Julie Unplugged

"Gratitude turns what we have into enough" - Melodie Beattie in Let Your Words Flow: Inspiration for Your Blogging & Writing

Welcome to Let Your Words Flow: a Daily Quote, Prompt and Image for your Creative Inspiration.

If this is your first visit, you will want to visit our Let Your Words Flow Guide so that you will receive the most value from the life changing content you find here.

Now - on with today's inspiration

QUOTE

"Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity...it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
― Melodie Beatty

Questions:

Have you ever had a form of a gratitude practice such as a gratitude journal or being in a gratitude group? How would having a daily practice cause your life to change?

What confusion do you have right now that you would like to clear up?

How much thought have you given to your life work/business vision lately? How would active gratitude help you with that?

Lists

List five to ten things you are grateful for in your life right now

List five to ten concrete rather than abstract things you are grateful for right now? For example - your living room chair that you sit in by the fireplace rather than "home" or "Hugs from my spouse" rather than being grateful for love.

List five to ten things you are grateful for about YOURSELF.

List five to ten people you would like to write gratitude lists about... and then write them.

Bonus: Use any of the items on any of these lists as a writing prompt. Add "I remember" to anything on the list and free flow write about it for five minutes at a time. (or use the second traditional writing prompt below.)

Traditional writing prompts

When I think of gratitude, I think....

I am truly grateful for.....

 

 

 Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, 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.

 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!

   © 2014 - Julie Jordan Scott - all rights reserved.

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Ponder today: What kind of difference do I want to make?"

 Welcome! This is a new series I am starting because of the Ultimate Blog Challenge in October. It is something I have wanted to introduce for years - literally - and now is the perfect time.

It will be a daily quick read - and then a compansion as you consider the prompt, the question, the suggested list making and the quote throughout your day.

I am so glad you are here. I am so glad you have chosen to increase your creativity and creative thinking. Bravo!

October 9, 2013

"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

― Jane Goodall

Questions:

Have you considered what kind of a difference you want to make in this world?

What would you do to make that difference if you knew, absolutely, you would succeed?

List:

Brainstorm a list of at least 10 activities you could do that would make a difference in the world in the short term, medium term and long term.

Prompts:

 I have decided one difference I want to make is...

If I had a week to live, what I would do to make a difference is....

 

 << --->>

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 starting in November, 2013 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.

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!

 

Welcome to my first  post (of 31!) for the October Ultimate Blog Challenge. Watch here for Your Writing & Creative Inspiration! Word-Love to YOU!

 

© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Curiosity & Passion: Linked for a Living a More Passionate Life

To Read this series from the start, please visit this #31 Days Link after you have read this essay.

 

If Passion had a fairy godmother she would be curiosity: an avid interest in life itself and the lives of those she encounters.

Last night Emma and I were at the First Friday artfest/street fair here in Bakersfield. When we don't have time to go visit galleries we stick to the sidewalks where off-the-grid artists collect. I get lots of hugs and we usually buy some small things to encourage the artists to continue creating.

I met two eleven-year-old young women entrepreneurs selling their creations. I was immediately excited and sharing my enthusiasm with the girls and their parents. Emma told the second mother-daughter-father trio, "My Mom likes to interrogate my friends like this, too, and for some reason they really like her!"

The Dad agreed with Emma's friends saying, "Well, she takes an interest."

People love when they are the center of your curiosity, your interest.

Have you heard the truism that if you have a conversation with a person and simply ask them questions about themselves they will go away from the discussion thinking you are the most brilliant, fabulous person they have met?

The thing is, if you make curiosity a practice, you will become closer to people immediately. You will feel more connected to the world, immediately. You will find yourself delectably wonderful as well.

See? Curiosity IS Passion's fairy godmother!

 

 

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.

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! 

© 2013

#31Days of Living a Passionate Life, Day 2/31 - Choosing a Passionate Attitude

 

In October 2013, I am hosting an exploration of liiving a passionate life. On Day 2, we look at choosing your attitude via a conversation with my daughter and mother.

My sixteen-year-old daughter, Emma, was frustrated with me last night. My car has a phone which makes everyone a member of the conversation. My Mom called and I said, “Mom, great news! I don’t have melanoma again!” to which she responded, “Oh, Julie, that’s great!”

