February 2025 Monthly Mash-up Post

Prompt: senses other than sight; POLL on possible "chat"

Photo by Geetanjal Khanna on Unsplash

Prompt

When I wrote and posted about word contraction this past month (see re-cap below if you’re new to The Unschool), I included some thoughts about SOUND, listening to people talk, and creating dialogue from this. I suggested closing your eyes to focus on hearing how we abbreviate words or enunciate. Aural shorthand. Y’know. So’m I.

We are sight-oriented and becoming more so, even though our other senses can hold more in our memory banks, and have lasting power in other ways. Visual literacy was a buzz phrase when I studied in an Education program and worked within an MA in Children’s Literature program. But what does that mean?

So here’s this month’s prompt:

Strive to heighten your awareness of one sense for a day—a day of smells/scents, a day of taste… and so on. You may want to close your eyes periodically throughout that day, or wear ear plugs, or in some way—simply being aware to block out—“turn off” other senses as much as you can.

What do you notice through such a day? Share your observations and surprises. Or even a piece of writing written as a result of this exercise.

At the end of such a week, you might be seeing anew, too.

Over the past number of months, there’s been a strange sound in my bedroom. An intense rattling sound. Not far away from my little house, there’s a train track, and the trains run through the night and early morning hours. At first, I thought there was a connection. I realized I’ve always heard something of this sound, since moving in, but it seems to have grown in intensity.

Some time ago, I thought it was the train and busy roadway vibrations rattling the metal shelving that I’d emptied and filled again in a different way… Then I thought it might be removing the elbows from two stories of down-spout pipes immediately outside… But after various experiments, it turns out to have been loosened screws on the glass light fixture, and the sound was of glass vibrating on metal as, yes, those trains, go by, and the increased construction traffic on the road outside. For weeks, I’d awaken and review possibilities for sound. And am enjoying the quiet now.

I’ve created a separate prompt thread for this work, and hope you post thoughts on focusing on senses other than sight, and/or writing that grew from this.

Here is the prompt thread:

Prompt Thread for February

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Re-cap of January

Thoughts on writing from the inside—getting that word count in—or from the outside—the peripheral, the research, the thinking-through—and more, of course:

January 1st Monthly Mix-it-up post

“Retreat”—

Some end-of-series thoughts on Retreat

Losing the sacred—

Unschool thoughts on AI & Writing

It’s been awhile since a punctuation/grammar piece—

Could've, Would've, Should've,

And poetry—even for the non-poets—

The Verse Novel: What is it? And How to write one

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POLL

I received an email from the Substack folks, saying that they’ve noticed a “decline” in my subscriptions, and advising me to open the “chat” option. I’ve resisted “Chat.” I’ve also resisted hosting zoom meet-ups. I’ve wanted to write. Once or twice through the year I actively seek your questions and then post my responses as Q&A series. In this way, the answers are recorded for perusal. (You can find these listed in “Q&A” in the indexes.) Even our workshops here on The Unschool are old-school reading-submissions and written back-and-forths for feedback.

I enjoy when people post thoughts right here, on the posts that resonate with them, or when people turn to the workshops and share work and feedback. To date, I’ve wanted that kind of community—a writing community of writers as opposed to a talking community.

But perhaps I’m mis- or pre-judging.

So can we do a poll? I’m not making any promises! But it would be easier to consider making changes if they come from you (and not a Substack marketing person!)

I’ve had some suggest zoom meet-ups. I taught at UBC through the times of covid… and have to admit that zoom meetings still come with some residual Stuff for me from that experience and time. My book club meets via zoom, and we’re a good group of women, sipping our tea and wine, and okay with talking over each other every so often, and then fearlessly peering into those little squares on our computer screens and asking questions. It does work—but I suspect that’s because we know each other, and many of us have ancient histories. At times, I wonder if that zoom-positive experience will leave enough fairy-dust to expel the zoom-negative of former-workplace.

For now, when I feel I have to be “on” in the way of business-y and promotion… well, zoom and its ilk is just a misery… But maybe I need to listen to what you say!

So a poll on the question of CHAT — in or out?

Workshops

If you have work you’d like to post to workshop, please email it to me:

alison (at) alisonacheson.com

So far, the most active workshop is for picturebooks.

For the past few months a small number of folks have been hoping to get a novel-writing workshop off the ground… but no one has actually submitted anything. Please send along a novel excerpt. With one exception, the area of interest so far has been contemporary adult novel.

In the past, we’ve run a poetry workshop—which would be lovely to revive.

As always, do let me know if you have any writing or publishing questions. Email as above.

And a heart-felt thank you to our recent subscribers. Your support and dedication to writing is the fuel here!

Today is dark and wet! A perfect day for winter writing—

Alison