Story Sunday: The Ocean

“The oceans” was the prompt for this week’s #StorySaturday (Twitter).  I wrote this micro-story kind of as a memoir of my personal experiences with water, and how it impacted me.

The Ocean

 

Photo Credit: Stephanie Vincent Lawrence

I grew up around water

in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks

the river ran wild

its’ roars beat within me like a hammer

 

Then came the ocean of the Outer Banks

its rolling waves on the sandy shore

calm the racing of that heart

and created a sense of peace

I’ve never experienced

 

Now I live in the open expanse of the plains

where the ocean is only a memory

but a memory that I can revisit

for as long as this heart beats

 

“Water is the driving force of all nature.”  – Leonardo da Vinci

 

 

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Hopeless

 

Anger and pain

the norm in a young lifetime

Dreams and hopes

unattainable

due to unyielding sabotages

True love

fleeting

as there is no

happily ever after

So what’s the point

of fighting, persevering

when the darkness

is all that awaits?

 

“There is darkness inside all of us, though mine is more dangerous than most. Still, we all have it—that part of our soul that is irreparably damaged by the very trials and tribulations of life. We are what we are because of it, or perhaps in spite of it.” -Jenna Maclaine, Bound By Sin

#ThursdayThoughts: What IS Success?

 

Many writers feel that touching even one life is success.  Not by how many books one published, or by how many awards one garnered; although these are VERY nice to have.

For some writers, writing goes much deeper than any physical items or accolades.   It’s about using their gifts as storytellers,  healers, change-makers for the sake of others.

Success is based on the number of lives impacted.

What about you?  How do you view success as a writer?

Fantastical Friday: Harry Potter

 

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,  the first book in an iconic fantasy series, was released on 26 June 1997, and boy did it change everything.

Then comes the movie (released 2001) and a whole new magical world is opened up for both kids and adults alike.

 

I enjoy reading and watching series of all kinds, but I’m a HUGE fan of Harry Potter’s!

 

What about you?  Do you have a favorite book or movie series?

 

Writer’s Life: Back Home!

Just returned from a 12-day trip to the East Coast.  It was a whirlwind.

We drove from North Dakota to North Carolina in less than 30 hours (we did spend one night at a hotel near the border of West Virginia).  We went on to spend three days with my mother (NC), and then three days with hubby’s aunt and uncle in MD (just outside of Annapolis), and then two days with hubby’s side of family in western New York before driving back home.

Home sweet home.

Will take today to recuperate before diving back into writing/blogging tomorrow.  For now, here’s one of my favorite quotes by Hans Zimmer:

#ThursdayThoughts – August 24th, 2017

 

Writing is always a process of discovery. I never know the end, or even the events on the next page, until they happen. There’s a constant interplay between the imagining and shaping of the story.-Kim Edwards

 

Writing is a struggle against silence.-Carlos Fuentes

 

Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.-Meg Cabot

 

 

Writers, the fate of civilization is in your hands.

 

Over at Facebook, I moderate a session every Thursday with WE PAW Bloggers called “Thursday Talk Shop.”   This week we’re looking at a particular quote by a French philosopher, author, and journalist, Albert Camus:

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”

These are the questions I posed to the group:

Do you agree with this?

What do you think he meant by this?

How does a writer do this? I mean, wow, this is heavy! Can you name ways how a writer can save civilization?

This goes to show the kind of power behind the “written” word. Can you name writers who in your mind changed the course of history?

Feel free to participate!

Does Writing Energize Or Exhaust You?

Decided to do something different for a blog post 🙂

 

Favorite Friday: Ray Bradbury (on leaving behind a legacy)

 

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Fan”tastical Friday: Helen Keller

 

I’ve never really gave much notice to the term “fandom” until I looked up the meaning of the word in a dictionary:

-“the state or condition of being a fan of someone or something.”

This definition made me chuckle as it sounds like something out of a psychology textbook.  So, I looked at what Wikipedia had to say:

-“a term used to refer to a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest.”

Meaning, you can be a “fan” of not just individuals or movies or a particular kind of music; but, also of an ideal, an interest, motive, etc..  I think you get the idea.

I suppose now that I’m thinking (oh, so dangerous) I am a fan of multiple things.

For today, I will focus on one of them.

Women with great inner strength.

Helen Keller.  Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. Mother Teresa. Anne Frank. Maya Angelou.

There are just too many to list here but the one who has been the greatest inspiration to me was Helen Keller.

Although I am legally blind and deaf, I still have enough of both to manage.  But Helen had none of both and she still got around!  There are days when I get frustrated at my shortcomings and limitations to the point I just want to quit and throw in the towel (and I’ve done this before which brought only misery for me),  but I have to remind myself that there are (and have been) others who persevered and thrived despite their disabilities.

Which gives me hope.

And some days, that is all I need to continue on.

