Writing Workshop Link-up | Sleep is for the Weak

Writing Workshop: I Believe

Posted by Josie on Feb 24, 2011 in Creative Writing, Me, Photography, Writing, Writing Workshop | 20 comments

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 in association with ActionAid: Giving

Posted by Josie on Jan 13, 2011 in Charity Organisations and Awareness Raising, Creative Writing, Save the Children, Writing, Writing Workshop | 7 comments

I can’t give you much money.
Not enough.
I wish I could.
While rich businesses sit on unpaid taxes,
while fat cats grow fatter on bonuses obscene
in their self-serving blind greed
I have to find another way.

But anger sits underneath my giving,
like a renewable, news-ignited fuel cell,
pushing me to act, moving limbs and heart and head.

It’s the eyes I remember. Dark eyes, staring under heavy, tired lids.
Tired by life, and by grief, and by that palpable confusion
of why me? Why not you?
It’s to you I speak, to you I give.

I give you my hands.
I give you all they can do.
I give you the pictures I take of you, the stories they tell,
the unsquashable joy that flares from your playing children
like a bright aluminium burn.
Their smiles. Your tears.

I give you my voice, grown louder lately,
not yet that sure of what to say, but finding ground
in which to plant seeds that might grow,
if only little ones, little sprouts,
the colour of rice paddies and blue skies.
The colour of rubbish piles and thick, dark mud.
The colour of justice, and solutions so simple you could scream,
and deep, hard graft.

I give you my dreams.
Nights of vivid, haunting recollection.
I give you my feet that wander again
the halls of crowded, filth-ridden hospitals
as I wonder which child here will die first.

And

And I give you my hope.
My heart swelling joy at watching
SOMETHING WORK!
Watching rebuilding, healing, awe-inspiring
CHANGE.
My pride, my excitement, my passion caught
like a killer-disease that turns out to be preventable
with just pennies,
pennies that make my pockets feel not quite that empty after all
or quite so ineffective.

I give you my eyes, my inspired, open eyes,
meeting yours as we stand face to face,
wet with shared grief and pain
but with new vision, new inspiration.

I give you it all.

I give you my words.

Photo is mine from my trip to Bangladesh with Save the Children last year, which you can watch a video about here and see lots more photos of here.

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This post was written for this week’s Writing Workshop. Our theme was GIVING, helping to promote and raise awareness for ActionAid‘s latest campaign and you can read more about the prompts and how to take part in the Workshop here.

And don’t forget that you’re all invited to ActionAid’s Happy Bubble event in London on Monday!

Now it’s your turn. Have you got a post to share about Giving and how it makes you feel?

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.

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. Our next workshop will be in two week’s time, so I hope to see you back soon.

Many thanks, from me and from ActionAid, for taking part.

Photo is mine from my trip to Bangladesh with Save the Children last year, which you can watch a video about here and see lots more photos of here.

Writing Workshop: The girl with faith in her hands

Posted by Josie on Dec 16, 2010 in Me, Writing, Writing Workshop | 15 comments

My childhood self sits, bum balanced on the kneeler in front of the pew on which her mother sits, wriggly brother on lap, as she listens to the voice of her father from the front of the church.

In her careful, cupped hands sits the round orange of her Christingle, which she had helped the women of the church assemble that afternoon, one of hundreds, one for everyone, her tummy full of sultanas and raisins that she had spent the time popping into her mouth when no-one was looking. Her nose is filled with the smell of hot wax and the sharp tang of citrus as she watches the flame burn and flicker. Her father’s voice tells what each symbol represents: the orange is the world, red ribbon the blood of Jesus and others that she now forgets. But she doesn’t hear, doesn’t need to, the meanings as familiar, then, to her as the grainy wood of the church pew and the rough, worn fabric of the hymn books, more lost in the candle’s burn, for there seems to be some meaning in that, though she can’t fathom it.

She is six or seven. Utterly safe. Utterly loved. Her world is as certain and steadfast as her father’s confident sermon. That’s what faith is, I guess.

There aren’t many times where I miss the religious aspects of my upbringing. As someone that can find meaning in a dirty puddle these days, or the way the trees move, I never feel like I ‘need’ to believe in a specific religious teaching. Well, it’s more fundamental that, less that I need to believe, more that I just don’t. I’m quite happy enough feeling my way on my own and enormously grateful for the freedom and the sense of peace shaking off most of childhood beliefs has brought me. But as the daughter of a Baptist Minister, my dad later becoming a lay reader in a busy Anglican church, religion has always been something very firmly entrenched in my experience and in my memory.

Christmas is the one time I miss it. I almost ache with it. It’s not a spiritual longing, more a deep-set nostalgia, but I find myself drawn to the churches and the choirs, the candle-lit vigils and the nativity scenes. It makes me feel like a child again. Yes, I think that’s what it is. It makes me feel safe, held in a familiar blanket where everything is certain and predictable, where the sheep always follow the shepherds down the aisle to be placed in the straw filled stable, where you primary concern is whether or not you’ll be chosen to carry one, maybe even one of the more important ones, cradling the the tiny, swaddling-wrapped Jesus solemnly past the rows of the congregation to place him in the manger.

I almost wish I could believe again, maybe even just pretend, just to have that feeling back.

So this Christmas I have a feeling that a girl, now long grown, may be found sneaking back into churches to light a candle and listen to soar of the Christmas carols, her mouth still shaping the words, all of which she remembers. Not to believe, but just to remember.

Yes, I think I would like that a lot.

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This post was written for this week’s Writing Workshop, a mix of childhood remembering and traditions.

Now it’s your turn. What prompt did you chose?

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 read and comment on at least two other entries.

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got till Sunday to enter your link. Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.

Writing Workshop: Rocket Man

Posted by Josie on Dec 2, 2010 in Kai, Writing, Writing Workshop | 12 comments

He crouches low, with hands poised, counting down numbers in his head that he doesn’t yet know. Pursed lips start the rumble, louder louder. Until, it’s time. And pointed fingers lead the way to blast off, up and up, with feet following to shoot their way around the room to land on Planet Sofa or Meteorite Mum for brief refuelling, until it’s time to fly again.

He’s a Rocket Man,

no, a pirate…

…climbing his was to the top of his crow’s nest chair to stand with eyes curled round an invisible telescope, reporting back to the captain that there’s a DRAGON on the horizon, the captain who stands looking on with arms crossed and a rue smile at her ignored orders to sit and eat your dinner please. But there’s no time for that when monsters lurk,

cause he’s a Rocket Man,

no, a train…

…chuffing his way along lines in the pavements with locomotive arms circling round and round, picking up speed round corners and stopping for the red man signal with a high whistle, before green green means go go and we’re off again, head down, with his driver frantically steering him out the path of approaching freight-train mobility scooters and pushchairs. But he can’t stop, he has places to be,

cause he’s a Rocket Man,

no, a ROBOT…

… stiff arms and legs marching with squeaks and peeps and whistles loud. Until, of course, his power runs out and he slowly folds himself down, arms hanging limp, in need of an engineer to replace batteries and wind the crank on his back but who will make him wait, despite whispered robot mum mum mum until she’s finished this row and put her knitting needles down with a smile, wondering what she will find next in her living room – racing car, monster, postman, shop keeper, lion, helicopter…

cause he’s a Rocket Man,

stars in his eyes and the whole world in his sights.

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Now it’s your turn. What song or lyric did you use to inspire your writing this week?

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got till Sunday to enter your link! Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.