Last Updated On April 17, 2017
“Maps codify the miracle of existence.” ― Nicholas Crane, Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet
I let myself into the kava bar all by myself! I mean..legitimately. Like they gave me a key. I didn’t break in or anything. But it was almost as thrilling.
*Excuse me while I shove this jar of Easter M&Ms OUT OF MY REACH…ok much better.
We had four lovely attendees (besides myself) on this day. A few less than last week but I prefer to think our number as *distilled* and *concentrated*.
We had some interesting discussion during our weekly check in. One of which was meeting deadlines, perfectionism, and NEEDING deadlines- it might seem that these are three areas of discussion but they all wove together and everyone could relate to these struggles on different levels and offered up insight like, “Perfectionism is the death of progress.” as well as strategies like having a “mobile office” outside of the home to cut down on household obligations distracting from writing time and a recipe called “caffeine and desperation”. This reminds me of a quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estes,
“I’ve seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write… and you know it’s a funny thing about housecleaning… it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a woman. A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectabilty) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she “should” be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.”
I shared my current strategy to friend my monkey mind while trying to maintain a daily writing practice (THREE PAGES OR BUST), using the right-hand side of my notebook for writing and the left side for intrusive thoughts. My daily writing was pretty mediocre but my left-hand notes were kind of funny, like “buy ant traps” and “plant trees” followed by “~a new shovel is needed~” and “duck research (underlined for emphasis)”. I’m wondering if I keep this up, maybe the lefthand side will develop into my novel! Maybe my intrusive thoughts are like, “We are sick of being underestimated! We are staging a coup!” Oops! See? I need a left-hand side. But seriously, I do find it helpful to let off steam while I’m writing, or I feel weighed down by tangents. If I write them down, I feel like its ok to move on.
One member shared her amazing idea for a photo/writing series. I love new project ideas. They give me the chills. It also gave me chills to witness the group coalesce around her in appreciation and support. I can’t wait to see what develops. And I love this group so much.
Stacey shared that the Women’s Suffrage Anthology was picked up by Cayuga Lake Press!! Aaaaaand we (Stacey/me/Writer’s Block Party) will be hosting a reading sneak peek at Spring Writes Literary Festival! Here’s the Facebook invite to our reading: https://www.facebook.com/events/1177810798997766/
And a link to Spring Writes in general: http://www.artspartner.org/content/view/spring-w-rites-literary-festival.html
We talked about the submission possibilities at The Sisterhood of Avalon online literary journal, http://torstone.org/submissions (did you know that sisters of avalon is a Cyndy Lauper song? Neither did I until I accidentally googled the shit out of it before I realized it was SISTERHOOD of Avalon. (put that on lefthand page) And also Fingerlakes Community College’s “The Finger” literary magazine. Which has an amusing title and nobody knows where this college is or if it actually exists or whether any of this matters, because there is some sharp pieces in that magazine (or should I say pointy…*kill me now*) – http://thefingermag.com
Jhenah let us in on the lucrative possibilities of niche erotica. Specifically dinosaur erotica. How writers use pen names or co-write in a group to create this stuff because apparently it is in great demand. She even shared a link to prove it, https://publishingperspectives.com/2013/10/dinosaur-erotica-seriously-oh-yes-and-it-sells/ If anyone wants to team up on some cryptid erotica- you know where to find me.
I didn’t even get to the maps yet!! We poured over Becky Cooper’s Mapping Manhattan and Jenny Lawson’s You Are Here. I shared some quotes and shared some art from Saul Steinberg. We talked about how ostensibly we drive to make maps a tool, true to life, as precise a representation of reality as possible and even with that effort- the subjective sneaks in. Like how on traditional globes, Africa appears small, North America immense and this distortion ends up revealing MORE about our perceptions and biases, while revealing less objective information about land mass. So creating maps that are subjective ON PURPOSE have the potential to reveal so much!! I’m pretty sure at this point of the meeting I began squealing and ricochetting off the walls of the kava bar.
One of my favorite group moments is seeing the progression as people start hooking in and getting it and the wheels start turning- and this was like watching it from absolute zero because I don’t think anyone else walked in there with the level of over the top geek-love for maps that I watched develop. I handed out blank maps of Tompkins County for mapping but we were also having personal ideas about what we wanted to experiment with. Interestingly, nobody shared. I think it was just so new to all of us but just being together in it and discussing it was comforting and exciting, at the same time, while we just noodled around trying it out. I peeked at Jhenah’s next to me and she also mapped her head, but she is like an artist or something! But what’s great about mapping is that the beautiful ones are, well, beautiful- but the true ones, are also beautiful.
What an amazing time, see ya next week!
