Organization and Outlines

I’m thinking…

Recently this prompt has been one of my favorites to write. In a way I think this is because it’s a bit of an easy out. There are so many blog posts I’ve been wanting to write up, blog posts on this that and the other thing, random thoughts that I should like to sort out, but truthfully writing a blog post on a single subject it a bit intimidating for me. I’m not quite sure how to begin these blog posts I have contemplated writing in my head. That’s always the trouble, finding where to begin. This is why I find writing up this prompt so very enjoyable, because it is as if the beginning is paved out for you. You can take it anywhere, beginning with “I’m thinking…” and watch one’s thoughts unfold on paper.

I think though, I need to get a little better at writing out blog posts. Where I begin with an organized subject and proceed to write out my thoughts, sticking to that subject without drifting all across the map with my thoughts. There is something to be said for organization of one’s thoughts as well as free-writing. I think I talked of free writing in my last journaling page. Of how I liked reading a person’s writing as if one is reading their thoughts, and writing that way as well. Rambling, drifting, flouting easily from one subject to the next, like one’s thoughts drift through one’s mind. However, you really needs to be good at writing something that is more to one subject I think.

I suppose it’s simply a balance. You have to find a balance between writing easily and letting your thoughts drift out into words, and sticking to a more organized subject and group of ideas. I suppose this is where outlines would be helpful, right? I’ve always hated outlines though. Skimpy things formed of the strict idea of something, the bare bones. I want to add so much more to an outline than the barest of details. I want to go in depth, search deeper, find greater meaning to the words I am choosing, but then it wouldn’t be an outline.

I think I need to get on better terms with the outline, rather than he and I eyeing each other warily like two arch enemies I should realize that the outline is there to help me. I can’t help but feel he is my enemy though, I want to kill him dead and unleash the pent up words he hold prisoner.

I shall try to resign myself to making better use of the outline. He should be my map, my guiding light as I wander through a dark tunnel of thoughts, wondering wherever I should come out. I like that feeling though, that feeling of uncertainty, wondering where I shall end up with my thoughts by the end of whatever I am writing. I especially like looking back at the end of it, retracing my steps and looking at the finished item.

Anyways, this really leads me to what I was going to say originally, about wanting to write some more focused blog posts. A little more centered one idea, and the thoughts surrounding that idea. I love my journaling pages and I love writing out this prompt, but I need to write more focused things too. Mondays are for journaling pages though, so I shall proceed to ramble and drift as much as I wish for the entirety of this, and enjoy myself thoroughly while doing so.

I’m reading…

A couple days ago when I was shelving books at the library I came across ‘Anne of the Island’ of course you know I had to open it up and read the first page and then I was caught. Anne caught me up with her magic, and as soon as I came home I had to go straight to my bookshelf and open up my own copy. I love books that no matter how many times you have read them they still contain some of that old magic, they still surprise and delight you with that old first time read glory. I haven’t read ‘Anne of the Island’ in a long while actually. I’ve reread most of the others quite recently, but not this one. It’s funny, it was never one of my favorites of the Anne books growing up, but I’ve found myself loving it more and more. I suppose it’s yet another one of those cases where the book matched my stage in life, and as I grow older the books that are my favorites change with me. It doesn’t mean I forget my old favorites, they’re still there, in the back of my mind, much loved and well read, but each year has a new favorite, a new insight into an old book. You are always getting new thoughts and opinions on old reads, and that’s what I love best about rereading books. You always get something new from it.

 I also picked up a book on grammar yesterday when I was at the library. Called ‘The Grammar Bible: Everything you always wanted to know about grammar but didn’t know whom to ask’ I have to say I enjoy reading these sorts of grammar books. *chuckles* really, I’m quite attached to this book I own called ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’ I dig it out and reread it just to amuse myself. It’s because the author has such a funny way about talking about grammatical errors that people make and common errors. My favorite section in that book is this chapter where it is showing a couple copies of the same letter style writing, but by switching around a few commas it means such very different things. It’s really fascinating to think about what can change in your meaning by simply putting commas in different places. I suppose it should serve as a warning too, you know, that you should be very careful about how you write something, because it can be so easily misread. I think I must work on my grammar a little more.

