WRITING WITH ROX weekly—DEAR MEN...

Lookie! My ten seconds—well, 30 days—of fame! 
There's still time to check out my display 
at Magers and Quinn Booksellers in Uptown 
and to purchase these amazing amazing books!

Moments of Fame List Poem

In first grade channel 11 came to my classroom and interviewed my school about our TV watching  habits. I was chosen and highlighted on TV later that night because I watched the most TV, 

beginning at 7 am with Flipper. I had a missing front tooth.

My first husband and I started a swing dance culture magazine in Seattle, WA called Swaank (notice the double a so as not to be confused with the other Swank) which got us some local attention and headline of some south of Seattle suburban newspaper variety section. My platinum haircut was very short as was my polka-dot dress.

I wrote and performed a spoof of Matchmaker Matchmake Make Me a Match onstage 

at the U of M for a love poem contest hosted and judged by

Garrison Keillor. His awesome piano player accompanied me will I sang "MacIntosh MacIntosh Download Me a Date..." I did not win. I did not even come close to winning. I think I was comic relief to the somber heartbroken love poems that came before and after me.

I was an extra on some movie I never saw, but I had to walk behind two people talking in the desert.

I took a singing Improv class at the Improv along with Deryl Hannah and Jan Brady. Although it wasn't filmed or broadcasted, just telling the story made me famous in smaller, less glamorous circles.

WHAT IS YOUR MOMENT(S) OF FAME STORY/LIST POEM?

WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY (Good) News

Dear Men, Wonder what the women are up to?
Come see at my NEW monthly MENS Writing Group, starting this Thursday evening at 6:30 pm! I've got a great group of men so far and have room for 2-3 more. Would love to have you write with us, Men! Starts TOMORROW!

WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY (Happy) Announcements

I need an intern! Free classes/retreats/etc, great experience!

 rox@writingwithrox.com

Want to write but not ready to come to a class?   Online Class coming soon! Inquire within! rox@writingwithrox.com

We still have openings in our Madeline Island Retreat. If you haven't yet had a vacation or it's been a really long time, join us for a 5-day blissful writing and meditation/mindfulness retreat!

UPCOMING 

Intuitive Writing 12 week class series

begins THURSDAY September 26, 2013

@The Loft Literary Center   Register soon! Fills fast!

New! Fourth Annual Fall Women's Writing Retreat 

On the lake in Spicer, MN!

Friday October 25-27, 2013 

Noon Friday-1 pm Sunday    Call for details!  

WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY Woo-Woo Writing Wisdom...

Linger. Don't forget to linger. Stay here in this moment just a little longer. Let us really see it, feel it, want it. Take your time. See what awakens when you linger................♥

          ♥

                                               ♥                   ♥                                                 ♥

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—The Funnest Prompt that Will Change Your Life!

When I was at the U of M getting my MFA in creative nonfiction/memoir, while I wasn't faking my way through (creatively) teaching Shakespeare, I taught undergraduate creative writing. One of the assignments I always gave was the "do something different and then write about it" story. Different? Oh, nothing big. Take a  new route home... Drop in to a hip-hop class. Call someone you haven't called in a while. Talk to a stranger. The idea was to shake it up, get out of your comfort zone. Why? Because it creates suspense/conflict/aliveness, which of course mirrors plot in any piece of writing—fiction, poetry, memoir, etc.

Once the students got over thinking I was crazy (well, most of them, anyway), they came up with some amazing stories. Some very pretty brave. Some were downright insane. One guy passed out dollar bills in Uptown on a Friday night. Another attended a Shamanic ritual. One gave up talking for a day and somehow accidentally (really) ended up on a porn site in a bank of public computers while students inline behind him exchanged looks. He wanted to "explain," but kept his vow of silence. That was a story.

In every story, for every "new" thing or non-thing the students tried, the wonderful unexpected happened, which of course led to change and growth, not to mention made for an awesome story.

That was ten years ago. Since then I've realized this assignment is also great for living life as well, a fantastic antidote to depression, not to mention. Keeping things fresh keeps us present, out of autopilot. I think this is especially important right now since so many of us can get caught up in everything but here and now, which can make us feel crazy, detached, or half-alive. When we give ourselves permission to be brave and do something different or new, we are forced into new energy, where life is unknown, unpredictable.  Of course it still makes for amazing writing. Deeply moving, funny, insightful writing that we can all relate to. Also inspires others to try new things.

So, go out and do something different. Anything. See what happens. And then write about it. You'll be amazed and what unexpectedly unfolds.

