Tag Archives: writing

No Time To Write

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I don’t have time to write anymore.

I suppose I could make the time if I really tried, but lately things like sleep and taking the time to chew my food thoroughly seem to take precedent.

So sometimes I daydream about writing.  I imagine myself sitting down in a coffee shop, wearing hipster glasses – the kind without the lenses – and as I bite into my scone, I sense the creative juices literally flowing out of my fingertips, making magic on the screen.

I don’t have time for reading anymore either, but sometimes if I pull into a parking space at the grocery store and realize Cameron is sleeping, I grab my book and read a couple pages before I go in.  This keeps my brain from going numb while I shop.

I’m obsessed the book I’m reading right now.  Donald Miller’s A Million Miles In A Thousand Years is brilliant.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I have an artistic crush on Donald Miller.  Sometimes I want to be his best friend because I think we’d get along perfectly and other times I just wish I could copyright all his writing as my own because I like the way he puts things.  He writes in a way that’s easy to read and instantly inspires me to ponder things that one cup of coffee can’t fuel.  This whole book so far is about story; about what makes a story great and about living a great story.  Good stuff,  I recommend it.

Well, I just compromised fifteen valuable minutes of sleep to write this.

Goodnight.

Real Simple Writing Contests

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Earlier this year I read the winning submission for the Third Annual Life Lessons Essay Contest in Real Simple Magazine.  Below the winning essay it stated that in July, the 2011 essay contest topic would be revealed.  I also found out by reading this month’s edition that Real Simple is hosting another writing contest: The First Ever Simply Stated Blogger Contest.

I figured I would share about these contests for anyone who wants to let a little of their writing genius out.  Maybe you will have better luck than me.  I’ve only been ruminating ideas for what to write about for the past three days, but so far I got nothin’!  I have a lot of cliche, heard that story a thousand times type of ideas, but nothing yet that I’d consider original.  Good thing I’ve got until the end of the summer to hopefully get something submitted!  Here are the details:

The Fourth Annual Life Lessons Essay Contest

When did you first understand the meaning of love? Maybe you were a child, witnessing a generous act by your father or mother. Maybe the lesson came later, as you grappled with the challenges of being a friend, a spouse, or a parent yourself. Whatever made you understand love—and yourself—better, tell us about it.

Enter Real Simple’s fourth annual Life Lessons Essay Contest and you could:

  • Have your essay published in Real Simple
  • Win round-trip tickets for two to New York City, hotel accommodations for two nights, tickets to a Broadway play, and a lunch with Real Simple editors
  • Receive a prize of $3,000

To enter, send your typed, double-spaced submission (1,500 words maximum, preferably in a Microsoft Word document) tolifelessons@realsimple.com. Contest begins at 12:01 A.M. EST on May 3, 2011, and runs through 11:50 P.M. EST on September 15, 2011. Open to legal residents of the United States age 19 or older at time of entry. Void where prohibited by law. (Entries will not be returned.)

Click here for complete contest rules and see below for frequently asked questions. You can also read last year’s winning essay, chosen from 7,453 entries: The Ride of Her Life, by Dorothy Fortenberry, 31, of Los Angeles. The previous year’s winning essay was Beauty in Motion, by Andrea Avery. Our first contest’s winning essay was A Witness to Grace, by Aldra Robinson.

Click here for complete contest rules and to see frequently asked questions.

The First Ever Simply Stated Blogger Contest

Who is the person you are most surprised to be friends with? Maybe it was someone whom you had nothing in common with, someone you’ve only conversed with via e-mail, or someone who started out as more of a rival than a friend. Whoever that unexpected friend is, tell us about him or her.

Enter Real Simple’s Simply Stated Blogger Contest, and you could:

  • Join Real Simple editors as a blogger on Simply Stated for one month
  • Receive a prize of $1,000

To enter, email your 300-word post (preferably in a MS Word document) tobloggercontest@realsimple.com. Contest begins at 12:01 A.M. EST on June 8, 2011, and runs through 11:59 P.M. EST on August 15, 2011. Open to legal residents of the United States age 19 or older at time of entry. Void where prohibited by law. (Entries will not be returned.)

Click here for complete contest rules and to see frequently asked questions.

In Love With Love

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Ever since yesterday when I mentioned that my one year wedding anniversary is coming up at the end of this month, I can’t seem to get my wedding, my husband and my anniversary off my brain.  However, it’s not a bad problem to have.  I like being sentimental and I’m thankful that the human race has figured out ways to celebrate mile-markers and significant events – helps you appreciate what you have.

So this morning I pulled out “The Book” that sits on Jon’s bedside table.  It’s a black leather journal I started writing to my future husband a couple months before I moved to San Luis Obispo.  For a while, the entries were written to that anonymous someone and eventually they started beginning with “Jon Dear,” once I was confident that Jon was the person I would marry.  I had to switch around the words because Dear John letters were not something I wanted to write.

And actually, I’m glad it all worked out because I think I jumped the gun and started writing the entries to Jon after only knowing him about 4 months.  Oops!  I ended up giving him the journal at a significant point in our relationship and I even included one passage out of the journal in my wedding vows.

