Workshops

An update from our thirty-fifth Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop held on Saturday March 6, plus some of the output published below This week William talked about the different ways of looking at characters who are “emerging from” something. We considered the opening words of the King James Bible, and the possible narratives of emergence in Caspar David Friedrich’s mysterious painting The Wanderer, looking out from a mountaintop over a misty valley and peaks below. We considered the emergence of involuntary memory Marcel Proust’s famous madeleine moment, watched a clip from a movie version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and discussed the idea of characters emerging from a mental (rather than a physical) fog to come to a realization; any and every kind of emergence. And then, of course, we wrote! The Writing Challenge: Write a scene or story in which a character emerges from a fog or chaos of some sort. Remember, the writing should consist of two distinct parts—one of chaos, and one of clarity. The distinct parts can run together, like in Swanns way, or they can be separated like two mini chapters. The Participants: Madeline K, Peri, Leo, Kaidyn, Julia A, Reese, Lindsay, Helen, Ava, Lucy K, Pranjoli, Liam, Margaret, Lena, Samantha, Eve, Lina, Sierra, Syra, Nami, Simran, Rachael, Madeline N, Maggie, Sophie, Anya, Madeline S, Tegan, Noa, Elbert, Alice, Ruhi, Olivia Z, Charlotte K, Sage, Anna, Angela, Tilly, Yasmine, Lucy R, Grace, Emma B, Enni, Olivia S, Charlotte, Jonathan L., Nova Peri Gordon, 11Sherman Oaks, CA Creativity Peri Gordon, 11 Part I I haven’t eaten. I haven’t slept. I haven’t smiled. I haven’t laughed. I haven’t spoken. I haven’t understood. I haven’t truly loved, and I haven’t truly lived, for days. I am too tired. I would be too tired to care, too, but number six—not understanding—is bothering me. I have to understand, and I don’t. One day I was part of a community. The next, the police were in front of me, their indestructible armor gleaming in the light of dawn, and were shoving me out of my life. And this isn’t a new life, because wandering aimlessly in the scorching heat and the freezing cold and the dry, humid, or wet pit of being completely lost isn’t living. I have lived in the city all my life. All my life—my life of actually living. All the time of my not lonely, not frightening, not starved existence. Now my life is over. I am lost, and no one, not even myself, can find me. I was born in the city. But was I? I can’t remember—but that’s normal. Completely ordinary. Like I used to be. Except I was never ordinary. I was different, but in subtle ways, my favorite color and food and style of clothing being unique. Does that mean I should be forced out? Part II Except I do have memories of birth, too early to be defined in my mind, but memories of a better world. Golden wings on silver elephants, delicate blue roses on diamond crowns. My earliest memory is of an atmosphere of swirling, shimmering color. People coming up with ideas and working together to bring them to life. Is all that from a children’s book? No. I would never have given it away. Suddenly I remember more. Instead of learning to add fractions, I learned about creativity and ingenuity. Creativity—that was the name of the place. What place? My birthplace. Why did I leave? Oh, I remember. I got lost. Yes, yes, oh yes, then, like now, I thought my life might as well be over. But the city found me. And now, thirty years afterward, they found out about me. Remembered how strange my arrival was. I have found out about myself, too. I am Creative—yes, that’s the adjective. I can go back to Creativity. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Dagger of Ash Lina Kim, 11 Gabriella stood at the edge of the clouded forest in anticipation. Her cousin, Finn, was going to visit. Every month, it was like this. The fog allowed a rift in the space-time continuum, and allowed him to come from the other universe. He wasn’t, of course, actually related by blood to Gabriella, but they were so close that it seemed they were cousins. Normally, the fog wasn’t this bad. It was just a light mist in the forest, dew on the grass and flowers. To Gabriella, weather and fog conditions didn’t matter. Just the same, every month, she would stand in front of the forest in sunshine, rain, storm, whichever. She was clutching a book to her chest. It was a journal. Whenever Finn would come, they would flip through the journal and add notes to it, about plants and animals and everything from Finn’s universe. Finn carried a similar notebook, except it wasn’t a notebook at all. It was a strange little rectangle, only the edges weren’t sharp, they were curved. If he tapped a white space in it, it would pull up a “keyboard”, in Finn’s words. He would simply press a letter on the keyboard and it would pop up in the space. Finn called it an eye-pad, which is ridiculous, since it is not a pad that you would put on your eye. Gabriella recalled the first time Finn had visited. He had been shocked. Yellow trees?? he had yelped. It was true. The trunks were yellow, and the leaves were blue. The fruits tended to be black and gray and crinkled at best, but sometimes, after a while, they would turn strange colors and nobody would eat them. For example, oranges were slightly round, black and wrinkled, but they would turn orange and an orange coating would surround the fruit. Finally, Gabriella heard a bush moving. She turned towards it and out came Finn. She grinned, then her face fell. He was all scratched up. There was a long scar across his cheek, stretching from under his eye to his chin. He didn’t meet her eyes.