I wrote this in an exercise (actually, 2, one on sound) with my Creative Nonfiction students:
WHAT KEEPS ME GOING
This quarter I've had twenty muses. They drift onto campus from every corner of Snohomish County, wearing lots of black, black with stripes, or black hooded sweatshirts with silk-screened skulls. They wear green and blue and purple. Their hair is short and pointy, shortish and purple, shaved off entirely; their hair is long and straight or long and curly, hanging in their eyes or tucked behind an ear. They are somber. They glower. They crack up, giggling. Their pens scritch across the pages of their notebooks, they loop and jot and wiggle. Mornings are my most creative time of day, the time when I'm wildest, when I'm my very least linear, jazzed on caffeine, ready to tear into my own writing with the zeal of an Old Testament prophet. But because of my twenty muses who I know are waiting for me in Gray Wolf 376, at 10:55 I grab my books and roll sheets and pens, and I race to class.
WHAT KEEPS ME GOING
This quarter I've had twenty muses. They drift onto campus from every corner of Snohomish County, wearing lots of black, black with stripes, or black hooded sweatshirts with silk-screened skulls. They wear green and blue and purple. Their hair is short and pointy, shortish and purple, shaved off entirely; their hair is long and straight or long and curly, hanging in their eyes or tucked behind an ear. They are somber. They glower. They crack up, giggling. Their pens scritch across the pages of their notebooks, they loop and jot and wiggle. Mornings are my most creative time of day, the time when I'm wildest, when I'm my very least linear, jazzed on caffeine, ready to tear into my own writing with the zeal of an Old Testament prophet. But because of my twenty muses who I know are waiting for me in Gray Wolf 376, at 10:55 I grab my books and roll sheets and pens, and I race to class.
Natalie Goldberg would like what you wrote. And I do to because I can visualize these muses. Nat (that what she calls herself) is inspiring me to write morning pages, in her book, Wild Mind, which I got because of you. She says give it 10 minutes only if that's what you have. Takes a lot of pressure off and her writing suggestions resonate with my old mind full of old memories I didn't know I had.
ReplyDeleteOh dear, should have edited the above - I was so busy putting in that tiny picture of a hat, which I am under, I didn't check for typos.
ReplyDeleteNat would say, "Don't worry about the typos."
ReplyDeleteI like your hat. :)