Last Updated On April 17, 2017
“Maps codify the miracle of existence.” ― Nicholas Crane, Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet
I let myself into the kava bar all by myself! I mean..legitimately. Like they gave me a key. I didn’t break in or anything. But it was almost as thrilling.
*Excuse me while I shove this jar of Easter M&Ms OUT OF MY REACH…ok much better.
We had four lovely attendees (besides myself) on this day. A few less than last week but I prefer to think our number as *distilled* and *concentrated*.
We had some interesting discussion during our weekly check in. One of which was meeting deadlines, perfectionism, and NEEDING deadlines- it might seem that these are three areas of discussion but they all wove together and everyone could relate to these struggles on different levels and offered up insight like, “Perfectionism is the death of progress.” as well as strategies like having a “mobile office” outside of the home to cut down on household obligations distracting from writing time and a recipe called “caffeine and desperation”. This reminds me of a quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estes,
“I’ve seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write… and you know it’s a funny thing about housecleaning… it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a woman. A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectabilty) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she “should” be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.”
I shared my current strategy to friend my monkey mind while trying to maintain a daily writing practice (THREE PAGES OR BUST), using the right-hand side of my notebook for writing and the left side for intrusive thoughts. My daily writing was pretty mediocre but my left-hand notes were kind of funny, like “buy ant traps” and “plant trees” followed by “~a new shovel is needed~” and “duck research (underlined for emphasis)”. I’m wondering if I keep this up, maybe the lefthand side will develop into my novel! Maybe my intrusive thoughts are like, “We are sick of being underestimated! We are staging a coup!” Oops! See? I need a left-hand side. But seriously, I do find it helpful to let off steam while I’m writing, or I feel weighed down by tangents. If I write them down, I feel like its ok to move on.
One member shared her amazing idea for a photo/writing series. I love new project ideas. They give me the chills. It also gave me chills to witness the group coalesce around her in appreciation and support. I can’t wait to see what develops. And I love this group so much.
Stacey shared that the Women’s Suffrage Anthology was picked up by Cayuga Lake Press!! Aaaaaand we (Stacey/me/Writer’s Block Party) will be hosting a reading sneak peek at Spring Writes Literary Festival! Here’s the Facebook invite to our reading: https://www.facebook.com/events/1177810798997766/
And a link to Spring Writes in general: http://www.artspartner.org/content/view/spring-w-rites-literary-festival.html
We talked about the submission possibilities at The Sisterhood of Avalon online literary journal, http://torstone.org/submissions (did you know that sisters of avalon is a Cyndy Lauper song? Neither did I until I accidentally googled the shit out of it before I realized it was SISTERHOOD of Avalon. (put that on lefthand page) And also Fingerlakes Community College’s “The Finger” literary magazine. Which has an amusing title and nobody knows where this college is or if it actually exists or whether any of this matters, because there is some sharp pieces in that magazine (or should I say pointy…*kill me now*) – http://thefingermag.com
Jhenah let us in on the lucrative possibilities of niche erotica. Specifically dinosaur erotica. How writers use pen names or co-write in a group to create this stuff because apparently it is in great demand. She even shared a link to prove it, https://publishingperspectives.com/2013/10/dinosaur-erotica-seriously-oh-yes-and-it-sells/ If anyone wants to team up on some cryptid erotica- you know where to find me.
I didn’t even get to the maps yet!! We poured over Becky Cooper’s Mapping Manhattan and Jenny Lawson’s You Are Here. I shared some quotes and shared some art from Saul Steinberg. We talked about how ostensibly we drive to make maps a tool, true to life, as precise a representation of reality as possible and even with that effort- the subjective sneaks in. Like how on traditional globes, Africa appears small, North America immense and this distortion ends up revealing MORE about our perceptions and biases, while revealing less objective information about land mass. So creating maps that are subjective ON PURPOSE have the potential to reveal so much!! I’m pretty sure at this point of the meeting I began squealing and ricochetting off the walls of the kava bar.
One of my favorite group moments is seeing the progression as people start hooking in and getting it and the wheels start turning- and this was like watching it from absolute zero because I don’t think anyone else walked in there with the level of over the top geek-love for maps that I watched develop. I handed out blank maps of Tompkins County for mapping but we were also having personal ideas about what we wanted to experiment with. Interestingly, nobody shared. I think it was just so new to all of us but just being together in it and discussing it was comforting and exciting, at the same time, while we just noodled around trying it out. I peeked at Jhenah’s next to me and she also mapped her head, but she is like an artist or something! But what’s great about mapping is that the beautiful ones are, well, beautiful- but the true ones, are also beautiful.
What an amazing time, see ya next week!
