Daily Nourishment for October 21, 2024: Gathering Momentum with Guidance from Maggie Smith
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 40 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 10-15 minutes
“Direct your heart upward.”
Pause.
Take three deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale. Then read or listen to “First Fall” by Maggie Smith.
Prompt.
Read the quote below by Maggie Smith.
“Revision is my favorite part of the writing process. I relish the creative problem-solving more than the rush of getting it down. If you’re like me, your poem might go through anywhere from two to two hundred drafts before you’re satisfied enough with it to call it ‘done’ and send it out. Each revision, ideally, gets us closer to the poem we sense is there, waiting. The poem that will do the psychic or spiritual work we want it to do.
But each revision can also pull us farther away from the initial spark of the poem. This tension, this push and pull, is what makes revision dynamic and exciting: we are hunting something but are not quite clear about what it looks like or how to find it.
My poems almost always begin as scraps of language scrawled in a notebook or on a legal pad. If I’m lucky, one image or metaphor will lead to another, and before I know it, the draft is picking up speed down the page, gathering momentum as I try to keep up and see what it’s doing. I never learned to properly type, so I try not to put my two index fingers to work until I’ve done all I can longhand and need to see the shape of the thing on screen.”
Practice.
Choose one essay, poem, story, or sentence that still needs some work. Set a timer for seven minutes and revise. Change one verb. Or pick a different noun. Be more specific.
Then notice what happens next. Did you pull it away from the initial spark or help it become more of what it is supposed to be? How can you tell if it’s doing more of the psychic or spiritual work you want it to do? Take a few deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale and try to determine what else it needs.
Want More?
Read “Maggie Smith on How to Revise Poems Without Losing the Initial Spark”
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Workshops, Gatherings, & Resources
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—October Co-Writing is live. All SDW Members get free co-writing through November. If you aren’t a member and would like to join us, please contact me at charlotte@charlottedonlon.com and I’ll hook you up.
—The Great Belonging Project is live here and The Great Belonging Project October Refresh will take place Oct 1-Oct 31.
—October 26— Online Revision Stations Designed by Lauren F. Winner
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.
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