Tag Archives: writing marathons

Writing Marathon

Posted on by
10

On Sunday April 15th I took part in a Writing Marathon as sponsored by the UNC-Charlotte branch of the National Writing Project. There is no hard and fast rule on how a writing marathon should be set up but Lacy Manship did a great job!

We started out at Amelie’s French Bakery in the NoDa area of Charlotte (which I always get lost getting to – which became something I wrote about during the marathon!). There were at least two dozen people who came to meet up. After a snack we all “wrote into the marathon” on the topic of our choice before grouping up to head out to a new location. I drafted a poem idea that came to me on the drive over. I’m hoping to post it tomorrow for Make Friday Write.

We wrote for about 15-20 minutes and then shared within our tables since there were so many people. The group I was with then decided we would head to The Last Word Bookstore. You were also supposed to say to someone when you arrived at your location: I’m a writer, but we didn’t all do that. Instead we wrote and shared and then picked another location to go to.

The group I was with decided to finish up at Ikea which made me happy! I LOVE ikea and when I had heard previous writing marathon participants had written there I just knew I had to be one of those people.

But, no, no one bought meatballs this time :) It was great to hear what other people were writing and how we could help each other yet keep our work individualized. There was such great energy amongst the participants. I hope to do this again and I wonder if I can figure out a way to do something like this with my students? I had them write a journal about it after I got back to see what they thought a writing marathon would be. They had terrific ideas as well.

Our last stop was to the Wine Vault where, despite the loud music, we had an open mike type share. I left my house at about Noon and I was home by about 5pm. This was well worth my afternoon. If you ever hear of anyone holding a writing marathon you should definitely consider going. Or, why not try one yourself? If there is enough interest, and we can find a good date and time, I think it’d be fun to host one here via the blog or via a twitter hashtag soon? Any takers?

Write on :)

Writing Marathon

Posted on by
12

Yes, I am blogging on a Saturday again. And, yes, I was up early this morning to make it to Amelia’s in the NoDa area of Charlotte to meet up with a good 10 or so current and prior participants in the UNCC Summer Writing Institute.

We started out at Amelia’s at 9am. I needed breakfast so I had some of their fantastic lemon rosemary tea and a croque monsieur. Got to say: tasted better than some of the croque monsieur’s I had in France! Fantastic location to hang out in. I will have to go back :)

We wrote for a good 30 minutes and then shared a bit of our writing before breaking off into smaller groups to head to other locations for writing. The idea was that in each location you were supposed to tell someone you were a writer. I told the lady when I was buying my food, but I’m sure she has heard that before!

I headed over to Jackson’s Java with a group and once again the barista had to hear how we were all writers, but we also chatted with at least two other people who came in. One that turned out to also be a writer with a terrific yellow handbag who was working on a YA novel.

The vibe was so good at JJ’s that we just stayed and the other group ended up coming that way as well because we had all decided to have lunch at Passage to India which has a buffet. YUM! Once lunch was finished we finished up by sharing work with each other at the Wine Vault. A few more people trickled in and it was just a terrific atmosphere.

This is the cut and dried version! I don’t think I can do it justice right now until I’ve had time to process the whole event. I loved acknowledging for everyone that you were writing and that you were also in this community of other writers. It was also fun to try different venues to work in. I wore my laptop out typing up items I had written last week which meant most of my writing time was spent deciphering my handwritten and putting some pieces through revision.

Back at my desktop computer, as I continue to catch up on all that I have handwritten lately I find myself thinking again about the writer/teacher as inquirer. I know that I love this idea of writers (teachers, everyone!) asking questions and engaging so they can be part of the conversation. I want to really work on that with my students (and with you fair readers), but I think I also want to dig in a bit about the idea of genre theory (any good book suggestions and/or magazines?) because I wonder why we have to spend so much time putting our writing into categories . . .

If you ever want to try a writing marathon, I highly recommend it! If you want me to pick a day and we all do one virtually – I’m game!