Expressions of Gratitude
Happy Thanksgiving. This is my favorite holiday of the year for one simple reason: its purpose is to express heartfelt gratitude. Whomever placed the word “happy” in front of it did the right thing as gratitude comes from a place in the heart where one feels a certain pleasure of being blessed. I’d call that happiness.
Happy Thanksgivings With Love From Arabella
Heartfelt gratitude is effortless to express. It spreads across the heart region and pours emotion into every fiber of one’s being flooding the eyes and smile with the pleasure of being blessed. The real trick is turning those wonderful feelings into words that one can express to another either orally or in writing. It’s easy enough to feel gratitude, but writing it so that it sounds heartfelt and not clumsy or over the top is a gift. Read more
Creative Writing Defintion and 7 Tips to Clear Writer’s Block
I call myself a creative writer. Those two words are the last two words at the bottom of the last page of my business resume. Partly, because it is tongue in cheek and partly because it is the truth. I really can’t tell if I love being a writer more than an oil painter, gourmet cook, business woman or mother. Being a writer is definitely up there in the top ten. And being a creative writer is the equivalent of have authentic European style mocha butter-cream frosting on my birthday cake.
Creative writers are generally at one end of the spectrum while technical writers are at the other. It’s somewhat like using artists and engineers to create a spectrum. It’s not to say that an engineer couldn’t be an artist of any sort, far from it as I have known and taught several engineers how to oil paint, but for the sake of this blog entry, let’s just look at creative writing and how you need it to help your blog be fresh and engaging and perhaps remove some “blog writer’s block”. Read more
Best Creative Writing Teacher I Ever Had
Ms. Anita Stangl. This woman’s shoe collection alone would have inspired even the dullest of writers. It helped that she once dated a shoe salesman who brokered shoes in her size fives. Every day there was a unique pair of classy high heels on her feet and I know that I wouldn’t have missed a day of her class lest I miss one pair of stylish shoes. I only mention her because her feet and her mind were so similar: they changed daily. Her ideas were fresh and clever. She would also take the time to add insight to her students efforts in case our young minds weren’t clued into their own brilliance –and sometimes stupidity. She read into the symbolism and helped all of us notice what was not being said. She also pointed out laziness when it was blatant…and she knew a shortcut when she read one.
As a creative writing teacher with a set curriculum to follow, she would find ways to make class less boring and I for one appreciated this, especially before lunch when I was running low on energy to fuel my brain. If the clicking of her heels on the hard linoleum, as she paced up and down the desk aisles wasn’t enough to keep me awake, she would call on me to elaborate a point. (I could always be counted on in English class to talk…it’s an Irish thing). This method of calling on the unsuspecting student was a secret weapon for most teachers. She would force us to get creative with our answers when floundering for an intelligent reply to her question. Even guessing produces creativity. She certainly showed her cleverness when she would take our really lame answers and build something out of them to spare us some shame.
I doubt that I will be the best creative writing teacher you ever had, but if you begin to look at how you are writing your blog with some desire to be writing even just a wee bit differently, I’ll take that as a compliment.
Now, go do and be your creative best!
Things I Wish I Could Do
Everyone has said the phrase, “I wish I could do that!” I know I have. I have looked at other people with awe and perhaps a little envy as they demonstrated amazing ability to play sports, dance, act, write, paint, sing or perform math problems with apparent ease.
What is interesting to note about wishes, is that our wishes change with our ages.
As a young child, I wanted to climb the tall trees on Sunset Blvd. in San Francisco. All my brothers were excellent tree climbers and had forts strewn along the avenues. The tops of some trees connected to each other by long arching branches and they could scurry across the tops and exit the sky via a different tree. I really wanted to join them since I was quite the tomboy, but my fear of heights prevented me from trying out their experience. If that didn’t prevent me, I guarantee that my older brother would have read me the riot act and threatened me for trying to play with his friends. Read more
