When peace elludes...
where do we turn?
Peace can be hard to come by. I went to a spa yesterday which was supposed to be a retreat from noise, from chaos. It was not. It was packed with groups of friends who talked too loudly, or whose whispered conversations became an irritant. The locker room was so busy and packed, I couldn’t change before my appointment and had to leave a pile of jeans, sweater and shoes in the massage room. While all of this is definitely not a devastating problem, it felt emblematic of the season. Winter, which arrives tomorrow, is supposed to be a time of quiet. We seek that peace, but often we find noise, bustle, aggravations and an on-going buzz that won’t stop following us around.
To that end, I’ve been trying to read more. I can’t read with noise around me, (but I can write with it. Weird.) so I take my book to our front room. I make a mug of tea, turn on the light if it’s overcast like today, and snuggle in a blanket, preferably with a dog next to me. I’ve been reading novels and novellas and short stories. I’m reading more poetry, too, which makes me want to write more poetry, which is a bonus. On my table beside me is a journal and pen for those moments. Lately though, I’ve been aiming for an hour with fiction, just escaping from our world to some other place and time.
Reading makes us writers. Our inner quiet brings us words. The outer chaos brings us characters, plots, themes. We need all of it: the bustle and jostle and the quiet and calm.
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AWW has opened a new business account now that we have 501(c)3 status. (Thank you to Anna, our treasurer, for spending a couple hours at the bank with me!) We have plans for two scholarships that will open in the new year. Fundraising for those will start as soon as we have them posted.
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If you plan on attending next fall and desire a room right downtown within walking distance (about ½ a mile) of all the events, please do that early, even before you know you’ll register. Reservations can be made at the one downtown hotel, a Holiday Inn Express, here, or visit the FAQ page on the AWW website. You’ll get the corporte rate for booking through our link. There are other places to stay in the area, but the Holiday Inn is the only place downtown. It books early with weddings and events in the summer.
Dec 23: (meets every other Tuesday): Fox Valley Writers is a community dedicated to the idea of helping writers of all skill levels connect and grow with one another. Often cited as the writers’ group for those who don’t care for traditional writing groups, we use a combination of imaginative exercises, personal attention to each author’s needs, and positive, constructive feedback from peers to empower ourselves to create and share our best stories, memoirs, essays, and poetry. Our hybrid meetings are simultaneously in-person and live on Zoom at 7:00 p.m. at the following link, https://discord.gg/p78p4GH2 or in-person at Messenger Library, North Aurora, IL. Contact: Nik V. Markevicius, Facilitator, foxvalleywriters@gmail.com
Jan. 6: Join AWW for our monthly writing group at the Santori Branch of the Aurora Public Library, board room this time. We meet every first Tuesday to write from a prompt and share any work we’d like to get feedback on (or not, just share), from 7-8:30. We’ve been hosting about 7-10 writers each month and it’s been a wonderful group.
Jan 10: The Drink and Draft Poetry Roadshow has its next meeting centered on Kim Addonizio’s book Ordinary Genius, chapters 13-14. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t joined before, since the group discusses writing around the chapter topics, does some prompts together, and also reads some poetry the leaders bring. It’s a really nice way to stay inspired and connected. Meets monthly on the second Saturday at 9:30 am at the Batavia Public Library conference room, immediately to the right when you enter the library, or online. See the link to their newsletter above for more info.
Jan 15 : DeKalb Area Writers Group, 6:00-8:00 pm Sycamore Public Library. This writing group meets on the third Thursday of the month to write to a theme and then gather to workshop. There’s a potluck before at 4:30. For more information, email dekalbareawritersgroup@gmail.com
Writing Prompt:
I was reading Leila Chatti’s book Wildness Before Something Sublime (I highly recommend the book) and came across this line: “What would I give back?” There are many ways to approach this. Does an object come to mind, like a holiday gift you didn’t want? Is it a time in life? Is it a part of your personality?
Freewrite on anything or everything you’d give back. Write prose or a list.
If you have a physical trait (I was told as a child I had big feet) or a physical object to return, make a metaphor out of it to write more about it. (Maybe my feet were skis that took me swiftly away from danger.)
If you’re working on a character, what would that character want to give back? Why?
Write a story about someone trying to give something back, but they can’t, no matter how hard they try.
Try a form! Chatti invented a form called the Golden Hinge, where the words of the first line becomes the first words of the following lines, like this:
What would I give back?
Would I give back my smile, my chipped cup, the memory of the gun?
I cannot possibly choose just one thing.
Give it all back, back to the beginning.
Back to the time before the world was made to be broken.
That’s my poem, so you have to write one of your own!