If You Want to Write:  Imagine, and Play!

K. Wordbird Bate   The Writer's Life Coach

     In New Orleans, Louisiana, at the end of the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival each year, they hold a Stella Yelling Contest. A crowd meets at the beautiful Jackson Square, where people take turns yelling the line for which Tennessee Williams, and secondarily Marlon Brando, are famous:  STELLA!! 

     If you have read or watched A Streetcar Named Desire-a play named for a real streetcar in New Orleans which once regularly traveled to and from Desire street-you know why crying out the name of Stella is fascinating. You can imagine it takes a good pair of lungs, as well as tons of enthusiastic angst. The contest is a lot of fun. Try it, next time you read the play.

                                              Stella!

     This week, go to a museum, art show, gift shop or sit anywhere in front of your favorite painting. Write a story about the painting, or the artist. You can make up an entire creative piece, write dialogue for the items in the painting, talk about how the painting came to be where it is, describe the artist and his or her life, become a dot of paint and talk about what it is like to be in the painting, tell the story of the people in the painting and what happens to them after this painting was done. Anything you like. The idea is to spend some time on your art-writing-inspired by Art, giving your mind freedom to invent and imagine.

     No matter what your field or style of writing, to give your brain permission and time to play and create is good exercise, and it is great for the soul.

Let Yourself Bloom!

© Kimberly Bate                                                               

Photo by fake_plastic_earth