Pre-Centrum Silent Writing Retreat: Photos

Guess where I am... 

It's not hard to guess. I'm in Port Townsend for my annual pilgrimage to the Port Townsend Writers Conference.

The official conference starts Sunday, but it's my habit to go up the Thursday before for a personal writing retreat, something I refer to as a silent retreat because I limit my interaction with other people during that time.

It's one way I unwind before the intensity of the writing conference hits. I think of it as doing yoga in order to achieve meditation. The former, after all, exists to prepare for the latter.

What's the plan?

My goals are fairly simple this year. I didn't sign up for a daily workshop this year, opting for the "residency" option instead.

I'll spend this weekend writing drafts to complete a poetry chapbook I'm working on (I've already written one poem, just this morning, and have six left, which my goal to complete all of them to draft level by Sunday night).

Once Monday morning hits, I will switch gears and launch into a project I started at last year's conference: generating new work toward a book of creative nonfiction, personal essays, and experimental forms addressing the topic of my dream life. My writing schedule will consume all of my mornings and a few of my afternoons. If I am an early riser, I might pop in for a few early AM free writes.

Meanwhile, I'm reading Ursula K. LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven and have other books on my Kindle that discuss the science of dreams that I can read for inspiration.

Where I'm staying

Those of you who follow me know that I normally take my 25-foot travel trailer up the conference and opt for a camping experience at Fort Worden rather than a dorm-life experience.

I love doing this because it affords me a nightly (and daily morning) campfire and the opportunity to cook for myself. I like being close to the beach and appreciate the fresh air and laid-back vibe of the campground.

However, this year I have split my 10 days into a 3-day silent retreat at a local Victorian hotel followed by 7 days in the Fort dorms (like everyone else).

Over the last year, Fort Worden switched their campground reservation system to the state parks utility. They did not open up reservations to the park until March, and by the time I was able to register, the entire campground was booked!

I'm a bit sad to miss out on my campfires and home-cooked meals, but much of what I value at the conference exists in the people I enter while I'm there: the hard-core regulars who have become a kind of second family to me, and the brand-new seekers who bring new ideas and energy to the event.

Even if I'm only attending as a resident (meaning, no morning classes), I will be taking 3 afternoon mini classes, attending the evening readings, the post-reading open mics at the 262, and will take all my meals at the Commons... all great opportunities to catch up with old friends and make new ones.

The pictures above illustrate the magical place I'm inhabiting this weekend pre-conference.

Time to decompress!

The weather is perfect: 70s with a cool breeze, sunny, great for sleeping, walking, writing, and decompressing.

There will be a luxurious lavender bath salts soak tonight, home-cooked breakfast and lettuce wraps for dinner (I picked the kitchenette-equipped suite for this reason), a fresh pedicure, and a downtown walkabout so I can visit my favorite Port Townsend haunts. Usually the walkabout includes a trek through the bookstores, a couple of galleries I favor, the bead store, the candy and ice cream shops, and the general store, where I always find a great pair of new shoes.

I have reserved a week from today for a possible trek up to the Sequim Lavender Festival, should I feel like I've made the most productive use of my week. I'm also thinking about a Starlight Room reward for later next week, for the same reason.

But only as long as I don't miss the Whiskey and Pie Night next week, which has become a regular social feature of the conference, thanks to the clever creativity of organizer Sam Ligon and author Kate Lebo. Nor will I miss any wiffle ball pickup games with Jordan Hartt, Philip Shaw and the rest of the bleacher bums!

Before I go... my latest news 

I'm happy to report that The Broken City has accepted my poem, "On the Day After Gary Ridgway's 48 Confessions," for reprint in their upcoming "Death" themed issue.

I continue to write daily for 5 different publishers (SleepyHeadCENTRAL, the American Sleep Apnea Association, Health Union, BioNews Services, and the American Association of Sleep Technologists, and this makes me super happy.

I've also launched a literary series for SleepyHeadCENTRAL called "Vitamin Zzz" which focuses on sleep-related poetry and short prose which you might want to check out (here).

For now, it's sayonara. I've got some words to write and some time to fill with silence. Happy Summer!

~Tamara

It's here! SOMETHING ON OUR MINDS, an anthology to benefit MS research, awareness and advocacy

It's out! The third edition of SOMETHING ON OUR MINDS: An Anthology to Benefit the Accelerated Cure Project. 

I have two pieces included in this anthology: "Ouroboros" and "The Broken." I wrote both of these in spring 2015 (the first at the spring YAWP at Centrum following a freewrite launched by Maya Jewell Zeller, the second at a Kahini.org writing clinic hosted by Jordan Hartt and Dawn Pichon Barron). 

I couldn't be more proud to be a contributor and hope you will consider buying a copy to show your support. 

NOTE: If you have a person with MS in your life, this would make a great holiday gift for them! Real people with MS sharing real stories of their journeys is one of the best ways I've found to help me process my own MS experience. What I've learned has inspired and empowered me to keep fighting. People with MS may feel isolated, but WE ARE NOT ALONE. 

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From the anthology publishers' mission statement: 

"We Write For The Fight is an online self-help group founded by Tracy A. Todd. This community welcomes authors and poets with varying degrees of experience and together we share our words to advocate, inform and increase awareness for and about the global MS population.