This is the first picture we ever had taken together at the California Mid State Fair in 2008.  We were trying to look over the wall to catch a glimpse of Alan Jackson performing.  I wasn’t a big Alan Jackson fan at that point, but I did a good job of pretending. 

So with our anniversary coming up I decided to pull out the journal again and make an entry about year one of marriage.  My plan is to keep making entries at least once a year as long as I’m alive because I don’t think you can ever write enough love letters to your sweetie.

Actually, the inspiration for this journal initially came from reading the beautiful and compelling book by Elizabeth Elliot called Passion and Purity.  I read her book in college and was captivated by the unfolding love story between her and her husband-to-be who spent years and years only communicating through letters in the mail until the Lord’s timing was clear.  It’s probably one of the most romantic and moving books I’ve ever read, along with the novel Redeeming Love.

So this week I’ll be thinking about what I want to express to Jon in my year-one entry.  My goal is  to make him cry tears of joy, even though that’s pretty unlikely.

Along these same lines, I cannot wait to write to my children.  I’ve heard about women writing down a “birth story” for each child that they read to them each year on their birthdays.  It’s a story about the events leading up to that child’s grand entrance into the world.   How sweet is that?  A reminder of how much you were loved and adored even before you did anything, accomplished anything, or became anything.  You were loved just for being you!

I think birth stories are a great display of God’s love because whether our mothers wrote them down or not, God has each of our birth stories recorded.  Everything is significant to him and not only does he remember our birth, but he remembers when he formed us, why he formed us and he knows the days ahead.

Bah!  Anyway I gotta cut this post short or I’m gonna end up with baby fever again!!!

For Great Grandma Alice

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This morning at 2:30am my great grandmother Alice Lockhert passed away at 100 years old.  Despite her age, she lived in her own home until the final few days of her life.  She loved oil painting, gardening, her family and since she never owned a computer, the highlight of her day was often when the mailman stopped by and delivered her letters and the stacks of catalogs that she liked to order. 

It was a sort of ongoing joke in my family about how many stamps she went through per month.  She loved to send money to any and every organization that sent her postcards asking for donations.  Even to the society that takes care of orphan cats.  Is that even a real organization? I dont’ know, but I think she sent them money anyway…  However, the comedic part of her generosity was that in reality it was my grandparent’s money that she was so-generously giving away.  So they weren’t always too keen on her giving habits, even though I’m sure they felt bad for all the orphaned kittens around the world too.

I have a lot of special memories of my great grandma Alice.  Most of which are wrapped up in humor considering that I only knew her during her late 80′s and beyond;  A time when people tend to get a little “funny.”

So in honor of great grandma Alice, I’ll share a few of my favorite memories with you: 

She didn’t hear well, so if I wanted to tell her something I had to yell it to her.  That’s something  I never got comfortable doing.

She also didn’t speak very clearly because of her old, worn-out vocal chords so I have many memories of nodding and smiling when I had no idea what she was saying.  A good life-skill and ability that has helped me as I pursue a career in  Public Relations! 

She made cookies every year for Christmas that were too rock solid to eat. 

One time I watched Wheel of Fortune with her at the highest volume setting on the TV. 

For a reason I will probably never know, she had a white porceline toilet in her backyard that she had peculiarly planted flowers in.  I guess that’s old school DIY for ya!       

She had gorgeous ice-blue colored eyes and whenever she kissed me goodbye her bright lipstick stuck to my cheeks. 

Every single year she would mix up my birthday with my sisters.  So I always got a birthday card in March and Devan always got mine in September.

Whenever I visited I would ask to see her oil paintings that hung in a spare bedroom in her house.  She didn’t paint very much anymore during the time I knew her, but I always liked to look at them even if they always were the same paintings.

One time I drove her home after a Thanksgiving dinner and she spent the ride across town telling me about how she personally never learned to drive and what a privelage it was that I had that opportunity.

And probably my favorite collection of memories of my great grandma Alice is our shared love for writing.  Because of the difficulty I had hearing her and speaking to her, we developed a special friendship through written letters and the sharing of our writing.  Although her handwriting was sometimes just as hard to interpret as her speech, her letters were fun to read because they became cases of deciphering written code.  Sometimes a simple card took me thirty minutes to figure out, but it was always well worth it.

Most times she wrote about her gardening and the weather, but other times she shared with me about how she met her husband and how she developed a relationship with the Lord.  Writing back and forth about Jesus became something that occured often and she would always encourage me to stay strong in my faith.   

She wrote poems that displayed her spunk, love of life and sometimes her stubbornness.  Apparently after being in a car accident and experiencing whiplash she was given pain medication for many years.  Her poetry and use of sarcasm displayed her feelings of dislike towards the pills and how they made her feel.   I’m thankful to my aunt Susan who made copies of her writings and put them together in a binder that I was given at her 100th birthday party earlier in February; something I will always cherish. 

And in return I would write her back telling her about my big move to California, informing her that I had met the man I would marry and letting her know about how my job was going.  When I wrote a story or a poem that I was particularly proud of I would make sure to print it out and mail it to her also. 

