Julie Unplugged

Reminders: When You Feel Creatively Stagnant and Stuck: Stay in Your Seat and Try Something Else

 

Don't give up when your writing feels stagnant - -

It is Friday night and I am sitting in my recliner, legs in a modified version of criss-cross-applesauce. I am trying to string words together while my writing space is filled with a too loud television playing a sporting event I have no interest in watching. Or hearing. Or interfering with my experience.

 

I remind myself I could go someplace else to write.

I remind myself I want to stay home. I’ve been running around all day actually all week for actually all the last couple weeks for everybody except for me so I want to stay put.

I remind myself I can choose, at any time, to focus on gratitude and peace instead of whining and feeling sorry for something I have actively chosen.

I tell myself whatever the first quote I lift out of my quote collection will be the theme of a five-minute-essay.

And the winning quote is…

“For all that has been, thanks. For all that shall be, yes.”

Dag Hammerskjold

Seriously?

I am grateful for… I think, remembering my days of more active gratitude practice.

I am grateful for my new wicker sofa, something I have wanted for such a long time and makes my porch so much more inviting and into an instantly liveable outdoor space. Its been such a long time.

I am grateful for the detox water in my fridge, which I will get a glass of when I finish this five-minute essay.

I am grateful for the index-card-a-day challenge I am starting on the first. I’m grateful I’ve started a foundation, too, using the warm-up prompts.

I am grateful for a hug I got at Art for Healing today. I was seething for a lot of the time I was there and I really needed that hug.

My right leg drops down off my recliner and I lean my head back.

I remember what this feels like, this momentary life changing laps into thanksgiving that simply works.

I have managed to write 341 words more than I had a few moments ago. I actually feel happier, just a smidge, than when I started. I have an immediate plan when I get done with this writing sprint I can I am participating in.

I have the “for all that has been, thanks,” down.

Now, my overnight assignment and into eternity is, “For all that will be, Yes.”

“For all that will be. Yes.”

Tomorrow I begin filming on a new project. I play the lead gentleman's love interest. I don’t know how long it has been since I have played a love interest: ten years? This is just flat out fun.

“For all that will be, yes.”

My kids both had a good first day of Summer vacation. I shared moments of laughter with both kids who are at home. Both Katherine and Beyunca will be home soon, too. I have positive relationships with each of my children. Not everyone can say that.

“For all that will be, YES!”

I think I have the will to write more tonight. That feels good. My stagnant beginning has left the building.

 

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Summer, 2014 and beyond. 

 

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

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!

 

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There are certain things I just can’t write about. I may be able to write around them but I won’t write about them. This has been an ongoing issue with writers I know, concerned about writing something that might “get them in trouble” with their families.

Normally I am slightly if not completely hard edged about this, but for now I am going to instead take a different path.

Sometimes I don’t even feel right about fictionalizing whatever story it is I cannot write about yet. Usually that is the course I take: either tell truth via fiction or tell truth via my pseudonym.

This entire method of handling truth via fiction starts debate and derision. It is not my intention to do either of those. I am using my own process to sort through it all and no, right now neither claiming the name of my pseudonym nor writing a work of fiction will do.

Instead I will wait.

I will sit with the story, untold, in my core for a while, to digest via my body and my spirit. It may find some root in my notebooks where they are safely tucked away for my eyes only, but there are certain things I can’t automatically divulge to any sized audience, even an audience of one’s best friend or one’s sister, brother or cousin.

Poetry may hold it in place, with carefully chosen and mindfully crafted words.

For now I know I will hold my thoughts close, perhaps whispering those thoughts into prayers and allowing the quiet, inexpressible to eventually weave into some form of understanding.

I don’t need to write about everything. I can pick and choose and modify in order to express myself and honor this precise moment along your sometimes wacky and confusing path I call my life.

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Spring, 2014 and beyond. 

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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!

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Enjoy the Moment You're In - - Remembering & Setting Intention Now

 

Hand over heart and breathe - remember and intend for a moment of pure enjoyment and pure peace.

 

I will confess, the past few days have not been ones I would enjoy revisiting.  There were moments of feeling like complete Mommy-failure, there were moments when I felt underskilled, there were moments I wanted to just climb into a cold pool and duck under the water as long as possible.
In fact, I would be perfectly happy if we just called "Do-OVER!" for the past couple weeks so we could try again and get it right or if not get it right, at least get it differently.

