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Brightening up

20150502_105140Welcome to another “new content” post. Prepare yourself for something different.

First, I know many of you Subscribe to Updates, which means you receive these new bright and shiny posts in your email Inbox. Thank you for wanting to hear from me. If you don’t subscribe, welcome. I’m interested in knowing how you arrived at this site.

Today’s thoughts

On these posts mostly I’ve written about where I’ve traveled with my husband, Hoyt, and I love sharing those adventures with you. I’ll keep doing that but with a slight change, which is what I told myself a few days ago when I cleaned my writing room. To keep writing I needed to brighten things up around here.

The clutter got to be too much. I couldn’t find things when I needed them, like my favorite pen, so out went the contents of desk drawers, and my inner-cleaning-lady, with a Spic ‘n Span gleam in her eye, swooped in with antiseptic joy. She wiped away a month’s accumulated dust (my mother taught me better than to wait that long) and organized push-pins, paper clips, pens, and post-it notes. She filed papers, donated books, filled a bag for Goodwill, and washed the floor. All this to feel better when I walk in the room, think more clearly, and save time. When I need a paper clip I know where to look.

This freshening up kick continues here. I’ll try out a new strategy: one week I’ll write about travels, and the next week about something else, like fundamentalism or cults; these two topics, a friend pointed out yesterday, are relevant to what’s “bubbling up” in the wider world. I just happen to know about them first hand.

Also expect posts with my observations about the writing life, including what other writers have to say about it.

I’ll also be experimenting with what I call “story-slices,” five or fewer sentences like this one:

Story-slice #1

Last May I saw the pom-pom-ish daffodil pictured above, waving like a flag in a roadside field. Hoyt and I were caught in a traffic jam on the road from Amsterdam to Gouda, Holland, and I hung out the window to snap the shot—not fine art but fine with me. When I look at the photo now, the bright yellow petals amidst the weeds are like kind words intent on brightening up the day.

See you next time!

 

2 Responses

  1. Roz
    |

    Thanks for brightening my day. The daffodil is my favorite flower and always gives me peace and happiness. My daughter sends me pictures of the daffodils in CT every spring, but I usually make a trip there while they are blooming.
    I can also relate to that cleaning out so that you can write and think clearly. Looking forward to more.

  2. robyn allers
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    Oh, boy, do I relate to this one. Thanks for the inspiration! Great to see you branching out!

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