Interactive Writing from WriteOn Vancouver, The Grind Writers

Grind Writer Elizabeth McLean holding up
the cover of  Swallows Uncaged,
her book of historical fiction.

The Grind Writers Group was invited to host a table at an a daylong writing and publishing event, WriteOn Vancouver, produced by the Vancouver Public Library at their iconic downtown location on May 11th. 

We accepted and everybody pitched in to copy handouts (Margo, Glenn, Lorna); Glenn made a sign which was vital because otherwise we would have been invisible in that lofty-ceilinged Promenade. And numerous Grind Writers manned our table and participated in a Pop-up Writing Group that we hosted that day ... Beth Brooks who got the interactive Poetry and Story rolls rolling ... Glenn Mori who made our sign and copied handouts and donated the Web-press paper rolls ... Lorna Blake... Carol Flynn... Isabella Mori (A Bagful of Haiku: 87 Imperfections)... Gillian Krantz... Karen Shauber... Malcolm van Delst (Do The Wrong Thing)... Elizabeth McLean (Swallows Uncaged); and Mark Plimley -- all of whom who either manned the table, participated in our pop-up writing group at the event, or both.

The Promenade at the central branch
of the Vancouver Public Library downtown
l to r: Isabella, Carol; Lorna standing.

We originally proposed holding our writing group meeting at the WriteOn Vancouver table so people unfamiliar with how a writing group goes could watch us, or join in and write with us. Because of space issues on the Promenade and the fact that we’d have needed 12 chairs at least, the Library proposed that we host a Pop-up Writing Group instead. They’d provide us the room with tables and chairs, pens and paper, and we would provide the prompts. So that was our other interactive activity, along with the table and the two collaborative-writing rolls. 

Round Robin writing can be quite fun. You never know what’s going to happen—whether the collective output will be inane or profound.

ROLL ON: COLLABORATIVE WRITING

Grind Writer Lorna Blake and the
interactive Story and Poetry rolls.

The paper looped over the table, and people could add to the story in different coloured felt pens. 

We decided to use that venerable and well-loved story opener It was a dark and stormy night as the prompt. Here’s what people going by stopped and wrote:

It was a dark and stormy night

and the leaves on the tree branches were shielding me from the cold wind (Anastasia)

Two hawks flew out of their nets ad screetched: Danger!!!

“Danger?!” a mocking voice cackled from the rose bushes

A crowd had gathered at the meeting place, nervously fidgeting in silence.

As is customary in such scenes, nothing happened, until it did. No one expected… a 6 foot tall crow! A talking crow. A sarcastic crow. “I have loved you all my life,” cawed the crow. “Give me warm. Give me soft.”

The crowd roared, its collective sound very much  resembling the squawks of a murder of crows….

“Murder?!” said the head crow. “I have some details……..”

“It is three days from now, the aliens from the ‘Egoland’ are visiting here.”

“You’re losing it, ma. Back to Earth. We’ve enough problems without that kind of company…”

So of he went, back to where he came from, but more humble.

_____________________

 
THE POETRY ROLL
The prompt was Like wigs that birds live in. If that seems a bit obscure, it is. Talking with Beth Brooks one day I used the phrase (in another context, about how complicated some things are) and she said, “There’s the prompt.” So we went with it. It seemed mysterious enough to launch poetic images. Maybe.

Like wigs that birds live in

my hair also carries the blossoms of life  (Anastasia)
These blossoms give birth to the next life  (Harinder)
The next life… will it be my last?

If it is, what do you plan to do with it?  (Gillian)

Eat chocolate, drink wine, and dance  (Bonnie)

Libraries—the people’s university!!

Truly liberating

Liberating like the energizing warmth of the May sun  (Janna)

Digging … surfacing the depth of emotions

Plumbing our feelings and reactions, hoping somehow,
some way, to make sense of
the incomprehensible  (Margo)

The bang was given
The Trudeau was forgiven
We all hope health will

Be intro------ (?)

Spring by Hongyun Chen
Spring can never go far
The earth and the sun
are in a lifetime of courtship
The entanglement of one warm gaze
is enough to all over again
trap the heart.

