Tag: Storytelling

Categories
Creativity

Listening to Your Ghosts

by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts

For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him… — Plato

Ghosts, Muses, Inspiration, Universe, God. Call it what you will — there is another layer of this world that we live in, and if you can quiet your mind, sometimes, you can hear it and be inspired by it!

As I was finishing up the manuscript for Sleeping with Ghosts, my editor and I both agreed something was missing. While I loved the final poem “Missing Banksy,” its alluded message about impermanence wasn’t quite strong enough to hold up the end of the book. But what would? I had no idea!

When I get stuck like that and can’t find answers — about my writing or about life in general — I like to walk in the woods. It’s where I can settle my mind, slow down the busy-ness, and sometimes…sometimes…hear ghosts.

On this particular walk, I started out at the trailhead by asking the Universe to help me find a final poem, a final message for the book. Often, I can entice Inspiration with a request like that, and this time, it responded in the voice of my Dad.

It’s not the first time my Dad’s ghost has spoken to me. He told me to PAY ATTENTION on I-95 once and saved me from a pretty awful accident; he often shows up unexpectedly as a hawk with a call of I AM HERE; and he responded to my poem query with a series of questions that became the poem “The Final Ghost.”

But connecting with our ghosts can be challenging! There is so much noise in the world today — we’re busier than ever, more distracted by things, more seduced by technologies. There are so many things demanding our attention, how can we possibly hear Ghosts, listen to Muses, or tune into our Inspiration?

One of my all-time favorite movies is Contact with Jodi Foster. The scene I think about often is when she is in the portal pod that’s been reconfigured with an anchored chair and seat belt — things to keep her rooted in place as she travels across space through wormholes. But as she starts her journey, the chair and seat belt cause more harm than good. She may be OK to Go, but they keep her too firmly in place. It’s only when she releases what holds her down that she projects openly forward.

In the same way, listening to your Ghosts requires that you release what’s holding you back.

For Jodi Foster’s character Ellie Arroway, what was holding her back was physically obvious. For me, I know that my biggest obstacle is technology and how it eats up my time and siphons my attention span.

So, what gets in the way of listening to your Ghosts?

Just this weekend, I talked with a woman who told me in a whispered voice how she stopped listening to her Ghosts because it seemed a little scary. And I have a friend who is a phenomenal painter, but she often ignores her Inspiration because it feels too powerful, almost possibly un-godlike.

But the idea of listening to Ghosts or Inspiration or Muses reaches far back into human history.

Did you know that “the word inspiration ultimately derives from the Greek for ‘God-breathed’ or ‘divinely breathed into.’ In Greek myth, inspiration is a gift of the muses, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory).”

Similarly, “the Oxford English Dictionary defines inspiration as “a breathing in or infusion of some idea, purpose, etc. into the mind; the suggestion, awakening, or creation of some feeling or impulse, especially of an exalted kind.”

In his article “How to Find Inspiration, the Psychology and Philosophy of Inspiration,” writer and philosopher Neel Burton offers seven 7 simple strategies to encourage inspiration:

1. Wake up when your body tells you to.
2. Complete your dreams.
3. Eliminate distractions, especially the tedious ones.
4. Don’t try to rush or force things.
5. Be curious.
6. Break the routine.
7. Make a start.

I will add two more to that list:

8. Read Neel’s article (click here)

and…

9. Listen to your amazing, wonderful, chatty Ghosts.

You never know what they have to say or in what creative direction they might take you!

Photo by Ayşe İpek.

This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.

Categories
Creativity

The Importance of Storytelling

by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts

My mother, who is easily insulted, often remembers the time a therapist called her a storyteller. Mom recounts the comment as one might an injustice, and she twists and elongates the word “storyteller” to make it sound as painful as it felt for her.

What’s the old saying? The truth hurts.

That’s the funny thing about my mother’s story — she IS a storyteller. Long before neurodivergent was a word, my mother was making her way through life with the only tools she had, and one of those was storytelling. Often and on repeat. It’s how she relates to the world and people around her.

I have a friend whose mother was also a storyteller. She had a degree in drama, was in numerous theatrical productions, taught children how to act and perform, and went on to start a successful annual storytelling festival. She also found connection in telling stories.

The act of storytelling is as diverse as these two examples and includes four primary forms: oral, visual, written, and digital. Within each of those forms, there are a myriad of vehicles: books and magazines, visual arts, stage, radio, film, television, video, internet.

Consider all of the ways storytelling comes into your own life! It’s part of the fabric of who we are. Think about it! What would we be without our fairytales, folktales, fables, religions, and mythologies? We are built on story!

And quite literally. This is what social scientist Brené Brown, says about storytelling in her book Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.

“We are wired for story. In a culture of scarcity and perfectionism, there’s a surprisingly simple reason we want to own, integrate, and share our stories….We do this because we feel the most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories — it’s in our biology. The idea of storytelling has become ubiquitous. It’s a platform for everything from creative movements to marketing strategies. But the idea that we’re “wired for story” is more than a catchy phrase. Neuroeconomist Paul Zack has found that hearing a story — a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end — causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.”

Like my mother, I’m also a storyteller. I frequently use analogy and story not only to talk about my own experiences, but to say, “I understand yours, too. Let’s talk about it.” It was Brené Brown who gave me the courage to tell those stories on paper, and who inspired several of my books, including my new collection of poems, Sleeping with Ghosts.

That book, Rising Strong, still sits on my coffee table — dogeared and well-worn — as a reminder to be brave, to show up, and to keep telling my stories. The book ends with her “Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted,” which I’ll share with you here as inspiration for you to tell your own stories because what you have to say — no matter how you say it — is important!

