When I started this blog I decided to not put any of my writing here.  I didn’t want to make people feel obligated to read or comment, to be polite.  And I also didn’t want to deal with criticism when I was just feeling my way back into writing.  But Lisa, from the satsumaart blog (link in the blogroll) has been sharing these amazing writing prompts with me.  And not only that, but she’s been so brave, posting her prompt results.

Everyone knows a prompt isn’t something to spend time on.  The purpose is to open those gates and let the words flood out freely, in whatever form they want.  So there’s no editing, no plotting, no forethought at all.  Which is me taking a roundabout way to say that I am going to post my first writing prompt here, just to honor the task Lisa has given me.  Don’t expect perfect writing.  And please excuse me for hogging the spotlight and digressing from talking about writing.

Prompt #1 Salvation

Wasn’t a life change supposed to happen with salvation?  I expected it anyway in my early twenties, and so I figured I must have done something wrong.  I’d ask again, and nothing.  Maybe I wasn’t humble enough.  Or, wow, maybe I didn’t really mean it.  The people in the bible study group made it sound so easy.  So I started asking questions, and the answer I repeatedly got was as deflating as the lack of fireworks.  Faith.  You have to accept it and believe it on faith alone.

Excuse me.  If you want me to devote my life to something, I need something back.  Something more than faith.  Like answers.  Like explanations.

I walked into the woods instead.  The trees became my faith.  They were concrete, I could touch them, they were quiet, non-judgmental, didn’t act like I was going to hell, seemed content to be my back support and a sharer of dreams.  I could sense their roots digging deep, not only into earth, but into history.  I could sense their branches reaching high, not to something in the sky out of sight, like heaven, but opening to breathe in, to breathe out, to be part of and mingled with and shared.

I could sense timelessness, a slowing of rushing, an attitude of bringing that errand-driven heart-rate under control in order to be part of, to walk among, to simply be.

I felt weird, maybe crazy, definitely foolish talking to the trees.  I’d whisper, looking over my shoulder.  Until I found out I wasn’t the only one out there doing the same thing.  Not a tree-hugger, not an environmental hippy, just someone who felt okay being with trees.  Part of something bigger, part of something older, more majestic, more spiritual and holy.

I want my salvation to be growing old like a tree.  Gnarled, bent, wise, patient, living each second like it’s a year, feeling cool earth between my toes and a cool wind in my hair.  And when I die, cremation, fertilizer for seedlings.

I think most writers, if they have been bedding down words on paper for any length of time, have come across these questions.

Where do you get your ideas?  How do I write a book?  What should I name my character?  How do I get published?  How do I know where to start?  How do I know when to stop?  Why do my stories die in the middle?  What does ‘show vs. tell’ mean?  My best friend tells me my writing is really good so why do I need an editor?  Where can I find publishers to send my story to?

Those types of questions have been asked so often that they have become clichés, and questions that make many grown inwardly when they hear them.  What I can’t figure out is, why, if these are so common, do people keep asking them?  All you have to do is go to the Books section of Yahoo Answers and you’ll find hundreds of variations on these same questions.  It seems like these have been answered so, so many times, that the answers should be floating out there waiting to descend on the next person who asks how to get rich writing.

I think most of these must be basic building blocks in taking up a life of writing.  These are the questions that weed out those who ache to tell a story and those who think writing is a get-rich-quick (and easy) job.  They get asked so often because there are so many newbies out there.   Does that mean we should roll our eyes or run away when someone asks one of these?  Of course not, because everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.  And beyond that, a beginning writer should be held in the palm of our hand and supported, because once upon a time, someone answered our questions and supported us.

We were supported until we moved past those oh-so-blatant beginning writer questions and started asking a new set.  How can I make my dialog more believable?  Why do my characters feel so cardboard?  Help me understand scene/sequel.  How do I get rid of those passive verbs?

This new set of questions become a platform for clichés, where more experienced writers step.  And so on and so on. Will we ever get to the point where we don’t ask questions that someone else sees as obvious, boring, and a sign of our lack of skill?  I doubt it.  I just hope that no matter how many questions I ask, there will always be someone there willing to take a moment and answer with respect.

After all, I think the best thing I have learned over the years of asking questions, is that the best answer always includes empathy.

And let’s face it.  After years of writing and of having days when I feel like I’m not a beginner, I still posted a blog not that long ago wanting to know how to find a title for my story.   Guess I’ll cringe here, laugh, and go back to the pen and paper.  But hey, what’s the most embarrassing question you’ve asked about writing, or been asked?

This isn’t a typical post for me in that I have a few thoughts today instead of one theme.

Today I wrote in a large whelping box, with a pig pile of three-week-old Irish Wolfhound puppies scattered on and around me.  The quiet was warm and soft, not like the quiet when writing at the table at home.  The air smelled of goat’s-milk belches, and that clean distinctive scent of new puppy.  For two hours it was a peaceful place, and words flowed.  Of course that was followed by a frenetic, charged, insane fifteen minutes of bottle feeding those same puppies, as they scrambled to gobble as if afraid I was going to take the bottle away too soon.  But once the tummies were distended, they made their grunting way back to sleep, and gave me back the quiet inspiration to write.  Who would have thought any writing could be productive in such a place?

Lisa, from the satsumaart blog listed on the sidebar here, sent me a writing prompt today.  I agreed to be on a list and when I opened the email I saw, in huge letters, ‘Write Lisa!  It’s what you’re here for’.  Okay then.  Something that strong begs to be answered.  The prompt was ‘salvation’ and I was only supposed to write for 10-15 minutes.  I remembered that twenty minutes later.  I’ve never been a huge fan of prompts, as mentioned in previous posts, but who could ignore that opening.  Write Lisa!  It’s what you’re here for.  I need that branded in a place I’ll see every day.  On the back of my hands, maybe, visible as I stretch for a pen, or a keyboard.

Titles are challenging.  I have one story that is in its final critique phase, and I have started a sequel.  In the sequel, I wrote a description of Burke, Idaho, that read like this (remember, the sequel isn’t finished or edited):

‘Back yards were canyon walls, and front yards were littered with rocks eroded away from the cliffs above.  There were even stones scattered over pitched roofs, like some weird mountain rain. Some day the canyon would simply topple over on top of the houses.  Cody thought that dreams under those roofs would speak of being buried alive.’

When I wrote that, there was this epiphany moment, ‘Mountain rain’! There’s the title.  It would mean more than just the expected.

The problem is, I can’t come up with a title for the first story.  Initially I called it Left in the Dark because of the theme of the story.  A girl left in the dark about her life, a grandfather left in the dark about his parentage, a town in the dark about murders, a woman left in the dark at the bottom of a mine shaft.  The title would mean so many things.

I didn’t get favorable comments on it though, and someone suggested Blood Bonds because of the bonds of family.  Those who didn’t like the first suggestion liked the second.  But since then, Twilight has come along, and every time I see that title, I think vampires are going to fly out of the laptop screen.  Yet I can’t come up with anything else.  To be honest, I still like the first one.

Titles.  Blah.  Back to writing and listening to new music suggested by friends.