Archives for February 2018

Free Yourself From Banishment: Express. Strengthen. Heal. Awaken.

February 28, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

“Each time I express myself with writing, I get stronger. I heal more. I awaken to what is true.”

I wrote today’s affirmation, in cursive, on an art background book page and what I heard was, “look at how pretty those cursive r’s are. You made them. They’re lovely.”

This awareness negates one of my early outer critic stories that in the past has prevailed and kept me from writing. Miss Pizarro said, “You will never make your “R’s” right. What is wrong with you?”

Miss Pizarro, if she is still alive, would probably be very disturbed about the lack of cursive writing instruction in schools.

As for me, I love the feeling of writing in cursive, how it feels to create the loops – and I love that as I am growing in healing through my personal narrative writing, I am releasing these long-time curses – these long time periods of banishment.

Here’s what happens with the whole banishing scenario:

I am the one who has locked myself into my cell of separation. No one else did that. Other people may have said the words, they may have been the ones who ignited the hurt feelings AND it is I who walked through the door marked “Go away, worthless one” not them.

Some might say I am victim blaming myself.

Keep listening and hear me out, please.

Just as I am the one who locked myself out of the world and into banishment, I am the one who is now setting myself free. I am the one who is choosing an active trust and then actually taking the steps rather than talking about taking the steps.

I am the one who is putting the pieces in place like stepping one stepping stone to the next, one big boulder in the river after another. I am the one lifting my foot and propelling my weight forward. I may seek help and a hand and more than a moment or two of solo prayer or quiet and ultimately just like I was the one who locked myself in, I am the one who is setting myself free.

There are people who reflect my wonder back at me who are helpful beyond words: many of whom have been beside me – even at a distance – for close to twenty years.

I recall their words of affirmation and as I step out from banishment, I hear them even more clearly. I tune into the truth within the love in their commentary. Rather than Miss Pizarro with her, “You’ll never…. Be right. What’s wrong with you?” I hear “Julie’s work is better than (huge personal growth guru)” and “It is because of Julie I am a writer,” and “Your work changed my life.” And “It is because of who Julie is” and “Follow Julie, your future self will thank you.”

This is an exploration of self via free flowing personal narrative. I’m using the “5for5BrainDump” model which grants a person the gift of 5 minutes of timed writing to dump whatever comes onto the page without editing, forethought or judgment. What appears on the page and out of the rambling mind is remarkable.

These thoughts are posted unedited and will occasionally include an extra session or two to get to the depth the person feels necessary. Sometimes, the person (in many cases myself) backs away from the writing because… it is uncomfortable, she feels like something is about to crack open or she becomes bored and drifts away momentarily.

It is important to give license to stop and continue, stumble and continue, rant and scream and cry… and continue. This continuing is where the transformation happens.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

License to stop and continue, stumble and continue, rant and scream and cry: The Art of Loss

February 27, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

“Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.”

Elizabeth Bishop From the poem ONE ART. Click this link to read the entire text of the poem at the Poetry Foundation website.

I can feel annoyance rise up my spine at the thought of losing something every day. Perhaps this is why I have more clutter than I need. The thought of losing is painful, abhorrent even.

Why would I want to lose something every day?

I settle back into my breath and stop debating the poem itself.

This morning I lost some of my usually most valuable time: early in the day, most productive, flowing space of openness and I was busily searching for Instagram challenges for March as it is only days away.

I managed to pull myself out of the rabbit hole of interesting people and images but not before I allowed time that could have been used to make my present and future and (I’m lost now trying to find the just right word) frittered away the moments that might have been the best of my day.

That says it.

Did I lose my best in search of mediocre?

My hands reach off the keyboard as if I had set fire to it.

How dare I consider such a thing!

Why would I purposefully lose my best in search of mediocrity?

(If I was a biblical sort of person, shouting “Get behind me Satan!” would be appropriate here.)

I rub my hands together, a sort of stimming learned perhaps from my father or brother or from myself. My palms are dry and need lotion. My hair which dried naturally looks completely strange and my eyes… are doing the drowsy difficult to stay open routine.

The timer goes off and I think “Wow, that is five minutes I’m never getting back” but when I peruse what I wrote, I see value. And if I didn’t? I would see loss. So we’re all good. We’re all good.

