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Writing Prompt: Write about something that scared you

This week’s writing prompt with my class makes me a little more vulnerable than I’d like, but I suppose that’s what I’ve challenged my students to do, so it follows I should shake in my boots a little, too. We’ve been discussing our goals and dreams, events that have challenged us or frightened us before delving into action. Adrenaline was at the forefront, warning us that something was going to happen quickly, honing our senses into a hyper-alert and hypersensitive state.

Write about something that scared you.

It took me forever to press the send button on an email to my editor at Ave Maria Press containing the manuscript for my first book. Sometime in the fourth grade I decided I wanted to be a writer, and it took all those decades for it to happen in a traditional medium.  Oh, I’ve flirted around with writing on this blog, and other places, even self-published a bunch of things, but this time, the stakes seemed a little higher for me. What if the publisher hates it? What if nobody wants to buy it?

What if the whole universe conspires against my book and deems it the worst thing ever! 

I was consoled with the knowledge that no matter how bad it could be, it’s not likely to generate an online contest for terrible opening lines, like the Bulwer-Lytton Prize, so I hit send. It was an action 42 years in the making, since that very first essay I wrote in the fourth grade.

Nothing exploded. Nobody fired me.

I got a little bit of indigestion later, when I found out what the title was. Oh, it’s sure to be a classic, at least in my family. Are you ready?

My Badass Book of Saints

There’s an awesome subtitle, but I want you to pay attention to it and you’re still obsessing over Badass in the title of a Catholic Saints book. That’s OK. Me, too. Let’s recover together.

My Badass Book of Saints: Courageous Women Who Showed Me How to Live.

I like it. It suits me. I mean, I’m writing about some really extraordinary women, some saints, some not quite saints, and a few that, well, might be saints in heaven, but weren’t exactly Saints on earth. I’m in there, too, telling my story, my mom’s story, my grandma’s story.

It’s a pretty good book. A badass book.

And I’m still scared.

My Badass Book of Saints: Courageous Women Who Showed Me How to Live
by Maria Morera Johnson
Ave Maria Press

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2 down, 23 to go

I just finished the second book in my ambitious plan to read 25 books this year (for pleasure — I have other reading to do, too).

I read a book about science that surprised me. I totally thought I was going to read one of Stephen Hawking’s books, maybe The History of Time. But that’d be cheating since I already read that. Ha! But let’s be honest — I was struggling with this. So how did I end up completing this part of the challenge early when I was balking?

Check out Nikola Tesla: IMagination and the Man Who Invented the 20th Century by Sean Patrick.

tesla

Luck. I happened to be looking for some books for my kindle and ran across this particular one that was free. I didn’t even choose it because it was free — I chose it because it was about Nikola Tesla.

I wanted to read about putting my already wild head of hair to the test in one of those Tesla coil thingies that makes you a ball of static.

I’m sure some scientist reading this is having conniptions over my terminology. Enjoy. Most of it is me being annoying.

But Tesla — what an interesting guy! Admittedly, all the talk about generators and alternating current and such went over my head, what I did take away was his fearlessness in tackling creative endeavors. The book talked about electricity, but it was much more. He really believed in himself. He had extraordinary vision, and it was coupled with a commitment to hard work.

I have to say that I admire that about Tesla, and one more thing: He approached all of this with an incredible personal sense of integrity.

The book is a quick read, quite inspirational! I recommend it!

One thumb up (I didn’t give it two because it was lite on the science — but to be fair, it was less about science and more about motivation). While I wouldn’t mind playing with some static electricity for the fun of it, this book has given me some excellent food for thought about my own creative process and my desire to share my work.

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