Welcome to Let Your Words Flow: a Daily Quote, Prompt and Image for your Creative Inspiration.
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Now - on with today's inspiration -
Quote
“You may be the only person left who believes in you, but it's enough. It takes just one star to pierce a universe of darkness."
Richelle E. Goodrich
Questions
On a scale of 1 - 10, how do you rate your own level of self belief? Why do you give yourself that rating? What one action are you willing to take to increase your self belief?
Lists:
List 5 - 10 people who are exceptional models of self belief- List 3 - 10 ways your self belief could be increased in the short run - in the medium run? in the long run?
Traditional Writing Prompts:
One way I pierce darkness for myself is...because....
One way I pierce darkness for others is... because...
I remember when ____ called me a star. My response was.....
To those who don't believe in me, I want to say.....
Thank you for your reading & participation in Let Your Words Flow! Please come back as we offer new prompts to spice up your blogging, writing and creative thinking every day!
Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at a First Friday soon, when it is warmer than it was in December!, in Downtown Bakersfield. 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.
What do those words mean except, "Come out from hiding, there is no risk of you being "it!"
I never liked being "it" so I became a very good hider and a rather unwilling seeker. In fact, I can't remember ever being a seeker when our neighborhood kids gathered to play together. I was convinced if I was the seeker I wouldn't ever find anyone.
As an adult I realize how odd that is, because if I was such a good hider, wouldn't I have taught myself all the tricks of the 'don't get caught so now I can find all those sneaks a lot easier?"
No one could ever convince the very stubborn me this now realized truth when I was seven or eight or even thirteen-years-old. Especially at thirteen-years-old.
Olly Olly Oxen Free! As it turns out, was derived from the long ago cry of a herald, saying "All ye, All ye, 'outs' in free!" which meant if you were in hiding (not playing a game, mind you) you could come in without penalty - as in being arrested.
I think I'll use that in a poem soon.
= = = = = =
Julie
Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her
word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown
Bakersfield. 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.
It wasn't a passion I expected. It started with a challenge and turned into something much bigger. For a long time I have actively sought quotes from women because I discovered how infrequently women were quoted as compared to men.
My blood started heating up because many women writers even today didn't use their given feminine names for their writing because "boys won't read books by women." I remember as a teen feeling bothered that S.E. Hinton who wrote The Outsiders was actually Susan Eloise Hinton. She didn't enjoy "girl books" so instead, she wrote a novel heavy in male characters and using an ungendered identity.
I realized women and girls needed role models from our literary history. I realized American girls and women needed to search for the American Woman writing voice. Yes, Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters are phenomenal, but who were their American contemporaries?
I have barely scratched the surface but now that I have, I can't research enough.
It got hot and heavy in April. I decided to participate in the
A-Z in April Blog Challenge. I decided this year – since I failed miserably the
year before – I would use a theme. It stirred up such a passion for me all
surrounding Women in Literary History.
I had such a blast I surprised even myself.
I want to print all 26 blog
posts and the ones I have written since then. I wrote my first in a long time
yesterday about poet Alice Corbin Henderson. I specialize in 19th
and early 20th century writers, though I have been known to go
higher and lower.
Two women I plan to include in 2013 were Courtesan Poets
between the 8th and 11th century. I just never know where
my adventures will take me. Oh, I have a women writer with a “Z” name. I use
given names, not surnames because those were often passed along to women via marriage.
The most difficult in English is X.
I am currently creating my list for 2013 and am looking for women writers named Xochitl or Xantha or anything at all with an X.
So there you have it… and hey, if you want to check out any
of my women in literary history, check out one (or more) of these:
This is my twenty first post (of 31!) for the January Ultimate Blog Challenge.
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
I have attempted to sit in my seat and write for an hour now.
I have written roughly five hundred words which for me is the usual for thirty minutes.
I have been wandering away consistently, though, taking on what I call “short attention span keyboard” and I’m not exactly certain why.
The why doesn’t even matter of course, what matters is what will I do about it with multiple writing projects hanging in the balance, how can I sustain them and my overall happiness with the craft if I don’t stay put and write?
I look up from my desk and see Anais Nin looking down at me.
