Last StoryScaping Session at the Eleanor London Côte Saint-Luc Public Library

It's a busy day over here! This morning was my last StoryScaping workshop at the Côte Saint-Luc Public Library, and soon I head out to do a memoir writing workshop at the Jewish Public Library! It's a good thing I'm a true extrovert -- I get energy from being around others! Especially when those others are interested in writing!

For the record, there were nine participants in the StoryScaping workshop -- that's a program offered by the Quebec Writers' Federation. Today one participant, Robert, had to slip out early, so he missed our photo. And I heard from two others, Rita and Joelle, that they couldn't make it today. Which only leaves two participants unaccounted for! 

In today's pic, I'm with (from left to right) Mireille, Michael, Natalie and Goldye. We ended up getting a lot done in our four 90-minute workshops together. If you read the blog entry I wrote after the first workshop, there was a lot of getting-to-know-each-other and I was concerned I might not get the participants to do all the exercises I'd been planning.

So during workshop 2, I "cracked the whip." I put those three words in quotation marks since that's a cliché and just today, I was warning the group to avoid using clichés whenever possible. But let's just say that in this case, the cliché works -- I turned into a serious teacher with my gang, and I was delighted with the results.

I've been trying to offer a mix of fun playful exercises (a way to what I call "warm up the writing muscles") and deeper exercises linked to mining old memories. 

Today, the participants started the session by writing with their non-dominant hand (left in all their cases). I warned them it would feel weird, but they might be surprised and pleased with the results. Michael wrote that his work "looked like a spiderweb on LSD"; Goldye reflected that the exercise was "not as bad a I thought it would be"; Robert wrote "It's good to be in the sanctuary of the seashell room" and Mireille wrote about a loss she's been grieving: "it's hard to face each day.... [I'm still] waiting for that four o'clock phonecall." All lovely snippets of writing, don't you agree?

We covered some pointers for short story writing (this is because Michael had told me he's interested in exploring the short story) -- I told them that most short stories are about a small change. And I reminded the participants that to really learn about a genre (say the short story) you have to read a lot in that genre.

There was time for the participants to read from writing they've been working on -- and also for a final memory-based exercise. Goldye is interested in writing about the experience of post-menopausal women. She wrote: "Women are supposed to just vanish after menopause." A beautiful, powerful and thought-provoking sentence! Michael made us laugh out loud with his story -- about a couple at a fancy restaurant sharing a table with an elegant older gentleman. When the husband in the couple orders a dish with mushrooms, the older gentleman turns to the young wife and says, "You should leave him! Even though I can see he's handsome and well-built!" After that Michael's story turned more macabre, but just as funny! Which prompted me to tell the "class" that it's harder to make readers laugh than to make them cry. So, great work, Michael! Mireille shared a beautiful piece about sunrises and sunsets. In it, she wonders, "when and how I became an old lady.... the matriach of my beautiful family." We were all moved by her exploration of the passage of time.

Natalie did extraordinary writing during our final exercise in which I asked the participants to write about being fifteen years old. Here's a bit of what Natalie wrote: "Fifteen was not my favourite age." Great catchy opening line, Natalie! She continued, "I was not the prettiest or the wealthiest.... I enjoyed cream cheese and maraschino sandwiches." Oh do I ever love that! And as I said to the group, in those lines Natalie really makes the details work for her -- as long as I live I won't forget that sandwich combination!

Our four sessions together are over, but I'm hoping the participants caught the writing bug from me. It's a good bug to catch. In the end, I'm glad I was able to offer a little inspiration and support, but the real work for the group begins now. Their next assignment: to get their bums in their chairs and keep writing their stories!!

Thanks to Felix Chau Bradley at the QWF who coordinates the StoryScaping program, and to Maria Ressina at the CSL Library for coordinating at your end. I think I join the participants in saying we're a little sad our time together is over!!