Julie Unplugged

Writing & Word Love Tip: One Sentence - One Word - At a Time

Sometimes I simply write one sentence at a time.

Sometimes that is the best medicine. One sentence – no, one word - at a time.

Slowly, methodically, letter by letter dropped onto the page.

Phase two: Let the words sit without you hovering.

Get up and leave, do something else,  remembering what you have written even in the vaguest sense.

In case you didn't "get" that, what I said was...

Get up and leave, do something else,  remembering what you have written even in the vaguest sense.

Return and repeat: one sentence at a time

Our best medicine may be a word at a time.

The most important ingredient in the word-love writing medicine is action. You pick up your pencil (or pen, fingers on the keyboard, etc) and you write that one word.

Simply start and continue and take a break and start and continue and take a break.

Here is how I did it just now for a story I want to write but can’t seem to get it to work how I want it to, right now.

Instead of sitting and doing nothing, I am choosing to write one word or a phrase and then one sentence about three images from the story I want to tell.

Waiting - - - The farmer’s recent presence is left behind as he takes his claim upon the still sleeping trees.

DIY – The Farmer made a stop sign from agricultural scraps. Such a human element amidst so many growing things.

Dancing. The upturned tree exposes roots as their ghosts take the opportunity to throw a celebratory ball.

What images or words or sentences are calling you to put them into language form?

Instead of rushing to write, “rush” to allow yourself to take action to write slowly.

Allow your write action to be a peaceful waterfall of words rather than a freight train rumbling through a busy intersection, upsetting the normal traffic patterns by shouting with its horn and making the buildings around it shake.

One word.

One phrase.

One sentence.

Repeat. Allow the words to guide the growth of the writing itself.

Take action, slowly....

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This was my first post (of 30) for the Ultimate Blog Challenge, April 2013 edition. Follow here for some "Writing Word Love" which is my theme for this month.

 

 

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Little Slices of Creative Every Day Opportunities from Every Day Life

This week I worked on a lot of individual pieces and this COMING week, I may actually bring some to completion to show you here. I did manage to make some art quickly – but as is my style, I am sitting with them for a bit before I declare them “complete”.

I also got a new phone this week and have really been having fun with slice-of-life phonetography. I am not sure how to spell that, but with instagramming and all, photo sharing has become such a pleasure. I have always loved to snap the everyday. Just like the history I love most is social history, women doing everyday things, for example, in the 19^th Century delights me to no end.

I thought today I would show you three photos from my phone that fit this “slice of life” unpolished, not at all poised or posed shots. The first one, I admit, is absolutely gorgeous. It was born from just being awake, alert and aware.

The camellia bush outside the Art and Spirituality Center at Mercy Hospital in downtown Bakersfield has some of the most gorgeous flowers I have seen yet this Spring. The symmetry and geometry in this flower are astounding. I simply had to respond to it by taking its photo and sharing it with others. I also plan to use it in other ways in my photo-editing creativity.

Here is Samuel doing a forever fun activity, running in the sprinkler. I know, I know, he is fully clothed in long sleeves yet I allow him to do this crazy stunt? The simple answer is “YES”.  There are two strong beliefs I hold close. One is to allow my children the space to experiment playfully in ways which will not cause damage. The other is all things are good in moderation, even those that seem out and out nutty are even allowed in my world.

I also believe helicopter parenting is one of the reason our children are less able to think critically or observe the world around them. Their brains are so full of their parent’s constant chatter while hovering they don’t have the time to notice how that leaf is half underground and becoming soil again or see the snail slowly crossing the sidewalk.

 

 

Please meet my desk how it appeared yesterday morning. It is a humble desk and yes, my monitor stand is dusty and I didn’t wipe it clean for the photo. Slice of life is all of life, not just the Stepford life. My glasses are off because as I get better – read older – my eyes are not the same as they were. I actually see the computer monitor better without my glasses now, so I take them off and then put them on for important places, like when I am behind the wheel of a car or need to see in the distance.

Do you ever create in a “slice of life” style?

