Note to Self: Write Your Way Back

I hope you are well, my friends.  Here, life has been filled with work--lots of work--some sunshine, some almost unbearably sad days, some hectic ones, a few nights by the fireplace, more work, some serious pie baking for holidays and birthdays, and little time for writing my own stuff or taking photos--even silly iPhone photos.   December looks to be a bit wild, too, but I have promised myself that I will steal time every day for my own creative work.  I always tell my students and clients that no matter how crazy life gets, there is always, always, always time to write, always time to create.  And it's true.  I spend most of my days helping others with their creative processes, and while I LOVE every minute of it, I sometimes break my own rules and forget about my own process.  The fact is, there are always deadlines to be met.  There is always more work to be done.  We simply have to turn away from the noisy demands of life on a regular basis, seek quiet and solitude, and focus on creating.  I don't mean creating for yet another deadline or another editor; I mean creating for the pure joy of it.

The photo above is one I took in early November, right after Mr. Magpie and I returned from a trip to Sweden, where he had a literature conference.  I took hundreds of photos there, and I promise to show you a few inspiring ones, but in the meantime there's this shot, which, for me, was all about stealing an hour or so of quiet one day to set up my beat-up chalkboard, this lovely copper vase that belonged to my memere, and some fading flowers from my garden.  The little hanging votive lantern is something I discovered in a sweet shop in Uppsala, Sweden.  I didn't process the shot until about three weeks later.  I'm not kidding when I say that I've just really struggled to find moments in the day for quiet joy.  And when I do take a few moments, it's not long before I feel a rising panic inside my chest, a sense that things are undone.  I'll start to work on a poem or a photo shoot, and then I'll remember all the leaves that haven't been raked yet, the window that needs fixing, the lecture I haven't written, the new course I haven't even started to plan, oh, and, of course, the laundry I haven't finished--ever.  And then there are all the personal commitments to people that I feel I'm just not honoring.  It can be crushing, this feeling.  I know that you likely know it well.

However, there is a worse feeling.  The one that happens when I don't write the poem or set up a beautiful shot in some softly lit corner of the house.  Todd told me the other day that he met a fellow scholar at a recent conference.  She asked him what his wife does for work.  When he told her that I'm a writer and freelance photographer, a writing teacher, an editor, and an obsessed amateur gardener, her reply was, "Oh, she's a maker!"  Todd later told me what she said, and I felt, well, a little sad, because I haven't felt much like a maker this fall.  I've written a ton, but all of it has been for other people's deadlines.  I've actually felt lost, a million miles away from my own creative center.  

I help other people overcome this same problem pretty much every week, so it's a bit odd to be feeling it myself.  Thus, I'm taking my own advice: when you feel lost and far, far away from yourself--I mean your real self, the maker, the crafter, the dreamer, the alchemist--write (or paint or sculpt or dance) your way back.  Imagine a path in the forest. Your process is right there in front of you.  You left a trail of bread crumbs as you wandered far from home.  You'd forgotten that you always leave those bread crumbs, but you do.  You always do.  Just follow them back.  Every single day.  Forget the laundry mountain in the distance.  Forget the dark and frightening forest full of undone tasks.  Forget your fear of what might be around the next bend in the path.  Just do what you do.  You'll find your way home.

Vintage Spring

Hello, chickadees!  Just stopping in to share some spring blossoms.  The crabapple is blooming in the front yard, and the lilacs and azaleas have just joined in, too.  Next up will be the viburnums and rhodies, and then the weigelas, mock oranges, and bridal veil spirea will follow not long after that.  

Life is a rush of activity this spring, but we did take one day to hit Brimfield Flea Market with our friend Kazeem, from Portland Trading Co.  I'll have some photos and finds to share soon!

