On Writing

One of the things I have always felt to be sadly deficient in has
been writing. I have always loved to write and my earliest
thoughts were that I wanted to be able to write the things
that could only be felt with the heart. I have loved words,
and when I was a kid I would sit and read the dictionary for fun.

When I started home schooling, I think God did it to show me
how much I did not know and I was in danger of loosing what I
did know. I think it is why He had me start at second grade.

One of the things I have loved to teach was dictation. I read once
that Jack London would go to the library in San Francisco to copy
out writers that he loved and in doing so he learned to write.

One of the things that bores me to tears and yes, it shows in the way I
write is grammar. I have not taught my kids this very well because
my brain goes into some kind of a black hole and I feel like if that
was the way I was going to teach writing nothing would ever
get written. Writing is like riding a bike, just get on and take off
if you fall well then you fall and get back on and keep at it
and then before long you have a sentence. Then a paragraph,
then a page and maybe if you keep at it long enough a story.

Some of my favorite books were stories that the author wrote as
a short story in a writing class. My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara.
Little Britches by Ralph Moody, The Black Stallion by Walter Farley.

Today I was looking through My Antonia by Willa Cather so I could
find a passage to dictate to my boys I ran across this in the forward.

"Willa Cather on Writing in 1895 essay entitiled "The demands
of Art." Cather makes a revealing statement about the vulnerabilty of the
artist. "When one comes to write," She says, "All that you have been taught leaves you,
all that you have stolen lies discovered. You are the translator,
without a lexicon, without notes...You have then to give voice
to the hearts of men, and you can do it only so far as you have known
them, loved them, It is a solemn and terrible thing to write a novel."

Sarah Orne Jewett wrote to Willa Cather in 1908 " You must find a quiet place,
you must find your own quiet center of life and write from that."

All of my life I have longed to write the things I see and the things I feel and
the quiet sound of the songs that live in my heart. I am like the artist who
longs to paint the beauty of their soul yet when she holds the brush in
her hands finds that her skill is such she can't draw the beauty she sees.

When I was a kid, I have always longed to draw and paint, but was told
over and over I did not have that skill. Well," no artistic ability whatsoever."
I believe now that was a curse, as it made me afraid to try.
When I became a mother I made it my ambition I would allow no one
to ever tell my children they could not do something like paint or draw or
climb to the highest tree, or make a movie or yes, write a story.

When my oldest daughter was a young girl, I remarked about not being
able to draw. She looked at me and said, " Mom, I can't really draw,
but I do draw because I work at it harder than most people, you could
do anything if you wanted if you wanted to work at it hard enough."

It stopped me in my tracks, I had become lazy and my excuses had
become my way of life.
That hardest thing is picking up the pencil or in my case
the hardest thing was to push the button that says, publish post.

When I sat down to write a post, the first thing it said,
was you have to take pictures. I did not take pictures.
My son so sweetly brought me his camera and showed me,
lightening bolt means turn the flash off. This funny squiggly
squiggly thing means you will get the close up but everything
else will be blurred in the background. Then my daughter showed
me flower was closeup. So I started taking pictures and
trying to write, everyday. All the while hoping no one
would find this and read what I wrote.

It took me six months to leave a comment on other sites
I loved. So every time I sit here and I share my thoughts,
and you read them, for me this is huge. I am so thankful still
every day for each one of you who takes their time to read
this stuff that I call writing and I hope you have a Wonderful
Wednesday and that I love you all.

Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, for His wonderful works to the children of men!

(Psalm. 107:6)