I took this photograph after the recent light snow. When I looked at it, I felt a bit queasy – the orientation to gravity, light and the lines of the tree were disconcerting. I felt myself falling. Falling from what, I wondered?
In recent weeks, I have felt my orientation shifting as I move into some new work. It started with my morning 750, which I now write in Scrivener. I began writing, and a piece of fiction (a short story perhaps?) emerged. I felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland, falling falling falling into the well of this piece. As if I was taking dictation. I loved the story and wondered where it was going. I still don’t know. I have no plan.
When I was in the third grade, my family lived in London. Part of what we did in school was to write stories. My teacher, Miss Sherman, loved my writing and encouraged me. I felt a sense of pride and excitement. But when we moved back to South St. Paul, my teachers were not interested in writing. They like penmanship and numbers. I put the writing away, could not hold the thread of it. It went underground with the rest of me.
Later, my writing became stodgy and correct. Dead. Nothing kills the writing spirit like grant proposals. And so now, starting right here, every day, I am recovering my writing self. Recovering myself.
I have had an offering called The Journal (and the deep end) for some time. I knew that this new writing didn’t fit that old description. So I changed it to Little Fictions and Ragged Memoirs. I like this title – the openness and possibility that it holds.
It is a subscription, which means that it is one of the ways that I support myself as a writer. It also helps give me the resources to make dances. You see, I don’t write grants anymore.
It has come to my attention however, that many find it hard to pay for a subscription at $20 a month. I hear you. I am lowering the cost of the subscription to $13 a month. I like the number. It feels lucky. (If you are already signed up, your subscription price will lower.)
If you sign up now, I will send you the first two episodes of the story that I am writing now so you will be up to date. As always, you can unsubscribe at any time. If you would like to try it, you can sign up here.