This morning I was reminded we always have the choice to do the moment we are in differently than we might have unconsciously or habitually gone into it. I remembered I could choose to trust rather than be fearful.

We always have the option to stay present and be in this precise moment, fully.
So that's what I did.

It helped to have some recent snippets of presence to recall, like the one in the photo you see here on the blog. So simple: putting my gold-sneakered feet up on a bench while my daughter, Katherine, put her blue sneakered feet up on the bench beside me.

Nothing fancy. Not a long moment in time. It will remain, however, a forever moment of peace.

Enjoy the moment you're in.

Take a breath and put your hand over your heart. Remember a moment and intend for your next moments to be purely peaceful.

Share either here in the comments or in conversation elsewhere a recent moment of pure enjoyment in your recent days. Simple, pure peace.

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 Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Spring, 2014 and beyond. 

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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!

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Somewhere in Maryland.....I Drove, I Cried, I Reached for the Light.

Somewhere in Maryland the sign said “Food, this exit”

Somewhere in Maryland, I turned to where the sign said to turn and drive so I drove.

And drove.

And drove.

And after a mile or so of lovely rolling hills an arrow pushed me to drive.

And drive.

And drive.

Finally, in a fit of frustration, I turned into a parking lot boasting some stuff claiming to be edible but not at all what my heart and belly had in mind. I turned off the rental car, dropped my shoulders and puffed out a spoonful of discouragement.

I leaned into my phone and texted my daughter who sat, three thousand miles away, upset, unsteady, unsure and needing reassurance from her Mommy.

I understand this need.

I crave reassurance almost more than anything else. I crave reassurance as much as I crave Reese's peanut butter cups and sesame seed bagels.

“Please, give me a nod to say ‘you’re fine, everything is turning out well, you are right on,” things like that. No major affirmations, just quiet confirmations I breathe, I am loved, there is some optimism floating about my psyche."

Is it too much, I wondered, to try to both hear my child as well as push open a door to several different possibilities?

My words, at first, only pummeled her far away self before I heard what she needed for me to confirm. I turned, ballet words, floating and jete-ing and spinning and twirling truths and facts and memories reminding my daughter-love of what was so and what is so and what will always be so.

Rain had joined us and poured frustration across my windshield. Lightning pierced the ground and made my innards turn. It was too much.

I cried.

And I cried.

And I cried.

Not just for this particular moment, but for so many of the preceding moments when tears sat, unspent, right underneath my forced smile or my downcast face, praying no one would see them.

Alone, with my phone and my fingers texting, and my heart bleeding onto these messages for my daughter I cried.

The light lifted my chin, like she does so regularly. She called me back to the moment and I sought her. I sought to hold her, the light in the moment.

Tall grasses, in wild golds and ambers rose in their choir robes, gospel chords elevated from their stalks. Rain still falling in crystal precision, dangling as if on threads, a mobile fit for a princess.

It rained a mobile for me and for all Mommys who try so hard yet perpetually feel like we fall short whether our daughters are five months old or fifteen months old or five-and-a-half or seventeen-years-old or older.

I still didn’t know where I was in Maryland, just that the light called and my response, as always, was to reach back. I turned, I saw. A cliché waiting for my attention. The ubiquitous rainbow against grey.

The end of the road.

Time for me to wipe my face, to blow my nose, to take the last of these photos.

Time for me to continue to drive to someplace else in Maryland and Delaware and New Jersey. Other places filled with people I will never meet. Time for me to reach for the next other moment to be held and remembered.

 

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Spring, 2014 and beyond. 

 

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

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!

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Random Creativity Makes My World Go Around

I have wanted to take a drawing class for so long I can’t even count how long it has been.

I came super close to taking one this Spring, but then with my planned travel I would have missed three sessions of a twelve session program (consecutively!) and I didn’t think it would work. So I didn’t take it and naturally it didn’t work out.

I decided I have to stop waiting for the just right class and just pick up my pencil.

Yesterday I sketched this eye and I have to say it is the best eye I have ever sketched in my life. It belongs to Mary Kingsley, a 19th Century adventurer.

I want to continue to challenge myself to sketch and just practice, no big commitment and no big judgment, just sketch, just practice, just grow.

