GRIND WRITERS SCHEDULE fall into winter

GRIND WRITERS SCHEDULE  Fall into Winter, 2013

If you have not attended before, please email grindwriters@gmail.com  before you attend for the first time. We sometimes move the venue

Sat	Sept 07    Summer BBQ potluck
Sun	Sept 22    Mini workshop on "Scaffolding" with Eliz. McLean
Sat	Oct 05      Mini workshop on "Creative Writing - Style and                     Structure" with Dr. James B. Webster
Sun	Oct 20      Open format
Sat	Nov 02      On Writing (someone else's) Memoir - with                  Margaret Cadwaladr
Sun	Nov 17      Mini workshop on "Story" with Malcolm van Delst
Sat	Nov 30      Open format
Sun	Dec 15? – to be decided

10am til 12:30pm

Thanks to Mr and Mrs Kim, owners of The Grind Gallery Cafe, for allowing us meet there for the last six years - and for their support of the arts in general –  they provide gallery space to many local artists.
Please buy something while you’re there to support the Grind.

THE TRAUMA OF LOSING PAL - by Peter Hansen

Peter took the Grind Café Writers’ Group “Free-write Challenge” at this year’s Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival at Trout Lake, Vancouver. The brave drew random prompts then took a break from the fest to go sit under a tree, and let it rip for 10 minutes without stopping in a free-write—and see what emerged. Braver yet, they agreed to let us post their raw version. So remember, this is unedited, unfinished output. Thanks to all participants.
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Prompt: This was a special prompt with a Part A and a Part B.

• In Part A people were asked to write for 10 mins. about a traumatic event in their lives and to write Part A before reading the instructions for Part B. 
• Part B asked them to go back and read what they wrote, then insert what their feelings and emotions were during the events they wrote about. 

This exercise was based on findings discussed in the book WRITING AS A WAY OF HEALING by Louise deSalvo – that if we merely chronicle traumatic events, that’s okay; BUT if we write about what happened AND also write about what emotions we were feeling at the time, then more healing occurs.

PART A:                         My dog Pal died; he was the wondrous dog who allowed me to be a boy in Cameron Lake and Errington. With him, I was not afraid of cougars or bears even! I would launch off into the woods, up a side hill, anywhere really that was too wild for modern children raised in the fears of the world that has arisen, that has grown all around us. But of all these things, Pal hated snakes, so he and I would go into the fields, and I would give him any snake I found, usually garter snakes—and he would hold them in his mouth and shake them to pieces. Another time, I was lost in the woods in Errington but Pal knew the way home. I remember when we broke out of the woods, that my mother and all the neighbours were spanned out across the fields, looking for us. It was the loss of the one who made these memories happen for me—Pal—that was the trauma. ©2013 Peter Hansen

PART B: It happened late at night and I remember that the event was important enough that my Dad woke me up to tell me what had happened. I do not remember exactly how it was, but I was told that Pal had asked to be let out, in the way dogs do and, stepping down a few steps, he collapsed and rolled down the steps—dead. The shock of it---the profound sadness that a boy feels when a close companion passes, I did not fully realize. It was like it was not real. It was like I could not truly feel it deeply enough to know what it was, what the feeling was, what the effect of it would be.  But I never really got over it. I sort of ignored it these long years, and only now as I think about it forty-six years later, do I even admit that it was traumatic.

AFTERNOON ABDUCTION - by D.C.B.J.

D.C.B.J. took the Grind Café Writers’ Group “Free-write Challenge” at this year’s Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival at Trout Lake, Vancouver. The brave drew random prompts then took a break from the fest to go sit under a tree, and let it rip for 10 minutes without stopping in a free-write—and see what emerged. Braver yet, they agreed to let us post their raw version. So remember, this is unedited, unfinished output. Thanks to all participants.
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Prompt: This was a special prompt with a Part A and a Part B.
 

• In Part A people were asked to write for 10 mins. about a traumatic event in their lives and to write Part A before reading the instructions for Part B. 
• Part B asked them to go back and read what they wrote, and insert what their feelings and emotions were during the events they wrote about. 

