, “What are the Dragon Slayers all about?”
I would say they are about all of the above and more. Individuals have their own personal dragons to overcome, and according to Joseph Campbell, we may have more than one. The dragons can be many things: possessions, fears, ideas, jobs, school, teachers, wives, husbands, children, and egos. The monsters are concerns in life that prevent us from being ourselves and pursuing those things that let us become happy.
Campbell used the idea of following one’s bliss to find rapture and defeat one’s dragons. The barriers in our lives block our pathways and prevent us from going down the yellow-brick-road to Oz where we will surely be able to find ourselves a brain, a heart, and the courage we need to be successful.
Dragon Slayers travel the road of life searching for its truth through writing. Once the truth, as we see it, is found, the next step requires action. Knowledge is the knowing, but wisdom is knowledge in motion. We want to do more than just find the dragons. Going past those monsters to a better emotional and physical world creates the thunder and lightning that I hear. Let’s confront those dragons. Let’s keep our faith! Let’s write on!
– David Martin
Content in My Bliss
Someone once said they read books to discover the souls of others. I write to discover my own.
I want to discover who I am. Few things in life teach me who I am more than writing in my journal does. This desire for self-knowledge inspires me to write almost every day.
I seldom lack inspiration to write, but I often lose my focus. I spend too much time doing many things other than writing. Earning money, pursuing life’s pleasures, and trying to please others causes me to get lost in the fog of daily existence. I get tired making a living in a stressful environment. I feel waves of people, emotions, and work wash over me and knock me off my feet.
I search for my footing in my journal. I look for meaningful reflections in my sentences and metaphors, and my journal becomes a symbol revealing my true self.
I want to be good at a few things in life. Conveying accurate images through my choice of words is one of them. I want to use my gifts well.
Simple things in life inspire me to write. My heart lifts when I see a male cardinal in a bare tree above the mounds of white snow. My soul warms when I see a strong, male hand hold a tiny child’s little fingers. Fathers teaching sons and daughters the sacrifices needed to reach maturity turn my pages. Lovers look into each other’s eyes and inspire me to paint the scene with words. Close friends sitting together, silently drinking coffee, as they watch moisture form on a window while the cold, Nebraska wind howls outside makes me warm to the possibilities.
I am urged to write when I feel friendly eyes locate me in a crowded room; when loved ones bare their souls to me; when a student comes to class with the attitude, “I am ready to learn today, and you can teach me.”
I write eating gumbo, listening to Cajun music. I look for pen and paper when I hear the carol, “Silent Night,” pierce the air on Christmas Eve. I sit down under a tree to record my emotions when my daughter chooses on her own to take the training wheels off and ride her bicycle solo for the first time. Ray Charles’ “Georgia,” Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” and the children’s story, “The Little Engine That Could” all speak to me in the same way. I can not pass up these opportunities.
When my work captivates me, when I hear, “Daddy, I love you!” when I see outstretched hands reaching for a baby’s face, when I feel soft fingers on my shoulder, when I hear the words, “Everything will be all right, now. I am here with you!” I feel fortunate if I can put half of what I feel onto paper.
When I remember my writing passions, I stay on the path meant for me. These times inspire me to write. I am content in my bliss.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://finelines.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/David.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]David Martin is the founder of Fine Lines community. Also he is a writing professor, the Fine Lines Camp director, and head editor of the journal.[/author_info] [/author]
From the Journal – Artwork
We feature not only essays, poetry, short stories and other word-based art, but also artwork in every Fine Lines Journal. Here’s a peek at page 63 of the summer issue – >
From the Journal – Creator by Emma Vinchur
Whenever I am told, “I wish I could draw beautiful things like you!” I get a little irked. Where other people see a hand, I see a snarky group of appendages that blatantly told me, “No!” nearly every time I tried in vain to paint them. An onlooker may see the sculpted face of a woman, while I see a dame I had to beg on bended knee to be drawn the way I envisioned her, a female who needed to be tempted with my hours of frustration and dedication until she was satisfied. Where they see “pretty,” I see work. Simplified, being an artist is a messy business.
Criminal
I have committed so many crimes in the name of art that I run out of fingers and toes to count them. Murder, abandonment, the list goes on. I have ripped pieces to shreds and left others to collect dust. Artwork that I have invested emotion and time into has gone awry, leaving me a wounded creator with a failed creation. Ink stains, paint explosions, clay dust, they have all marked (and ruined) the clothes I own.
The Muse
The muse I so desperately try to please is a cruel mistress. She comes in at all hours of the day and night, at the most inconvenient times, so drunk on inspiration that she cannot be understood or so dry and lifeless that she needs nursing back to health. I have ignored food and sleep for the sake of my craft. The emotion I invest in my work can eat at me for days, happiness or sadness, regardless. One is unable to be an artist without feeling all emotions in such extremes that it can be a little sickening at times. The question is: Why do it at all?
Answer
That answer is simple. To stop doing it, to cease creating, would be the end of me. By divine design, I am a creator, but less formally known as an artist. I do not know how to be anything else. Everything I do is done out of the pure love of my craft. I believe in the magic and authority of art, and in my ability to harness that magic. I create out of necessity, not out of vanity. My art is my life-blood, an entity on its own. I paint, I draw, I write to continue my own existence, to catalog the events that shape my human experience. Ultimately, I hope the anthology I am constructing will be of use to someone else. A world-wide fame is not what I am after, but if my work can impact one soul’s life, it will have all been worth it.
I am an artist.
This life chose me, and I intend to honor that choice. I do not fear the inevitable failures I will face; my muse will always guide me. In a sense, I am lucky. At such a young age, my purpose has been revealed to me. Create. And do not stop.
