Final Patchwork recap
We had our final session of Patchwork yesterday, and although this was an entirely virtual session, it was still bittersweet for me. The gap of time where we’ve written together will be a present absence for me going forward – it was such a valuable experience for me, and I appreciated every word that you shared with me, and all the words that you didn’t.
Take a deep breath, be present in your body, and let’s move into this last set of Patchwork prompts. These prompts are designed around a theme of embodiment or body-awareness. Body-awareness is critical both in our self-care as writers, and in our writing.
Our first prompt is scars.
This is a modification of a prompt that Jennifer Cross with Writing Ourselves Whole used in one of her workshops, and it resonated so deeply for me. Thinking about scars, about the ones that we have inflicted on ourselves and the ones inflicted on us, and the ones that are beautiful and the ones that are ugly, the ones that are chosen and the ones that we would never have chosen… there’s so much in the idea of a scar. Scars can be internal or external, physical or metaphysical, visible or invisible. In your writing, focus on a scar (of any kind). This scar could belong to your narrator or to someone they know or encounter.
Our second prompt is costumes/performance.
Where scars may not be chosen, costumes and performances often are. (And, as in any binary, there is plenty of blurring in the middle. Scars that are chosen, performances that are forced.) Write about a costume, or a performance. Write about make up, or disguise. Write about “putting on” a character, and maybe about a narrator or character finding themselves in a costume.
Our third prompt is stretch.
This stretch can, like the scars or even the costumes, be physical or metaphysical. It could be an embodied stretch (and speaking of stretching our bodies, take a moment to check in with yourself. Do you need to stretch your neck, your wrists, your back?) or it could be an emotional or mental stretch. It could be a financial stretch, or a stretch of any sort. Stretch! If you have the energy and the emotional resources, take this prompt as an opportunity to stretch your writing practice – set your timer a bit longer, or write in a new location or at a different time of day.
And our final Patchwork prompt for this round is rest.
Rest. What does it look like for you or for your characters? What does it feel like?
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I hope that you are able to rest, my brave and beautiful Patchworkers. You have worked hard over these last six weeks, even in the moments when it felt like you weren’t doing anything. The very act of committing to a series of workshops, thinking about your practice as a writer, reading the prompts and the recaps, attending what workshops you were able, writing what you could – this is all valuable work. Even if you didn’t write every week – even if you didn’t write anything past the second week! – trust that your work was real and valid and valuable and that you are building a foundation for your ongoing writing practice. Or perhaps you will build some other creative practice – that would also be good work! Congratulations. You have done well. I would be honoured to write with you in the future, or to hear about your writing practice.
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This was the first round of Patchwork, and I deeply appreciate you both going on this journey with me. Within the next week I’ll be sending out a survey, and linking to it on the blog, so that you can offer feedback if you would like. (This is open both to my in-person Patchwork participants and to those of you who wrote along with us.)
The next round of Patchwork will start in January, and the event will be going up on the Facebook page and the MeetUp sometime in the next couple weeks.
Writing in the Margins is also offering some exciting new workshops, including Writing the Body (here is the MeetUp) next weekend, The Smutty Story Circle (MeetUp) next weekend, and the Trauma Writing Circle that ran yesterday and will be running again next month.
Happy writing!
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