Sleep is for the Weak » Sleep is for the Weak

Writing Workshop Prompts – Collections

Josie — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 09:34:56 +0000

I know, late again. My unpredictable timekeeping makes me interesting and enigmatic though, right? Definitely NOT annoying? You can blame the Fibro for Monday’s lateness (Josie swallowed by a post-MADS black hole, urgh) and THIS for yesterday’s (SO EXCITED) but look, I’m here I’m here!

So then. What are we going to be writing about this week?

(For anyone unfamiliar with my Writing Workshop, have a read all about it and browse old workshops here, or if you’re an old hand at this you can started.)

Prompt

This week I want to hear about your collections. (no prizes for guessing where that idea came from)

Tell me about what you hoard, what you collect. Describe it to us, what is it about the things you collect that you love and that draws you to them? Tell us stories behind the things you’ve collected. Where did they come from? Do you know their history? Describe one item, or five, or ten, or whatever you want. What would you collect if you had the spare cash?

Now…

Decide how you’d like to respond, write your post and publish it on your blog between now and NEXT MONDAY. On Monday come back and use the widget that will be up to paste in the URL of your post to share. Then, if you can, take some time to read some of the other entries and leave some comments. We’re not here to critique – just to have fun and support each other in our writing experiments. So be kind please. Anyone who would like to submit something via email, or even anonymously will be more than welcome to do so. I’ll post them on the site here and include the link in Monday’s round-up. And, of course, if blogging isn’t your thing, you could always use the prompts for private, off-line writing too.

Enjoy!

Badge Code

Note: I’m told Blogger does something a bit funny with the code so you’ll need to copy and paste it and then retype the quotation marks (“) as Blogger changes them for some reason.

Writing Workshop Prompts – What Today Meant

Josie — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 07:57:14 +0000

Morning you lot. Hope you’ve all had a good weekend. I have a small, naked pirate on my lap as I type and something smells funny in my kitchen, so all normal here.

While I go and have a read of all your entries from last week, it’s time for you to start thinking about your next one – this week’s workshop is going to be based on a post I wrote yesterday about finding beauty…

(For anyone unfamiliar with my Writing Workshop, have a read all about it and browse old workshops here, or if you’re an old hand at this you can carry on straight to the prompt.)

Prompts

What made you feel alive today? What made today mean something?

Write about a moment, a thought, something you did, something that happened to you, something somebody said to you, that made you stop for a moment. It doesn’t have to big or impressive, just one thing that left you different because of it. Something that felt significant, beautiful, or that just made you feel something. It doesn’t have to have made you feel good, not all days bring us that, but it needs to have touched you.

Try and capture it and pin it down with the words you use.

Now…

Enjoy!

Badge Code

Note: I’m told Blogger does something a bit funny with the code so you’ll need to copy and paste it and then retype the quotation marks (“) as Blogger changes them for some reason.

Writing Workshop: One Year – On me, Cybermummy and Blogging

Josie — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:12:05 +0000

This is the bracelet I wore to Cybermummy this weekend. In case you don’t recognise the symbol, it’s a Save the Children one, and on the back is engraved “Every Child Born To Shine”.

I lay in my hotel room the following morning, ribs aching from laughing, heart aching from unexpected feeling, and head a little numb from thinking, and rubbed the red token with my thumb in the sunshine coming through the blind. And I thought back on the last year.

Thinking about last year’s Cybermummy I suddenly realised how much I’d changed, and how much those changes have affected the way I approach and experience things. Not just things like Cybermummy, everything really, but comparing myself at the two events really hit home.

Last year’s saw me full of self-doubt, feeling like I had something to prove, feeling like I needed to convince everyone that I had something to say that was worth listening – brands as well as people. In a room full of mostly strangers I felt small. Standing up to deliver my talk about blogging and authenticity and voice as part of the main panel session, something I had anxiously worried over long before-hand, I felt like a fraud, like I didn’t deserve to be there and I worried that everyone else thought it, too. This meant I tried a bit too hard, I think. It certainly meant I worried more, a bundle of self-concious nerves with a slightly forced face of confidence and a ‘I belong here’ attitude to try and convince myself.

