Grateful List Overflowing
My grateful list is overflowing. My family and grand grand-kids are growing up so fast. It’s exhausting and exciting keeping up with them. My husband’s birthday was Saturday and my great grand-daughter has been singing him Happy Birthday since Friday. She is just over two and one half.
My writing group in our community is going well, and I am loving it. We have started a Bits and Pieces notebook that includes everything you can think of. Pictures of characters, snippets of conversation, quotes, lists, ideas for stories, words and more words. I could go on and on but you get the picture.
Our book club’s selection was Defending Jacob. Our meeting is tonight and I can’t wait to hear what everyone has to say about the book. And I keep wondering what anyone would do in a situation like that. I highly recommend this book.
I am organizing my short stories, editing them and will be offering them as an e book as soon as I can finish. I am also working on First Lines to start you on your way to writing your story. There are over 600 writing prompts and hopefully soon, we can finish that also.
Until next time,
Keep love and kisses in your life.
My Writing Group
Either my life story, Reflections of Me, is boring or too depressing, no one is reading it, so I will discontinue it for awhile.
In the meantime, I have started a writing group here in my new senior community. We have a great bunch of writers, all writing something different. They are anxious to learn and to share. And I am loving it. I give out a few too many handouts, but I told them to either save them for future reference, or they can throw them away.
Last week we had a guest speaker and talked about personality. Good for themselves and for their characters.
This week,( we meet on Mondays), I am going to ask them if they would like to start a fun project. I call it Bits and Pieces. Inside this incredible notebook we will include things like: lists, quotes, characters (and I do mean characters, did you ever meet someone who was a gossip, someone who talks funny, and I don’t mean accent, or a character that is colorful, someone that Damon Runyon would have written about. Also include, expressions, closets, homes, cars, snippets of conversation.
I like lists of words. I use them for vivid verbs, and for scenes. By that I mean that I write something like Ocean and I list all the words that describe ocean, or a doctor’s office, or mall, or bar, or any scene that will be upcoming in my blog, my story, or a future story. It’s great fun and gets your thinking cap on.
Also include pieces of journal entries or Memoir questions. Brainstorm parts of a scene, or use a mind map. Highlight journal entries that you can use later for a short story, or just something you want to remember.
Clustering is also a great tool for words and scenes.
Use colored markers or pens, have fun with doing this. Use newspapers, exciting lines from books, magazine, anything that excites you and sparks your imagination.
This is fun, informative, useful and challenging to the writer. To us. I will see how my group feels about d0ing this on Monday. Come back and I will talk about it.
I’m in the process of doing and ebook called First Lines.
I’ll leave you with three new ones and use them to start your story. Never stare at a blank page again.
1. My parents told me that I no longer exist.
2. One last look at him and her blood pressure skyrocketed.
3. The phone rang, but no one was there.
Keep love and kisses in your life. Until next time Helene
Reflections of Me: High School
Visions of me in high school brings back such unhappy memories. My sister, who still smelled everything, got into all my things. I had started a diary, and wanted to write a story, but she was always pulling out my things, clothes, papers, and kept looking at them.. My writing career was over before it [...]
Adopt A Caregiver
Something dear to my heart, so I am repeating it. Adopt A Caregiver I would like you to read Behind The Mask, and know what it feels like to be a caregiver. Then I would like you to Adopt A Caregiver. Email or phone, develop a personal relationship with someone whose friends have deserted her [...]
Reflections of Me: Sweet Sixteen, Not For Me
Sweet sixteen, how did they ever come up with that line. Me? I hid myself in my books. I felt frumpy, and ugly, whereas my Mom was beautiful and outgoing, and everyone loved her. Me, I was invisible. By the time I was sixteen I went to work with my father every Saturday. Cross Street [...]
