Tag: Writing

More Writers’ Helps

This is another quick post to let you know that if you visit my Writers’ Helps page you will find a few more links to check out. They are interesting and fun, I am sure you will agree.

I also made a change on my About Me page which is now About Me/Contact Page. After you scroll down past the me blurb you’ll find a contact form. This is just in case you want to contact me about writing or reviewing or something else valid – without knowing my email address – but you don’t want to leave a comment the usual way. This form puts your message through to me after checking it for spam. (Thanks WordPress!)

I’m glad you visit my blog, and I hope you enjoy what you find here.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

More Writers’ helps added

Just a quick post to say that I have added more great helps for writers on my Writers’ Helps page. There are so many useful things out there but these ones stand out to me.

I will add more later, but check these ones out and see what you think. Hopefully, something will inspire you or help you to create with more confidence.

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Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Root canals and the misbehaving Muse

Monday was an interesting day, not at all what I had anticipated.

As the day got closer I became more anxious. My root canal was scheduled for the morning at 11:30. To say I was nervous would be a slight exaggeration. I tried to be calm; I took a 400 mg Advil suggested for the jaw pain I get during dental appointments; I prayed to be calm.

Soon I remembered the herbal remedy I occasionally used years ago when I was singing in a group. My jangled nerves would mess me up so my voice teacher recommended Rescue Remedy, which worked amazingly well. A quick dash to the health food store and I had a new little 10 ml bottle of stress relief. A few drops on my tongue, and before I arrived at the dental office I felt much more relaxed.

I had been experiencing tooth pain for a few weeks, but tolerated the discomfort since I had a regularly scheduled dental appointment anyway. When the appointment came around in late March, it was determined a root canal may be needed. Oh dread! My dentist sent me on to the specialist who does only root canals, and who – I was told – is very good, won’t do anything not required, and is gentle and careful. Okay, that sounded acceptable, so I went along to him a week later. After x-rays and checking the problem, he set up an appointment for me to have a root canal three weeks later, April 23. Also, because of my likely jaw pain he could divide the procedure into two parts if it were to become too difficult for me during the usual 1.5 hours to completion.

I arrived for the procedure but this time he found no reason to do the root canal! He said somehow everything had settled down and he suggested we wait to see if the problem flares up again. Imagine that!

I m a g i n e   that.

I’m thanking the Lord for this turn of events. If I do end up having to go through the procedure later, the time will be right.

Now, you may be asking .. what does all this have to do with writing?  Nothing.  (Doesn’t everyone enjoy stories about root canals, especially the non-occurring ones?) Nothing, unless I can think up an allegory to fit. hmmm

Nope. Nothing.

Unless you think that trying to write when nothing is forming in your mind is like a toothache nagging at you and nagging at you. You need a rescue. You need to go down deep and find the words, the source of the irritation. You need to tunnel into those deeply hidden, elusive thoughts and permit your true ‘writerly’ genius to excel. You need  … a mental root canal!

Too over-the-top?     Sorry.     Let me try that again.

How about this?   When–

  • something hurts, write;
  • anger surges, write;
  • lifted up by joy, write;
  • events sadden, write;
  • there seems to be nothing at all … write.

WRITE to discover what is concealed there.  Write more and continue to write.

Gee, I wish I’d said that … oh, I did! Now to take my own advice – advice given to me, and which I am now passing on to you.

JUST WRITE!

What is your best advice for that absence of creativity, or for the seemingly wordless Muse that won’t quit nagging?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂

PS: The original version of this post (with a different message) can be found on my Scarlet Thread Musings blog on blogspot.  http://novascotiaflavour.blogspot.ca/

New Page: Writers’ Helps

As promised, I have created a new page here on my blog. Writers’ Helps has a list of links that will be of help to writers and anyone needing just the right word, a rhyming word, a translation, and more. I will be adding to this list as I find sites I especially like.

You can find the new page from the list at the top of the front page, and also in the pages category down the left side of this page.

If you have any great links that you would like to share, please leave a comment for me and I will check it out to perhaps add to my list of writers’ helps.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂

2012 Month of Poetry and “12×12 in 2012”

It seems I closed my eyes for just a moment, and when I opened them again ..  there it was .. gone! 😉

                                                         P O O F !

The first half of the first month of this new year has been used up already! And what, I wonder, did I do with my portion of it? There is not much I feel I have accomplished thus far.

In my last post I mentioned signing up for two writing challenges – #MOP for the whole month of January, and 12×12 in 2012 which is for the whole year.

M.O.P.

Since 2008, Month of Poetry has been coordinated by Australian poet and children’s author, Kat Apel. You can visit her here: http://katswhiskers.wordpress.com/ and check out #MOP here: http://monthofpoetry.wordpress.com/about/

Last year I participated in #MOP and fully enjoyed it, so this year I signed on again. Each day participants are to write a poem, anything at all (as long as it is child appropriate because there are even a few very young ones taking part, too), and post it to the board if wanting to share. The posting is not a requirement but in doing so it is inspiring and fun and helps draw ‘poets’ together in the sharing. This is not a competition, nor is it set up with prizes or anything. It is to encourage those who love to write poetry, opening up the possibilities and getting the creative poetic juices flowing.  Kat gives suggestions for improvement where necessary, as do other fellow writers, and it is a great way to learn as you go.