Last Updated On April 17, 2017
“Maps codify the miracle of existence.” ― Nicholas Crane, Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet
I let myself into the kava bar all by myself! I mean..legitimately. Like they gave me a key. I didn’t break in or anything. But it was almost as thrilling.
*Excuse me while I shove this jar of Easter M&Ms OUT OF MY REACH…ok much better.
We had four lovely attendees (besides myself) on this day. A few less than last week but I prefer to think our number as *distilled* and *concentrated*.
We had some interesting discussion during our weekly check in. One of which was meeting deadlines, perfectionism, and NEEDING deadlines- it might seem that these are three areas of discussion but they all wove together and everyone could relate to these struggles on different levels and offered up insight like, “Perfectionism is the death of progress.” as well as strategies like having a “mobile office” outside of the home to cut down on household obligations distracting from writing time and a recipe called “caffeine and desperation”. This reminds me of a quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estes,
“I’ve seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write… and you know it’s a funny thing about housecleaning… it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a woman. A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectabilty) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she “should” be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.”
I shared my current strategy to friend my monkey mind while trying to maintain a daily writing practice (THREE PAGES OR BUST), using the right-hand side of my notebook for writing and the left side for intrusive thoughts. My daily writing was pretty mediocre but my left-hand notes were kind of funny, like “buy ant traps” and “plant trees” followed by “~a new shovel is needed~” and “duck research (underlined for emphasis)”. I’m wondering if I keep this up, maybe the lefthand side will develop into my novel! Maybe my intrusive thoughts are like, “We are sick of being underestimated! We are staging a coup!” Oops! See? I need a left-hand side. But seriously, I do find it helpful to let off steam while I’m writing, or I feel weighed down by tangents. If I write them down, I feel like its ok to move on.
One member shared her amazing idea for a photo/writing series. I love new project ideas. They give me the chills. It also gave me chills to witness the group coalesce around her in appreciation and support. I can’t wait to see what develops. And I love this group so much.
Stacey shared that the Women’s Suffrage Anthology was picked up by Cayuga Lake Press!! Aaaaaand we (Stacey/me/Writer’s Block Party) will be hosting a reading sneak peek at Spring Writes Literary Festival! Here’s the Facebook invite to our reading: https://www.facebook.com/events/1177810798997766/
And a link to Spring Writes in general: http://www.artspartner.org/content/view/spring-w-rites-literary-festival.html
We talked about the submission possibilities at The Sisterhood of Avalon online literary journal, http://torstone.org/submissions (did you know that sisters of avalon is a Cyndy Lauper song? Neither did I until I accidentally googled the shit out of it before I realized it was SISTERHOOD of Avalon. (put that on lefthand page) And also Fingerlakes Community College’s “The Finger” literary magazine. Which has an amusing title and nobody knows where this college is or if it actually exists or whether any of this matters, because there is some sharp pieces in that magazine (or should I say pointy…*kill me now*) – http://thefingermag.com
Jhenah let us in on the lucrative possibilities of niche erotica. Specifically dinosaur erotica. How writers use pen names or co-write in a group to create this stuff because apparently it is in great demand. She even shared a link to prove it, https://publishingperspectives.com/2013/10/dinosaur-erotica-seriously-oh-yes-and-it-sells/ If anyone wants to team up on some cryptid erotica- you know where to find me.
I didn’t even get to the maps yet!! We poured over Becky Cooper’s Mapping Manhattan and Jenny Lawson’s You Are Here. I shared some quotes and shared some art from Saul Steinberg. We talked about how ostensibly we drive to make maps a tool, true to life, as precise a representation of reality as possible and even with that effort- the subjective sneaks in. Like how on traditional globes, Africa appears small, North America immense and this distortion ends up revealing MORE about our perceptions and biases, while revealing less objective information about land mass. So creating maps that are subjective ON PURPOSE have the potential to reveal so much!! I’m pretty sure at this point of the meeting I began squealing and ricochetting off the walls of the kava bar.
One of my favorite group moments is seeing the progression as people start hooking in and getting it and the wheels start turning- and this was like watching it from absolute zero because I don’t think anyone else walked in there with the level of over the top geek-love for maps that I watched develop. I handed out blank maps of Tompkins County for mapping but we were also having personal ideas about what we wanted to experiment with. Interestingly, nobody shared. I think it was just so new to all of us but just being together in it and discussing it was comforting and exciting, at the same time, while we just noodled around trying it out. I peeked at Jhenah’s next to me and she also mapped her head, but she is like an artist or something! But what’s great about mapping is that the beautiful ones are, well, beautiful- but the true ones, are also beautiful.
What an amazing time, see ya next week!