I made an outline and cut the chapters I read to the core—and I liked them so much that I think the originals need this cutting as well. This was the outline:
ENTER AS Alice
Rd Ch 1 and 2
Pause for a summary of the major conflicts and events:
—the invitation and losing her job
—the laptop and Ricky’ visit
Rd Ch 22, 25, 26
Discussion: Helen
as linear narrator
What’s
like me, what’s different
Vertical
4-D writing
What
I learned here
What
I take home
Tanya
2 weeks before I can write again!
And this was my prayer:
Many Pendle Hill staff people came and two interns and and two guests! Let me see if I can walk my way around the table: (From my left) Lloyd, Jesse, Amy, Anne, Laura, John, Amadeus, Ricardo, Helene, Joe, Shirley, Steve, and Angela. I wish I had taken a picture or asked someone to take one. And I am not yet able to record the responses except to say they were generally positive, very positive. Gosh.
I addressed my entire outline with a little prompting from Jesse to talk about the role of prayer in my writing and to talk about the space in which I worked.
Here is the "discussion" part of the presentation in a much more organized form than my actual talk. I wrote this earlier in the afternoon while planning what to tell folks about my work as Writer-in-Residence:
I’ve been thinking a lot about how narrative
writing grows. In my novel Alice in Wonder, I started with my own solo performances, making
the character I once played be the core persona of the drama in a semi-autobiographical
semi-historical novel.
I made her 10 years older than me and financially
independent. I replaced my life as a
teacher with hers as a storyteller. I
replaced my need to reveal what radical feminist community was all about with
her reluctance and resistance to returning there—but otherwise we share a
lot. I was involved with women’s
communities and did find Quakers first at the Women’s Encampment for a Future
of Peace and Justice. Alice’s lovers are
quilted from my own and those of my friends.
Her experience working on racism and discovery of her own racism are my
own. My own spiritual life has deepened
by exploring hers.
Here at Pendle Hill, I continued to write in a
linear narrative, letting Alice’s conflicts and catastrophes lead me forward,
but as I worshipped more and more I began to write vertically as well as
horizontally, as if I were switching to 4-dimensions and exploring the depths
and dimensions of single moments. I hope
the chapter I read aloud illustrates that.
Essential elements of my time here included leaving
home and its involvements, joining daily worship and starting daily prayer in three different
modes—silent, in writing and in color drawing.
Also the food and its consistent scheduling--including my time with the
kitchen crew around the dishwasher-- contributed a lot. My weekly consultations with Jessie kept me
on track, made me aware of creative patterns I can take home with me, and often
eased anxiety as well. She’s careful to
meet when she can be fully present.
She’s a good listener and a skilled mentor.
Finally, the events I participated in and the
people they brought me in contact with expanded me—including my lunchtime
writing sessions, the three sessions of readings I did before this one, the
Monday talks and book signings, the Commencement ceremony of Radical
Faithfulness and last weekend’s full conference on Transformative Justice in
Community. Wow. Without the residence program, I feared there
might be too little conversation and dialectic, but in the end it was just
right. I’m so happy that the last event
of my residency will be Marcel Martin’s book signing event for Our Life is Love. That is providential!
According to Tanya
Taylor Rubinstein, the Global Story Coach:
The world has conditioned us, whether we are
coaches, writers, artists, business people or other kinds of creative folks,
that we need to always be moving outward. [But] we don’t. [We can center and then] from a place of deep
abundance, we truly can remain open, and receive what is meant for us. This is
the point of attraction and power. It is not a passive path. It is not a
hermit’s path either. It’s one of powerful intention and receptivity. And, it’s one of conscious awareness of being
led by something greater than the individual self.
I have been reflecting today on what I take away
from Pendle Hill, and Tanya's assertion is one of them. To have a chance
to learn this experimentally is a great blessing. One
of the first things that Jesse said to me was that despite what I said I would
be doing here, I should see what is on my heart right now and let it lead
me.
I find I stop writing to pray often about
both this world and the fictional one. I
thrive in the writing cave and morning schedule I’ve made here and will build
those in at home. I also take back with me
the uses of my weekly check-in with Jesse and have begun to gather a spiritual support team to
read my work, to ask me questions about both the work and the process of writing, and
to worship with me. I think we’ll meet
once a month. But I would love to hear
from others about what they have found supportive.
Finally: It’ll be two weeks before I can return to
writing. Obligations I’ve put off have
crowded in—shopping Friday, sessions Saturday, Upper Dublin Sunday, Doctors
Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday a drive to upstate New York family. It will be March 28th
before I can become writer-in-residence in my own home! I have to look into this business and figure
out a way to get a well-cooked meal at least once a week back here at Pendle Hill.
I’m hoping to finish Alice in Wonder this year, even if writing about her wonder leads
me to more books or more wonders and avocations. I don’t know yet whether writing is the calling
or the path to another calling.
But I thank God and everyone for this stop on the road.
I will write more as way opens.