But by the end of the weekend I wasn’t in a room full of strangers any more, and my voice had reached people that I never would have expected, prompting an email a couple of weeks later from Save the Children and the beginning of that amazing journey and all the changes that followed.

Then there was this year. I walked into the bigger, brighter, louder, busier Cybermummy, a year older, tireder, considerably less married, considerably wiser and considerably thinner than last year. And I still felt, it has to be said, and looked mostly likely, like a deer in the headlights. It always surprises people that I’m not great in big crowds, and that’s something I can’t see changing. But it was a different slightly shaky Josie that weaved her way through the brand stalls and milling, equally nervous-looking crowds. This year I didn’t care. I’m not perfect, people know that, and I’ve stopped trying to be. This year, for the first time, I was unapologetically myself. Quiet at times, sociable at others. I felt no need to impress anyone, to prove anything. THIS year’s Josie just wanted to connect with and love the people she loved, and not worry too much about everything else. I felt deep appreciation for the people around me. Good people, funny and interesting and generous. People who had supported me and who I had supported and I felt so grateful to know them and to have made such good friends.

And then when I went to support the ‘How to be an Activist Blogger’ session, and my Blogladesh buddy and Cybermummy founder Sian stood up to speak about our experiences in Bangladesh and found herself too upset to continue, it was still a fairly wobbly me that stood up to go and stand on stage and take over, but one that was used to speaking in public these days with only a slight case of the goose pimples to give away my nerves, And I was able to speak passionately and fluently, I hope, because I was talking about something I’m hard-wired to feel and to express now and something I care deeply about, that matters far more than ‘how good is my blog’ or being ‘liked’ or impressing anyone. I sat down and cried and that was okay too.

Walking back into ‘Cybermummy Central’ surrounded by baby-centric brand tables and eager PRs I realised how much blogging had changed for me and it was hard not to feel a little empty. Learning about SEO and marketing and the like is useful, it is, but I found myself wishing for a conference focused more on developing a confident voice and learning how to use it, more of the wonderful stories that INSPIRE blogging, rather than brands to write about. I would liked to have seen a greater focus on individuality in blogs, I would have liked more speakers that inspired bravery and creativity in blogging. I would have liked more about real life and how blogging enhances and empowers that rather than how to make your life and writing ‘fit’ blogging. I would liked to have learnt more from the boundary-pushers. There was a lingering sense that the power of bloggers, not just to sell stuff, but to really lead the voice of powerful, thinking, feeling, hurting, loving, joyous parents had somehow not quite been appreciated or made the most of. But’s that’s me, and certainly not a reflection on the event or the people that spoke there. I was just left a little hungry for more – and that’s a good thing.

We’re NEARLY there, I think. And Cybermummy is a fabulous event and one I am always proud to attend – I absolutely raise my hat to the organisers and love what they have created, in just two years an amazing social and warm networking experience. But more than anything I don’t want to see complacency, in myself as well as in blogging and in events like Cybermummy. I have a lot more growing and learning to do, and UK blogging has too, parent blogging in particular. I think we should be excited by that, recognising we have something powerful here, on a personal and political level. But we need to be brave, and not afraid to be ourselves, or different, or challenging, but recognise the need for continued respect and mutual support, too.

I wore my bracelet not just as a symbol of Save the Children and how much that journey has changed my life, but also as a symbol of me, and as a talisman of it being okay to have changed, and to feel, of everything the last year has held and meant and everything I hope and feel about the future. It’s just the beginning for me really, with likely many more mistakes and triumphs, and I’m looking forward to using blogging to chronicle that, and to watching how it evolves too.

Here’s to all of us, and all we learn along the way.

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Now it’s your turn. What did you choose to write about this week?

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the Linky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) – it’ll be open til Sunday night so if you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve got plenty of time to join in. Don’t forget that anyone can take part! New prompts will be up this time next week, so I hope to see you back soon.

