Breaking Free: Improvisation, Writing, Denyse Schmidt

I had never quilted in my life and here I am going to an improvisational quilting workshop run by possibly quilting's biggest star--Denyse Schmidt. 

 

What was I thinking? 

 

Well, Denyse is my dear friend, and she said it would be great for anyone not just sewers or quilters. Neither of which I am.

Most workshops you go to to learn something right? Not this one. You unlearn. And that's what makes it so great.

And it's also what makes it an amazing workshop for writers--or anyone in a creative field. Because it's all about freeing yourself from "the rules" -- "the right way" to do something, "the wrong way" to do it -- freeing yourself from all the second-guessing... breaking free of habits and fears. It's about discovering, exploring, experimenting. And most of all trust. Not knowing what is going to happen next. 

In short, this workshop is all about unlearning. And it's fabulous. 

(Time Out write an article about the workshops: here)

There were three bags of scraps to choose from: small pieces, medium pieces, large pieces. One at a time we chose a piece blindly and sewed it to the next piece we drew out of the bag.

The only rules:

--you have to use what you grab, even if you hate the color and you are certain it will ruin everything

--you have to choose the path of least resistance (don't get fancy--match the piece to the other piece the obvious way)

the sewing machines we used:

It was exhilarating because you were not "in control" and you didn't know what would happen next. But miraculously, by the end of the class, we'd each sewn 5 or 6 squares... and they were all of them stunning. The pieces of material you hated because essential to the design. It all worked. 

Here is what I ended up with, my four squares...

This workshop is a wonderful way to get unstuck, to remember what it's like to play--and then come back to your writing or your art with the same playfulness and trust and discovery.

Thank you Denyse!

To sign up for Denyse's class you can here.

Here are some photos I took... Here's where Denyse sews 

and all her lovely pins

and her inspiration wall (complete with British war poster)

her cool filing cabinets

cool material (everywhere you look is beautiful!)

are you a writer... or an author?

"Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."

Collette

Rules for Writing

"These are the rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story" Elmore Leonard.

some favorite quotes from Elmore Leonard:

Style is the sound of the writing. 

Writing is rewriting.

It takes me 4 pages of writing to get 1 page I like.

It gets harder.

and another he quotes:

Words can get in the way of what you're trying to say. Joseph Conrad.

Becoming a writer: choose? or chosen?

"Becoming a writer is not a 'career decision' like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don't choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you're not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days." Paul Auster (b.1947)

Brands narrated by a 5 year old

Blessed Tree

Writing is Boiling Down

"It's like boiling down. Four pages can go through six, eight, ten drafts to get down. The beginning is always rewritten much more than the rest, because it's the setting up of information as well as the telling of the story--that's always much harder to juggle." SUSAN MINOT

Writing--it's as much about what you take out as what you put in. 

Balancing writing and promoting--Billy Collins

When asked what Georgia's incoming poet laureate should keep in mind, Billy Collins said:

"The best thing you can do it writer really, really good poetry. You can be an advocate, but the best you can do to spread the word of poetry is to write really good poetry. the other thing is, [poet] Robert Hass called me up when I became poet laureate and he said, 'They're going to be pulling you, interviewing you to death, dragging you from one place to another. Just don't leave the place where you write your poetry. Don't give up that psychological spot here the poetry comes from because they will try to drag you out of there and make you a public figure.' Being a poet is a very private activity and you have to hold onto your solitude." 

What a great way to balance writing, with speaking about and promoting what you've written. You need to be out there reading from your work, and speaking. Publishers expect it--even require it.

But I love this reminder: your best work is writing, and the most important thing you can do is to hold onto your solitude where your writing came from in the first place.