February 12, 2006
Today I am writing and posting on the same day, so no lag on this post. I continue working hard. I have written around 12,000 words. I just hope some of them are good enough to keep! When I first start writing, it is just getting ideas on paper and it takes a lot of time and revision to get my soul into the work. I had a little breakthrough on that today - finding my raison d'etre for a particular section which had previously felt like a laundry list. With the right framing, it is suddenly much better and gives me hope that it will shape up into some excellent writing eventually.
My goal for VSC centered on quantity, not quality, so I don't want to get carried away and start doing revisions. That is for later. This is my equivalent of "write a novel in November." Yesterday the town of Johnson held a winter carnival. I had planned to attend some of the festivities, but it felt so cold when I walked to the store early in the morning that I gave up that idea and just worked.
Perhaps I'll have a meltdown due to overwork before I leave ... I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
We have been eating well. Perhaps too well. Tonight was my least favorite meal since we got here - baked tofu with roasted fennel bulbs and carrots, sticky purple rice, and a fresh tomato salsa. I didn't eat the tofu; I just don't like it. The sticky purple rice was okay. The fennel was pretty tasty, it was new for me. The highlight of today's meal was the mint chocolate ice cream and frosted brownies! Yum.
I understand that the Crones have been alerted to my blogsite. Hello to all my "Cronies" from Northwest Community UU Church. Also, a big shout out to my friends and colleagues in the Friday Morning Writers Group. Last - but certainly not least - hi to Alix, my longest (and dearest) reader.
I am so happy to have this opportunity to work at the Vermont Studio Center. I feel really privileged.
Ciao.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Saturday, February 11, 2006
VSC Day Six
Another intense day at VSC. Visiting writer Brenda Hillman treated the writers to a craft talk on poetry. She is herself an accomplished poet and teaches at St. Mary’s college in the Bay Area. Although her remarks were billed as a poetry craft talk, I felt that the ideas applied to writing in general. Certainly, they apply to my writing. I should tell you what she spoke about, but I m tired and I don’t want to think that hard. Another time, perhaps.
After lunch, I went back to my studio and churned out another 3,000 words. That makes almost 9,000 since Wednesday. The problem is, these are emotionally difficult words to get out. In order to write my memoir – The Requirements of Love –I have read hundreds of journal entries written during one of the most painful periods of my life. An extended period of suffering when lupus made me terribly sick.
I don’t like to read the journal entries; they bring back such dreadful memories. It is hard to read entry after entry of physical misery and emotional misery, too. It affected my whole family badly.
I don’t like reading about it, being reminded again of how we struggled. Then to add to that the painful circumstances under which Tori came to be in our family … well it was too much for me. I need a break now. It’s
Ciao.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Vermont Studio Center Day Five
(Click on the link to go to the VSC website.)
February 9, 2006
Last night the art residents presented the first series of slide talks. Impressive. The work is wildly diverse, but all of it engages, challenges, and surprises. Two individuals paint with wax (that’s called encaustic, if I remember correctly) and their images were particularly haunting because of the way in which the wax obscured the underlying layers of paint. One of them, Vaughn Bell, created wonderful winter scenes by cloaking her landscapes in blizzards of white wax. Another painter, Sze Man Ho, from Hong Kong, creates installations with life-sized, traditional folk art dolls of paper arranged in rooms with furniture, flowers, paintings on the walls … complete environments that she created entirely in vivid color and detail.
Toni Small uses a pinhole camera to create self-portraits that evoked Julia Margaret Cameron, the 19th century British photographer. Jim Schantz paints sky-filled New England landscapes that made me think of the work Lynn Randolph recently presented at WIVLA. Alyce Santoro has invented a process to makes fabric from cassette tapes. You can play the clothing and listen to the sound still residing on the tapes after she weaves them! She showed us beautiful weavings and many unique wearable installations. Louisa Armbrust paints game structures – people at play – with a wicked sense of humor.
I wish I could remember the names of everyone who presented. Next week, I will take a notebook with me to capture that important information. Tomorrow at mealtime, I should be able to track down the missing names from last night.
We writers will have our first reading next Tuesday evening. I will read then. I might have preferred to wait until the second or third reading, but my new friend Holly has to leave next week and she flattered me by expressing a desire to hear me read. Vanity, thy name is Writer!
Speaking of writing, I have been working hard. It is incredible, actually. I spent Monday and Tuesday on structural issues – mind mapping the contents of the book – and reading/marking passages in my journals that pertain to the period I’m working on. Wednesday I began writing. In the last two days, I have written over 5,700 words. I did make a promise to myself to concentrate on quantity, not quality, so they probably aren’t the best 5,700+ words I ever wrote, but I don’t care. I am so productive it frightens me. And thrills me.
There is something about living in a room with your computer staring at you and having no diversionary tasks available to you. I have nothing to do but write. What a concept!
On Friday morning, the poet Brenda Hillman will present her craft talk to the writers. I will be there, of course, even if I am not a poet. Who knows what could happen in a place like this?
Ciao.
February 9, 2006
Last night the art residents presented the first series of slide talks. Impressive. The work is wildly diverse, but all of it engages, challenges, and surprises. Two individuals paint with wax (that’s called encaustic, if I remember correctly) and their images were particularly haunting because of the way in which the wax obscured the underlying layers of paint. One of them, Vaughn Bell, created wonderful winter scenes by cloaking her landscapes in blizzards of white wax. Another painter, Sze Man Ho, from Hong Kong, creates installations with life-sized, traditional folk art dolls of paper arranged in rooms with furniture, flowers, paintings on the walls … complete environments that she created entirely in vivid color and detail.
Toni Small uses a pinhole camera to create self-portraits that evoked Julia Margaret Cameron, the 19th century British photographer. Jim Schantz paints sky-filled New England landscapes that made me think of the work Lynn Randolph recently presented at WIVLA. Alyce Santoro has invented a process to makes fabric from cassette tapes. You can play the clothing and listen to the sound still residing on the tapes after she weaves them! She showed us beautiful weavings and many unique wearable installations. Louisa Armbrust paints game structures – people at play – with a wicked sense of humor.
I wish I could remember the names of everyone who presented. Next week, I will take a notebook with me to capture that important information. Tomorrow at mealtime, I should be able to track down the missing names from last night.
We writers will have our first reading next Tuesday evening. I will read then. I might have preferred to wait until the second or third reading, but my new friend Holly has to leave next week and she flattered me by expressing a desire to hear me read. Vanity, thy name is Writer!
Speaking of writing, I have been working hard. It is incredible, actually. I spent Monday and Tuesday on structural issues – mind mapping the contents of the book – and reading/marking passages in my journals that pertain to the period I’m working on. Wednesday I began writing. In the last two days, I have written over 5,700 words. I did make a promise to myself to concentrate on quantity, not quality, so they probably aren’t the best 5,700+ words I ever wrote, but I don’t care. I am so productive it frightens me. And thrills me.
There is something about living in a room with your computer staring at you and having no diversionary tasks available to you. I have nothing to do but write. What a concept!
On Friday morning, the poet Brenda Hillman will present her craft talk to the writers. I will be there, of course, even if I am not a poet. Who knows what could happen in a place like this?
Ciao.
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