Create a notebook or document dedicated to recording your dreams. To begin, write down as many dreams as you can remember from your life, then try to record your dreams daily as soon as you wake up. Use this repository as inspiration for a poem, story, or piece of art.
Activities
Daily Creativity #1: Sharing Hope using Spoken Word
Radio producer Cathy Fitzgerald is inviting everyone to share their experiences during this time, through the power of spoken word. She wants to hear your voices talking about how you are feeling, how daily life has changed, and what you are doing that brings joy, comfort, courage, solace–and hope. She is collecting recordings from people all over the world, and making a radio show, Life on Lockdown, out of them. Everyone is welcome to join in. Simple messages take work.* So, for today’s activity, think about what you might like to say in your message to the world about who you are, where you are, and the things that make or keep you hopeful during these times. Write down some of your main ideas and feelings, and craft them into a few short sentences. Read your message aloud a few times to make sure you like what you hear and how it sounds, and then record it on your phone or other device, or directly from your computer using the tool on the LOL site. You can do this activity either by yourself or with other members of your family. If you are happy with what you’ve made, and you are doing this activity close to the date it was posted here, you can submit it to Life on Lockdown (LOL) for possible inclusion in the radio program for the UK’s BBC. Read all the details on how to do that at the LOL website. You could also (or instead) make your own recording and submit it to our Bloggers category for inclusion on the Stone Soup blog, at any time. * Lots of famous people through history have been credited with signing off their letters with an apology for it being so long, but they didn’t have time to write a shorter one. If you are looking for an extra bit of distraction, you can read more about that here: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
Writing Activity: Using Framing to Add Depth and Power
Emma McKinny’s story “Windsong,” is about going to a performance of Dr. Atomic, an opera by John Adams with libretto by Peter Sellers. Her father is the lead singer. You can use your research skills to get information on the actual performance and its reviews online, but here we want to focus on one element of the story–the way in which Emma frames her narrative. Framing is the subject of this writing project. The basic history you need to know is that the United States invented and tested the first atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico during World War II. The bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were developed in Los Alamos. These bombs ended the war with Japan, which surrendered after they were dropped. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of civilizations were killed by these weapons, whole sections of the two cities that were the victims of these bombs were obliterated. These bombs gave humans god-like powers which J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the lab, and the Doctor in the opera’s title, Dr. Atomic, understood. He quickly became concerned about the consequences of his invention. You also need to know that Los Alamos is visible from Santa Fe and this is especially true at night when its lights glow from the mountain ridge where it is located. “Windsong” takes place in the Santa Fe Opera House, a fabulous outdoor theater that sits under the distant gaze of Los Alamos, the place where the bomb-making that is the center of the opera’s story took place. The author goes through a huge emotional experience during the Opera performance. Those of you who attend operas, ballet, and traditional theater may have experienced these deep emotional moments. And then there is the clapping. And the lights go back up. And then you have to get up from your seat and make your way home, behaving normally, with this deeply emotional experience still inside you: “turmoil boiling in the pit of” ones stomach, as Emma puts it. To help the reader understand her experience, and express it herself, she gives her feeling and emotion to the wind which blows through the Santa Fe Opera house. She whispers to the wind the same good-luck phrase she had called out to her father in the beginning, thus transferring the art of the opera and the performers to nature. Let the wind howl, like a wolf, adding its voice to the power of theater. The Activity Write a story where an element at the beginning–a framing device–introduces a powerful idea into the story, that you can use to develop your story, and then return to at the end to convey even greater depth of meaning to it. To help you see how this can work, read “Windsong”. In “Windsong,” the phrase “in bocca al lupo,” introduces a series of related ideas about sound and the elements: it relates to the wind, a wolf’s howl, the power of art and performance, all of which carry through the whole story in various ways. When the author of the story comes back to that same phrase at the end, we all have a greater depth of understanding that allows us to read even more into it. When you plan your story, think about your key message and image, and think of a way you can introduce it as a framing device early on. Try to carry your framing device through your story, and then, as in “Windsong”, come back to it explicitly towards the end. By this stage, if you have woven the ideas into your story, your frame–and your story–will have great depth.