This is an exploration of self via free flowing personal narrative: this specifically is sharing everyday, in the now. A sort of 5 minute meditation upon that day or the day before…. we’ll see how each day shapes up without insisting it conform to any particular shape beyond writing for 5 minutes… go. write. now.

I’m using the “5for5BrainDump” model which grants a person the gift of 5 minutes of timed writing to dump whatever comes onto the page without editing, forethought or judgment. What appears on the page and out of the rambling mind is remarkable.

It is important to give license to stop and continue, stumble and continue, rant and scream and cry… and continue. This continuing is where the transformation happens.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Take Time to Allow Others the Space to Speak into the Silence

February 26, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

In yesterday’s writing, I mentioned almost off-handedly about a version of me who hides in the closet, praying she won’t be found.

I remind myself of my coaching clients who will wait until the very end of the session to say the most important thing, the whatever-it-was-that-needed-to-be-said-all-along important “thing.”

I imagine in their minds it is a gift (or perhaps a fire, a monster, a treasure, an enormous neon lightbulb, a map) between us only visible to them.

Maybe that is how I would be best in making friends with that little girl, hiding in the closet. Recognizing the gift sitting in between us> Perhaps I am meant to patiently sit with her as she gains comfort in being with me again.

Have I mentioned to you my background of working in mental health?

Years ago I spent five years working a Deputy Conservator: in some places the title for this is “Public Guardian” which set me apart from mental health clinicians – I didn’t have to abide by the same “stand apart” sort of guidelines I understood them to have.

I was as close to a family member an employee might be.

One of my favorite clients was a woman who had schizoaffective disorder. This is a combination of schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. She wound up in the hospital after an episode where she refused to eat or drink because she believed her food and water were being poisoned.

She often spend most of her time in bed, isolated.

One day I went to visit her in the hospital and I simply lowered myself to the floor – butt on the cold linoleum floor, back against the wall. I said “I’m here with you, in case you want to talk.”

And I sat there on the floor, looking out the window across the room. There was no view – just bricks from the other part of the county hospital. It was quiet and peaceful. I had no expectations for the visit, I just thought she might isolate herself not because she had nothing to say but because she felt safe there. I wanted her to feel safe with me, so I joined her in her safe place and took a position of respect toward her safety.

Something in that “no questions, I’m just here stance” opened her up to me. She talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked.

I found out more in that visit (and yes, I stayed seated on the cold linoleum floor for the entire conversation) than any of her clinical workers had I believe because I specifically didn’t ask questions.

I was just there with her, patiently waiting. I was able to advocate for her better after that because I had been patient and waited for her to speak and be heard. That silence spoke love to her.

My brother John never mastered language like other people. We spent hours together in silence and yet in that silence so much love was spoken. He inadvertently prepared me for silent love.

When we were the only two children at home while our older three siblings were at school we were together in companionable silence. At my parents fiftieth wedding anniversary party I sought his companionship when I got overwhelmed by the hub bub. We sat in companionable silence and then joined the others, together. As he was dying, I would visit him in his hospital room. He had a tracheotomy for nine months and was unable to speak with conventional language, yet we still spoke in silent love.

All this is to say, the little girl who has been hiding in the closet may have been waiting for me amidst the many episodes of my life to take the time to be quiet with her, to love her into being comfortable enough to speak.

To love HER into being comfortable enough to speak, I am actually loving MYSELF into being comfortable enough to speak.

It is important to give license to stop and continue, stumble and continue, rant and scream and cry… and continue. This continuing is where the transformation happens.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Let’s Make Friends: Allow Your Inner Committee to Work With You, Not Against You

February 25, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

One of my weaknesses in past explorations of narrative is that I would have insights and discoveries and I wouldn’t return to them.

Now I am returning to them (close to) daily. I start with reading the most recent entry, take a sentence, and continue with it.

I know it challenges people to think their Inner Critic wants them to succeed or what is perceived as their ‘negative side” wants them to do well and yet – when we choose that as truth, more transformation magic happens.

Read on – to see how you may befriend Your Inner Committee: written #5for5BrainDump style. The opening line comes from my last writing here.

Every part of you wants you to succeed and many of us here, on the outside, do, too.

The show was called Herman’s head, or in my memory that is what it was called. The lead character was named Herman and the supporting cast members were primarily different parts of his thinking practice or process.

Now that I think of it, this is also sort of like the fairly recent animated movie, “Inside/Out.”

