Three Things Thursday

Cheryl

I thought back about the times when I was the most productive with my writing, and it was always when I was in a group. I had a phenomenal group of some of the most talented writers you’ve ever seen. We each had a specialty and we complemented each other beautifully.

But marriage and kids and jobs moved us all away from each other.

However, I decided that I needed a group. So I reached out to everyone on Facebook to see if anyone else felt the same. It was amazing to reconnect and see what everyone’s been up to. And the best part? Some of them had been feeling the same way.

So now I’m writing, and writing consistently. It’s incredible. Every time I start to get all crazy, they tell me to “calm the junk down!”

This is why writers need writer friends. It’s such a lonely and harrowing thing to experience alone. We need friends to love and help and encourage us.

So if you don’t have a group, there’s never a better time to find one. You’ll be surprised at how many others feel the same way you do.

Brenda

You’d think ONE Life Time would be enough for most people. But, when I was a kid, I had so many different things I wanted to do. I ALWAYS knew I wanted to be a teacher. And so I was for 52 years. But I thought, back in the day, that I’d like to be an airline stewardess during summer vacation. And an actress. (I didn’t know things didn’t work that way, so I dreamed on.) As I got older, I wanted to do more of the same: travel, airplane or not, became an interest, though the only time I did the “during the summer thing” was the year I quit my first teaching job after 6 years at it, drove to California with my brother and a friend, sent my car home with them, and flew to Hawaii, where I’d grown up (until I was 10). A week later, I boarded a ship and took the long way to get to London, bought a mo-ped on a whim, and went up the west side of England, into Scotland at Glasgow, turned northeast to go as far as just past Perth, down again in the east and through Oxford back to London. I put the mo-ped in a train’s baggage car and rode to Paris. From there I traveled south through France, half-way down the coast of Spain,  back up and around the whole French Riviera, into Italy. I sold the mo-ped, flew to Copenhagen for a day-and-a-half, caught a flight to New York to stay with cousins for a few days, flew back to Utah and started grad school and teaching, again, at BYU.

See there?  Now I’ve re-lived my trip in very vivid details (most of which I didn’t take time to note here). But it’s like living my life over again, and every bit as thrilling the second time around. Use the details of your life when you write. Make the places and people “real”. They’ve been to places you’ve been, lived where you’ve lived. And you get to live it all over again by writing it down. All  our lives can be lived again: the good, the scary, the sad, the exciting . . . every wondrous thing that you’ve ever done can feed the writing. And be lived again. If you get the details down, and get them right, the reader will “live it” with you.

Kyra

Hello guys!
So I’ve been unemployed for almost two weeks now, and I have to say, I am LOVING it.
It just makes me wishohwish that I could be a full time writer for the rest of my life. {I suppose I have to get some words on the page to do that} Someday, I will make this happen!

While I’ve been taking this little break, I’ve been writing a lot more.
I’ve started making a list of small goals for each writing day.
A certain number of words.
An hour with no distractions.
Create a new character.
Revise a certain number of pages.
Etc.

It’s been pretty helpful to shut off my internet, hide my cell phone, and just focus, for a solid hour. I didn’t think I’d be able to work that way, but so far I am liking it.
This new book I’ve started feels like it could be something, at least it does while I’m writing on it. You never really know.

I’ve also been doing a lot of reading. Right now I am reading an unpublished novel by a friend of mine. I am hoping that she can sell it soon because it’s just fantastic.

ALSO! Tonight I am doing “Write/Art Night” with a couple writer and artist friends of mine. If anyone is interested in joining, feel free. The more the better! We just sit together, write a little, gossip a lot, paint, brainstorm, stuff like that. I have a remix of angsty music I like to play while working. It’s pretty fun. And mostly helps me feel inspired.

Today I hope to write another 2,000 words. I know it’s a bit of a “lofty” [is that the right word?] goal, but I think it’s possible!

Back to work!