I would love to see your stuff and hear what inspires you to simply show the moment as it is.

This post was inspired by the community at Creative Every Day - please visit there and see what people are building, making, baking, painting, stitching, sketching each and every day of 2013.

 

 

Please stay in touch:

Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

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And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

Showing for It a Tidbit at a Time

You would never guess from the number of my posts on the Creative Every Day Weekly Check In that my creativity has actually been at an all time high lately.

I know, I know – I don’t have much to show for it!

Here’s the thing: I am so close to being done on a couple mixed media pieces – I smile as I say that because for the first time I completely took my time and added layer after layer after layer and they are not half bad. I feel almost like I know what I’m doing enough to follow my intuition and feel good about what I am creating!

To the right here is the start of one of those projects. 

Now, since I don’t have anything finished I would normally not show you anything and not even show up.

I decided I should just show a taste of creative progress. Tonight when I was stuck with language – the words were not flowing at all – I decided to edit a couple photos.

Actually, I edited the same photo twice, but I really like how they turned out.

What do you think?

Here is the first editing job I completed....

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is the second one:

Thanks for bearing with me. I hope you forgive my lack of presence and support me for showing up… now.

I look forward to the inspiration I receive from you and hopefully this small slice of creativity may inspire you, too!

Have a week filled with passionate creativity!

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

And for the first time I am also linking to Inspire Me Mondays from Create with Joy - welcome one and all!

Expressing What Can't Be Framed with Words

This is me, three days before surgery to remove the melanoma from my face last September. Sarah Downie took a series of photos. So grateful!

I went to a workshop nine days ago that was aimed to work with women who were dealing with cancer and their stories.

I didn’t want to go to the workshop particularly, but I felt I needed to go so I went and I’m glad I went but damn, I resent that I have to be attending a woman dealing with cancer thing, especially when some folks just don’t get that dealing with cancer doesn’t end with the surgery or the remission or the end of chemo or the ending of whatever the person’s treatment has been.

Facts are facts: I will continue to return to my doctor every six months for skin checks. Recurrence is fairly likely, hopefully it won’t be overly invasive next time. I have gotten better at not simmering in it, but there are moments when I still poke a hot stick into my scar saying, “The place where the cancer was deepest continues to be a grizzled sight to me. It has only been five months, it has only been five months, it has only been five months….”

"Women Get Cancer" Mixed Media: 2009 & 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

I am pleased to see the continued processing from the workshop is coming out via art because words can’t express what I have to say about it most of the time. I don’t want to talk to friends about it. It makes me feel even more self conscious than I do now.

Women get cancer. I got cancer. I have recovered from cancer. Cancer doesn’t create who I am AND I may use my cancer to continue to express myself creatively. I never know when my creative process and product will be exactly what another person needs to see, to feel what she needs to feel, to get to the roots of what she needs to process.

May we all, collectively, feel better about our relationship with cancer. And if we feel a sense of resentment or whatever it is we feel, may we find people, places and projects which will help us to express the inexpressable.

 

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Julie Jordan Scott is a Creative Life Coach, a Poet Performer, a Writer and a Mommy Extraordinaire. Stay in touch with her via twitter or facebook or you may always call or text her at 661.444.2735 to arrange a complimentary coaching session.

Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot  

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

Monday Love: Create Upon Your White Canvas Today... Each and Every Week

To love Mondays, Simply choose to live them differently.

Yesterday – Sunday – I created this lovely little Valentine’s Poetic beauty. I love it in its simplicity. I love how one heart grew on the page from random paint splotches and the others are musical hearts placed there for me.

 

You can’t see some of the words of the poem because I covered some on purpose in order to leave the mystery alive.

Mondays are white canvases of mystery and miracles being born right in front of my eyes.

Newsflash to the World: Monday is NOT “the red headed step child” of the week!

Some of us happen to LOVE Mondays.

For years I have referred to Mondays as a brand new white canvas for me to craft upon every week. I see it as my own version of the Jubilee fifty-two times a year. Jubilee = forgiveness for whatever took place in the preceding six days and covering all of it, the stench, the sensual, the stellar, the sinuous, all of it, with grace, compassion and love.

