A micro-burst of wind, sodden with gulf-stream moisture, gusted a path through my neighborhood, leaving downed trees, shingle-less homes, screens and shutters scattered over lawns. We arrived to this mess yesterday, grateful for the relatively minor damage to our property and that no one died.
Yes. I've been away. Did you notice? We journeyed north to visit family. Then, I spent five days work-shopping PURE at Lesley University's annual summer writing workshop. Like the storm blasting through my town, the week left my head awhirl with ideas and words, the intensity further fueled by caffeine, wine, and sleep deprivation.
What the week was NOT - a writing retreat. We were in community 12 hours a day, reading, critting, discussing craft, listening to the fabulous faculty read their works, pontificating ours. No la-dee-da days hanging in bookstores and coffeeshops for me, though I did hit Starbucks every morning when it opened for my usual hour of writing. And I did get to spend a little bit of time in Harvard Book Store (the BEST Indie bookstore anywhere) and Grolier (the best poetry only store), and drinking beer and licking ice cream with fellow writers.
Most nights, I wandered the same streets as my characters, sinking into their lives, their heads, their voices. One evening I sat on the same fountain rocks where Ben first kissed Phoebe in front of the science center, waiting for the lights in the glass complex to take over the day and scribbling madly.
I'll post more later, including cool exercises to help crack open idea- and word- constipated forebrains. But first, gotta breathe and catch up on stuff...
The Reading... Picked up TONS of books and started them all, including TOLSTOY LIED and FROM A SEALED ROOM by my instructor
Rachel Kaddish, GOODBYE TO THE ORCHARD by Lesley MFA director and poet
Steven Cramer, CHARITY GIRL by fiction instructor
Michael Lowenthal, LIVING IN STORMS, a poetry anthology about the moods of manic depression, LIFE AT THE MOVIES by
Peter Selgin, and more, so much more...
The Writing... Reworking the first section of PURE. Revising GONE, a short story for the Harbinger*33 anthology. A poem is accepted at Tattoo Highway, the first of mine to see print. A second poem was accepted by an anthology on psychiatry and creativity.
Hope all is well in your writing worlds... peace, Linda
The gentle cooing of a mourning dove signals the dawn; I waken to the whir of highway traffic and, more distant, the lonesome wail of a train. The sky radiates a softer black, the ashen sheen it takes on just before the sun inches over the curve of the world. Somewhere, someone moans, and the night workers shush and rustle, prepare for the next group of caretakers. These are the only sounds; my mind is quiet; there is no noise, no morbid, florid thoughts, no whooshing or thrumming or humming, no lingering nightmares or images or memories. Normal? Is this what normal feels like? 
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