Continuing on with my life in drafts.

I have just started a new writing class, called Brief Bursts – all about flash non-fiction. Right up my alley, you could say. It is an online class put on by Firefly Creative Writing, a writing organization located in Toronto and so far it is amazing. This week we got to know each other and were introduced to the agreements and permissions we will be working with each other under. And then we launched into our first free writing activity.

After completing some sentences on our own, we were asked to choose one of our completed sentences, and then start writing, for 6 minutes, starting with “Let me tell you about…” We then were given another chunk of time to delete every other sentence in our first piece. Then asked, finally, to circle the words in our original piece that resonated with us. We were finally then asked to share one, two, or all three pieces (the first long one, the second shorted one, and the list of words). What an amazing activity, and just so weird the way for all of us, all three pieces made sense. Kind of going from prose to poetry using the same original work.

Anyway, I thought I would share what I wrote today. It’s silly and weird, but it was kind of fun.

The first, original, free-writing piece:

Let me tell you about why it’s important to be able to dance at work. Dance without reprisals, without weird looks, without jibes behind your back. If you can’t dance at work what is the point? No one in my life understands why it is important to dance at work, and maybe I can’t put it into words that make them understand. Being able to dance means there is joy; it is a reflection of the lightness you can feel even when working on a problem that seems insurmountable. Everyone should be able to take the time and dance, leave it all behind, turn up the music and invite others along for the ride. It’s been a long time since I felt able to, willing to, dance at work. My friend Judy and I used to dance at work, in our chairs, sometimes raising up and laughing; others thought we were crazy, but we didn’t care. Dancing at work keeps the nay-sayers, the bullies, the negative nellies at bay, and why should you care about any of them anyway? Take a breath, close your eyes, and let fly the fears and worries and anger and frustration and remember that all that angst is temporary. Nothing lasts, so when a song comes on that moves you to dance, do it.

The second, shorter piece where I deleted every other sentence:

Let me tell you about why it’s important to be able to dance at work. If you can’t dance at work what is the point? Being able to dance means there is joy; it is a reflection of the lightness you can feel even when working on a problem that seems insurmountable. It’s been a long time since I felt able to, willing to, dance at work. Dancing at work keeps the nay-sayers, the bullies, the negative nellies at bay, and why should you care about any of them anyway? Nothing lasts, so when a song comes on that moves you to dance, do it.

The words I picked out (this was the hardest for me):

Dance
Joy
Lightness
Insurmountable

This is an exercise I think I will practice a few times over the next couple of weeks before my next class.