I’m listening to…

 I just recognized the theme to the ‘Titanic’ playing in the background. I’m really not all that fond of that movie, for various reasons, but I am in love with the music. *proceeds to listen to the soft piano rendition happily*

I’m creating…


I just finished this drawing I did for a contest. I’m really quite proud of it. I think I shall post it and perhaps some of my practice drawings for it soon.

 Outside my window…

The pond is glistening back a reflection of the lovely blue sky and the puffy white clouds. A gentle breeze brushes the top of the water from one side of the pond to the other. A soft sprinkling of rain is falling.

Emily Writes

I'm thinking...

At the moment I'm bemoaning the fact that I am writing on a program that apparently doesn't have a feature to check my spelling for me. It is most unsettling, truthfully. For, as I write, I'm begining to wonder rather frantically 'did I just mispell that?' 'how about that?' and there is no way of knowing. So then I begin to feel that perhaps I shouldn't be writing at all, if I'm to be mispelling every second word (I know I can check it later, but I want to know as I go along. Yes, I know, I'm spoiled.) Really, I need to be more determined. I sat down to write, and I'm going to write, come mispellings and grammer errors! It is unerving me though, and I must try and stop thinking about it.
Actually, on a more interesting strain of thought, I was just thinking about free writing. It's really a good practice. I was just reading in a book how they all sugest that the best practice at becoming a good writer is to sit down and force yourself to write unstoppingly for however long, without thinking about mispelling and grammer errors and wondering if your topic of discussion is interesting. The thing is just to sit down and write whatever thought comes into your head and not correct or worry but let yourself put your thoughts onto paper and see what comes of them.
I was thinking however, that really, that's how I write normally. Okay, so I'm constantly slowing down and backspacing and looking for a good subject to talk about, but the general idea of writing to get down your thoughts is how I write normally, and Iove reading when people write like that. The very best emails and letters are the ones that you know the person writing you has done that. They've written to you exactly how they were thinking and how they would talk to you. I think that's really a sign of someone who writes well, you know. Writing is the way they pick up the stream of their thoughts and put it into words.
So many people's writing in letters and things happens to be very stiff and formal. Unlike how they would talk to you. They pick their topics carefully, put them into stiff paragraphs with stiff formal periods at the end of each stiff formal sentance. I find myself writing like that actually too, when I write to somebody I am less comfortable with. I was just picturing how it would be if we talked like that sort of letter to each other in real life. I can just picture the two people sitting straight up in their seats, their hands sitting on their laps and their feet tucked neatly under the chair as they looked at each other formally.

"Dear Fredricka, How are you?"

"I am quite well, dear Jane, and you?"

"Oh quite well, quite well."

"I planted a garden yesterday."

(insert look of interest and yet not over interest by anymeans)

"Oh really?"

"Yes."

(Insert awkward silence as we search for a new topic)

Nobody talks like that, you see. So we really shouldn't write like that. Well, you want some formality. Some proper organazation of the thoughts, but other than that we should write as we talk- only more so. Writing seems to be a way that you can get out all those words that you couldn't find the voice for in normal speech. Writing is a way that we can put down words that there didn't seem to be words that would be good enough when we were trying to speak them with our voice.
So there is nothing better that I like than an email or letter where I feel that the person writing it is talking to you, specifically you, and letting the words carry them away. Writing out their thoughts as they come to them, and not sticking stiffly to point one, two and three, in that order. You can always tell the people who love to write by their letters and emails, you can always tell they enjoyed themselves writing it because you enjoyed reading it. Right now I'm feeling rather blessed with my correspondants. I love people who write. I love people who read so much that they practically eat the words up off the page, and I love people who write like they are spilling out a box of words they had stored up just for the occasion.

I'm reading...

