| “It’s a myth that our reactions to danger are fight or flight. There’s a third option often pursued: to gather for reassurance, protection, strength, and insight.” — Rebecca Solnit It’s been a tough week, no denying it. We hope you and your family are safe and healthy. It’s hard to know what to do right now, but in the face of anxiety and change we’re still looking to gather—online if not in person—to pursue reassurance, protection, strength, and insight. That’s why we’ve scrapped our normal newsletter and replaced it with things we hope will help you, including: Two Writing Challenges to inspire new workOnline Classes to improve your skillsFree Opportunities for writers and readersWays to Help the local literary communityAnd more It’s not much, but we hope it helps. Stay healthy and keep writing. |
| Writing Challenges |
| “Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity,” wrote T.S. Eliot. To help make productive use of our self-isolation and social distancing, Lit Cleveland will be offering free writing challenges each week via our newsletter. |
| Writing Challenge 1: Daily Writing If you have a little more time on your hands these days, now’s the time to do that writing you never had time to do before. Take ten minutes every day and just write, without stopping, about anything that’s going on in your head. Don’t edit yourself and don’t question yourself—just write. Once those ten minutes are complete, look over what you’ve written and see if you want to keep working on it, developing it into a poem, a story, an essay, a play, a political rant, a memoir, or a song. Keep doing that ten-minute writing exercise every day until we’re all able to rejoin our normal lives. And then—why not!—keep that exercise going every day into the future. |
| Writing Challenge 2: Prompt Write a creative response to the following prompt in 500 words or less and send it to us at info@litcleveland.org by the following Monday. We’ll pick our favorite submission(s) to publish online on our website. All genres welcome. Negative Definition Most often we try to describe something by saying what it is. For example, “Our new couch is an ugly blue color.” But it can sometimes be better to describe something by saying what it is not: “At least this new couch isn’t stained with cat puke.” This is negative definition, and we use it all the time. Think, for example, of describing someone as “not the sharpest tool in the shed” or “not the best kisser in the world.” We still get the point, just in an indirect way. Writers can use this kind of negative definition to great effect, especially when trying to undermine stereotypes or push beyond cliché. Take a look at this long example from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, where she describes the prostitutes that live above the Breedloves’ storefront by defining what they are not. “They did not belong to those generations of prostitutes created in novels, with great and generous hearts, dedicated, because of the horror of circumstance, to ameliorating the luckless, barren life of men, taking money incidentally and humbly for their “understanding.” Nor were they from that sensitive breed of young girl, gone wrong at the hands of fate, forced to cultivate an outward brittleness in order to protect her springtime from further shock, but knowing full well she was cut out for better things, and could make the right man happy…” It goes on for another page. Morrison knows that when we think of prostitutes we have a certain picture in our mind, and she wants to move beyond those prejudices. To cleverly erases those mental images she describes each one in detail and saying—no, they are not like this, no, not like that either. In the end, our stereotypes are eliminated and we see the characters just for who they are. Or check out this passage from “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff which describes all the things the main character does not remember in his last moment before death. “It is worth noting what Ambers did not remember, given what he did remember. … He did not remember Professor Josephs telling his class how Athenian prisoners in Sicily had been released if they could recite Aeschylus, and then reciting Aeschylus himself, right there, in the Greek. Anders did not remember how his eyes had burned at those sounds. He did not remember the surprise of seeing a college classmate’s name on the jacket of a novel not long after they graduated, or the respect he had felt after reading the book. He did not remember the pleasure of giving respect….” This continues for another paragraph. The detailed list of things he doesn’t remember is a sly way of showing us the character’s entire life as a highlight reel. Plus it serves to juxtapose the one thing he does remember—a seemingly insignificant day that holds the key to who he is as a person. Each passage describes what something is not, and in doing so we learn more than if the writer just tried to describe what that something is. Now you try: Write a brief description of what this current coronavirus pandemic is like using negative definition. By telling us what this pandemic is not you can reveal what it is. All genres welcome. Max 500 words. To be considered for online publication, please email your piece to info@litcleveland.org by noon on Monday, March 23. Pro tips: The more detailed and specific your negative definitions the better. Also, consider ending your piece by shifting from negative definition to positive definition—that turn from saying what this pandemic is not like to saying what it is like will signal an ending to your piece and reveal a deeper meaning. |
| Online Classes |
| In addition to providing writing challenges, publishing opportunities, and ideas for supporting the community, we wanted to find more direct ways to connect with other writers and advance our skills. That’s why although we’ve had to suspend in-person classes, we worked overtime last week with our instructors to create online class options for April. In the midst of canceled events and social distancing we hope these classes provide opportunities to connect, be creative, and create new work. Click on the class photo for more info. |
