writing

11/12 – Prompt – Spiral Journaling

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I was inspired by my friend’s tea cup which had an infinity spiral as part of the design at the bottom, and I have been drawing a lot of spirals lately from flowers to coffee steam swirls to spiritual incense, and Celtic spirals, so seeing the inside of the cup really stayed with me all day.

I drew it in my sketch pad, thinking that I’d do something with it later.

After my little adventure earlier in the week, I decided to do a little bullet journalling, but write it in the spiral using different colored pens.

I really liked it.

I mean, I really liked it.

I think I’m going to draw a few spirals and use one each day of my trip to wind down and remember the day while it’s fresh in my mind. At the end of the trip, I’ll have at least ten spirals and a neat little souvenir from my special trip.

The directions follow: Continue reading

16 Books Every Woman Needs to Read plus a few extra

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16 Books Every Woman Needs to Read from Bustle.

Plus, the books that I’ve read this year that I would recommend, either about women or by women or both:

Yes, Please by Amy Poehler

My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Mary Harnett and Wendy W. Williams

The Jet Sex: Airline Stewardesses and the Making of an American Icon by Victoria Vantoch

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, and So Much More by Janet Mock

Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (fictional)

The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman

Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth Century Europe by Sarah Gristwood

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

It’s Been a Long Time…

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It’s been a long time,

Since I’ve seen your smiling face.

It’s been a long time,…

Long Time by Cake

Nearly every day for the last two weeks, I’ve come here, opened a post, and stared into the oblivion of a blank page. It isn’t that I have nothing to write about; I have plenty, and I have written a few things, but nothing ready for prime time, so to speak.

I have been trying to work on other things, but I feel your absence deeply.

Of course, every time I go back to see what I “owe” like my last few prompts and my New 52 Reflections, I seize up and I think that I will never get out from under.

I have also been spending most of my time planning my family’s trip to Ireland and meditating on a prayer for my confirmaton saint for whom I am making a prayer card. (Where nothing exists, create it.)

We’ve also been to the movies quite a bit in the last few weeks as well as renting from Redbox: Wonder Woman, of course in June, but more recently, Moana, Spiderman: Homecoming, War for the Planet of the Apes, The Lego Batman Movie, Logan.

I thought I would share some of the more visual things I’ve done since last we were together. I’m working on another one that was inspired by the (second) homily at yesterday’s mass.

Continue reading

Prompt 10/12 – Micro-Memoir and a Contest

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​I have been taking a memoir workshop since the spring of 2012. It, and a few other tools saved my life, and led me to writing again. I had never thought of myself as a memoirist or being particularly interested in sharing my life stories, but one of the things I’ve learned over the years is there is no such thing as a wasted prompt.

Any of the prompts I’ve used in creative writing and fiction can be used in non-fiction, and the reverse is the same with memoir prompts. Write your memoir or use the prompt for fiction. Write someone else’s story, with permission of course.

As this season’s memoir workshop was ending, I was hit with a bad case of writer’s block. I’ve shared a bit about that here. I also received on my Kindle the current copy of The Writer magazine, and it is almost entirely devoted to memoir writing.

There is also a contest in that issue that anyone can enter. I’ve pasted it below, but check out their website and the August issue of The Writer for more details on submitting your micro-memoir. I’d equate it to flash fiction, the fictional equivalent that I’m more familiar with.

One definition that you will need from the article itself is wunderkammer. It is a cabinet of curiosities where treasured items are curated, inspiring or reminding you of significant life experiences or dreams. 

Give [Leslie] Jamison’s assignment a try. Consider objects from your personal history as potential entries in your wunderkammer. Stock your cabinet with items from your past that inspire curiosity, awe, titillation, and fear. Review the items on your shelves and then choose one to realize more fully. Don’t go for the obvious –evoking danger through a knife, for example. Select an object with an unexpected powerful emotional charge and tell its story in one paragraph. Are you ready to let someone peek into your wunderkammer? If so, submit your previously unpublished one-paragraph (no longer than 200 words) micro-memoir to The Writer by emailing it as an attachment to tweditorial@madavor.com with the subject line “Micro-Memoir Contest”by Aug. 8th. (One entry per writer, please.) I’ll judge the finalists, and the winner will be published in our December 2017 issue! 
– the August 2017 issue of The Writer

Writer’s Block

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​Writer’s block.

When it comes, it comes from nowhere, and leads to nowhere.

It comes in so many forms that sometimes it’s hard at first to recognize. Is it writer’s block or do I just need a cup of tea? Have I been out of the house too many times? Do I need to stay home for a change? But home is so distracting.

Then there’s the writer’s block that’s literally a brick wall. Okay, not literally a brick wall, but it is a barrier to any and all writing.

There’s the writer’s block that needs a stream of consciousness jump start that turns into questioning whether your stream of consciousness is on drugs. That comes out sounding like June is too hot. Except when it’s not.

Squirrel!

And then there’s the writer’s block that bonks your confidence on the head with a sock full of pennies. The right words don’t come and the wrong words come too fast. There’s too many feelings to put into words, but when words are your thing what are you supposed to do?

Well, it’s been about five days, and I’m still not sure.

But there’s this.