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In the Remains of the Fire: Lessons from Literary Granny George Sand & Writing in Community

In the Remains of the Fire; Lessons from Literary Granny George Sand

George Sand, also known as Armandine Aurore Lucille Dupin

I wrote this poetic piece of prose during an afternoon of writing with friends. We had been working with the words from who we called "The Two Georges" - well respected women authors who chose to use men's names: George Eliot and George Sand.

We told stories around a circle and created a collaborative story and in between circles, we wrote.

Once again I am reminded of the power of writing with others, both for the passion in the moment and most importantly in the what comes next.

I find truth in the remains of the fire. Not in the flames, but the remnants of wood, the coal grey scratches on my hand as I let go. There are the tingles of pain as I breathe it in, the repetition of the now missing fire into my chest.

I have to pause.

I have to ask my heavenly father-mother about the fire’s path, now that it has died, now that the fire no longer breathes.

What can be made from this no-longer fire?

Truth lives in the what’s left, not in the romance of the heat or the momentary kisses and skin against skin, the wooziness of being there in the fire in just that moment when up the smoke goes, up around heaven’s chimney, the shouts of climax, the pleasure of the otherworldlyness.

The truth vibes in the messiness of the charred wood and what we find from that. Sometimes it is stuck to our shoes, left unswept on our floors, stuck in our hair. The truth lives in being willing to sit amidst the rubble and not quickly, giddily push it away to make more room for more fleeting moments of ecstasy but instead…

Be there for the almost wordless wonder that is born when I release my addiction to the fire and instead, learn to play with the dust it left behind, to not cry when I wash my smoky sweater but to laugh at the profound meaning of what the deposits of those flames left against my skin.

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This post is Number 30 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

I'm so glad you are here!

 

 

 

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

In the Remains of the Fire; Lessons from Literary Granny George Sand

George Sand, also known as Armandine Aurore Lucille Dupin

I wrote this poetic piece of prose during an afternoon of writing with friends. We had been working with the words from who we called "The Two Georges" - well respected women authors who chose to use men's names: George Eliot and George Sand.

We told stories around a circle and created a collaborative story and in between circles, we wrote.

Once again I am reminded of the power of writing with others, both for the passion in the moment and most importantly in the what comes next.

I find truth in the remains of the fire. Not in the flames, but the remnants of wood, the coal grey scratches on my hand as I let go. There are the tingles of pain as I breathe it in, the repetition of the now missing fire into my chest.

I have to pause.

I have to ask my heavenly father-mother about the fire’s path, now that it has died, now that the fire no longer breathes.

What can be made from this no-longer fire?

Truth lives in the what’s left, not in the romance of the heat or the momentary kisses and skin against skin, the wooziness of being there in the fire in just that moment when up the smoke goes, up around heaven’s chimney, the shouts of climax, the pleasure of the otherworldlyness.

The truth vibes in the messiness of the charred wood and what we find from that. Sometimes it is stuck to our shoes, left unswept on our floors, stuck in our hair. The truth lives in being willing to sit amidst the rubble and not quickly, giddily push it away to make more room for more fleeting moments of ecstasy but instead…

Be there for the almost wordless wonder that is born when I release my addiction to the fire and instead, learn to play with the dust it left behind, to not cry when I wash my smoky sweater but to laugh at the profound meaning of what the deposits of those flames left against my skin.

* * * * *

This post is Number 30 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

I'm so glad you are here!

 

 

 

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

Throw Your Words Into the Air and Fly Along with Them

Courage + Literary Granny & Woman Extraordinaire: George Eliot (also known as Mary Ann Evans)

Reading the words of literary granny and superstar George Eliot today astonished me even more than usual. She said, “Our words have wings but fly not where we would.” I can’t imagine George, AKA Mary Ann Evans, ever being unable to “fly” where her words are going or where they have been.

 

There are moments when I write in the voice of who I wish I could be.

This may surprise many of you who hear me as a very brave, very “on every minute” sort of person.

There are certain things I do that require some people lots of courage, like performing on stage in front of an audience or perhaps public speaking – and enjoying each moment.

Yes. These are both true.

I am an activist and an advocate and underneath all of that I have an inferiority complex that weaves through my blood enough to stop the flow almost completely.

Reading the words of literary granny and superstar George Eliot today astonished me even more than usual. She said, “Our words have wings but fly not where we would.” I can’t imagine George, AKA Mary Ann Evans, ever being unable to “fly” where her words are going or where they have been.