Why can I say this about Mondays?

Because I choose to say this about Mondays: it is pure and simple!

People love Fridays because culture has been hammering TGIF on our heads for who knows how many generations.

I love Mondays because it is a beginning anew of my projects, my creativity.

I want to know about your miracles and your mystery this Monday.

Let’s see how the world changes because we choose to change our minds about Monday.

 (This post was posted, also at Creative Every Day - an all year exercise in flexing your creative muscle daily. Check it out here.)

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot 

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

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Words + Love + Creative Nudges = Nearly Free to Make Art

This was a take from a used book sale for charity. I literally get high from such events. LOL.

I love books. I love illustration. I love children’s books. I love dictionaries. I am deeply and profoundly in love with words.

 It seems natural I would choose to make art that ties all these loves together.

I put these two components: a dictionary page from a 1948 New Century Dictionary and an illustration from Peppermint Fences, a textbook from the 1960’s.

1948 New Century Dictionary + 1960's Children's textbook - Peppermint Fence

Everything came when my friend gave me some picture frames to use. It was a simple matter of cutting images and finding a dictionary image that felt fitting for the illustration.

 

The outcome is so loveable!

Close up of the Collage Art - They just don't make dictionaries like they used to!

Here are two images so you can get a clear picture of the size of the finished work. I like it so much, I am actively collecting other images and considering what simple paper art I can make for free later. I had the books on hand – I think they cost $3 for the entire books but they have so many pages to use, if I had to put a page by page cost along with a squirt of Super 77 and the free picture frame?

 

I would say this project cost me less than pennies.

The pleasure from it is… abundant. I’m off to create more nearly free art.

What creative projects are you working on right now?

Here you can see how small the collage is - very "ownable" my friend said.

 

 

 

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

 

 

 

 

Creative Every Day Check In: Playful Experimentation with the Dark #CED2013

Dark Alienation: Mixed Media

This week I spent a slice of time every day to create this mixed media piece called “Alienation” along the theme of “Dark” – the monthly theme for January at Creative Every Day. I didn’t have a plan when I started out, I just plopped some gesso and paint thickly on a board, cut out some fish from Escher and traced some fish to add in the same shape, but made from dictionary pages.

After I cut the dictionary page fish, I layed them over the fish which were a deep shade of orange because I didn’t feel like the color fit my intention of “Dark”. The fish made of printed pages seemed to reflect both alienation and darkness. 

Dark Alienation in process: pulling the pieces together.

I loved how it looked at that point, but it didn’t feel dark enough. So I put on purple glitter wash followed by a dark grey wash to make it dirtier and darker while at the same time, more shimmery.

I was working on other vintage book page pieces which I will show later in the week. Since it took me five days to get this piece made from start to finish, I wanted to honor it here.

It might not be the greatest piece technicially, but I enjoy the vibe it gives off… of darkness and alienation.

What did you create this week?

 

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

Creative Every Day First Check in of 2013: Productivity Explosion, Part 1

My new year starts today: Monday, January 7. My kids go back to school and I go back to having a wide open, white canvas to create within – hooray!

I have to tell you, though, I have been creating up a storm lately. Pinterest seems to have ignited something in me, something  about Art Every Day Month followed up with finally “getting” pinterest… today I actually did some sketching in my writing notebook!

The art I want to share with you today, though, is one of my latest

"Jane Austen at Home" pendant

Women in Literary History Word-Love necklaces. I gave this one as a gift to my daughter, Katherine. She loves Jane Austen, so I made her a necklace featuring her “at home” with the background (overlay) from a photo I found from her one-time home. I love how it turned out.

 

I continue to love making pendants. I have even been commissioned to make some, which I especially love making in addition to my “standards" of the lesser known women writers. I figure in order to serve my mission of getting the word about unknowns, I need to have the wide appeal of the Emily Dickinsons and Jane Austens, etc.

 

My eldest daughter, Katherine, modeling her "Jane Austen at home" pendant.

