What is Your Story Today? Not Yesterday or Tomorrow - Right Now

I hear it from people a lot: "I don't have any stories to tell." I ask them another question. "What happened? Tell me about your day."

The adolescent response is, "Nothing."

My response is "At least you inhaled and exhaled. Your heart beat. Your body digested food. Those are all stories. You said 'Nothing' to me when that is obviously something in and of itself."

Tell me about your day: What happened?

Here's a taste of my day so far.

I got up far too early, spent time with a group of positive people celebrating infinitesimal wonder. I did my morning writing practice, throwing words into an overpriced notebook I bought before my current minor financial crisis and then I got glue all over my hand as I sculpted pages I tore out of books onto an abstraction of “Jungle”.

I never said I have an ordinary life, though perhaps I do.

Each of these moments are microstories, worthy to be told on their own, or maybe not.

Perhaps the story of my daily writing practice isn’t interesting enough to hold its weight outside of my unpolished gem file. On the other hand, who knows might come when I sculpt and mold these first words to rise up from my not-quite-awake mind?

Enough of that – surely your day contained moments when you noticed something, when you heard the clock tick, when you smelled rosemary or garlic or an aftershave that reminded you of your grandpa.

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Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives.

Register Now for The Time to ReWrite Your Life is Now: What Was, What Is, What is To Be.... a New Writing & Soul Growth Coaching Program to expand your creativity and improve your life experience.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at .

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: and on Periscope for writing prompt, tips and inspiration daily created to ignite your artistic rebirth.

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

Posted at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How to Cultivate Your Writing (and Other Art): Bring Your Story, Song, Poem, Painting Calling to Life Now

What story, song, poem, painting, soul calling is waiting to be cultivated by you?

Lucha Corpi wrote a poem in homage to Emily Dickinson. I read the poem aloud during one of my "Poetry and Writing Prompt" Broadcasts and ever since I've been haunted by the idea of cultivating our words. Corpi wrote in this poem, "We are cultivators of the unsayable, migrant workers in search of floating gardens as yet unsown, as yet unharvested."

I ask you again and request you stay here, in conversation with me via the words on the page and in the videos, "What story, song, poem, painting, soul calling is waiting to be cultivated by you?"

It is a natural thing for us, women – nurturers, caretakers, huggers and holders – to want to “cultivate” – as Merriam Webster’s Dictionary reminds us, the definition of "cultivate" is:

1 : to prepare or prepare and use for the raising of crops; also : to loosen or break up the soil about (growing plants)
2 a : to foster the growth of <cultivate vegetables> b : culture 2a c : to improve by labor, care, or study : refine <cultivate the mind>
3 : further, encourage <cultivate the arts>
4 : to seek the society of : make friends with –

When we cultivate our gardens, our farms – we prepare the soil.

How is that related to what we do as writers?

Think about that for a moment and ask yourself, “What do I do to prepare to write?” and “When I look at the blank page, what feelings come up? What can I do to take responsibility to see that page as inspiring and hope-filled?”

Do you carry a notebook with you to jot random ideas as they pop, or capture conversations overheard or describe a moment in time you want to mix into a scene to make the backstory richer and show something about your main character?

Do you have a daily writing practice to let your doubts, worries as well as simple gratitude and daily joy to show up on the page?

Do you feel compelled by a cause, something bigger than yourself?

Your story lives where your life intersects with your cause, your purpose or your passion.

What will you do to bring your story, your sales letter, your blog post, your vignette within your book to life today?

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Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives.

Register Now for The Time to ReWrite Your Life is Now: What Was, What Is, What is To Be.... a New Writing & Soul Growth Coaching Program to expand your creativity and improve your life experience.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at .

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: and on Periscope for writing prompt, tips and inspiration daily created to ignite your artistic rebirth.

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

Posted at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Impulsive: Good, Bad or Just Another Word for.... What?

There are times I splatter stuff on the empty page and expect them to become a concise, perfectly clear, contained essay or chapter that will have the power to change the planet simply because I wrote them.