Photo by Kool Shooters/Pexels. Brown, Brené. Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. United States: Random House Publishing Group, 2017.

This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.

Categories
Creativity

The Artwork of Sleeping with Ghosts

by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts

People often comment about the visual nature of my creative work, and how my writing is usually accompanied by photography or artwork.

As a graphic designer, artist, and writer, I firmly believe that partnering visuals and words layers the intentions of my work and makes the communication more palpable.

Two of my previous books, Look Up! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness and Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, were as much about the color photographs as they were about the essays and poems. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of the poems in Evidence of Flossing was inspired by a series of photographs I took showing discarded dental flossers in random places.

Odd, I know, but they spoke to the message — our disrespect of nature — in a necessary and immediate way. Sometimes writing takes a while to be absorbed, while images have a speedy hook!

LOOK: THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU! (Read More)

I love that the cover of my new book, Sleeping with Ghosts, does exactly that: it grabs your attention!

The cover photograph is by Polish artist Malgorzata Maj, who I connected with online back in 2015. (Yes, I’ve known the book’s title and have had that photo saved for nine years!)

Małgorzata is a contemporary painter and photographer known for her symbolic nighttime landscapes and ethereal portraits exploring the world of the Unknown. She graduated in 2004 (Olsztyn/Poland) with the title of Master in Arts. Influenced by 19th-century symbolism, her photographic works feature a bold painterly approach to the compositions she depicts. She has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and Europe, and published her works on numerous book covers and magazines. Today she mostly focuses on traditional media such as oil painting and continues to explore themes and ideas less accessible for photographic medium.

In a bit of happenstance, on her website, Malgorzata says she “explores haunted places, past memories, and hidden feelings and symbols,” which really is the essence of Sleeping with Ghosts.

“Photography has this unique quality of something real and intangible,” she says, “…something that I find difficult to speak about. It is the language of ghosts.”

For the cover, I accented Malgorzata’s photograph with a cluster of stardust that appears in several places within the book. It’s from a series of images in a Lunar Calendar collection by Lana Elanor that includes stars, moons, and constellations.

Elanor is an independent artist from Ukraine who now lives in Tulum, Mexico. She is “a meditative person passionate about art, travel, and the study of the conscious and unconscious mind.”

About her work she says, “I’ve loved creating art for as long as I can remember myself. Only beauty itself is a catalyst for the awakening of this world, so I’m totally in love with the concept to make this place more beautiful than it was when we got here.”

The illustrations that introduce each chapter, and entice the reader from the Table of Contents, are by Ukrainian artist Michael Rayback. I connected with Michael about his art in 2022, and we were both excited to include his work in my book. But Michael lives in Kyiv, and our last correspondence was several months after Russia invaded Ukraine.

I check his social media from time to time, to see if he is back online, but unfortunately, we have not reconnected. When I think of him, I remember this quote I saw on one of his sites:

“Art is self-expression, therefore all that you see here is a part of me. I know many languages of self-expression. I like drawing, I love photo art, cinema is one of the main parts of my life, I like cooking tasty and healthy food. I wake up at five in the morning to be alone and tune in for a new day, and the sun tells me that I’m doing everything right and inspires me to new creativity. I do yoga and meditate. All this helps me to explore myself, I learn something new every day, and every day I try to be a little better.”

Something we can all aspire to, right?

I do hope you appreciate the collaborative nature of Sleeping with Ghosts. Please visit these artists online and discover more of their work!

Malgorzata Maj (Mrągowo, Poland)
www.sarachmet.com

Lana Elanor (Tulum, Mexico)
www.etsy.com/shop/LanaElanor

Michael Rayback (Kyiv, Ukraine)
www.creativemarket.com/michaelrayback

Photos from each artist’s social media bios.

This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.

Categories
Creativity

Time to Write

by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts

Did you know that Picasso created more than 50,000 works of art, but only about 100 of those are considered masterpieces? That’s less than 1% of his work!

I think about that little fact every April, when I attempt to write a poem a month for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). There aren’t a lot of masterpieces, for sure, but a few have been published. So there’s that.

Of course, lots of folks will point out the averages — ONE percent?!? And you’ll never be at a loss for angsty advice about being a writer. Ernest Hemingway said “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Robert DeNiro considers a writer on a good day to be “isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination, consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing, and soul-crushing inadequacy.”

Oh my. Does it have to be that painful?

I’ve been privy to lots of conversations about writing lately. I don’t have time, they say, or my work isn’t good enough, I can’t stop editing, what will people think?

I like what writing guru Natalie Goldberg advises: “Say what you want to say. Don’t worry if it’s correct, polite, appropriate. Just let it rip.”

That’s the approach I go by every April — just write. I suppose it’s the approach I take all year long. Just do it, like Nike says.

Author Neil Gaiman suggests, “This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.”

Exactly, it’s that easy and that hard. I think it’s kind of like the lottery slogan: you can’t win if you don’t play. How are you ever going to write a masterpiece if you’re not writing all along?

Photo by Wallace Chuck.

This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.

Categories
Creativity

How to Read Like a Writer

by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts

Some of my all-time favorite books on writing are classics, like Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, Poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge, or Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. Those were the must-read books when I was coming of age as a writer.

I’ll be dating myself even further when I say that I much prefer Goldberg’s Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life to her popular Writing Down the Bones. I remember reading Wild Mind while sitting in an airport and feeling compelled — literally dragged to my feet — to go buy a notebook and pen so I could write right there.

