You have to keep your writing on life support, and give it oxygen.

Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint it Black

How about you?  Is your writing life healthy these days?  How do you keep your writing life alive?  What are some of the remedies you use to revive it?

Yes, my writing life is healthy! If I were still teaching full-time I can’t say it would be as easy to keep my flow, flowing. I have my mornings all for me and usually I am up early writing away.

I have daily challenges to engage me and that really helps.

I  have a word count journal

to begin each day, I have photo a day challenge and I’m up to day 50., and I have something on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and something on Fridays and I love to write movie reviews and I see a lot of movies.

I would like to have more people reading my posts and leaving me a comment to begin a conversation, but that doesn’t hold me back from writing.

It’s exciting to be a daily writer.  I’m happy to be spending so much time using this computer to write on this network.  It’s new and exciting.

There’s so much more to say and I still have a head cold that’s clogging my thoughts, but this is the right time to be a writer and the right time to have the time for it.  I feel very blessed.

Bonnie

Becca left this writing questionnaire prompt for her Write on Wednesday writing group, on her way off to a vacation and somehow I never took up the challenge and it’s never too late,  so here I go:

What’s your favourite genre of writing?

I love writing  movie reviews and posts about my thoughts on my work, my life. Is that a genre? I’d say non-fiction.

How often do you get writer’s block?

I would say never.  I’m not blocked  but I drive myself crazy procrastinating.

Do you type or write by hand?

As I moved to Mac and began blogging, I retired my notebooks and never looked back and that’s made a big difference.  Left-handed writers had their own set of writing challenges, one being writing stamina.  On a keyboard the playing field in leveled.

Do you save everything you write?

I don’t save what I write on my blogs and some of them have disappeared, but I have been assured by the edublog creators that that issue has been solved. Everything on my hard drive is backed up.  Important pieces are saved.

Do you ever go back to an old idea long after you abandoned it?

Good question.  Yes, I get a chance for that during our Summer Institute when the writing really flows.

Do you have a  constructive critic?

I do. Thanks to my  National Writing Project and Hudson Valley Writing Project communities, I have a great network of writers to ask for deeper feedback when I need it.  I have my online writing communities as well.  Wow, am I a blessed writer.

Did you ever write a novel?

No, I am better with short stories, digital pieces.  I did take up the NANOWRMO challenge in November, but I enjoyed it, but I had too much going on and after two weeks I had to pull out. It was fun though.

What genre would you love to write but haven’t?

Hmmm, I’m thinking about this one…

What’s one genre you have never written, and probably never will?

Horror stories!

How many writing projects are you working on right now?

Many!

Do you write for a living? Do you want to?

I do write for a living.  I have published pieces on the NWP website, but all my work is done with writing.  I couldn’t hold my position with the HVWP without the writing I do.

Have you ever written something for a magazine or newspaper?

Yes, and now online projects.

Have you ever won an award for your writing?

hmmm…

What are your five favourite words?

Obama…I have to keep thinking about this one…

Do you ever write based on your dreams?

Indirectly, dreams often motivate me to wake up and write.

Do you favour happy endings, sad endings, or cliff-hangers?

Depends on what feels logical.

Have you ever written based on an artwork you’ve seen?

Yes, and my most creative writing coming from its connection with images and music: digital storytelling, now there’s a genre I didn’t list above.  Wow, that’s dumb. I’ve returned full circle to the start of this exploration.  Nice!

Thanks Becca, I wonder if there’s a new prompt for this week.

Bonnie

Welcome back, Write on Wednesday and Greetings to Cafe Writing, a monthly writing group I just found on Becca’s blog.  One keyboard click often leads to another treasure.

So here’s our WOW Fresh Start

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write..
~Pearl S. Buck

It’s invigorating to think about fresh new things to do with my writing.  After all, the new year is the perfect time for a fresh start.

How about you?  What fresh new ideas do you have for your writing?

Welcome back Becca and Write on Wednesday.  I’ve missed your great Wednesday writing prompts but I totally understand the need to take a break, so welcome to 2009! Let’s hope we can all enjoy it.

At first, when I read your prompt considering new writing resolutions, I couldn’t think of any and I was ready to just jump into the Cafe Writing prompt, but wait, I always need a bit of time to remember and yes, I do have a new writing challenge.  Inspired by Bud Hunt and D’Arcy Norman and his 2009/365 Photos Flickr group.

I am using my photo blog to house my commitment to sharing a new photo each day with some writing that comes from the photo.  I’m very interested in the image and its words.  I am part of a wonderful image/text community, Photo Fridays, but I feel I need to kick up the anty for myself.