My photo above was featured by DistressedFX on their Instagram feed and Facebook page this week.  If you haven't tried this app, I recommend it for photos that you want to really manipulate and push in exciting directions.  I use this app as well as Stackables to create moody effects for some of my iPhone photos.  I think I ended up using both apps on the top photo of the crabapple blossoms.  Before I used the textures, though, I upped the exposure and desaturated the photo a bit.  The background of that photo is my picnic table, which most people would think really needs a paint job, but I use it a lot for photos, so it will stay shabby chic a while longer.  ;)  

For photos I take with my big girl camera, I often use fewer textures and stick to subtler processing techniques in Lightroom.  I do some of that processing from scratch or with my own presets, but I also use presets by other folks, including this exciting new set from Kim Klassen.  Presets provide me with so much flexibility, and they give me ideas for creating several moods with one shot.  If you've never tried them before, take a peek at Kim's collection.  I think you will love it.

Vintage finds from Brimfield in the next post!  I have some exciting things to show you.  

Happy weekend, my friends! 

Being in the Moment

End of the Day, Town Landing, Falmouth, Maine

Spring in our house always feels jam-packed.  The to-do lists are long, the days fly by, and suddenly, after winter's long semi-hibernation, I wish I only needed about two hours of sleep a night.  There just aren't enough hours in a day for us to do the work that pays the bills plus do the million and one house projects that somehow feel most urgent in spring plus keep up with the classes I'm taking, plus get my own writing projects done, plus see friends and family plus workout daily plus cook meals plus--and most pressing and exciting for me--work in the garden.

Just Before Dusk, Congress Square, Portland, Maine

I'm grateful for my iPhone camera, because it reminds me in the midst of all of these tasks and commitments (so many of which I love) to pause and breathe and just take note of what's around me.  My word for the year is "see," and I live in a part of the world where so much of what there is to see is beautiful.  But I see what's not beautiful, too, and I believe that's just as important.    

Early Morning on Moulton Street, Portland, Maine

So many of us feel rushed and stressed these days more than ever.  I think that as much as we love them, our technologies--our phones and laptops and various other gadgets and devices--play a big part in this stress and in this feeling of never being able to truly shut down, rest, retreat.  It's up to us to take charge and use this incredible technology for our own benefit--to determine how we use it rather than letting it gradually take over.  So, I love to use my phone to take photos of simple, quiet moments.  I share some, but many more I just keep for myself to enjoy.  I also make sure that when I go for walks or out to eat I don't always bring my phone with me.  Sometimes it's best to just be in the moment, no need to record it.  I don't need a photo of every pretty latte I drink or every gorgeous rose I see.  That makes the photos I do take all the more precious to me.

I'd love to know what you do to slow down and relax.  What helps you rest and recharge?

The Reason Why

"It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive.  There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them."  ~George Eliot

I chase the light all morning, longing for the perfect shadow, the glimmer of light on a petal, the glint of sunshine on the curve of a porcelain cup.

I've come to learn that I write and I photograph for the same reason.  It all stems from the same impulse, the same need.  

There is beauty over there, just there.  There is goodness.  There is light that I can nearly touch.  I must try.  I must.

Beautiful, Delicious, and Funny Things

Hello, my chickadees!  I'm not gonna lie.  This winter is turning out to be one for the books.  Any of you who live here in the Northeastern corner of the US know exactly what I'm talking about.  This photo is one I took of the banks of the Fore River on a day when the temperatures were below zero degrees Fahrenheit and we had fifty mph wind gusts.  I processed the shot after the fact to make it feel more like a painting than a photo, but the blustery snow was very real.  Today, Mr. Magpie is down at his job in Lowell, Massachusetts, a place which currently bears the dubious honor of being the snowiest city in America, with 111" so far this year.  Here in Portland we're expecting a few more inches tonight.  I think we could deal with the snowbanks over our heads if it weren't for the bitter cold.  

For kicks, you can compare this photo of our house with the one a couple of posts ago.  We've had more snow since this shot, but we've raked as much of it as possible off the roof and broken as many of the icicle-daggers as we could.  When I look back over my gardening calendar of the last two years, I realize that we had our first crocuses in the back yard by mid March both years.  I highly doubt that will be the case this year, a fact which, if I were a pessimist, would make me very bitter, indeed.  Instead, I've decided to look on the bright side.  All this snow means my perennials are under a thick blanket of warm insulation during all this cold weather, so even my roses and lavender should be fine when spring finally does arrive in July.  Just kidding.  June.  It will be here in June.