I see photos of Alice Eastwood, a woman naturalist who was so passionate about her work she astonishes me. Plus I need a hat like she is wearing in the circa 1900 photo. Susan Glaspell is up there as is the work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and a postcard of a woman levitating above her lawn which my friend sent me because she said it reminded her of me when I write on my porch.
What should I do, wise women, when I am having trouble sitting still to write?
Anais says, “Do something that honors the hunger of your senses,” as she takes a puff on the end of her very long cigarette holder.
Alice says succinctly, “Climb a tree.”
Susan says even more succinctly , “Improvise.”
Charlotte Perkins Gilman says, “Don’t be too rough on yourself. Do what you feel the urge, right now, to do the most.”
I plant my face in my palm.
Charlotte continues, “Obviously in this precise moment, writing isn’t it. You are excused for the next hour. Make some good.”
And with that, I shut down my computer, grabbed my dogs’ leashes and headed out to one of my favorite outdoor haunts very close to my house.
It was a tremendous choice.
The next time you feel completely stuck behind a brick wall of words and think what you SHOULD do is chain yourself to your key board, consult some of the writers you admire the most.
I did use my senses to see, to smell, to feel textures. I took photos, I talked to people I met along the path. I enjoyed my dogs.
I didn’t climb a tree, but I honored and greeted several.
I definitely improvised.
I took a break.
I came back and I wrote.
Try it.
PS – If you are unfamiliar with the writers I mention here, use your favorite search engine and seek information about them. Each is a fantastic woman writer who could teach each of us a lot.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
I spent much of my time last night with Eleanor Estes and
Emily Dickinson.
Both women are fine company for a woman writer of today.
I was dying pages of Emily’s poetry and ironing pages of
Eleanor’s book, The Middle Moffat, to use in future art projects. It was
so meditative and so much fun and a great compliment to the photo editing I
have discovered, the project that says, “Oh, I can be so close to them visually….”
Here’s what I mean.
When I was a little girl my writing hero was Laura Ingalls
Wilder. I adored her. I still do, actually. I have read about the controversy,
that it is her daughter, writer Rose Wilder Lane who wrote the Little House
Books, that Laura was simply the inspiration. I have heard that stuff and I don’t
even care about it.
I love Laura for the character in the books and also for the
woman who lived a rather tough life yet came out, in the end, an individual who
contributed to society.
I created two photos of us yesterday and today. Can you see
me in this one? I am hiding amidst the trees, writing. You and I are among the
few who know (and I can secretly appreciate) the photo of me I merged with
Laura was taken in Emily Dickinson’s garden.
I also feel compelled to spend time with Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, who rebelled against her parents and married one of her fans and
correspondents, Robert Browning, and fled to Florence so she might feel well.
Together they had a son they named,
appropriately, Pen. Well, his actual complete name was Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, but Pen seems so much more like his
parents than all those official sounding names strung together.
Elizabeth reminds me my love for my children
is fierce, perhaps more now that I have cancer and am fighting back. I remember
her husband’s line, “Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.”
One of my latest heroes is Charlotte Perkins
Gilman, who fought depression and won. It was an ongoing battle, raged
throughout her life, but she won. She won! Without medicine!
She is also a mother of a daughter named
Katherine. She changed the world with her words. I merged these photos of us
and the outcome gives me chills.
Some of you will recognize Eleanor Estes and
others wonder why her name sounds vaguely familiar.
She was an award winning children’s author,
born in 1906, when one of my grandmothers was six years old and one of my
grandmothers was two years old. She became a children’s librarian after she
graduated from high school in Connecticut.
I imagine the books offered a lot of
inspiration.
Just like her books offer me a lot of
inspiration today. I was dying pages from The Middle Moffat last night, reading words and admiring the
illustrations. I enjoyed, too, the words and characters named Nancy and Jane.
My mother is named Nancy and her good friend was named Jane. It helps make me
feel so familiar with Estes and her work.
What women writers will you spend time with today?
What writers in general will you spend time with today?
Let me know how it goes - I would love to hear from you.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer,
Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award
winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice
the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free
from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One
inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now
-
This may seem like the strangest DIY/Art Project ever, but
believe me, it has also lifted my spirits in such a simple way.
