3. Ways to Begin a Story

The plan for today is to complete the following openings in order to answer the question you place to the story: Involvement of people and their attitudes and opinions are the ways they voice their thoughts going to be important or are you going to concern yourself with the traits, ideas, experiences and emotion of one person who must seize the reader's imagination at once or are you going to be involved with an event or events in which the characters take part and thus want to open with action.

With a Generalization
With a Description of a Person
With Narrative Summary
With Dialogue
With Several Characters but No Dialogue
With a Setting and Only One Character
With a Reminiscent Narrator
With a Child Narrator
By Establishing Point of View

THE EXERCISE: Try them all out, see how they fit with the story you want to tell.
THE OBJECTIVE: See how the exercise can lead to a better understanding of whose story it is, and what the focus of the story will be.

2. Second Sentence

The next step is to write the second line after the first one, for example:

What could have made it worse? You tell me, after you listen to what the dream was all about.

1: First Sentences: Beginning in the Middle

The task for today is to begin writing the first sentences of a story. As many as you want, because the next day you will write the second sentence.
1. I started the evening with a mission, not to have any nightmares ever, the only way I would accomplish that was to never sleep again, the more I pushed back the dream world, the more violent it became, until that night, I relived the worst moment in my life and started a roller coaster life, from which I am still reeling. 

Plotting the Writer's Path

One of the difficulties in writing and learning to write is have a core of thoughts or ideas or causes you can write about that will stimulate free writing.

How else can you learn to write except by actually writing?

I am in a position, where I cannot accumulate a ton of personal stuff. Those things become clutter in my environment. Unfortunately when you want to paint, create, and have music to shake to, AND you have done this already over a number of years, the amount of STUFF you have is overwhelming. Why, debris from food alone results in weekly garbage. So I throw out bags of stuff as often as I can. Now, I really want that book called "What If?" In it you have a ton of writing assignments, it's actually a text book. I just found a way to "rent" this book for months, a semester actually AND I can return it in August. So I hope to post my writing here, so I won't have papers and papers all over the place, be done with the book.

Join me in this writing expedition.

See you soon, my rental book arrives tomorrow.

When do you find the time?

The days pass by, the grass grows, the fields grow rich with green, the heat rises and the rain falls and in all of that a unique voice rises to embrace the life it represents. 
So, this morning, listening to some old style pickin' I heard the overtold stories of pain from broken love relationship and drugs. I wonder when the poet/singer looks out to those fields with wonder at the beauty of the life around us. Is that what a Poet Laureate does? Is that what story tellers are?
I think life is only known by the truth in the telling, and there is more future with that truth than the one we are bombarded with daily. The latter is one of violence and despair. Such a contrast with what I look at from my window to the prairie fields. 
"Life and all of its possibilities is there, right in front of you." I tell myself that as I move through the day and in each moment, the one I am in, is the beauty I search for.

Ask your Character?

What is your favorite dress?
Do you like your hair?
What makes you laugh?
What makes you cry?
Do you like yourself?
If you could change anything about yourself what would it be?

If you were Music What Would Your Melody Be?

It's a valid question.
I think I would have a long beginning a leit motiv of joy, one that would alternate between a reverse of itself, weaving in and out in the subsequent movements.
I love my poetry, it does that, it starts out slow and connects with the subsequent poems, either with the last line or the overall theme. 
Today would have been about rain and redemption. Beginning with a soft sound a whoosh with the wind.

Early Morning and What's Important

When you least expect it. 
That's right, because if you have expectations, you make an assumption about the future, the way it should be, and anything but what is presented to you ends out being a disappointment. 
It's tricky the way the mind works, taking you on familiar travels through time and space and events, and not allowing a new moment to enter your life. I have a new friend, now that is unusual in many ways, first to designate someone as a friend is a special choice, it means you appreciate them for who they are, and they do the same. No expectations for you to live their life or for them to modify yours, except in that connection. For a moment of friendship is a unique moment, synergistic, creative, potential for great things. Perhaps all relationships, friend or not, should be crafted this way, like a good essay, something has a well roundedness to it, is satisfying in the reading of it, makes the reader or participant feel knowledgeable and wanting more. 
Friendship, a unique idea, playful, fun, scampering about type of thoughts, fun ways to be in the world. 