– Emma Vinchur, previously Published in the Winter 2014 Issue Fine Lines.
From Pain to Purpose
“Writing is the only thing. When I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else” – Gloria Steinem
Motivation
Motivation is moving towards a goal. Abraham Maslow, the famous psychologist, said there were two kinds of motivation: deficiency motivation (changing an unsatisfactory situation) and being motivation (seeking a positive goal after lower order needs are met). People may use writing to achieve either type of motivation.
Writers often build armor around their psyches by using words to overcome inferiority (deficiency motivation). They add layers of protection and self-esteem to inner feelings of inadequacy and learn to compete with no one but themselves. What they write is personal. Fear, shyness, inferiority, and inadequacy rise into the open on the writer’s own terms, in safety, and confidentiality.
Writers construct strong foundations with words to support their needs. A firm outer image develops through the writing process because the inner image is patched and repaired (being motivation). Journal writers develop healthy egos. Formal writing, to prove ourselves to others, to be accepted, and to receive better grades is not the reason one usually writes in a personal notebook. Some of this writing could develop I to a product one might turn in for a school assignment because an intellectual component surfaces.
Journal writing wants to penetrate the flab, the insincere, and the lies of life. With the proper attitude, it touches unacknowledged feelings, becomes character completion, attitude development, and a healing form of expression, not just for the classroom but for life. It involves self-study, life education, skill, effort, a positive attitude, and discipline.
Move towards Self
Personal writing may require increased introversion, a change in value systems, and a movement toward self-realization. It reduces one’s ego and increases the development of creativity. It ties the unconscious to the conscious.
Albert Einstein said, “ The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” Writing gives us a tool for probing the mysterious, the unknown in our unconscious and connects it to our awareness.
Awake
Being awake in all aspects of life teaches us that we do not know as much about ourselves as we think. Intensive journalizing shows us there is more to explore than people previously thought, and one of the best to do this is to write about our dream images which illustrate psychological archetypes from our collective unconscious. Dreams restore emotional balance by igniting spontaneous creations the writer builds upon.
Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, used the term “archetypes,” psychic structures that organize and hold material in our unconscious file folders during our dreams reveal important ideas about ourselves. Intuitive writing is one effective way to touch these deep seated psychological structures.
Shadows
Journal writers often find shadows in their writing, Jung’s archetypes coming to life. When people face the sun, most do not see their shadows: those dark sides of their natures, their weaknesses, those parts of their being in need of repair. Shadows seldom surface in our conscious life, but when we touch our unconscious, we often reach those areas, which need the most work. Temporarily, turning our backs to the sun allows us to see the shadows we forgot were behind us. We limit our own development by continuously looking into the sun. The best writers recognize their shadows, accept them, and confront the biggest shadow of all, the inflated ego, the biggest barrier in our path, the fire-breathing dragon, perfectionism.
Writing empties the mind of distractions and offers glimpses of emotional clarity. Affirmations positively written transform normal awareness and increase one’s serenity. Journals write the dragons away and provide opportunities to visualize one’s goals for the day, for the year, and for life.
Open Your Senses
Writing success involves conserving energy, plugging leaks, and increasing one’s vision. We see with our eyes. We hear with our ears. We touch with our hands. We taste with our tongues. We smell with our noses, but we understand with our hearts. Open hearts make better writers.
People find strength in the careful selection of their language. Many go from pain to purpose. There is nothing like a serious writer’s block to discover what true opportunities lie in the next paragraph. There is like a crisis to reveal a true epiphany. We create our own miracles. The rhythm of life and the spirit of the universe are at our fingertips. Writing is a state of mind and reduces life’s negative influences. Accentuate the positive. Practice. Practice.
Road Signs
Confusing aspects of life make us feel that we go around in circles. When we drift, become discouraged, depressed, lonely, alienated, and bored, stringing words together becomes a silent place to record our confessions. Often, if we take the time to write about our difficulties, we see spirals instead of circles. Spirals indicate that even though we continue to go around, we may move upwards at the same time. This is progress even though it is cyclical. Writing a few minuets daily, changes people’s lives. Serious writers learn in a short time to find road signs for their lives. They write their way to Oz, down the Yellow Brick Road, and home again.
Writing is stress therapy for the grid-locked, an adventure of the mind and heart. One cannot stay depressed and continue to write a journal. People become optimistic, if they write enough.
Write On! – David Martin
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://finelines.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/David.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]David Martin is the founder of Fine Lines community. Also he is a writing professor, the Fine Lines Camp director, and head editor of the journal. [/author_info] [/author]
Write On Wednesday Open for Submissions
Fine Lines accepts blog submissions for “Write On Wednesdays.” We feature writers from across the country and your input is welcome.
If you’re wondering what we love, here are some great posts to check out:
Three Things Successful Writers Have in Common
Writing Advice from an Avid Football Fan
And of course, Those Lowdown Rejection Blues
Further notes:
- We prefer blogs 500-1200 words. Short can be sweet, however, give us a complete thought.
- Send in a word file. Do not indent paragraphs. We reserve the right to change format to be “blog friendly” as needed.
- Fellow writers are extra sensitive to technical errors; please proofread your work.
- Send a bio, a photo if you’d like, links to any of your website and social networks you want to share.
- If you have an appropriate photo that you own the rights to, yes, please share.
- We do accept previously published material, please note in your copy where it was published before and, if appropriate, a link.
- Fine Lines is fueled and manned by volunteers, please be patient with reply times. We read and appreciate all the work received.
- Ready? For blog submissions send to david.martin (at) finelines.org Subject: Fine Lines Blog Submission
Thank You!