That’s some powerful how-to magic.

That’s the kind of book you want in your TBR pile if you’re a writer in need of writerly guidance. Something that feels like magic!

One of my most dog-eared books is Brené Brown’s Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, which isn’t a how-to-write book at all. It’s a spellbinding get-out-of-your-comfort-zone-and-tell-your-story kind of book.

For a quick dose of that kind of brave magic, read any of The Moth compilations: Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible, A Point of Beauty: True Stories of Holding On and Letting Go, or All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown. Talk about how to tell a story. Wow!

For those of you having a hard time finding inspiration? You gotta shake it up!

Do you know Keri Smith? She’s most well-known for her book Wreck This Journal. But she has a whole, delicious series of books that make you look at the world in curious new ways. Try The Wander Society or How to Be an Explorer of the World, and you’ll see what I mean.

For me, the key to writing is seeing the world with fresh eyes — which is what Smith’s books help you do. But there are other ways to do this.

Lots of writers write books about writing, right? Who better to know how to do it than a Stephen King (On Writing) or a Margaret Atwood (On Writers & Writing)?

But I find I am more inspired to write my own stories when I can get lost in one of theirs, like Atwood’s MaddAddam series, or Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series.

Some of my favorite more recent get-lost books — the ones that help me shake up day-to-day — include The Book of Form and Emptiness, Ruth Ozeki, Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr, The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern, and The Watchmaker of Filigree Street series by Natasha Pulley.

Of course, you have to find your own favorite authors and genres, but don’t be afraid to mix it up! I spent one winter in a back-to-back foray of historical fiction books about World War II, while just this spring I devoured Tony DiTerlizzi’s young adult sci-fi series The Wondla Trilogy!

These might seem a little off-track from the topic of “How to Read Like a Writer,” but as Steve King himself says:

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut… If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.”

So, tell me, what books are on your TBR pile?

Photo by Rikka Ameboshi.

This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.

Categories
Creativity

Meet Jen Payne during Authors in The Shop at Guilford Art Center

Guilford Art Center is excited to welcome local author Jen Payne to its AUTHORS IN THE SHOP series hosted by Three Chairs Publishing. For four Saturdays in November, authors will be in The Shop signing books and talking with Holiday Expo shoppers from 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.

Saturday, November 16
Learn about the ghosts in Jen Payne’s new book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings, an intimate exploration of memory and meaning.

Known for her meditations and musings about our outside world, Connecticut writer Jen Payne takes readers inside this time…into the heart and mind of a poet, where memories wander, hearts break, and ghosts appear in dreams. Those ghosts — her lovers, soulmates, and muses — reveal themselves slowly, one at a time, in this wistfully reflective, time-traveling memoir.

AUTHORS IN THE SHOP is a great opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with local authors and to get a head start on your holiday shopping. (Signed books make awesome gifts!) Refreshments will be served. (Click here for more information.)

Out and about for Shoreline Arts Trail? Be sure to make time to explore Holiday Expo 2024! The Shop and Gallery at Guilford Art Center are filled with holiday gifts from local and American artists, makers and designers; craft categories include accessories, candles, cards, ceramics, clothing, fiber art, glass, homewares, jewelry, leather, Christmas ornaments, soaps, specialty foods, stationery…as well as signed books from our guest authors.

Authors in The Shop at Guilford Art Center and Holiday Expo are free and open to the public. Guilford Art Center is located at 411 Church Street, Guilford, off I-95, exit 58. The Shop is open 7 days a week, Monday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Sunday 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. For more information, visit www.guilfordartcenter.org.

Categories
Creativity

FEATURED: Sleeping with Ghosts on Hook of a Book!

Today’s WOW! Blog Tour finds me over at Erin Al-Mehairi’s blog HOOK OF A BOOK! as a Guest Writer. There’s also a poem preview and some reading recommendations. Check it out!

TAKE A LOOK!
Categories
Creativity

FEATURED: Sleeping with Ghosts on Madeline Sharples Blog

Today’s WOW! Blog Tour finds me over at Madeline Sharples’ blog CHOICES as a Guest Writer.

TAKE A LOOK!
Categories
Creativity

GUEST WRITER: The Artwork of Sleeping with Ghosts

by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts

People often comment about the visual nature of my creative work, and how my writing is usually accompanied by photography or artwork.

As a graphic designer, artist, and writer, I firmly believe that partnering visuals and words layers the intentions of my work and makes the communication more palpable.

Two of my previous books, Look Up! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness and Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, were as much about the color photographs as they were about the essays and poems. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of the poems in Evidence of Flossing was inspired by a series of photographs I took showing discarded dental flossers in random places.

Odd, I know, but they spoke to the message — our disrespect of nature — in a necessary and immediate way. Sometimes writing takes a while to be absorbed, while images have a speedy hook!

LOOK: THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU! (Read More)

I love that the cover of my new book, Sleeping with Ghosts, does exactly that: it grabs your attention!

The cover photograph is by Polish artist Malgorzata Maj, who I connected with online back in 2015. (Yes, I’ve known the book’s title and have had that photo saved for nine years!)

Małgorzata is a contemporary painter and photographer known for her symbolic nighttime landscapes and ethereal portraits exploring the world of the Unknown. She graduated in 2004 (Olsztyn/Poland) with the title of Master in Arts. Influenced by 19th-century symbolism, her photographic works feature a bold painterly approach to the compositions she depicts. She has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and Europe, and published her works on numerous book covers and magazines. Today she mostly focuses on traditional media such as oil painting and continues to explore themes and ideas less accessible for photographic medium.

