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Every picture tells a story

Be Still and They Will Come by Diana Durrand inspired Craig Spence to write Waking Dream (see below). Photographs, paintings, sculptures—any art form—can resonate in the minds of writers.

If you are interested in a workshop that engages participants in responsive writing to shared images (photos & paintings), please contact me. More info below…

Every picture tells a story, which makes art a source of inspiration for writers. The same goes for music, dance, and every other art form out there, but the visual arts, especially, are a trove of ideas.

Open up a family photo album and memories are triggered by the images you see. That’s a source for writers whose chosen genre is memoire. But images from other collections can also inspire.

What if your mode is historical fiction? Take a walk around Chemainus and every wall comes to life in your imagination. You can feel yourself being drawn into the large-as-life scenes and back in time—hear sails luffing, wagons clattering, trains chuffing, the rhytmic stroke of paddlers in dugout canoes.

Is there an image that inspires you? Perhaps it’s not even a specific picture, but a sequence made up of many related images,  times, and places.

Craig Spence was inspired to write Waking Dream when he saw Diana Durrand’s mixed media piece Be Still and They Will Come, which has been displayed at the Cowichan Valley Performance Centre. Art galleries are great places to go in search of inspiration!

Stories or poems inspired by images aren’t descriptive exercises; they are works of art in their own right, which add a literary dimension to what you are experiencing.

Art, in the deepest sense of the word, is not meant to be ‘looked at’—or read, for that matter; it’s meant to be ‘invoved in’.  Looking at a painting, or reading a story, becomes an imaginative act-—it’s participatory. So stories and poems based on imagery are works of art in their own right.

Would you like to participate in a free workshop built around responsive writing to shared images? 

Waking Dream

They came to her
in a dream
on paws as soft
as evening light

They huddled in
the contoursof her restless soul
creatures of the land
between day and night

And she lay perfectly
still…
For an eternity…or so it seemed
Aware only of their being
and her delight

She dared not move
or even think…
of stirring…
for if she did
her moment…
she knew…
would take flight.

Craig Spence

Acts of Kindness

Acts of Kindness

I have to admit
It was kind of strange
for me to be hunched
at the edge of the lawn
like that…

On a Wednesday morning
After a Tuesday night-before
In a neighbourhood where
every sunrise-after
lulls the Land of Suburbanites
Into their becalmed state
Of being.
Of wakefulness.

It should not have surprised me
when a Good Samaritan approached
His footsteps cause for alarm!
I mean, what could I say?
“Just a minor heart attack.
The merest constriction of the chest
A barely measurable acceleration of pulse…
No need for an ambulance.”

What other excuse could I invent
that wouldn’t besmirch my reputation?
Why else would I be staring
into the dirt, beneath the parted blades of grass
As if I could see something down there,
couched in layers of smothering soil
waiting to be discovered by archeology
Even through the final act…
The ceaseless progress of decomposition.

“You okay?” he said
Summoning me to  the brink…
To my moment of truth…
I could not tell a lie… could I?
Couldn’t make up something
that would make sense
of my peculiarities.

“Just watching a worm,” I said.
“Burrowing into the earth…”
“Found him on the sidewalk…”
“They always do that when it rains…”

He looked at me as if
I might have been another species…
Or the long-lost member of an extinct tribe.
“Feast for the robins.” he might have hinted.

And who was I to argue?
Playing at God,
Absolving myself
of the inevitable sins
we’re committed to
By being alive?

CraigSpenceWriter.ca

Inspiration from beginning to end

Inspiration can be shared. This mural, One Feather at a Time, was created by 20 students and staff from South Grenville District High School in Prescott, Ontario.

Inspiration: The Beginning, Middle, and The End

In the Beginning

“The idea that poetry comes from beyond oneself is vital… One doesn’t know what one’s doing and is inspired in that respect… it’s just about allowing a poem to come from wherever it comes from and getting it into the world.” 

—Paul Muldoon, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Moy Sand and Gravel

What does it mean ‘to be inspired’ as a writer or poet?

