Making Soup....

Guess what, I've started (yesterday) a writing course, called "Making Soup" which I hope will help me to gather my wits, along with all the other stuff that's cluttering up my life, and write it all down. The metaphor of making soup is a very good one - the inspiration of the Course Leader, as she explained that we will all be following this process, metaphorically, over the next 6 weeks, and will progress through all the preparation stages up to the finished "soup". And  if we're lucky (or simply determined enough) in the process we will have made progress towards some kind of written Memoir, Autobiography or Life Story. There are six of us in the Course, and as far as I can see, we represent six totally different, and equally interesting, points of view on what we each, individually, want to achieve.

    For me, getting the raw material into some kind of order will be a major triumph, and will allow me to finally part with all the old pieces of paper etc, that have been weighing me down (and filling my so-called "Study")  for the last many years. Yesterday we did our first writing excercise, which included practising some Morning Pages (something I have tried before, courtesy of Julia Cameron in "The Artist's Way") and then an exercise in imagination. What totally took me by surprise was the way in which my subconcious mind fastened onto a vivid picture from my past, an actual experience from many years ago (before my children were born), which had so much significance when I looked at it in the light of now, today, and how my life has been influenced by those long-buried (or so I thought) experiences. What a clever exercise. I don't know if our Course Leader expected the results she got - and we all had to read out our writing - but I was terribly impressed. Of course I can't speak for my fellow students, but our Leader is certainly expert in her field (or cup'o'soup) and I imagine she coaxed similar results, and feelings from the others. Anyway, it was a very encouraging start and I was inspired to continue yesterday evening and to write some more Morning Pages today. And even as I write this, my dear old Blog, the influence is continuing. Let's hope it will carry on. For the moment, I'm aiming for some kind of Family History.. I think.. more later...