This morning I went and hunted up 'The 101 Dalmatations' to read aloud to my younger brothers for a little bit while they played with legos. Confession: I believe it was me that really wanted to read it. A friend was talking to me about it the other day, all about reading it again and this part and that part and fond memories flooded back to me. Memories of the funniest lines and of darling little scenes. Ever since then I've felt the urge to read it again myself. I think that's always the way, someone mentions a title and a few scenes they loved paticularly and after that you simply have to hunt up your own copy and read it again yourself.
It's suprising how much I love some of these books. I would almost say that 'The 101 Dalmations' is almost more of an adult book for all it's being a book for children. Every line is formed in this comical way that just makes me shake with laughter even when it's not a scene that is paticularly humourous in itself. I can just picture Dodie Smith writing it, she must have been chuckling to herself as she wrote each line. It's so unforced, you know. In some books the comical lines are very pointed, a character says something and you can tell it was meant for comic, but with 'The 101 Dalmations' no one character is saying anything very funny. The humour is deeper within the book than that. It's in each line, each sentance, practically vibrarinting from the very soul of the book.
Most of it is things that it would take a much older reader to comprehend though. A child listens and accepts the words without a question, giggling and clapping to hear about the doggies, but an older reader pauses over a sentance, reads it again with widened eyes, chokes, and bursts out laughing. There is so much humour hiding deep within the lines that unless you are reading carefully, you will never pick up on.

To live the liturgy...

Ash Wensday was yesterday. I'm really going to try and cut back on my computer time this Lent. In paticular I'm giving up a writing site connected with the school program I use and I am rather obsessivly attached to. I'm missing it. I'm missing reading through all of the threads, the debates, the crazies, the conversations, but the real reason I'm missing it is because I'm missing my friends there. They are all such dear people, and I miss them all, but there is a reason for this. A very good reason. I'm giving up a lot of my computer time because I want to create for myself a quieter atmeshere. Time of silence, for thinking and praying and opening up to a beauitful Lent full of growth. So I'm trying not to think of simply how much I miss talking to all my friends, since that isn't what I'm supposed to be focusing on- that would be taking away from the point. They will all be in my prayers, and I can still email some of them, so I'm trying to embrace these forty days of Lent, of quiet, of thought, of prayer.

I'm creating...

*cough* just because I'm not going to be going on my writing site doesn't mean I can't still partake in the contest does it? *giggles* There is a story contest for us poor suffers giving up our favorite thing. *grins* A contest for rather long stories. I'm rather excited. I have to think about the requirments a little more, and what I want to write with them, but I think I'm going to take part, and write a very long story.
Mom also found a contest that is going on in town for highschool artists. I'm thinking of attempting to draw something for that. I believe you are supposed to draw something of Victorian era in connection to an author of that time. I have to read up a little more on that one too.

Around the house...

I should really go do some tidying up now. Major tidying up. You would think I had been watching two tornados with the mess my little brothers have created this morning, and after that I should practice my violin, and read, and do some school work...and maybe take a nap...all before work...I should go get busy.

Water Color Hearts and Rambling

I’m thinking…

Well, lets try this again. Another journaling page, another day. I was feeling rather uninspired yesterday, it just felt as if I was repeating myself to myself. Like I was writing out only old thoughts, thoughts that I had already thought out and developed, if in nothing more, than in my own mind. You know that feeling that you are saying something over and over again without the thought ever changing from what it had been originally? Where you can bring nothing new or interesting to a sentence because it is a sentence that you have already been through and thought out. All that was what I was feeling yesterday as I tried to form a journaling page. Today I don’t feel that way so much- I feel like I can write out new thoughts, thoughts that I haven’t yet touched. I suppose that is what I consider writers block. Others may tell me that writers block is when you simply can’t write. There is nothing else to it but that you can’t write. I think though, writers block is also that sense that you have already been through those thoughts that you are trying to write out. It’s like when I try and write a story with a scene I have worked out over and over again in my head and suddenly when I’m trying to find the words that will fit that scene just write, all words vanish from the air and none will come to you. Over thinking things. I do that rather a lot. Over thinking things that really don’t need so very much thought placed into them. It can be a good thing and a bad thing I suppose. Good in that I want to place thought and care into everything I do, bad in that I sometimes want to place too much thought into something that is in all actuality just as it appears to be, it is face value, and there is nothing going on behind that face value. Thoughts are funny things, you know, they aren’t like orderly sentences all packaged together in nice orderly paragraphs. They are what I call rambling when I put them into words. I like to write as I think because I like to read that sort of writing. It feels natural, slipping from one thing to the next. All with a point to it, but a turning, twisting, rambling way of reaching that point. If thoughts were a picture I would imagine rambling to be the winding road that curves and loops as it makes it’s way up the hill, whereas another more orderly way of writing would be the straight and narrow road, cutting straight up the hill and reaching it’s destination with far less detours. However I rather like detours, pleasant stops along the way, stopping to sniff the flowers on the road’s edge, and that’s how I write. I like to make many detours in my writing, I like to see where I end up. You see, I really had no idea where I was going to go from this prompt, and just look where we ended up, and look at the rambling road behind us.