For me, entire novels sprout suddenly from the fecund soil of experience and imagination. That’s not to say they have revealed even a tiny fraction of what they are going to become, but they unfurl like flowers whose literary DNA infuses the creative process of telling from inception, every word along the way. I am startled and amazed at the things my characters do, and I know I am moving in the right direction when I laugh, or cheer, or moan at their behaviour.

In the Middle

If your idea of inspiration stops at wide-eyed wonder and shouts of Eureka, you will never succeed as a writer. Inspiration drives writers, poets, playwrights, and memoirists from word to word, page to page, episode to episode through a creative feat that can take years to work itself out. Inspiration dances and ballyhoos at the moment of inception, then puts its shoulder to the harness, quietly celebrating each laborious step along the way.

In the End

And when an author types ‘The End’ onto the last page of his manuscript, he’s really saying ‘The beginning’ in several essential ways. It’s time for him to begin a new work—to leave off editing, revising, proofing, and rewriting a story he knows inside-out and move on to another story. It’s not that the current work couldn’t be improved—the process of refining could go on forever. It’s just an admission that “I am done,” to quote Michelangelo from his Sistine Chapel scaffold.

It’s also time for a transition into a new creative phase for the work that’s just been declared completed. It takes most writers years, even decades, to realize that inspiration can’t end once a book has been printed and bound. Literature lives in the minds of readers—or audiences, to use a term more appropriate for our digital era. Books are like children. They have a life of their own once they’re fully fledged, but our responsibility for their success never wavers.

CraigSpenceWriter.ca

The Flea’s Protest

The Flea’s Protest
Imagine yourself a tiny flea
Upon an elephant’s back,
Where every gaping chasm
Is really just a crack,
A crooked little wrinkle
In Behemoth’s leather skin,
Careful how you tread; you might fall in.

Or maybe you’re an atom
Inside a nuclear jar
Your nearest next door neighbour
Might just as well be a star
Because a fraction of a fraction of a fraction
Of an inch
Is a measure beyond measure…
And yet, it’s not a pinch.
It's a finger on a button,
and a mind that will not flinch.

We’re tinier than tiny
In this greater scheme of things
Fodder for the canons
In those places anthems ring…
But stop and think a moment,
If you only will,
There’s space between the drumbeats
To shout, why must we kill!

(Written for the tens of thousands who have died
and the untold thousands yet to die
in Russian President Vladimir Putin's war)

Proof’s in; now the work begins!

It’s been a long time coming, but my proof copies of The Boy From Under have arrived… now the work begins!

So much has changed since I typed ‘The End’ onto the concluding page of this novel’s first draft. From a writer who believed his work was done once those two words were appended to his manuscript I have morphed into one who believes the creative cycle is never really completed, and that his books have to be actively and joyfully promoted and shared.

The first step will be getting proof copies into the hands, and minds, of beta readers and reviewers. If you want to join that helpful group, let me know. Alas, I only have five print copies to share, but I’ve posted an online edition of the book too, which will be free for all you betas out there.

If you like psychological mysteries, I think you’ll find the Boy From Under an intriguing read from front cover to back…

Old School doesn’t cut it in 2023

North Cowichan Council made the right decision last night when, by a 4-3 margin, it decided to uphold the principles of the municipality’s new Official Community Plan.

But the tenor of the debate left me feeling we’re not yet at the point where we can say it made this crucial decision for all the right reasons.

Municipal politics have never been more complex or important than they are today, and the 2022 update of our OCP is a case in point. As a document that will guide decision-making for the next decade or so it will have to be read and re-read for its full reach and implications to be appreciated.

It speaks to environmental issues from a global-to-local perspective; provides guidance on essentially humanitarian issues like homelessness; looks to sustainability and stability by focusing on a ‘regenerative economy’.