Anyway, while we may have different names for the parts of our inside – different characters, different ideas, different thoughts and opinions, I know each of us has some sort of committee where the players seem to move us forward differently.

I have Little Miss Nicey Nice for example who is overly nice. And was how I thought I was supposed to be in every circumstance in every moment of my life.

I am pleasant and kind and thoughtful regularly and she springs from Little Miss Nicey Nice, but she is a lot more sincere and a lot less like Eddie Haskell, the Girl Version.

I also have an inner critic who is like Miss Pizarro, one of my third grade teachers who was particularly awful she used the phrase “You will never…” and it seered into my mind and for whatever reason I believed her. My sin against humanity that I would never… improve upon was that nasty inability to make a cursive letter “R” up to her level of satisfaction. (I will call her Miss Bizarro).

I also have a little me who hides in the closet and prays the object provoking my fear will pass and won’t notice me. I can tell from the tears in my eyes as I write of her, this is still fresh and I haven’t dealt with her as much as Miss Nicey Nice and Miss Bizarro.

She wants to be heard, So this week, I will make space to hear her.

I can do that in five minutes increments.

I’ve gone over my 5 minutes this morning.

My hands sit on my lap, in silence, which is sometimes a point of surrender and sometimes a point of hiding.

I didn’t expect to bump into a point of personal development or growth, this was supposed to be for you, my reader, to explore the characters that sculpt your narrative.

I’m going to get up from my desk and wash dishes.

I will write more of this later. Please hold me to it and I will hold you to sharing about your committee in short, yes you can do it, five minute chunks.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Overnight Discoveries: from Choking on Fear to Long Awaited Insights. Yes, Easy Does It

February 20, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

It had gone unnoticed.

It has probably been there for several days, this actual glob (for lack of a better term) of not wanting to give voice to anything for the past few days, since the nightmares started. Three nights in a row of troublesome dreams that don’t seem to want to let go.

Processing in the morning with Pegi, my long-time, ever patient friend during the unexpectedly eye opening app known as Snap Chat.

I heard it while I had a teddy bear face, I believe, and a squeaky voice. A slight almost unconscious clearing of my throat. A choking back, a holding on of something or nothing or I don’t know I just know it was there and while I am working through the depth of this

It is at that point where I think I will just go back to where and what I was no matter how badly it sucked maybe feeling better isn’t worth feeling the choking sensation I felt.

My deep awareness of choking came not from a past life, but from a question asked by my therapist and I believe a memory – a place I visited when I went to Katherine’s wedding. A space where I almost choked to death as a child on a gum ball.

The exact space where my mother worked diligently to save my life was now the entry way to a Starbucks, the Grand Union now long gone.

i sit with my hands folded, waiting, tired, the tired not being real but being a block – a not wanting to go here and the choking in my throat my shadow side – whatever name you want to put on it that the strong intentional me knows is a barricade over the door marked “Transformation! This way to feeling so much better! This cloggy thing is temporary like how you have learned to use a plunger to get rid of blocks in drains when you used to helplessly call someone because you couldn’t do it and now you can!”

I realize then I never set my timer. Naturally. This was supposed to be a five minute writing in a carefully created container so I would be able to stop without falling apart.

(I set this writing aside and came back to it the next morning.)

7:15 am the next day. That choking sensation is a reminder from my most animal self, “This is what it feels like when you were dying. Beware. You don’t want to come close to death again.”

So no matter how irrational my adult brain is, no matter what I know as a smart, in step, working consistently on self-growth version of me, this protective animal brain pops in and chokes me to remind me, “You came close once, don’t risk it again.”

The thing is, when I don’t risk – when I don’t confront my darkness and bring it into the light so I may come to know it in a way that stirs and builds and constructs and translates and somehow makes good – I risk even more.

When I sit on the edge of choking, I live in fear of it.

When I instead say to my visceral animal self, “I know this is scary and I know we can and will survive and it will be so much more dynamic than we could ever imagine just please trust and be invigorated and become whole with me again so that we may have the impact we were meant to have all along…”

This is how the process of re-orientation begins. This is when we may get back into step with all aspects of ourselves – the afraid choking side of ourself who longs for reassurance and the bold, brash one who speaks without thinking and sometimes destroys bridges before you’ve crossed them.