I quickly wake up from that dream and realize being impulsive is a grand thing and a part of the overall creative process and as a stand-alone, it is reminiscent of the first and second of the three little pigs whose houses were easily destroyed by the big, bad wolf with one not-so-mighty huff-and-puff.

The other day I had the assignment of writing and speaking on Periscope about “Impulsive” as a part of the PeriGirls HeartTribes. I did like I often do, I researched quotes along the theme of the word.

The very first quote I found had me chasing after it, with an angry, frustrated impulsive edge (naturally.)

This is what I found:

“Sometimes it's a good idea to think about what you want from a situation, and try to get it, rather than just blurt out the first thing that comes into your head.”

The quote came from the pen of a writer I had never heard of before, E. Lockhart – who apparently doesn’t want to reveal her gender in her first name, though I suspect her name is Emily. If her name was Eleanor she would wear it proudly, one might suspect. I didn't have a problem with her deliberate quote, it was her name - or lack of a complete first name - that had me on edge.

Naturally I paid a visit to my second best friend, Google, and immediately discovered her name IS Emily, as her website proudly proclaims, but this still doesn’t give us a true reason why the names on her “audience appeal looks to be girls” is only an initial, like other women SE Hinton (who declared stories about girls were “boring” so she masked her gender and wrote of boys) and JK Rowlings, who went so far to have a male alter-ego to write a crime busting series – and whose Harry Potter books are predominantly male characters.

The choice to write “not as women” was an intentional choice in the latter two cases. I don’t know about “E”/Emily yet as I found her simply by doing a search for “Impulsive” quotes and got rather far off course as I am likely to do as I chase thought butterflies around the stratosphere.

I have been known to be impulsive which I like to think of as highly intuitive and adventuresome.

It seems as if some of us naturally make an impulsive nature a negative and deliberation a positive thing.

I prefer to look at both as simply “things” without a slapped on, easily peeled off label of judgment or bickering. “Impulsive immature, deliberate wise. Impulsive the hare, deliberate the tortoise – and we know who won that race!”

Jane Austen takes a more balanced approach as the scribe of Pride and Prejudice: “Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.” Then again, Jane uses her name not "J" alone.

She was wise in a day when women weren’t supposed to have the slightest compulsion – or impulse – to think nor to write. Even in her pseudonym moments, she referred to herself as "A Lady." (If you want to discover more about the use of pen names by women to disguise gender, there is a link below the essay here to an article from the Guardian in the UK which talks about the Bronte Sisters and beyond.)

I prefer my definition of impulsive: intuitive and adventuresome.

I might take it a little deeper and say risk taking and willing.

Another toe dip into the “impulsive” stream and I discover “Courageous with a dose of naivete built in for good measure.”

Impulsive. I splattered words and got the page and the surrounding ground coated with orange and purple word-paint, too. This isn’t entirely a bad thing, it is simply a “thing”.

I’ve found a theme.

It might not change the world right away AND it might change the way one person thinks which is more than enough.

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"A Potted History of Pen Names"

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Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives.

Register Now for The Time to ReWrite Your Life is Now: What Was, What Is, What is To Be.... a New Writing & Soul Growth Coaching Program to expand your creativity and improve your life experience.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at .

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: and on Periscope for writing prompt, tips and inspiration daily created to ignite your artistic rebirth.

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

Posted at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How to Be Inspired to Write Using Twitter (& Network Simultaneously) Part Two Plus a Periscope/katch video with More!

I wish I could dive back into that first moment but even with my ridiculously good writer memory, that moment is null and void and invisible for now. I just know that Twitter, and the people who fill the feeds there with word-love and images and ideas beyond what I could cook up on my own, has helped me immensely as a writer.

Social media as a tool to help me inspire and sustain my writing. Yes. Over the years twitter has surely been this and more to me.

Three hashtags stand out as surefire methods to make my pencil float across the page or my fingers move along the keyboard.

The first is #amwriting.

Try it now, take a moment to look and see what comes up when you search #amwriting, the “Live Tweets” option is best. I’ll do it, too, just for fun.

Bob Conklin ‏@rbconklin1 37s38 seconds ago

#amwriting I'm a regional writer. I don't need to rule the world - just the tri-state area.