 

 I figure the more I make, the more interest I will generate. I was wearing one of Anais Nin and a cashier asked me, "Do you know her? I mean, is that a family member or something?" and I got to talk about Anais Nin. Conversations like this excite me to no end, as you may have figured by now.

Now: tell me about your creativity!

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott   This is my seventh post (of 31!) for the January Ultimate Blog Challenge. Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.

 

I Found More Words in San Francisco: Build Your Own Writing Retreat

Standing at the Corner of Van Ness & Broadway, San Francisco

This morning I found myself engaging in an activity I hadn’t expected to find myself in… now or possibly ever. What was I doing?

I was researching the possibility of subletting an apartment in San Francisco, for a month or so, right in the heart of the city so I could immerse myself in the heart of this city I was born so close to yet haven’t ever experienced “as a local”.

This week I did something else I have never done: I actually slept in San Francisco.

To take it even further, I slept in a place nestled between Russian Hill and Nob Hill that is known as "Polk Gulch" to those in the know. I sat in a neighborhood bar with my

What's not to love about Notes from Underground? Is it possible San Francisco is Wooing Me?

friends who had just become Grandma's. We couldn't skip a place called "Shanghai Kelly's" - who could? I chatted up the bartender about life in San Francisco, parenting and what there is to love about this area.

He gave us each a free Obamarama shot, especially for the new Grandmas. I was merely the lowly transportation. I am not complaining, though, because after visiting San Francisco twice in a month’s time, I am thoroughly infected with “Why am I not living here?” bug.

In the early morning my friends slept while I adventured around the neighborhood on foot. I kept saying to myself, “Just one block more!” until I realized I needed to get the Grandmas to the Grandbaby even though I would thoroughly enjoy walking the neighborhood all day.

Back at the hospital, I managed to park the car three blocks away and thought I was

Katherine Michiels School on Guerrerro St in San Francisco. Inspiration for Julie's School? >> Giggles<<

blessed to be able to walk that different neighborhood. I found an Edwardian House that had been transformed into a school named for a woman named Katherine. I pondered what I could teach and who I could teach at an Edwardian “Julie’s School.”

This morning I found some month long sublets at somewhat reasonable prices. I even found a darling couple in Russian Hill and Nob Hill, where my beloved Ina Coolbrith lived at one time.

You might say – and I will say – I will be sleeping more in San Francisco in the future.

Writing Poetry & Free Writing on Powell St. in San Francisco, April 2012

 

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 © 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

 

This is my second post (of 31!) for the January Ultimate Blog Challenge. Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.

  Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS  and will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

Fragments of Art: Not Necessarily Beginnings Nor Endings

It has been a time of fragments of art rather than completions in art. I have been collecting and photographing and looking at the possibilities of bits and pieces.

I am still holding onto my pieces from my treasure hunting/mini retreat last week. I have them stored away and am waiting for them to demand to be created. My next step is pulling out the collected wood which will serve as a base. I might spray them with some sort of something to keep them from degenerating any further and then start to build.

I just realized something interesting: I see a gender slant here. Most everything I see is masculine. Chew? I see as masculine. Ammunition? I see that as masculine. Why is this? Even the Marlboro cigarette case I see as masculine.

What might I surmise from that?

I’m going to ask the objects to help me figure that out. Maybe add some lace or something to the wood to give it a conventional layer of “womanly”.

Maybe I’ll spray paint using a doily as a stencil: the possibilities are nearly endless.

I was also surprised at how creative I made my train ride from Bakersfield to San Francisco. I was entranced by the view: it is so different than the view I regularly see from the car window. I literally would have been happy to jump off the train and explore… except I don’t think the Amtrak folks would have been very happy nor do I think I would have had so much time to explore San Francisco.

 

That will make many blog posts: how delectable it is there!

Now, dear ones - please come back and visit again so you may see how my fragments develop into assemblages or collages or bodies of work beying... just being fragments without beginning, without end. They sort of just are.... being. Which isn't bad, either. 

Now that I have written it, I will more than likely remember it forever.

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott