essay

Writing Wishes Can Come True

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on

heavysnow 2Photograph by Ellen Blum Barish

Is the prospect of a long, cold winter weighing you down?

Revise that old script you have for winter.  It’s a great time to get back to your writing!

If you’ve been thinking about working with a writing coach, but the price has kept you from giving it a try, this is the time!

Until December 31st, 2013, I’m offering  a 25% discount for a one-hour coaching session and a 30% discount for three or more sessions. So if you are working on a personal essay for publication or pleasure, a memoir, a family history, dissertation, academic paper or essay for college or graduate school applications, take advantage of this first-time-ever fee!

If you were thinking about purchasing coaching time for a friend, consider a gift certificate at this greatly reduced price. Certificates are good for 2014 but must be purchased before December 31, 2013.

For more information about this holiday purchase price or gift certificates, email me at ellen@ellenblumbarish.com.

All the best for this holiday season. Hope to see you in 2014!

Warm wishes,

Ellen

 

 

 

 

 

Writing as Risk

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on

IMG_4214

 

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.

Continue reading “Writing as Risk” →

Summer Isn’t Just for Reading

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on

IMG_3777

Photo by Ellen Blum Barish

With its flood of light, summer may be time to read, but for those of us who like to write, it is, most definitively, writing season. Time to curl up on your favorite armchair with your laptop on your knees or sprawl on a café table with a Sharpie and a yellow legal pad. Pick your position and your tools. Read something well written. Add a well-selected prompt. Claim 20 minutes (30 if you can!) Mix in a deadline, some friendly feedback and you have, most definitively, impetus to write.

If you are looking to rouse slackened writing muscles or just keep them from atrophying, let me help facilitate. I’m teaching two writing workshops this summer – a six-week Tuesday evening workshop and an eight-week Wednesday afternoon workshop to accommodate all schedules.

Identify the stories that are circling around you, stalking you, or taunting you to write them, and transform them into personal essays, memoir, or even short fiction in my Tuesday evening workshop titled “Find Your Story” at StoryStudio Chicago beginning on June 4th.

If you can’t get enough of personal essays, then consider my Wednesday afternoon workshop at New Trier Extension that starts June 5. In this eight-week workshop, “A Close Look at Personal Essay,” we’ll read essays that fall into themes and write our own based on our discussions. You can find the online catalogue here (go to page 38 for the workshop description and details), and fill out the online form or register by phone at (847) 446-6600.

It’s easy to keep that picture of yourself writing in your head. This summer, commit to taking it from your imagination to the page. Feel free to email me with questions or if you’d like me to direct to one of my former or ongoing students. You can learn more about my background and teaching style here.

Or, if you’re thinking you’d rather do this without a group – one-to-one –  I’m scheduling private coaching sessions this summer utilizing my workshop readings and assignments so you can join in from the comfort of home via screen or phone receiver.

May the words you read this summer be your own!

 

 

 

 

 

Feel the Rain on Your Skin

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on
face-the-rain-apama-sen-anne-elizabeth-whiteway
“Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield
FOR ESSAYS NOT YET WRITTEN
I am unwritten, can’t read my mind, I’m undefined
I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can’t live that way
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

 

 

 

A Hundred Words

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on

images-2I’m sad to say it, it being my business and all, but there are just too many out there. Words, that is.  As an essayist, I’m biased toward less is more, but I’m also a consumer of words, too and the truth is that I get so much more from what I’m reading  – I remember it – when the right words carry the load.

Consider the text message. See if you get a profile of who the texter is here:

I don’t need you to get me.

Can we go bathing suit shopping?

Please call me.

Be out in front in 10.

Can you please drive me to work today?

Awesome I meet you outside.

Can we make dinner tonight? Caesar salad, chicken shnitzel and potatoes? I’ll help.

In study hall.

Can you pick me up?

Bought planner $5.

I’m at Marina’s.

There are less than 100 words above, but I think the reader gets that the texter is young (awesome) – probably high school age (study hall) –  probably female (bathing suit shopping), active (pick me up; take me to work), social (I’m at Marina’s) and clearly a lover of chicken schnitzel. We also get that she is in fairly regular contact with the receiver, who is likely to be her mother (all those rides!)

These are the actual text messages sent to me by my eldest daughter when she was a sophomore in high school (when I did indeed feel like most of what I was going was picking her up and dropping her off!)

We don’t need gestures or words that tell us her tone. We just can hear her speak. The rhythm and word choices do that as do the topics.

Experiment with writing spare. When you focus on the nouns and the verbs, you get to the core of the character. Get that onto the page and after you have a sense of what’s there, you can bring in the poetic language.