This exercise was based on findings discussed in the book WRITING AS A WAY OF HEALING by Louise de Salvo – that if we merely chronicle traumatic events, that’s okay BUT if we write about what happened AND also write about what emotions we were feeling at the time, then  more healing occurs.

PART A: I was ten years old, living in London, England. It was daytime, so I was likely playing. Looking Canadian-born, I loved wandering around this strange (to me) city. So many wonderful places. I loved the big city parks because they reminded me of Stanley Park in my home city.  This one afternoon I was at Picadilly Circus, trying to cross the street. Taxis and other cars crept past me, slowed by heavy traffic. A man, older, maybe fifty, well-dressed, was standing next to me; a big wad of money in his hand caught my eye. I had never seen so much money. The man saw me looking at it. He said to me, “You want some of this?” I looked at him, shocked by the question. He grinned, then he hailed the taxi in front of us, opened the door and got in, pulling me in after him. I screamed. The driver, who had begun to drive away already, asked, “Little girl, do you want to be here?” I shouted, “No!” “Get ready to jump!” he said, and quickly jolted to a stop. I had the door open and I lept out and ran away before my captor could catch me. The driver, my hero, sped off, leaving me safely behind. ©2013 D.C.B.J.

PART B: I was very scared and shocked, then relieved to be safe. At the time, I had no idea how much trouble I was in.

BEING ME IN THE SIXTIES – by Warren Dean Fulton

Warren Dean took the Grind Café Writers’ Group “Free-write Challenge” at this year’s Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival at Trout Lake, Vancouver. The brave drew random prompts then took a break from the fest to go sit under a tree, and let it rip for 10 minutes without stopping in a free-write—and see what emerged. Braver yet, they agreed to let us post their raw version. So remember, this is unedited, unfinished output. Thanks to all participants.
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Prompt:  If you could choose a different time period to live in, when would it be? And why then?

I’ve long been obsessed with the 1960s: the freedom, the changes in culture and society, the challenges on a global scale to the status quo, those with control. I would have loved to have been around in 1961 at the University of British Columbia, when the TISH group of poets were first raising eyebrows. 

I would have enjoyed hitch-hiking down to San Francisco and further down to Mexico and into South America. Being an active member of the Beat Generation, making ripples in the poetic pool of the world through publishing, readings, happenings. 

During that decade I would have been one of those to not just follow, but help lead. I would share love, peace, passion, the light and dark of the universe, expanding knowledge of all things. I write, write, write, live, live, live, be like Kerouac, Ginsberg, bill bissett, D.A. Levy, etc.  Peace.

©2013 Warren Dean Fulton

JUST BEING THE NEW ME by Red Dawn

Red Dawn took the Grind Café Writers’ Group “Free-write Challenge” at this year’s Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival at Trout Lake, Vancouver. The brave drew random prompts then took a break from the fest to go sit under a tree, and let it rip for 10 minutes without stopping in a free-write—and see what emerged. Braver yet, they agreed to let us post their raw version. So remember, this is unedited, unfinished output. Thanks to all participants.
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Prompt: Can you think of one area of your life that you’d be willing to change by 10pm tonight?
Write about that—what, how and why that.

I recently woke up (figuratively and literally) to realize I was no longer comfortable in my current iteration of existence. The person I had spent the last five to ten years creating and who I had admittedly enjoyed being, through and despite all the chaos created, no longer fits comfortably in the vision of who I thought I’d be now—and more so, the person I want to be.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not about self-loathing or trying to be someone I’m not. But my vision and my integrity, my desires and my dreams have shifted and refined somewhere along the way.

I spent a few weeks in intense angst, lamenting over how I’d gotten here and how I could implement all of the overwhelmingly vast changes that would need to occur, in order to be this new version of me that I was so hungry for and so ready to be.

It felt both overwhelming and inspiring…but most of all, it felt impossible. So I poured a glass of wine and drank thru it, and I cooked up a Commercial Drive-inspired feast and ate through it, and I pulled out my long-ignored journal and I wrote through it. And all the while the burning question kept coming up over and over and over……………..

“WHO do I want to be?” And then on the third night of Insomnia-ridden pacing through my house, my fridge, my neighbours’ garden, LOL, it suddenly seemed so very simple: the fog lifted, per perspective shifted, and both clarity and sleep came.

