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For as long as I can remember, I have been an avid reader. I have always been drawn to biography and non-fiction, but I need a “fiction fix” every now and then too. Since becoming a writer, I have often heard (and read) other writers say that reading is one of the most essential tasks of every writer. So far, I have taken that as a given and figured that I had that task covered. I am already a “reader” so I can check that off the list, right?
In recent weeks, I have tried to think about some specific ways that reading makes a difference in my writing. I don’t think I have an exhaustive list (yet) but this is what I have come up with so far:
- Exposure to different styles and formats
- Understanding of the reader’s point of view
- Increased vocabulary
- Ideas for my own work
- Motivation
- Pleasure!
Gotta go…I just got to the good part of my book!
Most of my reading this week has been on the computer and related to the new administration. These are links to some of the things that resonated with me as I read them:
Let’s treasure the old along with the new - Wynton Marsalis
Doesn’t ‘Americans’ Say It All? – Steve Duin
What Rick Warren Said - Lisa Miller, Newsweek
We Can’t Trust Timothy Geithner – Glenn Beck
I believe that, regardless of my political philosophy, I am commanded by God to pray for and submit to the leaders of our country. That’s the easy part. The hard part is remaining diligent and faithful in my prayers AND in knowing how, specifically to pray appropriately for the new president.
Honestly, I think that how and what to pray for the president will probably evolve over the weeks, months and years of the administration. As the contents of those prayers evolve, I have been made aware of 2 specific tools to help us all pray for the leaders of our country. I am sharing them with you in the hope that you will use them to remember to pray often for the president, even if you are not sure exactly what to pray each time.
Pray for the President Challenge
What about you? How are you praying for the President? I’d love to hear.
Like many millions across the country and around the world, I am watching the inauguration. Here are some of my impressions of what I am seeing…
- All those people between the Capitol and the Washington Monument don’t even look real! There are so many! It looks like something in a movie where the crowd is animated and replicated to save costs!
- Every time I have seen Malia this week, she has been taking pictures. I would love to see what she has captured. How great is it that she is taking her own pictures instead of just being the subject of so many others?
- I have to confess that I am such a “technology geek” that I am waiting to hit refresh at 12:00 noon to see how fast the White House web site gets changed to the new administration.
- Thank you, Rick Warren, for not being swayed by the criticism against you and for bearing witness of the truth of Christ as you stood on the platform. Amen!
- Wow…check out that hat on Aretha Franklin’s head!
- Wow…listen to her sing!
- OK…the web site didn’t change when VP Biden took the oath just now.
- The web site just changed…by my clock, it’s precisely 12:00 noon. Pretty amazing!
- Thank you President and Mrs. Bush – for your willingness to serve and for your commitment to making ALL the choices that were laid before you. God bless you as you return to your private lives.
- “We understand that greatness is never a given.”
- “Men and women obscure in their labor…”
- Why isn’t Inauguration Day a national holiday? What would it take to make it one?
- “We will not apologize for our way of life. Nor will we waver in its defense.”
- “…your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”
- “the spirit of service…a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.”
GOD BLESS AMERICA
The first time I remember knowing anything about Martin Luther King, Jr., I was an elementary school student living in a suburb of Memphis, TN. In the late ’70s, long before MLK’s birthday became a national holiday, it was observed in and around Memphis, the city where King was assassinated.
In those years, I don’t remember ever complaining about an extra school holiday. Nor do I remember having a true understanding of WHY we were being given a long weekend. Even then, some of what I remember feeling is being forced to “dream” something that seemed to already be a reality. After all, my friends and I sat next to black classmates on the bus and in our classrooms; we suited up for athletic competitions with black members on our teams; and we submitted to the authority of black teachers and coaches in our hallways. It never occurred to us that any of the black people we interacted with on a daily basis were inferior or less deserving of our courtesy and respect.
