Gather The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening And Other Pleasures Of The Writers Craft Originated By Kim Stafford Issued As Copy

I read it too fast, Maybe it was like stuffing your mouth with rich desserts before a meal, Maybe I should have read a chapter a month, mentally chewedtimes before swallowing, but I don't think I fully appreciated Stafford's ideas, The one I remember most is hackneyed carry around a pocketsized notebook and jot down observations as they come to you watch out for the shower observations!.
He also recommends copying down conversations you overhear, Great for people in training for the CIA or "Homeland Security" quotation marks dedicated to George Bush,

Bottom line: I've read better writerinspiration books, The subtitle says it all: Eloquent Listening, It decribes how we can be actively receptive so as not to force inspiration, but to foster the inspiration which is all around us, A quirky collection of essays on writing and the writing life, Stafford is overly fond of repeating how he carries a small handmade notebook in his shirt pocket to write snippets of conversations he overhears, I knew this about him this past summer at a weeklong writing workshop and made sure I didn't talk at all within his hearing, Beware what you share with the world about your writing process, . . Kim's book is "a letter to our life at this time, " As such is speaks with clarity and wisdom about our role as writers to listen to the words around us, It is an encouraging book to follow our hunches, griefs, secrets and confusions in life since these are our greatest guiding gifts, He talks about quilting our experiences, "We live a sequence of limited sensations threaded by time into a longer curve of developing experience, This is why we are required to honor small moments of learning, to have faith in fragments, and over time to quilt our solitudes into whole structures.
"
This is the first book of Kim's I have read, but I have read and been inspired by many of his father's books on writing.
The Stafford family seems to carry the germ of humanity that I seek out to nurture myself and my writing, One of the reasons I persisted in my writing is by reading William Stafford, I am so glad to touch into this vein of his family again, fabulous book and person. Have studied with him. In writing class, the teacher used portion of the chapter "Quilting Your Solitudes: A Letter to My Class" for an assigment, Based on that, I bought the book,

I found the content sluggish and so eyecrossingly esoteric, Found it difficult to connect the content to anything useful other than something pretty to read in tiny doses, Not a book I would buy for instruction or insight into writing like, say, Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird but certainly worth checking out at the library.


I wanted to like it, but I didn't, After I've read this book a few more times, I may be able to craft something here which would begin to convey the gift of this book and its wisdoms.
Have I reached the time of entering the City of Art Perhaps I'm long overdue, It's gates are wide and this book is my vessel, This is an excellent writing craft book, one I'll keep on my goto shelf, It is deceptively simple, but powerful and wise, Kim Stafford is an excellent teacher I've taken an online class with him and I appreciate his easeful, nopressure approach to writing I needed that, as writing for me is too often difficult and unpleasant, because I put unnecessary pressure on myself and set unrealistic goals.
For more of my thoughts on Kim Stafford's approach to writing, see my blog post here: sitelink me/pJYlZ There were many gems in this book that I jotted down to inspire my own practice, I love the Random Autobiography and “rivers and drums, ” Overall, the writing itself was a bit too flowery for my preference, and I found myself wanting to skim to get to what I saw as the practical stuff.
While some of the ideas were worthwhile, it takes a lot of effort to chew on this 'food for thought' oriented book as it is rather dry and academic rather than inspirational and insightful.
This was an uneven reading experience for me, but the chapters "Looking for Mr, Nu," "Happy Problems" and "Personal Memory and Fictional Character" are well worth it and moments I will definitely be returning to in future, The Muses Among Us is an inviting, encouraging book for writers at any stage of their development, In a series of firstperson letters, essays, manifestos, and notes to the reader, Kim Stafford shows what might happen at the creative boundary he calls "what we almost know.
" On the boundary's far side is our story, our poem, our song, On this side are the resonant hunches, griefs, secrets, and confusions from which our writing will emerge, Guiding us from such glimmerings through to a finished piece are a wealth of experiments, assignments, and tricks of the trade that Stafford has perfected over thirty years of classes, workshops, and other gatherings of writers.
Informing The Muses Among Us are Stafford's own convictions about writingprinciples to which he returns again and again, We must, Stafford says, honor the fragments, utterances, and halfdiscovered truths voiced around us, for their speakers are the prophets to whom writers are scribes.
Such filaments of wisdom, either by themselves or alloyed with others, give rise to our poems, stories, and essays, In addition, as Stafford writes, "all pleasure in writing begins with a sense of abundancerich knowledge and boundless curiosity, " By recommending ways for students to seek beyond the self for material, Stafford demystifies the process of writing and claims for it a Whitmanesque quality of participation and community.
This is the best book for writing inspiration I've ever read, Kim Stafford has such a gentle and wise touch, Enjoy! There are some real gems in this volume, an interesting blend of reflection, writing lessons, teacherly wisdom, and memoir, His notion of "faith in a fragment" will have tremendous ripple effect in my own writing classroom, And not to mention my own writer notebooks, Generous and thoughtful. I was unimpressed with this collection of anecdotes Short stories Inspirational, personal experiences

