Today’s Summer Blog Challenge prompt is a difficult one to write to as well as read. My prayer is people read and respect other’s views, especially those that are completely different than yours AND those you don’t understand the reasoning. We may learn something from those opposing views, especially if we come together in conversation with minds that are willing to listen rather than shut themselves off.
The prompt:
July 19- If you were president or prime minister for a day, what's one law you would change? -Submitted by Hannah @ Baby Knows Best
I know some of you may be surprised by what I write about what laws I would change. Before you close your window and declare yourself unwilling to speak to me again, please read my why’s behind the what’s.
Here are a smattering of laws I would change:
Equality across the board – I knew of my first gay marriage back in 1990. I didn’t question the legality of it, I just thought it was great my friend Steve was getting married. It wasn’t until it was legalized (briefly) in California that I discovered, “You mean this isn’t legal?” My current research is to collect all the Biblical references regarding what Jesus actually SAID about this issue since I have a meeting with a fellow Christian about this topic next week. My children and I protested here in California and carried signs that said, "Christians Against H8." I had the best theological discussions that day.... and I was afraid my church friends might see me and tsk tsk. I also believe in equality in education – meaning all school districts should strive for excellence and serve their underserved populations like Special Ed students through mainstreaming as many kids as is appropriate and not just warehousing the “inconvenient” kids. And wouldn’t it be great if there really was a community where interracial friendships were the norm instead of the exception? How about straight people and the LGBTQ community hanging out together without women being called Fag Hags or straight women hanging out with lesbians being presumed lesbians. How would I create such a law? No idea, but I think if we created an environment of love and compassion, these outcomes would be like breathing. Maybe for our kid’s generation.
Get ready to spit out your coffee. I believe in legalized prostitution because I would prefer the women who are engaging in that profession be protected AS WELL AS the men who are purchasing their services. Imagine if we could be sure there aren’t all those diseases rolling around and imagine if we could get horrifyingly violent pimps off the street. Imagine if all the prostitutes were actually there by choice because they realized it was a way to make a decent living, support their families or whatever it is they are doing? Imagine if you couldn’t be drugged up to be a prostitute and you couldn’t have untreated STD’s to be a prostitute. Imagine if we could collect sales tax on prostitution to keep our infrastructure intact. (Some of our roads here in California are AWFUL!) Read here about how forward thinking parts of the US were in the 19th Century AND how women's rights were won first by Prostitutes and the WOMEN who employed them. I didn't write this, a scholar did....
Legalize and Monitor certain (now) illegal drugs. I say this as I am the biggest Carrie Nation style drug Prohibitionist you will ever meet. I have friends who, again here in California, have their Medical Marijuana cards, which is a joke. I hate it! People say “Oh, my fingers hurt from typing, I need a medical card” and they get one! And then they get HIGH and then they may lose their jobs because of the marijuana that stays in their system for a long, long, time! I know, look at all my exclamation points. I just found out last night there is a part of the marijuana plant that may be ingested (not smoked!) which actually HELPS with brain function. My thought with legalizing certain drugs is #1) Take away the power from the Drug Cartels #2) Empty our jails of bodies just wasting away and becoming bigger criminals from the culture on the inside #3) Again, build our infrastructure with tax revenues. #4) Actually minimize addiction instead of maximize it. Remember how awful it actually was during prohibition? All the crime, all the dirty activity caused because by it?
In the Education World (I mentioned a bit of this above) I would make sure all General Education teachers get training in Special Ed and with the huge Autism Epidemic, I would be sure the schools and the teachers are prepared. They would discover teaching a spectrum kid is actually helpful to their entire class. I would be sure all the administrators are educated in Special Ed law and if they BLOW IT by not helping a child they have the smallest inkling might have special needs, send those principals out of their offices and into special ed classrooms. Test them on laws and if they fail, they lose their income until the pass their legal exam. Can you tell it was administrators who failed my son? I realize this is more of a state-by-state and district by district thing, but I just wish all our children could be served AND that we, as a society, created a world where uniqueness was treasured rather than hidden off in the special needs ghettoes which exist on so many campuses today.
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.
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I wrote this yesterday as if I was speaking to my fourteen-year-old daughter, Emma. I imagined a friend was mad at her... which, by the way, turned out to not be the case AT ALL!
