{"id":9359,"date":"2022-09-30T13:09:25","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T13:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/impedagogy.com\/wp\/?p=9359"},"modified":"2022-09-30T13:09:25","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T13:09:25","slug":"pretend-vacation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/impedagogy.com\/wp\/blog\/2022\/09\/30\/pretend-vacation\/","title":{"rendered":"Pretend Vacation"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have begun an 8-week(?) autumn writing workshop sponsored by the National Writing Project’s Write Now Teacher Studio and the New York City Creative Writing Lab.\u00a0 We meet to write together and discuss once a week and we submit writing that we workshop\u00a0 with each other.\u00a0 Last night we began and the prompt was simple:\u00a0 tell me about a pretend vacation.<\/p>\n

Here was my jaggedy response.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI marked it up with a pink gel highlighter.\u00a0 The marks are attempts to save what Tiago Forte calls in his new book, Building a Second Brain, <\/strong><\/em>“finding the essence–distilling”.\u00a0 My usual path to creating is simple: gather and capture, make sense of, and share.\u00a0 Forte puts it a bit better: keep what resonates, save for acting upon, find the essence, and show your work.<\/p>\n

Here is what happened when I took the prompt and ran it through this mill.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here is a text version if by some happy chance you want comment in the margins using Hypothes.is. By the way this is all part of the injunction to show your work. If you are in a workshop, then you must show your work. Unfortunately, you can’t show how the editor shark that lives in your brain ocean does its thing. Too blood and silly dangerous.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where Did Spend Your Pretend Summer Vacation?<\/p>\n

READY?
\nACTION.<\/p>\n

I spent one summer as a river guide hustling folk down the Green River. Many of those I led were quadraplegic. One guide per folk. It was a couple of days of water and sun and sweet riffles and chutes, landing on gravel bars and camping overnight with driftwood fires and….<\/p>\n

CUT…
\nI am not pretending, am I?
\nI am just telling you a story
\nof what happened to me…
\na husk of memory,
\na “flat hull”,
\nsomething unsleekend.<\/p>\n

READY?
\nACTION.<\/p>\n

My summer vacation was spent
\ntrolling the world
\na poet casting into the stream,
\nI am the half-witted demiurge,
\nsilly dangerous…<\/p>\n

CUT…<\/p>\n

My vacation was spent
\nmaking ensoes,
\nperfect circles with hand ground ink and brush,
\neffing Zen as eff, y’all.
\nWriting…<\/p>\n

CUT…<\/p>\n

No, this is just a ditzy retread
\nof the cliched prompt that is
\nthe writing teacher’s racket
\nas the school year commences,
\n“What did you do on your pretend summer vacation?”<\/p>\n

CUT..<\/p>\n

What did I do? I don’t take vacations,
\nnot even staycations.
\nI write.
\nI farm.
\nI teach the present how to be the future
\nby turning over one rock after another.<\/p>\n

CUT…<\/p>\n

READY?
\nACTION.<\/p>\n

I had a pretend vacation this week,
\nwriting poems and making zines.
\nNo.
\nI won’t make you read or listen to them.
\nI will just pretend to read them to you
\nand you will just pretend
\nto listen
\nto them
\non your pretend vacation
\nwhere the ocean is vast
\nand full of screams.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have begun an 8-week(?) autumn writing workshop sponsored by the National Writing Project’s Write Now Teacher Studio and the New York City Creative Writing Lab.\u00a0 We meet to write together and discuss once a week and we submit writing that we workshop\u00a0 with each other.\u00a0 Last night we began and the prompt was simple:\u00a0
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