In a bit of happenstance, on her website, Malgorzata says she “explores haunted places, past memories, and hidden feelings and symbols,” which really is the essence of Sleeping with Ghosts.

“Photography has this unique quality of something real and intangible,” she says, “…something that I find difficult to speak about. It is the language of ghosts.”

For the cover, I accented Malgorzata’s photograph with a cluster of stardust that appears in several places within the book. It’s from a series of images in a Lunar Calendar collection by Lana Elanor that includes stars, moons, and constellations.

Elanor is an independent artist from Ukraine who now lives in Tulum, Mexico. She is “a meditative person passionate about art, travel, and the study of the conscious and unconscious mind.”

About her work she says, “I’ve loved creating art for as long as I can remember myself. Only beauty itself is a catalyst for the awakening of this world, so I’m totally in love with the concept to make this place more beautiful than it was when we got here.”

The illustrations that introduce each chapter, and entice the reader from the Table of Contents, are by Ukrainian artist Michael Rayback. I connected with Michael about his art in 2022, and we were both excited to include his work in my book. But Michael lives in Kyiv, and our last correspondence was several months after Russia invaded Ukraine.

I check his social media from time to time, to see if he is back online, but unfortunately, we have not reconnected. When I think of him, I remember this quote I saw on one of his sites:

“Art is self-expression, therefore all that you see here is a part of me. I know many languages of self-expression. I like drawing, I love photo art, cinema is one of the main parts of my life, I like cooking tasty and healthy food. I wake up at five in the morning to be alone and tune in for a new day, and the sun tells me that I’m doing everything right and inspires me to new creativity. I do yoga and meditate. All this helps me to explore myself, I learn something new every day, and every day I try to be a little better.”

Something we can all aspire to, right?

I do hope you appreciate the collaborative nature of Sleeping with Ghosts. Please visit these artists online and discover more of their work!

Malgorzata Maj (Mrągowo, Poland)
www.sarachmet.com

Lana Elanor (Tulum, Mexico)
www.etsy.com/shop/LanaElanor

Michael Rayback (Kyiv, Ukraine)
www.creativemarket.com/michaelrayback

Photos from each artist’s social media bios.

This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.

Categories
Creativity

GUEST WRITER: The Importance of Storytelling

by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts

My mother, who is easily insulted, often remembers the time a therapist called her a storyteller. Mom recounts the comment as one might an injustice, and she twists and elongates the word “storyteller” to make it sound as painful as it felt for her.

What’s the old saying? The truth hurts.

That’s the funny thing about my mother’s story — she IS a storyteller. Long before neurodivergent was a word, my mother was making her way through life with the only tools she had, and one of those was storytelling. Often and on repeat. It’s how she relates to the world and people around her.

I have a friend whose mother was also a storyteller. She had a degree in drama, was in numerous theatrical productions, taught children how to act and perform, and went on to start a successful annual storytelling festival. She also found connection in telling stories.

The act of storytelling is as diverse as these two examples and includes four primary forms: oral, visual, written, and digital. Within each of those forms, there are a myriad of vehicles: books and magazines, visual arts, stage, radio, film, television, video, internet.

Consider all of the ways storytelling comes into your own life! It’s part of the fabric of who we are. Think about it! What would we be without our fairytales, folktales, fables, religions, and mythologies? We are built on story!

And quite literally. This is what social scientist Brené Brown, says about storytelling in her book Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.

“We are wired for story. In a culture of scarcity and perfectionism, there’s a surprisingly simple reason we want to own, integrate, and share our stories….We do this because we feel the most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories — it’s in our biology. The idea of storytelling has become ubiquitous. It’s a platform for everything from creative movements to marketing strategies. But the idea that we’re “wired for story” is more than a catchy phrase. Neuroeconomist Paul Zack has found that hearing a story — a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end — causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.”

Like my mother, I’m also a storyteller. I frequently use analogy and story not only to talk about my own experiences, but to say, “I understand yours, too. Let’s talk about it.” It was Brené Brown who gave me the courage to tell those stories on paper, and who inspired several of my books, including my new collection of poems, Sleeping with Ghosts.

That book, Rising Strong, still sits on my coffee table — dogeared and well-worn — as a reminder to be brave, to show up, and to keep telling my stories. The book ends with her “Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted,” which I’ll share with you here as inspiration for you to tell your own stories because what you have to say — no matter how you say it — is important!

Photo by Kool Shooters/Pexels. Brown, Brené. Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. United States: Random House Publishing Group, 2017.

This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.

Categories
Creativity

GUEST WRITER: Listening to Your Ghosts

by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts

For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him… — Plato

Ghosts, Muses, Inspiration, Universe, God. Call it what you will — there is another layer of this world that we live in, and if you can quiet your mind, sometimes, you can hear it and be inspired by it!

As I was finishing up the manuscript for Sleeping with Ghosts, my editor and I both agreed something was missing. While I loved the final poem “Missing Banksy,” its alluded message about impermanence wasn’t quite strong enough to hold up the end of the book. But what would? I had no idea!

When I get stuck like that and can’t find answers — about my writing or about life in general — I like to walk in the woods. It’s where I can settle my mind, slow down the busy-ness, and sometimes…sometimes…hear ghosts.

On this particular walk, I started out at the trailhead by asking the Universe to help me find a final poem, a final message for the book. Often, I can entice Inspiration with a request like that, and this time, it responded in the voice of my Dad.