I am not naive enough to think that mistreatment and disdain for minorities is over because a black man will take the oath of office as the President of the United States tomorrow. At the same time, I am not willing to be forced into believing that the dream of MLK, Jr. is not, in many ways, fulfilled. Right or wrong, my children were out of school today with no more idea about why than I had 30 years ago. When they get back to their classrooms tomorrow, it would be UNUSUAL for them to find ONLY white classmates in the desks where their black, hispanic, indian and asian friends have been. As far as I am concerned, that says it’s time to move on to new dreams, no matter what color the President is!
- I am going to miss Laura Bush.
- If we can send people into space, why can’t we secure the President’s Blackberry? We cannot be a 21st century democracy, super power, OR civilized society if our President’s can’t be inundated (and distracted by) with email.
- I love to hear the phrase “peaceful transition of power”.
- I also love to watch that peaceful transition happen.
- It doesn’t really matter to me what kind of dog the Obamas end up with.
- The White House would be an AMAZING place to be a child.
- Washington, D.C. is a nice place to visit (after this week) but I wouldn’t want to live there.
- Our institutions, ceremonies and national traditions demand our deference and respect, even when our candidate is not declared the winner.
- I wonder why Inauguration Day is not a national holiday?
- The new president is only a few years older than I am. That seems strange that someone “my age” is old enough to be in charge of the whole country.
- Just once, I would like to watch how the White House permanent staff gets everything moved out and in on the same day.
- I miss Peter Jennings during events like this.
- I think President Bush is sincere when he says that he wishes President Obama “all the best”.
- I also think he means it when he says that he likes Obama and that “you would too.”
- I bet I would.
- I can’t imagine that anyone would want to do what you have to do to become President.
- I didn’t vote for President Obama.
- I’ll pray for him anyway.
- I hope you will too!
God bless America!
Now that my son is 8, he is ready for a ”big boy” bedroom. The safari animal fabric and polka dot window shades have served him well but he’s ready for something that reflects his current interests a little more closely. For his birthday in December, our gift to him was the promise of a room makeover “after the holidays”.
Yesterday, I embarked on what I thought would be some preliminary work for the makeover. Very quickly, it became a different day. I found everything I needed at Lowe’s on the 1st pass through the store which left me with PLENTY of time to see about a couple of the “big” things. I bought a mattress & box springs AND loaded it in the back of my car in approximately 8 minutes. I was even hitting the traffic lights and not having to sit through red lights. By the time I got home, the only thing missing for the room transformation was the paint.
There was only one thing left for me to do…GET STARTED! Between carpool and dinner, I got involved in making an upholstered headboard and that’s where my husband found me when he got home from work. Now, when I am in “mission mode” (my husband’s name for it), I don’t stop for much of anything. All arguing, bleeding and children “issues” are rerouted because I don’t eat, sleep or go to the bathroom when I get on a roll! Consequently, when dinner time rolled around and I declared myself “otherwise occupied”, my husband managed to put something resembling a meal together while I happily worked on my project.
Just before bathtime, my daughter was watching me work and she asked, “Mom, did you know you were going to do this today?”
I paused for a minute before answering her. “No, I started doing something else before I saw it was a different day.”
She is not yet old enough to understand how grateful I am that she gave me a reminder that being purposeful and deliberate doesn’t have to mean functioning without any flexibility. I wonder what my next “different day” will be?
Keeping content flowing on a blog or website is not easy. Doing it well takes time, preparation and commitment. If you are struggling to find topic ideas for your web presence(s), look in these places to find some new ideas.
- Book Titles – Seeing certain words together can generate ideas.
- Quotations – These can come from books or sites like Bartleby, The Quotations Page, Quoteland, etc. If you have a good ear, you can even use quotes you hear someone say to spark an idea.
- Newspapers – Use headlines as a starting point and write about the 1st thing that pops into your head when you read it. When headlines don’t jump out at you, read some of the articles and see what you can find in there. If all else fails, peruse the ads. Sometimes, there is something interesting there!
