Writing Marathon

This afternoon my friend Donna and I did a writing marathon, which was introduced to me in my Level 1 Iowa Writing Project class, and I just read about in Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, which I highly recommend for folks who need to get their writing habit back off the ground.  She's a big proponent of writing practice--daily or near-daily writing that sort of cleans your insides out so you can begin writing coherence.  Thinking in this way has opened doors for me this summer to just write for understanding and memory-keeping.  It's been great.

The idea of a writing marathon is that you write with others, and after set amounts of time, you share what you've written without commenting.  Then you write some more.  In my class, we also moved between sessions to see if new locations would lend new inspiration.  Donna and I noticed that our pieces were a little cyclical.  Though my second piece didn't answer questions she presented in her first, there were definite connections.  This meant that we had a few themes in our writing:  teaching, mothers, death.  I highly recommend this activity for getting some words on the page and pushing your thinking.

I thought I'd share a line or two from each location.  These were all pretty stream-of-consciousness, not focused on craft, journal-like entries (I did revise a bit before posting), but I appreciated some of the thinking that came up.

Stop 1:  Cedar Falls Public Library.
"I so wholeheartedly believe in the institution of public school as the purveyor of upward mobility and the cornerstone of democracy that it saddens me to be worrying about the unintended curriculum that kills curiosity so much of the time."

Stop 2:  Hillside Cemetery, sitting on the bluff of the Cedar River.
Comparisons between teaching and farming: "Seeing the potential is necessary.  The seeds will grow into something stronger, and you have to maintain faith that it will happen in order to continue putting resources into it."

Stop 3:  The Hearst Center
Here I was playing around with verbs and titles of works.  I ended up working on a fiction sketch from the choices in my list:
"I saw the other monks whisper as I refused dinner again.  There is nothing to say, which is why I remain silent except for chanting in the evening as prayer.

There is no solace from thinking about the way they treated Brother Thomas.  None.  He was fourteen, taken in as an orphan.  He was confused.  His elders should have reached out to him in love."

Stop 4:  Cup of Joe
Here we ate treats and talked, so we did less writing, but we did finish with about ten minutes.  The exciting thing about this stop was that I got to start a new notebook.  I filled up one notebook between April and now, which is the most I've written in a while.  There are some good seeds there, and it gives me some motivation to finish this next one.
 "Equations are freeing as problems with minimal consequences if we can only value the wonder of a solution and the human brain.   Kids always look at me like I'm crazy when I impart how joyful learning is--how exciting that they get to come all day and learn for free!"

So there are some snippets from our afternoon of writing.  I think this could work with any creative outlet--drawing, painting, photography, and it's a great way to set aside time to do it.  Any other fun suggestions to keep creative juices flowing?