writing

51/52 – 2017 Writing Reflection

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​Looking back on 2017 and how much I’ve advanced in my writing and motivation needs to start before the year even began. For Halloween 2016, I dressed as a journalist, complete with reporter’s notebook and 1950s fedora. The election year had been a difficult one for journalists and the press in general, moreso than the usual kidnappings and murders that they face yearly all across the globe. Theirs is not an easy job, but where would we be as a society without them? The maligning they received at the hands of Candidate Trump, and continues with him as President is horrifying, not only to this country’s First Amendment, but also to this country’s value we put on knowledge and information; checks and balances.

I have always been a fan of journalists and news reporters, and my choice for two Halloweens ago was a reminder of that love, but also of what was at stake at the following week’s election. We can see how prescient that choice was.

It’s been a long year. L–O–N–G.

I’ve had a few missteps and missed deadlines on the blog, but I’m happy with how far i’ve come, the changes I’ve made, and confident in the changes still to come in the new year.

I’m grateful and appreciative for every follower, every like, and every comment. Each one helps me to grow just a little bit more as a writer.

I now also consider my attempts at art and photography as part of my writing and my writing life.

I participated in Nanowrimo, and I was very satisfied with how much was written in those thirty days: over 35,000 words. As I’ve said before, I didn’t make it to the 50,000 word goal, but I do have 35,000+ words more than I had on November 1st. I’m looking forward to creating outlines and editing and more research in the early parts of the new year to get my book on its way.

I have also decided to send a letter of intent to a local continuing education department and teach a six week class on writing. The workshops, and my contributions to them, not to mention this blog, have given me the confidence to believe that this is a next step in my writing life.

In reading too many books that I feel I could have written, not so much better, but differently and valued, I believe I have another book in me, this one specifically on journaling. Or writing. Or inspiration. It’s still in flux.

This looking back will have me looking forward by the end of the week. Stay tuned.

Nanowrimo – A Final Assessment

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​Nanowrimo is in the wind until next year. I do not have any solid plans for what i’ll do next year, but this year was, by my estimation a success. No, I did not meet the 50,000 word goal, but I did have more words written at the end of November than at the beginning, and for me, that is a worthy accomplishment.

I have been talking about writing a book about my journeys through Wales since I graduated from college, lo many years ago, and I’ve never been able to get it off the ground. Part of that is the vastness of this project. Another are that the questions of where do I begin and where do I focus have been nagging at me since, well, since the beginning.

As I have studied the English and literature fields, both as a teacher and a writer, there have been many evolutions since I first set foot in Wales and found a calling that has stuck with me, and affected much of my spiritual life. And whether religious or not, it is truly spiritual. Literature has gone from one genre per publication to multi-genres and mult-focuses. interconnectedness. Connecting the dots of the many facets of our lives.

Is it possible that I was waiting for something rather than procrastinating? Perhaps that is what I was waiting for whether I knew that’s what I was waiting for or not. For years, decades, it felt like self-loathing and procrastination, laziness and the feelings of not being good enough to complete a compelling book and story or perhaps to even begin one, and so I never have.

I’ve continued to take notes, to write blurbs, to write dozens of outlines that then became outdated, and I’ve been relatively okay with just keeping it in my head with a question mark.

Now, I have several blurbs and beyond, ranging from as little as 75 words to as many as 3,465 in a single piece.

I’ve accepted that this is more than a memoir, which I had only accepted it being a few short years ago thanks to my library writing group.

I’ve accepted that it is a memoir, tha people may actually want to hear my stories, but it’s also more than that. It’s a travel guide – where to go, what to see, what and how to pack. It is also a spiritual guide, more of a spiritual journey that is personal to me, but also an offering of advice to begin your own journey of the spirit; a walk of faith, whatever that path may lead you to as it led me to many different and unexpected places.

I had originally intended to do some outlining and editing in December, but keeping up on this site and getting ready for the December holidays, which include innumerable church and retreat times plus sharing a car with my husband who has to actually go into work a few times each week has made this month a little more stressful than it would have usually been. I’ve decided therefore to put off the focus on the editing process and plans for what I didn’t write in November for January, specifically beginning on the 4th.

My final Nano assessment is a rousing success as far as I’m concerned. My official total for the month of November is 35, 308 words. That is just the word count for the book of Wales. I also had twenty separate posts, some writing, some photography, some art. It made me happy to work on my book and not leave this page by the wayside. Sometimes multi-tasking can be a blessing.

In the early part of next week, I will have an Advent reflection, a book review, and a reflection on Mary, only a few days past her Feast Day of the immaculate Conception.

As this month and this year comes to a close, I hope to have some surprises in store and some positive changes here, but also at home and with my spirit.

Have a blessed Advent and Holiday Season.

Election Reflection – A Political Eruption

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​I originally wrote this eight months ago for a memoir workshop prompt, which was ironic because we were told, both for the fall before and this spring to avoid politics. I am easily the most liberal person in our writing group and the most conservative is a couple who I actually know from my church. Everyone else falls somewhere between us, and with the 2016 election and the Inauguration still very fresh on our minds any talk of politics was like pulling the band-aid off a cut. For some of us it was like, well, just to avoid a graphic example let’s leave it at pulling off a band-aid.

This prompt was interesting because it was a writing exercise from Bill Roorbach’s book, Writing Life Stories. It is the Chinese Food Menu Exercise – choose one from column A and one from column B and write for ten minutes.

