Thank You 2011, Hello 2012

Posted on December 21, 2011 by

Hello brave wordwarriors

Some of you have been published, some have started blogs, some have never written another word since the wordshop they attended, others are working on their books, some are writing poetry, others continue to steal moments to journal their lives, and others use email as the space to let out the creative writer.

In whichever way you have chosen to play with your writing muse this year, I hope you’ve had fun doing it.

Thank you for being part of the wordwarrior writing workshops. For being courageous and saying yes. I hope that along the way you have found inspiration and that your muse continues to put your hand to the pen or the keyboard and insist you write and write, right away.

Thank you for the amazing support in 2011, I so look forward to sharing more with you in 2012. Much love and many blessings as you see out the year

Viv

A peep ahead into the Summer of 2012

* The six-week creative course: The summer season starts on the last Thursday of January. I will be running a morning and evening class.

* Weekend workshops in the countryside. One in January (weekend of 27) – Writing your script for 2012. Another in February (weekend of 17) – Romancing the Ordinary Both the weekend workshops will be run in Stanford through Creative Workshops headed up by Karen McKee

* I will continue with drop-in sessions and advanced courses, which will resume in the last week of January as well

* One-on-one writing coaching – I have some availability on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

* Writer’s Gym – geared to reporters or those who would like to be reporters. This will be in Cape Town and I will be giving these through the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (Jan 23/24 and Jan 31/Feb 1)

If you are interested in any of the above, let me know. You will deal directly with me for the creative sessions, and for the weekend and writer’s gym I will pass on the IAJ as well as Karen Mckee’s details.

Am looking forward to the year ahead, and to writing and training and to life and love

In whichever way you choose to express in the coming year, do it with all you’ve got

Take care all of you, keep on shining

Much love Viv

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Death by numbers

Posted on November 3, 2011 by

Sascha Moon, a health practitioner and writer,  joined in on a Johannesburg wordshop. This was one of her surprising tales, which she did in a 5-minute challenge, and which left us looking at her in a positively different light :)

when love dries up....(pic supplied)

It started with a smile or lack of one. It was his smile that first attracted her. His smiley blue eyes and sweet grin, they exposed dimples. But now it was just a frozen stare, no smile, no greeting, no love – how could 28 years of marriage dissipate into hatred. No recognition, just two strangers who avoided each other daily.

She knew she had to do it, she couldn’t bear it any longer.

She would kill him, yes poison his food but he rarely ate at home these days always turning his nose up at her food. She had to think of something. Ah yes, his beloved potatoes. She would poison his potatoes and then slowly watch him die. It had to be well calculated.

That evening she layered his potatoes with a creamy sauce and arsenic which he duly removed with his cold stare.

The next day she looked at her broken black clothes and decided it was enough saving. She went and took his credit card and spent lavishly. She knew, as she pinned in his secret number, that her spending would kill him.

* Sascha Moon is a health practitioner who deals with pathology. She has been married for almost 30 years….but, she says, even though her husband has blue eyes, the story above bears no resemblance to their relationship.  :)

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Eyes wide open

Posted on September 25, 2011 by

different kinds of eyes, eyes

Candice is mid-way in the latest WORDwarrior One Spring class. In the wordshop last week about the body, this is what she came up with this about eyes…

“She can flatter you

She can look right through you

She can stare you down

She can look at you with loathing

She’s got heavy “come to bed eyes”

Her eyes full of unspeakable pain

Angry, wild eyes

Cold, stone-dead eyes

Roll your eyes in pure disdain

A smile that doesn’t reach your eyes

Eyes filled with tears mascara smudging

A mother’s eyes for her new-born baby

Eyes closing in slow motion,

Eyelashes resting for the last time

Never to open again

Leopards have green eyes

Mesmerising eyes

Disturbed eyes

Flat-liner eyes

Won’t look you in the eye guilty eyes

Starving Ethopian eyes.” -

By Candice Saevitzon

21 September 2011

WHO IS CANDICE: “I am an eccentric, over the top, fragile blonde Scorpio. I am both dark and light, bad to the bone and angelic. I have changing shades of blue grey eyes that reflect both bliss and pain.”

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Le BIG Break-Up

Posted on August 30, 2011 by

In one of the writing workshops, Carl was tasked with getting his female character to use the phrase “Love is like a River” in her break-up letter to her boyfriend: This is what “she” wrote. The class was mortified that the love affair was over…

“Love is river.

It had its source in you.

A spring eternal

that brought us life

and quenched our sandy hearts.

Our love began to grow

and our love began to flow,

cutting through everything

that stood in its way,

even the hardest of places.

It created life

wherever it went and

created an evergreen

as it made its way

through barren lands.

It is clam and it is deep.

It is rough and it is rocky.

It keeps moving forward.

