What we've been doing in our kickoff meetings!

So far we've had three meetings; the first two meetings we did some fun ice breakers so we could all get to know each other. We want it to be a safe, trusting environment because we know that sharing writing can be a difficult thing to do. So far we KNOW the girls (and guy) have heart and lot of jokes up their sleeves! We've had some good laughs, some overly rowdy moments, and some poetic writing...

Now that we're getting into the actual writing activities, we'll blog after each session to report where we are in the creative process and what we've written. Last week we analyzed the first two stanzas of Mary J. Blige's song "Take Me As I Am":

She's been down and out
she's been wrote about
she's been talked about constantly

She been up and down
she's been pushed around
but they held her down NYC

First, we talked about what the lines mean. The girls vibed with this because they all knew the song. Then, we analyzed the language more closely to see what Mary's lyrics were "doing." The girls noticed the rhyme schemes and how Mary used "she" instead of saying "I." We talked about why she decided to do this, and then we worked on composing our own mini-songs about where "we've been." This is so hard, but we made some progress. This week we're going to pick up where we left off, continuing with the theme of "where we've been."