I tweeted back, “Ahhhh, but which tri-state area?”

Next up was a tweet about a literary journal, another tweet I scanned and didn’t call out to me and then this:

Rockland ‏@rocklandlit 3m3 minutes ago

Only four days to get your submissions in for issue 5! Go "green" or write your #message4peace in #Syria. #amwriting #writerslife

Intriguing combination of hashtags in that one. I won’t respond but thought you might find it interesting.

And then I found this tweet from a woman I’ve never heard of but she has bookshelves on her cover photo. She seems like “one of us” and I like her vibe so here’s her advice. I would like to have 16K followers, wouldn’t you?

Annie Acorn ‏@Annie_Acorn 4m4 minutes ago

Practice makes perfect applies to writing, too, and doesn’t stop with your first or hundredth sale. Keep honing your craft! #amwriting :-)

The second hashtag is one I used this morning when I was writing my #morningpages – my daily writing practice. I actually have a writing buddy on twitter and nearly every day we check in with each other and post a photo of our morning writing. It is very inspiring. We’ve been doing this for well over a year and my writing practice is stronger than ever.

I was having a tough time keeping my butt in the seat so I searched #writingprompt and was astonished by the nearly infinite number of prompts that were instantly delivered to me in my “I just can’t stay focused” writing moment.

The thing is, sometimes when we are having a difficult time staying focused having ANY prompt to write with even for thirty seconds or thirty words helps to keep us feeling accomplished.

Brilliant. I found a prompt about identical twins which I took to write about myself – and the identical twins of “I will write” and “wait, I will do anything else right now” and it was actually a good lot of fun. The photo below is an actual photo of my notebook, the prompt on my phone (see it? Writers_write and "identical twins" in a black box.)

Here are the first three #writingprompt tweets that grab me, right now. Go ahead and check what you have on your feed now.

This smart person combined #writingprompt with #amwriting

WriMuse ‏@WriMuse 3m3 minutes ago

Write about someone with a language barrier confessing to something in the most unlikely place imaginable. #writingprompt #amwriting

I’m almost always up for a writing challenge, so this one made me wonder... for a moment anyway until I thought, "Too busy! Too busy!"

Kari Sayers ‏@Kari_Inspired 44m44 minutes ago

Love a good #writingprompt challenge? Try ours! https://medium.com/first-draft-s-story-updates/start-writing-rough-helping-writers-draftnewskills-eca2a85b8762#.fwy614piz … @MisterMitchell3 @jmkarmstrong @96_Problems

And then an image writing prompt which are sometimes the most beneficial for me:

iAuthor ‏@i_Author 3h3 hours ago

Post the opening lines of a story based on this image by Arnuad Pheu #writingprompt #writingprompts #amwriting

Ta-Da! My writing juices are flowing!

I remembered as I prepared for my scope the most significant time of creative output with my writing related to twitter was when I participated in writing sprints on twitter. There was a time when the 11 AM Pacific time hour was sacred. This was when I wrote daily with twitter friends from across the globe.

I also wrote with a #wordmongering writing sprint group that wrote consistently for 30 minute sprints starting at the top of the hour and running literally 24 hours a day, though sometimes the writing was alone at other times a raucous group would gather.

Today, because of this scope and this blog post, I put out a feeler, “Who wants to write with me in 15 minutes? Let’s do some #wordmongering” and sure enough, by the time the 15 minutes rolled around three of us had gathered to write.

I have a proposal: do any of you want to get together for a #writingsprint?

We could pre-schedule one and gather a group of friends. I would love to do so this week with the PeriGirls HeartTribes accountability group and others, if they would like.

How about we do a trial run at 6 PM Pacific time on Wednesday. This way we can write for half an hour, take a break, and then watch the Leaders Pass the Cast.

If you can’t make it Wednesday, we can schedule another time.

Just look for the #wordmongering hashtag and follow me, @juliejordanscot – let’s get those word counts flowing and have a good time while doing it.

What do you say? Inspired? Need inspiration - look to Twitter and look for us on #Wordmongering!

