Search Results for: personal essay

Creativity Is A Practice

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Suzanne Murray writes about the rewards of engaging our creativity. There is a growing awareness that creativity is a capacity that everyone has, though they may not understand what is involved in accessing it. One of the main things that gets in the way of people embracing their creative gifts is a belief that creativity should be easy; that it should just flow out. They think they should be good at it immediately. If they are not and it’s not easy, there is a tendency to think there is something wrong with them and it’s never going to work. Yet creativity in whatever form you choose to pursue is a complex process that actually asks a lot of us. This is why is feels so good to engage since it helps us discover that we are capable of more than we thought possible, including working from expanded abilities. It is…

Writing That First Thing

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“Remember that when you’re writing that first thing, you’re in an incredibly precious time. When you’re writing that book or that early story, write for yourself first and foremost. There’s going to come a time when that won’t be the case anymore, when there are going to be all these people who are involved. So, don’t be in any great hurry to publish or to get it out there into the world. Take your time to hone and draft that first book. Appreciate those early years where you’re writing for yourself because it never is quite the same once you start publishing.” Excerpt from a Writer’s Digest interview with Brandon Taylor. The bestselling (and Booker Prize-shortlisted) author discusses the interconnectedness of his work, the importance of short stories, and his latest release, The Late Americans. Interviewed  Michael Woodson The May/June 2023 issue of Writer’s Digest is all about “Keeping It Short” —short forms of…

Push Past The Fluff

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When you are freewriting and there is more time to write, but you feel ready to stop . . . try to keep going. Push the limits. Push past the urge to go no farther. After the fluff is written, deeper writing can happen. Perhaps a doorway to intuitive writing will open. One of the benefits of writing fine details when freewriting, besides exploration and discovering forgotten items, is that details are what make stories interesting and make them come alive. I Feel StatementsThe reason for “I feel” statements in freewrites is that this is a way to learn and access your emotions about what happened. This is what personal essay or  memoir writing is all about. The facts are interesting, but what the reader wants to know is: ~ What the narrator gained ~ The narrator’s emotions ~ What lesson was learned ~ The epiphany or the “aha” moment…

Becoming a Writer in the Third Chapter of Life

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Guest Post by Carole Duff All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. —Anatole France Western culture divides life into three stages: birth/student, work/family, and retirement/death. My husband and I, moving into our retirement years and building a new house, borrowed the Hindu concept of four stages, adding a time of spiritual growth and reconnection between retirement and death. The third stage of life, Vanaprastha, the name we chose for our mountain home, means retreat to the forest. Not retirement but time to learn, reflect, and grow. Time to take the internal journey and heal past wounds from loss, rejection, and inexplicable disruptions. Time to explore, discover, seek meaning, share wisdom, and serve others. Time to become our truer selves. As it turned out, I became a writer….

Good Old Writers

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Today’s guest blogger, Victoria Zackheim, writes about how to keep up the energy, faith, and courage to write. I recently walked into my newly built kitchen and discovered a large, grayish rectangular stain on the quartz counter. Had I placed a hot pan there? Not likely. Spilled bleach? Definitely not. I wiped, scrubbed, gently scoured… nothing helped. And then I lifted my arm and noticed a change in the shape of the stain. I had been trying to remove a reflection of light coming through the kitchen window. This is the opening paragraph of an essay I wrote about aging. I smiled as I wrote what I expected to be the preface of my new book. However, I’ve been told by literary agents and several editor friends that writing about aging might be cathartic for me, the writer, but it doesn’t stir up much interest among the public. Really? In…

Writing is magical

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Writing is magical. Take some blank pages, write or type on them, and as if by magic, a story appears. It may be an incomplete story and it may feel fragmented, but it’s the beginning of Your story. Writing can be healing, especially when you write what you really want to say, rather than listing what you did that day, journal style.  The most magical writing is when you get so involved in your writing that you lose track of time, you lose track of where you are and even, who you are! The process of writing can be therapeutic. With this deep writing, you may experience a release of emotions, clearing the air, and seeing old things in a new way. — “The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Connections.” Personal Essay as Therapy Just Write! #amwriting #justwrite #iamawriter

Wordrunner eChapbooks Anthology 2022

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Does a new year inspire you to reach your goals of submitting your writing to publications? Here’s an idea to start off the new year. Send your writing to Wordrunner eChapbooks anthology. Wordrunner eChapbooks Anthology 2022 Submissions will open January 1 through February 28, 2022. There is no theme. “We simply want to publish your best writing.” Guidelines Submit up to three poems (no longer than a page each) or three flash fictions (750 to 1,000 words each), or one short story, novel or memoir excerpt, or a personal essay (up to 5,000 words). There are separate categories for each genre (poetry, fiction, nonfiction). You may submit to more than one category. Send your best. All submissions to the anthology must be previously unpublished. No genre fiction (horror, fantasy, mystery), please, unless a story transcends its genre. Literary/speculative fiction is acceptable. Fees for submissions to the anthology: $3. These fees cover basic operational…

Claudia

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Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Claudia by Nona Smith We held our wine glasses up and tapped their rims together. Clink.           “Do you know why that’s done?” Claudia asked.           “I have no idea,” I said.           “The French began the custom centuries ago. It’s to make us appreciative of all five of our senses.” Claudia had a treasure trove of that kind of information.  “Ahhh, les Francais; ils savent tout,” she added.           She spoke three languages fluently and had enough vocabulary in others to find bathrooms in foreign countries and order wine in restaurants. Born in Germany and well-travelled, Claudia had European sensibilities and a sophisticated sense of style. Her hair was cut by a Sassoon-trained stylist, she wore only Italian-made shoes, and the walls of her dining room were painted Chinese red, seasons before that trend appeared…

I Scream, You Scream

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Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. I Scream, You Scream By Nona Smith It’s been well over a year since I’ve done any grocery shopping at Safeway. Early on in the pandemic, it was Harvest, our other local supermarket, who quickly adopted safety precautions: it made mask-wearing mandatory, limited the number of shoppers inside the store at any given time, provided handwashing stations outside, and offered free Latex gloves. Safeway was slow to adopt protective measures, making me feel unsafe in Safeway. Fast forward eighteen months, and I’m fully vaccinated and in need of a cake mix Harvest doesn’t carry. Being as health conscious as it is, the shelves in the baking section at Harvest are laden with organic, gluten-free, paleo, KETO, dairy-free cake mixes. There are only a handful of non-organic, full-on gluten, white sugar mixes on the very bottom shelf….

Turtle Regains The Pond

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By Lakin Khan Layers of mud kept Turtle warm and secluded all through the winter hibernation. Occasionally a bubble escaped to the top of the pond, but usually, no. A spring sun glanced across the serene surface of the pond, riling up the water insects, generating a small current that brought fresh smells to Turtle’s blunt, beaky nose. Cinnamon, he thought, and hot cross buns, he considered, the memories of days kept at a house weaving into his rising consciousness. Time for business, he thought, and scrabbled against the twigs and leaves that the mud held against him, claws working to free him up out of his encasement and into the cold bottom water and then up, up, up into the gradually warming surface, into the feral spring. Two months ago, wild horses couldn’t have dragged him out of the bottom of the muck, but now Spring itself was galloping…