Happy New Year! I guest posted last week over at Putting On the New about setting goals for our relationships. Stop on over and say ‘hello’! Here’s the link: http://puttingonthenew.com/2016/01/11/4473/
Battling Mister Blank Screen
I hate staring at a blank screen.
I hate staring at all computer screens, blank or busy. The blank screen is far too bright. It leads me down the wide, destructive road of twisty internet searches in search of…nothing, and it keeps me up past my normal bedtime.
For my writer-mind, blank computer screens are the worst. Blank computer screens are the antithesis of natural writing. They are abysmal, glaring eyesores which constantly remind me of my lack of creativity, my lack of ability, and my lack of all the other “—ivity” words which I can’t recall at the moment because this computer has me up past my normal bedtime.
What is my normal bedtime? I don’t even know. This crazy computer screen has scrambled my brain.
To battle these technological stupors, I often turn to my small notebook.
The pages in my small notebook are a gentle shade of tan, easy on the eyes and gentle on the mind. Ideas abound in my small notebook. Even the physical act of writing, pen to paper, quiets my scatty tendencies and centers me. Yet at times I still get stumped, and when I do, I engage in this series of writing prompts:
My Battle Plan Against Mister Blank Screen
- “I want to write a (story, article, scene) about….” (write about this for 5 minutes)
- “The topic that interests me the most is…” (write for 5 more minutes)
- “Ten points that I could cover in this (story, article, scene) are…” (write for 10 minutes)
- Take the most interesting point from number 3 and write on it for five minutes. Repeat for the second and third most interesting points for five minutes each.
- In this (scene, article) the central dramatic conflict/argument is…. (write for 5 minutes)
- In this (scene, article) the central dramatic conflict/argument is resolved when…. (write for 5 minutes)
After this, I usually have a something nice and messy and meaty written in my small notebook. Something which I can now type all over that annoying, blank computer screen.
So there you go Mister Blank Screen. This writer has beaten you once again.
Congratulations to MARIA the winner of our December Gratitude giveaway. MARIA won a pack of three small journals, a fancy pen, and a $5 Starbucks gift card. Please send me your mailing address and email at write(at)preslaysa(dot)com to claim your prize.
Would you like a chance to win too? Sign up for my quarterly newsletter, and you’ll automatically be entered for a chance to win.
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The Gratitude Journal
A few years ago, I got our family started on a Gratitude Journal. I decided we should keep one after reading about the physical and psychological benefits of practicing gratitude. A Gratitude Journal proves helpful in many ways. It challenges the idea of having a “set point” for happiness. Meaning, all humans have a perceived level of contentment they believe they deserve. Some people believe they deserve a lot of happiness. Others, not so much. Keeping a Gratitude Journal challenges our perceived notions of self worth.
I can attest to this. Keeping a Gratitude Journal has taught me a lot, especially when I have a particularly rough day of motherhood, wifehood, writerhood…lifehood! Whenever I have had a bad day, my wonderful husband opens the Gratitude Journal and asks me what I’m grateful for – and then I have to think.
Hard.
(I forgot to add, one of our “rules” for the Gratitude Journal is we have to say something we are grateful for in the past twenty four hours. So we can’t say general things like “I’m so grateful for my family..or my house..or for my salvation.”)
Like I said, I have to think hard…challenging my own “set level of contentment.”
So, after wracking my brain, I say something simple like: “I’m thankful for seeing our son smiling today.”
Or: “I’m thankful for the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window this morning.”
Or: “I’m thankful for my husband helping me out with the dishes today.”
It’s at this point I realize those things aren’t so simple. They are wonderful gifts which indicate a few things. First, my child is happy and I’m able to witness his joy. Second, I’m alive and able to enjoy God’s creation. Third, I’m blessed with a supportive, loving husband.
Not such a bad day after all.
When the laundry and the dishes and the screaming babies and the dust make you want to crawl back in bed and wait for tomorrow to show up, give thanks..in everything.
