Me

 

 

This past month it’s been mostly about me. I’ve tried to share what I know in an attempt to help some struggling writer, but to be totally honest –

It’s been about me

My writing

My goals in life

My past experiences

Me motivating me

I feel like I should apologize, but I don’t think I need to. Most blogs are about the person writing the blog. Even if it is about them, it helps me (usually) when I read it because I internalize their thoughts and feelings and make the best my own.

So it’s okay that this month has been about me.

 

Me

Me getting it out

Me venting

Me making myself heard

Me inventing things from other things like a chef … or Dr. Frankenstein

Me trying to please people and me trying to be myself

Me thinking weird things and writing them down and hiding them then finding them again and loving them

Me finding my voice, then using my voice, then making people angry

Me refining my voice and using my voice and making people think

 

I

I love blogging. I learn so much.

Sometimes I have to force myself to sit at the computer and put down words. Other times I’m excited because I have a great idea and I can’t wait to flesh it out.

I love writing.

And blogging gives me readers.

 

You

Thank you, my readers, for joining me on this 31-day journey of

Thinking about writing

Writing about writing

Struggling with writing

Failing at writing

Having success at writing

Learning about writing

Teaching a little about writing

 

Myself

Writing to me is like breathing and for almost three years I didn’t do much. I tried to write for National Novel Writing Month last year, but the story didn’t go very far, I ran out of energy, and too many voices of accusation, irritation and failure ran through my head.

The extra hours at work didn’t help either.

But this 31-day challenge put the spark back in my heart. It gave me a doable goal to achieve. It refreshed my old love of putting words down and rearranging them.

And it showed me I can still do it.

 

Thank You

Thank you, Kate Motaung, for the opportunity to create a goal and a place to put my work.

Much success in your writing future.

See you in the blogosphere!

 

By the way

I have three published books. The first, a how-to, Love To Write Every Day, helps children and adults put pen to paper. The second, a devotional, Before Coffee God, is a 40-day (plus a little more) look at how God speaks to us. The third, The Porch, is a novel about a young man fitting in at a new job and learning about life on a ranch.

Me – 10-31-22 – 31 Days of Writing About Writing

photo info - my oak tree in the back yard

Hidden

 

 

A Discovery

I suddenly found myself writing a short story that surprised me, delighted me, made me smile. Where had it come from?

And then I realized there were millions of things hidden in my mind locked inside file cabinets that I never knew were there.

I don’t remember how I found out about the book “Fast Fiction” by Roberta Allen. I must have been searching for a new writing book, perhaps a writing magazine or maybe Barnes and Nobel. It doesn’t matter anymore. I found it. I bought it. I read it. I worked through it.

The method she used intrigued me. She wrote the book “Fast Fiction” after running a series of workshops in New York. In the book she states that she originally fell upon the method as she sat in front of a painting in an art museum. The painting sparked a story in her mind. She quickly wrote down the bones of the story to finish at another time. She continued this throughout the museum and discovered she had found a new way to create raw material for creative writing pieces.

Allen also wrote “The Playful Way to Serious Writing,” also one of my favorites, using the same methods.

I use both books to spark fresh writing; to dig out new things from my dusty, cavernous brain (can you hear the echo?); and to spur me on during my November Adventure.

 

My Practice

As per Allen’s suggestion, I set a timer for five minutes, read one of her specially designed prompts, and write as much as I can before the timer goes off. This writing is by hand. It must be by hand for it to work for me. There is something more primitive, more tactile, more visceral when using a pen and paper. The physical effort of writing connects new places in the brain.

No crossing out allowed. No fixing “mistakes.” Her method is as reactionary as possible. The hidden things in the brain are prompted by a word or a phrase or a picture. I write about the first thing that comes to mind. Many of these things are uncomfortable and even painful. But she urges her participant to write them anyway.

Another way to use “Fast Fiction” is to create raw material for an entire novel. Sometimes after a session of six writing prompts in quick succession, I see a patterns, a relationship, or a bigger story emerging.

And all these things were hidden somewhere in the file drawers of my brain.

 

God is In Charge of Hidden Things

God talks about the hidden things too. The more we work on our relationship with God, the more He reveals to us things we didn’t know were there. Sometimes it happens to me when I’m reading His Word. Sometimes when I am worshipping in church. Sometimes during the message. Sometimes while I’m praying. Sometimes while I am writing. These are precious times for me, times of convicting, or insight, or truth, or realization.

But there are things that will be hidden until God is ready to reveal them. And that is okay with this bear of very little brain.

