Today I’ve been inspired to write.

What has inspired me, you ask?

Writers. Writers have inspired me.

What type of writers, you ask?

Not famous writers. Not Harper Lee, C.S. Lewis or Zora Neal Hurston.

Just regular writers who write. Like:

My friend Kathy who just blogged about writing on her business site that deals with writers.

“What is craft? The techniques writers use to capture a reader’s attention in the telling of a story are referred to as the writer’s craft. Essential components of craft are establishing a clear voice, choosing precise words, incorporating a useful organization, developing effective sentences, and creating vivid characters and a compelling plot that illuminate your underlying theme.”

http://turnstylewriters.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/why-learning-craft-is-important/

And: My cousin Laura, a blogger, scientist and fiction writer preparing for her first novel to be published next month as she writes her second novel.

“Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman were my first two heroes. Somehow I lived almost half a century with blinders on and the brilliant Isaac Asimov escaped my notice until very recently. I have embarked on reading his books and have accepted the fact that I might not live long enough to read them all. He was that prolific.

“I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.” Isaac Asimov

He believed that a writer is simply unable to stop letting the ideas come out. I’m stuck in that spot, captive to my own imagination. If you’re a writer, you must write.

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.” Isaac Asimov”

http://lauralanni.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/my-newest-hero-isaac-asimov/

In the last two days, these two writers wrote about the craft of writing. I needed to read their words.

I often get stuck in the day-to-day life of laundry, dishes, meals, dirty floors, ADD, work, mindless games on Facebook (which I’ve quit numerous times, making me successful in writing) and the constant chore of trying to find places to stick the extra stuff in our house. I move it from one place to another. Shitz. It’s nothing but shitz. Time to purge the FB games and the shitz from our house and focus on writing.

I’m going to get back into the novel I worked on for three years.

It has rested long enough and now it’s time to punch it down and kneed it a while. Work it. I’m going to work it out and see what it becomes.

You can read the brilliant and complete blogs of Kathy and Laura at the pretty blue lettered site addresses within the text. But, you already knew that didn’t you?

Thanks for reading me and wish me luck on getting unstuck.

 

This Island Is Not For Sale

There were about thirty creative types sipping coffee and conversing at round tables with black wax spattered tablecloths. Our Aussie Creative Director sauntered to the front with his affable smile and explained the topic of the night.

Some groaned, others gave confidant nods and I froze. I leaned into my friend. “Did he say, ‘exorcise’?”

“Susie! Exercise. We’re doing an exercise.”

I inhaled and blew out a soft breath. “I knew that. I was joking.”

“Imagine you have an island,” he said. “You can do anything with this island. It’s yours and yours alone. Name it. Do with it what you will. Then tell us if you would or would not live there.”

No exorcism, no worries. I can become a real estate developer for an hour.

At the end of the night there were quite a few islands where special coffee shops were developed. A clear sign of the times. One island developer had all the CEO’s of mega corporations and World leaders on their island and if those leaders failed a morality test, they died. There was an “ultimate retreat for mind and body” island and another developer just put her island up for sale because she didn’t like beaches or water.  Another island had every male prisoner in America on it.

My island was created for people with disabilities. On my island was the ideal amount of gravity so bodies no longer carried the weight of their disability. The air was the purest ever found on Earth and regulated its temperature according to the owner of the skin it kissed. The sky was a splendid blue and the sun a beautiful buttery yellow that warmed but never burned. The water temperature was sublime, turquoise in color and turned crystal clear when kaleidoscopic fish came into view. If someone wanted to experience the water, but not be submerged, they could walk on it and only get their feet wet if that was their desire. Wheelchairs, walkers, canes and crutches were out of sight and mind while their owners enjoyed their sabbatical.

I would name this island, L’PAJ. Liberty, Peace and Justice.

My daughter would be the resident Guardian of this island.

I just might go into real estate after all.