A Short Guide to Finding A Creative Writing Idea
People would be astonished at the way my brain works. It’s even beyond describing as “an untypical woman’s brain”. I suspect I use all four quadrants equally; now add in biofeedback, intuition and memory and it truly starts getting interesting. I also have a gift for picking up details when looking at life, which might explain my abilities as a realism painter. Add in a small touch of A.D.D. and perhaps a tad too many unconventional thoughts and what you get is an overwhelming list of ideas and possibilities for exploring, tasting and sampling life. If ever there was a person with too many ideas and not enough time, it’s me.
I’m never stuck for an idea so let me share with you how to get one. Ready? Look to your right, what do you see? Okay, so it’s a white wall. Gee, that sounds boring, only it isn’t. It’s a possible essay on walking through walls and the bones that were once found in a monastery’s walls in south India during renovations; a new entrance to your computer space with a secret latch and wine storage unit; or, a blank canvas waiting for a beautiful and colorful image to appear. Look down to your left. What? It’s just the carpet? Oh, my! It’s a jungle in there if only you put a magnifying glass on it. Write about it for a 5 year old as if you were sitting around a campfire and wanted to scare the heck out of them. Go look out a window…it’s the opening of a short story just describing what it feels like to be inside looking out. And we haven’t even taken a walk outside. Read more
Dear Santa, I want a typewriter for Christmas. Thanks! Love, Annie
I was 6 years old when I got my first typewriter. It was small, red and plastic. I discovered it in our home’s entryway at 3AM Christmas morning and began typing away. I didn’t even put paper in the machine I was so excited Santa had given me my very wish! It was the best Christmas ever! –until I woke my mom up and she came downstairs and yanked me back upstairs and put me back in bed with a kindly threat or two. My mom is Irish and good at making threats that sound dire but have too much love and heart in them to mean much when delivered in a whisper to my ear on Christmas morning. She knew her child was too full of Christmas joy and the prospect of future writing projects.
Present Day, 2009:
Dear Santa, I want a laptop for Christmas. Thanks! Love, Annie
Long gone is my darling little-kid typewriter that captured in black ribbon ink my limericks, jokes, short stories and letters to my brother’s telling them to give me my stuff back. Nowadays, I have different “tools of the trade” for writing. I use a text editor like MS Word for all my efforts before publishing so that I have basic writing tools available such as a spell checker, thesaurus, grammar editorand more. I have a super fast machine that myhusband built for me from scratch for all myfilm, music, photo and graphic editing needs but it isnot road warrior material. I need a laptop since the world has become a mobile place and I am a global writer. Read more
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!