When I settle in more deeply, though, I realize she didn’t use her real name to write.

She hid her identity and even her gender underneath a masculine given name. George.

During her time, her words went many places she could not go – as Mary Ann Evans.

It makes me wonder, who would I be as a writer if I sent my words into the world under a different identity? I think of JK Rowlings, who published the ridiculously successful Harry Potter books using her initials rather than her first name because her publishers believed a feminine name would hurt sales.

She has certainly flown up and over where her words flew. Many of us know her story, from welfare mom to international sensation, but when she was starting out the prevailing business belief was her identity as a she should be cloaked.

It is risky to throw your words into the air and then follow them.

It is risky to throw your words into the world and then feel comfortable going wherever they take you.

“People might point and laugh,” I foolishly believe.

So what if they do?

Yes. So what if they do.

That is my mantra for the time being. I am going to be more bold and courageous in following my words into the world and beyond because I am stripping away the power from “they” who point, laugh and ridicule.

So what if they do? I will take note and move one rung higher on the ladder of my literary adventures.

Are you feeling brave enough to join me in flight?

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This post is my first with the Linking up with My Ladies Party from Dysfunction Junction. I hope to meet lots of new, phenomenal bloggers who will quickly become my friends!

 

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Y is for YOU: Literary Grannies (of today AND the future!) from A to Z

What is stopping you? The world is patiently waiting for you to write!

I have been looking forward to writing this entry all month long. April 2013 and the A to Z challenge is almost over. I will miss it, as I did last year, yet I know I have learned a lot and I know (since you have told me) many of you have learned a lot as well.

 If this is your first visit or your forty first visit, you are here at exactly the right time.

Today’s post, after all, is about you.

Fifty years from now, a young writer takes a moment and googles (or its future equivalent) your name to research more about you. Perhaps she is writing a research paper or writing a blog article or maybe a 21^st century style encyclopedia.

You have become a literary granny. Yes, YOU!

Maybe until this moment you never gave it any thought.

How will your words be influential to another generation of readers?

Some of you haven’t even given thought to whether or not your words are influencing anyone. Some of you don’t write for others, only for yourself. Some of you have tried over and over to find your niche, or to write a novel someone will buy or perhaps you are so frightened you have yet to share your first poem with anyone outside of your personal notebook.

Maybe there is a young woman in your life who wants to write but hasn’t started putting words on the page. Perhaps it is your turn to be the encourager of a future literary granny. Time and time again I find writers who knew each other, who came alongside one another to insure the words to continue to be written.

The world is waiting for your words.

This generation and the next and the next are hopeful you will become their literary granny of tomorrow.

All it takes is for you to be willing to write.

Just write.

Just love the world and your words enough to bring your words to life in a form for the future to enjoy and perhaps, just perhaps, learn from as well.

The future world waits, patiently, for you to write your words today.

 

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Tomorrow’s Literary Granny: Zoe Akins

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This post is a part of my series Our Literary Grannies from A t0 Z which was inspired by the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Find out more about the Challenge by clicking here.

 

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

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And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

Julie Jordan Scott is available to speak to your group (or in your teleconference) about the creative process, writing and will create a session individually according to your wants and needs. Contact her at 661.444.2735 for more information.

 

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Shopping Haters: I am living proof miracles happen!

Glitz, Glamor and Shopping Bags. Why does this repulse me?

I love a lot of girly things, but somewhere in my biology is a distinct dislike of shopping.

I know women who love it. My daughters love it. My daughter, Katherine, will shop for hours and not even have an inkling of desire to buy for herself. She is perfectly content choosing outfits for her friends, checking out colors and textures. To me pointless shopping is like going to the dentist for pleasure.

I just can’t imagine it.

Today a faux pas met a fantastic opportunity. I made a mistake and the prom dress I thought I had ordered for Emma was never ordered. I was in a dilemma. Emma wanted a special dress and complained about last year’s dress being like “an old lady” dress and too many of the stores in our malls suited toward her age group looked too “skanky” or some other such word she would be more likely to say.

“I know,” I said, in a moment of delirium, “Let’s go to the Bettie Page store!” I thought there would certainly be one in Santa Clarita, about an hour from our house in Bakersfield if I drive fast.

Maybe all this time Shopping IS an artform and I just didn't know it?

