Have you ever traveled to a place found in a book you read?
In the past, I’ve gone to a castle that featured prominently in Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman.
More recently, over my summer vacation, I traveled to Three Pines from the Louise Penny books. I saw the bistro/cafe they set up in the lower part of LacBrome Books and the Haskell Free Library and Opera House (photos below).
Well, today’s the day! Louise Penny’s new book, Miss Wolcott’s Ghost has been released! It’s a week earlier than what was on my calendar, so I’ve been holding my breath since last night waiting for the opportunity to download it to my Kindle.
Is there anything that you’ve waited what seemed like a very long time for, and then when it finally happened….
What?
Tell us what happened when the anticipation reached a fever pitch and the moment arrived!
For the last several weeks, Minotaur Books has been emailing a special series of thoughts on the gardens of Three Pines. Today is the last one, The Village Green, and I thought I’d share it with you as part of this week’s Penny Prompts.
I have also just discovered that Louise Penny’s newest Armand Gamache book, Miss Wolcott’s Ghost comes out next Tuesday, October 20th! I thought it wouldn’t be out until a week later, so I am very excited, and will now spend the rest of this week finishing the books I’m currently in the middle of!
Prompt:
Write about your garden or any of the gardens in Three Pines or around your neighborhood. Include your sketchbook to doodle the flowers you see and like.
Despite the book coming out a week earlier than I anticipated, I will continue with Penny Prompts through the rest of this month.
Happy Writing and Happy Reading!
Within the last fifty days, I shared with you my intention to begin and complete a one hundred day project following Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy. I’ve read her chapter introductions, and then each of the ten essays by various authors, absorbed their stories, dove into the prompts, and for the most part wrote for as long or as short a time that my essay needed.
Before I get into the weeds of this project and process, I would like to readily admit that I think I’ve succeeded in my non-stated goals. I am writing every day; not just these prompts, but working on my book, writing posts to publish on my website, taking notes for future writing projects.
Because the authors are so varied in their backgrounds, their writing styles, and the stories they choose to share, one thing that I’ve been doing is thinking and contemplating what I want to write about, how much of my personal experiences I want to share, and really concentrating on continuing to grow as a writer. I’m seeing that many of the prompts can be blended together, I can create multi-part essays and longer pieces, and there is a lot of inward looking. I can see going back again to some of the prompts and expanding what I’ve already written, starting the prompt anew, continuing or creating a chapter/monthly series on one or more of the prompts.
I do intend to share some of what I’ve written with the world.
Word counts are not the end all be all of writing. I could easily write over 1000 words a day, but is it worth reading? Not if it’s crap. Having said that, it’s still important to have touchstones to know where I am in the writing process. While the essays I’ve written with these prompts can be left as standalone pieces, some may be refashioned, edited, and of course, everything can be made better.
For the fifty days so far, I have written approximately 25,133 words, which amounts to 503 words per day. Some days there were a hundred words written, some seven hundred, and there were one or two days when over a thousand words were completed.
While the book gives you no special rules, and you decide what you want to get out of the project, I started with six simple suggestions that I fashioned for myself. They were to keep me on task, accountable, and focused.
Continue reading
This quote is from Louise Penny’s twelfth book of her Chief Inspector Gamache series, A Great Reckoning: A Novel.
It was such a great visual, especially for those of us living in the Northeast. Penny’s characters are obsessed with the weather, from spring flooding to blizzards to driving on the ice, to warming up at the bistro next to a warm fire with a chocolat chaud or cafe au lait.
When you read this quote, what comes to mind? What do you want to write about that’s related or adjacent?
“They stomped their feet, brushed wet snow off their coats, and slapped their hats against their legs. It was a singular Québec jig learned in the womb.”
-A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny
This quotation comes from Louise Penny’s twelfth book in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, A Great Reckoning: A Novel.
In this twelfth book, we find Gamache as the head of the Surete Academy unraveling the mystery of another death while also investigating a mysterious map from Three Pines. The quoted passage is a conversation between Gamache and one of the professors at the Academy, Hugo Charpentier.
“Oui. It’s because maps are magic.” If he didn’t have the Commander’s full attention before, he did now. Gamache lowered his tea to the table and stared. “Magic?” “Yes. They’ve become so mundane we’ve forgotten that. They transport us from one place to another. They illuminate our universe. The first maps were of the heavens, you know. What the ancients could see. Where their gods lived. All cultures mapped the stars. But then they lowered their sights. To the world around them.”
-A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny
[Note 1: This was a writing prompt from my local writing group. It seemed timely and I had some fun.
Note 2: when I say Republicans I’m talking about elected Republican officials, not voters.]
Dear Mr. President,
Mary Oliver’s Gratitude Poem came to my notice while I was searching for quotations on gratitude for another project. I am only familiar with Mary Oliver from one of her famous quotations that many religious people use in their meditations and artwork: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” and a short book that I borrowed from the library (Upstream: Selected Essays).
As I read this poem, and then read through it again I was distracted how each of Oliver’s stanzas answered a question. It was thought-provoking and contemplative and I immediately thought this would make a great writing exercise; a way to stretch myself whether as poetry or prose. A push like the daffodils poking through the soil.
I still don’t know for sure if her poem should be read prior to the answering of the questions, but I would suggest doing whatever feels right for you at the moment. Obviously you can’t unread the poem so make your choice with care.
I suppose you could answer the questions and then read the poem and perhaps go back a few days later with the questions again. It may be a nice exercise on its own to see if the original answers changed in the ensuing days along with another reading.