It’s not the first time my Dad’s ghost has spoken to me. He told me to PAY ATTENTION on I-95 once and saved me from a pretty awful accident; he often shows up unexpectedly as a hawk with a call of I AM HERE; and he responded to my poem query with a series of questions that became the poem “The Final Ghost.”

But connecting with our ghosts can be challenging! There is so much noise in the world today — we’re busier than ever, more distracted by things, more seduced by technologies. There are so many things demanding our attention, how can we possibly hear Ghosts, listen to Muses, or tune into our Inspiration?

One of my all-time favorite movies is Contact with Jodi Foster. The scene I think about often is when she is in the portal pod that’s been reconfigured with an anchored chair and seat belt — things to keep her rooted in place as she travels across space through wormholes. But as she starts her journey, the chair and seat belt cause more harm than good. She may be OK to Go, but they keep her too firmly in place. It’s only when she releases what holds her down that she projects openly forward.

In the same way, listening to your Ghosts requires that you release what’s holding you back.

For Jodi Foster’s character Ellie Arroway, what was holding her back was physically obvious. For me, I know that my biggest obstacle is technology and how it eats up my time and siphons my attention span.

So, what gets in the way of listening to your Ghosts?

Just this weekend, I talked with a woman who told me in a whispered voice how she stopped listening to her Ghosts because it seemed a little scary. And I have a friend who is a phenomenal painter, but she often ignores her Inspiration because it feels too powerful, almost possibly un-godlike.

But the idea of listening to Ghosts or Inspiration or Muses reaches far back into human history.

Did you know that “the word inspiration ultimately derives from the Greek for ‘God-breathed’ or ‘divinely breathed into.’ In Greek myth, inspiration is a gift of the muses, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory).”

Similarly, “the Oxford English Dictionary defines inspiration as “a breathing in or infusion of some idea, purpose, etc. into the mind; the suggestion, awakening, or creation of some feeling or impulse, especially of an exalted kind.”

In his article “How to Find Inspiration, the Psychology and Philosophy of Inspiration,” writer and philosopher Neel Burton offers seven 7 simple strategies to encourage inspiration:

1. Wake up when your body tells you to.
2. Complete your dreams.
3. Eliminate distractions, especially the tedious ones.
4. Don’t try to rush or force things.
5. Be curious.
6. Break the routine.
7. Make a start.

I will add two more to that list:

8. Read Neel’s article (click here)

and…

9. Listen to your amazing, wonderful, chatty Ghosts.

You never know what they have to say or in what creative direction they might take you!

Photo by Ayşe İpek.

This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.

Categories
Creativity flash fiction Storytelling

Grandmom!

A 100-WORD STORY

Last night I dreamt of my grandmother. She was sitting next to my dad toasting champagne in a luncheonette on Broad Street. You know, the kind with leather stools spinning around a counter and formica tables? I knew she’d be waiting, but the front door was locked, so I found a back entrance, pushed past the steel workers having lunch and ran to her. My heart was so full it felt like I was drowning, swallowing air and love; racing towards that hug that almost knocked us off our feet, her arms as tight as mine, holding on ‘til morning.

 

©2022, Jen Payne.  Photo: John’s Cafe in Portland, Oregon

Categories
Creativity flash fiction Storytelling

Spring No More

A 100-WORD STORY

Not that long ago, at mile marker 86.5 near East Lyme’s Pattagansett River, you could pull off the highway into a small dirt turnout, grab a container from your trunk, and fill it to the brim with cold, fresh water pouring from a natural spring. The spring was pretty popular. You’d always see a car or two parked precariously on the side of the road — traffic slowing more for the incline of the hill ahead than the waterseekers themselves. It’s gone now, save for the old turnout, replaced by a cement culvert, its condo complex runoff too foul for thirst.

 

 

 

©2022, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity flash fiction Storytelling

Harry Anderson Saved My Life

A 100-WORD STORY

Harry Anderson saved my life. At least that’s what my wide-eyed younger self remembers. The man had a gun, after all. I saw it as he paid for his coffee, hitched up under his arm. I was working the overnight, back when a girl could do that on her own. And besides, the cops watched out for me. That’s why I called them. Harry was there in minutes. Dragged the man to the parking lot. Discharged the gun in a moment of midlife bravado that almost got him fired. I never forgot it — overfilled his apple fritters every time thereafter.

 

©2022, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity Storytelling

Fairytale

A  100-WORD STORY

Last night, while I slept in the just-right bed, my feet pressed against the tower wall, the Bears came and ate what was left of the wise Scribe’s apples. His favorites, he told me, bewitchingly red and wild, but rare these late fall days.

It’s quiet enough here to hear the wings of the Crow King as he flies through the stars, but not — apparently — the sound of Bears crossing the meadow in Moonlight. It seems they ate the Mountains too, or so the Fog might tell. Tell if it could speak that is, but all I hear is birdsong.

©2022, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity Storytelling

Sleeping on Arch Street

A  100-WORD STORY

I slept on a cot near my grandmother’s bed in a room that smelled like eucalyptus. The aluminum frame squeaked when I moved, despite my small size and efforts to keep quiet. My grandfather slept in the adjoining room, his presence as unnerving as the Jesus portrait on the wall. The story goes he woke her once with a pitcher of water, threw it on the bed so she’d make his breakfast. I wonder if the train whistle ever disturbed him, pulled him down the tracks to the steel mill, back to the stacks and hot slag where he belonged.

