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| Good Lord! has been that long since the last time I was on this site? I went ahead and signed up for a basic membership on this site. I want to write, but my problem is getting started and writing anything at all. I don't know what to write. I feel a little stuck these days. I need to write and post here. |
| Well hopefully you can get your muse back on track and create some awesome things! |
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| Just to explain, this is the first page in my writing journal that I am starting today. Since I am interested in writing picture books and illustrating them, I thought it might be a good idea to try to write and illustrate a little to connect the words with the pictures in some way. |
| May 23, 2015 I just signed up for an upgraded account on this website. I think I want to try adding some of my drawings to my writings. I think that would be a lot of fun. Lately, I have been drawing and writing some simple rhymes for kids, and I want to share that and see what other people think. |
| Sunday, January 25, 2015 How far off the mark do you have to get to realize that you haven't done anything all that creative in months? I want to write stories for kids, but I can't seem to actually get started, and I don't know why. I think I need some kind of writing help. |
| Monday, April 7, 2014 It is getting a little easier each day without my dog Calvin. I really miss him. I got his ashes back this week, and strangely enough, that has given me some comfort. I had him for fifteen years which is a long time for a dog to live. The things that make me think of him the most are seeing the sidewalk we use go down when I took him for his walks. I can see him at the end of his leash happily walking ahead of me stopping at certain places along the way to sniff bushes, trees, tufts of grass, the nearest fire hydrant, anything that had a scent on it. But, I get to feeling sad when I see someone walking their dog past our house. When I put him out at night, or any time really, I use to go out into the back yard with him and sit in the lawn chair while I kept an eye on him. I haven't been in the backyard since he passed. I'm not use to not seeing him out there. I stay away from the back yard these days. Yesterday, I got a plastic tub, and I put his things in it. His leash, his towel, his toys, his food and water dishes, his collar, his favorite toy the blue ring, and I put them in the basement for safe keeping. Everybody keeps asking me if I am going to get another dog to replace him. People don't understand. I have no kids, and Calvin was the closest thing to a child I will ever have. He was my baby, and you can't replace that. I just really miss him. |
| Hi Monnie, I definitely get it. I am so sorry for your loss of Calvin. It is heartwrenching to lose a furry child. I have just stopped sobbing daily finally and am now just riding those "sorrow waves", as I like to describe them. We (my husband and I) just had devastating losses here, as well. Today is two weeks since I lost my Ben at 15 years old. He was my original baby. Two days before that, we lost his brother Eddie, who was the first to pass in our horrible two week span. One week after Eddie, we lost their sibling Eli at 18. And then we ended up losing a new one that we had adopted after only a week to completely unrelated circumstances (the previous owners just didn't tell the shelter he had health issues). We just picked up Ben and Eddie's ashes on Friday and I agree... it was a smidge comforting to have them back in my home. We have photos put up on the mantle with the little box. I sobbed just like I did two weeks ago when I picked them up. I'm with you on the locational memory thing. I can't imagine losing my backyard to that, but I completely understand. I get it. I haven't sat on our couch since Ben passed. The minute I would do that, he would appear from nowhere and sit on my lap. It hurts me and I want to just burn the couch and get something new and completely different now.  When this all happened, I got so sick of people telling me "time" would help. I wanted it to end NOW. But they were right.  Time did help, as you're seeing, too. I actually went out, though, and found myself a new little sweetie that needed me just as much as I needed her. And wow, did she help me. It let me focus my attention on something new, someONE new, who needed a home, needed the love that I wasn't giving anyone anymore. She filled a space in my life. I was hesitant at first and feeling so guilty that it was too soon, but boy, has she been amazing for me. She needed rescued and so did I. Just keep that in mind. There is someone out there who needs you now... and they may end up saving you just the same.  I just wanted to post back and let you know that someone else is going through that, too. Also to point out "The Grief Hostel's Guests' Forum "  and "United in our Grief Forum." - sometimes it helps to read others experiences that they are going through. It did help me. Hang in there... -SMs |
| Sunday, March 30, 2014 This has been a bad weekend. I had to put my dog asleep yesterday, and it was very emotional. I wrote about grief, but I'm not sure I want to share that just yet. I am taking a new approach to writing, and I am using the book Writing the Natural Way to get started with improving my writing. I am coming off of a very bad weekend. |
| Thursday, March 20, 2014 I went way too long without putting anything in my writing.com portfolio. I was doing really good too. I started to notice things with kids that I never really noticed before, and I wrote those things down in my notebook, but I still want to write other things that aren't necessarily about kids. I guess I like variety. I didn't set any goals this week either. I wanted to think about what I want to do for a little longer. It's kind of easy to come up with small goals, but I want to do more than just that.I might be thinking too big. I don't know. |