Our backyard during a storm

As usual when the weather is this intense and we're all feeling a little stir crazy, I've been seeking inspiration everywhere I can.  I thought I'd share with you a few recent glimmers of beauty, inspiration, and/or joy.  My brother Mark once posed the following questions to me about the things we encounter in life: "Is it beautiful?  Is it delicious?  Does it make me laugh?" he asked.  He then went on to say that  if it doesn't meet one or more of those three criteria, he didn't want or need it.  Mark is one of the smartest and funniest people I know, and I've used his three questions many times since to help myself decide about making purchases, selecting films to watch, books to read, or even to make bigger life choices.  Somehow, many choices do boil down to these categories for me, especially since I think beauty can be found in a well-told story, a smart turn of phrase, a kind gesture, or the accomplishment of even the smallest of goals. 

So, in true magpie fashion, I offer this list, in no particular order, of a few beautiful, delicious, and funny things:

~ This story told by Bill Murray about Gilda Radner.

~ This recipe for Dorie Greenspan's chocolate World Peace Cookies 

~ This bike trainer, which I truly believe is the only thing that is keeping Mr. Magpie and me at all fit or at all sane this winter--and sanity is a very beautiful thing, indeed . . . as are muscles.  :)

~ This baking show, which satisfies my love of baking, my Anglophile tendencies, and, since its a competition, is the closest thing to watching sports on TV that I will ever willingly do.  In fact, I don't have TV.  I watch this on my MacBook.  I also watch The Great Allotment Challenge on YouTube, for all of the above reasons except baking.  Just replace that with gardening, and there you have it. 

~This mystery show.  More Anglophile tendencies catered to quite happily.  Plus mysteries to solve--yes!  Plus there's Robson Green and James Norton to watch.  A beautiful addiction.

~This book by Nancy Marie Brown about a Viking woman who sailed off the edge of the known world five hundred years before Columbus.  Fascinating and well written. 

And finally, just thought I'd add the latest issue of Artful Blogging to the list.  I have a little bit of writing and a photo featured in the Blogging Buzz section this time around, but I'd say take a peek for all the other gorgeous inspiration inside.  

I hope you are faring well, my friends.  As always, you can find me on Instagram and Pinterest, as well as those other crazy social media platforms listed along the right side of the blog.  Just click on the icons to pop over for a visit.  I'm now on Twitter, too, so if you are as well, please be sure to connect with me.  I love staying in touch with you.    

Still Life and Valentine Inspiration

Seventy inches of snow have fallen so far this winter, and more is on the way.  Outside, the feeders and platforms in our yard are crowded with guests.  Inside, everyone seems ready for a respite from the storms.  I've been shooting still life photos like crazy, getting the most that I can from the stark and evocative winter light.  

In the late afternoon, I'm loving the light coming through the southwest windows of the living room.  In the above shot, I'm looking down on a bouquet of wax flowers (Trader Joe's for $2.99, thank you very much).  In the background is the very chippy, distressed top of my favorite little antique cupboard.  This shot has been processed A LOT, with many layers of textures, etc. 

The walls in our living room are painted in Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue, which I know is a trendy color these days, and I think the reason why is because while it is blue, it functions much like a neutral. It has a good bit of green and grey in it, and it shifts all day long, never staying any one color.  It reminds me of sea glass most days, and it also makes a pretty wonderful backdrop for many colors, especially golds, browns, ivories, and burgundy reds.

Another favorite still life spot is beside the window in my study, which is a rather dark, northeast facing room.  This makes the quality of light that streams in perfect for darker, contemplative shots. That's where I took the pear still lifes a few weeks ago, and it's where I got the shots above and below.  The hydrangea above is on my very beat up wooden floor.  I've removed a lot of the saturation out of this shot to let the eye focus more on the light and shadow.  This is the same dried hydrangea that you see in the shot against the Palladian Blue wall, but here, I think it takes on a decidedly more moody quality.

