A place where you can be human.
“If a writer stops observing he is finished. Experience is communicated by small details intimately observed.” – Ernest Hemingway
There’s plenty of words to add intimate details, but it’s the feeling you want to convey. Tiny details are great. I appreciate well-timed details that pace the story, but at the same time, details can take away from the story too.
What do you think about detail?
This weekend was jam-packed with celebrating my husband’s birthday and our anniversary. Now I’m tired from trying to keep up. I’m excited that this is my last year in my thirties. I look forward to growing older and wiser. The way to a good life surely is good friends and family. I wouldn’t trade any of em for the world. They are so incredibly valuable to me.
“A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.”
― N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain
“The forces of my writing -the power of my words -could swallow me whole if I let them. But I’ve learned to taper them. Tape them to walls and use them to patch holes in my heart and my thighs and the small of my back -the place he never brushed to gently guide me -a girl unguided -picking up rocks to leave a trail for no one to nowhere -But up is somewhere -I can’t leave rocks -gravity -That’s why I leave words.” -Saschia
My inner work this week is to focus on letting go of old beliefs.
It feels like I’m walking in uncharted territory. It took me a couple of weeks to get into a new routine, but I think I’ve gotten a good idea of my energy levels along with the actions I’m ready to focus on. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the administrative end of a nonprofit, it’s that things can come along slowly, especially with a smaller workforce. Since I’m on a new path in uncharted territory, that means old ways can be released and left back where they originated. I hope innovative ideas for sustainability come my way.
How are you with letting go of old beliefs?
The forces of my writing -the power of my words -could swallow me whole if I let them. But I’ve learned to taper them. Tape them to walls and use them to patch holes in my heart and my thighs and the small of my back -the place he never brushed to gently guide me -a girl unguided -picking up rocks to leave a trail for no one to nowhere -but up is some where -I just cant leave rocks -that’s why I leave words.
“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” – Robert Frost
My first question, is there such thing as too many surprises? I like surprises, but I also like to know things. I do appreciate a good surprise cry in a story. oh. I really like when I’m so interested in what’s going to happen that I can’t stop reading. Now that I’m writing this, I’m realizing I’m due for a nice long reading session where I read, eat, read again, nap, and finally read again hopefully to the end of the story.
What’s the last book you read?
My last read was The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig
“One writes out of one thing only—one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.” — James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
Sometimes James Baldwin hits the nail right on the head; this quote is one of those moments. His understanding of the human experience, the written word, and the words that come out of his mouth are all so poetic. Not that he’s perfect, but he says things that inspire me to be a better writer.
Who inspires you to write?
“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they’re going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there’s going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have, they find out as it grows. And I’m much more a gardener than an architect.” – George R.R. Martin
This is such a great description of the two types of writers out there. For those planters out there, what seeds are you planting? I planted an experimental fiction seed, and it’s a toss-up between horror or historical fiction later. But who knows, maybe it will be full-blown nonfiction.
Today is the Autumn equinox!
“A carefully worded answer is that on Sunday, Sept. 22, at 8:44 a.m. Eastern daylight time (5:44 a.m. Pacific daylight time) autumn begins astronomically in the Northern Hemisphere, and spring in the Southern. At that moment, the sun would be shining directly overhead as seen from a point in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, 461 miles (743 km) south-southwest of Monrovia, Liberia.” -Space.com
It’s literally fall, and the temperature was perfect today! It was so perfect that I wanted a warm drink with my iced one. I’m just happy we get to keep moving forward in life. There’s no time to stay stuck in one season when we have plenty more changes ahead!
“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”
–Albert Camus
We don’t have to be part of the generation that destroys itself; there is infinite hope on the horizon and a collective of creatives all over the world that we can embrace. We have options and we have ways to lift our voices, through dialogue, innovation, and the power of community. We must remember that our voices can inspire others to join the cause. Don’t we owe it to ourselves and future generations to take action and create a better world?
Jayne.press