JUST BE.

The journey to the new me was already weeks underway, first steps already long behind me. So tonight, by ten o’clock, I will proudly utter the phrase, “JUST BE” IN Italian, while I strum my one guitar chord (that I’m now 15 minutes too late to go learn!).
XO

©2013 Red Dawn

DEAR DIARY by Tashanna Ducharme

Tashanna took the Grind Café Writers’ Group “Free-write Challenge” at this year’s Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival at Trout Lake, Vancouver. The brave drew random prompts then took a break from the fest to go sit under a tree, and let it rip for 10 minutes without stopping in a free-write—and see what emerged. Braver yet, they agreed to let us post their raw version. So remember, this is unedited, unfinished output. Thanks to all participants.
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Prompt:  Write a diary page for today—of a fictional character—or a historical character you choose (Cleopatra, Louis XIV, Genghis Khan etc.)

Dear Diary,

Adamantite metal is a pain in the ass around all this drywall dust. Its grains, they chafe my metal talons.  My tongue feels like a chalkboard. I need a respirator.

What a welcome respite to go to a literary park nosh. I fixed a bee sting and hugged a hippie. I hope I don’t have to stab or slice or maim anybody here. Too much tie-dye.

I would keep cleaning, my roof just got done, but I’m mad at the renovators for not laying down plastic. What a mess.

They’ll have to change my name from Wolverine to Dusty.

I wonder who has beer here—anybody?

Wolverine.

2013 Tashanna Ducharme

PEACE CHAMPION by Mankajee

Mankajee took the Grind Café Writers’ Group “Free-write Challenge” at this year’s Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival at Trout Lake, Vancouver. The brave drew random prompts then took a break from the fest to go sit under a tree, and let it rip for 10 minutes without stopping in a free-write—and see what emerged. Braver yet, they agreed to let us post their raw version. So remember, this is unedited, unfinished output. Thanks to all participants.
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Prompt:  If I could be anyone in history, I would be ………… (and why).

If I could be anyone in history,
I would be a “peace champion.”

Peace is a simple and single word
under which is a whole world.

World needs ‘peace’
No more war, please.

War generates hatred and destruction
‘peace’ generates love, harmony and construction
So world needs more and more peace champions
And down with the war mongers and war champions.

This earth will be a heaven if ‘peace’
But will turn into a hell if peace is pieced
So I would like to be a peace champion
And motivate others to be also a peace champion.


©2013 Mankajee

DELVING DEEPER INTO THE MARROW OF EXISTENCE – by Carlo L.E. Musso

Carlo took the Grind Café Writers’ Group “Free-write Challenge” at this year’s Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival at Trout Lake, Vancouver. The brave drew random prompts then took a break from the fest to go sit under a tree, and let it rip for 10 minutes without stopping in a free-write—and see what emerged. Braver yet, they agreed to let us post their raw version. So remember, this is unedited, unfinished output. Thanks to all participants.
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Prompt – Wild card. Write about anything.

What’s on my mind is that I’m glad that people are still interested in writing. Too many conversations nowadays are based on quick bursts of trivial speech that says little about the meaning of life and the universe or the polyverse and so on and so on. 

We have wonderful devices and technologies, like cellular phones, voice mail, call display, etc., but we should take the opportunity, when we can, to delve deeper in the marrow of existence. 

I try to combine small talk with philosophical musings about the deeper questions that arise in our consciousness and are regularly ignored or suppressed to make room for the trivial. There’s enough time to discuss both. It’s not a competition. It’s possible to enhance small talk with ideas and theories about why we’re here. 

Let’s use these 21^st century tools to enable and inspire us and dig deeper into the terrain of answers . . . answers to the question, “Why?” – why, why, why?

Why, why, why? Why, why, why?-again and again and again.

The searching yields more fruit than you’d think. Let’s rise above the world of sense perception and articulate, or notice, a vision—one that inspires and elucidates. This can be the culmination of milennia of human achievement. Let’s prevent ourselves from falling in love with gadgets and focus more on the essence of things.

Writing can help pave the way.

©2013 Carlo L.E. Musso