I really could not take the author seriously after he wrote that he "gleans" inspiration from other people's conversations that he feels are creative and good enough to write down.
Furthermore, I found that this collection lacked direction and purpose and didn't feel authentic,

Every chapter I read I asked myself, if this was actually based on his own experiences or if it sprung from another person's moment of creativity that he happened to eavesdrop on.


Having said that, the chapters titled "Quilting Your Solitude" and "Happy Problems" did contain a few very good pieces of advice and tips to improve one's creative writing.


I had to read this one for a course I am taking, therefore, I will most likely refer back to it throughout the duration of this term for discussion purposes, but I would not necessarily recommend it.


sitelinkElliotScribbles This book about writing was very inspirational, It doesn't have much about the nuts and bolts of writing, technique, style, etc, Rather it's about paying attention, listening to the world around us and the world inside us, taking what's presented to us in life,
A personal, inspirational book recommending that writers "read the world" listening to the muses among us, Very encouraging. This book is so far a good book to read about the craft of writing, I'm a writer but unpublished and I think this book is helping me to write more and stop being lazy towards my writing, It's teaching me to not procrastinate, This small book, written by Kim Stafford, son of Oregon Poet Laureate William Stafford, addresses the developing writer with letters, essays, and manifestos, We are guided to our finished work by Stafford's wealth of experiments, assignments, and tricks of the writing craft,

Kim shows us in this inspiring book that writing begins with listening to outer as well as inner voices, Kim describes the kinds of writers he seeks:

"Yes, I prefer anonymousher naked, indelible call,
Your own grandmother softly putting you to sleep with a hum,
Or best of all, someone we have not yet read, someone wideeyed,
bighearted, listening among us now, whose fist can barely hold a pen.
"

I really like the chapter "Quilting Your Solitudes", about stitching together a series of stories or ideas that initially seem completely disparate, but have a continuous thread actually running through them.
Stafford gives five books as examples, so I will read all of those as my homework this month!


The chapter on "Happy Problems" shows a different way of looking on the positive side of what look like problems but are really opportunities to spread our creative writing wings.
Happy Problems of Originality, Secrecy, Form, Confusion, and Error,

Listening at a family gathering led to this gem overheard at a relative's grave"
"He told us to plant potatoes on his grave, so whenever he gets hungry, he can reach up and grab one.
He also told us to pour whiskey on his grave now and then, We said "Sure, we'll pour whiskey on your grave, but we're going to drink it first!"

"Rosie's Book of Sayings" collects some charming statements made by Kim's young daughter.
Such as "Can we just go fishing this time all our life now" He also quotes his young son Guthrie's theory of how life works: "You get what you don't want, and then the spirit of what you do want comes to you.
" Out of the mouths of babes, . .

In a speech to a graduating class, Stafford asks the graduates "What is like to live your life story, to feed on the beauty meant for you alone, to insist on the conditions that make it possible to live the precise full life you are here to accomplish" He follows up that notion with with this thought concerning his brother's suicide:
"I will always believe my brother died by his own hand at the age of forty because he did not eat enough of sunset and wheeling flock of birds.
"

Stafford

closed that address posed the question "What is the best you can do with the best you have" He answered with "The answer will come from your dreams, from cruelties by others that call forth generosities from you.
. . and a night that distills sorrow to color and joy to shape and the whirl of all your questions into a few bold strokes, "

Kim closes with the note that his parents would tell their children "Don't forget to talk to strangers, " For it is those interactions that lead to "making songs and learning from strangers, "

So much good advice here not only for writers, but for everyone!








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