After further research there were only two stores in road-trip distance. Santa Barbara and Hollywood. It was about ten o’clock at night when I said to Emma, “It looks like we’re going to Hollywood!”

I love mini-roadtrips, so this part wasn’t a problem for me and I knew Bettie Page carried some figure flattering retro-inspired fashion. I figured we could waltz in, quickly grab a dress and be done with it. I put an hours worth of quarters in a parking meter close to the store and as we walked over the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Burns and Allen – they rest side by side in front of a very cool hot dog stand – I saw the looming vision of the Bettie Page store.

We walked in and started looking and this adorable, petite brunette young woman said, “May I help you find anything?” and Emma said no, immediately, as I suppose I have taught her to do, but something came over me and I said, “My daughter is looking for a dress for her prom, but it isn’t super formal like proms used to be and….” With that our capable sales woman was parading us in front of possible dresses and had Emma set up in a dressing room in no time flat.

Shopping Miracle Part 1: 3 Shopping Bags from the Bettie Page store!

She brought shoes and a crinoline in for Emma to try under her the dresses with circle skirts.

It was after I went into the store to find another size of one dress and a different dress entirely that something strange came over me and I was transformed into a normal shopping girly girl. Amanda said, “If you need another size or anything, I can get it for you.” I was rehanging a dress for Emma that didn’t fit and we went into the store together. I said something like, “I love the clothes here. I can actually feel really pretty and feminine and not like an unattractive big fat pig.”

We went into the store and next thing I know Amanda was showing me an adorable bathing suit – in my size – and another dress for Emma. I complimented a woman who not only looked smashing in a green pencil skirt style dress, she was also a flight attendant who had her mother with her as well.

She showed me a dress she really liked – a sailor style dress again with a pencil skirt. She said, “I love this dress but how often would I wear it?” I looked at her, wide eyed and offered, “Every day. You could wear it any and every day.”

I walked on air through the store. I checked out the dresses in the window and saw the dress Emma liked with a green crinoline.

My shopping self napped into higher gear. In that moment I knew Emma needed a pink crinoline. “I’ll check on my credit line,” and when I got the results I said, “We can get both the crinoline AND the shoes.”

Emma was giddy and a bit concerned that someone had taken over the grouchy shopper Mom she was knew and (usually) loved.

We assembled everything and Amanda reminded us about the need for a clutch to complete the ensemble.

I couldn’t believe the adorable clutches. We swooned over a lavender, a pink and then a purple and pink possibility. We all agreed the purple and pink was the best choice. “It is unique,” I said, “I like it the best.”

As we were checking out I said to the clerks, “I love this place so much, I want to move into the apartment upstairs. Is there one?”

The clerk said, “Rupaul owns it. Upstairs is his club. He owns the whole building.”

I said, “Wait. You said Rupaul as in THE Rupaul?” I somehow think this would make the Bettie Page who inspired the name of this fabulous store very happy to be renting a space from Rupaul. The next thing I knew we were walking out the door with three shopping bags in Emma’s hands.

We turned our car North to Bakersfield and managed to get home before Samuel was

Emma, all put togerther and ready for Prom!

finished with school. The funny thing is I spent more money than I ever have on a single outfit but I had so much fun doing it, I want to do it again. It is closer to bathing suit season, after all, and I would love some new Summer dresses, too.

My instagram photo we took of Emma and the three bags outside of Rupaul’s club has become quite popular. Emma wrote on her facebook page, “Perfect day. I've never had such a good time shopping. My mom even liked it.”

 

 

 

Who knew success and sweet joy could fit into three distinctive shopping bags?

 

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This post is Number 18 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

I'm so glad you are here!

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

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This Day: How to Have a Satisfying Start after... a different start....

I realized this morning what my deal has been this week: you know, why I am feeling – right now – so wiped out. I sort of feel like I imagine how lava feels, once its cooled down but is still moving just not moving quickly. Molasses mind. It could be described as sticky, tenacious feeling of what was once completely destructive in a microwave-sense-of-quick now becoming dense and the opposite of mercurial.

Traveling solo and leaving the children behind is automatically a bit of a hot bed of emotion for me, but leaving the children behind and during that absence having a gas explosion in front of the house next door and the entire block evacuated does not add a warm and fuzzy icing on the cake. At all.

There were several other shocks to my system including Emma’s high school counselor waving an “expulsion” flag in front of my panicked eyes – and the red alert was like automatic rifles shooting through my gut and causing all sorts of interior, invisible to the eye damage.