For me, I will read the poem and savor it and then I will continue the writing exercise. I plan to come back to the questions next month from a different perspective, perhaps on an outing or after church services. There are many ways to approach something as profound as Mary Oliver’s writings.
Mary Oliver’s poem appears below the highlighted questions and my answers to the questions appear below that.
In doing this exercise, I sat in the quiet, in the stillness and let the questions speak to me. What do you hear them speaking to you?
What did you notice?
What did you hear?
When did you admire?
What astonished you?
What would you like to see again?
What was most tender?
What was most wonderful?
What did you think was happening?
Mary Oliver – Gratitude Poem
What did you notice?
The dew-snail;
the low-flying sparrow;
the bat, on the wind, in the dark;
big-chested geese, in the V of sleekest performance;
the soft toad, patient in the hot sand;
the sweet-hungry ants;
the uproar of mice in the empty house;
the tin music of the cricket’s body;
the blouse of the goldenrod.
What did you hear?
The thrush greeting the morning;
the little bluebirds in their hot box;
the salty talk of the wren,
then the deep cup of the hour of silence.
When did you admire?
The oaks, letting down their dark and hairy fruit;
the carrot, rising in its elongated waist;
the onion, sheet after sheet, curved inward to the pale green wand;
at the end of summer the brassy dust, the almost liquid beauty of the flowers;
then the ferns, scrawned black by the frost.
What astonished you?
The swallows making their dip and turn over the water.
What would you like to see again?
My dog: her energy and exuberance, her willingness,
her language beyond all nimbleness of tongue,
her recklessness, her loyalty, her sweetness,
her strong legs, her curled black lip, her snap.
What was most tender?
Queen Anne’s lace, with its parsnip root;
the everlasting in its bonnets of wool;
the kinks and turns of the tupelo’s body;
the tall, blank banks of sand;
the clam, clamped down.
What was most wonderful?
The sea, and its wide shoulders;
the sea and its triangles;
the sea lying back on its long athlete’s spine.
What did you think was happening?
The green beast of the hummingbird;
the eye of the pond;
the wet face of the lily;
the bright, puckered knee of the broken oak;
the red tulip of the fox’s mouth;
the up-swing, the down-pour, the frayed sleeve of the first snow—
so the gods shake us from our sleep.
[Gratitude is copyrighted to Mary Oliver and her Estate and Publisher. No money is made on the use of this poem.]
I sat for some time and thought about the words in the questions. I decided to go back about one year and contemplate the pandemic in all the ways that the questions made me think about it. Some things have changed – more people out and about, masks (we weren’t wearing them a year ago or we were just starting), vaccinations. It’s good to look back as we begin the real recovery in so many ways – economically, yes, health, yes, but also emotionally. It feels like coming out of a shell or a shelter after a storm.
What did you notice?
the quiet.
my heartbeat.
no cars, no people walking, no dogs.
at the grocery, head down, everyone getting in and getting out.
tension.
What did you hear?
on my excursions to my front yard hearing the breeze,
the birds,
the church bells,
a stray car,
and one kid in a stroller says hi
When did you admire?
my kids doing their schoolwork at home.
the school district keeping it all together.
the grocery store workers.
Zoom.
What astonished you?
the incompetence.
the kindness.
the quiet of all of us at home at the same time.
how frightened I became, especially of the unknown.
What would you like to see again?
the retreat house
Canada
the inside of a Starbucks
church family
What was most tender?
my kids still cuddling just a little.
seeing Onward – the last movie I saw in theatres.
cooperation.
What was most wonderful?
not running out of toilet paper!
livestream masses,
Zoom retreats,
weekly telephone rosary.
information.
Dr. Fauci.
podcasts,
Books.
What did you think was happening?
the end of the world – just a little bit…
a reset,
a chance to re-prioritize,
re-engagement,
reflection.
expect the unexpected.
too much time and not enough.
I am missing my writing workshops, but that doesn’t stop me from writing. (There are dozens of other things that keep me from writing!) The age-old (and ofttimes wrong) direction is write what you know.
Many of us have been home for over one hundred days. Some of us are just coming under the auspices of quarantining (Texas, Arizona, Florida, etc).
How have you been holding up? Have you adjusted to life at home?
It might be time to take out a notebook, journal, or keyboard and begin writing about your experience. Even if you won’t be professionally publishing your writing, this kind of document is so valuable to your future families.
Here are ten questions to get you started. You can begin by simply jotting down quick answers, but then take your time and expand your thoughts. Include your five senses, talk about your feelings, talk about your family’s feelings and reactions. There are no wrong answers; these are your experiences.
If you think of other questions, send them, and if you want to share your experiences, comment with your thoughts and/or links to your writing.
1. Are you still working at your job? At your place of work or at home? How has work changed with the covid outbreak?
2. Do you have children and are they now home from school? Are you involved in their schooling? How much? Are they working independently or do they need a lot of parental input?
3. How has your grocery shopping and cooking changed? Were you someone who ate out a lot or had you already been cooking every day? Are you trying new recipes? What are you go-to favorite recipes? Write down the recipes so your family has them.
4. What have you done for entertainment? Are you watching more television? Netflix? Are you playing board games?
5. What are you reading?
6. Are you listening to podcasts? Are you watching more or less news?
7. How has your religious life changed? What are some of the things that you’re doing that you weren’t doing before? What are you continuing to do?
8. What was the last thing you did in the public world before the pandemic arrived (in the US approximately March 13, 2020)?
9. What do you miss most from being home all the time?
10. What are you surprised that you miss the least and are thinking about keeping out of your life when the pandemic is finally over?
Twitter Screenshot. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. (c)2019