So far, so good.   I even purchased a new, pocket-sized  digital camera perfect for grabbing a shot from my bag.

A photo a day!

Here’s one:

Isn’t that a wonderful idea? Incorporating the disciplines of mind and body -  writing, music, yoga – to enrich the experience of all?  I’m beginning to realize the importance of working in harmony with all aspects of the self, and keeping my physical body in a state of healthy mobility is an integral part of maintaining that essential balance.

So, how about you?  Do you find that physical activity inspires your creativity?  What’s works best for you – walking, running, dancing, kickboxing?  How do you get in touch with your body, and use that awareness to inform your writing?  How do you keep your body and mind in balance?

As usual, Becca at Write on Wednesday, offers a great prompt to motivate a writing post to share with her writing community on Wednesdays, and I’m happy to be home and up for the challenge. So here goes:

Mind and Body, is there a more perfect union?  I remember, as high school drama director trying to explain and encourage kids to get their bodies moving, especially the kids who were “in their heads” as I had been at their age.  Without movement, without a comfort with their bodies, they couldn’t let themselves “go” on stage.

It was a hard concept to explain to the kids who just couldn’t see what they were missing, because in their heads they understood the character they wanted to create.  I understood their frustration and often tried to offer them opportunities to let go in my drama classes.  Good thing I was rewarded with a classroom at the end of the hallway, where I could shut the door and crank up the boombox for some dancing.

It was still hard for some kids to let go in class.  Again, I remembered how hard it was for me to let go at their age.  As long I could still remember myself at their age, I felt connected as a teacher.

Mind and body, I am there right now, but not without support from my personal trainer Anthony, at my gym, who pushes me each week with more weight as we move around the gym stations.  We talk about my diet and plans for the coming week of movement, a routine alternating cardio and weight training, so that most days I am sweating for a solid 30+ minutes.

And then at the other end, eating with self-control so that my clothes feel loose, now that’s an even tougher challenge, but combined with exercise, it leads to mental well-being, leads here…

Bonnie

Write On Wednesdays with Becca

Writing is one of the most difficult and frightening things anyone chooses to do,” Johnson concludes. “Exercises make the work a little easier and a little less terrifying.”

As I read Becca’s entry for this prompt;

Here’s an excerpt:

In my musical life, I developed a method to see me through the long weeks leading up to concert time. Early on in my “performing” career, I learned that I needed to feel extremely well prepared to forestall those performance anxiety attacks that lead to jittery failures on stage. So I made sure I practiced a lot, practiced so much that my body could do the work required even if my mind went into nervous overdrive. I worked hard so that I felt confident, and so that my “muscle memory” could take over onstage if my nerve should momentarily fail me.

In my writing life, things are a bit different. I find it easier to “slip off course” because (1) there are no deadlines looming; and (2) no one is depending on me to deliver a finished project. So my writing dreams get put on the back burner in deference to other responsibilities which take priority.

The conclusions here are quite obvious, aren’t they? In order to “stay the course” and complete tasks to my satisfaction, I need the impetus of deadlines and personal accountability to others. So how do I find those in my writing life?

Blogging provides a certain amount of accountability – many times I’ve been tempted to throw in the towel on this writing habit, but my blogs and the people I’ve come to consider my friends in this arena hold me accountable. This week’s Write On Wednesday was a good example. In the crush of election excitement, work deadlines, and preparing for a trip out of town, Wednesday was gone before I knew it. So skip it, I told myself…who cares?

How about you? Do you do writing exercises or warm ups? Do you think they could be valuable? Have you found warm up exercises helpful in some other area of your life, e.g. art, music, athletics?

Funny, I’ve been thinking about what keeps me “on course”. It’s my guilty conscience. I have this list in my head: Write-into-the-day, create blog posts for Memoir Mondays, Slice of Life Tuesday,Write on Wednesday, Photo Fridays, Boil down your week, read blogs, keep the word count growing on your November novel (NaNoWriMo), exercise at home, at the gym, practice guitar for your Tuesday lesson, prepare for you workshops coming next week, offer something new for your inservice at Dover, plan dinner for Tuvia, get to Karen’s wedding DS, Amanda’s photo book, get back to reading with your book club buddies, pack for Tuvia’s, unpack from Tuvia’s  on and on…

I’m exhausted just creating that list.

I’m not afraid to slip off course here, for me it’s the opposite. It’s hard to move away from here, from my Macbook. I can multi-task with ease, but what about everything else?

Ahh, the guilt, the guilt…that’s what pushes me from one activity to the next, but am I letting myself enjoy each challenge in the moment?

