Here I am, writing longhand. I prefer to not set any rules. You can tell because of my nails in this photo. (I had them that color for a play I was in!)
One of the most valuable exercises to improve your writing and to
clear out your mind is a daily writing practice. I usually write long hand but
for a while I was challenging myself to write with 750words.com. I discover
there are times when I write better when I get a reward for it, no matter how
silly that reward may be.
The other reward for a daily writing practice is how it ignites a simply better life experience overall. It allows clarity to pour through your fingers and onto the page when you least expect it because you aren’t writing for a purpose, you are simply writing to write.
It is as if you give yourself permission and space for ideas and insights to flow because you aren’t insisting your writing fit into a particular cubby.
Sometimes I give myself writing prompts, as I did in this piece of writing I will share with you today. At the end of the rambling – and entertaining – writing, there are some prompts for you to try. I suggest you write them, by hand, on a sheet of paper and come back to them either later today or tomorrow morning.
Before you leave, listen to how my free writing on a specific, albeit loose, topic illustrates a couple things:
1. Amidst the rambles, beauty (and great nuggets of gold) may be found.
2. Writing anything is better than nothing.
3. Daily writing practice is a brave endeavor.
and what else? Find out by reading and then writing.
What does this illustrate for you?
And more importantly - what is your perspective on "Bountiful..."
Your Writing Prompt: Bountiful: What do you see, hear, feel, smell, taste, touch, know of "bountiful"?
Read... and then... write...
I felt sort of ambivalent about it yet it kept knocking on my writing mind
so I leaped in as I sat down at 750words.com and here is what came out, almost
unedited for your... entertainment.
Today I am writing bountifully. Bounty. Bountiful as in applesauce, a favored
topic from yesterday when I did write my words but I didn't write those words
into a keyboard. I feel my shoulders holding my arms high as I don't have the
proper ergonomic table but hell if I am giving up on this. I will tappity tap
tap my way beyond the 750 words if it is the final thing on my epitaph:
She died typing 750 words (bountifully) to erase away that horrific
proclamation at the top of September's page. Sheesh. Really? Me? She who
reached 750words on many more than 100 consecutive days? She who has written
more than 100,000 words on that site so far? Don't they give some sort of grace
for traveling in people's homes where there is no internet available to you?
Don't I get some leverage for that rather than the big old goose egg?
And why am I wasting all my words in worrying about that, anyway?
Bountiful, applesauce. Friendship. We are bounty, my friends and I. Water.
Projects. Unfolding.
I wrote for some reason, randomly, in my notebook as the sun rose today:
"Finding your place. Place in the natural, creative world."
Concord was pencil making. Two factories. My chest hums at the thought of being
in a pencil making capital. A pencil making capital that shares the name of my
birth city, only on the other coast. Concord.
The sun started her daily ascent. She never complains about it like I complain
about clearing the kitchen counter or lamenting the sore that has formed
(inadvertently) on my ankle.
Back to bountiful writing. Bountiful writing. Bountiful writing. Bountiful
writing. Bountiful writing. Bountiful writing. I feel my pencil slowing. I
watch its movement, seemingly without me it writes. Projects. Space. Time.
Quality.
I started my ezines to always have an audience to whom I write. Subscribers,
waiting. I picture them sometimes. My ezine arrives. They open it. They
anticipate. I write something. They scoff or guffaw or puzzle or applaud. I
need to remember this. Rewrite, Resubmit. Stretch my voice more, forget or
don't forget, but take away the grip of that August - that August with
heartbreak at its core. Three years ago. It is gone now. It is barely an echo
or an etching. It is a teacher, Julie, it is only a jailer of you allow it to
be a jailer.
I heard a bunch of no, I heard the call of my cell phone. Text messages line
up, waiting for my attention. I stay at the page. I write more about the sun
which I transcribe here. The sun met my eyes. Not piercing. More like stroking my shoulders, gently lifting my chin,
hoping I would look up. I keep my head down. I gaze anywhere but not up.
Write - for one minute or five minutes or fifteen minutes. Play the time game
and look for the point of diminishing return. Make everything about writing
into a celebration, a place to splatter paint or mold clay or throw a party. This isn't arduous this writing, it is a
vow to sacred play. To dance. To take what you have and sing it. Or something
like that. I keep typing because there is more there. Can you imagine it?
A drought and now this.
My writing is scattered.
My bountiful writing is settled in. It isn't settling, it is finding form, like
a mattress that remembers and offers itself up to be forced into YOUR position.
Bountiful writing is moving the pencil into peace. It is finding subjects to
write about in every nook-and-cranny experience. It is in the eyes of
the stubborn preschooler and in the hands of the patient grandma. Bountiful
writing lives in Bob the tomcat with oddly shaped ears. It is in the soft
comforter of contentment that offers itself up to me, that covers me, gently.
It tucks me in.
Bountiful writing is in the sunrise with its finger, lifting my chin,
whispering "Witness life all around
you and report page to the page. Share your reports widely, unabashedly. Feel
the cool almost autumn morning after a blistering summer and write that
feeling, bountifully." This, my loves, is
bountiful writing.
The door shuts, twice, as people pass through it. Samuel shares his dreams with
me. I share only my dream of plentiful sleep.
I realize the a-ha's I have been having lately are glaringly obvious to the
people who know me.
I watch the school bus swallow my son.
The timer cries out, releasing me and my pencil though I am not so sure I want
to go.
Bountiful writing, each word.
Your Writing Prompt: Bountiful: What do you see, hear, feel, smell, taste, touch, know of "bountiful"?
This post is Number 9 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Throughout the
month I will be posting writing and creativity tips
especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.
I'm so glad you are here!
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