[If you want to share these activities in a group, please also credit my work and my copyright. Be Kind and Show Respect to your companions. Please support my work and training by gifting a donation via Paypal. Or plant trees in my grove at the Trees for Life rewilding project at Dundrennan in Scotland.]
Welcome to the first of my free Friday offerings from the pandemic, to ‘write-our-way-whole at home‘. For writing companions both near & at a distance. As promised in last week’s page, which you may like to read first here.
Journalling our words today can lighten the load of tomorrow & give us insights into our past & present. Over the coming moths we’ll explore ‘writing-inside-and-outside-the-box’, and also challenge a few “rules” to liberate our writing hands.
Later in this series, we may meet prompts such as “BrainDump”, “GoldenThreadwork”, grateful trios, framing the positive, bracketing, starring roles, and living-intents. Including forms such as limericks & haiku, we’ll enquire what our words can reveal about our preferences, our his-tories (& hers-tories), and aspirations.
Week by week, we’ll let pencils/pens dance in our favourite journal or ThoughtBook, remembering to date each session. Then we’ll keep them safe & private (although later there are opportunities to share some of your work if you wish).
Now let’s start not with words but with six big shapes: circle, star, square, triangle, heart, and a ‘you-choose’ shape. Draw these freehand or use a small plate as a template. Be as messy as you like. No-one’s looking. Use these:
- writing implements of your choice (colours are good);
- a large piece of paper or card
(You could use three sheets of A4 paper stuck together, or the inside of a big cardboard carton, the blank back of a poster, or a piece of wallpaper. Or in your ThoughtBook, use six separate pages, one per shape.)
- randomly choose one of the shapes and fill it with free-flow writing, following a prompt from below, or from your head;
- repeat for the other shapes, using the same or different prompts;
- if you wish, draw further big shapes, and write inside them
...that if I was a type of weather... ...appreciating these three things: ...coming out of her shell ...a hierarchy of needs... ...& at the Vernal Equinox I wish ...maybe thinking later Rule: there are no rules, nothing is "wrong" here stretched like chewing gum... Star of the ... ...he never noticed the ace ...river wild, river strong creature of habit ...equal days and equal nights "everything in its own time" kindling the flame tilting into spring ..."whatever next!" ... took an oblong time secret love
Finally, in an unused space on your sheet, write: up to three things you’ve disliked, either in this activity or in the past day; & up to three simple things that you’ve enjoyed over the last week. You could even attribute the enjoyable things to other people or circumstances that brought them your way.
- remember to date today’s sheet &
- either look over what you’ve done now, or put it away to review later &
- meet at writingpresence.com in a week’s time for a fresh approach to writing our way whole: at home
More free resources coming soon to writingpresence.com
and meanwhile, on Mother’s Day in the UK here’s one from last year.
Script, images and content all © Copyright Kathy McVittie 2020; © Kathy Labrum McVittie 2022
All rights reserved
writingpresence 