These past choices you thought were the right ones, the faded brick colored blocks that created the foundation you walk upon now daily.
You can’t let them bother you.
What you can do, though, is pick your foot up and put it down. You can learn from the choices made that weren’t, after all, the best for you.
You can forgive yourself.
You may request forgiveness of others.
You thought your choice was the best choice for the moment. Some may fault you for this. You may let their judgment go and pray they will, eventually, return to you if not with compassion at least with a willingness to let it go, too, to let the bother be exfoliated from their system.
Don’t let it bother you because the bother lasts so much longer than the originating choice and follow through did. Make reparations. Smile. Breathe deeply and aim for now and your next nows.
Don’t let it bother you that others don’t understand you and may not even want to take the effort to understand you.
Don’t let it bother you that the past you is more than a tiny bit embarrassing to the now you.
Some people may have found her cute. Even though you abhor that word, cute, let it be, my love, just let it be.
Keep writing away any pain that comes when you forget to not let it bother you.
Then pick up your foot and put it down. Repeat. Again. And. Again.
This is my also my Ultimate Blog Challenge Writing for the Day. Be watching for my challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing Tips and General Life Tips and Essays. This is Blog 9/31 for July!
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.
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My mind is coming up with a huge blank which I find rather embarrassing.
Perhaps this prompt is meant as an assignment rather than a “reporting in!”
The thing is, I used to make random acts of kindness a way of life.
I have allowed homeless people into my home to shower and fed them and gave them my number if they needed me. Once a man in a wheelchair fell backwards in a busy Los Angeles intersection and I leaped out of my car – heels, hose and all – and together with another man who I don’t know if he spoke any English, righted him and sent him on his way.
I still don’t know where my strength came from to lift him, but I put my arms under his armpits and on three, I lifted the man and my “partner” lifted the chair.
I haven’t done any of this lately.
I have helped friends out in times of need. I have hosted couch surfers, often surprising them with little trinkets (like a loaf of bread for an Austrian surfer who mentioned how much she missed German bread.)
I babysit, housesit, dogsit for loved ones without even thinking of charging them. I volunteer for the school district. I am an encourager of nearly everyone I meet. I am a complimenter of nearly everyone I meet.
I look into stranger's eyes and I smile, sincerely.
I wave at crossing guards.
Do any of these count? They don’t feel random enough so today’s task is to get random. Act kindly. Repeat and Continue.
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.
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It is difficult to think up just one piece of advice I would give to my child. Perhaps my first piece of advice is that advice is usually not a "one size fits all" sort of thing. I, instead, wrote tidbits of advice for each of my three children and then, at the bottom, some more general guidelines... that work for me and I trust will work for them, too.
Specific #1)
You don’t have to be perfect every time and please don’t worry you could ever disappoint me because that, my love, is impossible.
Specific #2)
Be yourself. Stay curious. Give people a chance, especially those you may feel the urge to judge at first… give them a chance.
Specific #3)
The only reliable rule about life is there are no rules.
General advice to my children and the rest of the world:
Don’t be in a hurry to find “the answer” – instead, live the question, as Rilke said. Experience everything fully rather than “ice skate” across the surface of life. Allow life to meet you, greet you, embrace you.
Look around the room (stage, office, store, boardroom) you are in right now and know you have a lot more in common with everyone else in there than you think you do. Perhaps not hobbies, politics or sports teams – but I bet you have had similar experiences and felt similar emotions. Love those people accordingly. They are each someone’s baby girl or baby boy or they wish they were, at least once, loved like an infant is loved, naturally, without doing a thing.
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.
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I am not sure how I got started promoting the concept of maintaining an “Unpolished Gem” file. I can’t even remember when I started one myself. I do know it pops up when I teach bloggers and writers how to keep an unending flow of content coming into their blogs, guest posts, essays, articles and poetry.
I do remember when I started writing as a way to make a living: I built my life coaching business by writing articles and having them republished (back then primarily in ezines) so since that time I have had essays, how-to’s, top tens and almost anything else you can imaging published both on the internet and also in magazines, compilations, ebooks and ecourses.
The blood flowing through all of this is… The Unpolished Gem: little snips and nuggets of writing I started and didn’t necessarily use right away but I knew it was worth returning to – maybe – someday. Sometimes people hesitate to start a file, thinking it will be too overwhelming but part of the point of an Unpolished Gem file is it takes pressure off.