 

Considering I hadn’t even told her I had a biopsy last week I found this more than slightly surprising.

“Yes, it is great even though I don’t have melanoma again, I do have basal cell happier to have basal cell than melanoma!”

happier to have basal cell than melanoma!”

 

We went on to talk about how we were celebrating and on and on and it turns out Emma was seething in the back seat. This morning she told me with an angry face,

It is easier to choose a passionate attitude when life is going exactly as planned. Last Spring with Emma and Katherine (Emma on the right).

“I was so mad at you guys. You have cancer – you shouldn’t celebrate, this is going to be awful again.”

 

She even said the color of the ribbon for melanoma was black and that wasn’t even a fun color to wear, to which I quipped, “Basal Cell Carcinoma is so harmless, they don’t even have a ribbon.”

Suddenly, Emma didn’t mind our celebrating and she understood why we were jumping up and down with glee over the news.

This is how it is a lot when we “lose” our passion.

It isn’t that your passion has disappeared or is no longer functional, it is that you have chosen to look at life as if your passion doesn’t exist.

What if you shifted gears and looked through life’s veil differently.

A year ago I wouldn’t have understood about the different variety of skin cancers.

Now that I have lived the journey of melanoma survivor, I am able to make light of it not because it isn’t serious, it is because I am choosing to look through life with a different attitude. I’m a melanoma thriver, not survivor. My heart hurts for those who have had melanoma and weren’t so blessed.

I hear it regularly, after all, because when you have something like cancer, everyone tells you their worst case scenario stories.

These folks don’t mean to be  passion killers and it is up to us, people who are devoted to leading a passionate life to be passionate even and especially when it doesn’t make sense to the rest of the world.

+ + + + +

I was so excited to find this challenge, #31Days hosted by The Nester. You still have a couple days to join. I'm doing the "Personal Endeavor" category with a whole bunch of other cool people.

Consider spending a part of your October with us!

 

 

 

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.

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! 

© 2013

 

 

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How to Use Writing Play to Turn Anger to Joy

Some days we start the day angry because we forget, word-love begins wherever you find yourself.

I’m ten minutes late for my writing sprint. I’ve been busily networking and sort of puttering until now, finally now I am writing.

 

It is a big blessing to have a set “writing time” with friends every day, especially with friends that are all around the world. Creativity separately together is one of my greatest joys.

Somehow the slight competitive nature for word counts combined with the interesting tidbits we tend to share along the way has made this time nearly sacred for me. Nearly instead of always simply because it is Summer and my kids take the forefront in the Summer.

I have trained my friends though. Saturday I was sitting at the kitchen table writing in my notebook when a friend called and then immediately apologized for “interrupting my writing time.” Eleven a.m. to Twelve Noon Pacific time from Monday to Friday is my time. It is a daily date to keep my love affair with words spicy.

I write morning pages as well, this morning on my front porch when it was still bearable outside. I even managed to write haiku and take a few photos.

When I neglect these word-love dates, not only my writing suffers – the rest of my life suffers as well.

Recently one of my daughters said to me in a rather huffy moment, “And you’re always angry!” and it stopped me in my tracks. “Me, angry?” The statement bothered me so much, I decided to ask my other daughter, the ever objective Katherine.

Her response, “Well, you are angry more often than you used to be.”

I could blame it on melanoma or stress or a myriad of other things, but since I have been back on my writing dates and spreading word-love around, suddenly – my anger has gone down. I smile more at strangers and they smile back. Some even chit chat with me, which is one of my favorite secret delights.

Right now my writing friends are working on dissertations, novels, blog posts and I believe one of us may be crocheting. We encourage, we laugh, we make up silly games and even have traditions.

Even as I write I can assist my daughter who is grading papers for a college professor. We chatted about plagiarism and how to help these students to understand what can be used and what can’t be used.

If you find yourself on a higher than usual anger scale, go on twitter and type in #wordmongering. It’s a hashtag where people write 24 hours a day at the top of the hour. You may just tweet something like this, “Is anyone “wordmongering” on the next :00? I’m new and would like to join!” Even if no one happens to be on at that hour, you will get responses and before you know it you too will be happily writing alongside some new friends.

