This morning I wrote 939 words in a five things draft. I haven't read any new essays yet but will. I'm planning to revisit Annie Ernaux's The Years later today for another project, and that is rather essay-like as well. Yesterday was a pretty productive day, writing-wise. I decided to get ahead of the camp plan a little and revised some of my Day 2 freewrite material into the shape of a little essay. It's very personal, so I don't know that I'll share it outside of a book, but the exercise is helpful. I also edited another short vignette for my potential collection, and revised about 2,000 words of my forthcoming book.
Morning, all. It's still dark here in Glasgow and I'm the only one awake. I have time, hot water in hand, to indulge in a bit of reading and plan to enter rebel mode once more mid-afternoon, which has been a time of day that's felt fertile this week.
I am so pleased to notice the sheer enjoyment I've experienced in working on my novel this week. I seem to do quite well with a timer, and have been pretty well interrupted by the alarm at then end of my session, so things are flowing...
I'm minded of what Julia Cameron says about writing in specified chunks of time and stopping even when the going's good if we want to establish a sustainable habit. It's so hard to stop typing, though, when we are in congruence with our words.
How do others manage that? Happy reading and writing today, friends!
Good morning all, I am loving all the essay choices but I’m particularly impressed with the short ones. “Lost and Found” had that clear moment of a very satisfying ending.
I don’t know how this fits in, but I wrote all of my Five Things thoughts in the same draft of Wordpress, and now I’m thinking that multiple thoughts from multiple days could be combined into one, to the point where I made sure to get elements for it if I wanted to make it into an essay.
Very happy I found myself here😊💜 I was looking for something like this, and I found it!! Not only did I find something I was looking for, I found what I was (am) looking for, not just something like it, I found IT!!!💜 💥💥
Yawning and bit tired this morning but grateful for another day at #EssayCamp. The "lecture" today on essay structure was excellent. I found this "Whatever kind of essay you choose to write, it must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning draws you in, the middle holds your interest, and the ending sees you out again. Each section has only one job, and that is it." I often forget about the power of seeing the reader out. And "Passing Mary Oliver at Dawn" was very powerful. Thank you for adding it to the reading list.
Absolutely torrential rain here in Seattle this morning, so it's good writing weather. I am a day behind, I got distracted (so easy to do) so today I'm doing ten things, I guess, to catch up. I had a very good practice for a years, I wrote a whole damn book, but then I had to get a day job. I walked away from that at the end of September to go back to freelancing. I had a month to just create better space in my brain and now, essay camp is helping me rebuild my practice. I am grateful for that
A slow morning here in Yorkshire, sitting in bed with a second my of tea noodling all things essay. I think I’ll have a go at the five things prompts again after shower and dog walk on the moor. Happy writing everyone. Hx
Thank you for this and the previous posts as well. They are so helpful. I am loving too all your essay example choices. Even though I have read a few of them before I am reading them in a new way.
Hi! So grateful for this push to take time to write 5 Things and see what comes (in addition to my work on revising/arranging some previous essays). In reviewing the past 4 days of what I felt was quite crappy writing, I found 2 or 3 or 4 small things that have potential. Marked a few things but now I'm allowing them to "stew" a bit before I return to them tomorrow to see what might take shape!
Essay Camp Day Four - I was really inspired by the essays that Summer shared, and wrote a very short essay about my parent’s divorce, inspired by “Lost and Found” and Summer’s prompt, “Write about being 17 years old.” It’s a deeply personal essay, and also very ‘80s, and I’m not sure I’m ready to share it but I’m glad it came out on the page.
Oh, Summer. Having been a maker of rhymes from an early age, gutting fish and washing dishes...straight then into skullduggery, without one class in poetry. And the dawn thing, and the honoring, now the lightness of all that, fits well on the scale to balance the unleaded skies off the Coney Island shore, setting stab nets to AM radio hits, at sunup in the early 70's. Only understanding New England ever, through John Irving, during breaks in Cold War deceptions...No, not longing, but completion, would I, could I, have traded clam knives and spy games for better grammar and spelling? Would the scale balance then? Thank you for this shot at what was missing, tell me, do you also give trumpet lessons?
As much as I love the Five Things exercise, today I opted for some freewriting. There was a subject weighing on me when I woke up this morning, and it felt good to dedicate the time and words to it. The weather rather matched my mood as we have our periodic fog banks back on this part of the California coast, replacing dry and very unwelcome Santa Ana winds. Sweet relief.
I loved your Mary Oliver essay, Summer! I plan to dig into more of the recommended reading this weekend.
Hello from Essay Camp day 4!!
