Day one...Here goes!

Along with his writing exercise, Fred includes a kind of essay to explain the rational behind each one. Under the title of his book is written "366 meditations to cultivate a productive and meaningful writing life." So perhaps you are intended to meditate on these essays prior to doing the exercise. I doubt I'll be doing that, since I'm approaching the actual writing as a meditation. If you are doing this with me, you may want to order the book. Here's the Amazon link. Available now for .22. Also available on Kindle

Today's: Renaissance and Modern Settings
A brief summary of his essay/meditation: The modern era is an extension of the Renaissance, the rebirth of philosophical inquiry, artistic expression, etc. Also the birth of scientific inquiry where they actually started to provide evidence to counter popularly held beliefs. It was a time rich with potential story material--much has already been written about the great painters and sculptors, scientists, etc. (Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo...) but there are a bunch more who contributed wonderful works who haven't been written about. Leading us into today's exercise:

Conduct research into one or more of the lesser known philosophers, artists, scientists, or political theorists who lived during the Renaissance. Write a biographical essay about this person, targeted for young adults, perhaps.

My first thought on this exercise is "Ew." The exercises I've done thus far have taken between 5-20 minutes and have not required research. I do like the suggestion to target young adults though. And I also appreciate that before each exercise, Fred writes "TRY THIS" which minimizes the pressure.
 I'm going to have to research now, mull before I *moodle. I'll post the results later.

* Brenda Ueland might have invented this word. “So you see, imagination needs moodling – long inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering..."
She writes about it at great length in her incredibly nurturing book If You Want to Write: A book about Art, Independence & Spirit.   
(Kindle copy available for about 4 bucks right now. Buy it! She's like a spirited, irreverent grandmother constantly encouraging you to write because she believes in you.)

Much later...

Exercises like this are why I don't write. It took me forever to find a person to spark my interest, but I did learn a bit about several little knowns of the period. Cassandra Fedele was very well-known in Italy, but have you ever heard of her? I did go with Fred's suggestion to target young adults.

Cassandra Fedele (1465-1558)
by Laurie Guerin

Cassandra was born in Italy. Her dad was a humanist which was a stroke of luck for Cassie because one of the things humanists believed was that everyone, even women, should be able to write and speak logically. They focused on practical and scientific studies and regular stuff like grammar, history and philosophy.  At the time a lot of philosophers were going around arguing with each other and saying things like this guy, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola who lived just a couple of villages away.

“At last the best of artisans ordained that that creature to whom He had been able to give nothing proper to himself should have joint possession of whatever had been peculiar to each of the different kinds of being.”

As you can imagine, people were like “OK Giovanni. Whatever you say, dude.”  They had to act interested and do that thing where you yawn with your mouth closed because he was a Count. He also studied humanism but obviously took a wrong turn in the whole speaking logically area.

Anyway, Cassie studied enough and was smart enough to talk to guys like Giovanni and figure out what he was trying to say. At age sixteen she was considered incredibly, amazingly brilliant and invited to give public talks to groups of super educated men. She gave some of her talks in Latin, some in Greek and some in Italian (which was a piece of cake for her).

Over the next ten years she gave speeches and exchanged letters with Kings and Lords and scholars all over  Italy and abroad (although abroad did not include America, because it had not yet been inhabited by people who spoke Greek, Latin or Italian). This was a huge deal because women were not allowed to do this sort of thing. When they did speak in public they repeated what men said, they didn't just pop-off with their own ideas and thoughts.  Queen Isabella of Spain heard about her and invited her to join her court, but Cassandra said “Maybe another time,” or something of the sort because, Hello??? There was a war going on between Italy and France and her people needed her around to help them think.

Then here’s what happened:

• She married a doctor.
• She stopped making speeches (No one knows why. It might have been because she was sick, but most people think it’s because married women at the time were considered showoffy if they acted smart)
• She lost everything she owned in a shipwreck and her husband died.
• She asked the pope for help, but he didn’t even write her back.
• The pope died so she asked the new pope to help her.
• He gave her a job as the head of an orphanage
• She started giving public talks again including one to the Queen of Poland when she was visiting Venice. Here’s some of what she said:

"When I meditate on the idea of marching forth in life with the lowly and execrable weapons of the little woman -- the needle and the distaff -- even if the study of literature offers women no rewards or honors, I believe women must nonetheless pursue and embrace such studies alone for the pleasure and enjoyment they contain" 

What she was saying was that to limit women to incredibly boring tasks like sewing and spinning was ridiculous and inexcusable and that they should be allowed to study and to read and to expand their minds, even if they never earned a dime. Even if no one gave them a trophy, or said “Way to go!”  Because learning was worth more than money or trophies. 

• And then she died. Not then and there in front of the Queen of Poland (that would have been embarrassing and overly dramatic), but a few years later.