Tag: writing

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Write On!

McDonald's

My favorite deep purple over-stuffed chair beckoned me. The pizza guy just delivered my favorite pizza…extra cheese, onions, and garlic. Mmmmmmm. Who has two thumbs and ain’t afraid of no garlic?

Me!  And my high school BFF, Martha, who happens to be doing some really cool things with literacy. Apparently, she also really likes french fries.

Read her blog, A Reel Cool Summer, buy her books, and follow her writing prompts to get your kiddoes writing!

I’m a good girl, and followed her prompt for Week 13 although I think there’s a typo there. It’s to age 50, right?

Thru age 5:  Mom or Dad can help you write down your favorite animal, color, and food.  And the name of a person you love and your favorite book.  My purple guinea pig reads The Cat in the Hat while Bego and I eat pizza!  What’s your silly story, little one?  PARENTS:  Just because very young children can’t actually write down their stories, doesn’t mean they can’t make them up.  Have your child dictate a story to you.  Write it out or type it on your computer and have him or her draw some illustrations for it.  That’s a fun activity for both of you!

A_Reel_Cool_Summer_Cover

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on writer’s block and performance art

blockI have to write a speech. It has me in knots, not because I’m afraid of speeches, but because every time I sit in front of the computer or journal or notebook or pile of scrap paper, or, for heaven’s sake, a napkin, I get a brain cloud.

It’s pretty annoying, as folks are starting to ask what I’m going to say. I don’t think it’ll fly if I respond with, “Oh, I’ll let the Spirit move me when I get up to the podium.”

Ha. I could do it, too. Get up there and just talk, I mean. That doesn’t scare me nearly as much as having to prepare a speech. I don’t even get a teleprompter. It seems to work for some people. But then again, I’m not running for public office.

What I most want to do is avoid the helpful people…people I’d no more allow to put words in my mouth than cut my bangs. They are everywhere. And they scare me. Ha!

Not really. I’m mostly amused, by them, my predicament, the fact that ordinarily I never shut up and now I need to dig for words.

I think it’s a good thing. I feel like I’ve forgotten how to write. I’ve been dwelling in the underbelly of the writer’s world these past many months — writing very dry, very boring, very technical reports. Stephen King would have a thing or three to say about my overuse of adverbs. I’ve replaced poetry with formula –replaced the beauty of a well-turned phrase with passive voice so as not to offend.

I need to find my writer’s heart, and I better find it quick. The clock is ticking.

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found a little piece of heaven

I’m sure I’ve confessed my love of journals here. Utilitarian canvas-covered sketchbooks and beautifully embossed covers with sewn-in creamy pages make me want to write brilliant things in them.

Then I get clammy hands and a terrible case of writer’s anxiety when I fear I won’t be brilliant…just…mediocre, and I don’t want to ruin the beautiful pristine pages with my ramblings. Because of this silly notion, I’ve amassed a stack of lovely (and some utilitarian) journals, sitting pretty and empty on my book shelf, longing to fulfill their purpose and house all kinds of thoughts.

Big thoughts. Small thoughts. Complicated and incomplete thoughts. Stream of consciousness and careful thoughts.

And yes, every once in a while, maybe something brilliant.

Something changed a couple of years ago and I started writing in these beautiful books. I didn’t think it would happen, but I’ve filled them all. I just opened the last empty one and filled the first page. Heaven.

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