Ding Dong BANG!!
Did you hear that?
That was your Wake-Up Call!
I am a Reader, NOT a Writer.
I admit I was the editor of the Parkway Central Literary Magazine, but
that was about 1970, a very long time ago.
In the Air Force, I had to write performance reports, award decorations
and formal reports. I did just fine,
until the changed the format from “flowery descriptive comments”, to bullet
points. Bullet Points! Have you ever listened to me talk? I DON’T do
Bullet Points. My husband had to rewrite
things for me.
Now I write marketing descriptions for homes when I put them
on the market, to make the homes come across as warm and cozy and inviting, but
I’m limited to 1000 characters (or less depending on how the line breaks),
which is so little, it fits on a pinhead when I’m talking.
But, Jackie Morgan, that indomitable force of nature, sent
out an SOS. She needed more people to write
for the church blog. She told me to join
Bill Tucker’s Writing Group at church –it would help me to write for the church
blog, she said.
And so I did.
The Writers Group meets every other week, on a Tuesday evening,
at the church. We read books about writing and discuss them. Individually, the
members of the group write things (family histories, travelogues, stories,
church blog articles - we’re all over the board) which we read to the group,
who then give us feedback and encouragement.
And so it started!
DING DONG BANG!!!
That’s your wake-up call!
If I can do this, SO CAN YOU!!
What do I do? Those
days when I have an issue or concern or thought that just keeps running through
my head (Admit it, you have those days to), I figure if it’s running through my
head, it’s running through someone else’s head also, so I jot it down on a
scrap of paper before I get sidetracked and forget it.
Now I fully admit that the reason why I seldom listen to the
radio in my car, is because I find the conversations in my head more
interesting most of the time and the radio distracts me from talking to myself.
After all, where else (other than the shower) can you practice going over what
you did wrong and what you should have done in past conversations, and maybe
what you ought to do when you have that conversation with a real person that
you know is coming up and you are dreading so you are practicing what to say in
advance. I can cover what I SHOULD have
said, what I’ll do my best to remember to say the next time that touchy subject
comes up, where I winced at what I did wrong and promise myself that NEXT TIME,
I’ll be better prepared.
Are you getting a picture of the crazy person I really am,
underneath the persona of the person I pretend to be on the surface? I do it at night too, when I go to bed, but
suddenly, my head is full of “STUFF” that won’t go away and let me sleep! Not just conversations, but replaying the day
and what went right and not so right. What’s on the schedule for the next day? What’s
yuchy and what’s going to be great? What do I need to remember to take care of
in the morning? What is important enough that I better get out of bed and jot
it down on tomorrow’s schedule before I forget it. The cycle goes on and on and sleep seems
further and further away.
And sometimes, those notes I jotted down earlier in the day,
reappear and tell me it’s TIME. Time to flesh
them out and give them life and set them free upon an unsuspecting world. Except it’s really time to think about them
in more detail, rather than get out of bed and write the whole thing down. I’ll do that the next time I sit down at the
kitchen table, since for me, I can’t “WRITE” on a computer, I can only “WRITE”
longhand on scratch paper or a steno pad, THEN go type up what I’ve written
(provided of course that I can read my handwriting, but that’s another story
and yes, it is true that my older sister claims she married her third husband
because he was the first person she ever found who could read my handwriting,
but since he’s lasted longer than the other 2 combined, I think there’s something
more to it than that). Then I take my
poor little scribbles and present them to the Writing Group and to Jackie and
what do you know, sometimes they tell me they LIKE what I’ve written! Then they help me find the typos and the
little things and help me make it better!
DING DONG!! BANG!!!
WAKE UP!!!
YOU CAN DO THAT TOO!
Jot something down and come join us! Send Jackie an email with your
ramblings. Share your thoughts and
perceptions of the world with the rest of us!
We’re JUST LIKE YOU – flawed, unsure of ourselves and what we’re doing
(or at least trying to do) and convinced that our pitiful little comments will
fall on deaf ears (if anyone ever had the unlikely misfortune to read them) and
DEFINITELY NOT GOOD ENOUGH (but then what in this world ever is good
enough???), but being willing to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and
flaunt our insecurities in front of, OMG, the whole church and anyone else who
reads the church blog!! Oh Dear, Oh
Dear, Oh what in the world have I done!!) Risking Jackie and the others
REJECTING our writing (for reference, the Writing Group and Jackie never reject
anyone and always find something to praise about our attempts!), in the vain
hope that perhaps what we put on paper will resound with at least one other
person and just maybe will make a difference in that person’s day.
DING DONG!! BANG!!
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