How? Well, it tells you “if you don’t have the juice, passion or desire to finish this right away, you don’t have to! If you are blocked half way through or even just have a title, you may tuck it into your unpolished gems file and move along to whatever else is on your agenda.
Your unpolished gem file also reminds you the truth of content: you will never run out of material. Certainly other people have written articles similar to this one. Maybe you have read a few. The difference is I have not yet squeezed out all the goodness from this topic. You reading this today is a fine example of that.
When you are blocked, you have multiple choices of where to go to write next. Just pick an unfinished one and write a sentence. If anything else comes, yes! If after one additional sentence you’re done, then you’re done for now. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Cliché and true.
How do you start an Unpolished Gem File? I am very simple with mine. I make a folder I call “UPGs”. Within my UPG folder are subfolders for both the month they were written and the topic it falls under. This particular essay (should it remain unfinished for a bit) will go in July2012 and Writing-Editing and maybe Writing-Inspiration.
Perhaps you are thinking, “This is all well and good, Julie, but I don’t have any writing I haven’t used on my blog.”
This makes me raise an eyebrow. Really?
Perhaps it is time to look at all the writing you do as possible future content. I am going to share seven places to look. Choose one place and glean – or collect – nuggets to write from later – every day this week. I guarantee if you try this, by the end of the week you will have more than enough content for your blog for a month or more.
Gold nugget paragraphs in emails, blog comments or facebook messages. When do people tell you, “Oh, that was so helpful!” or “Oh, please tell me more about…” these are hints that you should write that content. So do it. Copy, paste and just like that: an unpolished gem!
Tweets that get responses and interaction from people. Diamond Nugget: Anyone who has been using twitter for a while knows some tweets naturally attract conversation and questions. Look for patterns via your unpolished gems. Copy and paste the tweet that has garnished the most attention this week. Write an additional 140 characters. Tweet it and UPG it. This is repurposing at its finest.
Top 10 lists that seem to ask you for more details (especially if they have gotten lots of comments on your blog).Opal Nugget I started an ezine more than ten years ago based on this idea. At the time I thought I was writing a book. I still may be. But in the meantime, this fed my entire business! Look at any Top 10 lists you created (don’t have any? Create some! This right here is a Top 7 list: same concept, different number.) Choose one (or more) of the tips and put it into an UPG…
If you keep a journal (a diary, a “notebook” as I call mine) I am willing to bet there are sections without that are pure Ruby Nuggets. Take some time daily for a week to crack open journals from at least six months ago with a yellow highlighter and sticky notes in your hand. Highlight your best sentences, phrases and paragraphs. Mark the page with a sticky note. In the back of the journal, write a table of contents which may go something like this: “Item 1: Writing Gratitude Item 2: Forgiveness Item 3: Ending Procrastination Item 4: Befriending Block.” This is sooooo easy! Don’t make it harder than it is. Please.
Revisit Sections of earlier writings that call you “come back, come back!” Pluck, glean and write. You know that blog post from last September? The one about? Revisit it and just like with the journal, see what has stood the test of time. Revise the blog post accordingly. Maybe there is a Top 10 list waiting to be born or a poem or a How-to. You won’t know unless you glean, write and revise. Perfect Silver Nugget!
Emerald Nuggets from Stream of Consciousness Writing Exercises: This actually assumes you spend times when you write with NO purpose at all. Just to write. Well, if you don’t, I urge you to start. I write from quotes, from memes I find online and from images, works of art and even photos I take. Without thinking, just write and write and write. Time your writing and keep it to fifteen minutes at the maximum. What I find is I can get a lot written in 15 minutes and even though I originally sat down to write about Virginia Woolf’s Room of Her Own, I end up writing about an experience in a restaurant in Pueblo, Colorado that was waiting for me to listen. Take those “waiting” pieces of writing & morph into something publishable.
Finally, scoop up a handful of Garnet Nuggets from conversations that won’t stop replaying in your head. In my case, these conversations are sometimes actually overheard conversations I wrote into my cell phone note taker. I have written a lot of “overheard poetry” but this also helps the fiction and memoir writer in creating and recreating dialogue. Because I did this yesterday, I can’t get the image of the two men at the table across from me at Jack in the Box out of my head. I know they are there to write about, so when I am done with this, I’m going to set my timer and just write… and see how the Garnet Nugget mixes with the Emerald Nugget so I can hit blogging and writing paydirt!
