“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
– Albert Camus
I’m taking some time off from my blog to work on my essay collection and so I offer you the bounty of the season — my favorite photographs from a glorious October walk in the Wisconsin woods.
Photos by Ellen Blum Barish
Ira Glass on patience and the beginner’s mind.
For those of us just starting to tap into our creative juices and those of us who have been doing it a while, but have hit a slump.
Things Ira wishes he had been told. Lucky us that he shared it.
But some of us like roll up the rug to see what’s been swept underneath.
There are still a few spaces left for my one-night workshop on Monday, September 30.
Let’s talk. Then write.
There’s no denying that as a writer, I’m all about words. But when words are put to music and made into a song, a universal language is created that can move a mass of people all at the same time. Often it does the job better than mere words can.
I’m just back from my first trip to Nashville and the button of my music-loving soul has most definitely been turned on. I road tripped down there with my husband and two dear, longtime friends for the annual Americana Music Association’s Festival and Conference http://americanamusic.org/who-we-are. Americana music is folk, country, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, often called roots music. All four of us love the many flavors of Americana music and the mess it makes with our emotions so we went down there to marinate in it.
She’s writing a memoir of that year in Paris to remember. He wrote the academic journal article on book preservation for professional advancement. She’s finishing a personal essay on that anxious stretch of time during her pregnancy for fun. He described how his dreams inform his painting for that college application essay. She wrote a summary of a medical journal article for a school assignment. He’s putting the final touches on a collection of essays on family life that spans fifty years for posterity.
Writers bring their words to the page or screen for a range of reasons and in a multitude of forms. But with each project – work I’ve been witnessing from my private coaching clients – no matter what the mission, there is risk in the writing.
There’s so much at stake. Hurting someone’s feelings. Inaccuracy. Negative response. Rejection. Changing your mind. Putting your work out there. Getting your work out there, and not feeling seen or heard. Like taking a running leap from a lush green pasture into a white, open sky.