It’s like being at the gym and moving from my station to the next. I’m on the balance ball and glancing over my shoulder to the waiting machine I’m planning to use next, worried that someone might get there before me. I need to just chill and savor each experience.

CHILL Bonnie, CHILL!

In answer to the prompt finally:

I warm up each morning that I can get online, with writing, just a freewrite on my Word Count Journal that I began two years ago on January 1, 2007 on the suggestion of my NWP tech buddy Karen, who reads my daily prompts religiously.

I played by the rules that first first year: Day one: one word, Day 2, two words….on and on…until one day I wanted to write more and that’s when I took control of the word count but I pledged to write there to start my day and I’ve been almost perfect. It was hard in China where the site was blocked and sometimes I begin writing into the day with a post on my blog for Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays,or  Fridays. But I always get to my Word Count Journal.

That’s where I let it all run wild, everything that’s been simmering, of course there’s a public audience to consider. I’ve long ago given up my pen and real journal for the computer keyboard the world of the web. It s a wonderful exercise to get my fingers working in sync with my mind. I never return to reread a day or revise anything.

I wonder though if it would have the same power for me if I were writing on my hard drive without a potential audience. I wonder? But I can say, I don’t fall off. The potential of a public audience keeps me motivated and I love it. I worry about its end. Do I need back up? Would any blog work for this daily exercise? Probably. I never thought about that, but for now I’m a Word Counter all the way. Year 3 is almost beginning.

And now it’s on to the next challenge…I think I’m ready to get moving on my Nordic Track. I’ve been sitting here long enough.

I’m going to hold off with extra credit below for now.

Bonnie

Extra Credit: Try one of Johnson’s exercises above, and post about your experiences. Or create an exercise of your own and share it.

1. Spend five minutes listing every word you can think of that starts with the letter “a”; tomorrow, use “b”; and so on…
2. Spend five minutes listing everything you can think of that’s the color blue; tomorrow, green, and so on…
3. Open your dictionary and blindly point to an entry. Do this until you land on a noun, then spend 10 minutes writing a scene in which that noun figures significantly.

I am ready for this event. I heard about it from you, Becca and from Stacey on Two Writing Teachers.

This is my first time!

I don’t know why, but I assumed we would be writing this online.  I even created a new blogsite for it, but now I’m thinking I might just keep it private, although I have become a public writer and love it, but I think this exercise is to keep your fingers moving on the keyboard without stopping for spell check, etc. So I might just use the old fashioned Word or maybe my Apple Pages program.  I’m thinking…

I love the idea.  Funny it’s been going on for 10 years and I never heard about it. Ten years ago, I was already out as a writer but I wonder if I would have been ready to take up the challenge.

Of course I won’t be writing for this day and night.  There’s the election next week, there’s the National Writing Project Conference in San Antonio, there’s some work, the Thankgiving.  There’s life, but I will find time to return to two of my favorite ladies, Jessie and Molly and their adventures.  I began episodes into their lives a few summers ago for during our Summer Institute and the group urged me on to keep the story going.

That was a few years ago, before I became a public, daily writer.  I’m different and they are different.  Jessie and Molly will reconnect on Friday.  I will keep you posted.

I’m as excited about this challenge as I am about a new president coming our way. That’s almost!

I am practicing right now.  But time for a break.  I am moving to my guitar.  My fingers need another challenge.

Bonnie

Join on with Becca

Today’s Prompt:

I love the idea of everybody stopping in their tracks just to read, to enter into someone else’s world for a while. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if the whole world took time every day to do that? And, wouldn’t it be even more fabulous if the the world took 20 minutes every day to write, to enter into our own worlds a little deeper, express our vision of life and ourselves on the page. Wouldn’t we all become more mindful of the beauty that surrounds us, the people that intersect with our lives, and more keenly attuned to our own thoughts and dreams? Those are just some of the ways my writing experience has enriched my life.

So, how about you? Do you make time to write everyday? Don’t you think everybody should?

Great prompt for this week because I can say YES!! I WRITE EVERY, SINGLE DAY and of course, I wish everyone else would join me.

I remember when I didn’t, when, even though I was an English teacher I could still teach writing and support the few real writers who passed through my classroom doors without actually being a writer myself. After all, I believed that most of us weren’t real writers.

So first I had to realize that yes, I AM A WRITER! That transformation took place at Bard College’s Writing and Thinking Institute during a week in July when I was 40.

What a transformative experience! I returned to my classroom, a writer and a teacher of writing and then sharing my writing with my students began our community of writers.

That was almost 20 years ago.

