just write – Page 8 – The Write Spot

Guest Blogger Marjorie Richardson writes about waking our consciousness through gentle yoga.

Want to calm your nerves, quiet your mind, decrease anxiety and heighten immunity? How about having more comfort and ease in your body? Developing a feeling of fluidity in your body? Accessing your creativity? All these things can and do take place through slow and gentle movement accompanied by focused rhythmic breathing. Gentle yoga enhances our ability to hear ourselves, to listen to the inner cues we are constantly being given. In deeply concentrated states of mind, restlessness calms down. Synchronizing breath and movement train the mind to sense the subtle layers of well-being below all the surface chatter.

Hatha Yoga is a tool discovered thousands of years ago to be used to awaken consciousness and unite with all the levels of our being. When attention is directed inward, your body receives messages that you are safe and secure; your self is being looked after. Muscles relax, blood pressure drops, the nerves calm, the mind quiets, anxiety decreases and immunity heightens.. Our fast-paced busy lives tend to stimulate a high level of stress that runs our immune systems down as they try to cope. A Yoga practice is a counter pose to that life style.

The gift of yoga is multifaceted. Through our yoga practice we break through and loosen old patterns of feeling and being. We develop a new relationship with ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Yoga deepens our understanding of who we are and how we choose to be in the world. Yoga expands us, opens us to new territory, releases stuck places that were previously unavailable. Through our yoga practice we attune to our alignment at the core of our being. We increase physical strength, flexibility and balance. We develop non-judging acceptance and open heartedness. And through all of this we experience a calmer and more peaceful state of mind. We cultivate an ability to listen to our body, to hear what it really needs for well-being. We begin to move away from the push and the struggle and breathe into the little releases and insights that are revealed to us through our body as we learn to listen with curiosity and trust. In this way, yoga can enhance our writing.

The body, mind and spirit responds to and loves the oxygenating benefits of deep rhythmic breathing and the balancing of all the body systems through the gentle stretching and relaxing into the poses. The true work of our yoga practice is cultivating self acceptance, kindness and patience, developing and integrating body mind and spirit. Our physical need is health, our psychological need is knowledge and our spiritual need is inner peace. Cultivating all three produces harmony and who the heck doesn’t want that?

Marjorie Richardson is a certified Integrative Yoga Instructor & Massage Therapist who has been teaching yoga in Petaluma, California since 1997. Her gentle style supports the process of letting go of tensions, worries and habits by using breath and movement synchronized together.

Note from Marlene: I just love serendipity. I’ve had this post ready for awhile, waiting for an “open spot” on the guest blogger calendar. Today is The Day. There is a good article about “Yin yoga: A fascia-nating practice,” by Hana Medina in the July 2014 issue of The Costco Connection. Don’t you just love it when serendipity happens?
What is the one intangible thing you treasure above all else?

Intangible, meaning: you can’t touch it, feel it, smell it, hold it, see it . . . it may be a character trait, a personality trait, a quirk. . . a feeling. . . .

Prompt: Write about something intangible that you treasure.

Photo by Jane Person
Guest Blogger Kathy Myers writes:

Computers are great and all— without them, this blog wouldn’t exist and then what would I do? But when I was younger, my image of a writing life was less technical and more romantic: Jo in Little Women, writing her books in a drafty attic wearing fingerless gloves against the winter chill, or Jane Austen dipping her nib and contemplating her next chapter, while her parents plan a ball where she can meet eligible bachelors. Ah, the good old days.

At a Jumpstart Writing Workshop in May, I wrote a fictional scene on the prompt “It happened because . . . ” Marlene Cullen, always benevolent and encouraging to writers said, “That would be a good beginning for a romance novel.”

Jumpstart was on hiatus for the month of June, and this coincided with a flirtation I’d been having about trying the fabled “sit-your-ass-in-a-chair-and-write-a–thousand-words-a-day” method I’d heard so much about— a discipline that so many writers (who actually have books published) swear by. So I thought what the heck, if Marlene can drag herself to her exercise boot camp, I can drag myself into the kitchen: make some toast and coffee, go back to bed with my fully charged laptop, and write until it runs out of juice. This averages about three hours and about a thousand words. I am no worse for wear for the effort, and I have the rest of the day ahead of me—fully charged with a great sense of accomplishment. I press print, and then put my day’s work into a lovely flowered document box (Home Goods $7.98). My box is fancy and romantic—much nicer than poor Jo’s manuscript—wrapped with brown paper and twine. It might not be as nice as Jane’s satin lined box inlaid with elephant ivory, but hey—now I’ve got something to buy with my future royalties.

It’s July now and I’m thirty thousand words into my first novel. I have to tell you: The ass in a chair/ book in a box method works. You are free to do as you wish with your writing, of course. Do it on a whim or when the muse strikes. But get a fancy box to put it in. Remember that everything you write is a legacy of sorts. You can have a time capsule where your stories, journals, or Jumpstart notebooks can be collected—honoring your efforts with a neat and lovely testament to your creativity. Your voice in the form of your words can reside there in style.

Kathy Myers is a big fan of Jumpstart and Writers Forum. She has waded into the submission pool this past year and been published by Every Day Fiction, Petaluma Readers Theater and Redwood Writers Anthology. She has done several guest book reviews on The Write Spot Blog and is an advocate for fancy boxes everywhere.
July 4th is coming up. . . . what does this mean to you? Do you consider yourself patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?

