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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/blog/walkinbird/month/12-1-2017
Rated: 18+ · Book · Experience · #930577
Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins
It Hurts When I Stop Talking


Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting.

Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script.

My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier.

Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally.

“I will.”

But, I didn’t.

Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was.

Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog.

December 13, 2017 at 5:03pm
December 13, 2017 at 5:03pm
#925285
Not quite mid-December here in Los Angeles, and Christmas is both happening everywhere, and not being celebrated in usual form. Evidence of this comes in the extended line at the 1st Street Starbucks and in the startling appearance of Santa on PA from an airborne LAPD helicopter circling the civic center in the mid-morning. In my putting great effort into assembling and decorating the tree for our pod of cubicles, but at home not finding the spirit to decorate in the apartment. I like to think that Christmas is still being celebrated in most hearts.

Is Christmas about intent or successful follow-through? Hear me out. People make intent into a mostly negative thing when one, "only has good intentions..." implying failure. But to me intention involves imagination and hope. And that to me fits with the Christmas story, about the hope and newness of a season. A covenant of love starting with the presentation of the Christ child in Bethlehem. In gathering to exchange gifts, of course your sister hopes you have the follow-through to have made a trip to the toy store for their kids. However, to me, that follow-through phase is in alignment with the Easter Season. That won't stop me from being a practical aunt and having toys in hand 2 weeks from now instead of baskets four months down the road.


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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/blog/walkinbird/month/12-1-2017