 

Passages to Ponder

“But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” – Mark 13:32 (NASB)

“For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.” – Luke 8:17 (NASB)

“Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” – Jeremiah 33:3 (NASB)

“But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops.” – Luke 12:2-3

“At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.’” – Matthew 11:25

 

www.robertaallen.com

~

 

Hidden – 10-27-22 – 31 Days of Writing About Writing

photo info - Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/tama66-1032521/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=3039127">Peter H</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=3039127">Pixabay</a>

 

 

Dream

 

Day Dreams

I was a day-dream kinda kid. I had all sorts of imaginary creatures and places in my head when I was young. My brother and I used to tell each other stories as we went on long trips – the beginning of my writing.

Growing up I held on to dreams, the day kind, ballet dancer, concert pianist, famous writer, world traveler, well-known speaker, great educator. These dreams were wishes, not goals to work toward, and I only thought about them and never did anything to find them.

And I wasted a lot of time.

 

Night Dreams

I always believed the dreaming at night was my braining organizing the file drawers in my head. I used to talk about the dreams I had, always in color, rarely scary. Then I wrote about the dreams I had, the tunnel from my closet to the road a mile away, the days I flew like a bird, the animals I talked to.

As an adult I began writing down my dreams as a way to create stories. I stopped for a while but realized the practice also helped me in other ways.

Some dreams repeated, like the huge house with no furniture and beige walls and stairs to every room. Or the house with lots of bedrooms filled with beds on the floor with just enough room to walk around. Or the ones about me saving members of my family from some terrible fate even though they didn’t think there was anything to worry about. Or the ones about my husband and me and how we could never find a space to be alone. Or the ones about me trying to find a bathroom with a door I could close.

Maybe I’ve revealed too much …

Then there was the dream that gave me an entire short story in one night. It was about a young lady, married with two children, who went west with her husband to a run-down ranch with a house that needed tons of repair. I went through a series of sleeping and waking, writing down the parts of the story as they happened, then shutting off the light and going back to sleep. My husband thankfully slept through the whole thing.

I practiced writing my dreams down in the morning since I had read it was a good thing to do. Then I stopped, thinking I was focusing too much on them. But I started up again as a way of capturing the dream and understanding the possible reason for having it, a way to control it, to hold it and analyze it and make it mine. I have since found the practice calming and empowering.

 

The Great Writer Mystery

This brings me to the mysterious phenomenon of how several writers can get the same idea for a story all at the same time.

I used to think the universe sent out ideas to minds that were willing to accept them. This created tremendous pressure to get the story written before someone else did.

Then I realized writer brains work in similar ways, taking things and putting them together in interesting, unique ways, soaking up information and creating something new. Given current events, why wouldn’t we come up with similar ideas.

 

Final Dreams

I still have the dream, the goal of writing, getting published, and making money. But now I don’t dream of being famous. God knows it isn’t good for me. So selling books a little at a time while writing new ones works for me – more comfort, less stress.

 

Beware

Beware of those writers who aren’t really writers at all, but advertisers, scammers, con-artists selling a dream. The dreams vary from one thief to another, but they all basically tell you the same thing: Give us money and we will teach you how to make money. (Yup. You guessed it. I’ve been scammed.) It’s kinda like an advance pyramid scheme.

Now, to be fair, there is some value in what some of them teach, but the cost is so high.

Think of this as unsolicited advice from one writer to another. You ARE a writer, but please don’t spend your hard-earned money just to have someone tell you what you already know. You may have dreams of making big bucks writing, but you don’t have to pay someone to tell you that, or worse, sell you a different dream from your own.

Go to the people you trust, like this Five Minute Friday community. The small amount of money we pay for the privilege of being hooked up with other writers (31 day challenge) is totally worth it and helps support the ministry for other writers down the line. Seek out other writers and get their hard-earned advice.  Join a writing group, in person preferably. Talk to your librarian. Read books.

 

Good luck, my fellow writers. Write on!

Dream – 10-26-22 – 31 Days of Writing About Writing

photo info - 

Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/kathas_fotos-11174123/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=5343423">Katharina N.</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=5343423">Pixabay</a>

Place

A place of our own

 

A place of peace

 

A place to rest

 

A quiet place to think, draw, reminisce, dream, write …

 

Places I’ve written:

My bed

My tiny desk in my bedroom

By the pool

On the curb in front of my house

On the floor in my bedroom

In the bathroom

In the living room

At the kitchen counter

At a make-shift desk inside my bedroom closet

At a desk at school

In a study carrel in the center of the library at college

On the steps going down the hill to the town in winter

In the backseat of my dad’s car

In the front seat while my husband drove the family on trips

In the car in the parking lot at the school where I was reporting on a board meeting

At McDonald’s after work creating a story based on a Shakespeare play

In the car in the park where I could be by myself and collect my thoughts

At a table in the library in a quiet corner

At the desk at work where everyone could see me – no walls

Outside on the back steps pushing the cat away

At the desk at work where you have to stand up to peek over the temporary walls

At the local coffee shop

On the airplane on the way to a funeral

At the huge desk where I was surrounded by mass quantities of paper, notes, and files

At Barnes and Nobel in any chair that’s empty

At my desk at home that my husband built for me next to an eastern facing window where I can see the sunrise as I create another novel for National Novel Writing Month.