Which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite “brain teasers.”

Do they have fourth of July in England?

Yes. . .and third of July and fifth of July.

Writing Prompt: What does July Fourth mean to you?
Set your timer for 12-15 minutes and write.

No judging. Shoo your inner critic away. Just write.

Today’s Prompt: Right now . . .

Photo taken in Ireland by Jim C. March
In this Just Write post, we’ll take a look at the idea of listening to your body as a way to get past blocks toward your creativity.

First, turn off your cell phone or put to vibrate. Unplug from Facebook and emails. Eliminate as many distractions as you can.

If you are experiencing extreme grief or pain, please get professional help. This post, of course, cannot replace the need for professional assistance.

Ready? Here we go.

We all experience grief, trauma, sadness. And we have our own ways of handling those stresses. There is no one right or wrong way to handle these difficulties. What is right for one person, may be wrong for someone else. What works for me, might not work for you, so take what works for you from this post, ignore the rest.

Let’s take a moment now to breathe, relax and get settled.

Take a deep breath in and let out with a whoosh.

Deep breath in. Relax. Let go.

Drop your head to your chest and rotate in a circle.

Rotate shoulders in a circle.

Scan from head, down to your toes. Check in with your body.

Notice places that are tight. Notice any uncomfortableness.

As you scan your body, become aware of any place that draws your attention – notice what part of your body calls out to you.

Place the palm of your hand on the part of your body that calls your attention. Or bring your breath there if it’s not reachable with your hand.

Allow your hand to be filled with the information of that place.

Take a deep breath in. Let it out with relaxing sigh.

Thinking about that place in your body that calls out . . . what do you notice? Who hangs out there? Who do you see?

If you could have a conversation with that part of your body, what would it sound like?

If you have blockages in your life, your work, or your creativity, your body can tell you what’s going on. If you are stuck, notice where you feel it in your body.

When you pay attention to that stuck feeling, you can work past it and then you will be free to work as you wish. Discover what’s really bothering you.

When you are ready, write about what you have discovered. Write about that place in your body that wants attention. Or just write about whatever is on your mind.
Write about things you no longer do.
I wrote another personal essay, in part with the column in mind but mostly with the intention of simply telling my story. There was a message I wanted to convey in the piece: one of loss and sadness, but also of triumph and survival. Because I had taken my focus off publication while writing, I went deep into storytelling mode. Much of the writing for the piece was done in subconscious writing fashion. When I finished a decent draft, I went outside to water my flower garden. I felt a certainty that hadn’t been there before. the essay was so good, so moving. I knew it would be published — if not in the target column, then certainly elsewhere.
— Rebecca Lawton

Note from Marlene: What strikes me as being important in this passage is when Becca let go of the thought of publishing, she was able to go “deep into storytelling mode.” That’s my wish for you.

Write whatever you want to write. Don’t worry about a thing. . . don’t think about publishing, don’t think about anyone looking over your shoulder. No judging. No criticizing. Just write.
Today’s writing prompt is inspired by Rebecca Lawton’s May 26, 2014 blog post, which begins:

“Candles of buckeye blossoms and their subtle fragrance have always confirmed the return of summer. Seeing them this week reminded me that certain sights, sounds, and smells trigger strong memories. The whisking sound of a broom on stairs recalls family vacations at the lake, where our host rose early to sweep fallen live oak leaves. The musky scent of open water reminds me of being on a raft enjoying the primal sensations of floating a muddy river. The first bars of a Beatles song bring back the excitement of junior high school dances. Sipping tequila reminds me of kayaking from Loreto to La Paz on the Sea of Cortez.”

Click here to read the rest of the post.

Writing Prompt: Stroll down memory lane . . . pause when a remembered event causes a visceral reaction: you might feel a sensation in your gut . . . write about that event, using sensory detail.

You can use the Summer Prompt as a starting place. Not the “how I spent my summer vacation” September school essay. Focus on detail . . . using sensory description in your writing. Capture that musky lake smell, the charred wood campfire smell. Go with tactile detail: the sticky marshmallows on your fingers, the feel of a rough floor on your bare feet, the bright sun fighting closed eyelids. Wake up! Go deep in your writing. Reach out and capture those feelings. . . whatever they are.

After you write, take a look at the responses to Prompt #77 (scroll down) . . . folks used wonderful detail writing about summer.

Join us! Write your freewrite. Post your writing on The Write Spot Blog.
Today’s writing prompt is inspired from the book, Write Free, Attracting the Creative Life by Rebecca Lawton and Jordan E. Rosenfeld

This writing exercise is called: I Spy

List a few things that happened this morning or yesterday. They don’t have to be big or memorable, just whatever falls into your mind.

The goal is to slow down and take stock of those things you do not normally notice.

Writing Prompt: Focus on one event and write how you felt about this encounter. Jot down your feelings and then do a freewrite.

Did the event make you think of anything else? Did it remind you of other events, experiences, memories or feelings? What were you thinking while it happened, or just before or after?

Write your freewrite. Type your freewrite and save it. Log on and post your writing on The Write Spot Blog.