- Feed Readers – Reading what other people have written will help you get a sense of what is timely.
- People you see each day – Talk to wait staff, checkout clerks, mail carriers, co-workers, neighbors and friends for a different perspective of events and/or your community.
- Children - They see things that grown-ups don’t and, when we stop to pay attention, they provide lots of insight that we might otherwise miss.
- Job Listings – Reviewing freelance job listings provides an overview of the writing industry.
- Writing Exercises – Find a magazine or blog with a “writing prompt”. Complete the writing “assignment” and post it as a sample.
- Polls and/or Research Results – Look for ways to compare/contrast public opinions with writing and writing issues.
- Photographs - Go to a stock photo web site and choose a photo to write a story about.
Once you get in the habit of looking for post topics, you’ll find there are more things to write than you possibly have time to write about. Happy posting!
Recently, I read a book by Julie Morgenstern entitled “Never Check Email In The Morning”. Morgenstern is an expert in organization and has written several books dealing with topics related to organization and how it effects productivity and work. In this book, Morgenstern deals with several common productivity problems and she outlines 9 competencies to address, improve and, hopefully, correct those problems.
One of the strategies she mentions is to avoid checking e-mail in the morning. Obviously, Morgenstern has spent time watching my morning routine. I have no doubt that seeing the first things I do when I get to my desk would make an organization/productivity expert run, screaming to anyone that would listen…
“Stop. Do not log into your email account. There will be plenty of time for that later. If you go there now, you may not come back. Wouldn’t you like to actually accomplish something before you push that button?”
She’s right. I know she’s right, but I find myself drawn to the picture of that envelope on my toolbar with a magnetic pull that I cannot adequately describe (and that I rarely fight). What if today is the day I get a response to that e-mail query? What if that editor sends me the changes and needs the article turned around before lunch? What if something on my feed reader sparks the most perfect, amazing idea for an article?
“What if you actually wrote something before thinking about what you MIGHT write when (and if) you ever get through your e-mail?” (Ok, Morgenstern didn’t really say that but it’s my take on her reasoning for giving this advice in the 1st place.)
Maybe the problem isn’t so much the order in which I do things as it is the number of things I ultimately write. If morning is the best productive time for me (and it is), why not use it for the task that demands the most concentration, focus and skill? Checking email (or exercising, reading the paper, returning phone calls, or whatever else I try to do “first thing”) shouldn’t rob me of the best or the only writing I may accomplish today.
No matter what my calendar says or what may be waiting for me in my e-mail box, I can only do 1 thing, 1st thing in the morning. Maybe this Monday morning, I’ll make it writing and, for once, let the e-mail be what I might not get to for the rest of the day!
Twice, since Friday, I have read things directing me (and all writers) to write a “thousand words a day” as a way to practice and make a habit of writing. Today, I am trying it out for the 1st time. Perhaps coincidentally, I found the 1000 Words Meme that helped me get started. So, here goes…
She couldn’t possibly remember how many times she had been in this room before. She remembered the room being larger than it appeared today. Perhaps that was what happened as you got older? Rooms and houses and yards and even cities turned out to be smaller than you thought they were as a child. Her entrance was not as tentative as she had imagined that it might be and she didn’t feel the churning in her stomach that she had planned to ignore.
There was a larger crowd than she had been told to expect and that gave her a momentary pause. A young boy, probably about 3 years old, was crouching and peering through the opening in the wooden gate. Every little bit, he would stand up and check to see if his parents were watching. Mostly, they were not. His mother was talking quietly on a cell phone. His father was just standing and staring straight ahead.