 

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

-Helen Keller

 

 

Writing: Daily Word Count (Poll)

Stephen King in his famous writing book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, has this to say about his daily word count:

“I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book — something in which the reader can get happily lost, if the tale is done well and stays fresh.”

Wow…that’s a lot of writing!

What about you?

Writing Quote For the Week

 

Here’s my writing quote for the coming week to help me get through it:

 

Every word I write is a breath of life.

What’s yours?

Quotes on Mental Health and Creativity

We’ll discuss how mental health/illness can affect one’s creativity on March 15th. 

Sometimes Having Too Many Creative Ideas Hurt

Click on the image to access this group’s official page

 

“You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

For the past few years (longer perhaps), I’ve struggled with NOT the writer’s block (blank mind) but with having my brain so crammed with ideas and stories that need to be told, I have nearly stopped writing altogether.

How do I separate these ideas and stories out, and prioritized them?   I mean, they are all screaming as loud as they can…

Me!  Pick me!  No, pick me! 

*Slap!*

You idiot, I’m the one she need to pick and not you! 

And so on.

All day and all night.  Every. Single. Day.

No wonder some writers go completely bonkers.

I’m about there myself.

What makes it all worse is feeling a growing sense of urgency that time is running out.

With so many various life experiences, I desire to use them to help others (through essays and poetry) as well as sharing certain messages that I feel people need to hear/read (through stories and films)…

I–I just don’t know even where to begin.

Which idea…which message should I start with?

What if that one is the last thing I ever do…will it be enough?

Oh, why do I torture myself so?

Writers have told me to just write about the first thing that comes to mind.

Get one word down.

And then another…and another…

But these voices in my head just won’t allow me to do that..one..thing..

Just one.

One!

That’s all I’m asking for!

Desperate, I began looking around online for answers.

It seems there is a name for what I have, and that I am not the only one.

Too Many Ideas Syndrome

(TMIS)

I’ve also found some suggestions that I will view as “treatment options.”   Namely from these two articles that I will highlight and visit often:

1. Dealing With Too Many Ideas Syndrome?
2. 9 Ways To Overcome Too Many Ideas Syndrome

Some of the treatment options mentioned were making a list of all your creative ideas (including a short summary of what they are about), then prioritize which one to work on (working on only one at a time); review the list either monthly or quarterly to see if any need to be added or deleted as well as if anything need to be re-prioritized.

I finally feel like I have a game-plan that I can live with; and hopefully, will help calm down the voices.

What about you?  Do you have TMIS?

If so, how do you deal with it?

 

How Do You View Yourself As a Writer?

 

How do you view yourself as a writer?

Teacher?

Historian?

Storyteller?

Visionary?

An awakener?

Or perhaps something else?

 

 

Writing: Does It Really Matter HOW You Write? (Quote)

 

If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.
– Somerset Maugham

Do you agree with the quote above?  What do you think this writer really meant when he said this?

The Magic of Writing (A Tale of Rediscovery)

 

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”-Stephen King

Why did you fall in love with books?  How about with writing?

For me, it was the ability of books to transport me to other worlds; to meet new and interesting characters, to explore exciting and wondrous places and creatures.  They took me away from reality and I discovered the magical realm of imagination.

In time, I learned to transform those fantastical worlds in to words.

Magic was real to me.  I believed in impossibilities.

Myths and legends.

In dreams.

I’ve been called naive for most of my life.  Probably because I choose not to see the world in its present state (dark, ugly and full of chaos and violence); but with possibilities and potentials.

Hope and beauty.

I choose to look at the world with a child-like view.

Hence, I still believe in Santa Claus and elves, and knights in shining armors.

Does this make me silly?

Maybe.

It’s how I survive in these ever darkening times.

However, for the past several years reality has been slowly poisoning my mind.

I wanted to write darker stuff.  The media is full of these kinds of images and messages.

My inner being grew more hollowed.

Depression and negative thoughts settled in.

These writings that I could never seem to finish made me feel so…so empty.

I began to doubt myself as a writer, and even considered giving it up completely.

Then yesterday I sat down to watch an old favorite movie; one I hadn’t seen in several years.  Actually, I watched the first two back-to-back:

I felt like a kid all over again.  My mind full of magical things.

Ideas.

The same ideas I had many years ago but have shelved them.

No more.

It’s time I honor the writer I truly am.

“I want to be magic. I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. I want to be a friend of elves and live in a tree. Or under a hill. I want to marry a moonbeam and hear the stars sing. I don’t want to pretend at magic anymore. I want to be magic.”-Charles de Lint

 

2016 National Novel Writing Month (Poll)

 

If you are participating, what will your novel be about?

 

 

Drunk On Writing?

 

The infamous quote by the great Ray Bradbury:

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

 

What the heck does this even mean?

What about you?  What do you think he meant when he said this?

Your Creativity and Parenthood (Poll)

 

“When your children arrive, the best you can hope for is that they break open everything about you. Your mind floods with oxygen. Your heart becomes a room with wide-open windows.”-unknown