First, I have been making paper flowers from old, painted
book pages. They are simple to create and as I do, I find new purposes for the
images I have been using for a while on my Women’s Sphere? projects.
Now, to the nitty gritty: I had a biopsy last Wednesday for
a possible skin cancer. I’m still waiting to hear what the next step will be,
what kind of cancer (if it is cancer) and when we can get it cleared up.
The biopsy left a cute little hole in my face which quite
frankly freaks me out, so I created my own superheroine band aids from women in
literature. The funny thing is, people rarely as me why I am wearing such an
object. That only serves to make me giggle more, which is good when you are
waiting for a biopsy result.
In the top photo you can see the faces more clearly. Wednesday I wore Actor & Writer Collette. I just took off Zora Neale Hurston this morning, and in her place put Lucy Larcom, captioned below. The photo isn't very clear in the shot here but in the top image she is on the left flower petal wearing glasses. She was a Lowell Mill Girl who wrote poetry and eventually a memoir about working in the mills.
It feels so good to take something scary to me and make it at least sort of fun.
Josephine Preston Peabody - a favorite 19th Century poet of mine. If you click the image, you will go to a short biography I wrote about her.
Lucy Larcom, Lowell Mill Girl, Poet, Memoirist. Click the image to read a mini biography I wrote of her.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
This morning I made a light proclamation to my daughter,
Emma when I said, “Your Great Great Grandpa was Canadian.”
She didn’t find that very funny.
Emma is taking AP World History this year and one of her
first assignments is to research where her family roots began. We’re thinking
nineteenth century here. Most of her classmates have roots in Europe or Central
or South American during that time, but my little Emma’s roots stretch across
the United States in that time.
My family of choice goes beyond blood. My family of choice
flows words and images as blood. My literary Grandma’s and Aunties, My Artist
Cousins and Sisters, these women so many people haven’t heard of yet.
In honor of the spirit of “FLASH” today, I am going to leave
you with images of these women and request you visit the links I will leave
from my “Women in Literary History from A to Z” series from last Spring.
Lucy Larcom, Mill Girl & Writer
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Social Reformer & Writer
Ina Coolbrith, First Poet Laureate of California
Kate Chopin: Novelist, Short Story Writer (with her Children)
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is
Julie Jordan Scott writing at Ina Coolbrith Park in San Francisco
also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did
you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion
Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost)
every week day. Subscribe here now -
I couldn’t help but fall in love with Gold Rush writer Dame Shirley, who was called Louise (Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe) by the people who knew her.
Her place in literary history came from the letters she wrote to her sister, Molly, who lived in Western Massachusetts. Louise entertained her family as she made a life with her young husband first and last in San Francisco with two years in the early 1851 and 1952 along the gold mines of the Feather River northeast of San Francisco where young couple moved because Mr. Clapp was in ill health.
Louise’s writing became a powerful link to the lives of the women of the California Gold Rush.
I especially enjoyed her letter to Molly telling about when she actually tried on the occupation of Gold Miner. “Nothing of importance has happened since I last wrote you except that I have become a mineress; that is if the having washed a pan of dirt with my own hands, and procured therefrom three dollars and twenty five cents in gold dust, (which I shall inclose in this letter) entitle me to this name.”
Her letter continues to share she would rather not continue as a miner. She realized the male miners were hungry for female companionship while doing this grueling work. The solution, they thought, was to hand a new mineress a pan to sift through that was heaped with gold as an encouragement for her to continue because “it was such easy work.” They knew better AND they wanted more women around!
When she and her husband returned to San Francisco, she wasn’t happy about it. She wrote in her final letter: “My heart is heavy at the thought of departing forever from this place. I like this wild and barbarous life: I leave it with regret.” Her husband was tired of California completely. They divorced, he moved to Hawaii and eventually back to the eastern US and she added an “e” to the end of Clapp forever becoming Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe and happily stayed in San Francisco.
Her colorful letters were first memorialized via a magazine called The Pioneer in 1854 and 1855. Famed California writer Bret Harte later published fiction that bore a stunning resemblance to the stories Louise told in her letters to Molly.
