An update from our seventy-first Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, October 15, plus some of the output published below This workshop covered stream of consciousness, a journey through a character’s mind in which their thoughts shift through free association, constantly transitioning from one topic to the next. These thoughts go off in different directions, taking a path that feels disorganized. William emphasized the difference between a story with a beginning, middle, and end and an impression of a character’s thoughts that isn’t meant to advance the plot—stream of consciousness being the latter. The participants drew inspiration from the abstract portrait The Fisherman by Max Weber, Fernand Léger’s avant-garde art film Ballet Mécanique from the Dada Art Movement, and a piece written at a May 2020 Stone Soup writing workshop about stream of consciousness. As a mini-challenge, the participants had five minutes to write a quick visit into a character’s thoughts. The Challenge: Write a stream of consciousness piece for 30 minutes. This journey follows a path that is set down by the mind you are portraying in your story. That mind might, itself, not know where the ideas are coming from. Become your character, and let her take you on a journey into her mind. The Participants: Anya, Ava, Celia, Crystal, Greta, Liam, Nami, Nova, Pearl, Rachael, Yueling, Zar Sprinting Pearl Coogan, 10 I can do it. I can win. Win the race. Beat the high schoolers. People are cheering for me, cheering for me, of all people. My four good friends are jumping up and down, shouting encouragement. But the finish line seems a million miles away. Wait, are there even a million miles on Earth? They are winning. The high schoolers. They are beating me. This isn’t right. Just like how it wasn’t right when a mean boy stole my ginormous Kit-Kat bar I had gotten on Halloween. Or was it a Twix bar? I like Kit-Kat bars better. But all chocolate bars are good. I should’ve practiced more, spent more time on the track. But being on the track is so tiring, and then I go to bed early, and then I don’t have time for homework, and then I get bad grades. Just because I ran. But there is no going back, just like how there is no going back after you turned in homework and realized that it had been wrong after you left school. Once that happened to me and I had panicked on the bus. Everyone had laughed at me. I hate homework. I need to go faster, as fast as the wind or as me and my friends during lunchtime on Taco Tuesday. I like Taco Tuesday. Especially the shrimp tacos, although the school doesn’t always have them, even on Taco Tuesday. Not having the best kind of tacos on Taco Tuesday! Unbelievable. Some of the high schoolers are behind me. Some are in front of me. Some look angry. Some even look amused. Amused? Doesn’t that mean like, funny? I’m not sure. I’ve never been good at vocabulary. I’m better at running and athletic stuff then actual school subjects. But even though I’m an eight-grader doesn’t mean I’m not fast. Oh, I’m as fast as those snobby high schoolers. Wait, are they really snobby just because they’re high schoolers? I don’t think so. Maybe some of them are. I mean, there were snobby kids in second grade. Once one of the snobby kids teased me at Christmastime because I was wearing an ugly sweater because my family wears ugly sweaters around Christmastime. I like Christmas but I don’t like ugly sweaters. They itch. What would an Olympic sprinter be doing? Probably running faster and focusing on the finish line. The Olympics seem really stressful. Who would willingly put themselves in so much stress? The finish line is closer, not a million miles away anymore. More like ten miles. There’s a lot of places within ten miles of my house. Like the ice cream place. I like ice cream. Especially chocolate ice cream. It’s so irresistibly creamy. Once I had vanilla ice cream I hated it. Just hated it. I’m going to make it. The high schoolers are behind me now. Oh no, one just passed me. I always beg my mom to pass slow cars on the highway. But she never does. My mom can be so annoying. The finish line is so close. But so far. But I’m only a millimeter away from the winning high schooler. Wait, how short is a millimeter? The finish line is right there! I need to get to it first. Maybe I should leap to it. I’m good at leaping. Really good at it. Leaping seems like a good idea. Well, no time to think. I’m leaping. I’m leaving the high schooler a millimeter, however short that it, behind. People are cheering. For me or for the high schooler? I’m not sure. Probably some of both. But I like when people cheer. It makes me think of happy things like roller coasters. I like being happy.
