Every month a question will be posed that may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Remember, the question is optional. You can write about anything that relates to your writing journey.
Let's give a warm welcome to our co-hosts: Susan Baury Rouchard, Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jennifer Hawes, Chemist Ken, and Chrys Fey!
This month's question is: Quote: "Although I have written a short story collection, the form found me and not the other way around. Don't write short stories, novels or poems. Just write your truth and your stories will mold into the shapes they need to be."
Have you ever written a piece that became a form, or even a genre, you hadn't planned on writing in? Or do you choose a form/genre in advance?
I don't know. I've written in many different forms and genres and for many different age groups. So I guess the answer is that I've simply written "my truth."
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Thoughts
I blew past June and July. They slipped away without my noticing. Sometimes I think I'm just being lazy. Other times I think I don't care anymore. Then there are times when I'm just not inspired, my mind is a blank and I wonder how others can find so much to say, and have so many things to write about, or so many wonderful newsy things to announce. Me? I'm feeling somewhat drained.
I have questions that can't be answered.
How did we (and I mean all of humanity around the world) let things go so wrong/bad? Why are some people so very angry and hostile? When and how did some of us appear to have lost our ability to be civil and kind and compassionate to each other despite our particular beliefs or philosophies of life? How did we become so polarized? When did we loose the ability to compromise? When did we loose the ability to debate our differences calmly, logically, and with civility and without resorting to name-calling, blaming, and threatening? Is it that we have always been this way but that we were hiding our deep-seated "true" beliefs/feelings behind a thin veneer of denial and lies? When did we loose trust in science, which seems illogical to me as it permeates our lives from the electricity in our homes to the hand-held computers we carry around, from medical advancements to space exploration, from the study of sub-atomic particles to the cars we drive? On and on and on. I went to a private parochial school, my sister to a Catholic school. Both of us were taught religion and science, side by side. Studying science did not teach me to loose faith in God. Studying the Bible did not teach me that science is false. What it taught me is that they are not incompatible, that it isn't one or the other and can't be both. To say that they are incompatible is almost like saying that because I speak and write only English that all other languages are wrong/false. I am confused and disheartened.
For my own sanity, I search for up-lifting, inspiration, positive quotes and memes to post on Facebook. I post them for me, to remind myself of the kind of person, the kind of human, I want to be. I leave you with a few. My heart is sore, but I will ever strive to be kind and to be compassionate.
Being Thankful
Today I am thankful I got to see comet Neowise.
(Not my photo) Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) captured over Joshua Tree National Park, California on July 21st, 2020 at 05:03 UTC
Despite my moaning and feeling sorry for myself I am continually awed by the beauty of nature and the universe which lets me know there is something much bigger than myself out there. Our little island planet home is all we have and in the grand scheme of things, is an insignificant dust mote. Let us remember that as we go forth into our daily lives. How we treat this planet, which gives us life, is a direct reflection on how we treat each other. Let us remember that no matter how "different" we may think we are from each other, we all cry and laugh in the same language.
Namaste. Go With Peace.
Namaste. Go With Peace.
What are you thankful for? Are you questioning yourself? Your belief system? Others? And what about this month's question, have you ever written a piece that became a form, or even a genre, you hadn't planned on writing in? Or do you choose a form/genre in advance?