Harte was her primary detractor, criticizing her letters when published in The Pioneer. Interesting, isn’t it, that when questioned about the similarities between her early letters and Hart’s later work when she was a teacher in San Francisco in later life, she stood beside her frenemy saying, “Oh, no he didn’t plagiarize my stories. He was unconsciously recreating what he had read from my letters and meant no harm.”
She taught for twenty years before returning to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where she was born. Another irony from Dame Shirley’s life was she rekindled her friendship with Bret Harte’s estranged wife in New Jersey. She actually lived in the boarding house of one of Mrs. Harte’s nieces when she died in 1906.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
First, take a nice deep breath. Feel where your muscles are tense and relax…. Again… deep breath and relax…. Deep breath and relax….
I remember when I was a new parent all I wanted to do was be the absolute best parent that ever was for my daughter. I did everything right: breast feeding only, cloth diapers only, spending days cuddling on the sofa just idly watching television never putting her down and of course please don’t forget attachment parenting times a bajillion.
What I have learned in the twenty years since then is your baby will love you whether you are the perfect super parent or just a parent trying to do his or her best in the moment.
I found a better strategy is to do what is best for that particular baby in that precise moment.
This morning I read about gold mining in the 1850’s. Yes, I know – not your usual reading and yes, it is relevant. Just listen – it is a brief analogy. It was a letter from a woman known as Dame Shirley who lived and wrote glorious letters home to her sister in New England. My favorite was a letter she wrote about when women joined men in mining.
The men loved to have the women around, so they would encourage them by passing the women plates that were pre-filled with gold dust to encourage women to continue mining. It wasn’t easy work and most women approached mining as if going on an afternoon picnic, especially when the gentleman miners proved to them how simple this work was!
Truth is, the work was hard and rarely was it very fruitful for the average miner, male or female.
They spent hours sifting the “ordinary dirt” from the gold dust.
This is what I think will help you most in parenting after discerning what is best for each child in each particular moment. Take the advice you receive and sift through it. There will be gold dust for you in other people’s words, but it is best if you find it yourself.
It is best if people don’t give you so much that the muddy water makes it impossible for you to sift out the advice that is right for your little ones.
Let’s go back to the beginning:
Take a nice deep breath. Feel where your muscles are tense and relax…. Again… deep breath and relax…. Deep breath and relax….now love your baby with all your heart every day.
Forgive yourself when you fall short of what you think is “The Super Mom” or “The Perfect Dad.” Just being you and doing the best you absolutely can is what will fill up your children’s love sippy cup now and for the rest of their lives… and for your Grandchildren, too. Imagine that!
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
(Special Note - the only images remotely resembling what I had in mind for this on flickr were both obscene. Please accept these goofy, loveable yet heinous critters in their place.)
Have you seen this big old hairy wort covered monster?
It huffs, it puffs, it continually blows down my house-of-cards-slice-of-time calendar and drives me into Mama-etc, insanity!
Because I have the super power of intuitive mind reading even now, I can see some of you nodding, smiling and yes – I even hear a groan or two.
My Super Power of Choice – The Time Stretcher!
Yes – when need be, I am able to stretch moments of time so that I can get what I need to get done, done without becoming a crazed whirling dervish at the same time – unless, ofcourse, I feel like being a Sufi Dancer – which is what a whirling dervish is so perhaps, if your super power is “I have to learn more cool interesting trivia” with that fact, you are now on your way.
I don’t need much, I just need that.
You know, when your best friend is coming over and you haven’t mopped your hard wood floor yet? It will only take ten minutes but there she is, pulling up in front of your house?
Zap the Time Stretcher into motion and the entire world, except for you, is on slo-motion.
You can get that floor mopped, calmly whisk on some mascara and lipstick, and greet her at the door with her favorite cup of tea and a smile on your face.
Plus you haven’t even broken a sweat.
My timer just went off. I was able to stretch time enough to write a respectable blog post in five minutes. I’ll take that, too.
(Special Note: There need to be more Moms posing as Super Hero's for the next round of Summer Blog Challenge. This is why I am stuck with a Mom Mobile image which is quite cute, but not exactly what I hoped to use! Grateful, though for the usage -
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