| Sunday, March 9, 2014 I think I finally figured something out. I wrote about something that happened in my life, and then I tried to turn it into a story for kids. I like the way it came out, but I wasn't sure how to finish it. And it is only a rough draft. It isn't anything finished, but I wanted to include it in my portfolio. I had to delete a couple of things because I can only have ten itmes in my portfolio at a time. I was given the option of buying a membership, and I didn't realize how inexpensive it is. I could do it for three months for nine dollars, or six months for fourteen dollars. or a whole year for nineteen dollars. I want to do that, but I haven't activated my new credit card yet, and I want to think about which membership I want to get. I think it might be fun to do it for a few months to see if I really want to do this on a regular basis. I'm going to think about it, and then decide what I want to do. |
| Thursday, March 6, 2014 I am doing pretty good this week. I am writing more, and I posted again in my portfolio. I'm still sort of experimenting with different kinds of writing in my notebook. I find some prompts that are hard to do, and I'm not real happy with what I wrote, so I shuffle to a different book with other prompts and I come out with a piece that I actually like. The piece I did this evening about a friend who moves away is actually one I like. I wasn't sure what I was going to write about, but all I could think of was a friend moving away when I was a kid in school. I ended up liking the piece. I'm glad. |
| Monday, March 3, 2014 I wasn't too thrilled with my writitng lately. I decided to go down a different road, and try some other writing prompts. Basically, I am trying to find out what kind of writing works best for me. I think that maybe I need some kind of different prompt, so I am using another writing book to do that. Maybe I will try a goal again. |
| Friday, February 28, 2014 I knew this would happen. I tried to set a goal of posting something on my writing.com account three times this week, and so far I have only posted one thing. I wonder if the notebook counts as a post? I was thinking more along the lines of the portfolio. So far, this week has been kinda hard because I wasn't feeling all that well, but I still have Saturday, and Sunday to post, so I may still make part of my goal. |
| Monday, February 24, 2014 I set my goals for this week and now I am going to work on them. I decided to keep my goals simple and attainable because I know from my own past experience that if I am not realistic, then I won't do them. I hate that. I don't make new years resolutions for the same reason. I won't keep them. I wrote another memoir in my journal about a childhood experience I had when I was in grade school. My friends and I did what we were not suppose to do, and we walked home form school through the woods. It was usually a very positive experience except for this one time. It's funny how a snake can look just like a stick until it moves and scares the day lights out of you. |
| Tuesday, February 18, 2014 Today was my birthday, and I didn't feel all that well today, but I still had a good birthday. I have been sitting here trying to think of what I want to write here today. I wrote another piece for my journal called What Matters? It is basically just an exercise in writing because I haven't done much writing in a while, and I am just trying to get into the habit of writing again. I think it's pretty cool that I got two responses on my notebook entry for yesterday. I really didn't think anyone would read this. As far as entering writing contests for children's stories, I am not ready for that just yet, but I am going to keep it in mind for latter on down the road. Right now, my portfolio pieces are going to be from my journal, but hopefully I will be able to look back at my pages and have some ideas for writing. |
| I went to the bookstore today and picked up a couple of books on writing that I think might be helpful to me. I want to write, and I think I want to write for kids, but I don't know what I want to write about, and I don't have my own voice yet. Since I want to post on here more, I think I am going to post some of the things that I am writing in my journal to my portfolio. Basically, what I am trying to do right now is find my own voice, and see what I want to write about. I want to writing to be fun, not a chore, so if I can find anything that will help me to have fun while I am writing, then I am going to use it. I am reading the Lemony Snicket books right now, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and I really love the way these books are written. In the second book, I really liked the character Aunt Josephine because she was so afraid of everything that she never did anything, and the main characters in the story tell her that they do some of the things they do even it they are afraid. If they are afraid, they do it anyway. Some people may not like that these books have a negative tone to them, but that is what makes them so inviting to read. How does it all end? I have to keep reading to find out. |
| January 27, 2014 I did some writing with my prompt generator, and I only went through six steps, and then I decided to end the story there. If I don't do that, the steps will go on forever, and the story will never end. This was a short writing about a boy who has a weird dream about a talking doll that tells only lies. In the dream, the doll belonged to his little sister. As I went from one step to the next, I was careful to use prompts that I thought would tie in to a whole story without running on and on with bunches of characters who say different things, and having bunches of scenes that weren't really related. If you don't pick prompts that you can connect to your story, it will be all over the place. Over the weekend, I went to the new and used book store and purchased a few children's books that looked interesting to me. I started reading the Lemony Snicker series called A Series of Unfortunate Events. I really am enjoying this series. I even went back to the bookstore after work today, and picked up a few more volumes in this series. That will keep me reading for awhile. :0) |
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