Category: writing

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Writing Prompt: What gets your adrenaline flowing?

This week’s writing prompt with my class is about adrenaline rushes. Are you a thrill seeker or are you always on the cusp of flight or fight?

This week write about an experience that got your adrenaline flowing. It could be something that you weren’t seeking — maybe you got into a car accident. Or maybe, you signed up for bungee jumping for a milestone birthday.

Write about an experience that got your adrenaline flowing:

When I was a little kid, I liked to climb things and jump. I climbed a lot of trees. I jumped out of a lot of trees. I also jumped off walls, rolled down hills, and had my share of dramatic falls from bicycles and skateboards.

By the time I was a teenager, I had channeled that crazy trait into some fun on the diving board at the local pool. I was on the swim team and spent a great deal of time at the community pool. The older kids had gone through lifeguard certification, so we had a little more access to the pool, especially during off hours. I got into the habit of doing tricks off the lifeguard stand into the diving well, not to mention learning how to do some of the easier dives that the diving team practiced. I even gathered up the courage to jump off the three-story platform — an amazingly frightening stunt on my part, but oh so exhilarating! I admit, though, I checked that off my list of crazy things to do, and have never felt a desire to repeat it.

If it had a diving board, I was game. And then one day doing a back flip off the 3-meter board I clipped the end of the board. I just grazed my forehead a little bit — it probably looked more frightening to my friends since I had very long black hair and it looked like I hit the board full on.

I didn’t even bleed. It was just a little kiss on the corner of the board — enough for me to feel the roughness of the board — but it set into motion a million what-ifs.

Sadly, I never dove again. At least, not trying to follow any kind of tricks. Of course, I continued to dive into the water, but my days of thrill-seeking on the meter boards was over.

Nevertheless, my desire for the adrenaline rushes have continued. Roller coasters, amusement rides that give me whip lash, climbing anything with stairs — it all still calls to me.

Proof? Here’s a sweaty picture of me with my favorite guy on our honeymoon. We had just climbed the pyramid at the Tulum ruins in Mexico, and today, still enjoying the joyful rush of 30 years together:

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Writing Prompt: Let’s talk about the weather

This week’s writing prompt with my class is about the weather. You know, that thing we so often use for small talk. But the weather seems to be at the forefront of every conversation this week. The northeast is getting pounded with snow once again, and locally, we’re under the threat of freezing rain, which is one of the worst things that can happen in the South, next to tornadoes. All in all, it stinks to be outside wherever you are. Unless, of course, you are in South Florida. Or some other warm climate.

So this week, write about the weather. Tell us what kind of weather you enjoy.

I love the rain. Even now, that the temperature is below freezing and I can hear the gritty sound of frozen rain hitting the windows, I like it.

There’s something about the overcast days, with the dark gray clouds and the chill in the air that speaks to me in a comforting way. Now, I do like sunny days. I enjoy the sunshine and cool breeze of spring, the heavy heat and burning sun of summer. I even like snow. Especially if I’m a tourist.

But rain. Rain. It soothes me. Inspires me. Calms me. Makes me want to take a nap.

When we lived in Miami, my husband and I used to sit on our back porch and watch the storms coming in off the Everglades. Those were the epic storms. They rose up gently with heavy black clouds. Everything about them was larger than life, monstrous. These storms moved slowly, so it seemed like they were constantly building energy, and they usually brought lots of thunder and lightning along with it. Those were the storms that lasted all day. It was perfect for porch-sitting, coffee-drinking, spending time with your lover deep in conversation storm-watching.

If the rain came from the east, from the ocean, they were different. These were usually sudden showers although every once in a while they’d bring some thunder and lightning, too. Mostly, though, these storms blew by quickly, the clouds spreading out and thinning until the sun came back out and dried up everything. Those were the rainstorms that came and went, leaving no evidence. They were fun, too. Great for running and playing in the rain, or just keeping an eye out for the end, after everything was refreshed.

These days the rain bring a more somber mood, and I’m ok with that. It chills me, and that just gives me the perfect excuse to make something hot to drink, maybe coffee, maybe tea. Maybe some rich hot chocolate. I’ll inevitably find my way to a cozy spot next to my husband and cuddle under a shared blanket to read a book or talk.

Plus, puddles. What’s not to love?
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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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