My realization of this is critical and if I was Pollyanna, I would say “very exciting!” with perhaps a few extra exclamation points.

Instead, I will admit the realization and its partner, understanding and continued processing is what will get me into a better emotional space. Even as I write this I am smiling again: I am clearly being self coach, self therapist and self any other clinician who works with humans to help them actualize and improve.

1.       Stuff happens.

2.       Sometimes stuff piles on top of other stuff.

3.       The natural response differs between people and is different each time. If the stuff is piled upon other discombobulation, discomfort may leave a deeper mark. This isn’t a sign of somehow being weak, or bad, or unevolved, it is a natural part of being human.

4.       The best way to heal the stuff upon the stuff upon the stuff is whatever version of rest suits you. This may be exercise, this may be writing, this may be sex or other intimacy, this may be silence with friends, this may be prayer, this may be a combination of the above or others that best suit you.

5.       There is no magic key or jealously guarded secret that will make the progress “easier or better” for you.

6.       Forgive yourself for any responses you felt were “less than” who you know yourself to be.

7.       Repeat as needed.

8.       Instead, I will admit the realization and its partner, understanding and continued processing is what will get me into a better emotional space. Even as I write this I am smiling again: I am clearly being self coach, self therapist and self any other clinician who works with humans to help them actualize and improve.

9.       Instead, I will admit the realization and its partner, understanding and continued processing is what will get me into a better emotional space. Even as I write this I am smiling again: I am clearly being self coach, self therapist and self any other clinician who works with humans to help them actualize and improve.

Simply taking the time to write this down has cleared my system a bit. I feel happier, more content and definitely “on my way” in a way I haven’t felt since the flight from Houston to Bakersfield when I knew there had been an explosion and evacuation but didn’t know what would face me once I landed.

From the poem by Mary Jean Irion:

“Today: Let me learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart.”

It is satisfying to have this start.

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This post is Number 28 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

I'm so glad you are here!

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

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Together We Can Figure Out How to Say It: "Normal Day, Let Us Be..."

How do I say it?

The last week has been rather trying for me. Well, since last Monday, things have been trying for me.

Traveling across country and switching planes three times – two of which were smaller seating arrangements with grouchier people than I would like and finding out in Houston there had been an emergency evacuation due to a gas explosion in my Bakersfield neighborhood made for an emotionally treacherous end of the trip.

Once in Bakersfield, I was immediately thrust into my normal routines. And my normal routines plus secondary and tertiary activities along with spinning plates of other’s needs and desires almost all day long everyday.

I found a poem I love by Mary Jean Irion and have decided to play with an image and a line, daily, to remind me what is important… certainly much more important than getting worked up over continual plate spinning.

I hope you will read along to experience the entire poem and perhaps pray or set an intention to live the poem as it is posted.

How about it? Do you want to remember: “Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.”

What else or what other ways would you complete this sentence or add to this sentence?

 

This post is Number 27 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

I'm so glad you are here!

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

Curiosity Fills the Spirit: What do each of these images say to you?

“Perhaps this very instant is your time.”  ―Louise Bogan (Literary Granny 2013)

I didn’t particularly feel like sitting at my desk to write this morning. I have somersaulted into the post-traveling blues, my dogs are barking as if the loch ness monster flew over from Scotland and took up residence in our street and there are two PG & E staffers investigating the work that was done on our street this week after the explosion that caused our block to be evacuated as I was flying back to the West Coast on Monday.

This is not the ideal writing environment and I was not in a particularly favorable frame of mind.

Beth just let a shouting barkety bark escape her lips as if on cue.

If I wasn’t involved in a blog challenge right now I probably would have retreated onto the nearest bed and slept the day away, but because I am involved in a blog challenge, I stayed at the keyboard.

I looked at an image: a photo I took and then the same photo, edited.

That simple, five minute edit imbued the scene with an entirely different meaning.

Here: look –

Image Number One - Unedited. Look at it, closely and carefully.

Image #2 - What comes up for you when you look at the roots now. Has anything changed?

 

 What does the first image say to you?

What does the second image say to you?

How does this relate back to your day today?

Tomorrow – I will answer those questions here – I would love to know if you are joining me in this thought process. Comments, participation, waves to me as I drive down the street: each and all of these simple things make me happy.

  This post is Number 16 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

I'm so glad you are here!

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

Courage: In More Ways than One

The butterflies in my stomach were unusual.