_____________________

THE FREE-WRITE CHALLENGE

Our third interactive activity at our WriteOn Vancouver table was issuing a Free-write Challenge to attendees. Depending on the kind of event, you can get a big response to this, or a little. In this case, not too many people wanted to go off and do a 10-minute timed free-write to a prompt we provided. But we are grateful for those who did. Even in this small sample, genres ranged from poetry to sci-fi, social essay, existential prose-poetry.

 _____________________

Free-write 

A blade of grass with dewdrops on it.  – Dr. Idrenne Lim Alparaque

_____________________

Free-write 

Those green people? Are you shitting me?! I mean they’re a few scales and a tail away from literally being lizard-people! Don’t you guys read sci-fi? you really think all of sci-fi is made up? no, don’t give me that look! I saw that flying saucer with my own eyes. I saw that secret meeting of those so-called benevolent green-see-ers.

They see more than they want you to think, for sure. But surely they ain’t benevolent. I don’t believe a word they say. Curing addiction? Cleaning up tent-cities? 

Please. 

I’m sure they’re up to no good. I don’t know where they’re taking all those poor people. Maybe they’re harvesting them. And you know what?--when they run out of those, you and I are next. ’Cause they can never get enough. Look!--there’s more and more of them each week! They’re up in very corner! Where are all of these freaky monsters coming from? Where have they been all this time? Oh, don’t tell me you actually believe their stories of rebirth and being visited by the Great Green-Seer. These people are not of this Earth.

I don’t remember any of their faces. I mean, come on, this is a small town! It’s not like there are so many strangers. How come none of us, or no-one we know has ever had a visit from this Green-Seer dude?

You wanna keep waiting? Or you wanna give yourself up like these poor folks? None have come back yet, you know. this whole green-hub mumbo-jumbo is a sham. They’ve started with them ’cause no-one’s gonna care I they go missing. No-one’s gonna get worried, start asking questions. Well, I’m afraid, if we don’t start asking questions now, soon it’ll be too late. – Kasra Hassani

_____________________

Free-write  

Upside down… and mirrored.

Is it real? What is reality? Maybe that’s too much to think about. Just take a look and let the light bounce off of the water, the trees, the moss growing in the shade.

Take it all in without a thought of doubt.

Do you feel it? This moment is real.   –Luyi Wang

_____________________

Free-write

Prompt: write a story or poem about someone struggling with insomnia.

White Nights

Rain and wind

Outside the window
In my heart
Sleepless nights
Nuits blanches
What will I be

tomorrow?
Doors closed
Eyes shut
Soul’s a desert
Waiting for another soul
to come in
Et maintenant
Nuits Blanches.  – Minh Karlsson

 _____________________

Free-write

Feelings are the sort of thing that keeps an economy moving. Without feelings it would be utterly impossible for CocaCola^® to market their fizzy drinks to teenagers by handing out free pops outside high school back doors on a hot summer day when good-looking groups of teenagers hanging by. Unbeknownst to the potential customers, as soon as the get hooked on it, as soon as they associate a hot summer day with the pleasure of a gulp of a can of ice-cold Coke^®, then they will forever be loyal customers to the Soda Empire.

Without the feeling of fear and uncertainty, home security system companies would not be able to scare single women with the possibility of being attacked by a stranger, by their ex, by the coworker who flirted with them at work, so as to sell them security cameras and charge a hefty subscription fee.

Feelngs are what makes the economy go around. Without the feeling of the need to be loved, admired, and recognized, why would be need social networks and why would we be constantly checking our phones? We check our iPhones^®, and realize that no-one has called, messaged, posted to our Facebook wall, the feeling of emptiness and anxiety is unbearable. That’s what’s driving the social networking and smartphone market.  – Jon

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The free-write rules --Set a timer for 10 minutes.

--Start writing as soon as you’ve read the prompt; don’t overthink.

--Don’t lift your pen from the paper (or fingers from the keyboard) for the 10 minutes. 

-- Just keep writing whatever comes to mind, no matter how silly or irrelevant it might sound to you; and

--No editing while you write.

--Repeat every day, develop a writing practice. You can find writing prompts elsewhere in this blog.

The Grind Writers on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/819686218123471/

Updated meetings schedule

Please email grindwriters at gmail.com 
before you attend for the first time.