Writing Workshop Prompts: Personality Catwalk

Josie — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 06:15:11 +0000

I spent a lovely couple of hours yesterday reading all your workshop posts from last week. Thank you so much for joining in and sharing what were such a mix of personal, honest, brave and creative entries. We had personal stories, poems, we had descriptive writing, fiction, we even had an audio reading - it really did make me fall in love with the workshop again and remind me why I do it. I mean it when I say that it was an absolute privilege to get to share your head-space for a while, and while I may not have time to comment on all entries every time, I will do my very best because I do think it’s important you all feel like your writing has been well-read when you put so much of yourselves into it. So thank you – I hope you’ll find this week equally inspiring.

Long-time readers of this blog will know that one of the things that it chronicles most vividly is my journey in trying to figure out who I am, understand better about how I tick, and. harder still, try to like the person I find. More recent readers will know that at this stage of my life I’m probably closest to that as I have ever been, with me finally beginning to feel a sense of real identity and a confidence in it.

Rather weirdly, but perhaps not coincidently, my interest in fashion has echoed this. For a long time I felt too unattractive, too uncomfortable in my skin, too nothing to give much thought to clothes or how I look, but these days the clothes I wear are really starting to be another way in which I express myself and tell the world about who I am. Now… I’m broke, so this means more charity shop scouring and mix-and-matching supermarket sales bargains than anything else, but as my sense of self is growing, so is my sense of style (at least, I’d like to think so!)

Maybe I’m a little late in the game to this one, but I’m beginning to love how a certain pair of shoes, or a hat, or a bag, or an anything can say something about me. And I’m enjoying discovering what I like, and what I don’t like and what suits me and what makes me feel good.

Which leads us on to our Workshop prompts this week…

(For anyone unfamiliar with my Writing Workshop, have a read all about it and browse old workshops here, or if you’re an old hand at this you can carry on straight to the prompts.)

Prompts

This week I want you to take an item of clothing, or an accessory that sums up something about yourself – perhaps an aspect of your personality, or that represents your taste or style, or that stands as a reminder from something in your past, evoking a memory, and write about it.

I ran a similar prompt eighteen months ago. It turned out to be one of my favourite workshops, and Moixx’s especially lovely workshop post from last week over at The Pretty Good Life, in which she used her old shoes to explore her journey to contentment, reminded me of it.

But this time you’re not limited to shoes: hats, coats, a pair of slippers, a piece of jewellery, an old faded, stretched t-shirt. ANYTHING.

Take a photo of it if you like, to help your writing, or just describe it with words.

Don’t like that idea?

Perhaps pick a piece of clothing that best sums up someone that you love or once loved that you can use to tell us something about them. Or maybe you don’t feel like you own anything that really represents you – find a picture of someone or something that you feel sums you up and tell us why. Or do the opposite! What do you own that is so NOT you it makes you want to scream? Perhaps you were bought it as a gift or it’s from a ‘previous you’. Write about that instead! If you would rather write fiction then you could use clothes as a way of creating a character – what can you tell us about who they are through a description of what their wearing?

Now…

Enjoy!

Badge Code

Note: I’m told Blogger does something a bit funny with the code so you’ll need to copy and paste it and then retype the quotation marks (“) as Blogger changes them for some reason.

The Writing Workshop Returns

Josie — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 06:15:00 +0000

So, I had a good loooong break. I fell apart, I put myself together again, I fell apart some more (apply, rinse, repeat) and somewhere along the line I seem to have managed to reassemble myself into a vaguely functioning human being again, at least for the time being, anyway.

It’s time to pick up some old threads, and some new ones too, and get going again.

And you know what that means? Yep, the Writing Workshop is BACK. Thank you for being so patient. I doubt we’ll have loads taking part any more, but I kind of like that, actually. And for those of you that said how much you missed it and encouraged me to come back to it when I was ready, thank you.

I’m going to go back to posting writing/blogging prompts every fortnight on a Monday. It will vary each week – sometimes I might just give you one theme, or question to get you thinking, other weeks we might do something slightly different, not sure yet.

I’ve decided to give you the weekend this time (for me more than anything as that’s when I get my writing time!), so prompts will be up one Monday, link-up the next Monday, new prompts the week after and so forth. Are you with me?