Like all rivers

our love has reached the ocean -

an ocean of turmoil

and a vastness of uncertainty.

Like all rivers

it has disappeared

into the ocean

and faded

away…

into the vast ambiguity.

I struggle to recognise it anymore.

The only way to find it again

is to paddle up-stream and…

I don’t have the energy

for that.

I have become happy

in the ocean

and I can no longer tell

the love from the uncertainty.

I am lost

at sea.”

By Carl Anthony Badenhorst, Cape Town

WORDSHOPPERS IN ACTION: Carl (right) writing the Break-Up at a drop-in session held in Loop Street. The session was about Love and Romance. And of course, the end of Romance.

WHO IS CARL ANTHONY BADENHORST: Researcher and developer, Carl is a prolific writer and a coffee efficiondo. He spends much of his free time savouring the delights of the bean and writing about that and life, love and the people he meets along the way. “Le Big Break Up” is fictitious, no one has ever broken up with Carl….quite like this ..

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juiciness

Posted on August 29, 2011 by

Creativity is, at times, the ability to see what others cannot see. In one of the recent wordwarrior classes, two of the particpants blew me away with what they saw in very ordinary looking fruit. One saw a juicy love affair in an orange, and the other saw earth in an avocado pear. how beautiful to be able to look at something that seems so simple and to discover a whole world in there. Here’s one of the short poems – by Karin Vogel – that emerged from the night.

The seductive, enticing, juicy Orange

bitter sweet love

That summer sun

is calling.

I see you

looking at me,

all curious

and shy.

Come on,

come on

give me a try.

Not too tender

to the touch

but ….

once you

unwrap me….

You’ll discover

the bitter

sweet

relationship

of

Lust!

* WHO IS KARIN VOGEL? A born and bred Cape Town girl, Karin is the newest member of the 30 something club -and, she says, at times still needs directions on how to get there.

Working for a stylish executive search firm, she enjoys adding her personal touch and sense of humour to the corporate world.

Her motto is simple, she says; live life well and don’t judge the world and its people too harshly.  For, a warm heart will open many doors.

A daughter, a girlfriend, a god mother, a loyal friend and long distance mom to two ginger cats, Karin has a (not-so) secret love affair with oranges.

romancing the orange....

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Piece de Resistance

Posted on August 18, 2011 by

I was so happy when well-known South African artist Katherine Bull, despite resistance to the written word, decided to take part in one of my 6-week workshops.

And when she made a visual feast out of the art of writing, I was even more delighted. One of the things she was asked to do was write freestyle every day. This was her first attempt (see pic below).

katherine bull's vanishing words

The ink in her pen, obviously feeling her resistance, ran dry. But Katherine unperturbed, carried on writing and when she was finished, she could not resist the artistic beauty of the vanishing words and so her invisible words were caught on film for ever.

Resistance to writing rears its head in all sorts of ways. Pens will run out of ink, computers will freeze, distracting friends will entice us away from the page, and our ‘muse’ will take an extended vacation. No matter what, the thing to do is to carry on writing – despite the fear and through the resistance. Just write even if the words don’t make sense just yet.

And then, like Katherine Bull, whisper firmly to charming dear Resistance, that no matter how hard he tries, he cannot stop a writer on a mission!

* Katherine Bull’s latest exhibition _data-capture LOST & FOUND is presently on at Blank Projects in Woodstock, Cape Town. She created the collection of watercolour paintings whilst watching the first five seasons of the television series LOST. Katherine is painting the sixth and final season of the series as part of a pair of drawing actions that will be performed in the gallery. katherine at blank projects.

Between painitng and watching LOST Katherine has not found time to refill the ink in her pen as yet….

* (from www.wikipedia.com) Pièce de résistance is a French term (circa 1839), translated into English literally as “piece of (or for) resistance,” referring to the best part or feature of something (as in a meal), a showpiece, or highlight. It can be thought of as the portion of a creation which defies (i.e. “resists”) orthodox or common conventions and practices, thereby making the whole of the creation unique and special. The phrase gives the sense that the referred-to element is the most outstanding, notable, or defining of the collection

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The Stranger in the Room

Posted on July 26, 2011 by

Who is this man before me

The man with gentle eyes and

hands like that of a giant

And why have i not seen him before

yet he has sat with me

at this very table

all of my life…

The stranger in the room

* A wordwarrior writing session last night at 6 spin street, saw a stranger arrive and sit for a group of writers, who “wrote” him up. I took the session from the art world where a model poses for an art class. The result was profound in the group, moving from discomfort to humour to imaginations running wild as to who and what this stranger appeared to them to be. Their final creations: all unique. The “stranger” himself wrote of his own experience which was both unexpected and touching. Sometimes an exercise does not only touch the people it was intended to touch but also the silent strangers,  offering themselves as a service for art. Thanks stranger and thanks creative class for your adventurous spirit.

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