Ellis Elliott: Portmanteau

PORT-MAN-TEAU

1. A large trunk or suitcase, typically made of stiff leather.

2. a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of others, for example “bewilderness” .

Okay, I added my example there, but you get the point. And I do think the name of our writing group is apt. “Bewilderness” combines two words: bewildered and wilderness.

At the time I started the group in May of 2020, I felt bewildered in a wilderness, indeed. I had lost my mother in February, Covid hit full force immediately thereafter, and I was smack in the middle of graduate school.

I also think the word is applicable to what we do in our writing group. Our intention is to put pen to page without stopping, which in itself can feel like entering the wilderness, in order to hopefully bypass the inner critic so we can get to the “good stuff” underneath. That “good stuff”, if we’re lucky enough to access it, can often leave us bewildered. It doesn’t make sense, or “where did that come from?”, is often the reaction.

And that, I believe, is the gold mine for our writing. When we get out of our own way, with our self-criticism, high expectations, and our granite-written rules of “should”, we’re able to find where our writing finds it’s rhythm. We find the place that it comes more easily and feels almost, believe it or not, fun.

So, pack your portmanteau (or, perhaps, unpack) and join me in Bewilderness Writing!