Sometimes it is most courageous to accept the emptiness and let the light in.

I wasn’t preparing for a performance, after all, I was preparing for a first rehearsal. The only audience would be my castmates and my director and each of them has enough going on to notice whether or not I was doing a decent job or not.

Then I remembered: I hadn’t had a first rehearsal in over a year. After my tiny role in Reckless  - a similar case where the Director asked me to fill in after someone else vacated a role – I walked into rehearsal after everyone else was settled.

On the counter in the dressing room from the last show I did.

This isn’t new to me.

This year it is the only way I could imagine doing a show: auditions are something I don’t want to do again for a while. If you remember my recent turn in VDay, I will remind you I have been a part of that movement for eight years: it isn’t the same as other roles.

I was prepared to talk to my Director beforehand.

Just in case she didn’t know or realize about my cancer. I wanted to “come clean” that my melanoma left a facial scar which I have been told repeatedly doesn’t show under lights and make up.

I believed that until in the last week two complete strangers asked me what happened to my face. Was it trauma, they wondered? Was it cancer?

My friends all tell me it is unnoticeable, but I trust strangers more than friends. Perhaps it is just that strangers notice more in the “not knowing who I am”. They don’t have a story attached to my name or a history attached to our relationship simply because we don’t have one yet.

My biggest fear with theater and my scar is it will distract audience members. They will wonder, “Was it trauma? Is it part of her character? Does the actor know she has that thing on her face?”

I normally have a fear of not doing well when I step on the stage. I normally worry about disappointing my director, that the moment will come when my director wonders why she or he chose to ask me to participate in the production. I’ve never been one of those conventionally attractive people anyway, so the scar just adds to my concern.

I was reassured: all was well, I didn't need to worry about my scar, I was told. I could start to quiet those voices of insecurity. It took a lot out of me to even bring it up to her.

Last night, though, all of those fears and inner voices left while I was in the midst of negotiating my script and getting to know my character, taking tiny steps into my relationship with her and who she is outside of me.

I remember when theater was a new – or shall I say renewed? – experience for me. I wrote about it all the time then. It was an all consuming passion, raging through every line I spoke.

I’m not sure how it will be this time.

The days will come and the days will go. I will learn my lines and my blocking. I will laugh with the cast and crew and perhaps there will be more momentary fear.  There will be dressing room stories. There will be that familiar “We’re in this together in this theater foxhole feeling” which I have been missing a lot lately.

Now that I mention it, wasn’t it a couple weeks ago I was missing theater so much my eyes filled with tears that stung my lids? The tears didn’t fall, they just sat there, frozen, wishing I would have the courage to get out there again.

Last night apparently my courage found me. She found me, actually, in more ways than one.

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This post is Number 14 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I fell behind due to my travels and am hoping hoping hoping to catch up. Please give me some extra TLC via commenting, etc - as I will need it as I write write write for the next week or so!

Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

In these last few days of the challenge I will be posting twice daily because of the traveling I did mid-month.

I'm so glad you are here!

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

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U is for Ursula Le Guin: Our Literary Grannies from A to Z

 

Today's Literary Granny: Multi Faceted & Ridiculously, Out-of-this-World talented Ursula Le Guin

I am not precisely sure when I first came across Ursula Le Guin, but knowing me as I do, I suspect I was on a quote search either about writing itself of about something to do with women and writing. Today’s literary granny is best known for her science fiction, but oh – her ability to create heart opening quotes is beyond amazing.

 You might say it is “out of this world”.

I can hear your groans from here at my desk in my home office in Bakersfield. I know, that was almost pandering to the most obvious.

I mean what I say though: until recently I wouldn’t have expected a science fiction novelist to have so many relevant snippets within her pages of fantasy writing. A few years ago I read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and I remember how deeply that book struck a chord with me.

Naturally I ate healthy doses of CS Lewis’ Narnia chronicles so one would think I would also have an appreciation for science fiction – especially being raised in a house with people who are much more left brained than I.

She has won five Hugo awards and six Nebula Awards for writing. Her work has been adapted into films and, this surprised me, two operas. She also writes how-to-write books, collections of short stories, children’s books as well as commentary and criticism. Ursula used to tour the country giving workshops and reaching out as a leader and teacher. She translated Lao Tsu’s Tao de Ching as well as written poetry and published collections of her essays.

She is older now, still well, and continues to write.