If you wanted to design a course in principled decision-making, it would make a pretty good syllabus. Perhaps the day will come when historians look at documents like our OCP and say, ‘It was ahead of its time.’ Hopefully the survivors of the environmental and social degradations we are now witnessing won’t end up saying, ‘It was too late in coming.’

Councillor Bruce Findlay, whose motion to offer a two-year ‘amnesty’ to property owners whose land was removed from the municipality’s Urban Containment Boundaries, said he was acting on behalf of the people who elected him.

That’s old school any way you look at it. The election’s over, councillors are now tasked with thinking and acting on behalf of all the citizens of North Cowichan, and (here’s the rub) to do that job properly in the 21st Century they have to place their decision-making in a global, humanitarian context.

I voted for a council that takes all that into consideration when it approves zoning, influences community policing, builds a road.

Note: I am a board member of the Chemainus Residents Association, and attended the Feb. 1, 2023 meeting of North Cowichan Council from that perspective.

The Sum of Cornucopia

Had a little fun after discovering our jam jar more than half empty the other day!
My good friend Zeno says to me
you can have your jam for free,
nothing’s lost except by halves
the future never meets the past.

So in I dipped my eager blade
to test this wondrous promise made.
I scraped about the empty glass
for evidence of my repast.

Alas, the jar seemed quite remiss
and jam on toast was sorely missed.

Well, never mind, dear Zeno said.
At least you have your daily bread
and I assure you not a bite
will frustrate future appetite.

For once you’ve swallowed half that loaf
half remains, and half’s the most.
Munch and chew to hearts content,
the boundless half remains unspent.

Alas, I’m left with meagre crumbs
and a whole whose parts are not its sum.

CraigSpenceWriter.ca

Happy Birthday Brother

Sound carries meaning.
A prayer carries meaning.
The words Happy Birthday carry meaning.

Listening to Lama Pasang chant Tibetan sutras
For my brother, Stewart, my thoughts and wishes
Expand across a continent, over mountains
Flowing into rivers and oceans,
And farther yet, on to distant shores.
They expand to encompass as much as I
Am capable of.

For Stewart to have long life… and happiness
I must think of
His partner Miao
She must be happy, too.
And his children, Sky, Joel, Sarah, Jesse, Josh, DarDar
And his siblings Lynda, Stephen and myself.
And all his many friends.

Then my reach must overflow, encircling
The families, friends and relations
Of all his family, friends and relations.

And beyond yet again, the chant reverberates
A rejuvenating echo
Heard by the children of his children’s’ children
And the families of families’ families
And the relations of relations’ relations
And the friends of friends’ friends.

And beyond again…

In all places
Children
Families
Relations
And Friends
May dwell.

It must rustle the leaves of distant forests
Live in the songs of heavenly birds
Survive the shimmer and flash of fins
Arise in the twitching of earthly noses.

It’s a chant that goes beyond
Anything I am capable of…
Except Hope…
Always Hope…

Wishing long life and happiness, Brother
To you and all our world!

Luv Craig & Diana & Family

Apparition

See my published works / Or my works in progress

Maria, Aaron, Laurence, Cathy, PI Pirelli… Crystal Doer…

Crystal Doer?

He hadn’t known any of these people two weeks ago; now they crowded his thoughts.

Victor closed his eyes, relaxed.

“Crystal Doer?”

She drew closer, a shadow taking shape within his darkened room. He half expected her to materialize in the midair between him and the billowing curtains, or to hear her voice threaded into the night sounds of the city. Could she be alive? Out there, after all these years? Her parents still hoped. She’s run away, they kept telling themselves. Someday she would come to terms with her demons, then she’ll come home.

She’ll phone from a town at the end of a long dirt road where the nightly entertainment is watching the Northern Lights. “Mom!” she’ll say. “Dad! Can you forgive me?” And they won’t even say a word. They’ll just cry, longing to hold their babe in their arms, to splice together the severed ligaments of their crippled lives.

Yeah, and now for the sappy music and credits, Victor objected…

You cannot have a name!

“What?”

