I'm home, taking a little breather between Blue Met events. I did another student writing workshop this morning and this afternoon at five, I'm on a CBC panel called "The Human Face ofGenocide."
Last night's spaghetti dinner, in case you're wondering, was super fun. The Cree students didn't come in the end; the stars of the evening were Mary, Simon and Annie, who live in Akulivik in Nunavik. There were many special moments; one happened after dinner, when Simon said a little prayer for us in Inuktittut and Mary and Annie translated it into English.
This morning, I worked with students from Escuminac in the Gaspe, from Baie-Comeau, as well as other students from the Montreal area. What made today's workshop extra-special for me was that I had the feeling everyone in the room really cared about writing. There's a special magic when that happens. During one exercise, I asked the students to remember a place from their childhood -- a student named Jeff wrote about his grandmother's house and I have the feeling he's got a story to tell that may just start in that house.
We also had a young poet with us named David -- David's been volunteering at Blue Met and he decided to join our workshop, too. I told David and the others how I lead a pretty humdrum life, but that I go a little crazy in my stories. That reminded David of a quote from French author Gustave Flaubert, who said: "Be regular and orderly in your life so you can be violent and original in your work." Hmmm... that gives me lots to think about; what about you?
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Comments
Hello Monique! "The Human Face ofGenocide. The "of" Needs to be capitalized and needs a space Anyways I just got back from school and i'm super tired so I think I just might take a nap talk to you laters. ~Amber~
Hey Monique!
Jonathan here, from this morning! First I just wanted to say that I really liked your workshop! It reminded me of the kind of advice I'd give some of my friends when I was writing hardcore (when I was is grade 9 (maybe grade 8 too, ( I have the time I started written down in a LA assignment but I'm not sure)) I wrote nearly every day actually. Every weekday anyway. I started a book, and actually got about 200 pages in, but then I wrote one chapter in the first person (because I had to for it to make sense (the others are in third)) and loved it! The trouble is, I loved it so much that I wanted to rewrite the whole thing from the beggining and- long story short- I have a prologue, a rather long prologue, but I've had a prologue for quite some time. Anyway I'm inspired now, so I'm going to write tommorow! More like really motivated actually, but it adds up to the same thing.) Yeah, I get sidetracked easilly too, and would be jumping back and forth from one topic to the next about writing, but it was always exciting. The funny thing is, what I told them helped them often, but really didn't help me that much... I just found it funny because I litterally keep interupting myself when I'm on a roll, but it's never a bad thing. I've actually recently done a speech about distractions which according to Mrs. Easto had "absolutely no meaning, but was hillarious" (The rest of the class agreed too ;D ) anyway, I have to go now actually, but could you e-mail back? ( I'd like to tell you about my book I'm trying to write, and I think the e-mail from this site goes through your publisher) I couldn't really remember anything much from when I was younger (Im not good at remembering without something to build off of, like someone saying something that reminds me of something I did)
Anyway, Goodnight
Take Care
Jonathan