(And write it down!)
How to Access Your Natural Writer
Writing is all about babbling on the page. Really.
This notion changed the way I write. In order to access my natural writer, I have to approach the writing process in the same way a baby approaches learning a new language. Since I’m around children a lot, this concept was a lightbulb moment for me.
My children didn’t start off speaking the King’s English, and as a mom, I didn’t expect them to do so. Yet when it came to writing, I was super-hard on myself. I wanted to write perfectly from the start. Writing this way is contrary to becoming a natural writer. My formal education had a lot to do with this. How many of us wrote papers, handed them over to the English teacher, and received our papers doused with red ink?
When my children were babies, they gurgled and cooed all day, and I never put them in time out for incomprehensible speech. Instead, I cheered them on. After receiving my encouragement, they grinned and “goo-gooed” even more. As writers, we need to turn off that internal editor and “goo-goo” on the page. Now when I sit down to write, I make a conscious effort to be a child again. If I don’t, perfectionism will paralyze me and, quite frankly, perfect sucks. So what principles can we take from how children acquire language that are similar to accessing our natural writer?
Children learn language by first hearing language. Likewise, natural writers read a lot of writing to get a feel for how language works.
With my busy lifestyle, it can be a challenge for me to carve out time to read, but I try to set aside a couple of evenings a week. Reading widely keeps me from getting lost in my own head. It exposes me to different literary voices and styles. Each story I read sharpens my literary ear and helps me become a more natural writer.
Babies gurgle and coo a lot. In a similar respect, natural writers gurgle and coo by free writing.
Once I got rid of the notion that I had to be the “most perfectest writer that ever lived” (ha!), I wrote a whole lot more and I wrote a whole lot faster. Ideas for scenes abounded; article ideas flowed. After turning off that internal critic, I enjoyed writing. Early morning free writing quickly squelches the internal critic. Julia Cameron calls this free writing, “Morning Pages.” She describes it as three pages written in longhand. Those pages can be about anything. In her book “The Artist’s Way,” she says Morning Pages are a vacuum cleaner for your brain. They clear out the gunk so you can think clearly.
So there you have it. By reading a lot and free writing a lot, you’ll access your natural writer. Ba-da bing. Ba-da boom. Next Monday, I’ll discuss my process for generating ideas quickly.
What about you? Have you had a desire to write but felt stymied by perfectionism?
I’m Guest Blogging about “Santa” Today!
Hey friends,
I am guest blogging today on Emilie Hendryx’s blog about my annual letter from “Santa.” And there’s a fun giveaway too. Hop on over and say “hello” Here’s the link: http://eahendryx.blogspot.com/2015/12/preslaysa-williams-spread-christmas-joy.html
I’m Seekerville’s December Contest Diva!
Hello friends,
Today, I’m visiting Seekerville as the December Contest Diva. They are also offering a great opportunity for writers in honor of the late Eileen Barnes, a 2015 Golden Heart finalist and a Seekerville Contest Diva. Hop on over and say “hello”!! Here’s the link: http://seekerville.blogspot.com/2015/12/december-contest-update.html
A guest post by Harry Wegley
A Political Thriller Set in the Central Oregon Desert, a guest post by H.L. Wegley
For the past six summers, my wife, Babe, and I have spent a week or more each summer near Crooked River Ranch, Oregon. In this post, I’m sharing with you some of our first reactions to the beauty of this Central Oregon setting which I was blessed to be able to use for my political thriller (with romance), Voice in the Wilderness.
As we approached the ranch for the first time, I could see that the road descending the 200-foot high escarpment down to Crooked River Ranch had been blasted out of rock. Below us, in the brilliant June sunshine, the golf course created a bright green oasis in the desert, extending more than a mile to the north. On the east edge of the golf course, the canyon plunged out of sight, a six-hundred-foot drop to Crooked River.