Obviously, courtrooms are not intended to be warm, cozy places but, since it wasn’t time to begin, her mind wandered immediately to “improvements” that might make the place a little less stark and intimidating. It bothered her that the wood on the chairs wasn’t the same color as the wood in the rest of the room. She liked the tall windows but thought the paint color should have been something a little more adventurous. Granted, choosing the “right” white isn’t easy but there are choices that have a little more depth than what was on these walls. This looked like whatever had been on sale or, worse, what had been leftover from the last time the outside of the building was painted. About the time she was picturing a paint color with a name like “soapstone” covering the scuff marks and water stains, a little boy’s face appeared in front of her from the other side of the wooden wall.
It was the same little boy that had been playing at the gate a few moments earlier. With his parents obviously not paying attention, he had moved further away from them into the open area of the courtroom. She thought it funny that, for the boy, it was just part of the room. He was neither impressed nor intimidated by what was about to take place in that spot.
“Hello,” she heard herself say. She expected him to be, like many children that age, too shy to respond. Instead, he looked her straight in the eye and answered her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Working,” she replied. “What about you?”
“I’m going to be on TV. Have you ever been on TV?”
She answered by telling him that she had been on the Cousin Cliff show for her 4th birthday. It was in the late 60’s when children’s birthday parties meant the kids in the neighborhood came over for cake and ice cream and grape Kool-Aid. As it turned out, going to the TV station and wearing a birthday hat on camera was a HUGE highlight. She hadn’t realized until MUCH later that, once you had been to Cousin Cliff’s for your birthday, there would be little, in her whole life, to top it.
Again, she was brought back to reality by someone invading her space. Another woman, obviously a reporter, stumbled across the row of seats and sat down next to her. She glanced at her watch and announced “Thank goodness I’m on time today. Last time, I was 10 minutes late and I missed all the good stuff.”
About that time, the little boy’s face popped up from behind the wall again. He smiled and waved at the reporter. She waved back and said, “Ready for your closeup?”
She reached down and started fumbling through her purse to find her cell phone. She thought she should turn it off. It wouldn’t look good to be in front of all these people and have her cell phone start making noise. She pulled it out of the purse and was looking down to find the right button when the door opened. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have thought she had been transported to the Old South. The floor creaked and the door whined and an immediate hush took over. The boy walked quickly and quietly back to his seat with his parents. His mother stopped talking and turned off the cell phone. His father sat down and turned toward the door.
Right on queue, the back door opened and a well-groomed deputy walked in. He removed his hat and headed for the front and the opened door. He went through the door and waved the camera crew in from the back. They gathered in the front corner. After finding the best angle and setting the lights, they waved back to the deputy and indicated they were ready. The deputy walked back to the door leading to the hallway, opened it completely and invited people to fill in the empty seats.
The reporter busied herself with her notebook. Obviously, she had a set routine for marking her paper and writing her notes. She didn’t seem like she was trying to hide what was being written. Probably, there was only 1 newspaper with, maybe, 2 or 3 reporters and noone trying to beat someone else to the story. Glancing over at the few words already recorded, she realized this was, indeed, about to happen.
THURSDAY, June 4th
Central Courthouse – Courtroom A
Mayor Press Conference
The rest of the notebook page was empty, waiting for what she knew was an unexpected announcement. She had certainly never expected to be back here to live and do what she was about to do. There had to be some public presentation and announcement of the decision/conclusion. That was the part she was least comfortable with. A few people looked at like they thought she looked familiar but noone seemed concerned with why she was there. They seemed much more interested in what they thought the Mayor was about to say.
Just then, he came through the doorway and stood in front of the Judge’s bench. Just steps behind him were 4 men – one was the Chairman of the City Council and the rest were lawyers in town. They crossed in front of the Mayor and stood in front of the flag.
“Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for being here today,” the Mayor began.
For the 1st time, she felt nervous. She had thought about being excited and challenged and proud to serve but she hadn’t planned on being nervous. She took a quick look out the window at the monument on the yard. It, too, was smaller than she remembered it.
She tuned back in and turned toward the front just in time to hear the Mayor say,
“With great pleasure, I’d like to introduce our new Judge, my daughter. Welcome home, your honor!”
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