I’m reading…

Little Dorrit. One thing that I have been finding interesting in reading this book is I really have no idea on what my true opinion is about the characters. Most of the time I’m quick to judge on whether I love, hate, or am neutral about a character, but somehow reading this book I just can’t decide. My opinion changes with each word they utter, or action they commit, always changing as my view of these characters expands and grows. One minute I am thinking of Arthur Clennam as the perfect gentleman, kind and compassionate, friendly and rather selfless. The next minute I’m questioning his thoughts, wondering at his motivations, peering into his background and wondering what I might find there. One minute I am thinking of Amy Dorrit as the sweetest girl I have ever read, dear and hardworking, sweet and loving. The next minute she changes too and I’m wondering at her exclamation and her rather frenzied action. I have not yet read much on John Chivery yet even with he I have already been through varied opinions concerning him. One minute he seems rather foolish and clunk-ish, (Rather like another Mr. Cox from ‘Wives and Daughters’) the next devoted and the object of our love and heartbreaking sympathy. I rather wonder how my opinion will change yet again regarding these characters and all the others as I progress through the story (many, many other characters too. Charles Dickens certainly gives you a lot of people who all have a purpose to them and all of whom you cannot forget. Must remember. I wonder if he himself had to write out all of the names and a bit of a description regarding each one just so he could keep track of them all? I know I would have had to, but then again, I am not Charles Dickens by any means).

I’m creating…

Which of the little creations in the works should I focus on in my description? Shall it be the water color hearts I was cutting out this morning? Shall it be the drawing of Audrey Hepburn that I just finished? Shall it be the story that I wrote in the last lingering hours of yesterday? Perhaps a mixture of all of them together. Last Valentine’s day we painted sheets and sheets of water color paper with pink and yellow colors, and then I cut out hundreds (literally hundreds. I think there was some two hundred and fifty of them all together) and we strung them up on ribbon and they hung on our walls for months. This year I’m afraid we weren’t so on top of things. The little boys painted the top sides of the paper a few days ago, and yesterday I felt in the mood to slop some paint around. The nice thing about this project is you don’t have to worry about mess, indeed it looks much better on the finished hearts if there is a plentitude of watermarks and unplanned streaks of darker paint running across the paper. It was really quite relaxing, I took up the brush and swirled it around and it made me quite happy. This morning I spent a little bit of time drawing out the hearts and cutting them out. I know, Valentine’s Day was over yesterday, but there’s always more room for watercolor hearts for next year, isn’t there?
My drawing of Audrey Hepburn I’m actually rather proud of at the moment. I shall try and get a good picture that I can include with this journaling page. I spent quite a bit of time fiddling with the nose and the lips and I know even know they aren’t just right, but I’m still rather happy with it because I think it’s the closest likeness I’ve come to as far as drawing someone from a picture and having it look like them.
My story was a story I was trying to write up for a contest, the requirements being that you wrote up a short story in the form of a single letter or several. Last night I was hit by a bit of an idea at how I wanted to write it out and after a bit of debating on the wording I hurriedly wrote it up. I haven’t yet decided whether I like it or not. I think it requires some thought and rereading after a few days when I will be better able to look at what I DID write rather than what I was TRYING to write. That’s always the difficulty you know. It’s rather easy to think of something, just after you wrote it, as how you were wanting it to turn out, but when you read it a few days later you see that it was rather different and that the words you chose were not the ones you were thinking of. You just need to let it simmer in the back of your mind for a few days.
I’m hoping and praying…
For a beautiful and enriching Lent time. For the people I know in my life, in my day to day and also those people I know by emailing and letter writing. I’m praying for all of them right now. Praying for happiness for them, for a peaceful Lent, for a smile about some little joy today. I’m praying that I will be able to become a better and kinder person in all things. More steadfast in my schoolwork, kinder and more compassionate, and better able to find the right words when I need them, and not such a complainer about simple things.

