Joy and Collective Storytelling

by Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo

sumicircle In lieu of a writing prompt this week, I want to discuss collective storytelling, which is what I hope evolves here on Mondays.

As it goes, we reserve Mondays here for weekly writing prompts. There are many good reasons to use writing prompts: getting unstuck, an impetus of something, learning a new technique that may prove to be a method that is perfect for you, a little fire under your pen.

But I think a really good reason is the simple joy of writing.

When I was in graduate school, I took a Contemplative Arts class as an elective. We began each class by drawing Sumi circles. The process involves a round paint brush, dense black paint and an entirely spontaneous act of movement. You sit, you hold your brush, you breathe and when the moment arises, you dip your brush in the fragrant paint, place the brush without premeditation on the white blemishless paper and simply draw a circle. Perfect and imperfect. Complete and incomplete. The teacher instructed us to dedicate the first thirty minutes of class entirely to the creation of Sumi circles. Page by page, one after the other. I liked it—it was meditative. It removed me from the track of thoughts perpetually running in my mind.

But the art students grumbled—they were not getting anything done. The point everyone missed was that it was about the process, not the result.

Now, I’m not going to sit here in my kitchen and preach to anyone about being in the moment, whatever that moment may contain. If I have a mantra for the last year, five years (note: when the kids started arriving), it’s I got nothing done today! But lately I have worked consciously towards relaxing about results (other than supper and clean laundry), and I can say that there is great joy to be found in work that occupies us without an end result in mind. The joy of writing for no reason except to write.

I would love to create The Writer’s Life Writing Circle with the theme of finding joy in writing for no reason except the journey itself. A safe circle to share work, compare, comment constructively. Begin a true dialogue and interactions with regular writers (new writers always welcome).

What would you like to see evolve here? Please share your ideas.

Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo is a writer, reader, yogini (when she can squeeze it in), mom, part-time Office Manager, a homemaker and the Coordinator and Writer for The Writer’s Life blog. She loves to cook and take long walks with her kids and is a woman who wants to meaningfully exchange and intersect with other women writers. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Currently she works at a web development company (because part-time Office Manager buys more groceries than Struggling Writer). She is at work on a novel and a short story collection. Melissa lives in North Central Massachusetts with her family.