The smallest circle
then the next
circling into a ring
of circles
twirling round
upon round
spiraling themselves
dizzy
giving shape to a fractal
kaleidoscope
tracing an arc
along another turn.
Mandala, Step One
Tag: creativity
Running Dry: Notes on Writing through Brain Fog
Brain fog isn’t an official medical diagnosis; rather, it’s a colloquial term for a range of significant, persistent neurocognitive impairments that cause such symptoms as sluggish thinking, difficulty processing information, forgetfulness, and an inability to focus, pay attention, or concentrate. With Long COVID, the exact combination of brain fog symptoms varies from one person to the next.
– Kathy Katella, “Long COVID Brain Fog: What It Is and How to Manage It,” Yale Medicine News
Brainstorm, zero draft, morning pages, freewrite, stream of consciousness.
It has lots of names. I call mine WordSpring.
WordSpring has been my writing process for as long as I’ve been writing. At least 35 years. All I do is set a time or a number of pages and just let them spill out. The words flow free. My only job is to tap the source and, in the immortal words of Natalie Goldberg, “keep the hand moving.”
Occasionally I come to the spring with a theme in mind. Sometimes it’s just an opening and whatever emerges becomes the beginning of a project. More often than I care to admit, it’s all process and no outcome. Just the flow and whatever is called to the surface.
Continue reading “Running Dry: Notes on Writing through Brain Fog”Creative Sanctuary
Photo: Joyner/Giuffrida Collection
When you open the news, do you find yourself tensing up? Or feel a pull to retreat to some warm, gentle space to catch your breath? Maybe it all would be more manageable if you could just get a hug. Or give one. Or a thousand of them.
This hunger for warmth has to be something more than a simple need for comfort. Yes, we need that too, especially when we carry real trauma. But it seems this urge to connect and catch breath has to do with knowing what’s at stake. We feel something turning. We sense what is roiling under there, the fury and sorrow and maybe even some kind of power that’s awakening under the surface. Something terrible, something very big.
Day Anew
So many sweet successes, each alone more than enough.
Today, a group of emerging higher ed superstars wrapped up our yearlong Leadership Legacy program. Before the university president’s speech, before certificates and applause and cake, participants shared the ideas for change we’d launched into existence. It thrilled me to describe an alumni mentor initiative that’s now charging forward, with current PhD students paired with graduates. This program aims to retain and support the success of underrepresented students (first-generation and students of color) by offering a connection with graduates from similar backgrounds.
Core’s Correction
We frame resilience. . . as the capacity of a system, enterprise, or a person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances.
– Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy in Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back
Having hit all the deadlines for Phase 1, I steered eagerly into Phase 2. Blocks of writing time for the season ahead peppered my calendar. Accountability buddies jumped on board. To celebrate the milestone as well as the momentum, My Mister dipped into the Treat Jar and agreed to host a game night.
Then on the second-to-last day of the first month, my project ran aground.
Treat Jar
The professor wears plaid clogs. She strides into the conference room, bold black and gray swimming around feet sheathed in silver-threaded socks. I tell her I like her style. She tells me that every time she hits a professional milestone, she buys herself shoes. She can stand in her closet and scan the trajectory of her career: her first publication shoes, her first edited volume shoes. The plaid clogs? Tenure-track shoes.
“What’s next?” I ask.
“Full professor, going up next year.”
“Have you scoped out the shoes?”
She shakes her head. “Oh no, that would jinx it.” Then she grins. “Which is a total lie. There are these boots,” she sort of moans. “Boots and a whole new outfit to go with them.”
This concept mystifies me. One friend picks out a fancy purse for every promotion or raise. Coach, Kate Spade, Louis Vuitton. Another takes herself on a cruise. I clap along but something rankles. We’re dogs now? We get cookies for every well-timed wiggle?
Listen Now
Itzhak Perlman was riding shotgun when the October moon slid out onto the horizon. The soloist’s strokes teased from the slimmest strings the opening notes of Beethoven’s violin concerto. Other players followed and a rumble rose from deep in the bouts of cello and bass, swelling to a roar and thundering through my ribs, pressing out the tears. The stoplight was seconds from green so I pressed back. It took some effort. It took my breath.
The moon lay herself down in a hammock of treetops and followed us with her sleepy gaze.
Across town, a young writer of mysteries saw her too. What echoed across the dusk to his ears was Don McLean’s “Vincent,” at least the opening verse. His song reached in through the passenger side window and wound around the Berlin Philharmonic. I pulled into a jammed parking lot. They grabbed their instruments by the neck and careened off together, streaking light across the purple sky.
Blueprint Phase 1, Step 2
On Tuesday night, I brought 3 days and 10 pages of notes to heel in this whacked out mind map. Even with my scattered brain forever chasing down The Meaning Of It All, I was able to rip the material and pin details to their categories. One night later, I had expanded this into a clean, 3-page document charting each week-long task between now and May 1, 2017. It’s typed. With headings. That makes it real, right?
Writing Project Blueprint, Phase 1
Assignment #1: Prepare an action plan for reaching a medium-term writing goal. You have seven days to complete and submit plan.
Assignment details:
Write up an overarching SMART goal and then generate a series of intermediate objectives, each with its own subset of deliverables. The objectives and deliverables will use measurable action words, such as those in Bloom’s Taxonomy, and will themselves include all the elements of SMART goals (most importantly, specificity and timeline).
As the details of the interim requirements resolve into view, they may reveal that the Big Papi goal is itself problematic. The goal might be too ambitious or your schedule unrealistic. Revise as necessary. The plan will be more effective if it emerges from an adaptive exchange between desired outcome and deliberative process.
Here is an example of my possible Big Papi writing goal: By May 1, 2017, prepare for submission a working draft of book proposal (with complete outline), introduction, and chapter 1.
Add In the Good Stuff
When we stop trying to find the solution, the solution finds us. The idea of “adding in the good stuff” is all the rage healthy living. Don’t worry about giving up cheese fries and soda. The pull of the food industry is powerful, and fighting it grinds our sense of efficacy down to sawdust. Instead, do a few leg lifts while brushing teeth. Put leafy greens beside whatever else is on the plate. Keep the focus on adding the wholesome.
This same bubbly counsel showed up in a recent parenting class. When an attendee began slipping down the shame spiral about their ineffective parenting, the instructor reminded us not to worry about what we’re doing wrong. “Do more of the good stuff,” she said. Put special time on the schedule. Focus on connection over correction.
Eventually (the theory goes) these little bits of goodness will crowd out the destructive patterns.
If this works with diet and family, why not mental health?
Shannon E. Williams 