words and pictures....
August 11, 2021
I have to say, I been thinking about this problem for quite some time now. This thick, cold steel wall of writer’s block that now seems wholly and completely impenetrable. As I ponder this problem yet again, today I have come up with the top ten reasons why I am not writing.
(more…)March 15, 2021
Greetings of the Day to All…
I’ve been working on breaking a long spell of writer’s block, that has quite frankly, gone on too long. Writing here on a more regular basis has been very helpful and I’m starting to feel accountable to showing up and writing something, anything on this page. The fact is, I’ve got a lot of things to write about and right now that seems more appealing than working on memoir and personal essay revision.
So, I’m a mission to shake off my writer’s block and I hope you’ll join me on my journey as I poke about for interesting things to write about and maybe bring back an old popular topic here, Daily Affirmations.
Life is a path. It’s a metaphor I use often because I am a walker, and over the years I’ve recognized the changes in my life are shifts in the path. One year into the COVID pandemic, I shifting my path. I am not sure where it will lead me. Time, non-existent time, will tell.
February 20, 2020
Who am I and why am I here? Let me fill you in on what I am up to… I’ve been working on my website for a couple of months now. It had fallen by the wayside while I was in school for six and half years. A month ago, I had written here that I was working on “getting back on track with my writing.” I have to say, it feels good to be back at it. One of the focuses I have had in the past two weeks now is to get back on track with writing Daily Affirmations.
I’ve been sharing other writers affirmations and then writing my own Daily Affirmations online now for over 20 years. I initially started sharing affirmations online daily on my first business website, the now defunct AromatherapyGoddess.com. The business was a new age aromatherapy and bath & body business. I made my own products and built my website and taught myself to self-market my products online reading everything I could about how to market products online. One of the common themes was that the more content you had online the more traffic you would receive and the longer you would keep someone on your website. That still holds today.
(more…)February 15, 2020
One early April day a couple of years ago, I was walking on the beach at the Sandy Point State Reservation located at the southern tip of Plum Island, Massachusetts. I’ve been going to the beach at Sandy Point since I was a young child. As I walked along the beach, I noticed a small boy standing at the water’s edge watching the shallow waves coming towards him. There’s something very special about watching children at play on the beach. If like me, you grew up near the beach, the vision of a young child at the water’s edge takes you back to your own childhood.
I remember standing at the water’s edge in that same way, looking at the water working its way towards me and then swirling around my feet. There’s a moment when we reach the water’s edge, no matter how old we are, that we stand pensively watching the water in a state of wonder. And then we look to one side or the other, and we start to move along the lapping waves, because we are curious why each wave disperses along the beach in a different way.
(more…)December 31, 2019
Here at the bend in the river, at eagle’s nest, is where the sun glimmers on the water casting its shimmering light in such a manner that it illuminates my mind with both queries and answers simultaneously, for that beam of sun is so brilliant that I am blinded by its presence.
A million words race through my mind ricocheting off the water and tumbling down the river, running off to the sea. It is here in this curve of the river that I let go of a little pain and let in the glorious glow that I seek. I stop, I soak in the sun, and I turn back, warm and renewed, lighter, and brighter. I know the words I spilled down the river will return to me on the page. For it is here, I draft the questions that need answers. And, it is here, that the answers come to me. The light converging on the water, even in its palest or darkest glow, speaks to me, all knowing.
August 12, 2016
In the past, my writing style typically leaves out the all important first stage of writing—pre-writing. When I write, I tend to write and then rewrite but rarely ever do I engage in pre-writing.
Needless to say, when I started taking creative writing classes at UMass Amherst UWW, I learned that I was cutting out an integral part of the writing process. Jumping right into the writing phase works if you know what you are going to write about, but when you’re stuck pre-writing frees up space and opens up the creative channels.
Reading Chapter 1 of Connie Griffin’s text, To Tell The Truth in my Magazine Writing class gave me a keener understanding of how to use pre-writing as a strategy to break free from writer’s block. The creative process needs the freedom to be expressive, and pre-writing can be seen as a fun exercise in letting go, while also trusting one’s subconscious in a “nonjudgmental and forgiving” way. (p. 5)
The Getting Started (p. 6 – 7) section in Chapter 1, helped me to understand that pre-writing is comparable to a dancer warming up with exercise and practice, or a painter sketching in a rough outline on his canvas in preparation for creating his painting using the tools of his craft. When seen in that light, I suddenly found how pre-writing should and could fit into my process. (more…)
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