The bottom line is creating places where you have work-in-progress helps raise your confidence and simply enjoy your writing more. Isn’t that why you started to blog in the first place? Maybe it was to build your business, but I am willing to bet a big part of it was to find and stretch your voice more deeply and widely out into the world.
So today, start your Unpolished Gem file and put some writing nuggets inside.
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.
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I consulted my blogging friends in the Summer Blog Challenge about this topic.
“Talk about the biggest challenge you faced.” Perhaps these aren’t the exact words but they are something similar.
I feel especially ancient when I look down my list of challenges I have experienced: I could say any of these, offered here in no particular order and I am guessing as soon as I hit “publish” I will think of others.
My first daughter was stillborn
Infertility
Death of my brother (complicated by his Down’s Syndrome, our unique place in the birth order of my family and actually facilitating his celebration of life.)
Two of my mental health clients threatened my life
My Son was diagnosed with Autism (and the school failed him so I had to fight the school… which I learned happens way too often.)
My mother was diagnosed with cancer.
My mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s
I was raised in a home with an alcoholic parent
Six months after those clients threatened my life, my husband left us
"Best friend" stopped contact without a note, a phone call, anything right as one crisis after another occurred.
And probably a bunch more.
None of these hold a candle to what I dealt with in October. Like I asked my blogging friends, “Is it enough to write a blog post for today's topic that says, "I faced a challenge head on. I met it. I worked it. I survived it. I'm still not ready to talk about it. The End."?
They assured me that was enough.
So that’s all I am saying for now. When I look back at my life by challenges I have faced, I realize I have held up quite well, considering.
You can imagine beyond the above or perhaps beyond all the above combined? That was how this past October felt to me and why I am nervous – even now – for it to roll around again.
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.
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Summer Blog Challenge asked me to tell you on July 8-- "What are some song lyrics that you find some meaning in?" which brought up some surprises I had to share with you today.
I used to be one of those girls who sang everything. Any friend would make some statement or ask a question and I would respond in lyrics. I sang all the time: quality didn’t matter all that much, it was just a matter of throwing my hands in the air and singing words into the air to clutter the skies with notes that rained down on my face, and my friend’s face and upon the shoulders of anyone in listening distance.
I think I stopped doing that around the time I met my husband, way back when I was twenty years old probably about the time he noted – and I committed to memory – that my behavior on the dance floor was “goofy”. That was date #3, perhaps.
With that and perhaps other memories I chose to snip away, I stopped singing.
I read the prompt today and the words that filled my brain immediately were the unlikely “Come on baby light my fire….” The first singer I heard in my brain was Jose Feliciano, not Jim Morrison, the Doors bandmate of Ray Krieger, the guitarist who actually wrote the song.
I didn’t know it until doing some research, but this song has actually been covered many times by many (to me) unlikely people.
Erma Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Mae West!? recorded the song for her album Great Balls of Fire in 1972. Incredibly Etta James recorded it as did Minnie Riperton (with Jose Feliciano who was the original cover singer) and there was a disco version recorded by a band called Baccara.
I searched for the lyrics for more hints. What I found reminded me of the moment I heard KC (as in KC and the Sunshine Band) lamented the meaninglessness of songs of the early 21st Century.
For some reason, though, I think fire has meaning today.
I especially like this stanza:
>> The time to hesitate is through >> No time to wallow in the mire >> Try now we can only lose >> And our love become a funeral pyre
If you are unfamiliar with the term ‘funeral pyre’ it is a pile of wood on which a corpse is burned as part of a funeral ceremony in some traditions. Sounds like some kind of fun… actually, I could see having a funeral pyre for myself if my loved ones would agree to it.
So – my task for today – Sunday, July 8 – is to set the night on fire metaphorically.
I’ll let you know how that goes.
Anyone else in? Remember, the time to hesitate is through - come on baby light my fire…. (you know you want to) Try to set the night on fire…..
This is why I love blog challenges. They take you places you didn't know you would go when stretching your arms as you get out of bed in the morning. :~)
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 -
“Wilderness itself is the basis of all our civilization. I wonder if we have enough reverence for life to concede to wilderness the right to live on?” Margaret "Mardy" Murie, "Grandmother" of the Conservation Movement.
