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...

The Literary Nuts

A new story that I'm working on...

Chapter One

There was not one who frequented the coffee shop on the corner road who would have taken it upon themselves to call the young lady who sat at the window seat each day “unfriendly.” Her manner was well-bred and genteel, yet she made no friends with her company, of the regular coffee and tea drinkers. This, in another, would have been enough for her to have been labeled a most unpleasant sort, yet none out of the assorted group would have so much as said she was disagreeable. She did not seek to be friends, nor did she seek to be enemies, and people grew used to her, as they would to a permanent detail of the room, such as a painting or table. They grew used to seeing her sitting by her window, one hand propping up her forehead, the other marking her page within the book she was reading. No longer did they attempt to distract this girl from her reading by such things as conversation, for they learned to realize such pursuits were useless. In return to any pleasantry remarks and conversation starters she would nod politely, smile, and go back to her book after an adequately polite pause.

They knew of her, only what they could perceive with their own eyes. The most observant one of them might have given a detailed description as to her appearance, yet even he would be unable to give even the feeblest account as to her character or personality. As with a fixture of the room, she soon ceased to be thought of as mysterious in any way. The faded green armchair situated in the corner received just about as much attention as the girl with the auburn hair and her book. To someone who did not frequent the coffee shop on corner road she was perhaps an oddity. Amidst the people who came each day to sip their coffee or tea and chatter busily to their neighbor she looked rather out of place. She was the one person in all of that busy place who sat alone with two empty chairs pulled up to her table.  She was the one person who sat silent, who did not chatter or converse, but who sat, serenely turning each page to that ever present book.

As was the daily frequenters of the small coffee shop, she was a person of habit. It was an unusual day that she did not make an appearance soon after the small clock on the wall had given its habitual tinkling of chimes upon the hour, as it signaled midday. Each day she appeared, each day she smiled to the waitress and ordered her usual cup of tea, and each day she sat down at the smallest table by the window and opened her book. None disturbed her in her habitual order of things.

Either the two young men, entering the coffee shop that day, had no respect for the order of things, as was popular opinion whispered in hushed tones. Or they simply did not know any better, which was considered highly unlikely. Either way, upon making an entrance they did a most unheard of thing. After ordering two cups of coffee, one to be heavily sugared, they glanced around the room and politely requested to take the two unused seats at the small table by the window. It was, to be sure, a very busy day in the small shop, and no other two available seats were placed together within the shop’s walls. However, to do such a thing was most inconsiderate, so the people said. The young lady was not to be disturbed. It was the well learned, and now well taught, rule of the place.

“The young lady” did not show the slightest sign of being perturbed by this change in the order of things. She did what anyone aware of her personality would have expected her to do; she smiled sweetly and said “but of course!” as if it were a turn of events she was delighted in and it were no greater pleasure than to be interrupted in her reading. After the young men had placed themselves at the adjacent corner of the table however, she glanced down at her book, clearly showing she wished to return to its depths. The proper behavior at this point would have been for the young men to have waited quietly for her to become wholly engrossed within her book and then to have proceeded to converse quietly amongst themselves, this however, they did not do.

The one who appeared to be the younger stared fixedly at the spine of her book for a moment and then said in affected accents “Chesterton, eh? Me thinks I have not yet by perchance come upon that particular title. If it would not trouble thou too heartily, might I beg for a glance to ascertain its content?” the girl stared at him blankly.

“Don’t mind Ted,” the other boy said quickly now that a conversation seemed to be in order. “He’s just been reading a mite too much ye’ olden British literature.”

“Theodore, my dear chap. Theodore, must I be forced to repeat it every second sentence? Dear fellow, my name happens not to be “Ted” nor even “Teddy” ‘tis Theodore Kent- at your service.” he finished off as he remembered his gentlemanly manners to the lady present.

“I’m Tommy Kent, pleased to meet you.” the other boy said now, sighing.