The shot above was also taken in my study.  I've included a picture of the setting below, so you can get a sense of how I work.  I've set up a vintage, handmade boat-shaped box as a kind of makeshift shadow box for creating vignettes to shoot.  If I lean it on a table against the closed bathroom door (don't worry, there's another bathroom downstairs!) I get great light coming in from the side, and I really love side-lit still lifes.  Open, the box gives me a great dark back drop.  Closed, I get a chippy white and dreamy backdrop, complete with cracks and nail holes.  Love.  

I started this blog six years ago this month (I can hardly believe it's been that long), and I named it The Magpie's Fancy because I am an avid collector of bits and pieces of things that shine, either literally or figuratively--or both.  In fact, purely by coincidence (truly--I just realized it as I was typing this), the little map pins that are in the bottle photo above are the very same pins that appear in the very first post I ever published.  Still life photography is one of my favorite ways to put my collecting habit to good use.

I hope you are well, chickadees!  I've got loads to share, including this here little bit of Valentine inspiration from Terrain.  More soon!  xo Gigi

Clarity

Hello, my friends.  Sorry I've been so absent for the last two weeks.  I had intended to write a post about a quick trip to New York that Mr. Magpie and I took, but I found myself at a loss for words for several days in the wake of the terrorist shootings at Charlie Hebdo.  Like all of you, I was horrified and saddened.  Nothing I wrote felt like enough.  I needed to be quiet and to think.  So many were  writing words and creating images that spoke out powerfully against terror.  I read their words and shared images across social media with friends and colleagues.  The experience confirmed to me that my word for the year, "see," had been a good choice.

And then yesterday morning I began taking Kim Klassen's Be Still--Fifty-Two class.  These photos are my response to her first lesson.  I can't begin to express how grateful I am to be taking the class and to be focusing so intently on being still.  The world feels like a wild place both close to home and thousands of miles away, and to spend a little time each day being quiet and still is a blessing. 

I am giving myself several challenges this year, each one of them a gift in its own way.  Sometimes discovering the clarity one needs to take the next step is more difficult than taking the step itself. Which way to go?  How far?  What lies around the next bend in the path?  I could stay frozen with worry forever.  

And so, I'm teaching myself to understand the difference between simply worrying and actually doing the kind of thinking that creates clarity.  I don't need to see all the way down the path.  I just need to see a step or two ahead of me to be brave enough to keep going.

Sending warm thoughts and thanks to you today.  Thanks so much for stopping by.  xo Gigi

A Year and a Word

My word for 2015 is see.  Of all my senses, I am most inspired by sight, which is a bit ironic, I suppose, since I have weak eyesight, both near and far.  If you were to watch the steps I need to take to set up and shoot a simple photo like the ones of these pears, you might wonder why I bother.   

And yet, I cannot imagine my life without photography or gardening or design.  My writing process is also profoundly influenced by imagery, whether I'm crafting a poem, an essay, an article, or a piece of fiction.  A good sentence begins for me with an image and moves from there.

I'm grateful for the technology that lets my weak eyes see, and I never take it for granted.  I chose this word for 2015 to remind myself to use my eyes, my mind, and my heart to really see, to take in the play of light and shadow through a lace curtain on a summer afternoon or the rough and nobbled grain of the wood on an old farm table--to see things as they are, on their own terms.  And this goes for people as well as things . . . and animals, too.  I want to foster in myself a greater sense of empathy for others and for whatever journeys they may be on.  

I have a full year ahead in my work life as well as my home life, and I know that truly seeing will require me to stop and take long stretches of time.  I am often good about guarding and using my writing time to its fullest, but I need to be better about sitting still and being quiet just to simply see. This will make me a better artist, a better writer, and, I hope, a wiser and richer me.  

I gave myself the gift this new year of signing up for a still life class with my dear friend Kim Klassen.  Kim is one of the most inspiring people I know, so if you are looking for some creative inspiration in 2015, take a peek here.  For me, Be Still--Fifty-Two couldn't be a more perfect way to take that time I need to see.

Have you chosen a word for the year?  If so, please feel free to share it in the comments.  I'd love to learn what word you've selected and why.   

A Bit More Mist . . . and a Few Thoughts About Solitude and Togetherness

Do you mind a few more photos of fog?  These are shots I took at Willard Beach in South Portland.  It's a lovely neighborhood beach in any weather, but I do love a good rolling fog for a walk. 

