October 8 Writing Challenge

Many students will be relaxing for fall break this week, so we will have no assignment posted that you need to turn in. Look back over some of our past assignments and complete any parts you left undone in previous weeks. Also, take some time to journal this week if you don’t already do so. Journaling is an excellent way to get your thoughts down on paper. A journal can be a place to explore senses and emotions in depth. These emotions don’t even have to be your own. You can journal about the anger you saw in a driver on the street or the pain of someone you saw as you past a funeral.

Have you ever written a “sensory journal?” Twice a day (and this can be brief if you are busy), sit down and try to capture in words the sights, sounds, smells and tastes you have experienced since your last writing. You don’t have to explain the situation around each of the senses if you don’t want to, but write about the smells from the bakery you passed or the odor from the cat litter box or fumes from a bus. Write about the taste of the fresh apple from the market or the feel of the dirt from your garden.

A journal can also be a place to sketch out your hopes as an artist. What are your goals? What are you doing to prepare yourself to reach them? What blocks you from reaching them? The blank page on a journal can be a free space to explore many aspects of being a creative person.

Also, explore other forms of creativity. Buy or create some pottery, read a book or watch a live performance. Not only will you be supporting other artists when you do so, but you will be giving your own creativity some new forms of expression to explore.

Our thought for the week:

To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, if to have kept your soul alive. --Robert Louis Stevenson

A Writing Challenge: Atavistic

Here’s a word I have been thinking a lot about lately: atavistic. Many people consider the word to have a negative connotation. Atavism means to revert to an ancestral type. People often use this in the sense of going backwards or reverting to an out-dated way of being or thinking. The word can be used to imply that something or someone is flawed or primitive by today’s standards.

However, I like to think of the word in a different sense. I like to think that the reappearance of a characteristic from an ancestor could be strength for some of us. For instance, I have discovered letters written by my grandmother and her sisters that contain beautiful imagery and are written in a unique writing style. A few people have commented that I get my writing talents from some of my ancestors on my maternal grandmother’s side of the family. Other people wonder where their musical talents come from only to discover that their great-grandfather was noted in his area for his musical ability. Some gifts can skip generations and reappear in the family line years later.

Your writing challenge for the week: think of an atavistic influence in your life. Do you have a talent that you wonder where it first appeared in your family line? Are you the only chef, musician, painter or writer in your generation? Through poetry or in a descriptive paragraph, write about your talents and passions. If you can trace them through your family heritage, do so this week. If you can’t, imagine how an ancestor may have used your talents and passions based on what you do know about your family history. If you know nothing about your biological family roots, create a poem or short story based on someone living years earlier with your talents.

See where this word of the week leads you…