Write Club Meeting 1

It was so fun joining the writing magic in today's meeting. Once the prompt was created, I sat down to participate and had a couple false starts but finally a sonnet. Here is what came about:

Today's random prompt brought to you by The Amazing Story Generator: After a month-long fast, a Shakespearean scholar leads the charge against a zombie army.

False start #1: I was aware I was having one last sentient thought; one that married my former love with what was to be my new obsession: “A brain! A brain! My kingdom for a brain!”

False start #2: Young Edward, having sought clarity through fasting and meditation, realized too late how poor his timing actually was – always was, really. While he had been pouring over each of Hamlet’s soliloquies, devouring the depressed Dane’s lamentations instead of bread and butter, he had been, in reality, wasting away and now found himself ill-prepared for awaited him.

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Finally, a sonnet: 

Lo, an army awaits words of wisdom

From the mouth of scholarly Edward

How best to defeat this zombie kingdom.

With rotting flesh, void of spoken word,

Abominations rise from the cursed grave -

Damned spirits in search of flesh to devour.

They hide in darkness, in crevice and cave,

Threatening dominion in every hour.

“Hold them off, by Heaven, take them down.

Swift, run them through, though they lack life to bleed –

Most efficient be, sever the beats’ foul crown.

We few, we angry few must take the lead.

Though few numbered, we must together stand;

Your oaths, your courage, your swords we demand!”

Awesomeness, Pure Awesomeness

Created by the talented Rachel Fieldhouse at
 http://thefieldhouses.wix.com/designs

So I've had the very strong desire to start a creative writing class for a while (years, actually); however, due to various administrative reasons this has not come to pass. I've also toyed with starting a writing club at school, so at least kids interested could have a place to congregate, write, and share.

As a disclaimer, I should confess that I am often full of good intentions that don't always manifest.

Enter my friend and colleague, Micah. She lit the fire (and graciously will share in the responsibility), and, lo and behold, Corona High School now has a write club!

Today was our first meeting, and we had kids show up! They intentionally stayed after school to share in the love that is creative writing! We had a fun little prompt. They wrote. We shared. It was amazing. I left work today on such a high, high note.

After today's meeting, I am so looking forward to a year with these incredibly talented and fun writers.

Excuse me while I squee.

Lost: One Memory Keeper

I’ve lost my journal. This makes me a bit sad. Very sad. Maybe not very – I haven’t quite decided yet. It’s not that there is anything in that colorfully bound little book of immediate importance, but there are things I will never get back: random musings, a piece of my memory captured in words. 

I know part of writing is the mere, therapeutic act of getting down what swims in one’s head – a large part, really. But another great part is the opportunity to look back and read a moment in time, to reflect on a sentiment and smile at the memories, brief though they might be, staring back up from the page.

Security Snail? Sure, Why Not...

I don’t know why, but I have always been fascinated with locks and keys. I love a vintage skeleton key and I wouldn’t mind having an old-fashioned key hole on my front door (if it were safe, of course).

I loved, LOVED, this thing. Bless the 80's.

When I was a kid though, I didn’t think of doors or old keys, but I did love anything that could lock – from diaries to mini lockers to weird 80’s toys that looked like snails but were really secret safes. Seriously, I had

one and adored it. I cannot tell you what I had in this snail but I assure you, it needed to be kept secure (as most childhood treasures do).

Along with the undercover snail, I had quite a collection of diaries. As a young girl, I relished having a diary (or 10). I think I just liked the idea of having somewhere to keep my private thoughts. One might forget what it’s like to be 9 and think that there are no private thoughts for one that age. If one were to think this however, one would be wrong.  

Something wonderful happened when I locked my treasure in my snail or wrote a thought (sadly, it was often about a crush) in my diary: a sense of importance. The very nature of needing a lock created a sense that whatever was inside would be sought, but should not be found by just anyone. I also think that in a time in my life when things felt unsteady, somehow a cheap, plastic lock gave me an odd sense of security (Fort Knox it was).

It’s easy to smile at little girl me with her false sense of security based on little locks, and think how distantly adorable that is. But, if I take a good look at not-so-little-girl me, I know I have new little locks in place, many of the metaphorical variety, that give me that same sense of security – false though it may be.

Musings from a Koi Pond

Fashion Island Koi Pond. Photo source

 A boy, maybe 6 or 7, stands at the edge of a stone   path that leads through the Koi pond into the center island. “Mom. Mom. Mom. Look, mom.” And   when he knows she is watching, really watching, he runs/skips across the stones to the center, stops in the middle, turns around – beaming – and exclaims that he “did it, Mom!” His happy smile made a bit bigger once she smiles at him and gives her approval of this feat.

He could have done this without his witness, but why? Why, when his goal wasn’t to simply cross the stones but to have his mom watch him cross. His goal was to get her approval, for her to be proud of him.

How often, even as an adult, I am like this - looking not just to accomplish something but to have a witness, to have someone I care about say, “I see you. I am proud of you.”

Sometimes I am envious of those people who never seek this. Sometimes I am sad for them.

A Musing from Last Month

March 2, 2014:   Sitting on my balcony, taking a break from laundry and cleaning, I am savoring leftover Wood Ranch deliciousness and enjoying the post-rain stillness that only seems possible on a Sunday afternoon. The normal sounds of weekday traffic have been replaced by the melody of the birds; theirs the only busyness I see, the only sounds I hear. I close my eyes and breathe in the moment

This moment of serenity (and all such moments) make me take pause – a deliberate pause – to know, really know that I am blessed. I have a peace and calm that such a stillness brings, and I am content. And that, my friends, is a true blessing.

I am blessed.

Just Because...

Sometimes I pick up a pen, not because I have something pressing to stay, but simply because there are times I just want to feel the movement and watch my thoughts become manifest with small, deft actions.

Photo taken from here: Writing Forward

Then I begin to wonder: How does one articulate, in words, all the thoughts and scenarios that play in one's head. I think this as I am reading and in awe at the ability of authors to envision new worlds and characters (all bits and pieces of people they know, themselves, and imagination. They plot out the major points of events and people
and skillfully fill in the detail - it's a bit of beautiful, practical magic.

CDM Musing

Corona del Mar – I love the sound of crashing waves. Small though they are today, they still have a roar, a reminder of the power behind this soothing noise. We forget the power in the Ocean, don’t we? We forget when we laugh, splash, and play as the water curls in on itself. We use, as a jungle gym, the beautiful, jagged, brutal rocks.

CDM - January 20, 2014

In some ways it’s a visual for so many things in life: we play with danger as if we've conquered it. How silly we are.