Writing with Rox Weekly—Yipeeeeee Skipeeeeeeeeeeee!

Guess what? Good news!  
There's good news.
Then there's really good news.
Then there's the news all around us every day that is good but we seldom recognize it as good because we don't see it or we take it for granted.
Then there's dreams coming true. I've had those. Have you? Have you written about them? It feels really beautifully good wonderfully wow when you do. It's like reliving them. Writing is like time travel.

Which of your wildest dreams have come (are coming) true?
Please share! We hunger to hear!



As to my good news (and yours too)...

Madeline Island is a go! Hooray!
        o
 !!!!\||/!!!            (That's me doing the happy dance!)
   __/ \__
Thanks to everyone for all your support and good wishes and spreading the word. So grateful to you all. And, the good news is also that now you have another week or so to register if you are still waffling... (If you need convincing, call me!)  Come live the dream on the Island of Madeline! (or wherever you and your dreams may be and take you).

And, if you want a preview, join me at 7 pm tonight for a Free workshop at Magers and Quinn in Uptown on Writing and Mindfulness!

WWRwp—The Hoard on the Rock

among the collection of "what is this?" at House on the Rock

I've seen a lot of bizarre in my life, no doubt about that. I've done my share of weird so I've got nothing against weird or eccentric, or "interesting." I've even done my share of weird for weird sake. However,
until this past weekend in the quaint hilly Uplands of Wisconsin's Spring Green, I experienced a new kind of bizarre, as though my entire dreaming history—including the nightmares, sublimes, the flying and the falling, not to mention all the ones I forgot—were externalized and projected into the space of a gargantuan museum.

So what happens when The Twilight Zone meets Willy Wonka meets Wizard of Oz meets Jimmi Hendrix meets that universal sequence of dreams we all have where we go from room to room opening doors into strange and frightening and surreal rooms and mazes where hallways wind and wend and never get you where you want to go or think you want to go or even imagine you could be going? House on the Rock happens, is what. Been there? Well then you know what I'm saying.

Not been there, but heard of it? What you've heard can't begin to touch the reality.  Planning to go, but have no idea what to expect? And how! It's best that way. If you knew the whole of it, you might not go. Nothing I read or viewed online prepared me, which is what most folks say about it when they come out of the Three (very different, each) Part Tour, not unlike, come to think of it, Gilligan's famous "Three Hour Tour... a three hour tour...."     As Dada, Jude, and I reached the end of our surreal tolerance, we were desperately looking for a way out of there, hungry for something "real life" to engage with. It was as though we'd been inside one large music box that went on and on and on without end.

"What was that?" we adults puzzled over for the next few days, for surely we had to remind ourselves it was the most bizarre thing we'd even seen, excepting Jude of course who found it more or less normal.  "Where were we again?" we asked. "What was that supposed to be? Was this guy some kind of hoarder?" I think it took me daring the Howling Tornado ride at the Dells Great Wolf Lodge to shock the House on the Rock trip out of my system. I'm still coming down from that one.

Want to go, but haven't gotten there? Definitely go. Ignore all warnings and remember that bizarro is good for you. At the very least, go and tell me what happened. Not only that, but if you only listen to the stories about how weird or "creepy" (for shame!) this place is, you'll never get to witness the extreme beauty and miracle of the place. After all, it begins with a beautiful sprawling lotus garden and ascends into a cozy circuit of little rooms with gongs and lounge chairs and low ceilings with birch still growing, all built into this enormous, well, rock. Mid-tour I stopped in my tracks and said to Dada, "Oh, I get it! Literally, it's a House built on a Rock." Dada rolled his eyes. He had to explain a lot, especially about the giant octopus eating the whale, though he was stumped by him about the creepy doll carousel. Still, still, still. Don't let that stop you. If it does, you'll never get to see how the generosity and creativity (possibly "madness", but so what?) of one man's passion, heart, love grew began with a vision and how he honored that vision and created a dream. Disneyland's got nothing on this place. I give it 5 stars.

So...What does this have to do with writing? Sharing stories about the odd, unusual, confusing, eccentric, etc is always validating. Not only a good laugh, deeply satisfying, perhaps even our modern version of Ghost Stories! Also, looking at the details of the same place from different eyes is mind blowing. We all see different things, remember different things. And and and... endorsing or shining light on the "positive" aspects of any given majority ruling "creepy" or odd, counterculture thing/person/etc is crucial to any story/writing, etc as it shows empathy, etc.

So... What is the most bizarre/weird/eccentric tourist attraction or otherwise you have visited? And/or, what is your version of House on the Rock?