Tag Archives: writing conference

Hypnotized! Or not.

At the David R. Collins Writers Conference, I took a workshop on “The Ecstatic Essay” with instructor Rachel Yoder.
For our last session, Rachel invited in hypnotist Sylvia Runkle to hypnotize the entire class as a group, and then have us do a set of writing exercises while under hypnosis.
Unfortunately I don’t think I was hypnotized, or even deeply relaxed. It bothered me that I was so keyed up or hyper-vigilant that I couldn’t be hypnotized.
One participant, who meditates regularly, said that people who didn’t think they were hypnotized probably were really hypnotized, that it’s not something dramatic, but I’m still pretty sure I was not hypnotized. Still the same usual struggle to ignore and override my critical mind and just let go.
Sylvia said that in her experience, very few people could not be hypnotized unless they had a serious medical issue, and that usually it was just a matter of different surroundings or a different hypnotist. So there is some hope.
Either way, here are the things I wrote during this experiment:

I.

There are five lines across the sky, subtle and deep, both shimmering on the surface and hovering just beneath, like a giant mystical hand grazing its long pointed nails across the clouds. Clouds that are thin and gauzy, smooth stripes, rows of seed sowed by your staring, the beams from your eyes. It’s your hand that scraped across the sky, that created the furrows that you fall into, that strangers follow, sliding their feet in your footsteps, so that they can no longer tell which steps are yours and which are theirs. And you realize now what you didn’t before, that this is something you could always do, but you did not know what to call it, couldn’t summon the proper words, because the proper words did not exist, and will never exist until you create them. Your fingers in the dirt, smoothing a raised spiral, your symbol embossed in the earth, green and mossy.

II.
Where did it go? A metallic ticking on either side of the tunnel she was in, blankets wrapped around her like a mummy, someone that loves you so much they tie you down so you won’t leave. Pretending until it becomes true. The way someone repeats a lie so often that even they believe it. You keep driving down the dark road, one lane going each way, headlights illuminating the tiny lizards that dart across the road in front of your car, behind your car, climbing across the windshields, sticky feet and tongues licking the glass. The same images repeat over and over, the same wind turbines looming in the distance, the same field of crimson lights pulsating in unison on the ground beneath them. You can’t do any of this on your own, can’t let go without the assistance of machines and the guidance of medical authorities, the only group of figures of authority who don’t have to prove why you should listen to them. Any failure of theirs to diagnose and treat you (let alone cure you) is really a failure of your body to fit into any of the verified valid categories. This is why you can’t let go.

Going to the Mississippi to do some listening, learning, and writing

Just signed up to attend the David R. Collins Writers’ Conference next week (next week!) in Davenport, Iowa.

Once upon a time, in a previous life, I was going to move to Iowa City to attend the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in Iowa City, while my then-fiancé was going to work on his masters in film studies at the university. As things turned out, I only ended up driving out there with him and his mother to check the school out and interview at a LensCrafters in Cedar Rapids to see if I could transfer there, before he broke off our engagement so he could go off alone and find himself. I did drive out to visit him one time after he had started classes, a 10 hour drive from Detroit listening to “Heart of Darkness” on cassette as I drove alone through the middle of nowhere at night in spite of my long-standing fear of driving down a deserted road alone at night and having a stranger covered in blood stagger into the path of my headlights.

But this time I am going to Davenport, to take a 3 day novel writing workshop with one of my favorite writers, Jac Jemc, a workshop designed to help us discover ways to create the groundwork for a novel. As the proud creator of completed rough drafts of two novels and incomplete rough drafts of at least six other novels, none of which were created with anything resembling an outline, I could really use this class. And mainly, I love Jemc’s writing and have been waiting for an opportunity to learn from her.

There are other workshops I’ll be taking at the conference as well, and am particularly curious about the “Ecstatic Essay” workshop Rachel Yoder will be leading, since she mentions “visits from psychics” and “alchemic experimentation”.

I should also mention that the 17 year Magicicada Brood III is making its appearance in Iowa and western Illinois this year, and while there have not been any sightings so far in Davenport, I’m hoping a few stragglers may make their way over to the river to visit me. Brood XIII was out here in 2007 and it was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. I’ve been fascinated by cicadas since I was a child, and over the years they’ve always appeared magical to me, as if their very appearance in my life has been a sign, of what I don’t know, but something significant all the same.