Meandering on Monday with Janet Lane Walters #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Reading #Writing #Thoughts - Courage

Meander 1 - Reading - Managed to finish the contest reading in time to read a couple of books. Read The Trouble with Funerals and enjoyed. The characters are improving with age and dealing with deaths at senior citizen's residence - was well written. Congrats Joan Havelange. Also read Erin's Children by Eileen O'Finlan - This story is a continuation of her first wonderful book. Telling about the lot of Irish immigrants was fascinating and the research wonderful. This also spoke to family memories for me since a great-great came to this country from Ireland. Though little was said about her life here, I imagine it was similar.  Good reading and great learning experience.

Meander 2 - Thoughts - Courage- I am 84 years old and headed toward 85. I've much thoughts about the recent political happenings and some of them make me ill and also bring memories. I was a child when Hitler rose to dictatorship and though I remember much about those days, I remember the courage of the people who stood against him. I watched the rise of Communism and saw what happened to the people of so many countries. What I've seen recently reminds me of that time but it's happening here. I salute the courage of the Supreme Court who refused to be politicized, of the judges who refused to listen to unfounded claims and to the people in charge of the election who refused to give into political pressure. Courage is found every day and Cowards should shrink into the dirt they try to raise.

Writing - This week writing has been slow but I'm managing to do some every day. Busy trying to get Christmas organized takes much of my time but the stockings that had to be sent to distant places have been sent and there are only the ones to do here left. Then it will be back to writing with a vengence.   

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Tuesday's Inspiration - Courage To Create - Rollo May #MFRWauthor #Aminspired

While looking through past posts I came upon this from 2010 and realized what I said then remains true today. Writing takes enough courage to be alone, to imagine the lives of your characters, to live in their world and telling their stories.

Rollo May wrote a book in 1977 called "The Courage to Create." I found it on one of my book shelves and pulled it out thinking that it could be a good jump off for writing about things that inspire. The book is geared to all those in the creative art sector but for me writing is where it's at. What surprised me is how I underlined passages and wrote in the margins little notes about my own creative process. This was read during a time when I was exploring all the facets of where I was headed in writing. Short stories, poetry, novels and sort of why I wanted to write.

I have many friends who write and I have friends who have written and who have given it up. Are they on hiatus while ideas are germinating. I'd like to think so, but I fear many of them have lost the courage to create.

Writing is a solitary business and yet it's one peopled with people and places we want to know or to visit. So exactly what is courage?

To me courage for the writer is the ability to get past the fear that there's nothing new to say. Most stories have been told before, but each person tells the story in a different fashion with different people and different places. Courage is doing when one is afraid, when one looks at despair and reaches for the distant stars.

Courage requires a knowing of one's self. Courage isn't rash, Courage is allowing the seeds inside to blossom. Do you have the courage to create?

Tuesday's Inpiration by Janet Lane Walters #aminspired

Today it'll be a very different inspiration. First Happy Holidays to all.

Inspiration number one - Just enough snow to cover the brown grass and light up the trees. That's what I found last night when I left son's house after watching grandchildren while their parents sang at church.

Inspiration number 2 - Those grandchildren who were on their best behavior even letting Grandma watch Jeopardy. Then came the test. To read to them The Night Before Christmas. Book chosen had the first page printed black letters on dark blue background. Fortunately I can recite the first part of the powm, even more than I thought I could.

Inspiration number three - Having the courage to trash an entire chapter of my new work in progress because I muddied the high point of the chapter with talk instead of with reactions.

Tuesday's Inspiration - More on creativity and courage

When reading this segment of the book The Courage To Create by Rollo May I came across these words. "Creativity is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his or her world."

As a writer of fiction sometimes contemporary and sometimes fantasy or other genres I must always be aware of the time in which I live. My fictional encounters need to reflect my visions of what is surrounding me in life as well as to intensify what I am writing about.

There is the encounter which could be the theme underlying the work. There is the intensity of this meaning the emotional effect on the writer and also on the surrounding peopled world. Each writer has their underlying encounters with reality and non-reality. The encounter and the intensity of this must be outwardly be shown and hopefully the readers will understand.

Look at what your underlying encounters and what emotions are triggered. Filter them through the intensity and bring them to life.

Tuesday's Inspiration -- The Courage To Create

Rollo May wrote a book in 1977 called "The Courage to Create." I found it on one of my book shelves and pulled it out thinking that it could be a good jump off for writing about things that inspire. The book is geared to all those in the creative art sector but for me writing is where it's at. What surprised me is how I underlined passages and wrote in the margins little notes about my own creative process. This was read during a time when I was exploring all the facets of where I was headed in writing. Short stories, poetry, novels and sort of why I wanted to write.

I have many friends who write and I have friends who have written and who have given it up. Are they on hiatus while ideas are germinating. I'd like to think so, but I fear many of them have lost the courage to create.

Writing is a solitary business and yet it's one peopled with people and places we want to know or to visit. So exactly what is courage?

To me courage for the writer is the ability to get past the fear that there's nothing new to say. Most stories have been told before, but each person tells the story in a different fashion with different people and different places. Courage is doing when one is afraid, when one looks at despair and reaches for the distant stars.

Courage requires a knowing of one's self. Courage isn't rash, Courage is allowing the seeds inside to blossom. Do you have the courage to create?