Merely marking my seat and arriving early in Corte Madeira for Anne Lamott’s Symposium on Writing has shifted my observation and thoughts.  Just thinking about writing or hearing an author I admire puts me in a frame for composing.

I used to have a fancy camera with a portrait and wide angle lens.  Whenever I took my camera on a walk, I noticed my brain begin to frame scenes and focus in a composing way.

Anne Lamott doesn’t teach often, so this is a rare, lovely occasion with a long wait list at Book Passages in Corte Madeira.  So glad I booked my ticket the moment I saw Anne’s post on FB and also delighted I drove up early.

My post was interrupted by a chat with a writer, a journalist, as we wait for the symposium to start.  The kind of writing Lamott does, we observed, after we exuded about what we loved about The Goldfinch is not the general kind of writing in the self-help genre.  It is so specific, so real and true to her life, that it speaks universally.  Of course I love her neurotic truth telling.

So, writing, talking about writing, anticipating a writing symposium with a writer brings my mind into a certain state, a focus.