If I didn’t know any better, I would even say my writing practice has made the mornings cooler! Somehow I can write while sitting on my front porch  before the temperature climbs above 100 degrees later in the day!

Now that, word-love friends, is surely anger and frustration turned into pure word-love joy.

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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!

© 2013

 

 

 

I Wasn't Smiling When I Started Writing This!

"In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on." Pearl Buck (whether that is blogging or teaching or Mommying or editing....)

I was all set to write a really inspiring essay about hope. It was to be both my first blog post for July and also a part of my new (and continuing) series for July's Ultimate Blog Challenge.

 

Then my computer shouted, “Too hot and tired to continue!” and shut down, mid sentence.

I waited, went back in, and after reading a quote by Pearl Buck decided I needed to add her profile to the Literary Grannies list. I started reading and nodding and nodding and reading and taking copious notes which were simply fabulous when my computer, tapping her foot and waving her finger through the air said, “Yo. You at the keyboard, I said I was too hot and tired to continue!” Poof! Off went the computer.

This was too much.

I figured my computer was on her death bed, especially when today – July 2 – history repeated itself.

I was now a day behind on the second day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

I had no evidence of starting to fall in love with Pearl Buck AND it was still hotter than… choose a hot metaphor or simile to insert here… when I realized maybe if I moved my computer around, maybe if I cleared its airways, maybe if I dusted….

My computer said, “Thank you!” and immediately allowed my to post to my blog, do some photo revision and yes, even write the rest of this.

SO: for July, the plan is to continue to fill in the missing pieces for my April A to Z of Literary Grannies. I will also be adding new writing tips articles, how-to’s and inspirational essays.

I’m looking forward to learning from the others on the Ultimate Blog Challenge as well as sharing my unique ways of looking at the world so that together we may continue to transform this planet into a passion and purpose filled place for each and all.

“Carry on, Julie, you are loved!” says my computer.

Yesterday’s notes from Pearl Buck told us this:

"In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write."

I hope you are smiling as widely as I am.

 

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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!

© 2013

10 Smart Ways to Use Your Phone to Improve Your Writing

Fire Up Your Creative Productivity - With Your Phone!

I never knew my cell phone would become such an important part of my life. I thought I would be texting and searching the internet, catching up on facebook and twitter and using other fun, playful aps, but I didn't realize it would actually help me with so many of my writing adventures.

 

Here are ten ways you may use your cell phone as I do for writing purposes. Try one of these you don't currently use and please comment to share either a new way we may all use our phones OR let us know how you experiment with these ten ways to use your smart phone.

10 Ways to Use Your  Phone to Write Articles, Top 10 Lists, How-to's, Poetry and More

1. Listen to conversation being spoken around you. Eavesdrop to capture rich/true dialogue using your note program.
2. Take photos, especially those surprise images to write about later. Once you set the intention to be surprised visually, your eyes will begin to see more and more intriguing sights which will fuel your writing in surprising ways.
3. Collect "jots" of writing in your notes program in three words or less... what you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, feel emotionally.
4.  Use your phone’s timer: Do timed stream of consciousness writing at any time in any space. Do timed writing with your note book while on a hike. Do timed writing on your laptop sitting in a coffee shop. Do timed writing directly into your smart phone.
5. Keep a one sentence journal. At the end of the day, write a one sentence summary of either the entire day or whatever stand out event happened, even if it is “The intersection at Stockdale and California was more annoying than infomercials as I drove through it fourteen times today.” You may find juice in those words when you least expect it!
6. Remember Haiku? It is the perfect form of micropoetry to use with your smart phone.  It also helps to practice writing tweet sized, meaning and image filled sentences. Try it! Three “lines” – five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. Go to twitter and search the hashtag #haiku for more inspiration.
7.  In your calendar note times (and set alarms!) for sunrises, sunsets or other "time attached" subjects. For example, an older slightly battered truck rolls by my house at about 6:40 a.m. daily. I consciously make a point to be out there so I can wave as I take notes. This truck and its driver has become a rich part of my writing life and we have never officially met.
8.  Take notes when people think you are texting. I recently did this at a birthday party where I didn’t know anyone. Since people are used to texting, in some circles this isn’t seen as rude. Be careful to not be totally oblivious to social nuances.  Interaction at the party itself will also give you gems you can capture as you sit in your car before leaving or on the bus on the way home after the party is over.
9. Create writing prompts from what you see. There is never, ever, EVER “nothing to write about!” Look around as you life and write into your phone… you may even tweet these short awarenesses. Examples: “The waitress with very red lipstick reminds me of…” (use later for a stream of consciousness prompt.) “I wonder where that old man at the bus stop is going?” (write later about traveling via bus, the elderly, your Grandpa) “The fallen tree at the side of the road calls me to prune my life of what doesn’t work.” (and later, write more.)

