Interpretive Writing Intensive
Workshops, Ideas, & News for Interpreters Who Write

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Crux of Creativity
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An unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story. 


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It's tougher than Himalayan yak jerky in January. But, as any creative person will tell you, there are days when there's absolutely nothing better than creating something from nothing. 


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If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.  


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Creating Stories that Make a Difference:

Advice & Guidance for Interpretive Writing and Writers

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The Crux of Creativitymountain chickadee
As we emerge from the dark cold of deep winter into capricious spring, I am filled with restlessness. It's a kind of dissatisfaction, a frustration with static displays, with rote deliveries and routine lectures. It pushes me to question myself and my work. A yearning to create something meaningful and fulfilling stretches through my bones and sinews, like a too-big cotyledon trying to crack through a stubborn seed case.

Here is the crux of creativity: the world is filled to capacity and is an utter void. These two states coexist, always.

As interpreters and experts, writers and performers, we plow through a planetful of data every day, pushing information into content-stuffed audiences.

We're aware of the void, too--as creative people, we teeter at its edge every day--and sometimes we forget that our audience is also aware of the void and yearns to fill it with something meaningful, surprising, perhaps even profound.

first crabapple blossom When what we want and need does not yet exist, we create it. We find ways to nurture it (and so it nurtures us), and it grows, expands, finds and fulfills its purpose (and ours) in myriad ways. We shift and adjust and adapt to keep moving forward the way a good and powerful story moves forward, despite (or perhaps because of) obstacles and worries and fears.

Some days, the void is terrifying; we're sure we'll fall and vanish, swallowed whole. Other days, we balance on its edge, exhilarated, thrilled with the risk, knowing our job is to draw together the fear and the packed-full world and create something new that doesn't fill the void--the void will always be there--but reshapes it. That makes the void a little less terrifying, and the world a little bit better.

We don't do any of this alone, myths about tortured geniuses first forsythia working in isolation notwithstanding. We hobnob in creative communities both virtual and physical, sharing stories and ideas, swapping tall tales and techniques, wandering out of our own fields and into others, new connections sticking to us like pollen.

My own recent wanderings are no exception.

For fun, for curiosity's sake, for provoking thought and evoking emotion, for the sake of creating and creativity, here are three places I've wandered recently.

mountain chickadee First, from my son, an engineer who loves role-playing and video games and hated history from the first unstoried lesson in school, the complete history of the Punic Wars (and the only time I've actually understood or remembered anything about them, aside from Hannibal and his elephants crossing the Alps).

Extra History 01: The Punic Wars

(Be sure to watch part 2, too.)

Next, the website for photographer Alison Wright, because I don't have a way for you sit next to me in the half-day seminar I attended in Denver recently. She's a great photographer--and a great storyteller. I learned a lot more than how to take better photos (and I remember her photography advice better), thanks to her stories.

And finally, the full text of a very short story by Terry Bisson, called "They're Made Out of Meat." I like this story for a lot of reasons--it's inspiring (he's packed an entire world into 815 words), it's a great example of how point of view affects and changes perception, and it's fun.

I don't know how or when these and other creative community connections will affect my work and my world, but I know they will. I don't know how or why they enrich my already full world and save me from the void, but they do.

I suspect it's magic, the best kind of magic.

Where have you wandered? What creative communities and connections have you discovered?

Drop me a note, and I'll include them in a future newsletter.

western sunrise

'Til next time--
Judy

Comments? Questions?
970/416-6353
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Mark Your Calendars!

It's been a hectic year so far, and I'm a bit behind on workshop and conference schedules. Here's a quick rundown on confirmed dates. More details (and more workshops, too, I hope) soon!

May 17 - 21, 2014: AAM conference in Seattle, WA (attending, plus participating in International Museum Theatre Alliance meetings and events)

Sept. 28 - Oct. 2, 2014: IMTAL (International Museum Theatre Alliance) conference, Chicago, IL

Nov. 17 - 22, 2014: NAI conference in Denver, CO

Jul. 31 - Aug. 5, 2014: Coaching client writing retreat (FULL)

Feb. 8 - 13, 2015: Anza Borrego Foundation Nature Writing Workshop, Borrego Springs, CA

Interested in hosting or coordinating a workshop in your area? We offer 2, 3, and 4-day workshops on interpretive writing, nature writing, creative nonfiction, fiction, and more. Contact Judy by email or phone for more info.

almost blooming

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All content and photographs copyright � Judy Fort Brenneman. Request reprint permission through Greenfire Creative, LLC.