Jun 11
Are you a storyteller? I come from a long line of storytellers. They’re not necessarily writers (in fact, I believe I’m the first “writer” in the family tree), but they are serious tellers of stories.
I wrote about my family’s storytelling in my memoir. In one scene, I’ve just come home from 4-H camp with a sprained ankle and my father has met me in the parking lot of our grocery store with bad news about my cousin and best friend, Susan. Read more
Since the printed word came into being, people have been promoting literacy one way or another. An early way of doing so was via bookmobile. The first “books on wheels” were developed in the 1800’s in England as a way to get books to rural areas far away from city or town libraries.
I remember waiting with barely-contained excitement each week for our local bookmobile “Little Chief” to drive up to my parents’ grocery story. Being the only business in our small bayside community, we were a natural location for the bookmobile to offer its weighty words and bright, shiny covers to patrons.
I’m sure Little Chief was one of the reasons I became an avid reader. I devoured my books each week so I could experience the joy of choosing new ones the next week.
Despite the internet and the e-book revolution, the bookmobile still exists in our county. I passed the big, purple behemoth the other day and had an instant flashback to those early days of learning to love to read. The adventures of Huck Finn, the Swiss Family Robinson, and the Lone Ranger echoed my own adventures as I discovered the ample forests of my childhood. The bookmobile was my bat mobile where all kinds of adventures awaited me each week.
Bookmobiles are still used in many countries and some are run without a vehicle. Examples include:
Recently, I was at the local hospital while a family member was having surgery. Though I was keeping other family and friends updated via email, text, and phone on our loved-one’s progress, I owe a debt of gratitude to my cousin who came to the hospital and sat with me.
Having somebody physically by my side made me feel less alone and made this event feel “doable.” It reminded me of the earlier posts Carly and I wrote about having a “body double” while writing. Having another person physically present next to you while you write gives you a wonderful feeling of community and kinship. We all have doubts at some point during our writing and having a body double can give you the confidence and courage you need to continue on.
If you haven’t tried writing with a body double yet, I highly recommend it.
To read more about writing with a body double, read Carly’s post: Find writing success with a buddy.
“You never graduate from learning. There is always more to discover.”
This sentence, in an e-mail update from author Jeff Goins, made me think about how much I love to learn, especially about writing.
One of the reasons I love learning is that it feeds my curiosity. Every time I learn something new from a book or a writing workshop or conversation with my writer’s group, I feel a charge. After periods of intense learning and mental stimulation, I even feel like my brain has changed, as if I’ve expanded my thinking.
Turns out, there’s science behind this.
In a post at Psychology Today, neuropsychologist Ian H. Robertson hypothesizes that education and stimulation repeatedly trigger a chemical messenger in the brain called noradrenaline. The brain releases this chemical when you face a challenge, figure out something new, or are surprised by something — all things that happen during the learning process.
So how does this help writers? Read more
Little Free Libraries is an organization looking for help to build and place Little Free Libraries where kids and adults need good books.
Their mission is to:
Their goal is to build 2,510 Libraries–as many as Andrew Carnegie–and keep going!
To find out how you can help promote literacy and spread the word, please visit their website.
“A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.” – Andrew Carnegie
What is your writing watchword — the guiding principle that drives your writing life?
Writing has always been a central focus of my life. As a writer and reader, I love words and the power they have to move people and create change. So I was intrigued to see what entrepreneur Gianni Vega does to create art out of words and inspire people to commit to their passion and goals.
Vega, who calls himself a “Thot Provoker,” named his business Knots Thots. His artistic products are boards with quotes meant to spur people to, “live a life with no regret, no exceptions.”
Customers pick a board or have one custom-made with a quote that has meaning to them. The boards, which come in three sizes, include operating instructions: He urges customers as an act of faith and commitment to write down their dream or goal on the back of their board, sign their name, and date it. Read more
“There is no such thing as writer’s block for writers whose standards are low enough.” –American poet William Stafford
Poet William Stafford wrote every day, rising early in the mornings before the rest of his family. This discipline resulted in about 20,000 completed or attempted poems over his lifetime—of which only 6,000 or so have been published. Occasionally accused of being “too prolific,” Stafford would say, “if you get stuck, lower your standards and keep going.”
I needed this advice this week. Stuck on the same chapter for two weeks now, I realized that something needed to give. It’s not that I don’t know where this chapter is going—I do and I’ve even scratched out an outline of the scene. My problem is that I’ve been too hard on myself. I’ve been tired and stressed lately and beating myself up for not getting further in my story AND I’ve been expecting my prose to be at top-notch level during all this. Rubbish.
Taking Stafford’s advice, I realized that I just need to lighten up and get on with it. Write the crappy chapter. Let my prose suck. I can go back and fix it later when I’m not so stressed and fatigued. After all, this is a first draft. And, as my poetry mentor says, “First drafts are meant to be sucky.” Read more
onewildword 