January 30, 2009 Writing for fun!
Here's the writing prompt I promised:
Make a list of places where writing hides for you. Instead of "nature," say "In the chipmunk tunneling beneath the snow" or "In the cloud passing across the sun." Instead of "memories" write "In the pocket of my mother's apron" or "In the loaf of bread I'm making."
You get the idea. Now how about this one: Instead of "Love" write. . . you fill in the blank with something specific that defines love for you. Have fun!
Friday, January 30, 2009
January 30, 2009
Joan just posted a comment about her first writing class. You go, Joan! Your enthusiasm has re-ignited my creative juices. All you readers/writers out there, be sure to check out Joan's comment under January 26th Creative Play & Craft Day! And if you've been considering whether to jump into a writing class or writing group, Joan's comment should get you running to sign up or seek out other writers! Write on, Joan!
What is writing like for you? Are you in the flow, a little blocked, has inertia set in? Not every writing day or writing project is the same, but the writing seems to flow the best when we write from our truest, deepest down places, when we find our "heart" connection to whatever it is we're writing. What do you care about? Write about that.
Watch for my next post later today. I'll be giving you a fun little writing prompt.
Joan just posted a comment about her first writing class. You go, Joan! Your enthusiasm has re-ignited my creative juices. All you readers/writers out there, be sure to check out Joan's comment under January 26th Creative Play & Craft Day! And if you've been considering whether to jump into a writing class or writing group, Joan's comment should get you running to sign up or seek out other writers! Write on, Joan!
What is writing like for you? Are you in the flow, a little blocked, has inertia set in? Not every writing day or writing project is the same, but the writing seems to flow the best when we write from our truest, deepest down places, when we find our "heart" connection to whatever it is we're writing. What do you care about? Write about that.
Watch for my next post later today. I'll be giving you a fun little writing prompt.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
January 29, 2009 Happy Birthday!
Today's my husband's birthday, and since he loves to fly fish and because Ernest Hemingway is probably his favorite author (other than me, of course), here's a short Hemingway quote: "If you get a kick out of it [a fish] while he is jumping remember back until you see what the action was that gave you an emotion. Whether it was the rising of the line from the water and the way it tightened like a fiddle string until it drops. . . or the way he smashed and threw water when he jumped. Remember what the noises were. . .find what gave you the emotion; what the action was that gave you the excitement. Then write it down making it clear so the reader will see it too and have the same feeling you had. " Happy birthday, honey!
The Hemingway quote on my desk: "I have tried to write the best I can; sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can." Yesterday was that sort of day for me, and today is promising too!
Also, happy birthday to my grand nephew, Kurt Hoover!
Today's my husband's birthday, and since he loves to fly fish and because Ernest Hemingway is probably his favorite author (other than me, of course), here's a short Hemingway quote: "If you get a kick out of it [a fish] while he is jumping remember back until you see what the action was that gave you an emotion. Whether it was the rising of the line from the water and the way it tightened like a fiddle string until it drops. . . or the way he smashed and threw water when he jumped. Remember what the noises were. . .find what gave you the emotion; what the action was that gave you the excitement. Then write it down making it clear so the reader will see it too and have the same feeling you had. " Happy birthday, honey!
The Hemingway quote on my desk: "I have tried to write the best I can; sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can." Yesterday was that sort of day for me, and today is promising too!
Also, happy birthday to my grand nephew, Kurt Hoover!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
January 28, 2009 Poetry Day
Today I'm not going to think about the snow
or freezing rain, and I refuse
to worry about the bone-chilling temps,
the blustering wind, the slippery roads,
the chickedees shivering in the blue spuce
trees outside my window, because today
is poetry day, and I get to write a poem,
and draw, and work on my picture book,
and maybe even read.
This is not my poem of the day, but today has been a wonderful day of creativity. Life is good!
If you love nature, look for poetry books by Mary Oliver, who has won a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Today I'm not going to think about the snow
or freezing rain, and I refuse
to worry about the bone-chilling temps,
the blustering wind, the slippery roads,
the chickedees shivering in the blue spuce
trees outside my window, because today
is poetry day, and I get to write a poem,
and draw, and work on my picture book,
and maybe even read.
This is not my poem of the day, but today has been a wonderful day of creativity. Life is good!
If you love nature, look for poetry books by Mary Oliver, who has won a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
January 27, 2009 Happy Birthday!
Today is the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. We all know who he is, but what you probably don't know is that I used to listen to his "Eine Kleine Nacht Musick in G major" on a scratchy old 33 rpm record played on a 1960's HiFi, every night at bed time when I was in high school. Happy birthday, Wolfie!
It's also the birthday of Lewis Carroll of Alice in Wonderland fame. When you read my new book Secrets of Greymoor http://candlewickpress.com/ you might find a little of Alice in the book. Just by looking at the jacket, you'll see a looking glass. But the mirror in Secrets of Greymoor has a completely different significance. What does the mirror stand for? I'll send a free copy of the book to the first person who figures it out!
For more about these special birthdays check out: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/ You'll also get to read a funny litle nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll!
Today is the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. We all know who he is, but what you probably don't know is that I used to listen to his "Eine Kleine Nacht Musick in G major" on a scratchy old 33 rpm record played on a 1960's HiFi, every night at bed time when I was in high school. Happy birthday, Wolfie!
It's also the birthday of Lewis Carroll of Alice in Wonderland fame. When you read my new book Secrets of Greymoor http://candlewickpress.com/ you might find a little of Alice in the book. Just by looking at the jacket, you'll see a looking glass. But the mirror in Secrets of Greymoor has a completely different significance. What does the mirror stand for? I'll send a free copy of the book to the first person who figures it out!