For anyone unfamiliar with my Writing Workshop, have a read all about it and browse old workshops here, or if you’re an old hand at this you can skip straight to the prompts. (NB: By the way, did you know I have been running this on and off for nearly three years?! Wowsa).

Prompts

This week I’m giving you three words taken from my recent blogs. They are:

1. Contentment

Ideas: Write amount a moment of bliss, the last one you remember or something that does/would symbolise contentment for you. Think about what makes you happy. What is the bare minimum you need to feel content in life, do you think?

2. Courage

Ideas: Write about something that scares you. In which areas of your life do you wish you were braver? Write about an experience of courage, or lack of it. Fear is often a good indicator of when something is important to us, telling us to pay attention – what does you fear tell you about yourself? Design yourself a talisman to give you courage and write about it. What would make you feel brave?

3. Permission

Ideas: Write a letter to yourself giving yourself permission to do something, or not do something – think of it like a permission letter at school, if you like. What do you wish you felt freer to do? What holds you back? Write about freedom, or lack of it. Write about constraints or guilt.

Now…

Enjoy!

Badge Code

Note: I’m told Blogger does something a bit funny with the code so you’ll need to copy and paste it and then retype the quotation marks (“) as Blogger changes them for some reason.

Writing Workshop: I Believe

Josie — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 07:28:26 +0000

Now it’s your turn. What beliefs have you been writing about this week?

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the Linky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) If you have the time it would be great if you could try and show your support to other participants by reading and commenting on at least two other entries.

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve got another whole week to take part and enter your link so there’s plenty of time. Don’t forget that anyone can take part! Our next workshop will be in two week’s time, so I hope to see you back soon.

Writing Workshop Prompts: I believe

Josie — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:58:16 +0000

Hello from me. It seems to be Monday again, fancy that.

Right then. I am a big fan of separating out the idea of ‘religion’ from ‘belief’. All of us, no matter how religious we profess to be, live our lives according to our own set of personal beliefs, be they within a moral framework, or some kind of spiritual one, or even beliefs based on scientific reasoning.

This week I want to learn about YOUR beliefs, and how they affect your life. This is not about preaching, though, this is about sharing. Your blog, your space, your opinion – remember, when reading and commenting, that you don’t have to agree with someone in order to still be constructive and supportive. Judgement-free zone, okay? Just expression.

Here’s some prompts to get you thinking:

1. Tell me about a time where your beliefs affected a decision.

2. How have your belief systems changed through your lifetime? How do they compare to when you were a child? What new beliefs have you discovered? What old ones have you let go of, and why?

3. Write a simple statement laying out the beliefs you hold to be important, your own personal creed.

4. How do your beliefs compare to other significant people in your life? Have they ever caused conflict, or brought unity? What affect do they have on your relationship?

5. Beliefs don’t have to be limited to just a life-view. Pick something more specific. Write about your beliefs on parenting, or writing, or art, or nature, or cooking, or something else! (However, anyone writing another ‘beliefs about blogging’ post will get a sharp kick to the ankles… )

For any newcomers to our Workshop, here’s how it works: each workshop I’ll give you a bunch of writing/blogging prompts, something to get you thinking. How you respond to them is entirely up to – there are absolutely no rules and it is open to anyone who’d like to take part. The aim is to provide you with a touch of inspiration and an opportunity for expression, to help you make some connections you might otherwise not have discovered and create something unique and personal. You can write about real-life experiences or try your hand at some fiction, express yourself through stream-of-concious writing, or have a go at at writing in some form of poetry. Be creative, be brave, be honest. Those are the only provisos.

And remember! We’re not looking for perfection here! Just have a go! The best way to get better at writing is PRACTISE. All the best writers aren’t afraid to write badly. So turn your inner-critic off for a while and just see what words come out.

Now here’s what you have to do. Decide how you’d like to respond, write your post and publish it on your blog between now and THURSDAY. On Thursday come back and use the widget that will be up to paste in the URL of your post to share. Then take some time to read some of the other entries and leave some comment love! We’re not here to critique – just to have fun and support each other in our writing experiments. So be kind please. Anyone who would like to submit something via email, or even anonymously will be more than welcome to do so. I’ll post them on the site here and include the link in Thursday’s round-up.