Grind Writers Dates 2019
·  Sun Apr 28 Elizabeth McLean: "She's Terrible, and I Love Her:  'Unlikable' Female Characters."	·Sun July 21
	·Sun Aug 11
	·Sun Aug 25
·  Sun May 5  date changed to:	·Sun Sept 08
·  Sat May 11 We’re at WriteOn Vancouver Fest,  VPL downtown 11-4	·Sun Sept 22
	·Sun Oct 06
·  Sun May 26	·Sun Oct 20
·  Sun June 09 Susan L Greig, Journal Lady	·Sun Nov 03  DST ends
·  Sun June 23 Karen Schauber - "The Marvels of Flash Fiction"	·Sun Nov 17
·  Sun July 7 Elizabeth McLean: “Interiority in Fiction - How to balance internal narrative with action”	·Sun Dec 01
	·Sun Dec 15, 2019

Ke Tou: The Ancient Sound of Respect

Several years ago, Bonnie Nish the long-time executive director of Pandora’s (literary art) Collective came to The Grind Writers Group to do a mini-workshop with us. She brought along her Pandora’s Box full of 3D writing prompts. I had also attended a regular evening her co-ED Sita Carboni hosted called Word Whips* where people got together and wrote to a prompt she brought. Sita set the timer for 15 mins. and gave us a prompt (a coat-hanger).

She explained to us a Pandora's tradition that, since these were free-writes we were welcome to read our output but we would not be getting feedback on what was read, since it was material we had just written – or, what local writing coach Sylvia Taylor amusingly calls a “barf draft” or a “shaggy first draft.” Anne Lammot (Bird By Bird)  calls first output “shitty first drafts.”

It’s important that distinction be made.

So many non-writers (including some friends and family members) seem to think that the Writing Greats just sat down and poured out War and Peace, Pride and Prejudice, or The Grapes of Wrath in one go. And the first thing most of those people ask even a fledgling writer is, “So, have you published anything?” as if good writing just rolls out like sheets on a roll of paper towels.

Sita explained at Word Whips that night that when someone finished reading we would just tap the table with two fingers (softly, because we were meeting in the library) to indicate our support and admiration for one of us having had the courage to share their first-output material to a bunch of strangers. And that’s what we did. In turn, we have carried on that fine tradition at The Grind Writers Group.

Nothing new here. Except today I was reading a book, All the Tea in China: History, Methods and Musings (Wang Jian). And I came across this “lovely ancient Chinese Tea Story” Jian recounts:  

One day, the emperor Qianlong visited the Dragon Well tea area in disguise and took tea in a small tea-house where the attendant, unaware of the emperor’s identity, gave him the tea-pot and asked him to serve his entourage.

Unwilling to divulge his identity the emperor poured tea for his followers. This frightened his entourage out of their wits and, in their anxiety they began to tap on the table with their fingers bent to show that they were “kneeling on both knees ke tou continuously” (ke tou—to knock one’s head on the ground in obeisance).  

This story later became wide-spread and “tapping the table in respect” became part of the etiquette of drinking tea even up to the present day. When the host presents his guest with a tea bowl and pours water for him the guest slowly and rhythmically taps the table with the bent middle and fore fingers of the right hand in a gesture of respect to the host for having been served tea.

I don’t know if Sita or Bonnie had ever heard this ancient story. But now we’ve got a name for the tapping and I am totally down for giving ke tou to people who’ve had the courage to share what has just rolled out of their pens.

________________

*Word Whips carries on to this day meeting regularly at various locations. 

©2019 Margo Lamont

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All the Tea in China

Goodreads review:“I love tea and bought this small book while at the Ai Weiwei According to What? exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario today. The book was written in China and translated and beautifully presents the history of the use of tea in China through a long list of dynasties, describes the different types of tea, where they are from, when they are picked, how tea is prepared, the tea rituals and spiritual significance of drinking tea - even recommending with how many people tea should be enjoyed. Poetry, brushing drawings and stories tell the story.”—Nancy

Schedule 2019

Please write to (grindwriters at gmail dot com) before attending your first meeting. Thanks.

