Excitment

Having some problems coming to terms with my feelings about this latest project. I am over the moon to write the book, but should I be? Let's be real, this is a heavy subject, a very heavy one at times, but also a way for the subject to release stories that have been pent up for decades.
I guess I am happy that I am entrusted with such a task but cautious about my feelings. I think on one hand the excitement I feel is wrong given the topic, but on the other my excitement is for the trust in me, not the subject matter I will be writing.

Breaths

It is peaceful, yet loud times like this when a breath can be issued that is cleansing and deep. No hesitation nor despair can be heard.

Life is work but the work is forgotten with the blessings of the reward given in return.

Nothing benefits the soul more than a child sleeping softly and soundly from the excitement of the day and the comfort of knowing they are loved more than all.

Struggles

Sometimes when you begin writing you have the ideal audience in mind buoy know the level of language to use, the proper syntax ect. Then... The characters, as they always do, start to developed their own 'personalities.' Sometimes with that comes a maturation or a juvenilization of the material that makes it unusable or at a minimum unrealistic to your original audience. Just go with it.
You cannot always alter the language to fit your audience well enough and then you end up with a piece that has no direct audience and becomes difficult to market.
Do not restrict your writing just let it flow. Freedom to write allows unique and creativity to shoot out of your finger tips. You will get more written and be much happier with you work if you do.

Poetic

Feeling like a little poetry is in order tonight.

I have never been in your shoes.
I have never felt your pain.
I cannot begin to understand what you have been through.
I am unable to see the trauma that happened so long ago.

I can promise to never inflict the pain that you have felt.
I will spread your story I will shout.
I will love with all my heart.
And make a difference, after all that is a great start.

Together

What a challenge it is to collaborate with another and learn to select language that you both feel fits the purpose it is intended for. To determine what parts to include in the efforts and what ones are important, but not important to the story you are trying to convey. To agree with everything, or agree to disagree and move forward with the project for the best of the collaboration.
It is a road that I am glad to travel with all of it's turmoil and triumphs for I know in the end that I will help another to climb a mountain and see the valley on the other side.

Bare Soon

Before I know it there will be bare branches and no more greenery, besides the few evergreens that grow around the house. I love fall, LOVE IT! The changing of the seasons is one of the best parts of living in the mid-west. What I don't like, is what comes after the colorful leaf display. No, I am not speaking about the impending mounds of snow that will arrive all too soon. I am talking about the lack of color that the end of autumn and beginning of winter brings.
So much beauty before the dull. That's exactly what it is dull. No leaves on trees, just barren branches of grays, browns, and taupes. I have realized that in the time between the last leaf of fall and the first snowflake of winter I get very little work accomplished. It is as though my instincts to hibernate kick in and I become a lazy, frumpy, hermit of sort.
Alas! This year I have a plan, I plan to plaster my creative space with photos of the parts of nature that I miss during this time. So one of my tasks this week, besides 12000 words (yes I know lofty) is to take those photographs. To go out and be amongst that that I love, to attempt to capture the essence of it and use it until it returns. I hope I can do it justice.
Will post some of my inspiration next week.

Poems

Short, simple or long, complex, and structured. Poetry is the perfect way to express emotions. Even more perfect for the ups and downs of every day life. A positive outlet for sometimes negative thoughts.
Poetry is also perfect for those moments in life where you are so full of love that you will burst at the seams.

Jot down a couple lines and no matter if they rhyme for if they don't know one will care so long as your emotion is shown there. So put those feelings done in type and please don't worry if there is no hype for once there out and into the world they will be a new light for a boy or girl.

Inspiration

Happy Endings

We all want to write the books where the hero or heroin rides off into the sunset with the man/women of their dreams. Or where the lost is found, the broken is fixed...ect...ect, the list is never ending. Everyone loves a happy ending.
But in non-fiction, sometimes there is no happy ending, no silver lining in the storm cloud. Just darkness with the chance for hope sprinkled here and there. The writer has to be able to express the stories worst aspects, sometimes even, in a graphic way, and balance on a fine line between: giving enough information to let the reader illustrate the scene in their head and not enough to make them put the book down because it is too overwhelming.
So fine line, yet, more like an almost invisible line. Showing the damage and destruction without compelling the reader to shut down, close the book, and vow to never return. Instead we need to evoke strong emotions, fear, hurt, despair, even hopelessness at times, but let just enough life

Job As A Writer

I am completely humbled and in awe. I was asked to pen a book for a women who suffered major sexual and physical abuse throughout her childhood. She is ready to share her story with the world after 45 years. I will rise to this challenge but will need the support of the writing community to keep myself focused and in perspective on this task.
I am positive this will be an emotional roller-coaster, but one that I will rise and fall with and get off being a better person for it. I will post tidbits and updates as the process truly starts to snowball as things always seem to have a way of doing.
Wow, I just still can't believe it....it will sink in at some point...WOW!! Yes, I know, I am a writer and I can't fidn a better word than wow? I must be in shock!

Progress

Isn't amazing that some days you can pound out thousands of words and others well ten if you are lucky. I'm not talking about writers block so don't think in that way. I'm talking about when you are trying to figure out what path the character will take, what specific dangers to include and what ones to exclude. When the thoughts are plentiful but the decisions just can't be made yet.

So what to do?

I walk away. Literally I mean. I pick up my walking stick and head out into the wilderness...okay...so our backyard and woods.  It isn't huge, but it is large enough to give me peace and the solitude (from humans) that I need. The chance to breath and relax. Feel the breeze on my face, and the strength of the trees around me. When I was in college the best way to escape was to go to the gym and play some basketball for hours! I would clear my mind of all thought but the game, and sometimes the pain. It would allow me to return to my keyboard with a renewed strength and vigor for the story or the task.

Don't loose hope, the story will come, sometimes we like to try and force it out of us, instead of letting it develop on its own and in its own time. Granted we all have deadlines and restrictions, so sometimes it needs a little coaxing i.e. a slow walk through the forest.

In The Beginning

There have been stories of mystical places rolling around in my head for years. I can express to my children a place of magic and fantasy at bedtime with excitement and ease.
All of which I attribute my love of the written word. I do not feel that people just stumble on reading, though I am sure some have, I think that a love of reading has to be cultivated by others who are literate in your life. Primarily your elders who show not only the necessity of not only learning to read, but being a life long literate. To enjoy the literature that you are in, and to be able to push through the books, articles, or news stories that you'd rather not.  For being taught that finishing that book report book will not only make you a better person for the accomplishment that it brings, but if you can finish that, you can finish anything that you start.
Books personally for me have become a way to learn about others unlike myself at a personal and heartfelt level. Books have provided an escape in times of darkness, and brought suspense and darkness when I was standing in sunshine.
"I don't like to read." How many times have we all heard this. I always respond, "it isn't that you don't like to read, you just haven't found the right book yet." Once you find the genre that you prefer and learn to select books for yourself from within it, soon you will venture out into 'others' and will be surprised at what you will read, and learn, and become.
I believe that every person loves to go to another world every once in a while, to learn, to expand. Everyone loves a good story now don't they.
This is just part of mine....