How Can I Have More Fun?

This past weekend, I found time to work on organizing my office. It is not ready to show, mind you, but it is far better than it was. I learned something through all the tossing and stashing and filing --I need to clean out my closet so I will have a place for those boxes sitting on the floor of the office.

I also heaved a big sigh of relief as I listed my priorities for the coming summer. I am going to do more things for fun! When I had Barry with me, we always found time to play - to go on the lake, take a day trip, go to a new restaurant for lunch, take in a mountain festival such as the Highland Games coming up in Blairsville, GA. I realized how I have become obsessed with my work. I enjoy what I do, but everyone needs time to play, to get away from everyday life. 

Relinquishing responsibilities for Coffee with the Poets, the planning and promoting of the monthly event, has been extremely helpful and now, Robert King, poet, editor and former publisher of FutureCycle Press has set up a new and improved online presence for Netwest. I am excited to see what he has done and will get a tour of the new website tomorrow. Although I will have administrative privileges on the new site, he will do most of the work. I can't thank him enough. 

I have a few more sessions of my Healing Through Writing classes at my studio. This is a great class with some delightful students who are enthusiastic and willing to try new things. I don't plan to teach an ongoing class again until next spring. My schedule for Writers Circle Studio is full for the season. We have some excellent teachers of writing and poetry such as Scott Owens of Hickory, NC, Karen Holmes of Atlanta and Hiawassee, GA, Carol Crawford of Blue Ridge, GA, Robert Lee Brewer, editor for Writers Digest from the Atlanta area, and Will Wright, poet, who was a big hit with our group last year.

I am continuing as Interim Program Coordinator for NCWN West (Netwest) and hope this office will be filled by July. My recommendation for the job is Ellen Schofield. She has a beautiful family history blog, writes well and is willing to take the time needed to lead our organization. I am impressed with all the letters of praise for her past work. 

My students plan a memoir critique group which we hope to get off the ground soon, and I am still very interested in organizing a book club to read only regional writers, those who are published by small independent presses or even those who are self-published. I see the frustration of the writers who can't find a marketplace for their books, as well as the book stores who are afraid of ordering  books from unknown authors and independent presses who can't afford to take returns. Perhaps as a book club we can filter out the best books from those that aren't too good, and recommend them either online or to shops in the area.

Tonight I received word from Scott Owens that Poetry Day at Catawba College in Hickory, NC will be April 26, 2014. I am so happy to be a part of this event, thanks to Scott, and will definitely plan to be there.

I am fortunate that my life is filled to the brim, filled with interesting people, interesting projects, and things to look forward to. I never get bored, just tired. And because of that, I need more time to relax and "smell the roses." Got any ideas for fun days for me? My list is not very long, yet. 

HEALING, WRITING AND TAKING WRITING CLASSES

For my writer friends, I have a couple of prompts for you. We used these in our last class at Tri-County College this week. I decided to write along with my students and enjoyed remembering an uncle who has long since passed on.

The prompt: I will never forget her/his voice...

Another prompt: It was an ordinary day...

Many times our greatest triumphs or our greatest tragedies happen on what begins as an ordinary day.

I am taking a short break before beginning classes at Writers Circle with a six week course, Tuesday afternoons, 2 - 4 o'clock. On May 14 we start with Healing through Writing. Call me at 828-389-4441 if you would like to come. 

This is a course for anyone who has ever lost a loved one, gone through a divorce, been emotionally damaged by life and for people who enjoy writing. 

Some of our best writers, most acclaimed authors, found that writing was a way to deal with their childhood abuse both mental and physical. Sylvia Plath was one of them. From those writings came some of their best work. 

Henry Miller was on the verge of suicide because his wife had left him for a mutual friend, a woman, when he found himself at his typewriter pouring out his sorrow and anger on paper. His best selling books, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, resulted from this kind of writing. 

While I sat with my ill husband for weeks in the hospital and then in a hospice center, my writing saved my sanity, I believe. Drugs kept him sleeping most of the time, and I sat with my laptop open and writing everything I was thinking, feeling, hoping for and afraid of. Little did I know that what I was doing was helping me physically. 

In the class on Healing through Writing, we will practice some of the techniques from Dr. Pennebaker's research on opening up about trauma in our lives. We will not always share what we write, but it is a good possibility that we will discover things we had not thought about ourselves, and we might come up with a few publishable essays or poems.