I also wanted to say thank you for all the wonderful comments and emails about my last post.  They made my week.  

I can't help it; in my head I've named this shot "The Happy Couple."

I've been writing a great deal lately, and helping clients work on their writing projects, which is a process that brings rewards of its own.  Often when people ask me for advice about how to become a writer, I am hard pressed to give them any one answer.  Of course, reading heaps of books is up near the top of my list, and writing every day--or as close to every day as possible.  But I think maybe the most essential trait a writer can cultivate is a love of solitude.  Social butterflies are not suited to the task.

When you do seek companionship, it is helpful to find others who love solitude, too.  Then you can be alone together.  They need to be people who don't fret when you wander off for hours to stare at leaves and shells and rocks and twigs.  They need to feel very secure in their own ability to be alone when you lock yourself away for hours to write. They need to not wait for you to come out of hiding.  Instead, they must have their own quiet obsessions that occupy long stretches of time.  In this way, when you do come back together, it will be out of a mutual joy in the work and play you are both pursuing.  There will be much to share, much that sustains both. 

And there will be no petty jealousy.  Each will support the other in his or her pursuits.  I'm not saying this is an easy path to choose, but it is certainly a more joyous and productive one when we can share it with like-minded spirits.  This all seems like an obvious thing to say, but I know what it's like when a writer (or an artist of any kind) tries to share her life with someone who does not understand the need for solitude.  This leads to a silent pen, which leads to loneliness, something utterly different from solitude.  The latter nourishes, the former leeches one dry. 

Are you someone, writer or not, who needs solitude?  If so, how do you find it?  I think it is increasingly rare in our relentlessly "connected" world.  One trick I have is that I don't watch television . . . at all . . . ever.  I'd love to hear some of your strategies for finding solitude.

Wishing you a week of beauty and lots of creative energy, my friends!

A Year and a Word: My 400th Post

I awoke early with the cats this morning and watched the light outside my kitchen window shift from deep blue to grey-blue to soft white as I ate my steel-cut oats and almond milk.  It was a morning like any other, except this one was the last of its year.  I had some thinking to do.  What would be my word for 2013?  I still hadn't decided.

And then I was smacked by a stomach bug.  It's one that I think I've been fighting since Christmas Eve.  It finally won, and I climbed back in bed, where I was joined by wild dreams of traveling to Paris, only to find that I was in a high school gymnasium and I had to cheerlead again, decades after my cheerleading days.  I had, of course, forgotten all the words and motions, and everyone was furious with me.  Not a promising sign for 2013.

And yet I woke up with the word for the year in my head.  "Persevere."  I've had to persevere through some pretty terrible times over the past several years, and I've managed to do it, but I have been wondering whether I could do it this time.  I must persevere as a writer now more than ever when I have two manuscripts trying to find homes and a whole bag of worries and fears to carry with me as I move forward.  

"Persevere" is not as pretty as "inspire" or "grace," my words from 2012 and 2011, but it is real, and it's what I tell my students to do all the time.  It's also what I need.  Perseverance gets harder for me as I grow older and I fear I won't achieve many of the things of which I've dreamed.  I am not as patient in the face of rejection now, something I see loads and loads of as a writer.  I see successes, too, but I don't linger on those.  I tend to linger on my failures.  "Persevere" will require a whole slew of other words like "hope" and "optimism" and "try" to come along for the ride.  

As Samuel Beckett writes: "Ever failed.  No matter.  Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better."

Here's to 2012 and to failing better.  I wish you all love and adventure and a dose of perseverance in the coming year.  

xo Gigi 

Sustenance: An Exhibition by Michael and Christine Jones

Generations, by Michael Jones, 2011, oil and charcoal on canvas, 20"x20"

. . . We grow, 

we sustain, we wait for purple stars of Spring.

