I Can See Clearly Now

 
Not too long ago, I took a workshop at the Playwrights Foundation offered by playwright/poet/shaman Octavio Solis. He employed a technique of working with images to inspire subconscious and poetic connections in our writing. The images had seemingly nothing at all to do with the plays we were each working on, but he had us approach the visuals in a meditative frame of mind. By immersing ourselves in the details and nuances of the imagery he presented, our inner minds began making connections between the narrative suggested by the random visuals, and the story we were trying to articulate in our current writing projects. I found that Octavio's technique amplified the poetic elements in my own writing.

So, use these images in a similar way. Let your mind sit with one of them for a few moments and allow whatever stories begin to emerge, whatever memories that may be triggered, to simply unfold on their own, then see if there are ways you can layer the new material into your writing.

Every day a new image is posted on our home page. This is an archive of what has been presented in the past. Use them as you wish, but our experience has been that exploring the viuals one at a time, and going as deeply as possible into the associations embedded in that one image, is more beneficial than skimming over a bunch of images.

Your stories are trying to lead you somewhere. Nourish them with some unexpected material, such as you may discover in this archive, then find out where they want you to go.

DECEMBER

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