I have been finding it harder this year to write anything, including poetry, but I am still working at it. For today I wrote a poem about words. This little verse is the much simpler short verse I extricated from it before posting the more involved part of the poem to the board. I thought I’d share the orphaned part here as it just didn’t belong with the rest.

Words to share my heart’s intent
words to change and reinvent
I need words to clearly say
what is on my mind today
 

If you are a writer then you know what a love-hate relationship we can have with words. Sometimes they are sweet in one’s mouth and mind, sometimes the most difficult of partners, sometimes they amaze, sometimes they dismay, sometimes they are right there .. readily accessible, sometimes they just will not surface when wanted. This is the way it has been for me the past several months. A mixture of challenges but more difficult than easy. Even so, I believe that it is important that I write, perhaps only for my own sanity, but perhaps for something yet unknown down the road.

12×12 in 2012

This challenge – found here: http://writeupmylife.com/2011/11/30/12-x-12-in-2012-picture-book-writing-challenge/ – is headed up by Julie Hedlund. Check out her blog here: http://writeupmylife.com/

In Julie’s words: “write one picture book per month for each of the twelve months of 2012. This means a first draft: beginning, middle, end. NOT a submission-ready piece.”

Her idea came out of PiBoIdMo – Picture Book Idea Month – when she realized she still needed to do something with all her ideas. You can check out my December 8, 2011 post: http://bit.ly/rDpv8F regarding my efforts in November 2011, and if you are interested you can read through my November 2010 posts for more. Although I had come up with 44 ideas in 2010, I had not pulled together one manuscript (naughty me!), and with almost that many more this year I knew I had to do something with those to honour the pledge I’d made in signing up. Then along came 12×12 in 2012! (Thanks, Julie!)

You may wonder how I’m doing with that so far. Ummm, wellll … to be honest I have barely looked at my pages and pages of ideas, other than skimming them and selecting the ones I think have possibility, but I am going to try to get one story seriously worked on this month. And since there are only two weeks left I have to get a move on!

What are you doing with your goals so far this year?

If you are a writer, is your Muse keeping you busy?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

PiBoIdMo is over, but for me it has just begun

PiBoIdMo is the other challenge I took on for the whole month of November. I learned about it in 2010 and first took part in it then … but let me explain …

PiBoIdMo – Picture Book Idea Month – is the brain child of Tara Lazar. Check her out here: http://taralazar.wordpress.com/about/

The challenge is to write an idea a day during the 30 days of November.  The idea can be as simple as the name of a character, or the title for a story, or as complete as the whole outline for a story, or something in between. Thirty ideas in thirty days. Sound daunting? I thought so.

In 2010 I did both NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo, and succeeded in both. It was exhilarating, exciting, tiring, fun. This year, I tried both again, and if you read my last post you will know that I didn’t get a win in NaNo, but I’m pleased to say that I did again meet the goal for PiBoIdMo. Yay! I got 40 ideas, maybe more depending on how you count them up.

I didn’t think I could do it. Some days the idea well ran dry, but on some other days I got more than one idea for a story so that by the end I had passed the target. whew!

Again, if you have been following my blog, you will know that life has changed a lot for me. Because of that I really wasn’t sure I could dredge up enough creativity, but I very much wanted to try. And I am so glad I did.

Tara Lazar, if you are reading this … Thank you (again) for a fantastic 2011 PiBoIdMo! 2010 was great, but I don’t know if this one was better or if I was more open to seeing more, but … wowsers!!

Last year I took the pledge, read all the daily posts, commented on some, gleaned a little here and there, completed the challenge, and then I put it all aside. I didn’t even get one story pulled together, so I guess in all actuality I broke the pledge. 😦  Sorry, Tara. (Really I should be apologizing to myself as it is not hurting Tara that I did not follow through, it is my own loss.)

This year I took the pledge, read all the daily posts (and was moved to tears a few times – what was that about??), commented on most, absorbed more this year, completed the challenge, and then … then?  Then wow! I had a personal revelation, an awakening in my hopeful heart.

I don’t know ‘where I was’ last year in all of this, but this year… this year! … I realized Tara is making the way for me to move forward as a writer of children’s books. She is giving me all the tools to draw out what I need and what I need to do, and THEN .. after the 30 days were over she didn’t stop there. Just as she had guest bloggers write pre-PiBoIdMo posts this year, she had a few more guest bloggers post for several days afterward. wow!  And somewhere in there I got it. I see now.

I took on PiBoIdMo in 2010 for the challenge and fun of it. I learned things, I worked at it, I succeeded in meeting the goal, and I was delighted that I had some nice story ideas that were worth developing … some day. This year, all of the same things but with one major exception. I have to complete by honouring the pledge. And I think I should do it twice .. to include last year, too.

I realized that this is not just fun and games. If I really want to write children’s books then Tara Lazar has handed to me all I need to do just that! duhhh!

This year, I got it, Tara. I understand.  That is what the tears were about. That is what PiBoIdMo did for me this year. I am learning how to be the writer I want to become. Thank you.

And one of these days I may just say, “Hello, my name is Lynn, and I am a writer.”  One of these days ..  🙂

How about you? Have you had any personal revelations or awakenings lately that have had an impact on you?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