show your work

The Homeschool MFA Notebook

5 November 2019 by Kortney

This is where the magic happens! In this notebook I track three simple things: the week’s reading, watching, and writing.

My composition book is where my daily writing happens. But the Homeschool MFA Notebook lives in the handsome green Leuchtturm from Modern Mrs. Darcy up there. But I’m almost finished with that one! And going to be getting one from Minimalism Art. In it I track what I’ve been reading that week, what movies I’ve seen or good writing podcasts I’ve listened to, and what the week’s writing looks like.

It doesn’t seem like much. But even this tiny ritual marks that I am serious about this work. I keep a running list of craft books I want to read. And a collection of Lost Lines–overheard pieces of conversation that seem like they are meant for a poem. When I submit poems to journals, I celebrate that bravery here. And when I hear back, I record that too.

But really the main work of the Homeschool MFA Notebook is just a place to check in, to affirm again the path that I’m on and the active ways I’m pursuing it.

How do you track your most important work?

To see all the posts in the series Listening to My Life :: Homeschooling an MFA in Poetry, click here.

Listening to My Life :: Homeschooling an MFA in Poetry

1 November 2019 by Kortney

Last summer, my sweet friend Kara, got me a subscription to Cozy Blue Stitch Club. I love the designs that Liz creates and was so happy to know that new projects would be coming my way.

The last pattern to arrive was called Evening Walk–a field of wild grasses with a line of trees behind and flock of birds overhead. The scene looked so much like the view from our house across the river to the West Hills. I love the line of fir trees at the top of the ridge, and I knew those tiny blue birds were actually geese flying to the river.

A few years ago I came across an interview with the former poet laureate Ted Kooser. He talked about his daily writing routine. He comes to the page every day because “you got to be there when the geese come flyin’ in.”

That simple phrase has become a touchstone for me. A little nudge toward the work I want to be doing. I want to show up every day so that I’m ready when inspiration alights. In season and out of season.

From the bluff above the river where we live, we watch the geese flying over, hear their calls, and see the neat Vs come unraveled. And every time it’s a reminder of this work.

This month I’m going to be writing about my Homeschool MFA experience–what’s working and what I’ve learned in the first two years of this project. I’d love for you to join me. And do tell me what you are working on!

Tools for Conviviality

3 October 2019 by Kortney

(Yes, this title is a clear rip off of a book by Ivan Illich, a mostly forgotten Catholic education philosopher.

There’s a worthy assignment–read some Illich!)

1906: King Street Station in Seattle, one of my destinations

Twice this year I’ve had the chance to meet with far away women friends who are also on this writing journey. And each time I’ve come home and scribbled a list of resources that I wanted to share with them, trusted guides that have illuminated my path.

But instead of just sending them an email, I thought I’d share a bit more widely.

Gottman Marriage Minute

This weekly newsletter from the Gottman Institute aims to give a tiny bit of marriage advice that you can act on in just a minute. I keep one up on my desktop that entreats me to Be Kind. This isn’t rocket science, but I can often use the reminder.

Daily Dad

Another email newsletter. This one comes every week day from Ryan Holiday. It applies his interest in Stoic philosophy to being a better dad. I’m not a dad, but I know some! And I’m raising boys. I haven’t read this long enough to know if it’s something I’ll use long term. But it’s very interesting.

Efficient/Creativity

This six week audio series by Julianna Baggott is all about using your quirky creative process to your own advantage. It’s about noticing when you get ideas, developing strategies to capture them, and even ways to deal with writer’s block. Get these lectures because Julianna is an excellent writer–funny, smart, and self-deprecating. She’s wonderful to spend time with. But along the way you’ll also find ways to enrich your writing life.

Shaunta Grimes

Shaunta is a novelist who publishes nearly everyday on Medium about writing and productivity. She’s serious about helping people become authors and shares her experience and expertise freely. Her work is the basis and inspiration for my own Homeschool MFA. Her articles are behind the paywall on Medium. So you can only read a few each month without paying–enough to get a taste for the work she shares. Then you can join her email list, and she’ll send a friend link that will give you free access.

Following the River

29 June 2019 by Kortney

By Andrea Scher

The river has been singing to me of late. Come with me as I follow her traces…

I read this interview with John Ashbery recently, it was one in an old Paris Review. He says whenever he wants to write poetry,

it’s like a little river that’s always flowing, and you can just dip into it and write. I think that’s a great analogy.

—Bernadette Mayer

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way,

just as the Scripture says.”

–John 7

If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come.

You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.

—Louis L’Amour

Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

–William Stafford

The Homeschool MFA Notebook

Listening to My Life :: Homeschooling an MFA in Poetry