Be horrid at it, but at least practice.

You may notice I didn’t show all the horrific attempts I made.

Perhaps next week there will be more sketching or perhaps it will be more mixed media, my primary visual art love. By the way, I got really frustrated Saturday night so I went outside and just started throwing paint on torn out book pages.

I especially love this one:

 

Sometimes throwing paint randomly on a page is exactly the therapy I need to feel better

 

 

So - that’s my artsy-ness for now. Happy Check In!

I've been participating in the Creative Every Day Challenge for years now. Might seem silly to some because my entire life revolves around the creative process, but this has always given me a place to show up. At first, I wrote about my theater work, poetry and the like, and then I started experimenting with visual art, too.

I'm forever grateful to Leah Piken Kolidas and her work here. I don't religiously write check ins, but in the most recent Art Every Day Month (November 2013) I participated the most I ever have and loved it. Every moment.

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Spring, 2014 and beyond. 

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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!

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Walking: The Robert Frost Trail. Stairs. Sidewalks from my past, historical routes & so much more. #20X31 Challenge Continues

See Samuel on the Robert Frost Trail in Amherst? Keeping up with the #20X31 Challenge while traveling made exercise extra fun!

This has been a week on the road and a week of more walking and stair climbing than I have done in months. And you know what's great? I went over 20 minutes on most of the days.

I feel absolutely phenomenal. I feel strong, I feel like my stamina has increased multifold.

Last Saturday was Ivy Day for Katherine, a long standing tradition for graduates of Smith College. Some of their celebrity alumna were there and I wish I had seen them. Gloria Steinem for one! I walked. And walked. And walked.

Sunday was the actual graduation itself. I walked. And walked. And walked. At one point Emma and Samuel were on their own with these swarms of people and Samuel walked away from Emma. Mommy to the rescue! Back and forth and back and forth from the hotel (close to the college) and across campus and back again several times. And then, just for fun, Samuel and I walked a portion of the Robert Frost Trail in nearby Amherst. It was a blast.

Monday was... walking.

Tuesday was....walking around the town where I grew up. I realized I spent a lot of time in parks as a child. No wonder I love the outdoors!

When I saw this name of Mommy and Unborn Baby at the 911 Memorial, I gasped... and cried.

Wednesday was... walking around New York City. We took the train in and then the subway downtown to see the 911 Memorial which was phenomenal. Beyond words incredible, especially since I grew up near there and knew people who died. I need to have the courage to write that one story. That one.

Thursday Katherine met a fellow alum at Princeton for coffee and I drove to Cranbury for a photo taking/walking spree. I went well over 20 minutes! It felt... sorry to be redundant. GREAT!

As for results: this is an embarassing fact, but on recent airline trips I have had challenges at times with the safety belt. This is how far I have gone. Well, on this trip - no issues. Extra space. I'm horrified how happy this makes me AND YET! it feels so good to be heading back in the healthy direction.

Brava! How've you been doing?

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You can still be inspired, too. Visit JVKom.com and add your blog post to the linky and/or follow the hashtag #20X31 on instagram or pinterest!

Jen also has a fantastic team of co-hosts: Carly at Optimistic Health, Samantha at 24to30, and Anna at Running Smiles. For the most inspiration, visit and interact with each host.

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Spring, 2014 and beyond. 

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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!

You Have the Power to Change the World and #EducateMoreGirls

Heather Plett invites you to a different sort of party for her birthday: a party to empower more girls via education by building a school in Uganda.

This weekend I had the remarkable experience of attending the 136th graduation at Smith College, a premier women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It felt very brave to bring my daughter here four years ago, especially since I live three thousand miles away in Bakersfield, California.

This prestigious institution has always believed in the power of educating women. As an institution, they go out of their way to reach those who might not have had access to such high quality learning as they offer.

I took notes as I listened to the inspirational words from graduation speaker and former President of Smith College Ruth J. Simmons. Over and over again she urged the graduates to tae care of their voice, to continue to speak up even and especially when one's opinion is unpopular and to allow others the same respect and space to speak their words and take care of their voices.

She reminded graduates that knowledge only advances without asking questions, persistently, and to never be satisfied with the status quo.

Ruth J. Simmons as seen over the Jumbotron at the Smith College Commencement this weekend.