~Excerpt from "Rotondo Farm" by Christine Jones, 2011

In keeping with my word for the year, inspire, I thought I'd share the work of two people whose approach to art and life never ceases to inspire me.  I first met poet Christine Jones and her husband, painter Michael Jones, a couple of years ago when I began working with Christine on her poetry.  Since then, I've had the good fortune of meeting with Christine on a regular basis, and I've watched her poems grow and blossom into rich reflections on her many passions, including running, swimming, gardening, and writing, to name just a few.  Some of her recent work appears in The Offering, published by the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Michael is a professional painter and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell where he teaches Art Law and directs the Legal Studies Program.  The U.S. Olympic Committee commissioned him to create the Triathlon poster for the 2004, 2008, and 2012 Summer Olympic Games.  He painted the official portrait of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, and his paintings have been exhibited at museums throughout the world.

Rotondo Farm: Winter Farm Stand by Michael Jones, oil on canvas, 2011, 24"x48"

Over the past two years, Michael and Christine have shown collaborative exhibitions of her poetry and his oil paintings at the Cape Cod Museum of Art and the Tsongas Gallery in Concord, Massachusetts.  This month they have a new exhibition at the Whistler House Museum of Art in Lowell, Massachusetts.  

The exhibition, Sustenance, demonstrates a careful attentiveness to the everyday, especially as it pertains to the natural world.  As they write in their artists' statement: "Our paintings and poems reflect our joy of the discoveries and simple pleasures we find together every day.  A farm stand under snow reminds us, a hole-punch in the raven sky reminds us, and sprouts in a Dixie Cup remind us that in nature there is something to sustain each one of us."

The couple have two homes in Massachusetts, one on Cape Cod, and the other in the Merrimack Valley, thus their work is inspired by the waves and sand dunes of the Atlantic as well as the quiet peace of inland farms and Thoreau's Walden Pond.

Rotondo Farm: Fall Farm Stand by Michael Jones, oil on canvas, 2011, 24"x48"

For weeks

we waited for the seeds 

we planted

in Dixie Cups 

to become winged leaves . . .

~Excerpt from "The Garden Series I" by Christine Jones, 2011

While the show runs until February 24, I'm excited to say that there will be a reading and exhibition reception this coming Saturday, January 21, from 2-4 p.m.  Directions to the museum can be found here.  Christine will be sharing some of her poems, and it promises to be a wonderful event.  I for one can't wait!  For more information about the show and the artists, visit the Whistler House Museum's website.

I've worked with hundreds of writing students and poets over the years, and few have had the commitment to the process of revision--of re-seeing a work--as Christine does.  I want to share one more excerpt from a poem that she revised many times.  Her persistence and patience were met with a poem that the reader wants to return to again and again, discovering something new each time.  I'll end here with the poem's first few lines:

Time is not a bird.

It does not fly.

It is the branch when the bird alights

shaking the leaves to wake the wind.

It comes right in.

~Excerpt from "Time is Not a Bird" by Christine Jones, 2011

On Memory, Mood, and Manipulation

Here in Coastal Maine, as anyone will tell you, we haven't really had a spring this year.  It has been cold. Period. We've had a few hours of glorious sunshine, but not the kind of slow, golden afternoons that warm your bones after a long winter.  And mostly we've had more than our fair share of rain, clouds, fog, drizzle, and mizzle.  I took these photos in Falmouth down at the town landing on a rare sunny afternoon, and then I processed them to look a little like 1970's postcards.  I always loved the overly saturated colors of postcards when I was a kid.  They were like real life, only in Technicolor.  

The sky on the day I took these wasn't actually very blue.  It was more the slightly bluish-white of bone china.  The shades of blue you see here I added, which made me feel deceitful, but also a little god-like.  There were people at the landing on that day: a mother playing with her young daughter, a woman beach combing, a fisherman in his boat, several men on a building site.  I avoided capturing any of them in these shots because I wanted the images to feel a bit lonely and moody.  

Photography, like writing, is a manipulative art form.  When I teach writing to students (which I do a lot of, if you are ever looking for a writing tutor or coach), I like to remind them that to write is to manipulate the perception of the reader.  Since you have total control over what to emphasize and what to downplay as well as what to reveal to and what to conceal from the reader, you should think of it very much like how a photographer thinks of framing and processing a photograph.  Everything--point of view, color, texture, mood, light, and so much more--is in your hands.  What a thrill . . . and a responsibility.