For more about these special birthdays check out: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/ You'll also get to read a funny litle nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll!
Monday, January 26, 2009
January 26, 2009 Creative Play & Books on Craft for Memoir Writers
I am so excited that Joan signed up for that memoir class. I was deeply struck by what Joan said in her first comment about how she had always loved to write as a child! How wonderful that she is now retrieving the child within who loved to write, to play with words.
When we practice the things we loved to do as children, we recapture ourselves, our innocence, our pleasure in creating, our pleasure in making something. I had spent so much time with words the past seven or eight years with writing, reading, and teaching that I'd lost the joy I once felt doing these things. I felt a deep craving for something, an act of creativity that did not include words, a wordless activity. One of the things I most loved to do when I was young was to sew. My mother and my grandmother Keesler gave me my first lesson in sewing when I was five. I loved to sew, and then one day when I was in my twenties, I quit and did not begin to sew again until last year, nearly thirty years later. I always loved dolls, and when I began to sew again, I created little characters all my own, and my own patterns for characters and clothes, and the joy began to come back again, the joy of creating that comes when we have no other thought than just to create. My little dolls sit on my desk now and when I look at them I smile.
So that is what I've come back to now, bringing back the emotional experiences of childhood and putting a new skin of fiction on them. Today when you pick up your pen to write, instead of calling it work, call it your play, "write" as Flannery O'Connor said, "remembering the child you were." Today I'm going to play with words. I can feel the joy already!
Joan inspired me to look for some good books for writing memoir. So here's a few titles to check out:
1) Courage and Craft: Writing Your Life into Story by Barbara Abercombie
2) Old Friend From Far Away by Natalie Goldberg
3) Thinking About Memoir by Abigail Thomas
Have fun checking these out, and if anyone has a title of a favorite book on the writing craft, I'd love to have you share it here.
I am so excited that Joan signed up for that memoir class. I was deeply struck by what Joan said in her first comment about how she had always loved to write as a child! How wonderful that she is now retrieving the child within who loved to write, to play with words.
When we practice the things we loved to do as children, we recapture ourselves, our innocence, our pleasure in creating, our pleasure in making something. I had spent so much time with words the past seven or eight years with writing, reading, and teaching that I'd lost the joy I once felt doing these things. I felt a deep craving for something, an act of creativity that did not include words, a wordless activity. One of the things I most loved to do when I was young was to sew. My mother and my grandmother Keesler gave me my first lesson in sewing when I was five. I loved to sew, and then one day when I was in my twenties, I quit and did not begin to sew again until last year, nearly thirty years later. I always loved dolls, and when I began to sew again, I created little characters all my own, and my own patterns for characters and clothes, and the joy began to come back again, the joy of creating that comes when we have no other thought than just to create. My little dolls sit on my desk now and when I look at them I smile.
So that is what I've come back to now, bringing back the emotional experiences of childhood and putting a new skin of fiction on them. Today when you pick up your pen to write, instead of calling it work, call it your play, "write" as Flannery O'Connor said, "remembering the child you were." Today I'm going to play with words. I can feel the joy already!
Joan inspired me to look for some good books for writing memoir. So here's a few titles to check out:
1) Courage and Craft: Writing Your Life into Story by Barbara Abercombie
2) Old Friend From Far Away by Natalie Goldberg
3) Thinking About Memoir by Abigail Thomas
Have fun checking these out, and if anyone has a title of a favorite book on the writing craft, I'd love to have you share it here.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
January 22, 2009 Books on the Craft of Writing
Here's a partial list of books on the writing craft that I promised was coming today!
1) On Writing by Stephen King. A memoir of sorts, but the last half of the book is where the meat on writing is found, and it's worth the read for any writer.
2) Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly by Gail Carson Levine. This is an excellent book, especially for aspiring young writers.
3) The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers & Screenwriters by Christopher Vogler. A good book for plotting the coming of age story structure that is used in such films as "Star Wars" series or "The Wizard of Oz."
3) From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler. Excellent for the serious novelist.
4) Writing and Selling The Young Adult Novel by K.L.Going. If you're interested in writing for this age group, this book by an award winning author of YA, should be on your shelf.
5) Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is excellent for a writer's survival. Inspires, motivates, as well as packing a wallop of humor.
6) Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose. A better reader makes a better writer, and this book will give you an edge.
7) The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. Good for blocked writing and good for writers just getting started. It is a course in discovering and recovering your creative self.
Here's a partial list of books on the writing craft that I promised was coming today!
1) On Writing by Stephen King. A memoir of sorts, but the last half of the book is where the meat on writing is found, and it's worth the read for any writer.
2) Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly by Gail Carson Levine. This is an excellent book, especially for aspiring young writers.
3) The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers & Screenwriters by Christopher Vogler. A good book for plotting the coming of age story structure that is used in such films as "Star Wars" series or "The Wizard of Oz."
3) From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler. Excellent for the serious novelist.
4) Writing and Selling The Young Adult Novel by K.L.Going. If you're interested in writing for this age group, this book by an award winning author of YA, should be on your shelf.
5) Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is excellent for a writer's survival. Inspires, motivates, as well as packing a wallop of humor.
6) Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose. A better reader makes a better writer, and this book will give you an edge.
7) The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. Good for blocked writing and good for writers just getting started. It is a course in discovering and recovering your creative self.
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