Grind Writers Dates 2019
Sun Jan 06	Sun June 23
Sun Jan 20	Sun July 7
Sun Feb 03	Sun July 21
Sun Feb 17	Sun Aug 11
Sun Mar 03	Sun Aug 25
Sun Mar 17	Sun Sept 08
Sun Mar 31	Sun Sept 22
Sun Apr 14	Sun Oct 06
Sun Apr 28	Sun Oct 20
Sun May 5 (gap)	Sun Nov 03  (DST Ends)
Sun May 26	Sun Nov 17
Sun June 09	Sun Dec 01
	Sun Dec 15, 2019

Indigenous Style Guide: Writing with Respect

Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By 

and About Indigenous Peoples by Gregory Younging PhD 
Brush Education Inc., Edmonton AB: Feb. 15 2018
PB, 168 pp
ISBN Print:  9781550597165
ISBN eBook:  9781550597196 

This book is a must-read for every Canadian, writer or not. Gregory Youngling has done everyone a service writing and compiling this book.

It is more than just a dry style guide. (A usage geek, I actually don’t find style guides dry, but I know many people do). 

When Younging explains what the offense is in various word or phrases, you learn what the pain connected with it is, what the sorrow, the trauma, and the anger are—what, in some cases, the cultural or physical violence has been and, yes, the attempted genocide cultural or otherwise. 

Born in Canada, I initially found  it eally offputting to be considered a 'settler.'  
I’m not, nor were my parents nor any of my ancestors the people who came ashore and laid claim to this land centuries ago. Yet, the occupying force (Government; Crown) that was in place, that ordered my parents to relocate during WW2 to this country where I would later be born—that was the government of a colonial force, no matter how much time has passed. It’s simple. We are. They’re right. 

I have resented that settler label. This book helped me accept and wear it. By default, and not really my fault--you don't get to choose where you drop out--I'm part of settler culture. Unfortunate for me, it completely dispossesses me. (Where is my place in the world? What place can I claim to be from? Nowhere apparently. And that was hard to come to terms with and try to accept.)

Still, as I read this book, my heart opened even more to the suffering of the indigenous peoples (note: ‘indigenous peoples of Canada’: ok. ‘Canada’s indigenous people’: not ok -- that possessiveness again…).  We can’t undo what happened, but we can acknowledge it happened. (What we do about that, how we all handle it together—that’s another matter altogether.)

We need to fix it and make it right. That will never happen 100%: nothing can ever un-do the taking over, all the past pain, hurt and horror—but we can try. 

And one way we can all try is by watching our language. We can make that effort to become aware of how we talk about indigenous people, how we characterize them in language that may be deeply offensive (for very good reasons), and what we do with their stuff, in this case specifically their stories and history.

If you are writing about indigenous peoples or topics, one big takeaway from this book is: consult, consult, consult. 

Take your work to the Elders of the relevant nation and ask them to review what you have written to ensure not only that what you’ve done is accurate, but  especially that it is your story to tell. Because as Younging says in an interview cited below: 

“There are a lot of editorial issues that are particular to writing by and about indigenous peoples. There are a lot of internal protocols and laws around indigenous knowledge and stories that non-indigenous people just don’t know. For example, some traditional stories are sacred, and there’s a training process required before you have the right to tell them. Some have an apprenticeship-like system, where someone has to train under an elder or master storyteller before they’re allowed to tell the stories.” We just need to think about how we would feel if some stranger came along and stole our histories and our stories and told them supposedly on our behalf, when we were perfectly capable of telling them ourselves, and those strangers told them incorrectly, out of context, and broke our sacred laws in the process.

It's all about respect. 

Younging says indigenous people are not saying ‘don’t write about us’ – they are saying, “If you’re going to write about us, make sure you understand these editing issues.”

We have a lot to learn. This book is one step towards starting that process.

……………

Author Gregory Younging “is a member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba. He’s been the managing editor of Theytus Books, the first Aboriginal-owned publishing house in Canada, for over 13 years.  Elements of Indigenous Style evolved from the house style guide Gregory developed at Theytus in order to ensure content was consistent and respectful.” (--Alberta Writers’ Guild).  He’s a professor of indigenous studies at UBC–Okanagan.   

This Quill & Quire Q&A with Greg Younging on editing indigenous works, story ownership, and Canadian publishing is a good introduction. 

©2018 Margo Lamont