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blogging101, Creative Writing, Journaling, Reflections, Ruth Lakes, Writing 101, Writing Prompts
Over at Ruth Lakes’ blog Life, living, work and play, Ruth has begun a regular feature called Wednesday Word. She says:
Each Wednesday I choose a word and think about it for five minutes or so, usually when I’m having a coffee break at work. I scribble down whatever the word suggests to me and post it when I get home in the evening (well, after walking the dog and eating my evening meal).
If you would like to join in then please feel free to do so. You can post it on your own blog (would be great if you pingback to me so I can have a peak), or post in my comments if you prefer. It’s up to you.
I really enjoy reading what Ruth posts about her words, but this week I found my thoughts about this particular word quite diverse from hers (and those Colette from The Wishing Well) posted. I was puzzled by my reaction. I have a great interest in WWII, and I would have thought that’s the first place my mind would have gone. But to my surprise, it didn’t!
Ruth’s word was Emaciated: DEFINITION = VERY THIN AND WEAK USUALLY BECAUSE OF EXTREME HUNGER OR ILLNESS, UNDERNOURISHED. SYNONYMS = SKELETAL; GAUNT; CADAVEROUS; ATROPHIED; ATTENUATED; HAGGARD
The first thing I thought of was MY IMAGINATION! I know, weird, eh? It was the list of synonyms that grabbed my attention. I couldn’t help thinking I feel just like that when I try to come up with something creative to say or write. It’s an issue that’s bugged me for as long as I’ve been blogging. I had finished a 90,000 word manuscript just before I jumped on Word Press and setting up this blog. I’m starting to feel like I used up all my ideas in that Gothic mystery story! Perhaps I really needed a break to refill my creative well, as Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way.
But I think what’s really happened is my imaginative muscle has just atrophied because since I’ve been on here I haven’t been reading. I haven’t taken my own adventures in my mind, have been way too content to live vicariously through all of yours!!!
The fact that this particular revelation hit me hard when I read Ruth’s blog says to me I need to get off the computer and read the 33 books sitting on my TBR shelf in the “library!” So somehow or other my schedule needs to change to include a steady diet of written words on actual paper pages before this lady pirate captain ends up with scurvy!
Thank you for your thoughtful post Ruth (and Colette). I think they were the kick in the arse I needed to pick up a book again!!! 😀
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Picture Credit: kommpetencia.blog.hu
Impromptu Promptlings 
My first thought is, I can’t (never have been able to) read and write at the same time; meaning, one steps into the driver’s seat, and the other goes on the back burner.
It’s been a couple of years (other than the prompt driving things I wrote when I began blogging in 2015), since I’ve been reading much more than an AARP magazine or something akin to that. And when I reading, my writing takes a holiday. But I know that others can multi-task better than I do, and can manage to do both; to give time to both.
My second thought was (while I KNOW, IMO, that you do very well on the fiction/fantasy writing front,) that not every writer has done a rotation in the different aspects of putting down the written word. Some prefer non-fiction, memoir specific prose. It’s about finding our niche, possibly. The prompts were a whole different experience from my writing in Pan Historia, and places like that. They served to give us the key to unlock our inspiration. But now, a year later when all of the blogging U courses have been done, we have to figure out where we fit into the myriad genres of blogging. And that’s not to mention that blogging, in itself, is not often a ‘long read’ nor is it geared particularly for the realm of fiction.
After I’d finished the months of BU’s offerings, I stepped into another place which was very specific to fiction: A Story A Day. Another session of the 30 stories I 30 days is going to commence in May. It may be something you want to check in to. There’s no obligation to post TO community; only to write. But if you need the feedback of others, then you can post on your blog, and post the link to ASAD.
I think, for other reasons, I get to feeling that I may have finished my stint here, but what keeps me here is actually all the amazing people I’ve met, an their blogs, and commenting (which is a whole other part of blogging). It’s quite interesting.
One thing I do remember, while taking Blogging 101 was that after we finished, we were to think about how often we wanted to post. That is where I fell into developing my own event, and finding others in which I wanted to participate. Maybe we don’t have to post everyday. Then you could make time for reading AND blogging?
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Excellent comment as I expect a lot of people may feel like they’re in a similar boat. Lots to think about, Fim.
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Hi Cheryl, to be honest it was through reading through others’ amazing blogs which kickstarted my own need to express myself. I feel strongly that I no longer spend enough time just browsing through the blogosphere, partly because my creative juices have been so fired up, but also because there are so many great blogs that I just get overwhelmed.
I think I’m going to set aside one evening a week just to soak up some of the amazing stuff that’sout there ☺
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I hear ya, Ruth. I’m thinking of changing most of my follows to just my Reader because I get so overwhelmed.
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That’s a great angle for the prompt and thank you for the mention too 🙂 Lovely that you joined us this week and I hope you enjoy all those TBRs – but don’t stay away from the computer too much – your posts are wonderful and don’t reflect an ’emaciated’ imagination, just using it in a different way perhaps – and it’s still writing practise 🙂
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You’re such a great cheerleader, Colette! 😀
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Cheers 🙂
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Unplugging can be a good thing for the ’emaciated’ mind. Personally, I don’t find your writings lacking..hell, you’ve been knocking your daily lent posts out if the ballpark! I’ve only been ‘writing’ a short time, but I can feel myself at times trying to force the words to come….I’m realizing I need to step back and not try so hard…there are going to be days where the words simply won’t come.
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Yeah, I’m all too familiar with that issue. But it’s more the fantasy, fiction, make believe stuff I struggle with. For some reason that kind of imagination eludes me. I feel doomed to write things like “memoiry”-type stuff. I need to get out of that head space. Does that make sense?
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I can’t relate as I have noooo imagination in that capacity. I’m just getting my feet wet with poems and such,,,,writing a fictional story…can’t even begin to wrap my head around that one!!!
All I know is, you’d better get in the ball,,,I loved reading the stories you have written and would love the continuations!!!!
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