Thursday, September 27, 2012

Before Friday, September 28 and into the future: Playing around

"Some people talk about play as if it were a relief from serious learning or even worse: a waste of time. But for children, play is exceedingly serious…and important! In fact, play is a way for children to learn who they are, how the world works, solve problems, and to express feelings. Yes, play is the real work of childhood..."  Fred Rogers, Children's Museums and the Role of Play

I don't think children are the only ones who need play, and a recent discussion with yet another who seemed to be losing motivation got me back to thinking about joy...and play.  In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection (available from the Carnegie Library here and Amazon here), shame researcher BrenĂ© Brown devotes an entire chapter to the importance of play in a whole-hearted life. And if our stories need to be anything, they need to be whole-hearted.

But, you might say, this is supposed to be a class, and classes are about work and writing is work!

Yes, writing is work.  But we lose something, miss something important, if we don't play a little.

Over the next several weeks, these posts will be about playing with our pieces.  Each week, I will introduce an aspect of our writing that we can play with as well as some concrete ideas for how to do it.  I would urge you to pick one and try to apply it to a story or write a new story, even if it may seem a little goofy.

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