Write hard and clear

[monica-writing]

Chelicerae (n.)

Do you ensure a word's meaning layers break, lance, pierce, Writer?

Do you ensure a word’s meaning layers break, lance, pierce, Writer? Chelicerae: piercing appendages in the face of a scorpion or spider claw, talon, pincers cloven hoof of cattle surgical forceps hooked needle, crochet needle notch of an arrow

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[monica-writing]

Let the work work

Do you feel the power in naming things as they are, Writer?

The fur-lined teacup, saucer and spoon sculpture, created by Meret Oppenheim in 1936, is usually titled ‘Fur Breakfast’ but also has the titles ‘Object’ and ‘Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure)’. Do you feel the power in naming things as they are, Writer?

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[monica-writing]

Section 13

How do you work with confession, Writer?

How do you work with confession, Writer? Extract from fiction writer G. M. Untervants: “I had this supervisor who was blind. He called himself blind, not vision-impaired, so he was OK with me saying the word ‘blind’. Frankly, it still makes me feel a little co-opted, like I’m going to get a social frowny no-no every time I say it; anyway, he’s blind. He used to see. I never asked what…

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[monica-writing]

Juzzle, Would, Brudge

Tell me Writer, how hard do you love a good list?

Tell me Writer, how hard do you love a good list? Up the hill I went, Seeing every blade of grass and every pebble very clearly. Then I was in among the trees where the air seemed made of shadows and the spaces were all twisty. The trees were all somehow crippled-looking, wrong in their shapes. The ground was littered with dead leaves and fallen branches and all kinds of rubbish: rusty tin cans,…

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[monica-writing]

Tilfældighedsdigte

Writer, what do you create from accidents?

Writer, what do you create from accidents? The tenth poem in Danish writer, Klaus Rifbjerg’s Portrait, portrays the wedding in Rifbjerg’s typical experimental style of words dislocated from logic and expectation. Rifbjerg calls these poems tilfældighedsdigte (accidental/coincidental poems). slam your legs up on the supper buffet you have not yet been betrayed the bridal waltz will be…

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[monica-writing]

Sō′mə

Writer, how do you flesh-live writing?

Monika Pagneux, theatre movement teacher, says in creating that we are not in representation, we are. Pagneux refrains from writing, photographing, recording her work. She insists it exist in the work, in the flesh bodies, of her students in practice. Writer, how do you flesh-live writing?

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[monica-writing]

Filthy dirty

Who teaches you new words, Writer?

“Well, to tell you the truth the dolly wasn’t beautiful at all; she was filthy dirty, she’d lost all her hair, and she was made of old rags. What’s more, this dolly used the most terrible bad swear words and the little girl learned every word and repeated them. ‘Who on earth taught you those dreadful words?’ her Mummy asked her. ‘My dolly’, replied the little girl” (Rame and Fo 1991:55). Who…

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[monica-writing]

Pernicious Enemies of Art

Will you do what it takes, Writer?

In Stanislavski’s diary he wrote that his teacher, Arkadi Tortsov, spoke to the class against pernicious enemies of art. He said, “You must fight them as hard as possible, and, if that does not work, then they must be driven off the stage. And so,’ he turned to Varya once more, ‘make up your mind once and for all. Did you come here to serve art and make sacrifices for it or to exploit it for your…

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[monica-writing]

Sturm and Drang

Writer, break something.

Goethe’s life-long Faust project was not written as performable drama. From the early work of Urfaust, incorporated into the Fragment of 1790 and then Faust Part 1, we are offered not a ‘script’ but a cosmological framework that surrounds the story and adventures of the hero. Dissent in content and form, Writer.

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[monica-writing]

L’Écho de la Harpe

Who do you summon when the words won’t play?

Who do you summon when the words won’t play? Amable Tatsu (1795-1885) wrote to the lyre, silent and dusty, hooked above the wainscoting. On silent days listen for the echo. That will be enough. What is your harp, Writer? L’Écho de la Harpe D’un souffle vagabond la brise de la nuitSur ta corde muette éveille un léger brait:Telle dort en mon sein cette harpe cachée,Et que seule la Muse a…

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[monica-writing]

Familiar with ostranenie

Isn't it time to see, Writer?

How do you revive your writing eyes, Writer? Seeing the world, rather than merely recognising it, is an offer of complicating perception. Agents of estrangement can bring about ostranenie (after Russian formalist Viktor Shklovsky). Children and the child-like, animals wild and free, the stranger, the alien, the visitor, the guest; all can move us into seeing.

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[monica-writing]

Be the Tenth Muse

Does your work endure, Writer? Anytē of Tegea (early 3 BCE) was called one of the nine earthly muses for her epigrams and nature poems. Below is her epitaph for the tomb of two lost pets. For her locust, the nightingale of the fields, and her cicada that rests on the oak trees, one tomb has little Myro made, shedding girlish tears; for inexorable Hades has carried off her two pets and their…

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[monica-writing]

Remember Your Nest

What does fate bring you?

“You may have sympathies, you may have grievances, you may have met with wrongs, and you may use them, if you chance to wish to, in the making of a play. But never in order to attack the wronger, never in order to voice your grievance, but merely using the material because it was sent to you by fate, as a wind of spring may chance to bring a straw to building birds” (Lord Dunsany 1928:62). Straw…

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[monica-writing]

Take up the Whole Stage

Are you a cunning fox?

Make it so they don’t know where to look, Writer. Make them dizzy. Helmut Vaag, on the performance of his play Reinuvader Rebane (Cunning Fox): “The extent of Ferdinand Veike’s imagination makes you dizzy. His puppet show takes up the whole wide stage. Until now, the stage of a puppet show has been four metres in width; Ferdinand Veike, however, makes use of as much as ten metres and perhaps…

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[monica-writing]

Non-pecuniary Impacts

Do you have a Robodebt experience?

“It is trite but true to say that the government should, in all its legal endeavours, be seen to uphold the law. One of the fundamental ethical duties owed by a lawyer is the avoidance of any compromise to theirintegrity and professional independence. A lawyer must not act as the mere mouthpiece of their client. The actions of government lawyers take on extra significance because the government…

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[monica-writing]

Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability

What is a drop?

Secant time. You can do that. You are a writer, after all. You can make anything happen. From playwright Julie Goodall (1997:235): She knocks over her cup. AUDREY jumps up to wipe the table. ISABEL indicates no. ISABEL: If you were a fly you’d see that in slow motion. They’re so tiny, they perceive smaller amounts of time than we do. Smaller than a second. I saw it on TV. You knock over your…

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[monica-writing]

You are facing a mountain

Writer, want to come for a walk?

“Walking shuts down the sporadic soliloquy to whose surface sour rancours, imbecile satisfactions and easy imaginary vengeances rise sluggishly in turn. You are facing a mountain, walking among great trees, and you think: they are just there. They are there, they didn’t expect me, they were always there” (Gros 2015:82). Want to go for a walk Writer? Your ideas are waiting. Gros, F. 2015. A…

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