Over and over again I witness the fear of using one's voice with one's unique thoughts. Even educated individuals stay silent.

Have you noticed this, too?

Girls the world over need to be taught to use their voices. Girls the world over need to be taught to ask questions, persistently. Girls the world over need to be taught their value, their worth and the reality that each of us shares in this power to transform this planet.

The #BringBackOurGirls campaign has swept social media and is  now finally filtered down into conventional media. Heather Plett reminded me this weekend that while we may not have the power individually to bring the Nigerian girls back to their families on our own, we do have the personal power to educate more girls in Africa.

Heather is celebrating her birthday by helping to build a school for girls in Uganda. In Heather's words:

Nine years ago, when I was working in international development, a young woman named Nestar Lakot came to work with me for a year as my intern. Born and raised in Kitgum District, Northern Uganda during the two decades of civil war between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the government of Uganda, Nestar experienced firsthand life in the midst of civil war. Her family was displaced from their ancestral farm-home after losing two of her brothers to the brutality of the LRA. Their home and possessions were reduced to ashes.

Nestar is one of the most wise and articulate young women I have ever met - so wise that when she worked with us, we sent her on a speaking tour across Canada. I used to tell her that I thought she might run the UN some day - she's that smart.

Nestar moved to The Netherlands to get her Masters Degree and ended up marrying and having two beautiful children. She longed to go back to Uganda, but then her son got sick and needed open heart surgery. It seemed wise to stay in a place where they had access to modern medical care.

Because she couldn't go back right away, Nestar started sending money back to Uganda to educate children in the region where she grew up (Kitgum).

And then she dared to dream a big dream.

What if she started a foundation to build a school for underprivileged children?

So she started Uganda Kitgum Education Foundation.

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Now is the time to make changes in the status quo and #educatemoregirls. You, too, can join the movement and dream this big dream along with Nestar and countless young women in Uganda whose voices are waiting to be used and heard for positive world change.

Visit Heather today  to see the video she made this weekend with Nestar and consider joining this grassroots movement. You do have the personal power to #educatemoregirls.

Maybe you are one of the women who longs to deepen her education. What can you do

The Young Women Graduates of Smith College 2014 from Hubbard House, including my daughter, Katherine

today to respond to that calling within you and strengthen your voice for the good of the many?

This is an exciting time for women and girls. While we continue to urge the safe return of the young women in Nigeria, we may simultaneously urge the return of both our own voices and to nurture the voices of others. Together, we have have so much more influence as we continue to #educatemoregirls.

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs this Summer & Fall, 2014 and beyond. 

 Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 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!

 

 

 

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Sometimes My Progress Feels... Muddy... Firm.... Unclear.....Great!

 

I saw this muddy dirt road yesterday in Worcester and it just felt like my opinions about my fitness progress... lovely and yet...

I've had a very good week - though I have to confess I am looking forward to a calmer time when I don't have to finagle my way into my twenty minutes. I realize for women who are really into fitness, there is no "finagle" there. For me there is no "finagle" with my writing and my creative process, so that is something I remember.

 

In fact, my roaming about the country has actually increased my conscious creativity as far as exercise goes. Not to jump into the week to come, but I realized the stairs at this Inn where I am staying will make the perfect exercise venue. I will simply walk around the building and up and down the stairs for twenty minutes. I may consider it  a walking meditation exercise.

This past week has been a mod-podge of activity. I walked, I danced, I almost (but didn't actually) pranced. I ate well - mostly. I have been very pleased at my travel eating. I have been making very healthy choices and my flaxseed meal was in my suitcase. I bought greek yogurt at the grocery store to keep in my room fridge and for snacks, I chose grape tomatoes.

It feels a lot better to feel a lot better.

Even though I haven't been able to do any what I have done with constancy or the way I would have liked, #20X31 has changed both my mindset and my actions. I've wanted to do this for years and in May, I have been doing so.

Brava! How've you been doing?

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You can still be inspired, too. Visit JVKom.com and add your blog post to the linky and/or follow the hashtag #20X31 on instagram or pinterest!

Jen also has a fantastic team of co-hosts: Carly at Optimistic Health, Samantha at 24to30, and Anna at Running Smiles. For the most inspiration, visit and interact with each host.

=====

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Spring, 2014 and beyond. 