From the kitchen…

A steaming bowel of soup before me, a whistling teapot there on the counter, chicken bubbling away in the crock-pot, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on pirate plates for little brothers.

I’m listening to…

To the sound of quiet actually. Rather nice. The boys have all gone to eat their lunch outside and have a picnic of sorts, so I’m enjoying the peaceful sound of piano music in the background and listening to the quiet.

Outside my window…

Blue skies and sunshine, is spring on the way? I hope so. I’m ready for springtime. For tulips and daffodils to begin to start blooming and blue skies and puffy white clouds. I love winter, I love the cold days and the cool crisp air, I love the chance of snowflakes and sweaters and mittens but I’m ready for the signs of spring now.

Picture thoughts I'm sharing...

My drawing of Audrey Hepburn

A Letter for Australia...

A Flour Heart from baking...

Water colors for water color hearts...

Journaling Page

I am thinking…

With a click, click, click, I write out several different sentences with which I could begin, and with a solid smack to the backspace key I erase them all. I’m finding it rather difficult to know where to begin today. With so many thoughts bouncing around how can I settle down and choose just one? At the moment, you see, I’m thinking many little thoughts, and there is not one which I can pick out from the many as of more importance or more weight.

I’m thinking of how very strange it is to write out two thousand and twelve rather than two thousand and eleven. I’m thinking of my rather peculiar dislike of inserting numbers into my nice orderly paragraphs formed of words (thus why I chose to write it out). I’m thinking of the two other blog posts I am currently devising. I’m thinking of my new year’s resolutions, which I shall include at the end of this journaling page. I’m thinking about this coming year and what it shall hold. I have a little day to day calendar in front of me, the type that you rip off a page for each day, and I’m thinking rather sentimentally about all of the things that will happen as each page is ripped away.

I’m also thinking (rather sentimentally and wistfully this time) of all of last year’s pages that we have posted up around our house as New Year’s decorations. Moving forward and letting go. It makes me happy and sad at the same time. Thinking of the days we can never return to always makes me slightly sad. I know that the future days will be a lovely and by the end of next year I will be in just such a mood about them, but I can’t help looking back at the past year and not quite wanting to let it go. There were so many reasons to love the dear old year, there will be so many reasons to love the dear new year also but just yet we aren’t quite friends yet. I’m still feeling rather unfriendly towards the New Year as its coming has made the old year, with which I was such friends, have to say goodbye. Give me a few days and I will love the New Year just as well, but for the moment I am still saying goodbye. 

Goodbye to the younger half of sixteen. Goodbye to my trip to WYD, to the joy and pain and growth of that time. Goodbye to many happy little moments, talking into the wee hours of the morning with a friend with my Mama peaking her head around the door and telling me to look at my clock and see what the hour was! Goodbye to those days but not to what we took from them and not from the memories which they bring to mind. Goodbye to our old selves, I think that’s what makes me feel the most wistful. We won’t ever be the same. I won’t be the same. I will never feel all the same things that I felt being sixteen in the old year. My sister is growing bigger and changing from a baby to a big girl at a rate that leaves me astonished. My fourteen year old brother Marcus is changing so quickly, his hands and feet are bigger than mine now and it won’t be long before he’s towering above me. My little brothers are changing so quickly too, they will never be nine years old and five again. 

It’s not that I want things to stay the same forever. That would be awful. Never changing, never growing, never becoming anything but what I am now, it’s only that knowledge that I can never go back that makes me sad.