Today's Summer Blog Challenge asks us: If You Couldn't Fail, What Would You Do?
If I couldn’t fail, I would do my long overdue tour of the country I have always wanted to do, sharing Word-Love, Passion for living and a full time embrace of the wilderness within and around us within every community so that each town, hamlet, city I go to can begin to spread the fire for personal expression, finding voice and just feeling better about this wilderness we all inhabit, that we all are….
That word, “Wilderness” has been percolating in my mind in a brand new way lately.
“Wild” ness
And
“Wilder” ness.
I have been reading the book When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams. She has a passion for wilderness as a naturalist, a biologist but even more than that, she has a passion for the wilderness within each of us.
Read some of her words:
“To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.” TTW
If I couldn’t fail, I would do my long overdue tour of the country, sharing Word-Love, Passion for living and a full time embrace of the wilderness within and around us within every community so that each town, hamlet, city I go to can begin to spread the fire for personal expression, finding voice and just feeling better about this wilderness we all inhabit, that we all are….
Yes. Wilderness is connection, human connection.
“We can try to kill all that is native, string it up by its hind legs for all to see, but spirit howls and wildness endures.” TTW
Yes. How many people have had their passion, their individuality strung up for months, weeks, days, even years in some cases? I know because I was one of those people who did that.
I know some people connote “wild” with frightening or loud or nutty or something and someone you steer clear of, but I am taking it on differently and wondering if you might dip your toe into seeing wilderness and wildness in a new way.
If I couldn’t fail, I would do my long overdue tour of the country, sharing Word-Love, Passion for living and a full time embrace of the wilderness within and around us within every community so that each town, hamlet, city I go to can begin to spread the fire for personal expression, finding voice and just feeling better about this wilderness we all inhabit, that we all are….
(For some reason the song “Born to Be Wild” is now playing in my head.)
One definition of wilderness:
1. An unsettled, uncultivated region left in its natural condition, especially:
a. A large wild tract of land covered with dense vegetation or forests.
b. An extensive area, such as a desert or ocean, that is barren or empty; a waste.
c. A piece of land set aside to grow wild.
2. Something characterized by bewildering vastness, perilousness, or unchecked profusion: the wilderness of the city; the wilderness of counterespionage; a wilderness of voices.
When I looked into the definition of “Wild” I see why people might stray from it. I sort of shook my head as I read, saying “yeah, but… you make it sound…”
If I couldn’t fail, I would do my long overdue tour of the country, sharing Word-Love, Passion for living and a full time embrace of the wilderness within and around us within every community so that each town, hamlet, city I go to can begin to spread the fire for personal expression, finding voice and just feeling better about this wilderness we all inhabit, that we all are….
I feel like I want to be an attorney in the defense of “Wild” and “Wilderness”.
wild (wld)
adj.wild·er, wild·est
1. Occurring, growing, or living in a natural state; not domesticated, cultivated, or tamed: wild geese; edible wild plants.
2. Not inhabited or farmed: remote, wild country.
3. Uncivilized or barbarous; savage.
4.
a. Lacking supervision or restraint: wild children living in the street.
b. Disorderly; unruly: a wild scene in the school cafeteria.
c. Characterized by a lack of moral restraint; dissolute or licentious: recalled his wild youth with remorse.
5. Lacking regular order or arrangment; disarranged: wild locks of long hair.
6. Full of, marked by, or suggestive of strong, uncontrolled emotion: wild with jealousy; a wild look in his eye; a wild rage.
7. Extravagant; fantastic: a wild idea.
8. Furiously disturbed or turbulent; stormy: wild weather.
9. Risky; imprudent: wild financial schemes.
10.
a. Impatiently eager: wild to get away for the weekend.
b. Informal Highly enthusiastic: just wild about the new music.
11. Based on little or no evidence or probability; unfounded: wild accusations; a wild guess.
12. Deviating greatly from an intended course; erratic: a wild bullet.
13. Games Having an equivalence or value determined by the cardholder's choice: playing poker with deuces wild.
adv.
In a wild manner: growing wild; roaming wild.
n.
1. A natural or undomesticated state: returned the zoo animals to the wild; plants that grow abundantly in the wild.
2. An uninhabited or uncultivated region. Often used in the plural: the wilds of the northern steppes.
intr.v.wild·ed, wild·ing, wildsSlang
Final words from Terry Tempest Williams:
"If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go.... This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future."
If I couldn’t fail, I would do my long overdue tour of the country I have always wanted to do, sharing Word-Love, Passion for living and a full time embrace of the wilderness within and around us within every community so that each town, hamlet, city I go to can begin to spread the fire for personal expression, finding voice and just feeling better about this wilderness we all inhabit, that we all are….
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 -
July 4--To celebrate Independence Day, you are "free" to post whatever you want.
This Spring I started a writing project that has become something of an obsession for me.
It has fast become one of my favorite subjects: Women Writers in Literary History
These women writers are our grandmothers.
They are our mothers and our great aunties. They are our tias, our Godmothers, our long-lost cousins. They are our lovers, they are our role models, they are our she-roes (sometimes called heroines).
They are the women writers who stepped out before we did and made their way in a world dominated by male wordsmiths.
Whenever I start to write like this, I feel compelled to apologize and say, “I love men. Please don’t read these words and declare ‘Man Hater’.” On the contrary, I have four brothers – who I love even when quirky. I have a son – who is among the greatest gifts I have ever received. I have many many many male friends. I love the way men smell, I love to learn how their minds work, I love to catch the sparkles in their eyes when they think I am not looking.
AND I am sad that most of our “Writing Guides” are men.
I sometimes feel like a writing orphan of sorts.
I was looking for writing quotes by women today. I simply googled “Writing Quotes”. I would scroll through page after page of quotes. The average ratio of women writer quotes to men writer quotes is easily 18 to 2 out of 20.
What does this say, oh so subtly and not oh so subtly, to women who write or girls who want to write?
“The wisest writers are men.”
“It would be best for me to learn to write from a man.”
“Imitating a man is the best way to go for me, as a writer.”
I am on a mission to spread the wisdom of women writers so that our daughters – or the next generation of women writers – will not have this same experience.
Last week I posted a list of quotes by Writing Women – you may find them here. Feel free to print them out. I am going to add ten more quotes here for you to use as inspiration for writing no matter what gender you may be.
I am also including links to five writing women whose names may be completely unfamiliar to you. Please let your curiosity have its way with you today. Click on one, read about her, be inspired.
Get to know the women of your Writing Wisdom family tree: not just the Emily Dickinsons, the Jane Austens and the JK Rowlings.
1. Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard. --Anne Sexton
2. The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention. --Flannery O'Connor
3. Loving, like prayer, is a power as well as a process. It's curative. It is creative. --Zona Gale
4. To stand at the edge of the sea...is to have knowledge of things that are as eternal as any earthly life can be." -- Rachel Carson
5. "My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger." --Toni Morrison
6. "It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth, and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, that we will begin to live each day to the fullest; as if it was the only one we had."
"There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from." Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
7. "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it." Margaret Fuller
8. "There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors." --Adrienne Rich
9. “I love bright words, words up and singing early.” Elinor Wylie
10. “Every mother should endeavor to be a true artist.” Frances EW Harper
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.
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I have a whirlwind tour of the Southwestern US planned at the end of July/beginning of August. My eldest daughter has spent her Summer in the Navajo Nation working at a camp in Northeastern Arizona. My plan is to pick her up and then, together with my other two children, visit New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and skirt Las Vegas, Nevada, on the way home.
Right now my primary focus is accommodations since we will be Couchsurfing.
I am not talking (necessarily) about staying with friends, I am talking about changing the world, one couch at a time. Actually, one of our couchsurfing accommodations will be a yurt and another may be a tent, so I am not sure… well… here is couchsurfing in a nutshell.
Couchsurfing is a grassroots, volunteer organization that is committed to positive change around the planet via hospitality that is given and received without any sort of financial renumeration. It is all based on goodwill and the old fashioned norm of “Love Our Neighbors” and “Love One Another.”
I am including some photos of our couchsurfing adventures here, too, so you can see how lovely (and rewarding!) it is both as a host and as a "surfer".
My children and I couchsurfed up the west coast to Washington and then over to South Dakota, where the transmission on our car failed and our trip was aborted. The cool thing is this: we met tons of great people and when the car broke down, people we didn’t even know were willing to come help us, whether that meant putting us up in their home, feeding us, driving us two hours out of their way.
It was remarkable and yes, life changing.
Since then we have surfed around New England and hosted travelers from all across the world.
We have introduced many friends to couchsurfing.
I know it may not be for you (or maybe it is!) and with that – I will also share:
Day 30 Catch Up: I would love to wear some of these dresses while I travel!
I was wearing one of my favorite, ultra feminine shirts Saturday and Emma said, “Mommy, I like your new shirt… where did you ge… I mean, who gave it to you?”
I rarely buy my own clothes. I buy my own undies. I buy the occasional pair of jeans but she is right. Me, buying for me is rare! I do buy costumes. And I do want to buy a sewing machine so I may begin making more “me” clothes than the standard off the rack.
That being said, I love how rock-a-billy style clothes look: you know, the flared skirts, the pleats, the showing off of the waistline – the one part of me that I feel isn’t completely horrid. I just love how flattering the styles can look on me.
I don’t have any of these clothes, but I sure was inspired hunting around on-line for some new looks.
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 -
didn’t question the legality of it, I just thought it was great my friend Steve was getting married. It wasn’t until it was legalized (briefly) in California that I discovered, “You mean this isn’t legal?” My current research is to collect all the Biblical references regarding what Jesus actually SAID about this issue since I have a meeting with a fellow Christian about this topic next week. My children and I protested here in California and carried signs that said, "Christians Against H8." I had the best theological discussions that day.... and I was afraid my church friends might see me and tsk tsk. I also believe in equality in education – meaning all school districts should strive for excellence and serve their underserved populations like Special Ed students through mainstreaming as many kids as is appropriate and not just warehousing the “inconvenient” kids. And wouldn’t it be great if there really was a community where interracial friendships were the norm instead of the exception? How about straight people and the LGBTQ community hanging out together without women being called Fag Hags or straight women hanging out with lesbians being presumed lesbians. How would I create such a law? No idea, but I think if we created an environment of love and compassion, these outcomes would be like breathing. Maybe for our kid’s generation.
would prefer the women who are engaging in that profession be protected AS WELL AS the men who are purchasing their services. Imagine if we could be sure there aren’t all those diseases rolling around and imagine if we could get horrifyingly violent pimps off the street. Imagine if all the prostitutes were actually there by choice because they realized it was a way to make a decent living, support their families or whatever it is they are doing? Imagine if you couldn’t be drugged up to be a prostitute and you couldn’t have untreated STD’s to be a prostitute. Imagine if we could collect sales tax on prostitution to keep our infrastructure intact. (Some of our roads here in California are AWFUL!) Read here about how forward thinking parts of the US were in the 19th Century AND how women's rights were won first by Prostitutes and the WOMEN who employed them. I didn't write this, a scholar did....
biggest Carrie Nation style drug Prohibitionist you will ever meet. I have friends who, again here in California, have their Medical Marijuana cards, which is a joke. I hate it! People say “Oh, my fingers hurt from typing, I need a medical card” and they get one! And then they get HIGH and then they may lose their jobs because of the marijuana that stays in their system for a long, long, time! I know, look at all my exclamation points. I just found out last night there is a part of the marijuana plant that may be ingested (not smoked!) which actually HELPS with brain function. My thought with legalizing certain drugs is #1) Take away the power from the Drug Cartels #2) Empty our jails of bodies just wasting away and becoming bigger criminals from the culture on the inside #3) Again, build our infrastructure with tax revenues. #4) Actually minimize addiction instead of maximize it. Remember how awful it actually was during prohibition? All the crime, all the dirty activity caused because by it?
all General Education teachers get training in Special Ed and with the huge Autism Epidemic, I would be sure the schools and the teachers are prepared. They would discover teaching a spectrum kid is actually helpful to their entire class. I would be sure all the administrators are educated in Special Ed law and if they BLOW IT by not helping a child they have the smallest inkling might have special needs, send those principals out of their offices and into special ed classrooms. Test them on laws and if they fail, they lose their income until the pass their legal exam. Can you tell it was administrators who failed my son? I realize this is more of a state-by-state and district by district thing, but I just wish all our children could be served AND that we, as a society, created a world where uniqueness was treasured rather than hidden off in the special needs ghettoes which exist on so many campuses today.
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