I dig into the archives and find a letter I’d written to my students in 1999. I pretend it was written to me.
Letter I’ve written, meaning to send
I teach—always—a remarkable circle of writers. Imagine a handful of river pebbles, a moire of neon reflections on a wet city street. The morning after class, I email my students, re-cap the exercises for those who want to continue working with them, for students who were absent. Here is a recent message:
Dear writer: What strong work we do.
Free-writes: imagine you find a clear glass disc framed in woven silver…write for 25 minutes without stopping;
Imagine the disc is red – 5 minutes free-write
The disc is amber – 5 minutes free-write
The disc is black and gleaming (like, but not necessarily, obsidian) – five minutes.
Home-work: Jot down five instances when you are aware of scent. Later, write one paragraph per scent, not so much the reality of the occurrence, as what was triggered by the scent.
To Not Do: Stop making lists: To Do, Books to Read, Movies, letters to write… Forget your lists, they put you in the future.Writing occurs in the moment of setting pen to paper, fingers to keys…a moment we will do anything to avoid.I encourage you to be fully present because I see how we all distract ourselves. When we write, we are fully with the words emerging from our moving fingers, we are just following what is.
Trust your own experience of yourself. If you are distracted and don’t take in something one of the other students says, or an instruction I give, just be with that.
Treasure oxymoron: That is – a list about not making lists.
Take Part: Send me your writing about and with the disc.
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