stream of consciousness
Flash Contest #34, August 2021: Use J.M.W. Turner’s painting The Banks of the Loire as a starting point for a stream of consciousness piece—our winners and their work
Our August Flash Contest was based on Creativity Prompt #164 (provided by Anya Geist, Stone Soup ’20–21 Intern), which, combining art and writing, challenged participants to write a stream of consciousness piece based off of J.M.W. Turner’s painting The Banks of the Loire. The result was, unsurprisingly, breathtaking! In their own unique ways, each piece evoked Turner’s painting with stunning vividity. Reading the participants’ work, it was easy to envision the kneeling lady in red, the arching trees, and the backdrop of the seacliff, the tops of sails just visible through the mist. Participants also interpreted the qualification of stream of consciousness in a variety of ways, with their submissions ranging from meandering prose without punctuation to highly structured poetry to paragraph blocks written from the perspective of a tree! As always, thank you to all who submitted, and please submit again next month! In particular, we congratulate our Winners and our Honorable Mentions, whose work you can appreciate below. Winners “A River Flows in Me” by Inca Acrobat, 11 (San Francisco, CA) “The Melancholy Landscape” by Sophie Liu, 9 (Surrey, BC, Canada) “The Watcher” by Lui Lung, 12 (Danville, CA) “Scattering Beams” by Emily Tang, 12 (Winterville, NC) “The Banks of the Loire” by Alexis Zou, 13 (Lake Oswego, OR) Honorable Mentions “A Dream or the End?” by Phoenix Crucillo, 13 (Los Angeles, CA) “Thoughts Harbored” by Rex Huang, 11 (Lake Oswego, OR) “Perspectives Not Human” by Ivy Liu, 9 (San Jose, CA) “So Still” by Sophie Yu, 13 (Houston, TX) “The Magical River” by Natalie Yue, 9 (San Carlos, CA) Inca Acrobat, 11 (San Francisco, CA) A River Flows in Me Inca Acrobat, 11 You fail to speak to me Even when the moon has risen Above the glittering Loire When my mind is awake But my body still Especially then You turn your back away My dreams fade away Sophie Liu, 9 (Surrey, BC, Canada) The Melancholy Landscape Sophie Liu, 9 A Dreary, Undisturbed, Abandoned, Landscape. As gloomy as a muddy, Dark, Overworked, Horse, In the rain. The trees wilting in the sky, No longer proud and sturdy, But miserable. The sky covered in menacing, Evil clouds, Hiding the jumpy, Comforting, Blue, Sky. Peaceful, And calm. Not even a single shout, A single bird chirping, Or the wind howling. The place is as tranquil as a person sitting beside a campfire, With the stars glittering above them, Without a sound being uttered. Only one, Lonely, Human being in the whole, Vast greenery world. The place is a boring Blobfish, Without any beings, Except blobs of nature to make up the empty, Lonely, Land. The unwelcoming, Still, Desolate, Landscape. Lui Lung, 12 (Danville, CA) The Watcher Lui Lung, 12 There was a stillness that hovered in the air. It wasn’t the peaceful kind, more of the silence before a storm struck and razed everything in its path. I dutifully remained unmoving, listening faithfully for the endless thrum of life already etched into my memory. It was constant and ever-changing all at once, the irresolute rhythm to an unfinished song. This had become my existence: eagerly awaiting nothing by the riverbanks, observing a world I could not make a difference in until I grew too old to stand. The crunch of a fallen leaf snatched my attention, a discordant note in the delicately balanced symphony. A woman knelt, the sleeve of her dress slipping from her shoulder. This sight was not new to me. There had been hundreds before her who had visited, and thousands before them. Those who came and went were far too many to be remembered, both old and young, some carrying joy, but most bearing misery. Whether it was happiness or grief that led them to my home, I knew they all sought something for themselves, and I could tell from their faces what it was that they looked for. The desperate found comfort in meaningless details that went unnoticed by another, so that even the babbling of water could be heard as a familiar voice, or a breeze could be the huff of a lost lover’s breath. Then the woman shifted, my gaze leaping to her again, and her face was turned from me. The gleam of her dark hair gilded by noon sun was all I could see. Her perch was motionless beside the river, enough so that she could have been a painted figure listening for what only she could hear. She was indecipherable this way, a statue carved to be admired but never touched, beautiful but unreachable. Who was this mystery? What brought her here, to sit by these banks as I did? Did she hear the music in the rush of the Loire? I wanted to… I simply wanted, I realized. I wanted, and I could not have. Frustration burst like a wave. The sky inevitably splotched to orange and red, and the woman left me. She rose, the hem of her skirt against the ground a whispered addition to my song. I remained rooted in my position. People wandered here to find their purpose, but what was my own? I was the Watcher, I supposed, and I always would be. My purpose was to see and not feel, to ask my questions and to know they would not be answered. It was a bitter truth. I watched until the crimson of her dress became a faint speck, until the spell she had cast was lifted. How much longer would I continue to watch? Was I to stand here for a lifetime? I’d crumble eventually, slower than those I saw passing by, but I was dying all the same. Perhaps everyone did have a place in this grand composition I could not yet make sense of, and this was my cruel fate, a punishment for a crime I did not know of. A cool gust of wind rustled my branches. I stood still once more. The river murmured on. Emily Tang, 12 (Winterville, NC) Scattering Beams Emily
Weekly Creativity #164 | Flash Contest #34: Use J.M.W. Turner’s Painting “The Banks of the Loire” as a Starting Point for a Stream of Consciousness Piece.
Use J.M.W. Turner’s painting The Banks of the Loire as a starting point for a stream of consciousness piece. You can write a stream of consciousness piece about the painting itself, about how you imagine the world in the painting to be, or you can just use the painting as a jumping-off point. Submit via our Submittable site here.