I like to think that my love for writing was at least in part influenced by her.  Maybe she passed along a creative gene that I was blessed enough to inherit. 

Whatever the case, I carry happy, loving memories of Alice.  She was a strong woman of faith and I hope to carry on the family tradition.

The Art of Story Telling

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This afternoon was peaceful and sunny and I got to spend thirty minutes of it driving down the 101 to Santa Maria to attend a seminar for my job.  About twenty of us gathered in the Radisson Hotel’s small conference room to attend a seminar called StorySelling for Non Profits. 

I was instantly jealous of the man who lead the seminar.  His job is to help businesses and people learn how to tell a story in a way that can produce a desired outcome.  He talked about what kind of stories to use and then broke it down even further describing what kinds of things are important when telling a story.  So his job title literally is “Master Storyteller.”  Again, I’m very jealous.  So as you can imagine, the seminar was highly entertaining as he, of course, constantly used stories to help teach us and relay his message.   

It made me think a lot about what I love to do.  I love to write.  To communicate things.  I’d like to be better at standing up in front of an audience and speaking, but I’ll admit that I’m much more comfortable communicating from behind a computer screen.  I have a lot in my head and sometimes it doesn’t all come out right when I don’t have the grace to type a sentence over three times before it sounds right. 

But today also made me think a lot about the Gospel Story.  Sometimes I’ve heard it referred to as the gospel, and other times it’s called the gospel story.  But after experiencing this seminar today, I think that “gospel story” makes more sense because when we as Christians simply state facts about what happened: 

  • Jesus came to the earth for us, he died for our sins, he rose again and now we can believe in Him and live our lives for him…

I think a lot of times we lose our audience just after we say “Jesus.”  Not that anything I stated above is false.  It’s just that no matter what the topic is, listing off facts or information about something isn’t very interesting.  Facts allow your mind wander and by the time you’re done telling someone about how the Son of God died for them they are already thinking about what flavor of smoothie they are going to order on their lunch break.

But on the other hand stories captivate an audience.  They pull you in.  They tug on your heart strings and leave you bubbling with emotion by creating a metaphor in which the listener can see himself within the story. 

So what does this mean in terms of how I present the gospel?  I don’t really know yet.  I need a lot more time to think about it than the thirty minutes I had driving home from Santa Maria.  But I do know that I don’t ever want to talk about my Lord and Savior in a way that’s boring.  Because the gospel story is riveting!  It’s dramatic and like we as Christians know, it illicits an immediate response.  However I think sometimes we tell it, I tell it, in the same fashion that we would use to talk about what we ate for lunch yesterday; it’s not very exciting. 

So maybe in the coming days I will craft a story that tells the gospel in a way that when I am talking with someone and the Lord gives me an opportunity, instead of saying “Have you heard about how Jesus did this for you…?”  I will pause and say, “If you have a moment, I would love to tell you the most amazing story you have every heard.” 

In the meantime, I thought I’d share a section of my notes from the seminar today.

5 Secrets To Becoming A Master Story Teller

1.      Listen Before You Speak

  •         Know who you’re talking to and what they care about

2.      Tell What’s True In You

  • people see through smoke screens.  Tell a true story.  People can feel when they’re being lied to.

3.      A Hero With A Problem

  • Make sure you have a problem or conflict point in the story.  There must be an “overcoming point” or conflict resolution in each good story

4.      Get Hooked On A Feeling

  • People are more motivated by how they feel about something than the logic behind it
  • So use details
  • Pause and see it (aka: act it out in your facial expressions and body language)
  • Feel it (you must “feel your story” as you tell it.  Otherwise people will see that you don’t really believe it yourself)

5.      And Your Point Is…?

  • Know your point in advance.  What do you want your listeners to do after hearing your story?
  • Throw out what doesn’t contribute to your overall point
  • Keep it short and sweet

Creations

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Today I decided to add a new category to my blog called “Creations.”  I know, I know, another blog about DIY crafts, fashion, cooking and the like!?!?  Well, yes, actually but I’m rather excited about it. 

I’ve always loved to write so it’s something I naturally gravitate towards.  However, recently I’ve been discovering why it is I enjoy writing so much and I think it has to do with the following things:

1) Writing has to do with creating.  God is the ultimate creative genius.  So when we create things: writing, art, music, food, etc. we are “sharing a hobby” with God and joining Him in something He loves to do. 

2) Some of the best writing is about the common, yet deep things in life like love, happiness, relationships, adventure, beauty, heartbreak, and finding meaning in our lives.  I’ve been discovering lately how God wants me to find each teenie tiny part of my life significant and meaningful and worth writing about. 

3) “Writing is a form of personal freedom.  It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us.  In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.” ~Don Delillo.  Agreed. 

But writing is just one form of creating and in the past 8.5 months of marriage I’ve found myself excited about things I’ve never cared too much about before or I’ve found myself needing to get excited about those things more.  Such as creating meals for my husband that he can swallow and making our home a place that is cozy and welcoming to others.   

So I guess you could say I hopped on the bandwagon.  I guess I’d say that it’s about time!