This morning I wrote 939 words in a five things draft. I haven't read any new essays yet but will. I'm planning to revisit Annie Ernaux's The Years later today for another project, and that is rather essay-like as well. Yesterday was a pretty productive day, writing-wise. I decided to get ahead of the camp plan a little and revised some of my Day 2 freewrite material into the shape of a little essay. It's very personal, so I don't know that I'll share it outside of a book, but the exercise is helpful. I also edited another short vignette for my potential collection, and revised about 2,000 words of my forthcoming book.
Morning, all. It's still dark here in Glasgow and I'm the only one awake. I have time, hot water in hand, to indulge in a bit of reading and plan to enter rebel mode once more mid-afternoon, which has been a time of day that's felt fertile this week.
I am so pleased to notice the sheer enjoyment I've experienced in working on my novel this week. I seem to do quite well with a timer, and have been pretty well interrupted by the alarm at then end of my session, so things are flowing...
I'm minded of what Julia Cameron says about writing in specified chunks of time and stopping even when the going's good if we want to establish a sustainable habit. It's so hard to stop typing, though, when we are in congruence with our words.
How do others manage that? Happy reading and writing today, friends!
Good morning all, I am loving all the essay choices but I’m particularly impressed with the short ones. “Lost and Found” had that clear moment of a very satisfying ending.
I don’t know how this fits in, but I wrote all of my Five Things thoughts in the same draft of Wordpress, and now I’m thinking that multiple thoughts from multiple days could be combined into one, to the point where I made sure to get elements for it if I wanted to make it into an essay.
Very happy I found myself here😊💜 I was looking for something like this, and I found it!! Not only did I find something I was looking for, I found what I was (am) looking for, not just something like it, I found IT!!!💜 💥💥
Yawning and bit tired this morning but grateful for another day at #EssayCamp. The "lecture" today on essay structure was excellent. I found this "Whatever kind of essay you choose to write, it must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning draws you in, the middle holds your interest, and the ending sees you out again. Each section has only one job, and that is it." I often forget about the power of seeing the reader out. And "Passing Mary Oliver at Dawn" was very powerful. Thank you for adding it to the reading list.
Absolutely torrential rain here in Seattle this morning, so it's good writing weather. I am a day behind, I got distracted (so easy to do) so today I'm doing ten things, I guess, to catch up. I had a very good practice for a years, I wrote a whole damn book, but then I had to get a day job. I walked away from that at the end of September to go back to freelancing. I had a month to just create better space in my brain and now, essay camp is helping me rebuild my practice. I am grateful for that
A slow morning here in Yorkshire, sitting in bed with a second my of tea noodling all things essay. I think I’ll have a go at the five things prompts again after shower and dog walk on the moor. Happy writing everyone. Hx
Thank you for this and the previous posts as well. They are so helpful. I am loving too all your essay example choices. Even though I have read a few of them before I am reading them in a new way.
So much great advice here. Thank you!
Thank you for discussing the various forms of literary essay.
Hi! So grateful for this push to take time to write 5 Things and see what comes (in addition to my work on revising/arranging some previous essays). In reviewing the past 4 days of what I felt was quite crappy writing, I found 2 or 3 or 4 small things that have potential. Marked a few things but now I'm allowing them to "stew" a bit before I return to them tomorrow to see what might take shape!
Essay Camp Day Four - I was really inspired by the essays that Summer shared, and wrote a very short essay about my parent’s divorce, inspired by “Lost and Found” and Summer’s prompt, “Write about being 17 years old.” It’s a deeply personal essay, and also very ‘80s, and I’m not sure I’m ready to share it but I’m glad it came out on the page.
Oh, Summer. Having been a maker of rhymes from an early age, gutting fish and washing dishes...straight then into skullduggery, without one class in poetry. And the dawn thing, and the honoring, now the lightness of all that, fits well on the scale to balance the unleaded skies off the Coney Island shore, setting stab nets to AM radio hits, at sunup in the early 70's. Only understanding New England ever, through John Irving, during breaks in Cold War deceptions...No, not longing, but completion, would I, could I, have traded clam knives and spy games for better grammar and spelling? Would the scale balance then? Thank you for this shot at what was missing, tell me, do you also give trumpet lessons?
As much as I love the Five Things exercise, today I opted for some freewriting. There was a subject weighing on me when I woke up this morning, and it felt good to dedicate the time and words to it. The weather rather matched my mood as we have our periodic fog banks back on this part of the California coast, replacing dry and very unwelcome Santa Ana winds. Sweet relief.
I loved your Mary Oliver essay, Summer! I plan to dig into more of the recommended reading this weekend.
Opps !! The Heaviest Pain in the World,” by Rob Delaney