The creative writing group I belong to had an assignment. We were to use these words: Solitary Rose, No Serviceable Parts, Rain, and Church, and write a story of at least 800 words.
I took a risk and wrote a story in a dialog from a child’s point of view. My peers loved it. It was fun polishing off my voice and reading my story in a dialog quite different from my own. Continue reading
Many things give me story ideas. The obvious is PEOPLE WATCHING.
Listening to dialog, whether it’s in a restaurant, on a bus, or at a coffeehouse—my ears and senses are wide open for the way a person walks, the tone of their voice, their clothes, the topic of conversation, and, of course, the emotions locking into their face. I press play on my imagination to record what I see and hear. Eavesdropping is the best way to find story lines, infuse a character description, or spice up the story’s dialog. Continue reading
There are many female writers who amaze me, not just with their writing, but how wisdom plays a role in who they are, and why they write. These are a few memorable quotes I think apropos for writing from the heart.
“Writing is a job, a talent, but it’s also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.” ~~Ann Patchett Continue reading
Last year started and ended the same, happiness landed and is still here.
~~~Instead of making New Years’ resolutions, I give myself a mental tune-up, so I’m prepared for whatever happens during the year. I call this: fine tuning my attitude, or developing more perfection, of a mental habit, for simplicity. Continue reading
A task in school was to write down a word and take each letter of that word to describe what the letter meant to you. This quirky game allows me down time from writing, while still sparking examination of me as a writer. I’d like to take the word WRITER and see what I can do with each letter. Continue reading
I’m an organic writer using imagination and instincts. I owe this to my father asking me (ten years old) to recant his two favorite, weekly television programs (over by nine o’clock), when the steel mill put him on the night shift. Continue reading
One Saturday, after giant hands slashed opened the grey sky and released continuous rain, I wasn’t inspired anymore (that day) after hours of re-writes. I bundled up and took the bus to my other home—the library. I love our central library (rain or shine), a magnificent structure of eleven floors of intricate shaped glass and steel, designed by two brilliant architects, Remment Lucas “Rem” Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus.
When I need inspiration, this library’s enormous fiction section has it in spades. Its national and international selections are a reader’s dream. Continue reading
I belong to a writing group. What I like about this connection ISN’T just stringing together sentences on the fly to test our skills, or that each member braves criticism reading out loud what they’ve written outside the group — it’s more. We look into the inner core of what we each go through before, during, and after we write. These discussions have been my guiding light. Continue reading