“Annette Gardiner.” The girl said, her face wrinkling up in a look of amusement that coffee shop had yet to have seen before.

With only a brief look of regret she handed over her book to the hands of the eager Theodore, who looked like he would have enjoyed eating up the book as a side course, along with his sugary coffee.

“Has he been like this long?” Annette asked of Tommy with mock solemnity. Tommy took a long contemplative sip from his coffee mug and raised an eyebrow. “He’s always been a nut if that’s what you mean.”

“I’m not sure it is.”

“Well, it’s what I mean, to be sure. I suppose I’m a bit of a nut myself, but Ted’s long gone.”

“Ted” here interposed. “M’dear Tommy, ‘tis all fine and dandy to be calling a fellow a nut, but you must remember to state that if I’m a nut I’m a literary nut!”

“Oh, quite literary indeed,” Annette joined in, “I’ve rarely seen such an obviously literate fellow in all of my born days!”

Here Theodore kissed her hand graciously.

“To tell the truth, we rather sought your acquaintance because you looked quite literate yourself.” Tommy said rather bashfully. “We were just going to leave the coffee shop but you seemed like someone you’d want to know- so we joined you.”

“Indeed I am most honored.” She said, finding the formal tones rather catching. “Am I singled out in this honor, pray, or do you two often seek out any stray personages who happen to be reading at the time?”

“Well, that’s just the thing,” said Tommy “We have just now decided to form a league where we shall hunt down literary sorts of people. You’re our first one.”

“We are calling ourselves the literary nuts, to be sure,” added Theodore grinning rather broadly. “It’s not stalking if that’s what you think,” He added “merely seeking the acquaintance of.”

Writers Block

It is a malady most terrible. The heart that does not tremor before sword or lance is rendered helpless before it. The most courageous must find themselves daunted as they look upon the vast wasteland struck dumb before the hand of this monstrosity. For by its fearsome hand, the very words are stilled from the pen. As is the pen mightier than the sword, so is the malady that stills the pen a more all consuming and petrifying one than that that stills the sword. The very name chills the valiant hearts of so many gallant writers across the world; such is the awful and horrifying thing that is called writers block.

Writers block, procrastination, intimidation, which is it that I am struggling with?

I really can’t tell you at the present time. Perhaps it is a mixture of all three. I think however that it is of the most, intimidation. You see, I have reached a certain point in quite a few of my stories, where it has become intimidating for me. I want to proceed. I know how I want to proceed. I open the word document and start scrolling down through all of the pages and pages of paragraphs saved under a certain title and I just don’t know where to begin. It doesn’t help that when it reaches that point it takes rather a long time to scroll through it all, and to top it all my computer freezes when I am scrolling through more than twenty pages in any one file.

Intimidation then strikes procrastination. I fiddle a little bit with a few sentences but leave any in depth editing and continuation for later…and we all know how that ends, don’t we? Later never comes, it’s always just a day away. Like “tomorrow” we can never really arrive at “later” it eludes us and escapes with each day that passes. A winsome butterfly that we are chasing but it slips through our grasps and we see it calling us, still just a day away, always just one more day and we will be in tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes it transforms into today, and a new tomorrow is shining for us to see.

With intimidation and procrastination comes writers block. You don’t want to proceed on anything new without first proceeding on the old. So we are at a standstill.

But enough, enough, I say!

Enough intimidation! Enough procrastination! Enough of this writers block!

What I need is to start writing consistently, and the only way to write consistently is to get into the habit. The habit of writing a little bit every day, which is a habit I want to be in. So my new goal (goals are very good things, you know) is to write a little bit every day- I think I shall start with my goal being a thousand, maybe two thousand words a day. That is really a quite easy amount, but the difficulty is not the amount but in the consistency.

So that is my new goal, to bring about an end to this dreaded disease, this writers block!

End of my proud little speech.