 

 

 

©2022, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity

Girl, Cat, Fish

Some days, I feel like the girl in the tub with the fish in the comedy show hitting so close to home but so far out in left field that eating popcorn while I watch doesn’t seem nearly as awful as eating chicken wings during an episode of Criminal Minds. Me and my dying cat curled up on the floor, my hand stroking her tail — and only her tail because otherwise she thinks I’m about to stick another pill down her throat and she’ll run to hide from me. It’s a terrible thing when a part of your heart runs and hides from you, but I don’t blame her. She likes me best now in the mornings, too tired and stiff for any chase. Instead we curl up, like the girl and the fish in the tub, floating there in the early morning hours as if nothing will ever change.

©2022, Jen Payne. Scene from Hulu’s Life & Beth.

Categories
Creativity Storytelling

The Fabric of Our Lives

A  100-WORD STORY

My first family was soft and warm, and covered me with enough love and affection to keep my heart hopeful for decades. My second family was threadbare, though, worn down so much that it hardly covered the dysfunction anymore, left me sick and unable to breathe. My third family fell apart at the seams. My fourth has been a patchwork of cotton and corduroy — thin in places, strong in others, woven together over time and enough to pull up to my chin, close my eyes and remember the little girl skipping, blanket always in tow, her Mom and Dad laughing.

 

©2022, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity Storytelling

Storykeeper

A  100-WORD STORY

I save their stories like scraps of stolen poetry. I know, for example, that she was conceived at the 1965 World’s Fair and that hidden above his left ear is a question-mark shaped scar. I remember the name of the child they lost, what she called the family dog, and that he wakes from nightmares as if in a back-alley brawl. Thief, collector, storykeeper — how easily I can tell the stories of couples in love and couples lost; about the pillow talk of lovers, the half-life of trauma, and the white-haired widow forever chasing a dog by the shore.

 

©2022, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity Storytelling

Sudden Death

A  100-WORD STORY

In sports, sudden death is a tiebreaker — two teams of equal measure play until one scores. In my family, sudden death was a torpedo in the East China Sea and a kamikaze’s final score. It was a flu pandemic in 1957 that meant game over for my 19-year-old aunt…and my grandmother, who never quite recovered her self. Sudden death was an 18-wheeler on a mountainous interstate in southwest Virginia — a certain game changer for my father, and for me who wakes more often than not with an adrenaline rush of grab the ball and run before it’s too late.

 

©2022, Jen Payne. Note: this showed up in exactly 100 words, first take, no editing.

Categories
Creativity Storytelling

Truth Bears Out

A  100-WORD STORY

It was Valentine’s Day, but we’d already broken up. I ended it days earlier because he never listened to me — not about extravagant gifts, not when I asked him to drive with both hands on the wheel, not when I said I was allergic to dogs. He also didn’t pay attention when I told him not to deliver the postscript Valentine’s gift furtively left at my door. It, a $75 teddy bear, was dressed in what he assumed was my regular working-from-home attire: suit, skirt, briefcase.

But removed of her conformity? I say: who couldn’t love a bear named Naked Betty?

 

©2022, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity Storytelling

Rest Stop, Mile Marker 173

A  100-WORD STORY

The Garden State Parkway Rest Stop was half-way to my grandmother’s. We’d pull off the exit and shuffle into the rose-colored stalls of the Ladies Room.

Inside, near the pink-vinyl couch, a pull-knob vending machine sold hairnets, bobby pins, and rainhats neatly folded into pastel plastic boxes.

The Rest Stop burned down in ’91, years after we’d stop traveling as a family. But in my mind, it’s all still there — the soft golden light and tiled floors, the vending machine, my sister sleeping, Dad singing I Got You Babe to Mom in the front seat, his hand on her knee.

 

©2022, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity

Donut Girl

A  100-WORD STORY

For sure there is a story to tell, of late-night clichés and coffee-stained romances there behind the counter of the midnight doughnut shop. She had written them in situ, on journal pages stained with raspberry-pink jelly: the dashing pirate, the rookie cop, the old war vet with a “crack in his cookie jar.” No doubt she learned more there than in any class at the university — or any day since. But could she find them again? Stir them up, let them proof and rise into something more than naïve schoolgirl impressions of the world and her life not yet begun?

©2015/2022, Jen Payne. If you like this story, stay tuned. We’ve got some exciting news coming!

Categories
Creativity

Forest Fellow

A 100-WORD STORY

I saw an elf bent over, studying the bark of a tree just up the path. “What are you looking at?” I asked, feeling curiouser and curiouser. “Mushrooms,” he told me, “these.” Then he bowed and plucked a bouquet from the log at my feet. Edible, he explained with a smile, so I asked “What are you making?” and he replied “Oyster mushrooms with a sherry cream sauce.” Mouths watering, we talked a bit about wild woods and food fare before we parted ways. Darn, I keep thinking, I forgot to drop my shoe. How will he ever find me?

©2014, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity Memoir Storytelling

Christmas Wonder

A 100-Word Story

Much to the alarm of a grandmother, I picked up the baby and ran, leaving the Christmas celebrations in our wake.

Gathering festive crinolines around her tiny feet for warmth, we dashed out to the front yard, and I pointed up to the sharp winter sky. “Look, Little Miss, it’s the Christmas star!” And she laughed and giggled and leaned into me — a shared  delight.

“Remember,” I said, “That’s the star the wise men followed.”

Who’s to say, of course, if it was just a plane as I was admonished. The spirit whispered love and hope and sweet small wonders.