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Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives.

Register Now for The Time to ReWrite Your Life is Now: What Was, What Is, What is To Be.... a New Writing & Soul Growth Coaching Program to expand your creativity and improve your life experience.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at .

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: and on Periscope for writing prompt, tips and inspiration daily created to ignite your artistic rebirth.

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

Posted at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rattlesnakes, Rabid Rodents and the Quest to Be a Better Writer

“But Mr. Helicopter Pilot, we just wanted to be better writers!” I hear my voice, recorded as I sat in the tall grasses of a Central California meadow.

I wanted to record a livestreaming video while standing in the orange orchards. So many people who watch my periscope videos didn’t know what orange trees were like. Earlier streams of almond trees had been a big hit: at least from my perspective.

The road bent in an unfriendly way and there was no parking available near the orange orchards, so I found myself turning down a not often driven road and still had no decent citrus vantage points.

This place, though, had wildflowers and tall grasses.

Tiny purple flowers and even tinier though tall and spindly yellow flowers.

I got out of my car and looked a bit and spotted a purple stalk of a flower out on its own amongst tall grasses.

“What a beauty,” I thought to myself, “and I almost missed her!”

This is a common theme in my life: almost missing something super cool that I finally notice because I’m alert to life at precisely the right moment.

I knew I would have to get super close again to get a decent Instagram photo since I was live streaming about Instagram and writing. I wasn’t so sure about this, though, because there were tall grasses and every person who grew up safely tucked into cities knows tall grasses and the great outdoors mean one thing: rattle snakes.

In retrospect the more likely place for rattle snakes is in the canyon under a rock, but nonetheless, I was briefly afraid of encountering a rogue snake while tromping through the grasses as I photographed more flowers and talked about writing.

I had to walk in and out of the place where the lone flower bloomed several times, carefully plodding along the places where I had previously bent grasses with my selfishness. No rattlesnakes, no crazy bug infestations, no rabid squirrels waiting to bite me and give me the plague.

Just a lone lupine, a flower that felt so exotic and now I realize they are plentiful in their sacred uniqueness. I learned this as soon as I got to the door of my car and looked across the way.

Right on the edge of the road, more lupine. No tall grasses to conquer, no fear of rogue rattlesnakes or rabid rodents. I laughed, again, like you will hear me laugh on the recordings I’ve left as a reminder that yes, I am as silly as I appear.

Before I started my car I was reminded of a second truth on my never ending quest to become a better writer: “Stay alert to what is right in front of you” and “whatever you find, whenever you find it, is absolutely perfect.”

Goodness knows if I’m not having a good time, I don’t want to bother. It is up to me to create adventures and games and giggle my way through my creative process. Why else would I write about being a better writer using Instragram and Twitter when I could say it some other, less… quirky way?

I find the challenge of steering clear of rattlesnakes and rodents to make for more intriguing theater – in words or on a stage. Because certainly you and I will remember these stories more than a dull textbook style dissertation on concise writing or the constant assertion to “stay in the present moment.”

What keeps us more alert, a possible poisonous bite or a book-on-tape we listen to driving to and from our nine-to-five gig?

Here’s the trick: stay alert to the wonder of what is right in front of you as you drive to and from your nine-to-five gig, as you answer your four-year-old’s eighty-seventh “Why?” of the day, as you take the most recent harangue from your boss, spouse, supposed best friend.

If you can stay alert to the wonder of what is right in front of you in all circumstances, you’ll go a long way with your writing. In no time at all, your car may pull up to mine and we can investigate the not-so-lone and still magically pretty purple lupine, dancing in the grass against the backdrop of the Southern Sierra mountains.

I’m looking forward to seeing you.

(Take a moment to watch the video that inspired this blog post)

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Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives.

Register Now for The Time to ReWrite Your Life is Now: What Was, What Is, What is To Be.... a New Writing & Soul Growth Coaching Program to expand your creativity and improve your life experience.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at .

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: and on Periscope for writing prompt, tips and inspiration daily created to ignite your artistic rebirth.

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

Posted at 06:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)