Saturday, March 15, 2014

What if . . .

Yesterday, I visited a friend's grade 2,3,4 French immersion classroom as a guest author. I arrived to find a  wall covered with drawings of  "Monica, l'auteur." It was pretty inspirational and the wall has moved from their classroom to my office.
There I am in a rainbow-coloured floor-length gown. While I have not worn a dress since the mid nineties, I think the rainbow motif shows some intuition. I'm wearing a dress in about 75% of the portraits. That includes one in which I sport a cute skirt, while wearing my hockey skates. I am wearing my skates in a few--my friend, Jean, spilled the beans about my being a hockey player in a desperate attempt to hold the interest of a couple of--um, what's the word--chauvinists? (Can you be chauvinistic at nine?) She was trying to hold the interest of a couple of skeptics. One of the skeptic artists managed to allow me a hockey helmet but felt behooved to make it bright pink. Ces't la vie.
My head (with or without hockey helmet) is humungous in most of the pictures. I choose to see this as an accurate representation of my intellect rather than a reflection of the developmental stage of their drawing skills. I wear glasses in about half of them, my hair tends to be on the longish side and my paper wardrobe is far more colourful than my real one. In one of them, I'm wearing a lumberjack shirt, knit cap and seem to have a five o'clock shadow. I love them all and I can't help notice that in almost every single one, I look undeniably happy. Excellent intuition.

Our time together included a talk about where writing ideas come from. I told them about hearing a line I liked, writing it down and then, "What If"-ing it into a story. The skeptics looked dubious.
"Give me any ordinary object," says I.
"The school," says they.
"What if the front doors were magic and if you turned around and walked through them backwards, it gave you a Super Power?"
And that was it. They were gone. The Super Power was Invisibiltiy! Yes! Three of them started clapping and bouncing spontaneously - that's our favourite Super Power!
What if the school was made of cake and the kids ate it all and then there was no more school? (Even the skeptics were rolling now.) What if the cake grew back no matter how much you ate? (parlayed the school-lovers). What if everyone tasted their favourite kind of cake? What if you had to turn backwards at the end of the day to go through the doors to undo your Super Power and what if you forgot and what if you were invisible forever and what if . . . .
Big eyes, bums bouncing around on the carpet, talking over top of one another, various branches of the story taking off in little side conversations. Trickle to waterfall in less than a minute. Literally.
What if you could find that creativity again?
Don't tell me you have none. Creativity comes standard on all models. It may be buried, shoved to a back corner in the storage room, but it's still there.
Whether you use your imagination to What If a story to life, or to create a great new way to introduce an old idea to your class, or to sit in your cubicle and daydream about your favourite Super Power--exercise that imagination. Honour your creativity, in whatever way makes you happy. Jean's little artists were right about me - nothing puts a face-covering smile on my face like the excitement of writing.
Except maybe sharing that excitement with children.


Monica is the author of "Thanks for chucking that at the wall instead of me."

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Dougie & Mon's Excellent Writing Retreat

I did it again! Snuck away to house sit and scored three weeks of undisturbed writing time. "Wow," says you. "You must have done soooo much writing!"
You'd think.
However, the purpose of the retreat was not just to write but to switch gears. Having completed a 5 month teaching term, I needed to come back to the centre, find my own self before I ventured into the writing room in my head. Granted, I can go visit anytime and I do. But getting in there and working requires some prep work. Just like my physical office, my mental writing room needs to be tidy. Which is why I can't write and teach at the same time. Too many kids in the room.
So, I know I need that transition time but for me, it's easier in theory than practice. When I have the luxurious gift of time to dedicate just to writing, I have a tendency to put high expectations on myself. There will be no lolly-gagging and certainly no gallivanting. There will be discipline and a routine that will be followed by everyone at the writing retreat.
I guess this would be the place to introduce Doug, my companion and colleague for this event.


Now Doug has a slightly different view of such things. Of all things, actually, as he has only one eye. I found Doug to be very open to most of my suggestions. In theory.
This was Doug's response to my Opening Day of the Retreat lecture, titled, "We will all sleep in our own beds":

This is not Doug's bed.
Come to think of it, I gave the same address at my last house-sit/writing retreat and got the following response:

Anyway, despite a few differing opinions that had to be worked out, I soon came to appreciate Doug's wisdom and it was he who saved me from spinning like a top and getting nothing done while freaking out about getting nothing done.
Here is a snippet of that particular conversation:
Me: I am freaking out and getting nothing done!
Doug:
Me: Because I can't concentrate on anything. I can't settle. I can't sit still.
Doug:
Me (two hours later): You were so right, my friend. The walk helped tremendously. But I still don't know what I should be working on and I have got to have something to show for three weeks of writing time!
Doug:
Me: Well, to me, I guess. I hate it when I feel like I have wasted time.
Doug:
Me: Hm. Interesting. I DO allow other writers more room for the non-writing part of writing. But still - three weeks!
Doug:
Me: Yes, that might work. I'll break it up into three pieces and the first I will dedicate to "coming back to the writing world", the second will be "write anything" and the third will be "project work."
Doug:
Me: Okay, but I don't see how rubbing your tummy will invoke my Muse.

During that first week, I did a lot of reading and thinking and of course, talking to Doug. We had a good discussion about character one afternoon over coffee and carrots. (I don't know - maybe he figures with one eye left, he needs to eat a LOT of carrots. And he does.) Anyway, Doug was pointing out the dangers of flat characters in those roles that fall between major characters and "walk-ons." He used his stuffy as an example, while I focused more on a character in a short story I've been working on.



As always, Doug made a compelling argument.
In the end, I came home with a couple of new short pieces with potential and a renewed vision and enthusiasm for my short story project. It felt so good to have created something - anything - new. But most of all, to have had the time to just be. To remember this part of who I am, to tidy up the office in my mind, gently pushing the children out into the capable hands of other teachers. To rediscover long-untouched files and remember why they delighted me in the first place. Now, I open the door and find familiar faces and voices eager to be brought out of the room and into the world. I once again feel the excitement of creating new characters . . .



. . . as Doug demonstrated one day with a brilliant and inspiring metaphorical lesson on character development. I'm telling you, this guy is a genius. If you ever get a chance to attend one of Doug's writing seminars, don't miss it!