Sleep and Creativity and Inspiration for a Free Write

Uh ohhh. Yes, I woke up this morning to a cool breeze. It was perfect for meditation and this time I was able to sit in a lotus position with a straight back. I guess my IT bands aren't totally shot. 
However, the fatigue of writing until midnight has set in. The most creative and engaged people I know are in bed by 8:30, and I used to be able to do that, but lately, I am questioning everything, and the sleep seems like extra hours when I could be doing something fun. Boy, yawn, so I had to write. I had to read other's writing, to critique. 
To put my life in perspective I work about 40 hours a week and write every other minute that I can. 
I had a little snafu last night, I was supposed to meet with my writing group at 5 pm, unfortunately at the same time my local CSA scheduled a new drop off point. I had to get to it or I would miss out on the FIRST LETTUCE OF THE SEASON, oh so tender. So I went, but the return trip took forty minutes and I ended out being a half hour late to my group. I think they were all occupied by their own work schedule so I think they never showed up, because in spite of my emails to everyone, no one was there. But who would be? It's North Dakota, and a beautiful day of any kind means you stay outside until the weather turns bad, which is most of the rest of the year.
 I finally made it at 5:30 or 5:40 and about 15 minutes later, one of the playwrights showed up, and we chatted and wrote. I ended out with the creme de la creme. Oh, and the reality, that even if you have a group you are gathering with that has no commitment, they still might expect you to be punctual.
So I wrote, or should I say, rewrote some more. No free writing, which is a problem. 
But now I am looking at that tree, that is three times what it was when I moved here and populated with chirruping birds, and the cool air is a relief from a schedule I couldn't keep. 
I have to remember my Gremlin, I think he was talking to me, my Inner Critic and my Gremlin are great buddies, you should see them cavort and play. 

What type of writer am I?

It's a good question to ask, but is there a really specific answer to that question? If writing is something you are compelled to do, does that make you a specific kind of writer, or any type of writer at all, or someone who just needs to spill their guts out onto the universe's dump heap.
I believe the essence of being a functional human being, is to have an outlet for creativity that ends out being a unique personal expression. That is how I can paint, write, sing (in a monotone), dance (with no beat and no pattern), and create an art form (dancing with the ocean's waves in the Bahamas). 
The part that makes this a personal expression has to do with answering the most important question I have been asked: "How do you want to be?" There are so many answers to this, I have created a log book that I carry around in my car, every moment of every day is an answer to that question and I continue to write. Sometimes it is just one word over and over again, "calm." Many times the words "loving" and "receptive" come up. At any rate they are all there and there are more to come.

Great Ideas or Any Ideas?

This time around I have read Chapter 5 of the book on the Creative Mind. Write 300 ideas or scenes and don't look at them. As usual I would like to accelerate the process, so instead of not writing at all, just doing those scenes, I continue to write, and will write 5 to 10 ideas a day. Wow, that means I'll have my 300 ideas in a month instead of 6 months.
Then take them all, put them out on a table, and WRITE THE BOOK FROM COVER TO COVER. Seems like a great idea, and I, for one am going to try it.
Take a look at the box, the 3x5 cards, the pen and a few of the ideas. 

Today's task is......

Here we are again. My current goal is to finish a book I started a few years ago with my "Creative Weekend family." To meet that goal I have taken courses on writing books. Week long workshops on Madeline Island, which by the way is a FANTASTIC place to go AND you meet other creative types. It's called Madeline Island of the Creative Arts. Check it out. Let me know how it went for you if you go.

Currently I am enrolled in Mary Carroll Moores "Your Book Start's Here, Course 2 of 3" and am finally making some good progress. It is devastating when you realize you have ditch everything in order to go forward. You feel like you hit a rock on the road and it drained your gas tank and you can't fill it up fast enough. On the other hand, when you get rid of a heavy useless load you travel lighter and now is that time.

Today I plan to write a few more thousand words before I do some errands, because the errands in life free up time for creativity they can also distract you.

Check in with me later, love to hear from you!!!

What is the Artist's Path?

The Artist's Path is a place to look for sources of inspiration that I have found keep me going, and I hope will help you too.

The first one I have just read is Taming Your Gremlin. This is a delightful read and reread, in the span of one flight from Nassau to Fargo, I finished it. The way it was written became one more mantra I incorporated into my everyday life. 

"Remember to breath, notice where your skin ends, which Gremlin is it now." Not a bunch of mind bending tasks, just one that bends and opens your mind to your creative self. Enjoy!

Tuscan Landscape on My Wish List