As I left Bard that first summer, I knew I would return for more week-long writing workshops to build my new identity and I did. I loved the change in environment, the creation of writing circles, the facilitator support to move rough drafts beyond with revision. I traveled, some summers. to writing workshops in Taos, with Natalie Goldberg, to Santa Fe with Robert Boswell, one of my all-time favorite writers, to Provincetown for poetry. What a wonderful way to spend summers!

After each great experience, I would leave with a fresh new journal, a great new pen and a promise to myself that my writing would continue daily to build my muscle and maybe even take a piece to publishing.

The members of my writing communities created during those wonderful weeks also made promises to write and stay connected.

None of my promises were kept. Sure I tired to keep writing. I couldn’t do it first thing in the morning, but I did keep a journal at school with my students. As they wrote, I wrote. That journal was a place I recorded school observations and I promised myself and my students that my notes would one day, serve as the foundation for a book about them.

So far, that hasn’t happened.

I had my personal journal residing on my night table with my latest new pen. I did begin strong, writing every night in August, the first month after the workshop. I continued into September, but not every night. By October I was only feeling guilty. By mid November, I got rid of my journal; I couldn’t stand to see it unused, calling out to me. I didn’t throw it away, but like most of the others, it was moved to a shelf in my bookcase, and became part of my writing history never to be opened again. Well sometimes it became my next summer’s workshop journal.

And sadly, I never kept up with the great writers I met along the way as well.

But something happened when I became a member of the Hudson Valley Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project. My writing life was given something extra, a community that wrote together for a month and then as we completed our Summer Institute we were all invited to become permanent members of the HVWP and stay connected. Finally a community of writers beyond the initial experience. And I remained. In the following summer I was invited to join the new leadership team forming to Co-Direct the project and co-facilitate the summer institutes. I just finished our 8th SI and here I am writing away.

As a member of the HVWP and the National Writing Project, I attended a conference and discovered digital storytelling and the web. Since 2006 I have moved my writing from the journal and the pen to the computer and the blog, another transformative experience!

January 1, 2009 will mark the second full year that I have begun each morning(almost) writing into the day in my Word Count Journal. My NWP buddy Karen, in a IM conversation with me suggested it as a way to begin a new year and a new promise to write. One word on the first day, two on the second…a commitment for a full year and I jumped for it. She continues to read my journal, my buddy Kevin does as well. There are probably others in the Word Count community as well, probably I am writing for myself, as a daily ritual. Sometimes before the sunrise, sometimes without coffee, always in my pj’s.

I never return to my word count entries. They are just to get me up and moving. Then here is where I craft pieces for Memoir Mondays, Slice of Life Tuesdays, Write on Wednesdays and soon, National Novel Writing Month beginning on November 1. And with my passion for writing with images my online writing buddy Stacie, turned me on to a blog that showcases the image and word: http://blkdrama.wordpress.com

And these online writing communities offer me readers. So I write to a dynamic public audience that will read my entires and leave something behind in my comments section.

Whoops, forgot two other great online communities: Kevin offers Day in a Sentence at Kevin’s Meandering Mind and my own Photo Fridays on Flickr. So many opportunities to write with communities.

I began at 40, I’m turning 60 in 2009. Twenty years as a writer. Feels wonderful to be writing on this Web and I can still remember Al Gore mentioning something called the internet.

Bonnie

Write on Wednesday

Here’s this week’s prompt:

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. ~Seneca

Or- to put it another way – what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Go skydiving? Become a doctor? Take up ballroom dancing or acting…hockey or figure skating?

What’s your wildest writing dream? Penning the biggest blockbuster since The DaVinci Code? or winning the Pulitzer Prize for a finely crafted work of fiction? And what’s stopping you from going after it?

So I am not going to sing like Aretha, or play guitar like Segovia, or make movies like Steven Spielberg, and that’s okay with me.I can’t sit on the couch with a box of tissues because my guilty conscience just won’t allow it.

Since I stopped my full-time teaching work after 30 years and took charge of choreographing my own working life, just to make sure I was never without a challenge, I built on what I had

1.trying to play classical guitar

2. delving deeply into my digital media work with one-on-one lessons at my neighborhood Apple store at the huge Palisades mall just down the road

so I

3.took up the Hebrew language online

4. continued trying to stave off the next clothing size under the watchful eyes of my personal trainer, Anthony and a very strict diet.

5. Folded in more work at SUNY New Paltz and the Hudson Valley Writing Project.

So lots there’s lots of challenges to  keep me productive but what keeps me from lounging on the couch is pure, torturous guilt and you know, thank God for that!