Her best selling works include the Earthsea Series and the Catswing Series (for Children). To surprise (and delight) me even further, in her first major work of science fiction The Left Hand of Darkness includes an investigation into gender roles and is noted continually for its literary complexity.

The San Francisco Chronicle describes her work this way: ““If you want excess and risk and intelligence, try Le Guin.”

A review in Newsweek adds, “She wields her pen with a moral and psychological sophistication rarely seen... and while science fiction techniques often buttress her stories they rarely take them over. What she really does is write fables: splendidly intricate and hugely imaginative tales about such mundane concerns as life, death, love, and sex.”

Thanks to Ursula Le Guin, I am rethinking my view of Science Fiction and Fantasy writing. This year I am attempting to try new literary forms: most recently I even attempted to read a graphic novel. Any writer who tells me “To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.” and “The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.” and “Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” is ripe for my reading – and appreciating eye.

I’m so glad to have spent time getting to know today’s literary Granny. If you don’t know her work yet, I hope you soon will.

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Tomorrow’s Literary Granny: Vita Sackville-West

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This post is a part of my series Our Literary Grannies from A t0 Z which was inspired by the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Find out more about the Challenge by clicking here.

 

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

Julie Jordan Scott is available to speak to your group (or in your teleconference) about the creative process, writing and will create a session individually according to your wants and needs. Contact her at 661.444.2735 for more information.

 

Today - Binge in a Healthy Way - for the Love of Words

I woke this morning at precisely 3:57 a.m.

I was wide awake before my eyes read the time on my cell phone and I knew there was no getting sleep back.

It is strange to be homesick for a place you’ve never lived. I am back here, though, back at this place I have called home for more than two decades. I have been reminded repeatedly to pay attention and listen. I can take that absolutely literally and be astonished by the crow having a love fest of sound behind me. I can also say I am noticing I let my coffee get cold again before I could fully enjoy it. Or the motorcycle, I am guessing from the sound of Japanese origin: I just heard that.

I can also tell myself to pay attention to what is in front of me now in my day rather than continue to lean into what was there for me last week.

I seriously drenched myself in physical literary loveliness.

It was like a binge on word-love. It was a healthy, hearty binge yet it was a binge nonetheless.

I texted a friend in Bakersfield, “This is ridiculous. I am driving past small town after small town of wonderfulness.”

This comment was from someone who loves the urban lifestyle and has adapted to the Bakersfield way of life as well. Small towns – village or hamlet style – are not my usual favorite.

What can be said by just happening by the birthplace of WEB Du Bois, Susan B. Anthony, and Edith Wharton’s summer home all in an afternoon? For reference – we are talking about the founder of the NAACP, a legendary suffragette and a Pulitzer Prize writer who was at the forefront of the literary scene during the gilded age of America.

I return to Bakersfield and as I drove my daughter to school this morning, came upon this bouquet of shopping carts. I looked out the window of my car and said, “Look, look at all the colors! Oh, this is a photo that wants to be taken!” The early morning light drenched the gossiping shopping carts with showers of new beginnings.

I see it as a different sort of literary loveliness.

Who am I to judge the value of The Mount or a tidy Victorian home on Great Barrington, Massachusetts with a shanty town of shopping carts, surrounding a cracked mirror and overgrown grasses?

Both and all are poetry, simply different flavors and available to be seen only by the eyes who are ready to see them.

Frankly, I found Edith Wharton’s Mount to be pretentious and boorish. The pet cemetery was charming but oh, the social good that could be done with such abundance – given the right administrator, perhaps. I enjoyed the more modest home of WEB DuBois as well as another home I visited last week, one which belonged to Harriet Beecher Stowe.

I mean to leave you with one noticing, however, rather than a listing of places I have been recently.

There is poetry in all of it.

There is poetry in the arrangement of trash, in the remains from today’s poverty, homelessness and drug addiction.

There is poetry in conspicuous consumption.

There is poetry on wide open country lanes and crowded, multilingual neighborhoods.

Our eyes and our ears and our observations – and the opinions we bring to the page that make the difference.

What poetry are you experiencing today?

If nothing comes to your awareness, look differently.

Poetry may be in the glasses beside the keyboard, the coffee mug, the barking dog, the lace curtains.

There is poetry in all of it.

This post is Number 13 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I fell behind due to my travels and am hoping hoping hoping to catch up. Please give me some extra TLC via commenting, etc - as I will need it as I write write write for the next week or so!

Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

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