Saturday, January 24, 2009

all kinds of writing

I want so much to be writing in this year and I've been struggling with what kinds and my most recent decision is: all kinds!

In my various writing groups it keeps coming back, in the context of trying to do fiction, to the fact that I continue to be very drawn to poetry.

In the context of trying to do more literary writing daily I was considering giving up the blogging entirely but then I decided - nooo! There were a few technical things I really wanted to figure out (as in: how do I make the entries have little short parts that appear and then be continued elsewhere, which I see on so many blogs!? - so I can write a long thing but it doesn't clog the blog) but I still haven't figured it out and so I'm blogging anyway. A couple friends have been kind enough to notice the absence of entries and so here I am, back again.

Writing Things I'm doing:
as of yesterday, a daily haiku exercise that I really, really like! (found it on the web - more maybe in a separate post)
also as of yesterday, a daily prose exercise that forces an enormous amount of action in a short short piece - I loved this one!

Writing Groups I'm in:
2nd and 4th Saturday afternoons of the month, a German-speaking group that meets at a cafe that takes me 45 minutes to travel to - we write for about an hour on our own things, then we talk, then we do a couple of writing exercises, and then maybe we talk more. Yesterday we talked more, very very inspiring and helpful and stimulating, and there too, maybe more in a separate post.
1st Friday night of the month, a German-English group where we read to each other and critique rather than writing together (although you can come an hour early to do writing exercises). There were about 25 people when I was there in January (only time I've gone so far). 
every Friday morning, organized by me from people from the German-English group: an English-speaking group that meets in a cafe and does writing exercises, that so far I have arranged (from books I have and the web) - also very good this week!
Still hoping to go to: once-a-month women's poetry group on a Wednesday night (this coming Wednesday night, when it meets, my play-reading group is taking a break so it's perfect): in that one as far as I can tell we do poetry exercises together, which is wonderful!

OK, more anon, it's 8:42 a.m. (January 25th in Berlin, don't believe whatever it says up there) and I want to still breakfast (my daily oatmeal/blueberries/banana), stretch, move the living room all around again, make fruit salad and frittata and get the table set up for 10 people for brunch at eleven this morning. 

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