Peas with Honey and Other Easy Peasy Online Writing Workshops

If you like to write, or used to write, or have always wanted to write, one of the best ways to go about it is to write. Pencil, paper, write. This can possibly lead to staring at the blank page and getting up for a snack. 

One of the best ways to go about jump-starting that part of your brain is to write to prompts, and one of the best ways to go about that is to write in a small group so you don't go snack-hunting, answer your phone, or hop up to let the dog out and stop writing before you really start.

Peas with Honey is an online ZOOM writing workshop that is one of my favorites. It's a small group, takes place on a few Sundays a month, 10:00 a.m. Eastern U.S. Time, 5:00 p.m. Athens, Gr time. It's run by a lovely writer named Bibi, who I met at a big in-person workshop in Greece a very long time ago. I've been to her house, met her husband who also writes, met her kitty named Whippy, and she made me a gluten-free chocolate torte I still dream about. The two-hour class costs whatever you want to donate. Easy Peasy. 

Like all of the workshops I attend, it follows the Amherst Writers and Artists method. In a nutshell this means writing to prompts. Everything is assumed to be fiction. If the writers choses to share and read aloud, the listener shares what works for them. These are first drafts so criticism isn't part of the feedback. You might not think that would work but it actually works beautifully. I've attended classes following the AW&A method for many years and it is magic. 

Below is one of the prompts I wrote to. I'm sharing it with you so you can get the gist of how this prompt writing works. For me these timed stories tend to be comprised of bits and pieces of something I know to be true because you're basically world-building on the fly. For this bit I included the truth of living with chronic vertigo and vestibular migraine. Remember, though, this is FICTION. That means I made it up!

Andy Warhol designed the Campbell's Soup Label

Peas with Honey Prompt: Someone tripping into Andy Warhol’s Triple Elvis Painting

by S.R. Karfelt

 

No, thank you. No, thank you for the fifteen minutes of fame. No, thank you for being the klutz moron who wrecked an Andy Warhol painting.

You know how you ask kids what do you want to be when you grow up? Some kids say they want to be famous.

            Morons.

            Idiots.

I was so not that kid.

And I’m not that adult.

But let’s say even if I was like that and wanted to be famous, it sure as hell wouldn’t be for something STUPID.

            Who sets out to win the Darwin Award?

Fame is a dangerous quest. Wishing for fame without parameters or a game plan to be an artist like Warhol, or a scientist who eradicates Tuberculosis for good, or an Olympian. Just fame? Here, take it. I don’t want people to know my name.

Although, I wouldn’t mind if more of them knew the name of my books. I digress.

Who wants to be the NIMROD who steps backwards off the edge of the Grand Canyon while taking a selfie? Or the skydiver who, oops, forgot to put ON the chute? Be careful what you wish for and I most certainly did NOT wish for Fame!

I get these *ucking vestibular migraines is all. They are the nastiest sh*t of all migraines and since ALL migraine is nasty sh*t—that is saying something!

They’re random but sometimes light gets them going. Fluorescents. Industrial or Big Box Store lighting. Or, let’s get to it, MUSEUM lighting. That’s why I had sunglasses on inside a museum. That’s why my glasses always have dark filters in the lenses. Not because I’m faking cool. No one with chronic intermittent vertigo has anything in common with cool.

We’re the NUMBSKULLS that trip off the elevator or turn to look and stumble back a few steps. If you crash-land coming off a moving walk-way at an airport for instance, and you lose your balance and your bearings and your carry-on luggage scatters all over blocking other people. Absolutely no one goes, “Hey, she looks cool.”

They say, “Hey, someone’s been at the airport bar, or hey, weed is legal in New York isn’t it?”

Come on. High? Intoxicated? Hah! You don’t drink or take drugs with vertigo. Those side effects are built-in to your everyday. You just try not to fall into an Andy Warhol at the godd*mn museum is all. So rack this one up to another fail and I'll f*ck off on out of here.