Because my whole life is wrapped up in writing--and has been for a very long time--I think about small details everywhere I go.  I look at the angle of a rooftop, consider the shape of puddle, and note the hemline of a woman's dress.  No, that is an understatement.  I obsess about these things.  And now that I am an enthusiastic amateur photographer (who is beginning to get a few paying gigs), I obsess about such details even more than before.  It's a lousy habit if one is to accomplish practical tasks, but it's a glorious habit if one is to craft anything of beauty or even interest.  Ah, and that's just it.  I didn't want to make these particular photographs beautiful exactly.  I wanted to make them capture a certain mood, a certain angle of light and memory from about 1975.  That memory isn't pretty or picturesque so much as it's intensely saturated, scrubbed with bright white sunlight, slightly blurred, and more than a little lonely.  But lonely in a way that I rather enjoyed that spring when I was eight years old--and still enjoy now all these decades later.

A New Day . . .

. . . a new daisy.  Actually, it's the same daisy, but in a whole different way.  I'm thinking about revision a lot these days, about re-seeing not just writing, but life in general.  Todd and I revised our whole life this year, which meant a radical departure and a coming home, which isn't all that unusual, as Dorothy and Toto once learned a long time ago.   

If you're looking for this week's Freewrite Friday, it's over at its new home at The Magpie's Pen, where we're thinking about animals today.  We'll be talking about revising over there in the coming weeks, too.  Writing is good, but revising is even better, especially when you know that there are others out there cheering you on.  Writing, like life, can be such lonely work, which is one of the many reasons I started up The Magpie's Pen.  Even lone wolves need to know that there's someone else in the forest to hear their howl.

I hope your weekend will be filled with good things.  My plans include a visit to a maple sugar house.  A good thing, indeed.  

The Magpie's Pen

Okay, my friends, it's up and running!

From now on, The Magpie's Pen will be the new home of Freewrite Fridays . . .

. . . and much, much more,

all designed to keep your pen moving 

and your fingers typing.

I hope you'll fly on over there for a visit.

Freewrite Friday: Five Easy Pieces (Plus a Big Announcement!)

I have an exciting announcement about Freewrite Fridays.  After this week, Freewrite Fridays will be moving to a new home: The Magpie's Pen!  The new site hasn't gone live yet, as I'm working on some finishing touches, but it will be up and running by next Friday.  Check back here then, and I'll have a link  for you.  In addition to Freewrite Fridays, The Magpie's Pen will be the home of loads of writing inspiration, tips, and links.  If you've been enjoying the Freewrite Fridays series, I hope you'll fly on over to The Magpie's Pen to continue on with the fun.  I'll be including photo prompts, quick exercises, and also some lessons on craft, process, and revision.

When I'm not writing or editing, I spend a good deal of time teaching others how to write, so there will also be information there about my tutoring services.  I work with students via Skype, email, and snail mail.  My purpose is simple: I help people become better writers.  I do this by focusing on writing as a process, and by helping students learn essentials of their craft at the same time they are learning ways to stay motivated and disciplined.  There will be much more information about the tutorials at the new site.  I'm so excited about The Magpie's Pen that I can barely contain myself!  I so hope you'll pay a visit.

You may be wondering what will happen to The Magpie's Fancy.  "It's barely a toddler," you're thinking,  "and she's abandoning it!"  But no, I'm not.  This blog will stay right here, and I'll keep on photographing and writing about everyday life, recipes, vintage finds, wildlife, musings, and my many other magpie obsessions.

And now for this week's exercise.  I am actually recycling one of my all-time favorite exercises this time.  I posted this back in the very early days of the blog, and it's too good not to share one more time.  It will sound a little wild at first, but take a leap of faith and see what happens.  If you give this one a try, please let me know or share a link in the comments!  Oh, and that reminds me, Kamana shared a link to her wonderful take on last week's Scent Exercise.