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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!

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How to Experience Breakthroughs Using Writing Prompts

How to Experience Breakthroughs Using Writing Prompts

I exerienced a breakthrough this week. I wrote my way into and through it, an experience hidden under so much thought and stuff and opinion and fear that when it all tumbled forward, I knew I was done with it. Finally.

Writing prompts are powerful. This is one of the reasons I write them in a variety of forms.

This week I took a prompt from my "U is for Underneath" prompt from The Bold Writer from A to Z series I recently ran. Be my guest in using any/all of the prompts there.

Here is the prompt that guided my words into a breakthrough:

What do you hide underneath things in your writing life?

What is the reason for holding things under rather than bringing them into the open?

I processed my response later in the day:

This morning I wrote something I haven’t wanted to write.

Lately I’ve been shaking stuff out from my memory, allowing bits and pieces of gunk to have their say - well, to a certain extent. It doesn’t mean I let all of it “out in public” but I do know there is a value beyond monetary gain or basking in the adoring glow of readers (note the tongue in cheek) from getting that stuff that sits underneath our normal writing and sharing it with others.

Two weeks ago I was writing with a group of women I’ve been writing with for nearly ten years. What came across for most of the women a gentle even funny prompt lead me to write of a memory that has festered for years just out of my writing’s reach. I tugged at it and it tumbled down and I fumbled with free flow to loose its grip on me.

That - my loves - is why we do it.

Watch what happens when we “fumble with free flow”. What happens is the stuff that has a tight rein on us tumbles to our feet and we are now bigger and taller and stronger and more able to poke it without fear of being injured once again.

The first time I read the words aloud I could not catch my breath.

I didn’t want to say the words aloud and I did. I read those unedited words to my writing circle that day. I said them aloud.

The response was positive and caring. They were as varied as the women who spoke them. The thing is… the thing continues to be… what was once just out of reach, just underneath, just far enough away to taunt me is now under my control.

I don’t need to wonder about it or cower in its shadow.

I don’t need to point my finger at anyone for victimizing me at any age because now I am the one who is choosing, consciously, victory over it.

Do you see the magic and the transformation in this stance?

I feel sort of like a woman coming to a hat-check stand she left long ago. A sweet little girl hat was left there in 1966 and now, in 2014, she is reclaiming it. She takes it in her hands and she molds it into a style reflecting that year’s vintage along with her restored chutzpah. Her restored vigor. Her restored autobiography.

The courage to look underneath what was hiding under decades of unwritten words is unloosed just like that - in a blink - and now life continues along just that much better.

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Spring, 2014 and beyond. 

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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!

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Just Call Me The Anti-Prank -

Typical 1970's bedroom. Mine didn't look like this, but it sort of sets the tone.

I almost didn't participate this week in BiteSize Memoir, but decided just to throw this out there even amidst not wanting to throw it out there. Usually when I do this I find great rewards, even at solely the personal level.

Our prompt from the Bitesize Memoir Challenge from Lisa Reiter  this week:

Jinks: Childish, playful, often noisy and rowdy activities, usually involving mischievous pranks.

Japes: Tricks or practical jokes or even perhaps, gags or shenanigans.

    Preface: I am the wet-towel of pranks and practical jokes. I literally abhor them. April 1 is a day I frown upon and I often tell my friends to be careful with pranking their children. This prank was done not with any malice intended at all, I was just a very tender child who hid much of that tenderness behind a smile. I still do, actually. With that said, here are almost 150 words on the topic. Happy Memoir Writing!

There is something very comforting in the way a sheet drawn tight around my feet and pulled up to my chin feels. It is a non-language feeling of deep love, perhaps reminiscent of the swaddling of babyhood.

My child-world was briefly set on its end long ago when an April Fool’s Prank turned into a moment of quiet terror.

It sounds absurd now. I remember smiling as tears burned. I looked to my sister and my mother who were smiling wider than normal, holding back laughter. Why were they laughing when a basic comfort like putting my feet into my bed was suddenly impossible? This was one of the few places I could trust. It was a spot I knew the best: the comfort and safety stretching out my feet.

The panic I felt was the genesis for my anti-prank stance. No harm was meant. I was just a weird kid.

= = = = =

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Spring, 2014 and beyond. 

 Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 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!