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Today, you will write.
Today’s newsletter has been generously created by the incredibly talented author Lucie Ponsford.
Find her instagram here.
Today, you will immerse yourself in nature, the nature of your words, the nature of rhyme and pattern and the nature of the world, which we are a pure and honest reflection of.
You will observe and consider the ripples in sentences, the rhythm in the worlds themselves, and the beating heart of the piece you are writing—the looping, rambling journey of the path carved over a landscape considered by writers for all time but always changing.
Writing about nature is one thing, but writing as nature is what we all do intuitively. If we consider this a premise, we can take the reader on an evolving, intimate, deep and visceral story wave, a repetitive ripple and a loose lead meander through themselves and their nature; through the great everything.
— Lucie Ponsford
See you tomorrow x
— Loren @ Paperbacks & Co.
Today’s Writing Prompts
Writing Prompt #1 – Sit in nature and be quiet for as long as it takes for your mind to calm and for you to hear the world. Let the words swim, float on the breeze, or wrap tendrils around you and root you to the spot. Feel your part in and the drama of it, and let it influence your writing. Write without editing until you are done.
Writing Prompt #2 – Consider writing a short piece where a theme oscillates like ripples from hot-cold, pull-push. Sell that rhythm as a metaphor or colour, in the movement of hands, or the repeating motif of a smile (lips) grimace.
Writing Prompt #3 – In a larger piece of writing, consider detail or identify the wave, with its rise and fall and tipping point, in your story. Consider the sea. Is it calm or in the eye of the storm? Consider the building curve, the high point, the cusp of the wave, the tipping point, the retraction, the fall, the foam and froth, and that repetition. Considering the nature of motion, it continues again and again till it meets the sand, then draws back to the deep abyss: whole.
Use the artwork at the beginning of this newsletter as a visual prompt to inspire some writing – whether a personal essay, or fictional short story, or poem…
An Interview with Author Lucie Ponsford
What is your favourite book about writing that you would recommend to other writers?
I am currently reading Jane Alison. She has entirely influenced my thinking for these prompts and passages and mirrors this exploration of the nature of writing and the detailing of the delicious world we inhabit. With my feminist credentials, I adore her paragraph from Meander, Spiral Explode:
If you ask google how to structure your story, your face will be hammered with pictures of arcs. And it is an elegant shape, especially when I translate arc into it's natural form the wave. [ ] But something that swells to climax, then collapses? Bit masco-sexual, no?
Where is your ideal place to write?
In nature, in the garden, in a wood, near the foot of mountains! I've not written on the mountain peak yet (but there's a thought!) I also memo continuously on my walks and then use Turboscribe (a free app) and get a full transcript which I edit (it remarkably removes me shouting/ giving directives to Margot as she tries to catch a pheasant or trust for a hidden hole in the undergrowth to go rabbiting!)
What makes a good story in your eyes? Narrative arc? Nuanced characters? Voice?
I love repeating patterns in place, character, and voice. I want to hear the rustling of leaves in a hanging silent moment and the passage of progress in the wider world, whatever the drama. I adore seeing the character as the earth and then the environment and place through personification. Even when I didn't know I was nature, I loved these things.
🥳 Celebrating Our Wins 🎉
Did you get some writing done today? Why not share your progress in the comments?!
Link to your blog post, share your word count, or even just jump in with a little text celebration…
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