 10. Write how-to articles. What technology do you suppose I used to write this one?

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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!

© 2013

 

 

A Simple, Quirky & Plain Old Fun Way to Feel Better & Better, Happier & Happier

 

 

A Simple & Quirky Way to Feeling Better Every Day

Would you value discovering a way to move instantly from an anxious or worried space into a smiling, much happier, feeling better and better sort of space? I learned a trick to do that by accident recently that you can put into place as an immediate perk-up strategy.

 

Here’s the story:

Today I saw a double decker shopping cart, a lusty blue one, across the street from Lowe’s on Columbus. I pointed and with both loudness and glee announced to Samuel, “Shopping Cart!”

He laughed. Yes, he laughed at me.

“You sure do love shopping carts, Mommy.”

It’s a strange thing: quirky, I suppose, started by the discovery of what I called “a shopping cart convention” in an empty lot on the way to Emma’s high school. Since then, I have been alert to any unique arrangements of shopping carts in unexpected places. Now, the one across the street from Lowe’s was only exciting because I have not photographed one of that particular style yet.

I also photograph familiar images: sunrises and sunsets, birthday parties, children, but I find the most joy in discovering a fascination of some object or scenario that at first only seems to thrill me – which is all that matters in the moment of creativity. Then I discover in the sharing, other people also enjoy the image, other people find it fascinating. I’m not the only one who oooos and ahhhhs at the coincidental modern assemblage of shopping carts outside of the parking lot where they are supposed to live.

When Katherine was a baby, the fixation for many was cows: cow figurines, cow kitchen decorations, cow this and cow that. Later, it became sunflowers everywhere. Recently I have seen more chickens than I care to see. Ever. Again.

My love for cows during Kathie’s babydom had her name every large four legged animals “moos” and even her pillow pet today – at age twenty-one – is a cow.

This quirky love actually lifted me up this past week when I was feeling low. I would see a random shopping cart at a random, unexpected place and I would perk up. Insta-happy. If my mind veered away into sad-or-worried-or-fretful, it was as if a shopping cart angel would roll a cart out someplace for me to take note and smile.

Who would ever describe a shopping cart as “lusty” besides me?

Just choose a random something that catches your eye – you may even choose chickens if you like – and be aware to them when they pop into any of your senses: your view, your hearing, your smell, your touch – you know the drill.

Allow that momentary delight to flood your brain and wash away the other stuff that doesn’t serve you.

Two things will happen: you will suddenly feel better AND you will be able to steer yourself more easily toward a better day overall.

See? There is a reason for quirky shopping cart love.

Feeling better and better and better is one of the best reasons of all.

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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!

 

Free Flow Writing: A "Magic Trick" of Not Only Higher Quantity of Words and Also a Higher Quality of Words

Sometimes I forget the simple bubbles of contentment that float from my core when I sit at my kitchen table when the day is new and write, free flow, without thinking, for three pages. Julia Cameron taught me about “morning pages” about twelve years ago. I wish I could say in that entire time I have been completely faithful to the practice, but that would not be true.

Natalie Goldberg simplified it when I finally read her book, Writing Down the Bones. I resisted this book for the longest time because I didn’t like the title. When I finally surrendered to it because everyone told me I should read it, I not only liked it, I loved it. I cried when I was finished. She taught me I could write any time of day, with a timer perhaps, and aim to fill a 90 page notebook in a month. Basically, morning pages without the morning attached.