Enjoy x

Workshop Badge Code:

Writing Workshop: Pull and Stretch

Josie — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 07:30:06 +0000

Bloggers! Before I introduce the workshop today, I wanted to use this opportunity to announce the exciting writers’ news I promised on Monday. It is an absolute pleasure to reveal details of Save The Children’s very first blogging conference on February 26th – a unique opportunity for people who, like me, love writing. Participation is open to bloggers from all walks of life with workshop sessions running all day. I will be there speaking at one of them, and, most excitingly, best-selling author Melvin Burgess will be presenting our key-note session.

Even better, Melvin will be running a special master-class with eight lucky bloggers, giving you an exclusive chance to learn some writing tips from one of the UK’s top authors.

To find out how to register your interest, and how to apply to win a place at Melvin’s master class, just click through here to find out more. Places at the conference are limited so act fast! I really hope to see lots of you there.

Now, time for our workshop… this week we’ve been going on a word hunt, using the words we see around us to inspire our writing.

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I can never quite get my head round the concept of the human heart. Sure, I get the biology bit, gleefully dissecting a pig’s heart at school to look in fascination at the muscular walls, arteries and ventricles, my hand against my chest to feel it thump, thumping away, something it has done, without pause, since not long after I was conceived.

What I don’t get is how there is obviously more to it than just gristle and blood. It seems to feel, this heart of ours, to have some kind of tie to our emotional self. I guess we don’t really know exactly how it came to be associated with love, but anyone that loves, or has loved, will know well that feeling, that swell, that tight pressure that we feel there, when love brings us joy, or brings us pain. There’s even a recognised medical condition called ‘broken heart syndrome’, where extreme grief and stress has been seen to lead to an actual, physical weakening of the heart muscle. Love really can HURT.

I have had a strange visual image of love lately, that of long lengths of elastic with tight clamps on each end, that join us, heart to heart, to those we care about. Sometimes the intensity of that love means that the elastic can never be short enough, pulling us closer and closer until we think we might die if we are not together. Other times it is long, stretchy, allowing us weeks or even years of separate exploration before it’s time to pull together again, yet still holding strong, still maintaining a connection. Other times what felt like the strongest elastic in the world, gradually frays and pulls until it disintegrates and we have to let somebody go. And sometimes, the worst times, it is wrenched from us, leaving a hole so deep it feels like it will bleed forever.

When Kai was born, he clamped down on my heart with a grip that would not let go, that will never let go. There was a fusing. It wasn’t instantaneous, and the process carried with it its own pain and adjustment as I learnt to get used to my new tether, and one belonging to a fiercely needy little boy that sometimes seemed to need more love that I had to give. To start with our ‘elastic’ was short, barely allowing for movement from arms or breast. Take Kai away from me, or me away from Kai, and quickly that stretch between us would start to hurt. I would feel it in my heart, that ache, that feeling of not-rightness, and Kai would scream and wail. It was physical, and it was exhausting, and it was overwhelming, but it would not be denied.

I think my entire journey as a parent since, and Kai’s journey from babyhood to toddlerhood, as been a process of pull and stretch. Little by little, I have had to learn how to encourage Kai to pull away a little, to stretch that bond. In fact, that’s something we’ve both had to learn, as I have had to learn to let go, too. At times we’ve pulled too hard and sprang back together painfully, but gradually, we’ve learnt to move further apart while still staying connected. Never before have we had to do so as much as we have had to in the last few months. I have had to learn to let him go, for my own sanity, and to encourage his independence, and to facilitate his relationship with his Dad, which is so important to me for Kai’s sake. And Kai has had to learn to rely on his other connections, his other heart-bonds, and to develop the confidence to stand alone sometimes. The separation of our family, the start of nursery for Kai, work trips away, have all meant a great deal of stretching, and it has been painful sometimes, infinitely so.

