My Absence

Yikes!

It has been WAY too long since I last wrote and I really wish I had a meaningful excuse.

When it comes down to it, it is really a combination of a bunch of things that have kept me from the computer and from writing, kept the inspiration low or non-existent.

• The holidays. Between, extra school and church activities, out-of-state family visiting, the kids being home, there wasn’t much time for blogging.
• Appointments!! I ended the year by logging in 167 appointments! That is just doctors and behavioral appointments. I was so hoping for a decrease this year, but I already have 12 this month. Now some of these have been nice appointments like going to see our grandbaby in the ultrasounds.
• Cleaning. Before and after the holidays always includes extra cleaning, doesn’t it?
• My mother-in-love. We have my hubby’s 85-year-old mom living in town for part of the year. While for most of her life she has been very healthy and needed practically no care, things have changed. Anyone who has cared for an elderly parent knows what I mean. Life just turns it’s focus a bit. Knowing that our time with her may be shorter than we’d like, I want to cherish her and that time more. Not rush through it all.
• Refocus. Speaking of focusing. I have really been spiritually refocusing on God and my relationship with Him more. Getting back to the basics, my foundation, my first love.
• The media fast. Okay, I believe this really led to the shift in my blogging. The time away from the computer and media did shift the way I view my time. I have always tried to be me, to be real on my blogs, yet fell into the trap of getting just the right photo or just the right event to write about. True life is not just right and while I have been open about those areas as well, I really want to enjoy life and my time with my kids and not think “Oh, this would make a great blog post.” I want to and want my family to think, “This is a good time, a good memory.” It has been too easy for me to start structuring my life around my blog and not my blog around my life.

So, for now, I may write less often. But I will try to keep it worth your while to continue to visit my section of the blogosphere. Please excuse post that are more photos than word content. Please, say hi and leave a comment to let me know you are still there reading. Have a wonderful day!

FUN Writing Exercise

I want to be a writer, pen my own book/s one day. Yet I don’t have much time to sit down and actually take classes and/or practice. This blog is truly my biggest outlet for my writing practice. But every now and then I steal away a corner of time to hone my craft just a bit more.

Writing Challenges podcasts afford me a (free) class that is ready and available when I am. Earlier this week I was able to sit down and give it a go. This is my second such writing challenge from this podcast. This one proved to be rather fun and invigorating. Here’s how it went.

Imagine if you will the instructions are spoken in an older British male voice. Here’s your assignment:

*Pick a book of your self, poetry or fiction.

*Close your eyes, open the book and point your finger somewhere on the page.

*Take that word, the three words after and the three words before it.

*Write that phrase down.

*Now you have 5 minutes to write. Don’t think (which is harder than you’d think), try to write as fast as you can. You are not producing a work of art.

This was one of the most fun writing exercises I have done. What I wrote completely ended up different than what I started off with. So I am going to put myself out there, be vulnerable before you, my readers.

My word was OBJECT. The phrase: “…down, examined the object and slipped it…” Here it is, as is, no corrections made or revisions done.

Down, examined it and slipped it back into his pocket and walked away. Away from the dark, away from the mess. Away from the noise that seemed to grip him and not let him go. He walked out into the sunlight. Out into the fresh air. He felt alive. He felt free. With a sense of purpose, a newfound freedom, he looked at the forest before him and he just walked. He walked until he couldn’t walk anymore. Then he sat down and took a deep breath. The years had been hard on him. His hair was no longer deep rich brown. It has started to turn gray. His eyes were no longer sharp and bright. And his heart once broken actually felt like it was coming back to life. He took another deep long breath. He filled his lungs with the dewy freshness of the earth. It had just rained the previous night. He felt the moisture of the ground with his fingertips. Some clinging to… (5 minutes is up)

British instructor resumes his instructions; “After 5 minutes you should have covered quite a lot of pages.” Well, not this mama writer. I didn’t cover much ground at all. No worries though. “Now read what you have written, but read it forwards then read through it word for word backward.” No here’s where I had a harder time, “Underline one phrase that strikes you as possessing any one of the following qualities: it has energy, it surprises you, it has never been written before in your language. The phrase must make a kind of sense. It must possess it’s own inner sense, at the very least. That is it must not be completely opaque in meaning. It might be a whole sentence or at the end of a sentence and the beginning of the next.” I had a hard time finding that sentence or phrase. I need it to finish the assignment. As I need to write either a short story or poem in which it occurs without seeming out of place.

So, can you help me and tell me what sentence or phrase fits the bill? Thanks so much. And thank you for letting me put myself out here all of the time without judging me.