Photo ©NASA/Bill Dunford

Categories
Creativity Storytelling

An Odd Courting

A 100-WORD STORY

I assure you, I did nothing to encourage him. I was simply kneeling trailside, counting petals on a flower — he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not.

Then I heard him approach, footstepping through memories of trees scattered across the forest floor.

In his camouflage, I recognized fear and wonder, the wild and unpredictable nature of things, the magic of connection.

There was no amorous announcement to my ear, but a sound, a something sound I could not believe.

So as not to dash his hopes, I left quietly, wondering: do spiders really sing?

© Jen Payne, April 2014, From EVIDENCE OF FLOSSING: WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND. Image: Princess Sotoori and Spider from the Series Zuihitsu (Essays) by Ogata Gekko, 1887.Click here to listen to the singing I heard: “Listen to The Creepy Sounds Spiders Make When They Want Sex.”

Categories
Creativity

Kismet

A 100-WORD STORY

In Austin, she bought a rock star coat — black velvet with embroidered-flower sleeves and a faux-fur, mid-calf hem. In the dressing room, she laughed — it was a perfect fit.

“I’d never wear it,” she told the saleswoman. “Back home, we’re all L.L. Bean and Talbots.”

She bought it anyway, hung it by the door — her alter-ego, set in wait.

Then she met her new neighbors, Zach and Joe, walking their two chihuahuas.

“This is Amy and this is Pacho,” Zack said, “they have a cabaret act.”

When they invited her to their house-warming party, she knew exactly what to wear.

©2021/2008, Jen Payne. Previously published online at Six Sentences.

Categories
Creativity

Missing Iguana

A 100-WORD STORY

It was an all-points bulletin: MISSING IGUANA! Jake likes to roam, be on the lookout. Don’t chase!

I was a little busy when I first saw the news; parking my car outside the hotel was proving more difficult than it should and the sun was in my eyes. Maybe that’s why I had a hard timing believing them when I saw the iguana on the hotel lawn, sitting atop a purple octopus.

I didn’t think to ask how the octopus was managing out-of-water, I was actually deep in thought, wondering: what inspires an iguana to roam in the first place?

© Jen Payne, April 2019

Categories
Creativity

Discarded

A 100-WORD STORY

She wonders if he remembers the night he found that cat. Left to fend for itself in the winter woods, it died by the trail — as if it waited for someone to return. Collar with its name, no address or phone. Alone.

He carried it to the vet, along with his warped sense of humor. “Were you attached to it?” she mocked. “Yes, and then I abandoned it,” he replied — each of them poking fun at intimate confessions they’d shared. Achilles heels, laid bare.

Ironic, how easily they laughed at the inevitable.

In his absence now, she remembers…poor discarded “Love.”

©2008/2021, Jen Payne. IMAGE: Winter Forest, Konstantin Yuon

Categories
Creativity

Canal Street Epiphany

A 100-WORD STORY

MaryAnne and I were shopping on Canal Street in New York City. My polite “No thank you” replies to the onslaught of “Tiffany! Tiffany! You buy?” catcalls clearly indicated my novicity.

Thirteen blocks of brand-name idolatry was her pilgrimage, but I didn’t see any religious icons in the dimly lit backroom we entered solemnly.

Behind faux red velvet curtains, a thousand ordinary pocketbooks lined the walls; two Asian women exchanged furtive glances and slipped our twenties into small black pouches.

Later, in the car, I looked at my purchase ambivalently. “Is that a Coach bag?” MaryAnne gasped. “OH MY GOD!”

©2011, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity

Sometimes Hearts Need Time to Catch Up

A 100-WORD STORY

I think, maybe, it’s our hearts I keep meeting in my dreams. Not as often now as before, but still, they’re curled under a winter’s weight of blankets, not daring to move. Reading by the fire with coffee before the sun rises. Walking through the woods on familiar paths, old stories kicked around like leaves. Sitting on lawn chairs in the back yard before the big storm changed everything. It’s always he who reaches out for her hand, calls for her attention. And she who closes her eyes and breathes it all in — just one more time before I wake.

©2021, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity

Oxymorons

A 100-WORD STORY

The born-again Christian man wore head-to-toe camouflage — a fabric used to disguise one’s appearance and to blend in with the surroundings. In nature, organisms use camouflage to sneak up on prey, to mask their identity and intentions. But his were clear. A warrior of god, proclaiming he is the way and the truth and the life. Praise God, he announces for all to see — while discussing guns and ammo with a friend in the post office lobby. They laugh, she thanks him for his advice, drives off in a car with a pro-life bumper sticker. Goes to stock up. Pray.

©2021, Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity

Star-crossed

A 100-WORD STORY

I suppose I was a force to be reckoned with, even then at 19, when we stood in his driveway and I explained how my world was just bigger than his, drawing circles in the air like the orbits of planets. But he loved me then, loved how we could talk for hours when only the stars were listening, loved that I loved him back in those sweet moments we traveled around each other. In the end he was the only one with courage enough to ask me to marry … and I wonder what if maybe every blue moon.

©2021, Jen Payne. IMAGE: 1892 Solar System, Orbits of Planets.

Categories
Creativity Storytelling

Memory Vended

A 100-WORD STORY

Downstairs, along a neon-lit hall of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, there’s an Art-o-Mat. From it, for $5, you can purchase small, original works of art. But I confess, my fascination with Art-o-Mats is more about their past lives than their brilliant creativity. You see, their artwork resides in old cigarette vending machines, and with each purchase I am transported to the Route One Dairy Queen, 1984. That very first pack of cigarettes. The sound of quarters dropping, the brazen pull of the lever, the musical-mechanical delivery of Marlboros on the offering plate below. The light. The smoke. Magic.