I could talk about a place to keep all my words, but I’ll talk about notebooks in another post.

 

 

Barnes and Nobel

McDonald’s

Three Bean Café

Galion Public Library

NaNoWriMo

 

 

Place – 10-13-22 – 31 Days of Writing About Writing

photo info - Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/janbrokes-1901772/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=2985636">janbrokes</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=2985636">Pixabay</a>

 

Idea

 

 

I have an idea …

What

Let’s learn more and more about writing. Let’s practice it every day as much as we can. Let’s learn from others, from those we know and from those who know more than we and from the masters.

Who

Let’s master setting like Edgar Allen Poe.

Let’s master dialog like Shakespeare.

Let’s master narrative like Orwell.

Let’s master character like Rowling.

Why

All writing is ideas. Copywriters write ideas by contract, other people’s ideas. Novelists write ideas in a framework of plot. How-To writers place ideas in a step-by-step stairway. Essayists take their ideas and find reasons for them to exist. Poetry writers take their ideas and write them in a different language of color and style.

Where

Ideas come from everywhere: nature, people, places, along the road, at McDonald’s, in a path through the woods, in a conversation, during a church service, from a dream, in the shower, from children playing, in the middle of the night, from books, from other ideas.

I have notebooks full of ideas for everything from stories to articles, from poems to epic novels. Some of the ideas are over 25 years old. I’m sure I’ll be able to use them someday …

Here are some books I have used to get ideas when the pressure is on to produce words (National Novel Writing Month) or just to wake up my brain:

How

Fast Fiction, Roberta Allen

The Idea Book, Jack Heffron

Writer’s Digest 365 writing prompts

When

Hopefully this post has given you some ideas.

Don’t forget to write!

Now!

Idea – 10-11-22 – 31 Days of Writing about Writing

Photo info - Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/kangbch-3007100/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=1684052">KBCH</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=1684052">Pixabay</a>

Between

 

Between

I like writing that is found between the lines.

Allegory

Poetry

Children’s books

Essays

Morality stories

I like writing those kinds of stories. The Porch is just such a story. In fact, one of my beta readers said that in some places the allegory takes over the story. I went through it and did my best to fix it, but I’m sure there’s still a few places where the allegory might speak too loudly.

 

Between you and me…

… never stays between you and me, so what I share between you and me is stuff I don’t mind letting out. Between you and me I love writing – when I feel like it. I love editing – when I feel like it. I love rewriting – when I feel like it.

I have to make myself write more times than not. And the way to get myself to want to write is to make myself write. After a little while, maybe a few minutes, I feel like writing.

 

Between bread

Writers understand the concept of meeting between bread, of someone actually reading all your words, understanding them, and – hopefully – reacting to them in a meaningful way. That’s what much of blogging is about.

Writers want to be read. Writers need to be read. I know some disagree, but I have not yet met a writer that didn’t want a pat on the back, an acknowledgement of presence, a compliment, a positive comment or at least a helpful one.

 

Between a rock and a hard place

I have found myself between a rock and a hard place in my writing, mostly when I was writing for the newspaper. Once, when I was editor, I was called out because I wasn’t doing a story on a racist comment that came up at a city council meeting. Two other newspapers had jumped on the story and I was waiting for the dust to settle. So, since I had to do something, I prayed. Then I got an idea: I wrote an editorial on the problem of racism within the city. It was, and still is, a big problem. I made a lot of people mad. I got a few hate letters which I answered if there was an address or email attached. My answer is always, “Would you like this letter to the editor posted in the next edition?” To which they reply, “expletive, no,” and that’s the end of it. I also received some very encouraging letters in favor of me finally calling out the problem and I begged them to let me publish them as well. But no. No one was brave enough to put their name out there.

When you are between a rock and a hard place, you learn a lot about people.

 

The space between

It is important to put space between things in writing:

Space between the rough draft and the final copy,

Space between the publishing of blog posts

Space between your emotions and the content you are dealing with

Space between your characters in your novel – to create individuality and strength in each character

Space between writing projects so they don’t melt together into a big project ball of confusion

Space between your love of the project you have completed and your creating clear words for your reader

Space between the dream and the reality

 

 

Places to start a blog:

WIX

Blogger

WordPress

Between - 10-10-22 - 31 Days of Writing about Writing

 

photo info - Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/greissdesign-30789/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=3700062">ran</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=3700062">Pixabay</a>