But the pride I felt yesterday morning, as I watched my beautiful, sensitive, needy boy, bravely walk into his nursery class, with bottom-lip trembling and eyes wet, his favourite toy clutched very firmly as he let go of me without a fight for the first time and wave goodbye… it made my heart ache in the good way, the way that makes the painful bits worth it one hundred times over. I felt that pull and stretch again, but it didn’t hurt, it just reminded me he was there, and made me so thankful that I got to be the one that loved him and watch him grow.

Love DOES hurt. But, God, is it worth it.

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Now it’s your turn. Have you spotted a good word or phrase this week?

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) If you have the time it would be great if you could try and show your support to other participants by reading and commenting on at least two other entries.

Writing Workshop Prompts – We’re going on a word hunt…

Josie — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:56:44 +0000

Hello you lot.

Ready for another Writing Workshop? I’ve got a bit of a challenge for you today. You might remember that a couple of months back I posted a set of workshop prompts based on words I had noticed whilst walking round Glasgow and photographed. It was a really popular one, so I thought we’d do something similar this time.

THIS time, though, I want YOU to find the words. Over the next few days, keep your eye open at the innocous words around you, that you might pass every day but not notice: on billboards, in shop windows, headlines in papers, graffitti, maybe a picture or book jacket or ANYTHING. Let yourself notice them, and if one word, or a short phrase particularly speaks to you, or challenges you, then make a note of it, or even better, snap a picture, and use it to inspire a blog post this week (and if you’re not sure what I mean, come and have a look at the original post to see some examples.)

For any newcomers to our Workshop, here’s how it works: each workshop I’ll give you a bunch of writing/blogging prompts, something to get you thinking. How you respond to them is entirely up to – there are absolutely no rules and it is open to anyone who’d like to take part. The aim is to provide you with a touch of inspiration and an opportunity for expression, to help you make some connections you might otherwise not have discovered and create something unique and personal. You can write about real-life experiences or try your hand at some fiction, express yourself through stream-of-concious writing, or have a go at at writing in some form poetry. Be creative, be brave, be honest. Those are the only provisos.

Best of luck! I can’t wait to see what words you can find.

Workshop Badge Code:

I Love SpoiltPig!

Josie — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 07:30:34 +0000

Hello. Happy Friday.

I’m quite excited this morning to be launching a new regular feature here on Sleep is for the Weak. Each week or so, I’m hoping to introduce you to a range of artists, designers and small businesses that I think are especially worthy of support and promotion as a way of celebrating and showcasing their work, particularly in the fields of arts and crafts of which I’m so fond,

Today I’m starting the ball rolling with the delightful SpoiltPig Jewellery, whose designer and creator Addison St. Louis, I bumped into at a craft show in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago and whose stunning range of funky and eclectic hand-crafted jewellery really caught my eye (as did her hair! This girl rocks!)

Addison has a distinctive style that is grungy, punky, bold, retro, vintagey heaven. From chunky, hand-illustrated resin necklaces, to sweet broaches and bracelets, often one-of-a-kind creations, I just love love love it.

Take a look… (and click for a proper nosey)

All of the above and more are available via I Love SpoiltPig.com and Addison’s online shop and range between a very reasonable £5 and £20 making ideal stocking fillers so go get clicking and shopping. That’s an order.

However, that’s not the only way you can get your hands on one of Addison’s designs. Very generously Addison is also offering free surprise presents of jewellery to anyone making donations to Oxfam via her Virgin Money Giving page, an endeavour that was featured yesterday on Virgin Money Giving’s own blog and that you can read more about here.

AND that’s not all. Addison is kindly giving away this beautiful red heart resin necklace to one reader of my blog! Isn’t it lovely?!

All you have to do is leave me a comment and for an extra entry follow @ilovespoiltpig on Twitter and tweet about the competition using the hashtag #ilovespoiltpig so I can find your tweet. The winner will be drawn at random next Wednesday 15th December so you can receive your prize before Christmas. UK residents only please.

Very best of luck to Addison in continuing to develop her business. Remember you saw her here first folks!

- All images courtesy of I Love Spoilt Pig.com

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If you’re an artist or a designer or own a small business offering unique and interesting products and would be interested in me having me feature your work here in return for a small giveaway or discount for my readers, I would love to hear from you. Just use the contact form here.