We drove down the escarpment to ranch level, turned in at the RV park, and stopped by a big Juniper tree beside the basketball court, windows down, inhaling the Juniper’s pungent, herbaceous fragrance. This was the place where two kids would bury a jar containing a slip of paper with priceless information penciled on it.
We got out and looked to the east. From the far side of the Crooked River Canyon, a mammoth promontory dwarfed us, an unscalable rock cliff reaching upward nearly a thousand feet above ranch level until it intersected the royal blue of an Oregon summer sky.
One hundred yards ahead, a lookout overhung the six-hundred-foot-deep canyon, a canyon almost invisible until a person reached its edge. When we approached the canyon, the earth seemed to drop into nothingness, leaving me feeling exposed. The depths of the canyon pulled on me, as if drawing me downward to my death, yet leaving me awestruck by the beauty of the rocks, the trees, and the ribbon of blue water flowing through the canyon, far below.
The Old Hollywood Road, cut out of the rock face of Crooked River Canyon, was created for filming the 1967 western, The Way West, a story about one of the first wagon trains taking settlers to Oregon in 1843. The cast read like a who’s who in Hollywood, circa 1967—Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, Jack Elam and many more. Sally Field played her first movie role in this film. The whole cast, including wagons and oxen, was taken down that road. While the old road has deteriorated over the past 50 years, it still provides a great trail for hiking down into this miniature version of the Grand Canyon. My thoughts—what a great hiding place for two people on the run from a runaway president who sends Special Forces in a black operation to kill them.
Later, we drove a short distance to the west, to the Steelhead Falls trailhead. Nearly thirty feet below the parking area, the clear blue water of the Deschutes River flowed through a dark pool to a rock-infested rapids where blue turned to white. We walked a few hundred yards down the trail to the falls. I would have to turn this beautiful scene into a battlefield. It seemed wrong, but that’s what made it right, the irony of the contrasts—the beauty of God’s creation contrasted with the ugliness of man’s creation, war.
Seriously, a political thriller set in the Central Oregon desert? Could that possibly work? Yes, it works … beautifully!
About the Author
H.L. Wegley served as an Air Force Intelligence Analyst and a Weather Officer. In civilian life, he worked as a research scientist, publishing in the scientific literature, then developed Boeing computing systems for 20 years before retiring near Seattle. He is a multi-published author with a 4-book inspirational thriller series, 2 nonfiction books, and 4 more novels on the way.
About the Voice in the Wilderness
What if your blog could save the nation, but posting to it might cost your life?
Two extraordinary people …
As catastrophes drive the US into martial law, all eyes are on America, waiting to see what emerges. KC Banning, network specialist, discovers President Hannan’s tyrannical plans and is branded a terrorist, sending her fleeing the Beltway to find her childhood soulmate and protector, Brock Daniels. Brock, a writer and man of faith, gives CPR to a dying nation through his blog, which is read by military members still loyal to the Constitution. But starting a grassroots insurgency while reconciling KC’s and Brock’s broken relationship proves difficult. When Hannan sends Special Forces to kill Brock and KC, starting a war in the Central Oregon desert, reconciliation, like staying alive, might be impossible.
born for a time such as this.
Set in Washington DC and near Crooked River Ranch in the Central Oregon desert, Voice in the Wilderness, Book 1 of the Against All Enemies Series, is a political thriller, with romance, about two people who must decide if they’re willing to sacrifice their lives to prevent the USA from becoming the Dystopian States of America.
Web links:
Author web site: http://www.hlwegley.com
Blog: http://www.hlwegley.com/category/blog
Facebook author’s page: https://www.facebook.com/HLWegley
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/harry.wegley.1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hlwegley
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/harryw51/
I’m guest blogging at Putting on the New today!
Hey folks! I’m guest blogging about my struggle with perfectionism at the Putting on the New blog today! Hop on over and say ‘hi’! Here’s the link http://puttingonthenew.com/2015/11/11/progress-not-perfection/
