I Be A Writer
A few years ago, I wrote about one of the characters in my novel performing a sort of personal ceremony. Recently, I performed this ceremony, so that was kinda cool. In my 'still nowhere near being finished novel', I wrote that one of my characters took scraps of paper and wrote down negative things about herself that she or other people used to believe about her that were either no longer true or were never true to begin with.
And then she lit some candles and read aloud each negative statement, refuted it and turned it into a positive statement, and then put each piece of paper into the flame of a candle and set it on fire and dropped it into a bowl and watched it burn. So,
the other day I did this.
I did it with 32 pieces of paper and it was really moving. It felt really good to watch all those negative statements burn! Some of the pieces of paper did not burn all the way, so I had to re-light them but it was kinda cool to see which statements burned the best or the brightest. I had one quite personal statement in there and when I refuted that one and changed it into a different statement, that one went WHOOOOSH! It burned the brightest!
And another cool thing happened - a couple times, the statements only got burned a little bit and the fire burned away certain words so that it changed the statement. For instance, I had written down, "I can never finish anything" and the fire burned away the "never" and so it became, "I can finish anything"!!
My favourite was this statement I wrote that said, "I will never be a writer" (this was something a stupid English teacher once told me - she was the only teacher who did not support my writing) and the fire only burned away the "will never" so the statement changed into "I be a writer" which gave me chills and made me smile.It is even better than "I will be a writer" cause "I be a writer" is present tense! :-) AND it is true. I be a writer. Maybe not a great one, but one indeed. :-)
Of course in typical Lori form, towards the end, I was reburning a scrap and a bit of ash flew out of the bowl and distracted me and the next thing I knew, my piece of paper in my hand was totally on fire and I screamed and dropped the paper on the floor! Oops! I grabbed a plate and hit the flames with it and all these sparks flew everywhere, but I put the flames out and it didn't leave any marks on my rug - phew! But I went from feeling totally relaxed and powerful to freaked out that I was gonna set my apartment on fire! OOOPS! Maybe next time I do this I should put in something about me not being a klutz! ;-)
I highly recommend this to anyone who's game, but perhaps leave out the 'setting your home on fire' thing ;-)
A few years ago, I wrote about one of the characters in my novel performing a sort of personal ceremony. Recently, I performed this ceremony, so that was kinda cool. In my 'still nowhere near being finished novel', I wrote that one of my characters took scraps of paper and wrote down negative things about herself that she or other people used to believe about her that were either no longer true or were never true to begin with.
And then she lit some candles and read aloud each negative statement, refuted it and turned it into a positive statement, and then put each piece of paper into the flame of a candle and set it on fire and dropped it into a bowl and watched it burn. So,
the other day I did this.
I did it with 32 pieces of paper and it was really moving. It felt really good to watch all those negative statements burn! Some of the pieces of paper did not burn all the way, so I had to re-light them but it was kinda cool to see which statements burned the best or the brightest. I had one quite personal statement in there and when I refuted that one and changed it into a different statement, that one went WHOOOOSH! It burned the brightest!
And another cool thing happened - a couple times, the statements only got burned a little bit and the fire burned away certain words so that it changed the statement. For instance, I had written down, "I can never finish anything" and the fire burned away the "never" and so it became, "I can finish anything"!!
My favourite was this statement I wrote that said, "I will never be a writer" (this was something a stupid English teacher once told me - she was the only teacher who did not support my writing) and the fire only burned away the "will never" so the statement changed into "I be a writer" which gave me chills and made me smile.It is even better than "I will be a writer" cause "I be a writer" is present tense! :-) AND it is true. I be a writer. Maybe not a great one, but one indeed. :-)
Of course in typical Lori form, towards the end, I was reburning a scrap and a bit of ash flew out of the bowl and distracted me and the next thing I knew, my piece of paper in my hand was totally on fire and I screamed and dropped the paper on the floor! Oops! I grabbed a plate and hit the flames with it and all these sparks flew everywhere, but I put the flames out and it didn't leave any marks on my rug - phew! But I went from feeling totally relaxed and powerful to freaked out that I was gonna set my apartment on fire! OOOPS! Maybe next time I do this I should put in something about me not being a klutz! ;-)
I highly recommend this to anyone who's game, but perhaps leave out the 'setting your home on fire' thing ;-)
posted by Lori @ Verbalicious at
11:59 PM
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