I remember my acting teacher coaching me, when I was literally petrified in my performance. I felt outclassed and stupid in my first musical and he said, “What are you so afraid of? Every person here wants you to succeed.”

Every part of you wants you to succeed and many of us here, on the outside, do, too.

I rest my hands off the keyboard again. Another writing time of five minutes (plus a few extra) and I went from choking and being afraid and not wanting to go further to having an enormous, long needed insight.

by the way, if you wondered what happened with the bad dreams: I didn’t have any nightmares last night. I dreamed of sharing a meal around a table with friends. I dreamed about having a positive experience at Samuel’s school. I dreamed of talking to a friend I’ve been missing lately. I dreamed of expanding the circle because what we originally thought was just right was too small.

I dreamed I wasn’t afraid and I didn’t have to choke.

I can write, reflect and meditate. Wake up and write again and feel better.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Spiraling Up, Higher: An Unexpected and Glorious Reward from Putting Words on the Page

February 14, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Yesterday I wrote this:

So I sit back in my chair and listen to my body.

Today, I sat back to write more, to write again. A lot happens in life OFF the page when we allow our words to flow through us onto the page, freely.

This morning as I was driving home I had a distinctive feeling in my body the letting go process had been effective.

I thought about the circumstances that yesterday had been perplexing and still edged with freckles of discomforted and sadness. This morning, it was as if the frayed parts and the scabs had healed or if not healed, there was no pain associated anymore.

This isn’t unlike the melanoma cancer scar on my face which I don’t think about much anymore beyond it just being there and occasionally warranting an explanation when brave people just meeting me ask about it.

In sitting with my experience this week and being brave enough to write it and speak it – not in great detail but naming it with boldness and anger and energy other than romanticized notions of lost love I was able to move through it in ways I wanted to in the past and somehow never was able to get there.

I would get close – so close – and then put my hands down by my sides again. I would reach toward resolution and integration, and that would frighten me so I would stop.

Here is a biggie: I would stop so that I wouldn’t forget the good. I would stop critiquing or standing up to say “Hey, this was bad” because the sweet was such a gift I didn’t want to forget how that great stuff felt.

Ironically, if that not-so-big-bad wolf was having a conversation with me right now, he would claim what he was here to teach me was to only remember the good because that is what is important.

I haven’t forgotten the pain.

I haven’t forgotten the forcefulness claimed as play or the rules based never according to what was mutually decided _ I have simply taken away the power they once held.

Why is this a significant victory?

Because in integrating the power of these circumstances back into my intentional life narrative, I reclaim what was taken from me not consentually, but by a destructive force claiming itself as healing.

Monday I sat at this very same desk with so much anger I very easily could have broken things – or people’s spirits – from spite and the ruthful destructiveness of abhorrence on fire.

Less than 48 hours later, I am able to reclaim my power over the aspects of me I had given over and continue this process with confidence.

I’m not quite able to translate into words the peace this has created in me, but it’s coming. It’s coming soon.

Stay tuned.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Restoring Power to Where Power Belongs

February 14, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

“Any power this brutish beast has held will be finished. It will be exhilarating. It will be enlivening. It will be freeing beyond my current understanding of what freedom means.”

The quote above is writing from yesterday. I’ve devoted myself to writing out my personal narrative – and take direct aim at the self-destructive aspects of it so that I may fearlessly and fully express myself in all ways.

It is interesting what has happened today regarding this particular memory.

I have started rationalizing, refreshing “the good side” which is absolutely present. There were and are good memories and there are some practices I continue because of this friendship.

It is my habit to revisit what feels good and ignore what is not good, what is hurtful, what caused pain and is at risk of causing more pain.

So I sit back in my chair and listen to my body.

I remember being so swept up in how lovely the attention felt, especially directed at what I was enjoying as a part of this adventure we took together. This was magical, I thought, this was intellectual and spiritual and nature oriented and heart expanding and sure, there were aspects of it that were troubling and it is so easy to set those troubling aspects aside when one has been starved of the other constructive aspects for such a long time.

A pro and con list won’t work when one is moving deeply into soul space. It isn’t measurable in the same way.

Our society has a history of protecting the powerful from critique and the ones the powerful targets meanwhile is questioned about everything about the circumstance. It is like a person “gas lighting” byu others and by themselves to use the popular term from a long-ago movie where a man who seems like an honorable human is actually torturing his wife and making her fear she is going insane.

This has been a good day.