I think if I was starting this project today instead of editing it for you, I would use a rhyming scheme just so I could write about the eruption of corruption in the Trump Administration.

What rhymes with incompetence?

Ignorant?

Intolerable?

Suffice it to say, we’ve come a long way in the past eight months, down a darkening path that frightened me, and continues to frighten me.

Late night comedians and twenty-four hour internet opinionators called this a dumpster fire around February. If February was a dumpster fire, then what in G-d’s name is this?

I’m in a mirror universe where up is down, truth are lies, news is fake, Russia is good and Congress is indifferent.

Originally, this was written with hopelessness. I still feel it, but I’m also opening myself up to hope and to take action. I’m also going to link to Peter MacDonald’s speech at the White House. He is a Navajo Code Talker, and if he can have hope, I can also.

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The prompt for this was choose one from column A and one from column B. My two words were politics and eruptions.
Politics is calling out to me, I think since my inner (and outer) (political) junkie has reawakened. A little wiser, a little calmer, a little more cackling at the chaos and fearful of the mongering.

For several years politics is more than policy; it is life. Corporate lay-offs equal will my husband have a job? Health care increases and higher deductibles equal medical care or lunch? Decisions no one should have to make.

But last year…last year was beyond the pale. This can’t be what anyone wanted, but here it is. And last year also brought politics to a boiling point, a volcanic spewing, a series of eruptions. As the silent majority rose in the 80s, a new majority erupted from the ashes right below the glass ceiling, tiny pieces of glass tinkling on the floor, balloons popping and children crying as well as their stunned parents.

The slow boil began, the lava beginning its ascent higher and hotter until it could be contained no longer.

Boom!

Not crybabies.

Not sore losers.

Tired, tired people.

Tired of hypocrisy and broken promises.

Tired of silence and complacency.

I drew political art. i attended my first protest. 

The political eruption like the Hawaiian volcano will continue to echo and build and staggered ground shaking spew. Once it erupts, it can not be re-contained.

Not the silent majority.

There are more of us and we will not be silent.

We are the majority.

Gratitude Through the Rosary

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​One of the things my priest spoke about this morning about gratitude and saying thank you really resonated with me. It wasn’t just about gratitude or the gospel where the only one to return thankful for healing was the Samaritan, although that was a part of it. There was also a reference to all of G-d’s miracles here on Earth, and that reminded me of something I wrote yesterday for Nanowrimo and my book on Wales. 

Writing yesterday about the church of Wales, in so much as the land is a huge outdoor sacred place to pray came back today with the homily, more reminders of the sacredness in nature – this mornng’s bright sun, the cool air, but not too cold, the leaves carpeting the ground in a multitude of bright and colorful hues.

Even after so much time, I still don’t understand how a homily can have such meaning in a personal way. How does the Holy Spirit guide my priest to say something that not only resonates, but almost gives me an electroshock at its accuracy.

Those of us who were there this morning, as he said were not there out of obligation. No one was required to be there, but there we all were, listening to the Scriptures, bringing canned goods and non-perishables, receiving a loaf of bread to continue our celebration of the Eucharist and to share in the breaking of bread with our extended families, feeling thankful and receiving words of encouragement to bring that thankfulness with us throughout our day.

One of the things I touched upon yesterday was how Wales itself formed a holy, living rosary. I love the rosary, and I feel very close to Mary in so many ways and for so many reasons. I also feel a similar attachment to my saint, Elen of Caernarfon. I enjoy praying the rosary, either alone or in a group, but when I’m alone, I’m often at a loss of how to start it. I know the Our Father and the Hail Mary, and I’ve gotten the Doxology down, but the in-betweens, the mysteries if I don’t have my “cheat sheet”, the Hail, Holy Queen, and even the Apostles’ Creed (the one I like the best.)

If I’m alone, I often have to make it up as I go along, and so I’ll choose five things or people to acknowledge and pray for (as I did in Ireland) to cover the five decades. I know that the group I’m with during the week will pray for the unborn. I’m not against this, but it seems…too political. I try to add women who have difficult choices. I do this silently for fear to offend but when I’m alone I don’t include it. It just doesn’t come up on my mind’s radar for the rosary. I think of the rosary as more than intercessory, but as gratitude. Thank you, Mary for your Son. Thank you, Mary for your guidance. Thank you, Mary for your support and holding me up when I need holding up.

As I wrote yesterday, I listed ten things, one simple decade that encompassed my “Welsh rosary” and now I’m starting art for it.

As my priest talked about the blessings we all have, and the hardships, family present and gone, far away, but with us in spirit, it made me think of that Welsh decade that just came to me so easily while I was writing. I didn’t think I’d do this, but it seems to be doing it itself.

A Thanksgiving Decade

1. The bright sun, warm on my face

2. The cool air, the reminder that winter is coming, and once we’ve gotten through, the joy and rebirth of spring will be upon us.

3. The brightly colored leaves.

4. The perfectly hued blue sky.

5. The music of the choir. The sounds of voices raised in song, the songs themselves a prayer.

6. The flickering candles.

7. The loaves of bread waiting to be blessed and shared.

8. The generosity of the parish with cans and boxes for the poor.

9. The cold wetness of the holy water forming a cross on my forehead.

10. The Spirit descending upon us all as we go forth into the world this Thanksgiving day.