What would I do without it?  Ironically, I’d probably keep clicking away on my Macbook and that’s all centered around writing.

Once I started blogging here in the summer of 2006, I opened up to writing challenges that came my way from NWP Tech friends: Kevin, Karen, Troy etc. And from there the writing challenges just kept growing.

I have just joined up with the National Novel Writing Challenge that begins on November 1, so bravo to the Web 2.0.

I’m happy to be hooked, especially in the area of digital storytelling, digitizing the written word with photos, music, voice over and videos; my version of Spielberg cinema.

I’m not sure that this does justice to the prompt but on my last night in Israel, that’s where it’s taking me.

See more at Becca’s Write on Wednesday

Words are a form of action, capable of producing change.

Ingrid Bengis

As we get closer to the election I am hoping that the power of Barack Obama’s words transcends the color of his skin. His poll numbers are rising and I hope that’s a correct reflection of America in 2008, where color is not quite the issue it once was.

Am I being naive? I hope not.

The photo above has made its way around the email route and while I have ignored a lot of what has come my way, this photo is a positive use of language that isn’t always so positive.

As the first round of Jewish holidays end, we are packing for our fall trip to Israel,leaving on Sunday. I remember last March, when we were last there, I was still a Hillary Clinton supporter starting to move away. Obama was is his pastor crises and Tuvia and I huddled around my computer screen watching his speech on race taped on You Tube.

The power of his words sealed the deal for me. I had never heard a politician take on this issue both personally and universally. Of course the speech was watered down into fragments for sound bites, but the writing in its entirety was a powerful and thoughtful piece of prose.

Barack Obama is a deep thinker with vision. We need a leader with vision and the power of words especially  given the obstacles and challenges we face.

I will be happy to walk along the Mediterranean Sea for a week, and anxious to return home for the last weeks of the campaign.

GO OBAMA! I’ll be wearing my “O” t-shirts with hope and pride.

Check out Write On Wednesdays for more

Becca’s Prompt:

How about you? Are you detail oriented in your writing? What are some of the details you most notice in the world around you? What details do you focus on in your writing – place, character, emotional? What are the kinds of detailed descriptions you most like to read about?

I write something every day on this web. Often here on my main blog, or on my image/word blog, or my word count journal, or comments on other blog. Writing has become a constant in my life, even more than reading a book. I don’t know that my writing is detailed enough, but it begins with a detail and includes detailed sentences but I think what drives my writing is voice and reflections.

The medium of digital storytelling has impacted on my writing where the power is in a form of prose poetry, crafting a story where the  image and digitized text share the stage. A good digital story is approximately 250 words, a long paragraph.

I love reading  blog entries with powerful details. Often reading someone beginning the day with a great cup of coffee on a chilled morning brings me right to their place and that’s the writing I work for, bringing the reader to the seat right next to me. I don’t know that I do it, but that’s my goal, a invitation into my reality.

Write On Wednesday Extra Credit: As you perform a household chore that you do on a regular basis – making coffee, washing the car, cutting the grass – notice every detail of the process. The smell of the coffee grounds as you spoon them into the filter, the hiss of the water as it splashes against the car, the rumbling of the lawnmower’s engine. Write about your experience in great detail.

My coffee at home can’t equal the coffee at the Suburban Diner on Route 17 in Paramus, New Jersey.  They make the best coffee.  I used to make great coffee, the best coffee but I don’t now.  I can’t tell you how many coffee makers I’ve owned. We begin together with a blast and then its all down hill.  The machines fell apart.

Finally, on Dana’s suggestion I threw away my last plastic coffee maker and turned back to an old fashioned percolator and yes, it’s perfect in its stainless steel construction-easy to clean, and the coffee is good, consistently good.  Of course it’s all in the beans.  I use Shoprite’s hazelnut beans that I grind for each pot.

Coffee in the morning, coffee in the afternoon, coffee in the evening with dessert.

I began with black coffee, drinking it to stay awake for my afternoon classes at age 25, later than most.  I got through college and grad school without it. But once I began, I never looked back.

I used to drink it pipping hot, never allowing a cup to be sipped, slowly.  Recently that pipping hot cup began to feel too hot for my mouth and I now sip it slowly as it cools.  What’s happening?

I’ve moved back to a percolator and I’ve slowed down the drinking process, maybe I’m enjoying it more.

I can still drink cup after cup at the diner, with a waffle, strawberries and sugarless syrup. At home the cup sits with me as I click away or watch tv or finish a meal.

Coffee at home, coffee in the world.  Always a daily staple. Could I live without it?