“What you think upon grows.” Emmet Fox

Tags

acrylics, art, Colored Pencil, drawing, education, Emmet Fox, example, mixed media, Online Instruction, Pencil, positive, Sister, thought, visual arts

Susan’s first drawing

I wasted many thoughts in my twenties and thirties on imagined worries.  In my forties, I had more reason to worry but I chose not to.  On separate paths, my sister and I helped each other to consciously change our thought.  We decided to waste no more on troublesome people, situations, or conditions.  Instead, we would strive to think positively and creatively.

Susan drew flowers for an assignment at a pre-school conference. The instructor encouraged her so much she bought colored pencils and played around. She laughs to recall the poor quality of the pencils, and the drawing’s primitive elements. Slowly improving, never giving up, she took a few lessons, advancing to water-color and acrylics.*  Since most of us are visual learners, and we continually need proof of even the simplest of truths, consider Susan’s art.  From flowers to mountains, she has proven, “What you think upon grows.”  It can be a daily battle to keep our thoughts positive.  But, today, I feel armed.  Thank you, Susan, for your sharing your beautiful example.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/88582.Emmet_Fox

Susan’s Mountain

*Terminology verified by dear friend, K.T.

What’s in your nucleus?

Tags

art, artist, awakening, center, creativity, death, Divine Mind, faith, Family, God, grief, Home, infinite, inspiration, loss, loving, mom, mothers, nucleus, Parenting, Religion and Spirituality, Social Sciences, source

While a writer was awakening in me, an artist was awakening in my sister.  In these unexpected ways, we blossomed after our mom died eleven years ago.  We adored her and she adored us.  She charged us full of confidence, prayers, and joy.  We had depended on her like protons depend on a neutron.*  When she died, we fell apart.  But, somehow we pieced it all together to come back even stronger.  How did we do this?  This question has puzzled us for years.

Had we become self-centered in our pursuits?  Had we substituted ourselves where she had been?  No.

We had learned that relying on an individual to complete one’s universe is a risky, limited engagement.  When we fell apart, we saw her life’s example at our incomplete center.  She had never placed her mom, husband, or children in the center.  She had placed there a Divine Mind; a very loving God.  This had been the source of her strength.  As soon as we followed her example, we began to heal.  By placing this infinite presence in our center, we formed an even stronger nucleus.  We became charged with a limitless source of creativity and inspiration.

We are all God’s art.  Never doubt it.  Claim your center with “God which art in heaven,” and you will thrive and blossom.

Next time I’ll show you my sister’s art.  (This is not it.)

* photo altered from swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com. Chemistry advice provided by daughter, KT.

Waxing Sentimental about Sentimentality

Tags

Arts, Business, Business Services, Communications, editing, rear-view mirror, sentimental, Sentimentality, Stephen King, Uhaul, Writers Resources, writing, Writing process

Keep it in the rear-view mirror

It’s tough to know, “How much sentimentality is too much?” especially when writing a memoir.  Even more so when writing about camp; the most inexplicably wonderful experience I’ve ever longed to relive second only to my kids’ early years.  I heightened the challenge by using real names, having only two antagonists, (possibly three, if my high school is counted), by accentuating the positive, and by having “a glut of characters”, to quote my first editor.

In my earlier post, “Life is Like an Onion”, this phrase, in particular, reeks of it; “Like a knife, the sharp pain of my mom’s passing had cut to the immature flower within and exposed these layers which I tenderly peeled away with the written word.”  Truth told, there is little tenderness in the writing process.  Many rewards, yes, but mostly grueling editing, especially when one is told early on their work is too sentimental.  Ouch.  It took me a while to see it, but when I did great chunks fell prey to the delete button.  I shed no tears for the 30,000 words cut.  They needed to die and I’m proud of the finished product.

So keep this in mind as you write, while aiming for the finish line, “You have to be able to kill your babies,” to paraphrase Stephen King.  Thankfully, blogs are allowed greater leeway, I think.  So, until the next time, dear readers, and real life characters, please know my life would be so empty without you!  Time to wane.

http://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft/dp/1439156816/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350398148&sr=1-1&keywords=stephen+king%2C+on+writing#_

Life is Like an Onion; Priceless

Tags

art, Dead Sea Scroll, framing, Indiana University, Japan, life, Memory, Nicola Williams, North Idaho, Olive oil, Onion, Oregon, priceless, writing

KT unrolled the tattered batik on the framing shop’s counter.  The worn image of two onions evoked a flood of memories.  For Andy, the framer, it seemed unworthy.  He laughed at its frayed edges, scattered holes, faded colors and said, “Well, it’s no Picasso.  If it were, greater experts than I would be working around the clock to save it.”

Like the onion, its worth lay hidden. It had hung in my husband’s dorm room at Indiana University when we first met.  It had accompanied us on every move through his military career.  KT had resurrected it from the dusty garage for her dorm room at I.U., carried it to Oregon for her first home as a newlywed.  Now she wanted to preserve and display it in her second home in North Idaho.  She retained its sentimental value, I sought its mental value.  When readers ask, “How did you remember such detail when writing Memory Lake?” I quote the lowly onion.  Life adds layers.  Writing peels them away.  At the onion’s heart is an immature flower protected from the casual eye by layers of memory.  Like a knife, the sharp pain of my mom’s passing had cut to the immature flower within and exposed these layers which I tenderly peeled away with the written word.

As Andy quoted a framing price worthy of a Dead Sea Scroll, KT’s phone alerted a text message.  There, in front of that counter, we learned Dana’s battle with hodgkin’s lymphoma had officially entered remission after a year of treatments.  And so, as another layer of memory slipped between us and the onions, I reached for my credit card.

http://www.taylor.k12.ga.us/~tcms/onion/parts.html

Could it really be that simple?

Tags

Grand Rapids Michigan, Lake, Lake Michigan, Lewis Carroll, Michigan, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, National Weather Service, Waterspout, writing

Aim for the finish line…

COULD IT REALLY BE THAT SIMPLE?   Fifteen years ago, I walked the beach of Lake Michigan with my mom.  We had just taken KT to camp and wanted to stretch our legs before enduring the long car ride.  “I am writing a book,” I said, feeling undeserved and timid.  As an accountant, military wife, and mom, what did I know about writing?  The whitecaps, steady breeze, and endless blue had coerced this secret confession.  Mom’s stride halted.  Her red lipstick tightened.  Her hands gripped my shoulders.  “Just finish it,” she punched, before resuming her stride.  As she walked away, all the steps in between seemed to vanish.  Could it really be that simple?

She died three years later.  We never discussed it again.  But, her three little words held a wealth of inspiration.  Through doubt, rewrites, and even a complete shift away from the science-fiction-fantasy opus I’d set out to write, to a different genre, I knew the goal.  She had set it for me.  I smile at the irony.  “Memory Lake”, the finished product, is set on the shores of Lake Michigan and involves the camp KT and I attended generations apart.

To paraphrase Lewis Carroll, if you don’t know where you’re going, anywhere will do.  Therefore, in answer, “Yes.  It really is that simple.  Just finish it.”