(Small print)

Wanted: a cure for writers block. Contact our agency with any new found information concerning this malady. Tips, suggestions, helpful advice would be welcomed with opened arms. Also accepting; basic rambling on dealings with this disease, sympathy, pats on the head, chocolate and coffee. Any addition would be welcome. We are open Monday through Sunday, twenty-four hours a day. All responses will of course be accepted through our commenting system. Thank you, and have a very nice day. *cuts off with a burst of loud static*

As I sit by the Heater

Outside my window…the light of day is growing dim. It is not yet night time by any means but the light of the afternoon is fading quickly, and it looks more to be evening time than afternoon now. I am sitting with the laptop placed atop my knees, with my back leaning against the wall so that I might sit cozily by the heater as I write. The heater is giving off a nice warm glow of heat and I feel that I could really be a little grey kitten and curl up in my little warm patch. A little patch of warm just like a little puddle of sunlight streaming in through the window just meant to be curled up in. Except you see, there is no sunshine streaming in through the window, only a soft sort of green light. It sounds strange saying that, a soft green light and you rather think of an eerie sort of light, or what it reminds me most is that place in-between our world and Narnia described in “The Magician’s Nephew,” and really that latter description fits rather well come to think of it. Perhaps it’s just the mood I’m in, but the world has that sleepy peaceful sort of feel that accompanies the soft green light of that enchanted forest. I’m looking up out the window again now and studying the different shades of green to be found in the grass, I never noticed how many different shades you can find there. Streaks of light green, and mossy green, and a deep damp sort of green, with patches of brown all intertwining. The light is fading away quickly and a soft evening feel in the air is developing.

I’m wearing…A blue knit dress with buttons running down to the waist accompanied by a little blue ruffling, a pair of black leggings and a silver grey cami with lace embroidering the top.

I’m listening to…for a long time all I could hear was the voice of my brother as he read some story to little ones but that is gone now, and all that I can hear is the skipping of my fingers across the keyboard and the soft piano music of a cd playing in the background. It is strangely quiet at the moment, quiet and peaceful. It’s funny the little noises that go unnoticed till you listen for them. When I pause what I’m doing to listen I can hear noises that you wouldn’t think of hearing, noises like a quiet little hum of the oven. Little noises that we are constantly hearing but that go unnoticed I suppose because of the more thought provoking noises that we are listening to most of the time.

I’m reading…well, I’ve been reading half of the day today, you know. Not just on one book either, oh no I have been reading two. One to myself, “Little Dorrit” and the other, a book to read out loud to my brothers (I have read it over half a dozen times myself of course) “The Scarlet Pimpernel.” I think I shall wait to talk about the actual aspects of the book when I am a little bit further into it but as far as the physical aspects of that little book I’m getting rather attached. Now, normally I don’t like hardback books, they are rather harder to get cozy with, but this one is such a cozy little bit. Nice and plump, with a nice manageable little red cover and gold printing for the title. Oh I do love nice plump books, the type you can just curl up in a corner comfortably to read. This one has a nice little red ribbon bookmark attached to it too which is always the nicest thing. I actually am not too terribly fond of real bookmarks, not from any good reason but because I have an awful habit of leaving them places and I can never find one when I need one. Which is my own fault of course but they are a bit of a nuisance to keep track of, so the little ribbon is just the thing to suit me and save my little books from being badly abused by being left open all over the place.

Around the house…well, of course describing the books like I did for the previous prompt makes me want to go hide with them somewhere.

One of my favorite things…I’m looking up at the lights hanging around the roof of the house in this room and of course because of that they are the only things I can think of to fill this prompt. Pretty Christmas lights glowing and lighting up the room cheerfully. They make me so happy.

I’m thinking…I’m thinking of nothing of real consequence. I’m thinking of the blog post I want to write, of the book I want to read, of the different stories I have resolved to continue. I’m thinking of a new name for a character that is beginning to form in my mind’s eye. I’m wondering when I shall see the lights of Daddy’s car pulling up the drive and home. I’m thinking about a drawing I started of a character in a fairytale story that I have yet to finish coloring.