"This dynamic group has published two volumes of Something On Our Minds and our journey continues with Volume III. Something On Our Minds is a collection of writings from ordinary people living with an extraordinary neurologic disease—Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Multiple sclerosis affects each person differently—the unique course of the disease also creates different reactions and responses.

"The written word is a therapeutic tool for many who fight MS. Whether the writer intends to make peace or is protesting the constant presence of living with a chronic disease, the words and thoughts in this anthology are their own. The contributors are a part of the estimated 2.5 million individuals globally living with MS.

"Read their stories, enjoy their poems and get a glimpse into this world of diverse responses to living with an immune-mediated disease, which has no known cure.

"All proceeds from Something On Our Minds, Volume III, are donated to the Accelerated Cure Project, a non-profit organization committed to finding a cure for MS."

[#AMWRITING] 11 poems in 15 hours

Late Saturday Night, my own personal writing workshop 

Last weekend I spent Thursday night through midday Sunday at the autumn #YAWP event at Port Townsend where a couple dozen writers gathered to work out their muscles on morning freewrites, then head for their writing spaces to keep the action going. Some were there for NaNoWriMo, others were brainstorming the orders of poems in chapbooks, still others were just throwing themselves to the writerly winds like the leaves tossed around in the fall bluster.

Getting prepped for the weekend
with a pot of buffalo chili,
a campfire and stars

I went in with a plan to write an abecedarian chapbook, 26 poems linked by the alphabet and a singular theme (which I won't reveal right now). Thursday night I spent in front of the campfire (every time I head up to Port Townsend these days, I stay in my camping trailer rather than the facilities at Fort Worden, where I can cook, have campfires, etc.).

The night was clear and crisp, stars burning overhead... a great opportunity to cook buffalo chili on the outside burner (my trailer has a second tailgate kitchen outside), then sit and warm my shins in front of smoky, glimmering coals and flames. Afterward, I read.

On Friday, I took part in the freewrites from ten to noon and blasted out some fresh material previously lost to memory, about a funeral, plus new massaging of the idea of campfires, coals and Icarus (hmmm, what could have inspired that?) as well as an incredible launch into remembrances that will fuel future writing projects (thank you, Rebecca Brown!).

I had worldly work to do on Friday--launching my weekly curation of sleep news--and found a cozy tea house, Pippa's, in downtown Port Townsend to web-connect and got that done. Their iced Lady Grey Tea is fabulous, by the way.

Afterward I came back and wrote two brand-new poems toward the abecedarian in just about two hours (I also spent about thirty minutes of that time wrangling with the architecture of the book).

Then I was off to dinner and a reading with my literary sister from another mister, Kristy Webster, who launched her first short story collection, The Gift of an Imaginary Girl, at Imprint Books. So many great stories, ideas, people... afterward, I came back and wrote three more poems (C, D and E) in the space of two hours. Creative energy is sustaining like that.

And I read some more. Brain on Fire, in case you're wondering. The title, at least, seems apropo in hindsight.

No recipe, just a good pot, fresh
food and a will to live. 

Saturday rolled around and I felt compelled to keep on this sprint of new poem creation, so I skipped the morning freewrites (certainly an acceptable practice at the YAWP, which is ultimately all about writers writing however they must) and pinched out four more poems while a pot roast with carrots, thyme, onions, mushrooms and parsnips simmered on the inside burner.

At dinner hour, I took a break, indulged in pot roast, mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy, then realized I had yet to even shower.

Meanwhile, another reading was slated to take place that night in downtown Port Townsend, featuring my brother from another mother, Jordan Hartt as he launched his new book of poems, Leap.

Jordan, I'm holding
out for my signed
copy!

Ack! What to do? Shower and arrive late or go with the flow that Jordan opens up for all of us during these YAWP weekends: to write, then write some more.

I chose pajamas. I wrote some more, and poems J and K were born before my neurologically challenged brain showed me the brick wall two hours later. I switched up only slightly and went to bed, and read some more.

Next morning, I ate and showered, then discovered that one of my poems, poem F, was actually a poem within a poem, so I liberated poem R into being and added new layers to poem K. Two more hours passed and then it was time to go, no farewell breakfast, no friendly waves or honks to my cohorts. The drive home was quiet and beautiful, fall gold against a rain-washed blue sky, and the mountains were laced in new snow.

Just now, I re-read what I wrote this weekend and encountered the same feeling I often experience after an immersive period of write: a mixture of Wow, of "I don't remember even writing that!", of my tinkering brain already shaping a revision strategy (a good thing), and noticing the new ideas already taking residence in the pages I'd reserved for them, anticipating their eventual visit.

I am not sure if the gang at the YAWP made it back to House 259 for their evening share following Jordan's reading on Saturday night, but I think they will forgive me knowing I was writing and reading and doing the things that YAWP permits.


Still, I missed out on hugs and words with so many fine people, like Bonnie and Tom and D.D. and Diana, Charisse and Rebecca, Christine and Grace (who I actually did see at the Safeway on Friday night when I stopped in for a post-reading slice of pumpkin pie) and many more.

Thank you to my family of muses again for an incredibly productive weekend; you may not have seen much of me but your energy launched me yet again, for which I'm forever grateful.