For more about Art-o-Mats and where to find one near you, visit www.artomat.org.

Categories
Creativity Storytelling

Silly is as Silly Does

A 100-WORD STORY

I met a man in the woods. He was going for a walk with his frogs…two Sonoran Desert toads, actually, along the green trail on a rainy afternoon. He had them in a cat backback, facing forwards so they could see as they went past the pond and around to where the stream crosses the trail. “What if he lets them out,” I ruminated. “They would die, it’s too cold.” “But is it? Gloabal warming.” “What if he’s conditioned them? Got them used to colder weather.” “This is silly.” “More silly than a guy on a hike with pet toads?”

Categories
Storytelling Writing

Hindsight is 2020

A 100-WORD STORY

In my version of the 2020 apocalypse, I lit incense and whispered fervent prayers to Saint Anthony and Ganesh. I started meditating. He bought a gun safe. It’s as definite in his living space now as the altar to Buddha is in mine. This should not come as a surprise. I have loved on the cusp of the yin and yang all my life, and it has been no different with him these past seven years. Of the first gift I gave him, he wondered: Speartip? Pestle? Arrowhead? “It’s a heart shape rock,” I swooned, our end-time a forgone conclusion.

Categories
Creativity

The Sound of Crickets

Did you know that each issue of MANIFEST (zine) includes a Spotify playlist especially curated for readers? For the CRICKETS issue, I had fun playing off the themes of silence, finding one’s voice, and creating from the heart. It features an eclectic set of songs by artists like Disturbed, Grace Carter, Barry Manilow, John Mayer, Natasha Bedingfield, and Brandi Carlile. Take a listen now!

IMAGE: Midsummer Frolic, British Library Digital Library, When Life is Young, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, 1894.
Categories
Creativity

WHAT’S THAT? Manifest (zine): Crickets

MANIFEST ZINE
Issue #4, Crickets
by Jen Payne

Storytelling is in our DNA says Brené Brown in her book Rising Strong. We share our stories because “we feel most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories.” That process, she explains, causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin, the chemicals that “trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning.” So we write. And we create. No matter who listens or responds. Crickets be damned.

MANIFEST (zine): Crickets is a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery. It’s a 24-page, full color booklet that includes a curated Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure.

INGREDIENTS: appropriation art, black-out poetry, collaged elements, color copies, colored markers, ephemera, hand-drawn fonts, ink jet copies, laser prints, vintage illustrations, watercolor paints, and “11 Cute Facts About Crickets.”

With THANKS to to the British Library Digital Library, Brené Brown, Leonard Cohen, Carlo Collodi, Francis Crick, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, Natalie Goldberg, Charles d. Orbigny, Pinocchio, George Selden, the Trustees of the British Museum, James Watson, and Margaret J. Wheatley.

Issue #4, Crickets
24-page, full-color 4.25 x 5.5, Cost: $6.00

 

BUY NOW or SUBSCRIBE and get 4 issues for just $20!


Categories
Creativity

NEW! Manifest (zine): Crickets

MANIFEST ZINE
Issue #4, Crickets
by Jen Payne

Storytelling is in our DNA says Brené Brown in her book Rising Strong. We share our stories because “we feel most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories.” That process, she explains, causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin, the chemicals that “trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning.” So we write. And we create. No matter who listens or responds. Crickets be damned.

MANIFEST (zine): Crickets is a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery. It’s a 24-page, full color booklet that includes a curated Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure.

INGREDIENTS: appropriation art, black-out poetry, collaged elements, color copies, colored markers, ephemera, hand-drawn fonts, ink jet copies, laser prints, vintage illustrations, watercolor paints, and “11 Cute Facts About Crickets.”

With THANKS to to the British Library Digital Library, Brené Brown, Leonard Cohen, Carlo Collodi, Francis Crick, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, Natalie Goldberg, Charles d. Orbigny, Pinocchio, George Selden, the Trustees of the British Museum, James Watson, and Margaret J. Wheatley.

Issue #4, Crickets
24-page, full-color 4.25 x 5.5, Cost: $6.00

 

BUY NOW or SUBSCRIBE and get 4 issues for just $20!


Categories
Creativity Poetry

Countdown to NaPoWriMo!

Ready to write?

Sharpen up your pencils. Gather your pens. Dust off the Corona (not that one). And boot up the computer, because National Poetry Month begins next Wednesday, April 1.

No joke!

And National Poetry Month means, among other things, it’s time for NaPoWriMo = National Poetry Writing Month, in which we attempt, once again, to write 30 poems in 30 days! Check it out > www.napowrimo.net!

I sense a little resistance. A bit of “my poems aren’t good enough” or “my poems would never be ready for prime time in one day.” To which I say: Pshaw!

NaPoWriMo is not about perfection or polish. It’s about practice. A daily practice of sitting with your craft and watching what comes up. It’s like practicing yoga and seeing how deep you can go. Or singing scales to tune the instrument of your voice. It’s stretching so your writing muscles don’t seize up and stop working for you.

Besides, let’s be honest, you’ll have plenty of time on your chapped and over-washed hands in the next month — why not spend some of it doing something you love?

Like writing poetry.

Are you with me?

Here’s some more information if you’d like to play along.

• NaPoWriMo FAQs
• Participating Writers
• There’s a contest for that: NaPoWriMo Chapbook Contest
• They’re’ not all winners, but these are my NaPoWriMo archives

Be safe. Take care. And Happy writing!