I will return tomorrow, for more. Refreshed by a good night’s sleep and some rest and replenishment, I will be ready.

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Flashback: Turn – Look Back – Flash Forward Again, Better

February 13, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Please pardon my lack of polish in this writing.

It was written primarily in a five minute brain dump with some editing for (hopefully) clarity as I continue to work through the process of rewriting (rethinking, recrafting, resculpting) my life narrative.

In making this commitment to rewrite my narrative – to let go of any aspects of it that cause me harm or keep me from being a complete expression of myself – I am sailing way out of any semblance of safe harbor with this one.

I am wholeheartedly devoted to bring this to light, to stop the memory of having even the tiniest splinter of control over who I am now and what I bring to the world via my life work. Doing this publicly keeps me on course. It is helpful to know people may find some form of cathartic experience through the words I present here.

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
Alice Walker

It was one of those “things” those incidences I talk about that happened ten years ago that contributed to the wall I built stone by stone, thought by thought that became more and more difficult to deconstruct.

To be called a best friend and then stop communicating when most needed? What friend or even kind stranger does that?

This is not a friend. This is an abuser.

This is a long coated grey wolf growling and spewing while blanketing himself in the soft, downy fur of a gentle sheep’s clothing.

This is someone espousing spiritual principals who doesn’t intimately know any of basics beyond self-importance.

I suppose for some self-importance is a spiritual principal, but for the wide-eyed lover of humanity I tend to be, I couldn’t see the fangs of ego, the disturbing breath of self-centeredness when I was up close.

I saw the curly softness, the close attention to who I was, the curiosity and what felt like connection which was actually not unlike the hunting methods of a wolf. I couldn’t see these qualities, I just knew the profound ache the hunter left in its wake.

I gave myself five minutes to write this and my hands sit, in front of the keyboard, unwilling to move anymore.

They don’t want to go where it would be best to go in order to leave this poison behind because the risk of poking around in the depth of that pain feels like too much to attempt without a sherpa.

The timer goes off, very few words written.

I will return to complete this cycle.

I will be so grateful to scrape the last scrap off my plate.

Any power this brutish beast has held will be finished. It will be exhilarating. It will be enlivening. It will be freeing beyond my current understanding of what freedom means.

Babysitting in the 70’s in New Jersey for Fun & Prizes: From Laura Ingalls Wilder Writing Prompt

February 12, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Yesterday I shared some writing tips from Laura Ingalls Wilder and Ursula K. Le Guin. Today I took a quote from Wilder and morphed it into a prompt. From the prompt, I wrote – as I suggest people do as well to learn the power of five minutes of writing – I wrote a list of five different happy early memories (see them below the 5 minute essay) and randomly chose what one to use as a springboard to write. What could you do with just five minutes and a memory?

Laura Ingalls Wilder became a wild “overnight success” at age 57 back in 1932. Let’s get your words on the page. The world is waiting. Read mine to increase your inspiration. You’ve got this!

1970’s Julie (and a couple photos from 2017 revisiting the neighborhood where it all happened!)

Adventures in Babysitting was both a way of life for me for many years and a movie I enjoyed whole heartedly. The way of life provided me ample “fun and prizes” and the movie offers the one quote where I approve of the use of the F-Bomb, well used, by the character played by Elizabeth Shue while babysitting.

My babysitting offered me the freedom to purchase things I wanted but that I never expected my family to purchase for me. I had a very expensive hobby as a young girl: I had more pen pals than I can remember and my parents painstakingly footed the postage when I know financial times were tough.

As an adult, I get this more. I thought nothing of dropping three letters, five days a week and just expecting them to get mailed off to other tween and teen girls all across the country.

Babysitting allowed me the luxury of stationery and once weekly visits to the Hallmark store at the Bloomfield center. Saturday afternoons after tortuous Saturday mornings at the orthodontist I would walk to Bloomfield Center and carefully peruse the boxes of stationery.

I especially loved envelopes of different colors and ones with linings just felt so elegant.

My Granny even sent me the most decadent stationery products available to me: personalized stationery. I almost drooled when I opened the birthday packages.

Babysitting allowed me to do something I loved deeply in a way that felt abundant and luxurious. In a family with 6 children, a father starting a new business and a Mom in college and working as a teacher’s aide and two brothers about to begin college, we didn’t have much money for any extras.