I got a new kitchen table at a yard sale last weekend and this morning was the first time I tried it out with my notebook. It felt beyond words wonderful.

It was like stacking all the notebooks I have loved and used up over these past twelve years were sitting in an audience applauding me for making the choice to sit at my kitchen table and write. Not to rush around vocalizing and annoying my children as they prepare for their school day, but to simply let things be and let words flow.

It doesn’t take a long time and I feel so much better all day long simply because I let those words fall off my pencil and onto the page. Not on a keyboard, but the old fashioned way.

I think back to the many writers across time who sat at kitchen tables and wrote in little snippets of time, selfishly unselfish when she or he might have been dusting or folding laundry or writing a business plan or corralling children.

Yes, I meant to say “selfishly, unselfish” because sometimes being selfish is the absolute least selfish thing we can do for the world. I know my contributions today will be offered with more positivity and love if I hadn’t simply taken the few moments to let the words inside me out, to set them free on the page, letter after letter after word after word after sentence after paragraph after page.

Writers and Non-writers alike - Tell me about your resistance or your enjoyment in daily free flow “without a purpose” writing.

 

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!

© 2013 Julie Jordan Scott

5 Keys to Discovering How to Never Be Bored Again

YES! Replace Boredom with Aliveness & Passion

It was a day like countless other days. Get up. Get the kidlets to rise and shine. Get in car.

Go south, turn left. There, at the end of the road almost like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow is our first stop, Emma’s school.

I rarely expect for anything new to arrive on the short trip, but earlier this year I noticed a flock of birds sitting at all four traffic lights at an intersection. Every day we would watch them swirling and following each other and landing and the next set swirling and following and the next set in a natural synchronized flying adventure.

Lately, though, my eyes have been caught up and intrigued by an entirely different form of eye candy.

There is an empty lot on the way to school that is in a rather “sketchy” neighborhood. I use that term because that is what my daughters would say. In this empty lot there has recently been a shopping cart convention underway. I watch it every day to see if any new “members” have arrived or if anyone has carefully arranged them or pulled them apart.

The view changes each day.

The first time I noticed, I was drawn by the rainbow of shopping cart colors. Someone had arranged the carts in a tidy almost bouquet looking arrangement.

Yesterday in the afternoon when my son and I were driving there, we saw a little girl and her father there, in the empty lot. The father was emptying out one of the blue carts – from Petsmart – and was apparently going to use it in some way.

Maybe it isn’t a shopping cart convention, perhaps it is a shopping cart library where you can check them in and out as needed.

For me it has been another fascination to follow both creatively and sociologically. It is a sign of the times in my town and a sign of what to you?

My creativity has certainly been heightened. First, it was a sight that begged to be photographed. I responded, naturally. Samuel was patient with me – again – as I pulled off the road at a random place for the great shot I stumbled upon.

• Choose to be aware of even the smallest change along your usual routes or in your usual places. I am literally never bored from living this lifestyle of being alert and awake. Instantly the most mundane turn into fascinating subjects.

•  Ask others what random surprises they have had lately. If they haven’t had any random surprises lately it is like an invitation you have both issued so that random, interesting “stuff” will begin to show up. Change your conversations from pop culture talks to what is true and tangible in the world you share daily with others.

•  Create SOMETHING from the surprises you find. Write a poem, a couple sentences in your notebook, a sketch, a photo, a conversation with others. Post your words or images on facebook and see what your friends see and notice.

•  Make connections – sometimes the odd images that pop into our surroundings actually have a message for us when we use our intuition rather than our logical, thinking brain. Think of synchronicity as defined by Carl Jung the experience of two or more events that are unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner.

•   Continue to engage yourself and your curiosity in conversation” about the surprise you encountered. I know after I found the shopping carts I had an incredibly wild, detailed and refreshing dream. I haven’t had that sort of dream in years with so many scenes and vivid colors, characters and textures. I can’t stop thinking about the shopping carts nor can I stop looking at them. As crazy as I sound, I can also tell you it also fits in the ridiculously fun category – and that is enough for me to pursue almost anything.

It would delight me to know how you replace boredom with aliveness and passion. What are your favorite strategies?

Why not try one of my suggestions and report back here?

I would love to hear from you.

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!

© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott