Kate's Writing Challenge #5

This week Kate reminded us about the importance of taking time to read.



As writers, we likely all came to our love of writing through a love of stories and reading. But, it is easy to get in a rut where life is too busy and there's no time for stories of any kind.



So, I made time to finish a book I've been stalling on for over a year then started the next in the series, too. (Mitford books)  It makes complete sense how reading primes the writing pump, but like staying hydrated, it's an easy essential to lose sight of. Writers are watered by words.

Old Journal Entry

As part of the writing challenge with Candlewick Press hosted by Kate DiCamillo, we've been asked to keep a journal. I usually prefer a new journal for each new batch of thoughts or 'season of writing' but I pulled a barely used one out of the stack and determined to use it despite the few scrawled in pages. This is what I found in there, without dates but (obviously) before the final decree.



***Begin Transcription***



Things You Interrupt Before I Can Say (and to keep me from saying) or

Things That I Think To Myself Sometimes:



You say (to our oldest daughter): Your mom wasn't dressing to attract. She was wearing baggy clothes when we met.

I think:  Tell her the rest..."she told me her plan to wait but I talked her out of that nonsense. But, you dear daughter, should do as I say and not as me and your mother. 
Notes: My choices are and ever have been my own. I am not freed from them because you were involved. I am not who I started out as (for better or worse) and neither are you. These changes are not isolated events - more like chemical reactions or natural growth. How does the baggy-clothes-wearing girl become persuaded she had best get more attractive? It comes doewn to cause and effect.
Who is a bigger whore- the girl who drops her purity for a bread crust of compliment or the fox who runs off with it in his sly mouth?
How can a man with a monthly subscription to locks-on-the-door media  be the same man undone by his wife's back tattoo? (So- you want sexy, but only on women you rent, not those who belong to you?) 
You always change his identity for her. The guy she attracts will be some redneck wife-beater, you say. She is exactly like me, you say - but also not like me at all. I was wearing baggy clothes, not being a slut also everyone knows a tramp stamp makes you a whore. But whether she is like me or not (I believe it can be both) You are never in these scenarios accurately depicted. Her mom is a harlot, does she want to be like that... attract guys like that... like who? Not you. We all know you aren't attracted to me. 

I feel the reason a piece of fruit is used in the story of the first sin is because it seems so inconsequential. One bite. One under-developed little Nemo fin, stuck out defiantly to 'touch the butt' when suddenly - all is lost. And there was blame enough for sandwiches all day after the forbidden bite - there always is. Each excuse held truth of a sort, but not a drop of pardon.



I wonder if Eve ever realized, in retrospect, that she could have pulled a Nancy and  just said 'No', or if Adam ever wished he had just controlled himself. I bet becoming parents helped them -maybe they warned Cain about limits but had to watch as he pressed ahead, knocking their love out of  his way.



*** It ends there, I guess I got distracted, because the thought is incomplete***

Kate's Writing Challenge #4

This week, Kate reminded us that keeping everything in one notebook is smart and keeping that notebook with us all the time is even smarter. I try to do this, though I tend to want a fresh notebook for each set of thoughts. For this challenge, I chose a notebook with only a few entries from a year or four before and decided I would just use it all 'willy-nilly' til full.



In the spirit of 'I always enjoy writing when I get back into the practice of it' - I now share some of the writing that was already in the notebook chose. I wish there were dates, but it seems safe to say I was still married... or mostly.



'Some men want an impossible thing:

A woman whose beauty makes him

the envy of everyone he meets

And also, a woman, the very same woman,

that no one else can see.'

~~~



---

I still exist, beating heart, daily breath

the rest of me invisible

~

I seek the sun, its warmth

and cheer

~

I am complimented on my eyes.

he says this makes me a hoar,

~

I didn't solicit strangers' kindness,

It's the sunshine they're drawn to, not me

~

Gratitude makes every life better-

Even his, if he would allow himself to see.

---