I’ve never done well at saying goodbye, I remember how I used to cry whenever we had friends over and at the end of the day or two they would have to leave. I love saying hello, hello to this brand new year! What happiness and sorrow will this new year bring? What new ideas, new writing, new drawings, new blog posts, what new things are to be created over this next year? How will I change and grow? What beautiful things are to be found in those unmarked days on my calendar? It reminds me of starting a new journal, looking through the empty pages and thinking of all the words and sentences that could be written therein. So I must say a fond goodbye to this last year, with a warm hug, a kiss of my hand, and many lovely memories, and say hello with equal warmness to the new year with all its openings for new and grand adventures.

Goodbye old year! Hello new year!

Outside my window…blue grey is the sky, clouds of a soft darker color. Clouds, they drift across the sky so quickly, sent blowing by the wind, the wind which gently sends the trees swaying and the water of the pond rippling.

I’m listening to…the same wind that is blowing outside my window I can hear faintly through the glass. All will be still and then suddenly I’ll hear it pushing against the window. I can also hear the soft background piano music we have playing in the living room, my brothers noisily eating their lunch, a door closing, my fingers typing, and someone’s footsteps walking past this room.

I’m wearing…I always rather liked this prompt as I always feel like I get to describe myself as a character in a story. Would that I could talk of soft brown eyes or long rippling hair flowing down from my alabaster brow (all right, I couldn’t help myself with the last bit, could I? *grins*) Instead I must describe a rather undignified personage with blond hair which I have decided to let curl rather than try to tame. I’m wearing my new pair of dark brown Ugg boots (they were a Christmas present and I am still so, so excited about them! My other pair was worn through, you could stick your fingers right into the middle of the souls! That is what three years of constant wearing will do to a shoe, you know!) With my boots I’m wearing a pair of jeans, and a peasant style blouse with a ruffled color and cherry blossoms covering it. What I need is a rather large scarf to cover my head and a basket full of eggs so that I can prance around singing a happy little song at the top of my lungs. Much to my enjoyment, and to the displeasure of my siblings who will in an instant tell me to pipe down. Perhaps I shall sing very, very quietly…

I’m reading…I am currently reading a biography on E. B. White (I shall perhaps write up something more on that at a later date. I will only say for the present that I would have loved to have been able to meet him.) and Robin Hood by Howard Pyle, which I picked up at the library yesterday. I was rather excited, since I’m in love with all things Robin Hood at the moment. Again, I shall write up more soon. The other book that I am waiting to be reading is Lorna Doone. It is at the present at the library where they are mending it (*sad face* why don’t people take better care of books? *gentle sigh*) but it has my name on it so as soon as they are done fixing it up it will be mine to read! I’m so excited! *bounces* I recently watched the film and I can’t wait to read the book!

I’m creating…There is a story that is currently in the making on a different word document on this computer! Isn’t it so much more fun writing something when you are writing it with someone else? Oh goodness, I do love writing! Especially with a friend!

From the kitchen…this morning I woke up and made oatmeal bread while watching an episode of Robin Hood (I’m obsessed with the BBC Robin Hood. I am afraid that this obsession will soon be showing itself here there and everywhere before I can contain myself.) anyways, the smell of fresh warm bread is still filling the air. Is there any better smell to be coming from the kitchen? I think not.

One of my favorite things…letter writing. I love writing long and wordy letters and then I love peering in my mailbox every day when I know that I will perhaps get a letter sometime soon. I have a letter to write very soon by the way, I must sit down and write it. *nods*

Around the house…well, what I would really, really like to be doing around my little home this morning is reading, tucked away under the warm quilts of my bed or situated in my comfy chair, is there anything better that you could be doing this blustery and cold winter day?

My New Year’s Resolutions…

I have been thinking about this all while writing the above. In the New Year I want to be kinder, to be more patient. I want to look for the good in everyone even if in our interactions they aren’t always as pleasant as they could be. I want to be more dedicated with my studies and less easily distracted, beginning with getting up at a realistic and yet earlier time in the morning. I want to be open to growth and change.

I want to pass my Driver’s test and get my Driver’s license.

I would like to go to Australia.

I am going to try and keep my room in a tidier state.

And lastly I’m resolving to pick up my instruments and practice more.

A picture thought I’m sharing… I found this picture when I was browsing for something (I can’t remember just what at the moment, but it was something) and I really liked it so I thought I would share.