The voice had no locus. It simply materialized inside and outside him and one and the same instant.

He says you can’t. So I’m going to call you Emanon – noname in reverse – because if you say something backward it makes no sense, yet it exists. I’ll still be obeying, but I will have a sound that means you and ‘not you’ at the same time. Do you understand?

If I even thought of a name like Billy, or Jake he’d know it. Even thinking about thinking it is dangerous. He senses disobedience the same way a hyena sniffs out molecules of sweat. You must never reveal your secret no-name to him. He’ll beat me and you within an inch of our lives if he ever finds out.

“Who is he?”

She didn’t answer. Her spirit faded, a weak signal obscured by the shifting electromagnetism of the city.

“Who is he?” Victor shouted after her, but she was gone.

He stared into the misshapen gloom of his bedroom. Am I going crazy? Had he become a medium for the long-lost spirit of Crystal Doer? Was he infatuated with a decades old photo of a dead girl?

Victor kicked the sheets away, freeing himself from their tangles and rolling out of bed. The room had become a locus of insanity, a place where reason wobbled, flew apart, the shrapnel of what had been tearing into the gauzy fabric of reality. He wrapped himself in his housecoat and padded down the hall. The inky well of False Creek, its shores encrusted with the garish phosphorescence of the city, came into view through his patio window. He stared down at his chosen world. At first nothing seemed out of place. Granville Island, the Granville Street Bridge, Burrard Bridge, all the meaningful structures that triangulated his sense of who and where he was remained in place. But…

You’re out there, aren’t you?

Crystal didn’t respond. Quiescent now, she’d become a presence perfectly merged into the dark interstices of his universe. When you speak, you become a point of absolute being; but your silence is everywhere.

He’d never thought such a thing, this connection to a certainty beyond belief. Crystal Doer’s spirit had broken free from the black holes of time and space, and he was the only human being in the universe equipped to pick up the irregular pulse of her background signal. She cried out for…

“Justice,” he pronounced, aware of the sliding door’s glass vibrating in harmony to the word. The world as he knew it was imploding, everything bending and buckling under the influence of an irrational new gravity.

“This is fucking crazy.”

LitSnip – Photo Gallery

His apartment was an art gallery of sorts, the collection crowding every plausible space. Maria zoomed in on an image, unable to make it out at first. Her eyes widened as the black and white photo resolved into a composition of skin and hair… the base of a penis standing erect in the wrinkled landscape of its scrotum.

“I warned you,” he called from the kitchen, his voice accompanied by the tinkle of ice cubes in a glass. “I don’t usually invite clients to view my collection.”

“You took these?”

“Guilty,” he confessed. “That’s Richard, you’re looking at. Self-styled Richard the Great. Intelligence is not his most prominent feature, but he compensates with his Grecian physique. I’ll introduce you to him someday and become instantly jealous.”

A breast cupped in a caressing hand; a face contorted in orgasm; tongues touching. Maria moved from portrait to portrait, fascinated, shocked just enough to make her tingle. The images merged into a sensual collage as she moved down the hall.

“They’re exquisite! Disturbingly so.”

“Not everyone would agree with that review,” he said, handing off her tonic water on his way down the hall. “A lot of people think they’re porn.”

“And what to you say to that?”

“They need to adjust their definition of sin so it doesn’t exclude the human body as an art form… every part of the human body, and every act we mortals engage in that quickens true ecstasy in the neural network.”

“Wow!” Maria teased. “I haven’t even got past Art Appreciation 101, but I think I get it.”

The images didn’t strike her as obscene. They were… what would an art critic say… powerful… powerful statements of sexual freedom? She frowned. Gorgeous! seemed a more apt description, even though they were unsettling. They elicited? Envy! She was startled by her reaction. Could love actually be like that? Fluid, fearless, utterly sensuous, the distilled energy of spirit dancing. None of the exhibits at any of the pretentious galas Laurence had dragged her to came close to making her feel this way. It’s how we’re meant to be portrayed, she thought. As minor gods.