Five Easy Pieces (reposted from May 26, 2009)

I want to share a writing exercise that I do with my poetry workshop students.  It is not one that I invented, but it is one of my favorites, partly because I borrowed it.  It's like a good recipe for blueberry cake that you've borrowed and made your own, adapting for your fussy oven, your particular love of cinnamon, or your passion for an extra crumbly top.  It's also one that I wait to spring on students until the last week or so of class because it takes some trust to make it work--trust in oneself, in the process, in the person who is asking one to do it.  Even then, some students think it's pretty crazy.  Others, though, create something magical from this foundation.  It works well for writing poems, but it can work for prose, too.

The exercise is called "Five Easy Pieces," and it was created by the poet Richard Jackson, one of my graduate school professors.  I actually never did this exercise with him.  Instead, I found it in The Practice of Poetry, a collection of writing exercises edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell.  

Robin was my MFA thesis advisor, so this book is near and dear to my heart, but it is also just a fantastic book for days when one is stuck or needs a new direction to try.  So here goes:

"This exercise, " writes Jackson, "attempts to tell a whole story in a quick scene.  It is to be written in five sentences. . . . There are two preparation steps.  The first step is to remember a person you know well. . . .  The second step is to imagine a place where you find the person.  Then you are ready for the five easy pieces."

1. Describe the person's hands.
2. Describe something he or she is doing with the hands.
3. Use a metaphor to say something about some exotic place.
4. Mention what you would want to ask the person in the context of 2 and 3, above.
5. The person looks up or toward you, notices you there, gives an answer that suggest he or she only gets part of what you asked.

About the exercise, Jackson writes, "it is useful in showing how a poem can condense narrative and characterization, how it can quickly shift focus like a photographer going wild with a zoom lens, how images reveal stories behind them simply by knocking against other images and perspectives, how you can use dialogue in a poem--each time I use it I've found different uses."

And I have found my own uses for it, too, but I'd love to hear from other folks about it.  If you try it, please let me know how it works for you!

Weekend Inspiration

How was your weekend?  I hope it was either entirely relaxing or entirely exhilarating--or something equally wonderful.  Mine was filled with good things like a meal shared with friends, a morning of watching my nephews play basketball, and a long hike through the snow in a beautiful forest near the ocean.  It was also a weekend of some serious face time with the two beasties you see in the photo above.  If you are new to The Magpie's Fancy, please allow me to introduce Scout and Dill.  As I sit on the sofa typing this post, they are asleep--Dill on the cushion beside me, snoring slightly, and Scout on the coffee table.  They may be sleeping now, but often when I am writing they are wide awake, staring at me just like you see them in the photograph.  Sometimes it seems they are willing me to write more, or maybe just to write better.  It can be unnerving, but mostly I appreciate the support.  

Speaking of writing and support, I have been loving all the emails I've been getting from folks who are playing along with the Freewrite Friday exercises.  Your feedback is incredibly inspiring.  The photo of the notebook above and the map below were sent to me by Jenner.  She has promised to send her color exercise along, too.  I can't wait to read it!  I love that her map has no words, but does have lovely paws and feet and hearts.    

Oh, and I was so excited to receive a color exercise from the amazing and talented Vicki Archer of French Essence.  Vicki's blog and her books, My French Life and French Essence, are sources of great inspiration for me, and it's a joy to share her writing exercise with you.  If you haven't tried this one yet, perhaps Vicki will inspire you:

Colour

If my colour had a mood it would be a happy one. If my colour had a face it would be smiling, it would be a bright shiny smile that would light up the darkest of glooms. My colour is the hue of my childhood and the tone of my adolescence.

Memories bounce back to life - people, places and objects come quickly to mind when I imagine my colour. My childhood bedroom was a little girl's dream to wake up in; nasty nightmares and grizzly thoughts would banish as soon as my eyes opened. My spirits would lift as the familiar came into focus.

Milestones were marked by my colour - my first and only role on the stage, my first kiss, my first valentine... my first child. My colour is as soft as a newborn's cheek and as strong as an evening sunset. My colour is as sweet as candy and as bitter as cough elixir. My colour is as loud and sharp as the flash of fireworks that light up the night sky. My colour is as long as a bolt of silk and as smooth as a reel of thread. My colour is as fragrant as the rose that flowers and perfumes my springtime.

You already know...my colour is pink.

Vicki Archer
January 2011

Wishing you a week of inspiration and adventure.  xo Gigi