My Writing Life - Against the Wind
We often view adversity as an obstacle. Something negative which we must overcome or turn our backs upon. However, the times when we pit our our inner strength or our physical ability against adversity become the moments we can look back upon and see how they affected us and how we grew as a result. The things we learned to do and not to do. Wisdom gained from a bad experience or a positive encounter. Life lessons remembered. Through our struggles we can find defintion in our lives and become more than who we were in the beginning.
My Writing Life - Unexpected Moments
It's always the unexpected moment that fosters inspiration in my writing. Take a look at some of my stories over at Monday's Muse. A father-son outing. A puppy having his first taste of spaghetti. A customer wants a price on a bathroom before giving a single detail as to what she wants.
One never knows when that unexpected moment will come and the vividly conscious thought stream that results is probably more entertaining in my head than anywhere else. On the other hand, some folks have mentioned on occasion that these musings are thought provoking, entertaining, even heartwarming.
My Writing Life - When it Rains...
While I sipped coffee this morning and looked out the French doors to our small deck, I noticed some small bees hovering over the Sweet Autumn Clematis that climbs up the posts and railings every year. I'm not sure what attracted them, but I did notice the vines are sporting a few flower buds that have not opened. Perhaps the bees are anticipating the cascades of tiny fall blooms.
In September, the vines always attract honeybees, bumblebees, and other types of wild bees. They are one of the reasons I don't use pesticides around the house or yard.
It's very early in the year for the Sweet Autumn Clematis to bloom however. I can't ever remember seeing buds in August before and this is only the end of the first week. These vines are rather old actually. When the previous owner of this house put it on the market, the Realtor told the owners to add some shrubs and flowers to make the place more attractive. There were no vines that September, but the following year they spent the summer climbing and produced a glorious bloom just before October.
Contemplative Moment – Wood Stove
Fire making inspires contemplation
Photo by Margaret Williams AKA Mrs. Goodwife
It seems that lately there are too few contemplative moments. Those times when the number of endlessly nagging thoughts subside to a few, and then to none, before my mind drifts into what one speaker called, "The Nothing Box." That rarely lasts for even a few seconds because it is then that I begin to think about my writing.
It is, at that point, not at all about plots or content or finding the right image or formulating an outline or... Right. Nothing like those things at all. Please bear with me as my digression sets the stage.
Christmas found us in Wisconsin. We stayed at my brother's house which is always a joy. Church on Christmas Eve. Dinner coupled with treasured family traditions at another brother's house. Christmas morning our nieces opened gifts. All of this conspired to push me closer to that moment when the worries and the work disappeared from my thought process.
My Writing Life - Looking Back
Before I started kindergarten, I wanted to read. As a child of Small Town America in the middle 1960s, learning to read happened in school and not at home. Worry about school diminished when Mom explained I would learn to read. Finally. Until then, I often tried to imitate my father's fine, tiny script, but the words in my mind just didn't correspond to the scribbles on the paper. These were my very first attempts at putting thought to paper.
You cannot imagine my utmost disappointment when, on the very first day of kindergarten, Ms. Teach informed me I had to wait until First Grade to learn to read.
How could anyone discourage a young, inspired student with an unquenchable desire for knowledge? Ms. Teach had twenty or more energetic five- and six-year-old children to manage, no easy task, I am sure. As I look back, I wonder if the school systems of today still squelch inquisitive young minds by slowing them down or discouraging them from using their imagination.