Babysitting allowed me to buy stationery, favorite record albums and grow as a responsible tween – teen. I learned to save up for a small television for my room and a stereo eventually. I could have the same things the girls with wealthier families had.

Love love love remembering these and more adventures.

Making instant friends has always been an adventure for me. I met Marisol two days after my daughter’s wedding. She’s looking forward to my return. This diner was a Stuart’s Root Beer we visited to have an occasional mug of root beer. It was such a treat!

What are some mundane “adventures” you had as a child that left happy memories behind for you to explore with writing?

Write for just five minutes and make new discoveries, adventures and yes: gifts and prizes <— I remember this as an ongoing slogan and now a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.

5 Happy Memories:

1. Miss Foley: having a teacher who actually seemed to like me.

2. Mrs. Elder continuing our relationship – my Mom did her best, but obstacles were huge. Gave space to find others who had more support themselves and their love overflowed to me.

3. Granny’s surprise party

4. Carly Simon Complete birthday gift

5. Babysitting for fun and prizes!

My brothers, sister and I took our photos so many times on these steps. I loved sharing the experience with two of my children. Katherine has visited before both as a toddler and after her graduation from Smith College. During this visit, she was busily enjoying her honeymoon!

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

Contact Julie now to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Writing Beyond Showing Vs. Telling: Wisdom from Ursula K. Le Guin & Laura Ingalls Wilder

February 11, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

One of the best ways I have found to improve my writing is to study the lives of writers who went before me.

I’m not sure when I became blissfully obsessed by the lack of women writers who were quotes and looked toward by the literary establishment, but this passion has brought me countless hours of joy and pleasure in its pursuit. Today, two women writers I revere. I spoke about some of this on a recent FacebookLive broadcast. At the bottom of the information is a link to watch this and more videos that are a part of the #WordLoveYourself project I am working on with Writer and Blogger, Christine Anderson.

Ursula K. Le Guin– a powerhouse writer and trailblazer in both style and substance – died recently. Le Guin was raised in the shadow of one of the most prestigious intellectual spaces in the Country, University of California, Berkeley. Her father was a faculty member and her mother was also a non-fiction writer.

I’m reading her most recent book, “No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters.” And have also read bits and pieces of what she is best known for, science fiction.

She doesn’t believe in the adage of “Show, Don’t Tell” and believes people have gotten lazy and NEED the exposition of TELLING.

Laura Ingalls Wilder – best known for her series of “Little House” books which became a marketing juggernaut in the 1970’s thanks to a hit television series – learned early how to tell AND show simultaneously when she became the eyes for her sister, Mary, who lost her vision during childhood. The Ingalls Family lived frequently as wanderers, oftentimes poor and moving about regularly trying to keep the family fed and cared for meant giving up “extras” like education and new clothes.

Her descriptions are vivid and crisply written, oftentimes woven in a storytelling style.

What can we learn from these two very different yet similar Literary Grannies?

Telling isn’t all bad: it is the CLUNKY exposition that is horrid. Le Guin sounds as if she gets frustrated by writers who leap into dialogue without any background or explanation so the dialogue doesn’t have anything to “hold onto”.

The worst for me is watching a TV show or movie where a lazy script writer puts dense clunky exposition (telling) into a moment that might have come alive with old fashioned story telling – the WHAT HAPPENED

This is the Berkeley Laura Ingalls Wilder would have seen when traveling there in 1915 to see a theatrical production when she traveled across from San Francisco (where she covered the World’s Fair for the Missouri Ruralist) and then took the Street Car along San Pablo Avenue from Oakland to Berkeley.

approach which is also exposition, just exposition done in a better, more engaging manner.

Another technique is to “project the scene in your minds eye” and then step into the scene. Live it in words via the senses. What do you hear, see, feel against your skin? Work on making the telling a part of the showing. They don’t have to be separate and one good and one bad.

This fits perfectly with my belief AND is always better than either/or.

Make practice into a game. Try showing and telling in different ways. Share what happens by commenting here. You may also join our live streams on our Facebook page and writing community. Livestreams flow directly into Facebook.com/JJSWritingCamp for the Word Love portion of #WordLoveYourself and Facebook.com/MindfulYenta for the Love Yourself Portion where my friend, writer and blogger Christine Anderson hosts. Experience more community conversation in the Word-Love Community group. You are welcome everywhere.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

Contact Julie now to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.